<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n \u2015 Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The next morning, my first morning in space (well, technically there is no morning in space), much like Gregor Samsa, I woke from uneasy dreams.\u00a0 Unlike Kafka\u2019s character<\/a>, I fortunately hadn\u2019t turned into a giant cockroach, but I was probably about as disoriented.\u00a0 I\u2019d dreamed about my life on Earth, with a disturbed and apprehensive vagueness, my future somehow understood to be bright, but totally beyond my present sight, or reach.<\/p>\n The disembodied female voice coming from a speaker somewhere in my room was pleasant but detached.\u00a0 She coolly informed me that breakfast was served in the mess hall, and that I was to report to sickbay afterward.<\/p>\n I took naked satisfaction in managing the shower successfully, although I had to throw myself on the mercy of a passing crewmember to guide me to breakfast.\u00a0 The crewmember \u2013 a young woman who introduced herself as Lt. Marilyn Copp, an engineer \u2013 was friendly, and obviously curious about me.\u00a0 She used a communication device to ask permission to escort me to breakfast, and some voice with a pronounced Scottish accent granted it.<\/p>\n So, Lt. Marilyn led me into a large room that looked a lot like mess halls everywhere \u2013 long tables, rimmed with chairs, groups of people, uniformed and otherwise, clustered together, talking, laughing, or nursing that first cup of coffee. The only thing missing was the row of hair-netted lunch ladies behind banks of warming trays.<\/p>\n Marilyn asked me what I wanted to eat, and navigated me through the food service, making breakfast appear from behind little doors, like the \u201850\u2019s automats in a Doris Day movie.\u00a0 All the while she was offering a running commentary on the technology that was enthusiastic, proud, and way too technical for me to follow.<\/p>\n She sat with me a few minutes, but then, obviously antsy, excused herself, late starting her shift.\u00a0 I wondered if I\u2019d have to flag down another passerby to get me to sickbay, but while I was still eating, a neat young man in white showed up at my table, sent by the doctor to escort me.<\/p>\n Dr. McCoy was waiting, and greeted me with that easy-going smile of his, asking if I\u2019d slept well, if I\u2019d enjoyed my breakfast, assuring me I\u2019d get the hang of things in no time.<\/p>\n Whatever I assumed about a physical exam – stethoscopes, peeing into little jars, all the usual – it wasn\u2019t that at all.\u00a0 Instead, he led me back to an exam table much like the one I\u2019d encountered the day before, only this one had a larger, more serious looking display on the wall behind it.\u00a0 He told me it was a micro-diagnostic table.\u00a0 I stretched out, realizing I was still tired from my adventures.\u00a0 He busied himself with the readings, as well as that little scanner he\u2019d first used on me in my bedroom.\u00a0 My 21st<\/sup> century bedroom, I clarified to myself.\u00a0 My former bedroom.\u00a0 On my former planet.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely appalling,\u201d he pronounced in some disgust.<\/p>\n \u201cI beg your pardon?\u201d I didn\u2019t know whether to be offended, annoyed or alarmed.<\/p>\n \u201cNot you, Hanalie,\u201d he was quick to assure me, patting my shoulder.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s the damn state of medicine in your time.\u00a0 The damn butchery.\u00a0 A hysterectomy?\u00a0 On a woman that young?\u00a0 What were you?\u00a0 23? 24?\u00a0 What were they thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n I couldn\u2019t help it.\u00a0 I looked down at my own abdomen, wondering if somehow I\u2019d become the Incredible Transparent Woman.\u00a0 Or whether doctors in this century all had laser-vision.\u00a0 How did he know that?\u00a0 He hadn\u2019t even laid a diagnostic hand on me.<\/p>\n But, well, yeah.\u00a0 The hysterectomy.\u00a0 I\u2019d actually forgotten about that.<\/p>\n I explained.\u00a0 I\u2019d had a severe case of endometriosis in my early 20\u2019s.\u00a0 I\u2019d already had some troubles before I married Dale, but it really got bad a year or two after that.