“None of us know what will happen. Don’t spend time worrying about it. Make the most beautiful thing you can. Try to do that every day. That’s it.” – Laurie Anderson

Sarah Swandell is a writer, reader, songwriter, pastor, wife, and mother. Find her latest essay in So Heavy a Weight, published August 2025, or check out her short story “Totality,” the most read story of 2024 on The Hopkins Review‘s website. Other publications include The Sun, Birthing MagazineThe Christian CenturyCoffee + CrumbsThe Journal of Compressed Creative Artsand 100 Word Story.