#43: Fiona Alison Duncan

"I try to give myself grace no matter how I feel. This took years of practice."

Feb 16, 2025

#43: Fiona Alison Duncan

Welcome to Health Gossip. Today’s guest is Fiona Alison Duncan, a Canadian-American author, organizer, and founder of the social literary practice Hard to Read.

Fiona approaches her commitments with the sort of rigor that is increasingly hard to come by, pairing Virgo-level precision with an often unexpected cast of characters (her seventh H2Reading, SUBTLE BODIES, featured the likes of Guru Jagat and Nina Cristante, who she also interviewed way back when). Fiona was also largely responsible for the late Pippa Garner’s art world renaissance, co-curating the first touring retrospective of her work and editing a corresponding monograph.

There’s so much more to say here, but I’ll leave you with this: following a year-long hiatus, Hard to Read will be hosting its first event of the year in early March, at the ever-liminal Brookfield Place (look for the balloon). And rumor has it there will be another, more health-oriented event later this spring… 🤫

Now, onto the gossip.

Location: NYC

Astrology: Virgo/Leo/Scorpio

@fifidunks

What does health, or being healthy, mean to you?

Since you sent me this questionnaire back in November 2024, I’ve been kind of haunted by its questions. I kept trying to answer them but my answers kept falling apart as issues surrounding health, sickness, and death became so dominant in my life. I wondered if Health Gossip hadn’t cursed me! To gossip about myself, during this time…

My muse Pippa Garner died after a prolonged illness.
I experienced the worst PMDD and period of my life (not a hyperbole), prompting me to return to acupuncture.
I found a lump deep in my right breast then fainted during the mammogram (my first fainting). It seems like the lump is benign, I'm still waiting for my PCP to call me with a full report.

I grappled with what it means that Kundalini, my go-to daily exercise and meditation practice, has such a lurid history. I knew this already but I didn’t know how bad it was until I watched this. (I still do Guru Jagat’s videos.)
My boyfriend Matt Hilvers had a tooth pulled, a costly, invasive procedure and not his first dental rodeo (Matt was a teenager junky, coming on sixteen years sober; heroine sucks the calcium from your teeth). Matt’s father Tony died in February of last year, the very same day as Cecilia Gentili. Matt went on to present, this past fall, an amazing performance called the Foster Rose Method that drew from his experiences with his father’s dementia, mutual aid, recovery, and the health care system. Matt’s taught me so much about spiritual health — you should interview him.
After waffling and troubleshooting, I decided not to give my senior cat Noo subcutaneous hydration treatments for her recently diagnosed chronic kidney disease; she hated the needles, it didn't seem worth it. The vet says Noo may only have 6-12 months to live, I'm in denial.

Wait there's more! I got a skin cancer screening (all clear), went to the ENT doctor (I have dull ear drums), and finished the first full draft of a long novel about a healthcare scam, a story that rhymes with the Luigi Mangione case. Weird..

What does health mean to me? I'm grateful for every ounce of it that my loved ones and I get to experience. I don't know how else to answer.

How would you describe your current lifestyle?

My current lifestyle is routine, disciplined, extremely free, and extremely constrained.

Most days, I wake up to the light coming through the American money green curtains in my bedroom. I turn to say hello to my cat Noo who’s at rest on the chair beside me. If Matt’s awake, I say hi to him too. Maybe we snuggle. More often though, what I reach for is my phone. While I absentmindedly pet my cat (having invited her onto the bed by scratching the sheets beside my head), I delete all of the spam emails I’ve gotten overnight, scan or ignore the important emails, check my DMs and texts, and read my daily horoscope on the Chani app — then I get up. I’m naked, I look at myself in a full-length mirror and like what I see. (None of this I consider to be healthy, by the way.) After pulling on some ratty home clothes, I walk across my apartment to piss then go to the kitchen where I drink a cup of New York tap water. While drinking more water, I make an oat milk latte. I have the same De'Longhi espresso machine as the Kunstverein Munich where my friends work, the very same model — I think this every morning. After pouring myself another cup of water, I take it and my seed oil latte to my green leather desk where I write for as long as I can focus.

At the end of pretty much every day, I read until I pass out. Depending on the book, this might take an hour or three minutes.

Was there a specific moment when your relationship to your health changed?

In my mid-to-late 20s, I experienced a pretty gnarly burnout and have been refining my health practices ever since. Things keep changing. You have to adapt and adapt again. Witnessing Pippa and Tony through the end of their lives has changed me in ways I don't know how to articulate yet.

What's your relationship to self-healing?

I love a specialist. Going to see someone who knows what they’re doing can be life saving. Being able to trust that someone knows what they’re doing, or is at least honestly trying, can itself be healing — a placebo at minimum.

Universal healthcare should be a given. I qualify for Medicaid in NY, which is amazing when I manage to navigate the system. I grew up in Canada where going to the doctor when something is wrong and even when it’s not, just to get checked out, is normal. You don’t question, “Is this visit worth the cost?” Or, “Is this doctor trying to upsell me?” Americans pay more for health insurance than any so-called “developed” nation in the world and receive less in treatment. Health should be collective in that we all deserve access to quality health services and preventative medicine. That said, only you are in your body so learning to listen to it and take responsibility for your own unique body is vital.

Where do you look to for information or advice?

