Hypochondriac cartoonist writes to her younger self

New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast who grew up as "worried peas in a worried pod", here writes to her nine-year-old self:

"Roz,

You are not going to get leprosy. I promise. Or lockjaw. Again, I promise. Don't ask me how I know. I just do. Those nights you lie in bed feeling that your tongue is suddenly eight time bigger than normal, testing your jaw for stiffness, gulping down saliva repeatedly to gauge if you're having difficulty swallowing - they're over. YOU WILL NOT GET SICK.

I'm not one of those adults who think kids have the best lives. I knew how much the world's traps and dangers burden you. Ever since you learned that Helen Keller sensed the heat of an electrical fire by putting her hands against the wall, you occupy your idle minutes fretting about the wires behind the plaster. Ever since you read how Trixie Belden had to suck the venom out of her brother's foot, you've been keeping a watchful eye out for rattlesnakes on the occasions when you're forced to leave the safety of your family's Brooklyn apartment.

But you're going to be okay. Roz, here's the other thing I want you to know: Being an adult is better than being a kid. You're going to grow up - healthy and whole - and everything you're feeling now is going to be great material for your work."

Poem from December 1997

After the Storm

I go down to the dock

to hear the restful lapping

of waves so recently slapping.

Raging wind has raced into the future

and storm is a remembering.

Hear the insect voices humming.

See the crabs and minnows dart

beneath the willows drooping shelter.

Clouds have past

and left a dome of glass.

Sun does its glittering dance

across the peaceful water

into my eyes it's sparkling.

A Few More Poems

Overhead and Underfoot July 2001

Overhead shifting clouds

metamorph their shapes, then dissipate.

Now the blue has clotted cream swirled through.

Underfoot the grass divides,

light green, bright and warm,

dark green, shady and cool.

Shadows creep toward me,

as earth moves away from the sun.

Between the sky and lawn,

we spend our hurried lives

unaware of changing light.

We live like film, single framed,

lost in our thoughts of things;

clinging to our pain.

Summer in the Park June 30, 2002

Prostrate in the arms of roots,

watching waving branch tips sway
like rippling wheat.

Curled 'round my head- a rooftop wreath,

as if shaved flat by tractor's blade,

hanging on, I'm anchored prone.

Ribcage clouds slash the sky.

Ahead, crows patrol the dappled grass.

Behind, children laugh and run in sun.

The pitch of freeway hums

like surf on sandy shores;

overhead a jet roars.

Mockingbird sings our focus

back to trees and birdsong twitter.

It's summer in the park.