During the pandemic I’ve been taking walks around my neighborhood in Madison, Wisconsin. There’s a spot that I pass on my circuit, shaded by trees and positioned behind a big, lovely field, and just about every time I pass it, I fantasize about bringing a book and a blanket and sitting down to read in the shade. Easily accomplished, you might think, but I know that fifteen minutes after I sit down, my stomach will grumble, my anxiety will send me into a panic, and I will have to set off back to my apartment at a fast march. The problem is, when I have to go to the bathroom, I have to go. And I have to go frequently. The doctors call it irritable bowel syndrome, I think because they don’t know what else to call it. I carry a Ziploc bag full of ginger candies, which are supposed to calm my stomach, but I think their psychosomatic benefits are more important. Which is not to say that I don’t really have to use the bathroom. It’s hard to tell: Am I anxious because my stomach is so unpredictable, or is my stomach unpredictable because I’m anxious? It’s both, really, and neither.