The Rabbit Hole

Generational trauma is like an invisible thread weaving through time, pulling at our emotions, decisions, and even our dreams. If you’ve ever felt that pull, you’re not alone. There’s a whole world of generational trauma books that explore these deep, often hidden wounds—and the paths toward healing them.

Of all the cover songs out there, there are few more hotly debated than Disturbed’s morose take on this Simon and Garfunkel classic. Though I personally prefer the original to the cover, in the context of choosing which song made the most sense for the overall vibe of Chapter 21, I had to go with Disturbed’s version.

This song released in March of 1994, when I was in my second semester as a freshman at UMass Boston. To think that was now over thirty years ago kind of blows my mind. Listening to that song again now, and hearing that its advice is just as relevant to my life now as it was then makes this, to me, a timeless classic.

Trust is that fragile thread of connection weaving through every relationship. When it's strong and unbroken, it holds everything together. When it's weak or fraying, it can unravel it completely.

When I was looking for the perfect song for Chapter 19, I wanted something that spoke to what was going on not through Autumn’s perspective, but her mother’s. As I said in a previous post, most songs should be interpreted as representing what’s going on in Autumn’s head, but not all of them do. This is one of the exceptions.

I was curious what it was about this movie that had him so excited to show it to me. At the start, it was macabre, then amusingly offbeat and quirky as Harold crossed paths with Maude. I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, but suffice it to say that when the important scene arrived, I paid very close attention.

That’s who Autumn is, and her story has to reflect that authenticity, even if it means the opening lacks conventional pizzazz. I let the book cover do the eye-catching, but the first line (of hers) does something else entirely. Let me show you what I mean.

I have no memory of the first time I heard this song. Simon and Garfunkel have just always been a part of the soundtrack of my life. Of the faint memories that still survive from my earliest childhood, my mother’s copy of their Greatest Hits (1972) album cover is among them. Though I can’t recall the first Simon and Garfunkel song I heard, I do have a very clear memory of the first one I “owned.”  

There's something Billy Corgan does in that song that I've never heard anyone else quite replicate — the way the quiet parts aren't really quiet at all. They're coiled. Every delicate guitar figure and whispered lyric feels like it's holding its breath, waiting for permission to become something enormous. And then it does.

Chapter 15 is set on New Year's Eve 1995. Autumn has traveled by train from Boston’s South Station to Penn Station in NYC, beneath Madison Square Garden, where Phish will be playing their New Year’s Eve show that night. Having no friends interested in taking the other half of her pair of tickets, she is there alone. For the first time in her life, she is venturing beyond the confines of her comfort zone in pursuit of a kind of joy she’s not sure is meant for her…but she hopes

This was my fifth Phish show. At the previous four, I had established that I was an inhibited head-bobber, a swayer at best. Before tonight, I watched the dancers and spinners with envy, wondering what it felt like to let go like that—to move without self-consciousness, to lose yourself in the music without worrying who was watching.

Have you ever noticed how the music you listen to on repeat starts to shape your mood? How a breakup playlist can keep you stuck in heartbreak longer than necessary, or an angry driving playlist can make you more aggressive on the road? "Dancing Nancies" asks: What if you consciously chose differently?

I should probably do that too, right? As an author trying to build a platform, maintain a blog, and write a second book, I should have a plan, or even a strategy to inform a plan. Maybe even just a content calendar with a few placeholder topic ideas on it. But I don't.

I can't recall how I ran across "Karma Police," but it's been in the rotation on my playlists for decades. When I was writing Chapter 13, my first choice had been Gary Jules' "Mad World," but I later reassigned that one to Chapter 7, leaving me with the question: how do you summarize middle school mean girl bullying in a song?

This chapter was particularly difficult to come up with a song for because it needed to speak to Autumn's relationship with Brittany which is a night and day difference from her friendship with Lucy.

I'm probably not the only one who first heard Elliott Smith's "Miss Misery" during the end credits for Good Will Hunting. I've already written about why that movie sits comfortably in my top five favorites of all time, so it's probably not surprising that a song from its soundtrack would make its way into Autumn's playlist.

It’s easy to focus on all the things we want to do better. In our memories, those places where we felt lost, forgotten, worthless, and unimportant are highlighted in flashing neon. But while we’re working through those layers of pain, regret, and sadness, we have to acknowledge that despite all of that, there were some things that our parents did right.

Will and Autumn are very different people, but underneath their surface differences, they're the same person. They're both brilliant in ways they don't recognize. They're both carrying trauma from childhoods where the adults who should have protected them didn't. They're both convinced they're not worth loving, and they're both terrified of letting anyone get close enough to prove them wrong.

Everyone's heard the phrase, "You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone," but the same applies in reverse: you don't know what's been missing until you find it. When you've been conditioned to accept isolation and neglect as the status quo, it's a revelation to discover that something more might be possible.

There's a sound I'll never forget: the engine of my mother’s car on the street outside our house, signaling that she had finally arrived home from work. She was a single mom who worked until 5 every day, and I was her only child who was done with school at 2:30; I was often the first one home. I used the key that hung on a shoestring around my neck to let myself in and then deadbolted the door behind me, as Mom taught me to. I’d bring my backpack to the kitchen table and woul