housed a year of horror within me. And I housed a vacant, empty
place, the vast dark of the life that would never be. I held the trauma
and the absence, I couldn’t let go of either piece of my truth, nor could
I hold either easily.
* * *I found another mirror and teacher in Agnes, a woman I met at a spa
in Utah where I was speaking to breast cancer survivors about the
importance of self-care to promote healing. She was young, in her
early forties, her black hair pulled back in a low bun. She had on a
neutral-colored smock dress buttoned up to her neck. If she hadn’t
been the ĕrst in line for a private appointment in my hotel room aer
my talk, I might not have noticed her at all. She kept herself in the
background. Even when she stood in front of me, her body was barely
visible beneath her clothes.
“I’m sorry,” she said, when I opened my door to invite her in. “I’m
sure there are other people who deserve more of your time.”
I showed her to the chair by the window and poured her a glass of
water. She seemed embarrassed by my small caretaking gestures. She
sat on the very edge of her chair and held the water glass stiffly in
front of her, as though to take a sip would be an imposition on my
hospitality. “I don’t really need a whole hour. I just have a quick
question.”
“Yes, honey. Tell me how I can be useful.”
She said she had been interested in something I’d said in my talk.
I’d shared an old Hungarian saying I learned as a girl: Don’t inhale
your anger to your chest. I had given an example of the self-
imprisoning beliefs and feelings I had held on to in my life: my anger
and my belief that I had to earn others’ approval, that nothing I did
would be good enough to make me worthy of love. I’d invited the
women in the audience to ask themselves, What feeling or belief am I