At last. Guess my host is as glad as I am to part from each other. But what a shock! All of a sudden I was thrust into the most awful cold, slippery condition, and screamed out at the indignity of it all. Naked, exposed and alone. But the scream seemed to delight the voices above me, and quickly their warm hands gathered my wavering arms and legs into ordered position along this body, turned me over, and wiped off that wet substance. It wasn’t long before they had a warm blanket around me that simulated the protection of the cave where I got my start in this life. Their soft voices were comforting, so I resigned myself to their hands and to whatever they would see fit to do with this body. I felt already the limitations of this new ‘me,’ but at the same time there was something exciting and right about it all.
For a moment I longed for that independent, tough Cassy personality, insistent on doing things on her own, owing no one a thing. But this new ‘me’ was going to be different. Already it was willing to let strangers decide, as they examined this body, whether it was whole or not. And if it weren’t I felt sure they had some solution. I examined them back. Blue, sharp lines. Indistinct. Only the eyes, eyes, eyes pulled at me, said things I didn’t understand. Some eyes were indifferent, busy, busy. Others lingered, smiled. Voices, voices, like the eyes, a mixture of softness, sharpness, hurry, hurry. I locked on to the most friendly and held their attention as best I could. Finally, they all seemed satisfied with what they had done and moved this body to a single, little bed and left me. I was exhausted, and I slept.
It was a strange time. The Light that I had become used to was no longer there. Sometimes it was light and sometimes no light. Faces changed. Eyes appeared, and went away. Hands held me, bathed me, put a nipple in my mouth and I sucked and filled my stomach, slept again. It all happened again and again. Then there was a face that stayed and studied me for a long time. It had a voice that was warm and soothing. It went away and came back, but it didn’t pick me up or bathe me or give me the nipple to suck. Still, strangers kept up caring for this little body, and I accepted that.
Then, after many faces and many hands had come and gone, and the place of my bed had changed many times, I saw that face again, the one that had studied me, and made a feeling come into me that wanted it to stay put. By this time, I had studied the hands that were my own, and found the feet that I could pull up and connect to this mouth. I could move around, and I felt where this body ended and something else began. Yet the face did not stay, and I wondered why.
There were times when I could feel a difference between this world and another that was not this world. At times, perhaps when I was asleep, I felt the presence of a Being that I had once called Counselor. It made me happy and sad. Happy because it meant I was not alone. Sad because she wasn’t there when I woke up.
The many faces continued and I became alarmed. What if none would stay long enough to show me how to exist in this new world? What if no one would tell me what this body was meant to do? What if no one told me what the things I was feeling, the objects that I was seeing were all about? Still, there was something in the background that lingered, a memory, an assurance, that all would be well. So, I kept responding to those faces and matching their smiles with mine. That seemed to be a clue to keeping their attention. Smiles worked almost better than cries, but there were times that cry just came out whether I wanted it to or not. This body seemed to need one thing or the other all the time. In between, though, there was sleep. What a wonderful gift is sleep. What a rest it gives to the constant needs. What a great thing to yawn and close the eyes and forget. Then the eyes open sometime later and look around, finding all kinds of different things to explore.
***
Exploring Cassy Page 19
