Category Archives: love

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Home

This is not a perfect photograph…. and yet, at the same time, it is for me. My daughter was home last week for spring break. She had a haircut and sent her hair to Locks of Love. The background is cluttered with the cupboard open and counter, but her concentration and quiet is a contrast to that. And anyhow, I am biased, right? We love even terrible photos of those we love.

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Lessons in letting go

It interests me
this letting go

done at the height of vulnerability
or perhaps these are depths

why would a friend walk away
when I cry

when I have lost a financial battle

and in the past
the weekend my sister died

friends come
friends go

do not take it to heart
when they go

I am not lying to myself
that this person loved me

and left when I was in the blue deeps
left me additionally shattered by going

they tell themselves and others
too emotional too dark too dramatic

and I am startled out of my grief
to more grief loss

death is final
but I can talk to the dead

when the living have left
there is a gaping wound

Beloved comforts me
and it is not about me

they tell themselves and others
but they are running from their own

depths, grief, emotion, darkness
they cannot stand by me in darkness

I forgive again
and I am content

alone with the Beloved
in the depths

and there is such beauty here
if my friends were still friends

I could show them the pearls
in these deeps

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Work place

Mostly I post photographs from outdoors, but this is clinic Friday afternoon. Mordecai took off her feather boa, wig and headdress and came into the exam room to add to a visual discussion about the sacroiliac joints. Mordecai is a plastic skeleton and her sacroiliac joints are attached incorrectly but conveniently for the sellers. After all, her bones don’t have the weight of a real skeleton nor does she have tendons or muscles or skin to connect everything. She is sitting beside my Netter Atlas of Human Anatomy, which I use in clinic every day. To show the knee ligaments and menisci, to show the back muscles, to show the connections of the psoas muscle….

Many thanks to Dr. Netter’s brilliant paintings and also to Mordecai for their help!

 

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Blueblack

Here is Boa, in my kitchen, black with blue highlights. She used to sit in front of the vents when the 1979 propane furnace worked. Now I have a heat pump, high on the wall in the kitchen. The closest she can sit is up on the two chairs that tuck in the end of the counter. She is 12 years old and less interested in going outside this cold winter. She misses the kids and the other cat, who was hit by a car three years ago. She likes it when the kids come home, and when they leave again, she is a little bit blue…..

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Sanctuary

I sent Valentine messages and photographs to my young adult children yesterday and their father’s parents, who are in their 90s. I got messages back: a lovely Valentine.

Last Saturday was sunny and I hung a chair in the tree house at the right height to look at the windows. It warms inside in the sun fairly quickly. The tree is just starting to bud. It was cosy and delicious to sit and read and look at roof tops. A sanctuary.

Prayers for everyone who is trying to find safety and sanctuary and peace…..

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walls fall down

small beloved that I love
with my small body and soul
come in the yard and play with me
walls fall down

big Beloved that I love
that is all inside and out
come outside and play with me
walls fall down

small beloved that I love
you don’t love me back
I will love you anyhow
walls fall down

big Beloved that I love
loves me back no matter what
my heart opens like a door
walls fall down

small beloved that I love
blessings on your life
I will long to see your face
walls fall down

big Beloved that I love
let all walk in peace
loving kindness, safe and free
walls fall down

 

I took the photograph in Portland, Oregon. Walls… but this wall is around a school that is being rebuilt and the fence is to keep people out of the construction site, safe, and to protect the machinery and supplies for the repair. How do we balance safety and freedom, growth and kindness?

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Vital signs II

Pain is not a vital sign anymore, as I described in yesterday’s post. I wrote this poem in 2006, about painΒ  being the fifth vital sign. I disagreed.

Vital signs II

Pain
Is now a vital sign
On a scale of 1:10
What is your pain?
The nurses document
Every shift

Why isn’t joy
a vital sign?

In the hospital
we do see joy

and pain

I want feeling cared for
to be a vital sign

My initial thought
is that it isn’t
because we can’t treat it

But that isn’t true

I have been brainwashed

We can’t treat it
with drugs

We measure pain
and are told to treat it
helpful pamphlets
sponsored by the pharmaceutical companies
have articles
from experts

Pain is under treated
by primary care
in the hospital
and there are all
these helpful medicines

I find
in my practice
that much of the pain
I see
cannot be treated
with narcotics
and responds better
to my ear

To have someone
really listen
and be curious
and be present
when the person
speaks

If feeling cared for
were a vital sign
imagine

Some people
I think
have almost never felt cared for
in their lives

They might say
I feel cared for 2 on a scale of 10

And what could the nurses do?

No pills to fix the problem

But perhaps
if that question
were followed by another

Is there anything we can do
to make you feel more cared for?

I wonder
if asking the question
is all we need

first draft 5/20/06

I took the photograph Friday afternoon from the beach: two fronts were meeting. What is that like in the sky? Do they fight or welcome each other?