The goddesses who have sought me out are so different from me. Bast and Inanna both are goddesses of love, of sensuality and sexuality, of hot desert days and cold desert nights. What do these aspects mean for me, the one who guards her body like a sealed tomb and yearns always for the rain? You’d think such deities would want nothing to do with someone like me. The desert calls to me but it’s not a place in which my soul could take root. I can find pleasure in flesh but it never feels completely effortless. I feel the urge to sing and dance but can barely even bring myself to do them when I’m alone. These goddesses are both so unbridled, so unashamed, so free! I envy them the nerve to waltz into the Underworld, the ferocity to tear down their enemies, the confidence to embrace love in all its forms. I envy their self-assurance and ease in their immortal bodies. It’s hard to imagine either could ever be afraid or weary or uncertain. Do they realize they’ve picked some anxious little asexual girl with absolutely no rhythm who overheats when the temperature tops sixty-five degrees? I want to make them proud, I do. I just wonder how such goddesses could ever be proud of having someone like me as a follower.