Ring around a rosy, a pocket full of posies...

By the time we reach adulthood, most of us know that the seemingly-nonsensical nursery rhymes of youth were sharp political snipes and sarcastic observations at the time of their composition. We know, for example, that the "ring" or "rosy" was the distinct buboe of bubonic plague, that it was believed that carrying around fresh flowers would help ward off the Plague, that the belongings of a Plague victim would be burned to try to limit the spread of the disease, and that all too many people had succumbed -- and would succumb -- to its horrors.

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When you look at me, what do you see? Do you just see the physical girl standing in front of you? Or do the emotions, the spirituality, the thoughts creep through as well?

When I look in the mirror, I see that I'm tall for a girl. I see that I have my father's blue eyes and the Guerin nose. I also see that my mother's side of the family shows through with the curve of my hips. When I look at me, I see my family staring back at me. Each part of my body comes from the genetics behind me. The resemblance in facial structure to my middle brother...the same fair skin of my mom and oldest brother...the small wrists that are present in all three siblings.

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