Art422 | Audre Lorde. Epilogue, 1988.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/5e66b3e8-cd03-d471-e040-e00a180654d7

Audre Lorde’s Epilogue opens, “I feel like I am living on a different star”, relating to a progressive decline in her health and its impact on her “immune-function”. Living on a star could relate to the unnatural, atypical changes she’s now facing. Her health is imposing on her  “dreams”, the inconsistent decline is “difficult” to monitor. Lorde made dietary changes to support her health “Physically. Psychically”. By exercising her human right to care for herself and comparing it to “an act of political warfare”,  implies a violent, drastic, unwanted change. A radical, feminist use of free will. 

The comparison of health to “living on a different star”, could be compared to Susan Sontag’s text “Illness as Metaphor”. Specifically the quotation, “the kingdom of the well”. Both refer to being ill to feeling different, existing outside their normal location, somewhere in-accessible to a ‘normal’, healthy person.

https://ts2.com.pl/en/is-the-earth-a-star/

https://www.dictionary.com/e/astronomy-vs-astrology/

https://www.cyberastro.com/article/medical-and-health-astrology-prediction#:~:text=The%202nd%2C%206th%2C%208th%2C,death%2C%20and%2012th%20house%20hospitalization.

The use of  “star”, has similar connotations to her use of “warfare” to describe health and action. “The Earth is not a star”, stars are inhabitable to humans. They are commonly related to the concept of beauty and deeper meaning, used in astrology and astronomy. “Astrology is the nonscientific practice of using the positions of celestial objects to explain or predict human behavior”. So “living on a different star”, could be the writer's search for predictability in her condition, using the stars as a place to care for herself. This loss of connection to her home planet in connection to health may relate to the astrological study of planets and chakras, “As every planet is connected with respective chakras in the body, the weakness of a planet will directly impact the chakra associated with it.” Her health is weakening, therefore she is losing connection to this planet.

Another idea from this point, health can make life seem inaccessible, like a star.. “Stars are formed from vast clouds of gas and dust, undergoing gravitational collapse until the pressure and temperature at their cores reach a point where nuclear fusion can occur.”

Audre Lorde moves on to share her attempt to balance a focus on health with her ‘real life’. A focus on being non-defined, not being the illness, “To resist giving myself over”. This becomes a sad contrast to the later mentions of “what have I had to leave behind?”. Acknowledging her efforts of self care as having “no useful purpose”. Showing how diseases can create defeatist mindsets when they’re considered terminal. She shares her struggle learning “to live within uncertainty”, a reality experienced by many with unsolvable health conditions. This epilogue ends on a positive, reality check. Almost as if reminding the reader to “live in what has not yet been”. Showing a brave ability to accept a life changing diagnosis, living without allowing it to dominate or “immobilise”.