There is a great big open territory between "I don't trust you" and "You can do no wrong". I admit I am inclined to grab a hold one of it's edges, instead of exploring the in-betweens, it's much easier. But since I enrolled in the kate2002self-awareness program, several months ago, I've developed this callous on my heart and my brain, it's from the bumping in-between these two places, which, for the life of me, can't seem to open my eyes or my throat for. At least I'm there, I say. I still have trouble making big decisions. I am going to take the "So You're Going to be a Triple Gemini" class in August. All I know is the course begins at a Sushi restaurant with a Paper back and Hard cover menu selection. All six of us have agreed to take it!

The most incredible part of all this is you [sic].

I'm the daughter who couldn't be held for too long. Breaking my mothers heart as I pulled away from her hug, age 3. My mom would make excuses for me to her oldest daughter who'd protest when we got in the car. I didn't have to wear my seat belt. I hated seat belts, socks, shoes, ponytails. My mother, 34 years old, had concluded that it was claustrophobia, from the many years I'd spent in and out of Hospitals being restrained, to draw my blood. Blood checked every six months. "Follow the green dots, honey", to the doctor's office with the giant windows and rainbow curtains, and brilliant light which overwhelmed one brave little girl who wouldn't cry anymore when the doctor drew the needle. Dr. Castendic, a beautiful woman my mother's age, my mother's pillar. Her accent was foreign and she always seemed a little angry, maybe she was over worked, or maybe it was my interpretation of a professional in her field.
Memories flash in blinks.
There was another office too, and another doctor. Once I saw Dr. Castendic pregnant with her own, we didn't see her again. Not that office either, I was scared. This office was just across the hall from the rainbow office it had no windows, and brown wallpaper with pictures of turn of the century automobiles in dark browns with no high ceilings to let my bravery escape. I'd pull my mother to the rainbow office, I don't know, pleading for it. It's strange I don't remember one instance in that office, just walking into it and seeing the light and the curtains. In the brown office there was urgency, and need for a bravery which required total submission. There was a brown rubber band and two nurses to hold me down. I screamed, while my mom stood in the hallway, between the rainbows and me. The candy treat afterwards was never a treat, it was too sweet and not enough. Follow the green dots, honey, which were pealing off now, my mom and I would get lost all the time in Children's Hospital, trying to pick up the trail on the ceiling. I was 12 when the doctor told my mother I didn't have to come in anymore, that the cancer had shown no sign of reappearing since the operation twelve years ago, my yearly check up would suffice as the monitoring time. I don't remember relief, but maybe because this was all we knew and the change seemed too much. My mom said something like "you're all better baby", but she never knew me before that time to be well.

still you.

This fear, before intimacy. Some how I will
Let this love let, and nourish love, let you embrace me, mother, sister, lover, friend.