Tag Archives: love

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I will marry only he who defeats me in battle

he
I am not really that attached to gender.
I’ve always thought that love is love
and who cares what birth sex or chromosome arrangement
people have
since nature’s diversity
is beyond insane

marry
I am not sure I would marry again
there is so much attached to the archetype
of a married couple
and no two are alike
in their conscious
much less unconscious
and then project the unconscious expectation
it makes me tired just thinking of it

battle
I agree that we are all fighting a battle
but I think it is always with ourselves
avoid avoid avoid
things that we fear
when we should go towards them
and embrace them
for our fears are the demons
we’ve chained in our unconscious

defeat
what is defeat?
loss of money?
loss of power?
the only defeat I have
is when I try to avoid myself
my true self
my dark self and my light self
there is no defeat
except my own failure
to admit my true self

I love who I love

whether they love me back

or not

 

I took the title from here: http://everything2.com/title/I+will+marry+only+he+who+defeats+me+in+battle and published there as well

 

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End of Life Plan

My End of Life Plan and Wishes are as follows:

1. My plan is that my life should end after a half day of skiing for free at age 125 or 126.
2. My wish is to ski quite brilliantly, smoothly and gracefully, though not as aggressively as at age 110 and below.
3. My plan is that other skiers will ask who that brilliant skier is and that all the lift operators will know.
4. My plan is that I will have a delicious lunch, with a glass of champagne, in a condo overlooking the slopes.
5. I plan to have a hot tub and then a massage from one of the many handsome men who flirt with me.
6. My plan is that I will sit in a comfortable leather armchair with my feet on a foot stool, while three of my male friends vie to be the one to bring me the second glass of champagne.
7. My wish is that I will not need any cosmetic surgery or false eyes or ears or teeth or joints or heart valves and will retain my spleen, teeth, gall bladder, appendix and brain in full operating order.
8. My plan is that I will not be on prescriptions, medicines, vitamins, supplements, medical foods, or nutraceuticals nor under the care of any quacks of any sort.
9. My wish is that my male flirts will all think that I am not a day over 75.
10. My wish is that I will be listening to live music, a woodwind quartet or string quartet, just dropped in to say hello, along with three of my great grandchildren, showing off their olympic ski medals, summa cum laude graduation documents, or Nobel prizes.
11. My plan is that after the quartet leaves, I will fall asleep….
12. ….and not wake up, and that though my attendants are sad, none of them throws themselves off the balcony over the cliff and are all surprised at my true age and at the bountiful gifts I have left to each of them with proof that a long life and compounded interest have excellent results. My children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will live long and prosper as well.

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death in childbirth

When I was in residency, one of the obstetrics-gynecology faculty asked us, “Women died in childbirth. What did they die of?”

We were silent. Stumped. Infection? Well, when there was no infection control and the male physicians went from room to room with no hand washing, yes… but….

Preeclampsia? No. Not that common. Eclampsia? Ditto.

“What if a woman is in labor and the baby is stuck? What do they die of?”

Ick. “Bleeding?”

“The uterus contracts until it ruptures. It contracts until it is thinner and thinner. If there is fetal malposition or a hand presentation or transverse or certain breech positions, the uterus ruptures and both bleed to death.”

We were all silent.

When I hear people bemoaning caesarean section and too much surgery and too many interventions…. I remember what women died of. All the stepmother stories. In the 1797 diary I am reading, the “lady” dies of a fever. She is 24 years old. There is no surprise, just sorrow. The author writing is the same age and grew up with her and grieves, but goes on.

We would like to think this is in the past, but it isn’t. It still is going on, right now, in  poverty stricken areas and war zones where the hospitals have been destroyed, the medical people have left, there are no services…

When I was still delivering babies, I would tell patients: my ideal labor plan is the baby comes out and I hand it to you. And the placenta comes out and the baby nurses and I don’t seem to be doing much. But that is not always what happens. I do not have control nor do you. I will only intervene if I think it is your life or the babies life or both….

http://bmcpregnancychildbirth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2393-14-43

http://www.msf.org/en/article/perils-childbirth-democratic-republic-congo

http://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/documents/childbirth/en/

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs348/en/

Donate:  http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

The picture is me on my maternal grandfather’s lap. I was one very lucky baby. My mother had tubuculosis through the pregnancy. She coughed blood in her 8th month. If there had not been medical care and a Tuberculosis Sanitorium to be born in, I would not be here.

 

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Art at Quimper Family Medicine

I change the art at clinic, these for the summer. We had four reproductions up before, of alchemy paintings from the 1400-1600s. I thought they were creepy but also interesting and beautiful.

The painting on the left is by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway, of my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway. On the right is an oil by an artist that I don’t know. It looks like my father. I inherited art, but I keep finding beautiful pieces. At least I can display a little and rotate them with the seasons…

 

 

 

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Break your own rules

If I say “Food fight.” you may think of Animal House.

I think of my mother.

