Myra Ramirez, brought her knees close to her chin and hugged herself tightly, bowing her head as the wave of anxiety fell on her for the eleventh time, a thrilling force, which prevented her peaceful rest for several nights. She has been feeling this way for months and all her life she has not understood why. She slowly bent down, closed her eyes, and took a deep breath to calm herself, as she had learned to do for her meditation. Slow breathing.
She sat in the middle of her bed in the darkness of her large room. The wind whistled through the bare branches outside, scratching softly and creating a rhythmic “tick, tick” in the window behind her. She was set, rocking, for a long moment before finally opening her eyes and raising her chin to her knees, her efforts finally fixing her confused nerves.