\u00a0 The standard treatment had been a hysterectomy, pretty heavy surgery, yes, but even then, at that young age, I somehow never associated myself with motherhood, so it never seemed like the trauma it was for some women.\u00a0 I\u2019d have done anything by that point to get rid of the pain, and I admit, not having periods wasn\u2019t something I ever complained about.<\/p>\n Dale didn\u2019t see things that way.\u00a0 I could see, looking back, that the surgery was when things really started to fall apart for us.\u00a0 Maybe he thought I was a failure as a woman.\u00a0 No, wait, that\u2019s pretty much what he actually said to me.\u00a0 What a sweetheart.\u00a0 And it didn\u2019t occur to Dale that leaving on a business trip the day after I got home from the hospital wasn\u2019t exactly being the model of a supportive spouse, either.\u00a0 Nope, he just took off, leaving me to stagger around the house by myself, stoned on painkillers, violating the doctor\u2019s orders to stay in bed, just to be able to feed myself.\u00a0 I guess that should have been a sign, huh?<\/p>\n It took me a minute to realize the doctor\u2019s \u201cwhat were they thinking?\u201d question wasn\u2019t about Dale at all, but about the 21st<\/sup> century medical establishment.<\/p>\n It was easy to talk to Dr. McCoy.\u00a0 Even with his pointed rants about the primitive medicine of my time \u2013 my former time \u2013 his genuine interest and concern came through.<\/p>\n I didn\u2019t realize until that moment how devoid my life had been of anyone who actually cared about me, not with such passion \u2013 even if the passion was only professional and more than a little cranky.\u00a0 It made me realize, maybe for the first time, how much devotion I\u2019d given to Bob, and how little energy or attention he\u2019d had left, especially toward the end, to care about, much less take care of, me, even though I know he loved me,\u00a0 to his last minute.<\/p>\n I\u2019d been so alone, all along.\u00a0 Alone, while I tended my dying husband.\u00a0 Alone, while I sat at the bedside of my dying mother, who had, for all practical purposes, left me long before her body did.<\/p>\n All this was hitting me now, sitting here, all alone again.\u00a0 Well, not technically alone.\u00a0 Me and about 400 complete strangers wandering through space together.\u00a0 All well and good to dredge up those old abandonment issues, Hani, but aren\u2019t we on a different playing field now?<\/i><\/p>\n I tried to see myself through Dr. McCoy\u2019s eyes, how he probably saw my missing womb as something precious that had been taken from me, while I\u2019d just seen my barren state as a fact of life, maybe as a confirmation that I was never going to be fruitful and multiply, that somehow I never quite earned the normal gifts most people take for granted.<\/p>\n Dr. McCoy\u2019s hand was on my shoulder again; I was beginning to recognize it as his signature move.\u00a0 He looked concerned, and asked if I was all right.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2026.yeah,\u201d I finally answered, knowing there was no way I could put into words what I was feeling.\u00a0 I was very aware of that steady hand on my shoulder, a totally professional touch, and yet somehow I felt in it an ease between us that was unexpected, given the short time we\u2019d known each other.\u00a0 I reached up to pat his hand with mine, give that steady hand on my shoulder a little squeeze; a gesture so instinctive, so natural, so spontaneous, it didn\u2019t occur to me until later that it might have been inappropriate.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n < previous\u00a0\u00a0<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 next ><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" < previous\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 next > \u201cI don’t like the looks of it,’ said the King: ‘however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.’ \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 ‘I’d rather not,’ the Cat remarked.\u201d \u2015 … Continue reading ![\"300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17\"](\"https:\/\/hanilives.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/300px-The_Earth_seen_from_Apollo_17-150x150.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\n\u201cI don’t like the looks of it,’ said the King:
\n‘however, it may kis my hand, if it likes.’<\/em><\/p>\n