How To Come Out the Jasmine First

When the world feels overwhelming, where do you find sanctuary? In this tender collection of essays, poems, and meditations, E. Katherine Kottaras invites us into her small Los Angeles garden-a place of refuge and renewal during pandemic isolation, family health crises, and the daily challenges of being a queer parent in an uncertain world. Organized around nature's cycles of planting, growing, releasing, and celebrating, How to Come Out To the Jasmine First weaves together scientific research on nature-based healing with deeply personal poetry and reflections on creativity, identity, and resilience. Each piece includes gentle invitations for readers to explore their own relationships to place, body, and creative expression. Nature wasn't just a pleasant escape but actual medicine for our wounded bodies and spirits.