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Show CHRYSALIS PAGE 175 One P.M. - There is an art gallery across town where I meet Marianne. I walk quickly and quietly past the walls of other people's paintings to hers. At 24, Marianne is an established artist. She paints landscapes, flower arrangements - things that sell. When I first see her I think, What a beautiful sad face! She sits cross-legged on the floor, sorting out tubes of color. She looks like what she is, an artist, a free spirit. She smells of turpentine and linseed oil. There is a smear of green paint on her forehead and another on her chin. She is tall, tawney, delicate all the things I am not and wish I was. But we have these things in common: we both write poetry, and we both have an uncertain future. My question: What do we do with uncertainty? Marianne has an inflammatory disease of the connective tissues called Lupus Erythematosus, a sort of self-allergy. The disease spreads slowly, favors young women, and is almost always fatal. "My body is supposed to give up before I'm forty. That gives me about sixteen more years, if I'm lucky. I've spent the last four years getting a diagnosis. What I have is rare and hard to diagnose. My body just doesn't want to stay connected." She rubs a cleaned paintbrush across a rag and lays it in the box, saying,"My doctors lied to me for a long time. That was the |