Tag Archives: Blogging from A to Z Challenge

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feeling, farm, friends

My theme is happy things: feeling, farm and friend.

Feelings: I find our culture a bit bipolar about feelings. Love and friendship and joy are celebrated and other feelings are labelled “negative”. Grief, fear, anger, basic  grumpiness. I see posts about staying away from “toxic” people and away from people that are “downers”. But we all experience all of these feelings. Feelings are as important as thoughts. Feelings are quicker that thought, hormonal and electrical information in brain and body: we pull the finger out of the candle lightning fast, we jump out of the way of the swerving car, we feel the cascade of fear if someone is following us at night. The feeling is not always correct — we may feel threat from someone who is not threatening us.

In high school my daughter said that most of the arguments she noticed were someone saying something not well thought out or offhand as they left. It is misinterpreted, stewed over, discussed with other people and then  the person who felt that it was “at” or “about” them will react. The first person is shocked and doesn’t even remember or understand the trigger. Misunderstandings all the way.  We have to step back from feelings and have the courage to be vulnerable and ask, “What did you mean when you said that?” We all get grown up and over that after high school… well, I try.

Farm: I got my first local CSA box on Wednesday, lovely vegetables straight from the farm and tulips! I get an email each week and often with recipes.  I love my CSA box. I eat more vegetables too, because I don’t like to throw them out.

Friends: My  friends give me  such joy! I have an email this morning from friends in Berlin, Germany! I have not seen them for more that a decade but they are coming to visit this summer! What absolute joy!

And may your day be joyous too!

F

Another photograph from Hawaii, my friend Patrick and one of the lovely green turtles. For scale….  

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Big D, little d, what begins with D?

Happy things starting with D:

Discrimination, death, delight.

I am happy that slowly, slowly, it feels as if there is change in the world and a decrease in discrimination. It is NOT gone by any means, but I think it is slowly being eroded.

My parents had a party when I was two and they were both in college. The party was raided in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1963 and my father was taken to jail. My mother and I were left alone and she was afraid we would be lynched by the neighbors. The next morning the paper wrote about a MIXED RACE COLLEGE STUDENT PARTY possibly with orgies. My parents were both suspended from the University of Tennessee.

They were both reinstated after a hearing, because there were no drugs, no underage drinkers, and it was not illegal to have a mixed race party. My parents never touched marijuana ever and I think it was because of that party. I don’t remember it, but I still feel cautious at parties and in crowds. My mother refused to return to the U. of TN and eventually finished her undergraduate degree at Cornell. My parents were so notorious that we left Knoxville as soon as my father graduated.

I grew up learning protest songs and work songs and joke songs. My mother joked about the party and it was years before I found out how terrifying it was. My mother joked that they sat at the one liberal table at the University of Tennessee. I hate discrimination and I do not understand it.

Death: is death a happy thing? Death is as much a mystery as life, and we cannot have one without the other. How could we value life if it were eternal? And we’d also get awfully crowded. I have the privilege of caring for all ages in clinic, all genders, any race that comes in the door, age newborn to 104, what joy! I get to be present when someone is dying and try to help the person and the family. There is no single idea about death or about how to “do it right” and often families struggle with multiple opinions and ideas and feelings. Death is as intense as birth and I have had the privilege to attend both.

Delight: there are many things that I find difficult and depressing, but I find delight too! The latest morbidity and mortality report from the CDC on overdose deaths, up from 52K in the US in 2015 to 62K in the US in 2016: Overdose deaths involving opioids, cocaine and psychostimulents — United States, 2015-2016. We have to work harder to prevent addiction, why do we choose addictive substances, why do people think it won’t happen to THEM?

And yet, I still find delight, taking photographs of bird, seeing patients that I know well in clinic, we laugh often, finding joy walking outside, my family and friends.

D

The photograph is from Mauna Loa last week. It is not a giant dinosaur nest, it’s a cinder cone. At least, that’s what a geologist claims….

 

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Croon

Blogging from A to Z, my theme is happy things.

Three happy things with C:

My daughter was home from college this weekend. Something came up about dealing with feeling tired or stressed. “I get cuddles when I feel that way, ” she says. I looked at her. “I’m not sure my office manager would go for that,” I say. “Oh,” says my daughter, “True. That might be sexual harassment.” “It would be a bit weird on a job description, wouldn’t it?” “Yes.”

At any rate, cuddles, appropriate cuddles, are certainly a happy thing for both me and my daughter. She is in college and has a great group of housemates and friends.

Second happy C word: cry.

