Tag Archives: transformation

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See

Elkill
I am filled with joy!
It is still dark out, early
I remember lighting a candle for you
and putting it on the porch
when we were friends
and you would come over early

I loved those times
you were a wonderful friend

but now I know what I want
wanted from you
and from others
in the past

I want to be seen and loved

I want to be seen and loved
deeply
all of me
the dark parts too
all on me

and that is why
I could love you
and my patients
and even people who hurt me
because

most people are afraid
to be seen
seen and loved
deeply
the flaws, the sad parts, the broken bits
all of it

Elkill
I am filled with joy
I know what I want
I want to be seen and loved
deeply

I do not think it will happen
on this earth with a human
though I am open, open

But the Beloved sees me
the Beloved sees me
deeply
and loves all of me
the flaws, the sad parts, the broken bits
all of me

Thank you
for helping me see you
for helping me see
what I want

I am filled with joy!

_________________________

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: bedazzle.

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Thanks

And no thanks do I get
for thirty years in medicine
for thirty years of rural work
for working alone without a net
not a whisper from officials

The thanks I get are on the street
in the shops, at live music
at Gallery Walk, at thrift stores
walking through town, from friends
from patients or spouses or mothers or fathers
who thank me and update me

Thank you, Beloved, for my odd career
for leading me rural, leading me to primary care
endless learning daily and people
they are all interesting, all different
all have depths that none would guess
all of your beautiful people, Beloved

Thank you for all of it

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: tiara.

This is one of those poems where I started grumpy and did not know where it was going until it went there. The light at the end of the tunnel photograph is on the Metro in Washington, DC last week.

Tiaras probably quality as stuff.

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Feeling our way

It’s nice to handle emotions with fantasy. “No it’s not,” you shout, “that’s horrid! We should think nice thoughts and feel nice feels!”

I do not agree. I think that we feel what we feel. Emotions are a rainbow and a sunny day and a huge storm and a tornado. Let them all through. However, we do not have to share them or inflict them on others or act them out in person. We can satisfy that anger, that grief, that hurt, that wound, with fantasy. And let the hurt heal through fantasy by acknowledging it.

There is tons of stuff on the internets/books/magazines about how we have to think nice thoughts, we are what we think, and on and on and on. But now wait a minute. Our Creator thinks up some really really horrible things which play out, right? The world has the full range of emotions from really really dark to beautiful and kind. I am like the world, like the ocean, like the Creator. I have the full range too. It is not the feeling that is evil. It is the acting it out in the world. If it’s acted out in fantasy, does that truly harm others?

Perhaps if it’s PTSD, there is harm. But PTSD is not acting out a fantasy, it’s being unable to deal with something terrible, terrible events, horror, war and violence. Those feelings must be dealt with too and it is no shame to need help, to need a listener, to need a safe place. The same with depression and anxiety: sometimes feelings are overwhelming and we are afraid, afraid, afraid. There is help.

I think that Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī’s Guesthouse poem gives a path.

The Guesthouse

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

translation by Coleman Barks

_____________________________

I read this poem as being about our feelings. A meanness, a dark thought, malice. I think that there is a translation that says that we want each guest to take a good report back to the Beloved, so we must treat each with kindness and hospitality. When a friend dreams of a bear attacking his brother, I ask, “Did you invite the bear in?” “No,” he says, “It’s a bear! They are dangerous!” “But it’s a dream bear,” I say, “I would invite the bear in and listen to it.” “You don’t understand bears,” he says. “It is a dream bear, not a real bear. I always invite the dream monsters to talk to me.” Don’t you? There is a story about a dreamer who dreams about being chased by a monster, a horrible monster, over and over. He runs and runs. Finally he is sick of it and stops. “What do you want!” he shouts at the monster. “Oh, I am so glad you stopped. I was so scared and hoped that you would help me,” says the monster. And the man wakes up.

The giant fruit bat is part of the outdoor pollinator exhibit this holiday season at the US Botanical Gardens.

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Growth

I am with eklastic: the Ragtag Daily Prompt has been an island of peace and friendship and joy over the last year.

The trunk is from the US Botanic Gardens: wisteria, I think. This is an example of complicated growth. Are we closer to peace and helping each other and is ChatGPT aiding world peace and harmony? Hmmm.

A creative use for a fence:

My parents had Lovin’ Spoonful albums. I had glasses by fourth grade and loved this song. I thought it was funny.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: looking back.

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The women don’t see

A man I know is writing about retirement. He says that he has made excuses for years, that he has to travel for work, and not participated with family or entertaining activities.

That work is the only thing he is good at.

I don’t see the problem.

He has four people who have given him accolades for his write up. All men.

The women don’t see the problem.

In college I play soccer. I am not good, but adequate. None of us are really good. We have 12 people. Men and women. I ask a friend to join us.

“No.” he says.

“Why not?” I ask. “You’ve been saying you need exercise.”