I cross-reference self-observation with information from friends, doctors, nurses, Reddit, TikTok, scientific papers, blogs, books, yoga and wellness instructors, beauticians, my acupuncturist, whomever.

What practices do you rely on when feeling ungrounded, unsettled, or “unhealthy,” per your definition above?

According to Western medicine, I have PMDD and PCOS. Both are “chronic hormonal conditions.” I’m agnostic to the point of acknowledging that PMDD and PCOS, like many Western diagnoses, are just descriptions that are sometimes useful. Hormones were only discovered a century ago! We know so little about the endocrine system, let alone the female sex.

All Western medicine has to offer for PMDD and PCOS are anti-depressants and/or hormonal birth control, neither of which interest me. So, I go Eastern and DIY. I "cycle sync," which is what people call the practice of changing your lifestyle according to what part of your cycle you’re in. Cycle syncing can get extreme — for example, only eating certain foods on certain days. I don’t do that, but I do exercise, work, and socialize differently depending on how I feel with an awareness that those feelings, even if they’re unwanted, are valid because they line up with what I know about my cycle.

If I had a regular high-stress American job, my PMDD could be deliberating. I worry it could make motherhood complicated. I get short, impatient, and easily stressed out. But who knows? Maybe my hormonal makeup will be completely different if I have a kid. Or maybe I'd just manage, cope, as I do now. (The excess sensitivity of PMDD can be useful for art making and relationship deepening...)

I try to give myself grace no matter how I feel. This took years of practice.

Here is my PMDD/PCOS checklist, or what sort of works for me (it’s basically just modes of stress reduction, inflammation reduction, and some strategic supplementation):

EXERCISE + MEDITATION: Yoga (Kundalini, Hatha, or Iyengar) for at least 10 minutes but usually 45-90 minutes every day. Teachers I’ve relied on include:
- Douglass Stewart, a former dancer (NYC)
- Carmen Fitzgibbon, the Kathryn Bigelow of Iyengar (LA)
- Dimitria of Lotus Yoga (Toronto)
- Linh James (LA)
- Caley Alyssa (online)
- Guru Jagat (RIP), the Lena Dunham of Kundalini Yoga and founder of RA MA; also Joie Ruggeio and Iram of RA MA.
I NEED to start weight training. Osteo-prevention but also I want to look more like Lisa Lyon.
DIET: Real whole foods mostly, nothing too processed. Almost no dairy (butter is okay). Low to moderate gluten. Lots of meat, fish, protein. Vegetables & fruit from the local farmer’s market. 1-2 coffees a day. 1-2 desserts a day. Lots of water: mineral, spring, tap. Herbal tea at night.
SMOKING: I'm down to 1 cigarette a week. No vaping (thank God it didn't exist when I was young, I pulled on my friend Asya’s vape recently when she wasn’t looking and it was too good..).
ALCOHOL: I drink once a month on average and only with women who really love to drink. Alcohol was never my vice though. I think I’m allergic?
DRUGS: I used to love drugs. My body started rejecting them like 6-7 years ago. Maybe all the yoga.. Drugs stopped being pleasurable. I’d be open to doing psychedelics again.
REGULAR SEX: Great for the skin and happiness 🐈
ACUPUNCTURE: Rebecca Krauss.
MASSAGE/SPA: Once a month, I either go to the Russian or Korean baths (more in winter) or get some sort of massage (back or foot).
SUPPLEMENTS:

My acupuncturist also just added this to my mix. She swears by this brand. Two weeks in, it seems really good…

MINDSET: "I did my best, I leave the rest" (Virgo mantra).
SKINCARE: Daily Vintner’s Daughter, a basic cleanser, SUPERGOOP sunscreen, and this basic moisturizer. A313 every other-other night. I often use an HA serum before bed and this mask about once a week. I don’t wear much makeup. When I want to look 27 and inscrutable, I get Botox from Nurse Lynn. I'm off it now (I want to see the lines) but I miss Nurse Lynn.. She's sexy, sadistic, and genuinely talented. Use my name if you try her, I get a referral discount. I get way less acne when/where I have Botox.
HAIR: This has nothing to do with PMDD but figuring out I have “low-porosity hair” and getting shampoos and conditioners that are supposedly good for it, also getting regular haircuts from Sonny Molina, has made me much better looking.

What's your perfect meal?

I don’t know about perfect but my last meal would be surf’n’turf. I want a whole lobster, to crack the shells myself and to dip the meat in garlic butter. I want the steak medium-rare/rare, a good fatty cut. I want a side salad and a side of asparagus or steamed garlic spinach. Maybe something pickled. French fries with mayo. And oysters, to start.

For dessert: chocolate cake, strawberry rhubarb pie, and a vegan version of the coconut sundae from Thai Diner. (None of the other desserts should be vegan, just the sundae.) Followed by an espresso and a cigarette.

This is almost exactly what I ate on my birthday this past year, maybe I felt like I was dying and needed my last meal.

Do you remember your last dream?

I’m with

Natasha Stagg

at a house party / picnic. Olimpico is catering. We are upstairs in a house when I see a black wave in the sky, a giant wispy black cloud that claps in on itself like this:

Once the black cloud becomes vertical, it crashes down into a building, which collapses as in an earthquake or bombing. The building Natasha and I are in shakes as well and I get scared, I want to call Matt. My flip phone is made of wood, very simple pale wood like a wooden take-out fork or plate.