Nolitangere

“Do not touch.”

Written on the chalkboard by Dr. Alfred Blaylock (Alan Rickman) during the film Something the Lord Made, which I stumbled upon last night during my FIRST DAY of having digital cable. At long last! And just in time for the season premiere of The L Word on Sunday.

: )

“Do not touch the heart.”

That was the context of the message, apparently a previously held theory amongst medical researchers and practitioners and the like, during the 1930s and ’40s, long before today, when heart bypass surgery is still not quite considered “routine” but is nevertheless a procedure from which the patient is expected to recover, none the worse for wear (whatever THAT cliché means).

: )

My heart has been touched this past week. Touched by a girl I have written about before, there and here, whose spirit is like no other I have known. A girl whose writing is fierce and bold and funny and sad, sometimes, and always, always exceedingly honest; a girl who, if I am to be perfectly honest, I know only by her words.

I like knowing her.

And when she writes, I realize one certainty:

I’ve missed her so much.