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I’ve had this photo of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground for a year, since the last time the leaves blanketed the ground and matched the beautiful cover of this book. I started it, but quickly set it aside for another time - a time when I could give it my full attention. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ In a series of essays-turned-memoir, Alicia Elliott speaks candidly about the effects of poverty, intergenerational trauma, and mental illness on her and her family. As a white passing Indigenous woman, a woman with mental illness, a Haudenosaunee and a Catholic, a writer and a mother, a wife and a daughter, Elliott writes about the intersections, convergences, and conflicts inherent in living with so many different identities. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ At times difficult to read, I particularly loved the beginning and ending of the book, and unexpectedly discovered - in reading about her relationship with her father - that I was better able to understand my mother’s relationship to her mother. The older I get, the more I begin to see that it is through understanding our history and trauma that we come to understand ourselves. To me, A Mind Spread Out on the Ground is Elliot’s attempt to do just that. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ TW: depression, bipolar disorder, disordered eating, sexual assault, abuse, gaslighting ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ID: I’m holding up a paperback copy of A Mind Spread Out on the Ground, whose cover depicts yellow and orange leaves. You can see yellow leaves in the trees and spread out on the ground in the background of the photo. via Instagram https://instagr.am/p/CWnt93LrdzN/