Leatrice

By Rutty Steinberg

What if a therapist from another dimension appeared and your whole life changed?

Leatrice reached her seventies. She is settled into her routine, feels old, no longer believes in love or big news, when Emet, a therapist from other dimensions, enters her life. Strange incidents lead Leatrice to live a magical adventure in Recanto do Despertar (Village of the Awakening), where she faces bizarre situations, from reactivating a former love to a surprising encounter with her ancestors. Emet and all of them want to show her that it is possible to be a mature woman who loves without fear.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BadPress
• Release date: Jul 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667406862

Book preview

Table of Contents

Leatrice

LEATRICE | WINTER SUN IS ALSO WORMING

Briefing:

LEATRICE – Winter Sun is also warming

Leatrice is no longer a young woman, and at age seventy she will transform the sadness of an aged routine into magical encounters that will take her down a completely odd path. With the help of Emet, a therapist coming from another dimension, she does great changes and finds an old and enormous love. Recognizing her fear to love, she accepts to participate in an unusual encounter with her ancestry to free the women who came before her and herself from the pain she has been carrying in the present, past so that in the future being able to live her love.

LEATRICE

WINTER SUN IS ALSO WORMING

From memory’s chest, who escapes?

There are autobiographical reviews there,

Transformations which the wind brings,

Chats with nature,

Fears, guilt and some over comings,

Allies that over time,

In unexpected moments because they are magical,

Point to the sun,

That even in winter warms the hearts.

1-

They use to say that nothing happens by mere chance. There are circumstances far beyond expectations about what may or may not happen. There are things that we cannot explain with our limited knowledge. All that remains is for us, facing life’s mysteries, to accept to set aside (at least for a while) all certainties that have expired. I think this is how we can allow ourselves to soar high, simply absorbing the news until they become natural. And then it starts all over again. But we end up getting used to this coming and going of questions and answers.

I am Leatrice, a mature, experienced and friendly woman. In my seventies, I've been learning a lot of things. One of them is to follow my own head, to think, and also to shut my mouth a little. It's interesting that staying in the same place for a long time was never my strong point, because I found myself struggling with boredom. I lost count of how I angered some people who expected me to take root and fulfill their own expectations by remaining quiet in my corner. But the universe didn't need to exaggerate either, right? I'm kidding, I can only be thankful for the opportunity I had. I used to believe that loneliness did not affect me, nor did I suspect the truth: the fear of loving. 

In order to overcome my blockades I had to move, leave the big city, to surround myself with green, flowers, simplicity. And so I was completely transformed, having nature as a companion to feel the taste of another adventure, and feeding my spirit. Age did not stop me - on the contrary, it made it possible for me - to plan a new corner, facing the tailored challenges that came to my life, including believing in the surprises that do not let life losing its fun.

My allies, metaphor or not, have always enriched my private novels with their close-to-the-ear interpretations. Also this time they were clearing my path with their voices. As always, I took seriously the messages of resilience that were sent to me in a variety of ways. I didn't paralyze under narrowing eyes. I lost count of the bizarre episodes that made me transmute illusory expectations. By letting new sights to flow, life has told me some secrets.

One fine day, I dreamed that an unknown woman, with slightly cloudy features, told me that she would be near me, ready to help me on my new journey. I tried to speak, but my voice wouldn't come out. I woke up scared and kept thinking about this dream, because I always believed in messages that came in dreams. I got up still a little bit confused to prepare my coffee, and leaning against the sink, a mug in one hand and a slice of bread and butter in the other, I remembered this woman, as if she were there, beside me, smiling. So I sat down on the couch in the living room, legs propped up on the coffee table, as I enjoyed starting my days. A new journey?

What did that mean? Quiet life, yes, but I lacked nothing. I was living what there was to live at my age, conforming to the limits that were now part of my routine. I had loved, I had been loved, I got married, I had no children, I became a widow, and now I had to distract myself so that time could flow in a pleasant way and that was it.

Then I took the notebook where I cast every day, without any judgment, all the thoughts that came to me and registered the dream. Writing as so, soothed me. I started my energetic gymnastics, in my own way, ending it with meditation, prepared my Bach flowers, read a little, and after that I was ready for my tasks as a lonely woman and the owner of my own fate.

Only that day I was having difficulty leaving the place, this woman would not leave my mind, interrupting my tranquility of the passing of the years. I looked happily at the little plants on the porch, the only living beings I kept at my home, because I thought I couldn't handle dogs anymore, despite loving them. That's life anyway; I resigned myself to my buttons, examining the very well preserved memory, confirming what some old wise men say about being a time for everything.

And my project now, from that young woman with a gypsy, restless and questioning way of the old days, was to read, cook, being with the girls from hydro gymnastics, eventually doing some volunteer work, assistance, trying to spend the time until the end of the downward curve. Hey! Low mood? A little, yes, but I wasn't the one who invented aging, so I used to thought.

I was a little worried about the news I had received a few days ago. The man who