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Author's Notes: This is the second chapter to Helga's memoir. Enjoy! This memoir will be playing a big part in my other story, "Helga's Favorite Flavor of Ice Cream" in a few different characters. Let me know what you think of the poem. I'm not a poet by nature but I am trying to write that part of Helga. :)

Comments to reviews: Nep2uune: I agree about using this as therapy. I want to use this as her therapy. I'm thinking that Dr. Bliss is urging Helga to do this when the obsession is starting to come at a point where it's not just an expression of love but becoming warped. I want to use her memoir as a catalyst in the discussion she has with Arnold, and her family. I'm glad you are liking it :)

My Journey, My Discovery
by Helga Geraldine Pataki

Why one writes is a question I can easily answer, having so often asked it myself. I believe one writes because one has to create a world in which one can live. I could not live in any of the worlds offered to me—the world of my parents, the world of war, the world of politics. I had to create a world of my own like a climate, a country, an atmosphere where I could breathe, reign, and recreate myself when destroyed by living. That I believe is reason of every work of art. We also write to heighten our awareness of life. We write to lure, enchant, and to console others. We write to serenade. We write to taste life twice, once in the moment and once in retrospection. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak to others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled or restricted or lonely. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.

–Anaïs Nin, "A New Woman"

Poetry doesn't belong to those who write it; it belongs to those who need it.

–Massimo Troisi, in Il Postino

In the beginning there was a girl called Helga

Let me start from the beginning. Not in a Facebook fashion where it scrolls all the way down to the day when I was born because when and where is irrelevant. In many ways my life truly began when I was three years old. From that very moment onward when I met that little boy who complemented my bow because it matched my pants, everything changed. My world had gotten a little bit bigger, a little bit brighter, and a little bit more tolerable. The capacity for love and to show love had increased in me. The sudden realization that everyone needed a little bit of love had entered me like a seed yearning to germinate and grow. Even now that little seed has been struggling to fully bloom.

When I met Arnold that rainy day I had fallen in love. I had found my muse for the fledgling artist that lived deep within me. Arnold had continued to be nice to me and I fell deeper in love the way a three year old knows how: courageously and unabashedly. After a classmate stole my graham crackers, which is still my favorite food, Arnold had given me his share. He had noticed what had happened. He had noticed my sadness. He wanted to rid of my trembling lips and overflowing tears. I was so elated and overcome with emotion. Then the teasing started by the same boy who had stolen my snack. He mimicked my lovesick sigh and the tilt of my head on my clasped hands.

It was then that I felt ashamed for my actions. It was then that I had the comments running in my mind of my dad's words about the "Pataki" pride. I sometimes wonder what would have happened had I not been so afraid, had I not been so ashamed of being in love or love itself, had I not worried about pretense and image in front of others. These fears started so long ago. I was barely toilet trained, barely turning four years old, barely beginning to understand the world and yet these fears were crippling me. I grew angrier by the minute. I hated that I had been wrong. Showing my mushy side only left me embarrassed and scared that Arnold would be teased as well. I made a decision to put a stop to the teasing. I approached that snack-stealing boy and pushed him down onto the floor.

It was that moment that I chose to be a bully. It was at that moment I'd close off my real self, and emotions less I'd be teased, have it used against me, or used against the one I loved. I continued my reign of terror against my classmates. However I would hide whenever possible and speak of Arnold the way a three year old could before learning to be more artistic and add more flourish. The kind of prose that was straight to the point the way most children are at that age. "I love you Arnold and I want to marry you." Blunt and straight to the point, but it was true. I loved Arnold deeply and wanted to marry him in the future.

The secret prose that I would gush out of my soul was accompanied by a picture of Arnold taped onto a light pink heart with ruffled purple paper. Creating this first memento was my first big adventure in my expression of love. I had hidden a small pair of scissors in the pocket of my pink jumper. While everyone had run out for recess I claimed I had to go to the bathroom. I went to my cubby conveniently located next to Arnold's claiming I needed my hand-me-down teddy bear. I stole a sheet of pictures from his cubby. In the girls bathroom I cut out one picture and threw out the rest. I couldn't leave a sheet with one picture cut out, that would have looked suspicious. Though I did wonder at the time if I should have kept them all. I kept the memento in my pocket close to my rapid pitter-pattering heart. I still have that memento in a memory box under my bed. It reminds me of a time when things were simpler.

For the next few years my prose became a little bit more elaborate. As I learned about the poetry that we all learn as children during Valentine's Day. "Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet, and so are you." Even then I would change the words that I would secretly and quietly shout to Arnold hoping that my feelings would resonate across the room, the hallway, the school, the city, and universe. "Roses are red, violets are blue, no matter what I said, I do love you." I definitely began to have fun when I learned about rhyming in class.

