Part 16 (1/1)

Your scholastic achieveiven that you accomplished them without support froer life What drove you to do this?

Survival Pure and simple I discovered early on that mobility for a woman in this culture is crucial The ability to live and work on your own if you have to is vital The ability to pursue the life of the mind is vital The ability to journey the body's full story is vital Volition If you can find that in yourself you are going to be okay

I have a picture ofaway from home for the first ti scary looking doll My cat ”spice” is in the foreground, probably wondering where I'round, nearly out of the fralorious red dress

I went to the edge of the yard and sat on the curb for about 30 minutes

The house is near Stinson Beach near San Francisco, where I was born The yard was filled with fruit trees The house was filled with anger My sister and I were terrified most of our childhoods My father bred fear into the bodies of his daughters

And yet, in that ht it looked cute, like mothers do, I knehat to do Volition

There is art in that

I believe in art the way other people believe in God I say that because books and paintings and ave me an alternate world to inhabit when the one I was born into was a dead zone I say it because if you, even inside whatever terror itches your skin, pick up a pen or a paintbrush, a cauitar, you already have what you are afraid to choose Volition It was already in you

Just be that-what :

Hush for the line

Crouched like the touch of dreaertips

She is coeance

Copyright 2010 Lidia Yuknavitch

end