Catherine Gigante-Brown

Why, when I'm cool with being a salt-and-pepper chick, does it so clearly unnerve others?

Having someone steal my cancer history and co-opt it for their first-person Facebook blog is unbelievably violating. Somehow, it feels almost as invasive as my mastectomy.

I asked a handful of women: why are people so scared of ladyparts?

My husband and I agreed: raising a child with an independent spirit who made decisions for himself was a good thing.

The Ultimate Counter Culture Diva

At the New York City release party for Dayna Kurtz’ latest, Rise and Fall, my friend Nadia leaned over to me and whispered, “Why the fuck

8. Educate, don’t fixate.

I was 21 –– a Catholic, heterosexual college student, living at home in Brooklyn and still trying to discover who I was. At the crossroads of her life, Lorde knew exactly who she was. She was waging a war against cancer and sharing an old house in Staten Island with her kids and partner. But maybe we weren’t so different after all.

Instead of categorizing people as different colors, I proposed we might begin to think of each other as Earthtones—because our skin colors are based on hues from the earth. Just as the planet is made up of a myriad of shades, it’s still one cohesive entity. We can be thought of as one entity also.

That’s the thing about being a breast cancer survivor — it’s always there: it never goes away. The scars, the fear that lurks in the back of your mind like a boogeyman. You’re going along nicely, living your merry life, and you’re fine, until you’re not.