Deep Vein Thrombosis

Our clinic had a band back before 2009. Me and 4 of the nurses. We were into heavy metal. This was when I was working for Port Townsend Family Physicians. The county let me go and PTFP changed their name. Could not have been because we wore our band regalia to work, right? After all, it was Halloween.

Maybe they were afraid that the songs would catch on.

Little blue pill

Don’t code in the waiting room

Evidence based BM

Probiotics make you psychotic

Better that way

Alcohol is better than benzos

Mr. Sable is Unable

Buprenorphine: better n morphine

EMR means Eat My Rear

The 18 Patient Blues

Idaho Gigolo

I played flute and saw. J played fiddle and air siren. The others, well, you should ask them. I think all the tapes got burned by the hospital. Too bad, so sad.

I can’t credit the photographer. I don’t know who took it.

tracery

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tracery.

This is the dream that wakes me this morning. Before I went to sleep last night I asked for a dream. It’s when I am writing the dream out this morning that I realize that it’s my sister’s birthday. She died of cancer in 2012. Memory and dreams as tracery.

I am in a group of people on a platform. It is dark around us. It reminds me of a platform from a ropes course. In the ropes course we had to balance it. A rectangular platform on a log roller, held somewhat at the corners to keep it from dumping us entirely. A group version of a balance board. The trick is really that everyone has to stand still and only one person moves, very small amounts, until it is balanced.

But we are dancing in the dream. We are dancing, but people are uncomfortable. I am not sure why. Perhaps because we were dancing all together but individually and now there is a couple dancing. I realize that people are halting, worried.

I want them to be comfortable. I gesture to an older man. He comes towards me. His wife is there. He and I start dancing but I realize right away that this doesn’t make people more comfortable. They are less comfortable and even the other couple dancing stops. We are lit from above with darkness all around. No spot light follows us, so we move in and out of the light.

As soon as I realize that nearly everyone is uncomfortable, I stop my partner. He is an excellent dancer but that is not what is important here. I move with him back towards his wife and I sit on the platform. They sit as well. The other people around us relax. That is what they want, to sit, to talk quietly, to listen. That is what will make everyone comfortable. The others are settling around us, relieved.

I wake up.

taking turns

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: diametric.

I am trying to think how I’ve seen diametric used other than “diametrically opposed”.

Here are diametric robins. Maybe they are discussing politics. At any rate they are facing opposite ways. Look at how polite they are, taking turns singing and listening to each other speak with such attention. Diametric to our current politics, I think.

all things

I went to a memorial last night, for a singer.

This photograph is from 2015, a memorial sing for my father, who sang in three or more choruses here from 1996 until 2013. Actually he was raised singing and with music. My sister and I were raised singing, too.

My father and the singer we were remembering performed folk songs locally.

We sang last night. I chose a round.

all things shall perish from under the sky
music alone shall live
music alone shall live
music alone shall live
never to die

Here is a version sung in three languages.

With each new loss we remember the old ones: I miss my mother, my father, my sister. The round comforts me: all things shall perish, yet music alone shall live, never to die.



Does the world have a soul? Are we connected to it? If we don’t believe the world has a soul, are we disconnected?Β 

Michael Meade’s latest book is Awakening the Soul: A Deep Response to a Troubled World. He is a mythologist, author and runs Mosaic, a program for veterans. He is a storyteller, usually with a drum. He did the sermon… story… at church Sunday. I wrote this thinking about the soul of the world.

why I’m difficult

deep connection
the soul deep
ocean deep
rift and trench

Beloved
forgive my greed
that is the connection
I want

deep soul connection
to the soul of the world

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https://www.mosaicvoices.org/
https://www.quuf.org/
The story itself: https://www.quuf.org/services/awakening-the-light/

music by Purcell: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67q18Z4QZlU