I am in high school in Alexandria, Virginia. My sister is three years younger. We are in the kitchen, it is hot. 99 degrees F and 98 percent humidity and the back door is open. We do not have air conditioning. We are eating watermelon. The old kind: with seeds.

My mother holds up a seed, pinched between her fingers, looking wicked.

My eyes narrow. “If you shoot that, you started it.” …. not in the house, is the unspoken rule that echoes.

She shoots it at me.

We all three start pinching the slick black watermelon pits at each other, laughing like hyenas. In a large kitchen with open shelves and dishes placed on all the shelves, often nested. It devolves into small chunks of watermelon, hurled at each other. No rinds, because of the open shelves. At last we all run out of pits and watermelon and stopped

There is silence while we survey the very impressive mess. There are watermelon seeds everywhere. And the floor is pretty wet.

Watermelon is STICKY.

We laugh more and start cleaning up. I leave for work or school or something.

Later my mother says, “I washed the floor three times before it stopped feeling sticky. And I kept finding watermelon seeds in the dishes on the shelves for the next two years.”

And: “It was worth it.”

The photograph is of my mother in high school.

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Beast Cthulhu and bone metastases

In 2011, when my sister wrote  Beast Cthulhu and bone metastases,  about her breast cancer being a treatable chronic illness, I was so sad…..

….because it was not true, even though I wished it was.

The perils of being the doctor sister.

It was clear that her cancer was progressing. Yes, she could request to continue treatment. Yes, they would keep treating her….

….but it wasn’t working.

The hematologist-oncologist chooses the best treatment first. Chris Grundoon was 41 and very strong and healthy so they hit the cancer as hard as they possibly could. Chemotherapy, mastectomy, radiation therapy, a second degree burn on her chest wall. It was stage IIIB to start with. Cancer is staged 0 to IV. Zero is “carcinoma in situ”, cancerous cells that have not even invaded their neighbors. Stage I is very local. Stage IV is distant metastases. Stage IIIB of ductal breast carcinoma means multiple lymph nodes, but not the ones above the collarbone, and no cancer in bone, brain, lungs or liver.

She had two years in remission.

The cancer recurred with a metastasis above the collarbone. The cancer had morphed as well, as it often does. Most, most, most of the cells were killed… but those that survived… were different. Now she was estrogen receptor negative, progesterone receptor negative and her2 negative. All genetic markers which help decide which treatment is best and how to target the cells. More and more are being found.

Our mother died of ovarian cancer. I went with her to her oncologist only once. My mother said that her CA 125 was rising, and of course she could do more treatment if she needed to. The doctor said something positive. I followed her out of the room. Once the door was shut I said, “My mother is talking about another clinical trial! She can’t do that, can she?”

“No,” said the oncologist, “Of course not. She is too advanced. But we will treat her for as long as she wants.”

Whether it works or not. Because she wants to be treated. In spite of diminishing returns.

My sister passed her five years from the day treatment ended. So technically she is in the five year survival group even though then she died. When she was diagnosed, the five year survival for her type of breast cancer and stage was about 5%. It had improved to 17% by 2011.

Her oncologist told her “I am referring you to hospice.” in the spring of 2012. She went to San Francisco to talk to another group about a clinical trial. But it was too far and too late. She refused hospice until about two weeks before she died. Fight to the end, she was willing to fight even when the oncologist said, “You are dying.” She had promised her daughter and promised her husband.

I saw her three times in the last two months before she died. She seemed angry to me on the last visit, glittering, knife edged. I tried to sing a lullaby, but she wanted something else. “Samuel Hall?” I guessed. She smiled and I sang it. My name is Samuel Hall and I hate you one and all. To the gallows I must go, with my friends all down below. Hope to see you all in hell, hope to hell you sizzle well, damn your eyes, damn your eyes. Then she trusted me to be present whether she was angry or sad or confused or once even happy, glowing, transported, transformed….

Some people do not go gentle. That is their right. It is their death, not ours, not mine.

The photograph is from the memorial here… My father had end stage emphysema, on steroids and oxygen, and I was hospitalized with strep sepsis the weekend of her first memorial in California. We could not go. Many people from our chorus Rainshadow Chorale came and we are singing the Mozart: Requiem Aeternum. My father died fourteen months later.

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Unconditional 2

I think the hardest thing in the world is to love unconditionally. And we can’t love unconditionally unless we love ourselves in that too. Including our faults, our mistakes, our dark corners, our anger and grief, pettiness, unkindness, stupidity, jealousy, greed lust… if we only love our “good” side then we will attack others when they show the same weakness and faults that we know, deep inside, that we are capable of or have acted on. If we cannot love someone who is a sinner, we cannot love anyone, because we are all guilty. Love people anyhow and wholly and yourself too.

I went through a period after my mother died, where I felt I’d entirely failed. My marriage was disintegrating, and I was looking at myself very carefully. How had I gotten here? What mistakes had I made? I felt unlovable and stupid.