How can crying be happy? The capacity to cry, I am grateful for that. I am grateful that I can feel love, feel vulnerable, feel loss, feel. How can we love without mourning and how can we mourn without crying? And tears release our grief. The worst grief for me is when I need to cry and feel locked, that I can’t cry, that it hurts so much the tears won’t come. I cry over patients, even expected deaths at 104. And I am glad that I am able to cry.

Third C word: croon.

I am not thinking of the “crooners”. I am thinking about lullabies and the poem Moon Song, by Mildred Plew Meigs:

Zoon, zoon, cuddle and croon–
Over the crinkling sea,
The moon man flings him a silvered net
Fashioned of moonbeams three.

The rest is here: http://wenaus.com/poetry/moonsong.html.

I am thinking of mothers and fathers crooning to babies as they slide into sleep….

The photograph is at 9000 feet up on Mauna Kea last week, the moon as night is falling.

C

 

 

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birds, beauty, brains

Three happy things today: Birds!

Not a great photograph, right? I like it, partly because it was such a challenge. Still on the big island of Hawaii, we spot two very small birds building a nest. I am zoomed all the way in and holding the camera up to catch a glimpse when one flies in. They are very quick and there is lots of greenery in the way!

I am happy about brains. No, I am not a zombie, I don’t eat them, I just like that my work engages my mind. I learn new things daily from patients, from specialists, from looking up engaging questions! Medicine is changing continuously and I am grateful to be part of it.  (Ok, I am not grateful that insurance companies are increasing prior authorization exponentially.)

I am happy about beauty. Here is another glimpse of our small nest builders and we think we’ve identified them.

DSCN1723.JPG

I think that this is a common waxbill, also not a native bird. Either that or a black-rumped waxbill but neither of us got a good shot of the back. Hooray for spring and nests.

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admire

Three happy things for the letter A:

I am thinking of the women I admire, whose names start with A. Anne, Amelia, Azula, Artemis, Adele.

They run businesses, work at the post office, make gorgeous hats, teach dogs and their owners, work in healing.

I am so happy I have so many women, whose names start with A, who I admire!

That is two happy things: the third is the abstract photograph and abstract art, that encourages me to dream.

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Happy things

This is for the Blogging from A to Z theme reveal:

I choose my theme today: Happy things.

When we first moved to Port Townsend, my mother had recurrent of ovarian cancer. My husband was very unhappy and my son had to switch schools in January, leaving a teacher that he loved in Colorado and all his friends. I was working and finding learning all the new phone numbers, specialists, acronyms and patients difficult.

After a while, I instituted Happy Things. At bedtime I told my son that we each had to say three happy things.

“But mom,” said my son. “I am not happy.”

“Well,” I said, “They don’t have to be very happy.”

“What do you mean?” he said.

“Just a little happy. Like, only three patients cried today and not four. No one died today in my clinic. I didn’t forget my lunch like yesterday.”

He thought about it. “We didn’t have the awful pizza at lunch today.”

“Good job! What else?”

“I only got yelled at by the teacher twice.”

“Great! How about the other kids?”

“I only got hit on the playground once.”

“Good job. Yeah, stuff like that. A meteor didn’t hit the school and destroy everyone.”

“I’d get out of school then.”

“If you survived.”

So we did happy things every night and sometimes they were very dark and gradually they got better. I will do happy things from A to Z and some days they may only be a little happy….

The rat is for my son. He has pet rats. This rat is loose on Hawaii, which is not a happy thing for the native birds, but I think the rat may be happy. It came down the tree and was then holding very still, trying to convince us that we couldn’t see it. Be careful, rat, because we saw a mongoose there too.

For the Daily Prompt: toxic. Is the rat toxic? An immigrant? I would immigrate if I had to, so how can I scorn others who do?

It is a small picture, because I had my phone zoomed all the way in. Hello, rat. We see you.

 

 

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zoned

Blogging from A to Z, the letter Z.

Virtues and views and changes in the definition of feelings over time.

Yesterday we hiked from North Beach towards Cape George and walked 2/3 of the way. My phone welcomed me to Canada! We were not in Canada, but I think the Vancouver Island cell towers took over.

We were paralleled by a sailboat race. The very low tide was at 1:00 pm, so there were other hikers, picking up the beach glass. I found my first marble! There was a marble factory and you can still find the marbles, some perfect, on glass beach. I gave mine to my friend and then he found a cat’s eye and gave it to me.

The sailboats were going with the tide with the wind behind them and spinnakers up! Not in my photograph, at that point they were dipping south of Protection Island. We started back a little before 1:00 and watched the tide turn. The sailboats returned as well.

What does zoned mean to you? The sailboats were in the zone, with the wind behind and the tide helping. A long race and beautiful…..and this is my last letter for the A to Z.

