Janna Marlies Maron

My therapist has a mantra. It is: The story you tell yourself creates the reality you experience. We talk a lot about personal narrative, how we tell ourselves stories about things. And name things. I said that this damn diet I’m on feels like I am on a hamster wheel, going nowhere, making no...

This time last year I wrote about going to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs annual conference (AWP) and feeling insignificant. At the time, Under the Gum Tree had published just two issues. This year, I attended the conference in Boston with a presence at the book fair and six issues behind me—definitely a huge difference....

We saw the movie Lincoln a few weeks ago when it was in the theater. There is a line that Lincoln says in the movie. It’s in the middle of the Civil War; he’s composing a telegraph and trying to determine whether or not to invite the Confederate delegates to Washington for a peace...

After yoga this morning my teacher told me that I look strong. She knows about the MS diagnosis and about the diet I’m on. She knows that I’m not taking drugs and that I’m trying to treat it naturally. It’s not been an easy 12 weeks. I started the diet on the Monday after...

I’ve had several readers request that I publish the foods to eat/foods to avoid guidelines that I’m following on this damn diet. So here it is! The following is taken from Healing Multiple Sclerosis, by Dr. Ann Boroch, published by Quintessential Healing, Inc., Publishing. 2007. Pages 189-195.

I think I need to move from believing to knowing. “But I’m not sure I am at the believing part yet,” I said to a friend. “I believe for you,” she said. ••• I started the candida diet on the Monday after Thanksgiving. A friend asked, “Are you sure you want to do that,...

Bread was a problem. Jeremy and I had decided that I wouldn’t be taking drugs to treat MS. So the first thing I did was go gluten-free. I learned from most of my research that gluten can cause inflammation and MS is an inflammatory disease. But I was determined to have my bread and...

“Relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis,” he said. “Let me get you some literature on the drug therapy options. I’ll be right back.” He left the room and I looked at Jeremy. “Did I just get diagnosed with MS?” He nodded. After my first MRI the neurologist had said that I was at a “high-risk” for developing...

There’s been a lot of change in my life over the past several months. In the previous issue of Under the Gum Tree I wrote about a pretty significant change that I’d just found out about—an MS diagnosis—so change has been on my mind a lot lately. And I’ve been wanting to write about it but didn’t...

This issue marks our one-year anniversary. When I reflect on the past year, as cliché as it sounds, I can’t believe that we now have five issues behind us. There were times when we didn’t have content for more than one section until one week or less before our publishing date. There were times when we didn’t...