Category Archives: 7 sins and friends

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Reconcile

I have been thinking about family a lot this week. My mother’s family has been gossiping about me now for a decade and not one of them has ever talked to me directly about my father’s will. They have a story. They never checked it. It stars me as a villain. They seem to think I controlled attorneys, which is laughable.

I forgive them.

However, I think a decade is enough. I forgive them but I no longer want to reconcile. For ten years I hoped that they would talk to me. I have asked them to, more than one person, more than once. They say that they want to believe what they want to believe. I offered to send copies of bank statements to back up what I said. No. And a cousin silenced me by saying, “Don’t make me hate my sister.” The message is that I can be part of the family for some of them, as long as I remain silent as a tomb on this topic.

No. I won’t. And it’s just like all the silencing that goes on over the world. People say they would not stand by while someone is hurt, but my family sure seems to enjoy having me be the silenced gossiped about villain. I am sick of it. They can go to where ever it is that karma will take them: gossip, after all, is a sin.

And so I am reconciled. I am reconciled after a decade to adding these people to my list of dead. Our friendship is dead, my family feeling towards them is dead, I am not asking or waiting or hoping any more.

Forgiveness is a solo job. We forgive others.

Forgiveness is NOT reconciliation. You should not take an abuser back. You should not let someone treat you badly and refuse to listen to you and refuse to apologize. I know one person whose apologies run something like “I am sorry that you took offense to what I said/did.” Um. That is not an apology. That is putting it on me, it’s my fault for taking offense. The person has no intention of changing and does not actually care how I feel. I am not okay with that. The person is forgiven but there has not been a reconciliation.

With my maternal family, I am letting it go. I would like there to be more peace in the world but as long as people cling to having villains, to believing gossip, to perpetuating gossip and hatred and meanness, I do not think we will have peace in the world.

But in letting this go, I have peace in my heart.

Peace you and please peace me.

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Paths

I am reinventing myself now. After my fourth pneumonia, oxygen continuously for a year and now my fifth pulmonologist since 2012. He did not have much to offer. An inhaler but “We can’t be sure that it will keep you from getting pneumonia.”

Well. So with ME-CFS, myalgic encephalopathy chronic fatigue syndrome, now what?

I am at a fork in the path. At least three forks.

  1. Try to do a micropractice, working with Long Covid people. Who either wear masks or I do not see them. I would have to convince the hospital district that it needs me.
  2. Write. I am doing that, but really focus on it and work on publishing. I have so much art from my mother. She did not really enjoy selling it though she loved having shows and would dress up.
  3. I could focus on publicizing and selling my mother’s art.
  4. There is a trunk from my grandfather. I could focus on that. He states that he wants it published. Grandfather, you were a piece of work.
  5. I could just lie around and travel and play with the cats and make music.
  6. Focus on music. I have written a number of songs. Apparently being hypoxic makes me write songs. I think they are peculiar and wonderful too. Flute, voice, guitar, piano, bass. Hmmmm.
  7. Something else. Who knows what will appear? I am doing art too, the two large sculptural pieces in my yard. A fellow doctor scolded me about one. It’s the one with a logging chain and an oxygen tank, attached to a tree. The title is “Tethered”. Now, why would a local doctor object to that? I have some small pieces too that involve found objects and especially feathers and small stemmed glassware.

Many forks! Now I just need more spoons of energy!

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: reinvent.

The photograph was taken in September 2021. Where is the path? I got to hear Jonathan Doyle last night, with George Radabaugh on piano. FABULOUS!

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mad bad sad

I am not good at stopping loving people, because I kept losing people as a very small child. I wanted to be loved and have people stay. So how to deal with people who leave now? Well, I talk to my dead in my head all the time, so if I think of the person as dead, then I can just continue on. The friendship is certainly dead, love or not.

I am also thinking about poetry forms. I am enjoying writing sonnets, but after all, I’ve written limericks and haiku for years. Not to mention enjoying the brilliant rhymes of Dr. Suess.

mad bad sad

You are dead and I am glad
It makes me sad that I am glad
that you are dead you make me mad
when you are bad and make me sad
as well as mad you sad bad dad
not my dad who was bad as well
except when good as I can tell
bad angels fell but there’s no hell
hells angels tell that heaven’s swell
and you are dead and I am glad
it makes me sad that I am glad
that you are dead makes me so mad
you were bad and made me sad
as well as mad you sad dead dad

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Yammer

You’ve joined my silent dead: doesn’t matter
whether you speak or not. You’d like this song
and be jealous of the skills. I yammer
to my dead, the number rising strong.
At sixty I declare that I am middle aged
Mom dies at sixty-one which feels unfair.
My sister dies at forty-nine, cancer rage.
I watched them both as chemo takes their hair.
You too are dead no words across the breach.
I yammer to you daily in my head.
Agates gleam, treasure on the beach.
You refuse to look, I mourn that you act dead.
You sit stubborn in a rocking chair alone.
You don’t believe your dead will call you home.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: yammer.

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sonnet 3

I have neither roots nor wings nor love.
I lie: friends gather round to talk each day.
The early dark slides over from above.
No one to warm my bed, for no one stays.
The dark creeps up a sickening horrid thief.
I have no heart to stay awake at night.
It’s barely five; why this flood of grief?
It’s only in the morning I’m alight
before the morning is even close to dawn.
Wide awake I clamber from my bed.
I stretch, the teapot sings and I just yawn
and wonder why the night brings on such dread.
I tell my friends that now I’ll date a tree.
He never leaves and he will stay with me.

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: roots.

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Integrated behavioral health

The buzzwords now in Family Medicine. Integrated behavioral health in primary care. I am finding it a bit annoying.

