Grief is Fermentation, and I’m Turning into Kimchi

A look inside the jar where I spent the last few months grieving for ambiguous loss.

Grieving is a process that resembles fermentation. Have you ever made your own sauerkraut? 

First, you pour a lot of salt and rub it into the cabbage leaves. You won’t normally eat cabbage with that much salt, but fermentation is a transformative process. The conditions are rough and intense at the beginning. The taste will be entirely different in the e…