Tag Archives: home

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One fell out

This is not as static as it looks in the still photograph. Not at all! This is a happening rock!

There were ten in the bed and the little one said “Roll over! Roll over!”
So they all rolled over and one fell out

There were eight in the bed and the little one said, “Roll over, roll over!”
So they all rolled over and some fell out,

There were three on the rock and the big one said, “Roll over, roll over!”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.

There were two on the rock and the big one said, “The tide is coming in, and we are going to swim.”

These were taken in May of 2023 from Marrowstone Island and the order is reversed. As the tide goes out the island appears and the seals start hopping out to rest, digest and enjoy the sun.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: argument.

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Slick

Careful, careful! That seaweed can be slick as snot and hiding a squelching tide pool. Not so deep that you fall in, but you may fall down and ouch! The rocks and barnacles are not soft.

Along North Beach, on the Olympic Peninsula.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: squelch.

Early morning light on the water.

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Touch

Think of the things the thumb and fingers have built
Hunt and home and hearth and healing and hearts
The eyes to look, the brain to decide, down the body tilts
This is the stone I choose to pick up, and toss, or collecting starts.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: thumb.

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Missing water

I miss my Salish Sea. At home I can’t see it from my house, but stand in the middle of my street and there it is.

All that water. There are mountains here and trees, but they are very different. Here it is high desert, 4600 feet and up. The Grand Valley is at 4600 feet and the mesas rise from here. I miss Port Townsend Bay, and the big trees.

Gold sky and blue water. Look! A grebe! Catching breakfast!

A pair.

And they dive.

Gone.

They are small on the big water.

Taken in November, 2018.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: contemplation.

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Wild

I keep wondering at the stubborn part of me that will not let go.
 That wants to reconcile with all, no matter what they’ve done.
 I go inside, deep and deeper, in the depths all is slow.
 That part is the holy part that longs for the One.
 I have been told to let go of things, forget, no more longing.
 But the longing is a sacred place, a longing for the Beloved.
 I think that excising it would be a horrid evil wronging.
 Handle gently, with care, with love, and gently gloved.
 I meet someone who says, “You are very in touch with your inner child.”
 I know it’s not a compliment, I smile and pay little mind.
 My Child is my connection to the Beloved, fierce and mild.
 Jealous judging rolls right off, people can be unkind.
 I won’t excise the holy core, the Beloved inner child.
 I feel the Beloved’s laughing play and joy, heart running wild.

_________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: realize.

https://www.playingforchange.com/videos/words-of-wonder-get-up-stand-up-song-around-the-world

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All of my patients are smart 3

Human behavior doesn’t surprise me, really. Sometimes it disappoints, depresses, demeans, dispirits and demoralizes. And it’s not the patients. It is the corporate workplace and how it abuses people. And circles the wagons against a threat. Including against employees that it views as threats.

I think all of my patients are smart. “You got this,” I say. I explain what carbohydrates are and that they are in everything, practically, except meat and oil. And some meats have carbohydrates too: shrimp, for example. But my patients can figure this out! My patients rise to the occasion! I am not saying that they do smart things all the time. No one does, including me. Even the smartest ones can do things that are not a good idea or are a really bad idea. Growing up in an addiction household, I think I escaped addiction mostly because I had decided that no adults could be trusted by the time I was three. I thought they loved me but I couldn’t trust them not to give me to someone else. Ironic, that the distrust saved me from taking the same path. My sister took it and is gone. My patients are smart and all I have to do is share my education and experience! They take the ball and run with it! Not all. Sometimes it’s too late and everyone dies eventually.

Corporations, on the other hand, are infuriatingly stupid.

The photograph is me in 2015, sailing my father’s boat with my daughter, in Port Townsend Bay.

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Something

Something is happening all around me
Something unpleasant is creeping around
I trust that feeling, that core that is free
I go quiet and listen, I will stand my ground
I am told no problem, this is routine
Nothing to worry about, averting their eyes
Lay down and be walked on, take it for the team
Blind-sided, I walk through a jungle of lies.
I walk very slowly then take to the trees.
I swing on a vine past the river of tears.
Wave to the gators with teeth to eat me,
Routine bad treatment not surprising nor feared.
In the treetops I sing to the stars quite alone
I am happy and making my quiet way home.

Suddenly I am thinking about home. Travel does that sometimes.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: travel.

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Fit, function and frustration

The clinic that I have been in now since a week or two in July is an older clinic. It does not have wall mounted computers in each room and in fact, there is no desk at all in the exam rooms. As the temp, the other two doctors have priority over me in picking their rooms. I do not like the exam table in one room. It isn’t a regular exam table. It turns out to be a table for a DO to do adjustments. I am an MD, not a DO. The table might get switched out but it has not been yet.

Meanwhile the desk. We have laptops that plug into the desktop in the offices that we each share with a medical assistant. The desktops have a standard keyboard. The laptops are small, and my laptop that I am typing on now is in between the two. At first my fingers had trouble switching between three different keyboard sizes. Now it is pretty automatic.

So, no desk in the exam room. I do most of my note in the room and don’t dictate. I type reasonably fast. But I hate a laptop on my lap and anyhow, we are all sitting too much, so I stole one of the two Mayo trays from the procedure room. Mayo trays have adjustable height, are stainless steel so they can be cleaned after surgery, and they are a pretty good desk for a laptop. I choose to stand while typing in room one.

Next it turns out to be inconvenient to drag the Mayo tray back and forth from room one to room two. I am leaving it in room one. Room two has a standard exam table, so I pull out the “pull out leg rest” (yes, I looked up the name), push the step in and then I can sit on my stool and use the “pull out leg rest” as a desk.

The medical assistants have adjusted, mostly. The patients blink at first, but they seem fine with it. Sometimes I am attempting to find something and also attempting not to curse this particular electronic medical record. The other day I needed an ankle-brachial index test. Ok, not under ABI. Two were under ankle-brachial index. I chose the one that was not in our clinic, since we don’t do them. I got a message back that that was wrong. I chased the other doctor down. She called a third provider who remembered. The one I need is under “us ankle-brachial index”. Really? Hopefully I will remember that annoying local electronic medical record filing quirk, but I may not. If you are wondering what it is, it is a test for arterial disease in the legs, comparing blood pressure in arteries in the legs with the arms. The “us” stands for ultrasound.

The photograph is Elwha supervising on my desk at home.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: desk.