Integrated does not mean race in this context. It just means the clinic should have a behavioral health person.

I suppose that is a good idea maybe, or might seem like one. But what do they think I have been doing for thirty years? Ignoring behavioral health?

Really, primary care is half or more behavioral health, if a primary care doctor gives people time and pays attention. People have an average of 8 colds a year. Why do they come in for cold number 4 if it is no worse than all the others? Because the cold in not really why they are coming in. The cold is the excuse. Notice that the person is there, that they are not that sick, that they do not care that you are not going to prescribe antibiotics.

I have my hand reaching for the door when an older patient says, “May I ask you something?” She came in for something that she didn’t seem to care about, so I am not surprised. I turn back. “Yes.”

“I have friends, in another state. They had a baby. The baby is very disabled.”

I sit down. This is more than 15 years ago, so I do not remember what the baby had. Hydrocephalus. Cerebral palsy. Something that requires multiple doctors and physical therapy and the parents are grieving.

“What bothers me most is that they have to struggle so much for services. There is very little support and very little money set aside. One of the parents has quit their job. It is a full time job taking care of this child and they are frightened about the future. Is this really what it’s like?”

And that is the real reason for the visit. “Yes,” I say. “It can be very difficult to access services, you have to track down the best people in your area, some physicians won’t pay much attention and others are wonderful. And the same with physical therapists and everyone else. Tell them to find some of the other parents of these children. Get them to recommend people. And the parents have to be sure to take care of themselves and each other.”

She frowns. “It’s a nightmare. Their life completely changed from what they thought. First baby. And it is overwhelming.”

“I am sorry. You are welcome to come back and ask me questions or just talk.”

“Thank you. I might.”

“Do you need a counselor?”

“No, I’m fine. I am just worried about them and feel helpless.”

“It sounds like staying in touch is the best thing you can do.”

“Ok.”

The true reason for the visit is often something entirely different from what the schedule says. Sometimes people are there without even knowing why they came in. “Can I ask a question?” That is key. Saying to see people for one thing is criminal and terrible medicine and makes behavioral health worse. There is so much we can do in primary care just by listening for these questions and making time for them.

I have nothing against adding a behavioral health person to the clinic. They talked about “embedding” a behavioral health person in each group of soldiers back in 2010, when I worked at Madigan Army Hospital for three months. I always pictured digging a hole in my clinic floor, capturing a counselor, and then cementing them in the hole. I would have to feed them, though. I always thought that was sort of a barrier. One more mouth to feed. I found it more useful to contact counselors, ask what they wanted to work with, learn who knew addiction medicine, learn who was good with children or families or trauma. And ask patients to tell me who they liked and why. I integrated behavioral health in my community, not just in my clinic, because there is no one counselor who is right for everyone.

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Caramel

Warm and tan and sweet

but you don’t like sticky, heh.

I buy gummi bears and forget to bring them
over and over for months
forget to bring them to the beach.
When you teach me
how to find chalcedony nodules
clear agates that let the light through,
you say, “They look like gummi bears,”
and you are right.

In the early morning when the tide is low
and the sun is low too
angled and polarized light
the nodules, agates we call them
light up like stars, catching the sun.
Sometimes I see one just after you
and you are diving down to get it
and I am too late again

You find three to my one
The gummi bears are a bit hard
when I finally bring them along
I choose a red one, the small kind
tuck it between two fingers
when you aren’t looking
I’ve gotten my fingers a little wet first
so it will light up
the same way as the agates
I wait until we’re a yard apart
and you aren’t looking at me.
I jump forward and reach for the sand
“Look at this one! So red!”
You move towards me and I flash it.
“Almost bear shaped!” I say
and drop it in your hand.
Your face changes from envious
of the clear red to mildly horrified:
“Sticky!” you say, and shake it off your hand.
I laugh and pop a yellow gummi bear in my mouth
and you are laughing too
and shake your head.
“I don’t want one!”
“Got you!” I say.
“Yes,” you say, “You did.”

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For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: caramel.

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Living together

Lichen are a lifeform formed from algae and fungi, which is amazing. Apparently they join forces when they can’t survive on their own and form a different creature. And it’s not just one kind of algae or one kind of fungi, but lots of them! I am reading Entangled Life: How fungi make our worlds, change our minds and shape our futures, by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s really quite amazing. I love science, it opens up the world!

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: lichen.

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Sterling

Mary and Nissa are at the fundraiser. Only $100 each!

“I am the man for the job,” says Joe. He is elegant in a suit and tie and crisp white shirt. “I don’t lie. I don’t break laws. I don’t even speed! I am a man of sterling character!”

Mary and Nissa enjoy the fundraiser very much. Nissa is driving Mary home afterwards.

“He’s so wonderful! And that meal! Did you see all the silver? He is the man for the job!”

Nissa turns the car into Mary’s driveway. She turns the car off and looks at Mary.

“What?” says Mary.

Nissa pulls a spoon out of her pocket.

“You stole a silver spoon?” says Mary, appalled.

Nissa breaks it in half. It splinters.

“Wood. With silver paint. Don’t be fooled, Mary.” Nissa hands Mary the two wooden halves and Mary stares at them. Nissa gets out to help Mary in to the house.

After she is situated, walker within reach, Mary says, “I may rethink that donation I was going to make. Thank you for coming with me, Nissa.”

Nissa smiles. “You are welcome. Thank you for taking me.”

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The woman in the picture is new to my home. She has a tag that reads “Chubby Purple Mama”. She was made by an artist in town, Karen Renee Page, who died in September. Many dolls were given for a fundraiser. This doll has crystals and a piece of wood in her belly. Without them she is not balanced. I added one of the chalcedony nodules that I find here on the beach.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: sterling.