I've always been a rather precocious child. How do I know that? I mean I was young enough where I couldn't possibly remember little bits of information like this. It is what my neighbor, Mrs. Cardell, had told my mom. She had commented on how quickly I had learned to crawl, walk, run, speak and read. Often times Miriam would only nod agreeing but never fully listening. She was always too preoccupied with "smoothies", "B" and his anger issues, and Olga.

Mrs. Cardell was a very nice elderly woman who lived directly across from the Pataki household. I would do errands for Mrs. Cardell who would pay me with sweet words, a listening ear, patience and cookies. Her cookies were absolutely indescribable. No words could adequately describe the level of Nirvana I found in each gooey, chocolate-chipped bite. There was never any physical affection as Mrs. Cardell was not raised to give hugs, hold hands, or pats on the head. However since I was growing up in a similar environment I never paid much mind.

The type of errands I would help Mrs. Cardell with around the house varied from picking up the mail even dealing with Salty, a salt-and-pepper-colored cat, who had a prolapsed rectum. Yup, as a kid I helped push in Salty's behind. I didn't mind though. I would rather push in a cat's rectum than spend any more time with my family than I had to. That ought to give you enough inkling as to what my family life was like.

The fact that Mrs. Cardell would call me "Elizabeth" or "Lizzie" or even "Bethie" did not matter to me. Who was Elizabeth? Elizabeth was her deceased granddaughter who had passed away ten years prior. Mrs. Cardell could have called me Bucky, Jim, Lucy, or Josephine, it didn't matter. Sadly it only lasted two years during first and second grade. I would take every opportunity to spend time with her before a nasty cold had turned into pneumonia. I never understood until much later the full brevity of death. I only knew that one day she had the "sniffles" then the next week her son was kneeling beside me telling me she was gone. I knew on an intellectual level what he had meant but emotionally I refused to accept it. So I played dumb. "Gone where? The grocery store? She said she was going to make chocolate-chip cookies today because I had helped her weed the garden." I say it and her son shakes his head sadly, "No, dear, no cookies today." I see him fight the tears and I have no idea what to tell him. "I'm going to miss her cookies too," I tell him quietly. Her son smiles through his tears and kisses me on my forehead.

Mrs. Cardell's impression on me is still felt at this very moment. It is there that I was exposed to fine arts, a passion of Mrs. Cardell's. From the works of Edward Hopper (whose art I still find simple and still wonder about his female subjects), to the soliloquy of Shakespeare's Hamlet, to the travels of Gulliver, to the soulful crooning of Etta James, to wanting to bring up my own baby (Carey Grant would be an added bonus).

She created in me a voracious appetite to read, watch, listen and experience the world around me. I noticed the beauty of autumn in its explosion of oranges and reds. I appreciated the joy of ice skating and its soothing sounds of blades crossing ice. I learned how revitalizing petrichor was in the city park amidst the oil-slicked roadways, the whiff of exhaust fumes, the remnants of dog feces from owners who had not learned to bag and trash. I felt the relief from the summer heat by the opening of a fire hydrant. I felt the peace that would overcome me while listening to the concertos of Bach. I learned to appreciate, value and find relief in the beauty of the arts when my own world was overcast with breaks of sunlight being scarce. Yet I was afraid to show this side of myself to Arnold and those around me. I hid this part of me with mean words, threats and a scowl. It was around the end of first grade that Phoebe and I became friends. At that time it was a friendship of convenience. I needed companionship and she needed protection from the teasing because of her intelligence and glasses.

It was Mrs. Cardell who had given me the courage to go to the Hillwood library since I read her entire collection. There I would learn of Matilda whose family life was so reminiscent of my own. I had wished so desperately to have her abilities so that I too could have those adventures. I wished so desperately to meet my own Ms. Honey. It was there that I had decided to feed my mind with all of the children books I could read and eventually moved on to works of Bronte, Hemmingway, Frost, Byron, Dickens and the list grew on and on. It was there that that I discovered the world of poetry.

And in that world I had found my home.

I Find You

-Helga G. Pataki, summer before 4th grade

I find you in the hum of the city

I find you in the moon above

I find you in the sway of the sea

If I could only speak to you of my love

I am touched by your charity

I am touched by your worry and care

I am touched by the goodness you see

Crippled by the fear of being your bête noir

I see you in the heroes I read

I see you being forever brave

I see you as the prince upon his steed

To this fear will I always be a slave?

I hear you in the sounds of spring

I hear you in the chirps of a blue jay

I hear you in the steeple's ring

I must tell you of my love one day