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yielding

Y for yielding in Blogging from A to Z.

Again, the definition changes, from Webster 1913 to the present.

Webster 1913: yielding

Inclined to give way, or comply; flexible; compliant; accommodating; as, a yielding temper.

Yielding and paying Law, the initial words of that clause in leases in which the rent to be paid by the lessee is mentioned and reserved. Burrill.

Syn. — Obsequious; attentive. — Yielding, Obsequious, Attentive. In many cases a man may be attentive or yielding in a high degree without any sacrifice of his dignity; but he who is obsequious seeks to gain favor by excessive and mean compliances for some selfish end.

— Yield”ing*ly, adv. — Yield”ing*ness, n.

Dictionary.com is different:

adjective

1. inclined to give in; submissive; compliant:
a timid, yielding man.

2. tending to give way, especially under pressure; flexible; supple; pliable:
a yielding mattress.

3. (of a crop, soil, etc.) producing a yield; productive.

Crop yields are important! But is compliance or giving in, a feeling of yielding, something I am comfortable with? What about yielding to love or to grief or to joy?

Today’s poem:

yield

I am yielding to my family
to no more contact

though I think they see me
as stubborn angry argumentative

they do not love me as I am
they want a different person

who acceeds and yields to their ideals
I am the villain who won’t yield

and yet I yield
I send them love

I send them joy and peace
one said if you make me choose

I won’t choose you
pressure, sorrow, grief

acceptance: I will miss them
I do not know if they

miss me

 

I took the photograph at the Women’s March in Port Townsend. When should we yield? When should we fight? When should we reach out for mutual understanding?

 

 

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xerotic

The letter X in Blogging from A to Z.

X for xerotic, which means x-rated erotic…

No, just kidding. Xerotic means very very dry skin or dry eyes and it’s a medical term. We do have xerosis as a medical term. As we get older our skin gets drier. One of my dermatologist friends says that we lose our bubble wrap: the layer of fat padding the skin thins until our hands bruise with normal daily activity.

Have you felt xerotic? This has been a long week in clinic and I am feeling tired and sad for some of my patients. My spring of ideas for healing is dry at the moment and I need to rest. I am going on a beach walk today. I need healing too, to be at an oasis, to be nurtured and cared for. Maybe xerotic is not used that way but it could be.

Two more letters and one more day.

I took the photograph on a hike at Joshua Tree in 2009.

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wisdom

W for wisdom in Blogging from A to Z, Virtues and views.

Wisdom is the last of the four cardinal virtues held in high esteem by the Greeks and Romans, along with prudence, temperance and fortitude. These were joined with the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity to make Seven. That list differs from the list to balance the 7 Sins. And I am more interested in the emotions then whether they are virtues or sins.

I am thinking about wisdom and what it means to me, and whether I feel wise. I have knowledge and information that I can access in my memory in clinic. Does that make me feel wise? It isn’t the amount of information that defines wisdom for me: it is whether I can communicate with my patient in a way that is mutually beneficial. Do I understand their goals and their questions and is my information or style of imparting it useful to them? Does it improve their health? Sometimes understanding what the question is or what lies behind it is more important than medicine.

And again, there is a change from Webster 1913 to the present Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com writes about scholarly information or wise sayings. Webster 1913 talks about the use of knowledge and wise judgements. It is not the amount of knowledge but the ability to communicate and make use of it. To me wisdom is closer to Webster 1913 than to the present definition on Dictionary.com.

From Webster 1913 on everything2.com, wisdom:

1. The quality of being wise; knowledge, and the capacity to make due use of it; knowledge of the best ends and the best means; discernment and judgment; discretion; sagacity; skill; dexterity.

We speak also not in wise words of man’s wisdom, but in the doctrine of the spirit. Wyclif (1 Cor. ii. 13).

Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding. Job xxviii. 28.

It is hoped that our rulers will act with dignity and wisdom that they will yield everything to reason, and refuse everything to force. Ames.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. Coleridge.

2. The results of wise judgments; scientific or practical truth; acquired knowledge; erudition.

Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds. Acts vii. 22.

From Dictionary.com

noun
1. the quality or state of being wise; knowledge of what is true or right coupled with just judgment as to action; sagacity, discernment, or insight.
2. scholarly knowledge or learning:
the wisdom of the schools.
3. wise sayings or teachings; precepts.
4. a wise act or saying.
5. (initial capital letter) Douay Bible. Wisdom of Solomon.

I am submitting the photograph to Thursday Doors. I took this in my neighborhood yesterday. I did not even see the door until I looked at the result….