Here are two short texts for Nadine:  Long before dawn is about what I experience and Taking a chance describes what she does.

Long before dawn
Long before dawn I’m lying here
not sleeping not yet awake
visions keep haunting me
what will happen next year
what tomorrow
I won’t move

Taking a chance
It costs you a lot
in your hip it causes pain
and yet it’s great
you go out to meet
your sister husband and son
it makes you stumble
might even fall
yet you look relaxed
sitting on your parents’ terrace
talking to family and friends
each trip a challenge
exhausting and tiring
but look at
the feedback you get

For a German version of both texts, please check the comments.

Two weeks ago I suggested that you start to express your thoughts and feelings and I write them down for you because you did not feel fit enough to write poems on your own. Sipping some coffee we started talking about your art therapy and I took notes as fast as I could. What you told me turned into a report of feelings that had come up while painting the picture above.

There was Frederik, a character introduced by the art teacher to help experiment with different shades of grey. At the same time it reminded you of a book with a mouse called Frederik you had seen as a child. I understood how these feelings haunted you, so I sat down at home and composed them into a poem called “Frederik the mouse”:

Frederik does everything in a different way
mice collect things all of them do
they look for nuts look for grains
yet he tries to catch colors
and rays of the sun
they all do it the easy way
and get started right away
but me, I’m stopped in my tracks
do not find anything
not even a starter
no bit of courage
no strategy
it can’t be so much trouble
Frederik and his different ways
he goes happily about it
well, I will tackle it anew
I don’t have quite the right mix
but I have the colors
I have words
have the sunshine

It is Wednesday morning. You look so good to me and you have improved so much. Your holiday has obviously helped you to relax and regain strength. You have been for a walk early in the morning and now you are suggesting that we go to Marienplatz, have lunch there and do some shopping.

As we go down the stairs I cannot see any instability or uncertainty in you. You are not reaching out for support, we just keep walking and talking. After pizza at L.A.Signorina we go shopping and you sure buy a whole lot of food and stuff at Naturgut. Then we start climbing the hill up to Hasenbergsteige. Quite a long way and a challenge. You know when it is time to stop for a moment and where we can catch our breath.

All that – and some more – on a day before the talk with your doctor. This prospect excites you, of course, but you still do not sit down and ponder nor give space to resignation. So please, do not let anything bring you down, Nadine.

Nobody can tell us anything about our future, not even a physician. When I was 27, one of them told me, “I cannot predict anything. You might leave this building and drop dead on the sidewalk.“

So you are perfectly right. Good that you and Jens went to hear Holly Golightly in Schorndorf. You should let nothing come between you and the great things you want to do like going to concerts. Just go for it.