The Queens
are Coming...

This was a title I had thought of many times if ever I were to write something. I took a deep breath and just sat for a second with my pen hovering on the first line. The story began itself, Athena hugged the wall as she took the grey painted stairs one at a time. An hour later, my pen stopped. I got up and went to work. The next day, my eyes opened at 4 am and the process repeated itself. This happened daily. I had a lot of resistance putting down a story that I quickly recognized was something based on my life. I was Athena. I didn’t want to relive it much less share it with anyone. But the voice was relentless and writing was the only remedy. I promised myself that I would commit to writing the story to completion. I wrote from 4 am to 5 am every single day for 15 months. It took 9 more months to dictate and type the journals into the computer. What I thought was one long book in four parts was actually four books. The books are not a memoir, nor are they entirely fictitious. My understanding is that they are a story, which is the best way that people know to pass information along. The books are about love. What happens when a human being suffers trauma as a child? When we are raised in a racist, classist and sexist society? We learn to adopt the warped meaning of the word “love” and live with the fear and anxiety that exists in us without an example or understandings of what love really is. Athena is flawed - but she means well. The books fly in the face of “cancel culture”. The past simply strings together the beads of the present into a creation. When you see the bracelet, you can turn it around but you can’t just cut one of the beads out. Together, they make the whole possible. Such are the moments in a life, the steps in our journey. They just are. I don’t want to give away the ending! I hope you can relate to Athena, her longing for love and her search for acceptance. The books are a modern day love story. The voice speaks for love, and speaks to all of us, through us. We are one and my deepest prayer is that everyone stands and basks in the light that they house inside of themselves. Peace to all. Sonia