This child is not afraid of the saxophone because she is growing up with it. The saxophone player is her father. She’s ready to help and be up on stage as well! She’ll have a fabulous jazz foundation and her father didn’t miss a note!
This is Tuesday night at the Bishop Hotel in Port Townsend, Washington. Chris Miller and Peter Leopold Freeman.
What a fabulous line up of musicians! Ben Sollee makes joyous music with a cello, his voice and a drummer! They made more noise and more complex rhythms than many much bigger groups! I got one of his albums and three other fabulous groups!
This is lovely:
All things shall perish from under the sky, music alone shall live never to die.
I am reinventing myself now. After my fourth pneumonia, oxygen continuously for a year and now my fifth pulmonologist since 2012. He did not have much to offer. An inhaler but “We can’t be sure that it will keep you from getting pneumonia.”
Well. So with ME-CFS, myalgic encephalopathy chronic fatigue syndrome, now what?
I am at a fork in the path. At least three forks.
Try to do a micropractice, working with Long Covid people. Who either wear masks or I do not see them. I would have to convince the hospital district that it needs me.
Write. I am doing that, but really focus on it and work on publishing. I have so much art from my mother. She did not really enjoy selling it though she loved having shows and would dress up.
I could focus on publicizing and selling my mother’s art.
There is a trunk from my grandfather. I could focus on that. He states that he wants it published. Grandfather, you were a piece of work.
I could just lie around and travel and play with the cats and make music.
Focus on music. I have written a number of songs. Apparently being hypoxic makes me write songs. I think they are peculiar and wonderful too. Flute, voice, guitar, piano, bass. Hmmmm.
Something else. Who knows what will appear? I am doing art too, the two large sculptural pieces in my yard. A fellow doctor scolded me about one. It’s the one with a logging chain and an oxygen tank, attached to a tree. The title is “Tethered”. Now, why would a local doctor object to that? I have some small pieces too that involve found objects and especially feathers and small stemmed glassware.
Many forks! Now I just need more spoons of energy!
You’ve joined my silent dead: doesn’t matter whether you speak or not. You’d like this song and be jealous of the skills. I yammer to my dead, the number rising strong. At sixty I declare that I am middle aged Mom dies at sixty-one which feels unfair. My sister dies at forty-nine, cancer rage. I watched them both as chemo takes their hair. You too are dead no words across the breach. I yammer to you daily in my head. Agates gleam, treasure on the beach. You refuse to look, I mourn that you act dead. You sit stubborn in a rocking chair alone. You don’t believe your dead will call you home.
The CDC has a new set of recommendations for chronic pain.
I will write about them. I have to read them first. Hurts too much, right now, the election, and all the pandemic fighting. Stress people and you see what they are really like.
My church has melted down into a huge fight. I was in a chorus singing instead of being in a meeting. Apparently there is a group that says brown people have “taken over” the national organization of the church. Um. Hello. That is discrimination. Does the color of the skin matter if it is a good leader? Why are people insane? I filled out a county survey on drug use today. I know we have methamphetamines and heroin in our high schools because patients have told me. But then I get to the race question. What race am I? I checked OTHER and wrote HUMAN. The race bullcrap is NOT SCIENCE. I haven’t done any genetics testing. I DO NOT KNOW WHAT RACE I AM THOUGH I LOOK WHITE.
It is important for medicine in that there is proven discrimination with less screen health services offered to “brown” people, whatever the heck “brown” people means. I wish the heavens would turn us all the same color over night. Or perhaps blind us. That is not nice of me and I do not care.
I am glad that this horror came out in my church. Because now the discrimination is out in the open. And the committee has sent out a message saying NO. We WILL stay part of the national organization. We WILL not give in to this discrimination. AND I SAY HOORAY AND BLESSINGS ON THEM.
I read to this sentence so far: “Approximately one in five U.S. adults had chronic pain in 2019 and approximately one in 14 adults experienced “high-impact” chronic pain, defined as having pain on most days or every day during the past 3 months that limited life or work activities (5).”
Part of me is horrified and part of me is calm. Because pain is a part of life. Pain, love, joy, fear, it’s all part of our emotional evolved systems to survive, right? If God is love, God is also pain and fear. It is not a split. It is both.
This song is a love song. But to me, it’s a love song from heroin to a woman. One lovely day, a place where there is no pain. There will be pain on the return, the withdrawal. I have patients say, “You need to get me pain free.” My reply was “I will not get you pain free. Pain free is dead. Or at least, they can no longer tell me if the next form hurts.” In this song, “she won’t let on, that the feelings have got so strong.” Addiction, opioid overuse.
I took the photograph of Elwha yesterday. He is my relaxation mentor.
I try a little more but I am tired. I am tired of drama, trauma drama. I dream and dream and dream. I dream that my ex touches a live bat. The bat changes in my dream, from a tiny brown nose bat to a huge fox bat with fur and stripes. It is unconscious.
“Don’t touch it! You touched it! Now we have to take it to the Health Department!” I am eyeing the bat and thinking of throwing something over it. A container. It’s huge.
My ex laughs. “No we don’t.”
“Yes we do! Rabies! It could have rabies! If we don’t take it in, you’ll need rabies shots!” Poor bat, I think, it will be killed to test for rabies.
My ex keeps laughing. “I’m not going to be tested, I won’t have shots, and the bat is fine!”
“WHAT!” I say, “No, you could die!”
I wake up. What was that dream about? Oh. It’s about you, refusing to test for Covid after being exposed. You said you would hike with me. “Not if you won’t test,” I say, “I can’t afford to get Covid again, I can’t be around you for 15 days if you won’t test.”
And you go silent.
And I try a little more and I let go. You will have to break the silence if you plan to keep your promises. Will you or won’t you? I am supposed to trust you. But people say trust me, and then sometimes they are drunk, and lying, and you can’t trust them. “I will never hurt you,” is a lie. Try this instead: “I will try not to hurt you and I will listen if you feel hurt.” And change, maybe?
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - Flüchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflüchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
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