I found a letter from my mother written to herself when my father asked me to clean out her clothes. It was two or three years after she died. Here is the letter, with a few things left out for the privacy of the living:

____________________

Sept 18, Friday
1987
Seattle

I don’t want to go home. I want to stay here in Seattle. With the mountains that lift my heart. And clear air and only good memories. What is there to go home to? Struggling with X and his alcohol. I don’t want to try to do something about it. I don’t think it will work if I do. I think will only go on as it is and trying to get help will only lead to fight. I don’t think I have the strength, the courage or the wisdom to help myself or him.

What else am I going to? A house that needs a great deal of work that I only moderately like. A climate I loath. A landscape I find boring. I’m tired of living in a crowded suburb. And that house needs so much work.

People. What people do I go home to? Nearly all have problems. Y, wounded bird, so foolishly enamored of Z or thinks he is. And I have little sympathy or patience with it. And his propensity to failure which I’m tired of also.

A who I dearly love but her household is such chaos with those ill-behaved children and one crisis after another.

B who I like very much but really have so little in common with. I fear all that spiritual stuff may eventually bore me. Maybe not.

C. Another wounded bird, really. And not dependable.

D, barely around, anymore.

Mother, older and frailer. Who needs my care and patience.

E. There is one person to go home to. Thank God she’s there. Not wounded anymore. But so busy and it isn’t fair or wise to dump my troubles on her.

Who else? Why don’t I know any successful (in the best sense) sane people. People who are intellectuals, interested in ideas. F is. But not a fully successful human being and not when G is with him. Ugh. Besides he lives far away and he and X don’t like each other.

I don’t really want to have that show at H’s Church. I don’t like H very well. Oh dear.

I maybe have a job which if I get will be very hard work and if I don’t will be a great disappointment.

Winter’s coming and things cost more and we don’t have quite enough to live on. So that means digging into my inheritance.

I am sick of D.C. I am sick of being a struggling, unsuccessful artist. I am sick of worrying about X, about his moods, his acting the fool when half drunk and acting cruel and crazy when fully drunk. I’m sick of being afraid, of his depression, of his refusal to talk to me about anything of importance.

Of doing dishing. Of all the mess in our house. The mess on my desk, the mud room, the kitchen, the study, the basement. The dirty paint. The back yard. Oh God! How can I change things? Well there are a lot of bad things.

Oh, & I’m sick of being anxious, 10 lbs overweight, biting my nails, having bad teeth/gums. Life get tedjous, don’t it?

Any good stuff?

____________________________

For me, this letter was the key to finding myself lovable. My mother wrote to herself because she felt that she could not share these feelings with anyone. Terrible feelings. And I thought about it for a long time: I thought: my mother was charming, loved and an entertainer. But a child knows the parents’ hidden feelings. So I knew about my mother’s darkness and the letter confirmed it. And I thought, my mother didn’t need to hide that because I knew about it and I loved her anyhow. I love her more knowing that she was human too.

And if she is lovable whole, so am I. So are you. We all are. And we all make mistakes and are guilty of anger (sometimes appropriate but sometimes not!) jealousy, greed, lust, sloth and pride. Love people anyway and wholly and yourself too.

 

I have a view of Puget Sound if I stand in the road in front of my house. I took this with a zoom lens on solstice morning at sunrise.

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Unconditional

You can love the whole person
all the angel bits the joy the laughter silliness hugs
all the devil bits the anger the grumpiness sulking whines

all the bits you have too

you do not always have to like their behavior

you do not have to tolerate abuse

you can say do not be mean, tease, gossip, steal, lie

trust yourself
and don’t give in to lies

you can love the whole person
you are wholly lovable

and you do not have to stay
for a moment even

if they abuse
if they won’t stop
walk away

and maybe they will change

 

another photograph that I took solstice morning

 

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Frail

I wrote this two years before my father died. I did find him…..

Frail
We are going sailing
My partner says to me
“Invite him if you want.”

Then I am busy for a while

I think of calling, then forget

He was not at chorus on Monday

At last I say,
“I haven’t called. We’ll just sail.
Just us today.”

I haven’t called
because he was not at chorus on Monday

He is frail
55 years of camels
two packs a day
as if each cigarette
destroyed one alveolus
in his lungs
one tiny air/blood interface
built to exchange oxygen
and carbon dioxide
the loss is cumulative
He is frail
he is proud that the choral director
says, “I need you.”
He can’t sustain
but his entrances and time
are the best
among the basses.
They need him.

Chorus
is our winter link
two introverts
we hug at the start of chorus
sing for two hours
and talk for a few minutes at the end

Occasionally we go for a beer
I invite him for dinner
but he comes less and less
he often does not feel well at night

He looks smaller at chorus
this season
this is normal in emphysema
the body sheds weight
too much tissue to oxygenate
too hard for the lungs
and the heart, working overtime
to make up the difference
he is blessed with low blood pressure
genetic, from his father,
tough English stock,
otherwise I think he’d be dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because I am afraid

I’ve driven out before
when he has not answered the phone
for a day or two
wondering if I would find him dead

I didn’t call
before we went sailing
because he was not at chorus on Monday
because if he didn’t answer today
I would not go

 
I took the photograph in 2009