Visualizing Somaesthetics and Destigmatizing Embodied Caregiving in Tangles and Special Exits

This essay explores how graphic memoirs reshape our understanding of physical care by portraying it not as menial labor but as a form of somatic creativity that blends ethical intention with aesthetic sensitivity. Drawing on Richard Shusterman's somaesthetics and Felicity Aulino's rituals of care, it examines Sarah Leavitt's Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer's, My Mother, and Me (2012) and Joyce Farmer's Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir (2010) to show how both works transform caregiving from a stigmatized task into a model of empathetic exchange by challenging the social stigma that devalues intimate bodily care as degrading "dirty work" and equates dependency with a loss of dignity. While unflinchingly depicting the difficult realities of embodied care, Tangles and Special Exits reimagine it as an artistic collaboration between caregiver and cared-for-a practice that affirms dignity and creative potential. Through their distinctive visual and narrative sensitivity, these graphic care memoirs illuminate the sensory and ritual dimensions of caregiving, presenting it as an ethical and aesthetic practice vital to sustaining human connection. In doing so, they issue a powerful call for systemic change, urging a cultural revaluation of embodied care as a practice grounded in creativity, reciprocity, and shared vulnerability.