“I am not good at it.”

“So what?”

“People expect men to be good at things. You don’t know what it’s like to have that expectation.”

I glare at him. “You don’t know what it’s like to be a woman and have people expect you to be bad at things.”

I knew a veteran. He complained to me about women. “I want a woman who is interested in cars and guns. That’s what I’m interested in.”

“Um,” I say. “Maybe you could develop some other interests? Join a club?”

“No.” he says. “Cars and guns. Why aren’t women interested?”

I am sure that some are. I am also sure that they are expected to know nothing about cars or guns and then are hazed and finally celebrated for being an amazing woman who is interested in cars and guns and has skills and knowledge. How amazing.

The women don’t see the problem with being good at work and not having developed anything else. We often are treated as if we are morons and have a man explain things to us. I have a skill that I have been developing and practicing for decades. Yet a man about 15 years younger than me who is in his first year of practicing, explains it all to me. I look at him and think, you are an idiot. Really. You KNOW I have years and years of experience. I offer to show him another way to do part of it and he soundly rejects and scolds me. “You’ll confuse me! I do it the way I was taught!” I clam up and just think, well, he’s over 30 and still stupid. Bummer. He talks about his amazing development and tells me what he has learned and advises me. Snort. I am ready to take a restroom break the next time he explains what I should be doing. The toilet is more fun than he is.

The women and the single fathers don’t see the problem. If you are raising the kids while working and keeping track of all the stuff: laundry, soccer practice, dentist appointments, helping your 8 year old pick a present for another kid, when is the party and where? Oh, the same day as the parent teacher conferences. Your child may want to do a sport that you know damn-all about or play an instrument that sounds like a rabbit is being strangled or join the young Rotary group. You are not a joiner and view this with an awed horror. But an involved parent will extend themselves into this new unknown alien arena and learn with the child.

And the people who do not have children but are trying to take care of an aging parent or disabled sibling or a long time friend. They too have to learn the systems and the medical one is a deteriorating nightmare labyrinth.

So to say one is good only at work and afraid of retirement: We don’t see it. What are you talking about? We are doing stuff we know nothing about initially as fast as the darn children grow. This month they want their own laptop and are installing linux and “Mom, we need faster wi-fi.” “I am making dinner.” “But mom, the game is timing out.” Huh. Ok, time to call the woman who we know who will explain wi-fi. “Figure out how much it costs, you’ll have to earn part of it if it’s more expensive.” “Mo-ommmm!”

Retirement: begin again. What have you wished to learn, to do, to explore? Be a beginner. Join us. We begin again daily.

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Birth

I am born today anew. Why does birth feel like a rejection, like a spitting out from the shelter of a womb, a body, a mother, a community, a job? I gasp in the new unfamiliar air, unsure how to use my lungs in this place. This labor was not terrible, not as hard as ones in the past. The air and light are shocking, I open my eyes, what is this place? Too bright, I close them. Hands have me and then I am back with my mother. Not inside but against her skin. The lights are down and I open my eyes. It was dark, dark, dark in that womb, so I open my eyes wide, to take in all the new information. I am shocked and afraid, but my mother’s heartbeat reassures me. I hope I won’t be eaten. What is this place? And now I am hungry and I start to search, not sure how to do it, search for food.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: birthday.

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Ride Forth

I thought I had posted this, but I do not find it.

Ride Forth

My grandmother
Packed all her troubles in her saddlebags
And rode forth singing

My mother
Packed all her troubles in her saddlebags
And rode forth singing

My father
Was the only one
Who ever saw the contents
He tried to drown them

My mother was loved
For her charm

I ride forth
Sometimes I sing
Sometimes I weep

My saddlebags are empty

Prayer flags flutter
Slowly shred
In the wind

I write my troubles
And my joys
On cloth
And thank the Beloved
For each

My horse is white
When I sing
Black
When I cry
A rainbow of colors
In between
The whole spectrum
That the Beloved allows

After I emptied
My saddlebags
I tried to leave them
But the people I meet
Most, most, most
Are frightened

A naked woman
On a naked horse

I had to leave my village
When I learned to ride her
Made friends with her
Beloved
My village does not allow tears
When she turns black
Their saddlebags squirm and fight
The people try to throw them on my horse

In other places
The horses are all black
The white aspect of the Beloved
Frightens them
And they attack

I carry saddlebags
And Beloved is a gentle dapple gray
And the illusion of clothes surrounds me
When we meet new people
Until we know
It is safe to shine
Bright
And dark

I hope that others ride with the Beloved
In full rainbow

I ride forth
Sometimes I sing
Sometimes I weep

Even the color lonely
Is a part of the Beloved

________________________

The photograph is of a watercolor of my sister, Christine Robbins Ottaway, by my mother, Helen Burling Ottaway.

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Welcome dark

This morning I listened to this song and album.

https://thewinetree.bandcamp.com/album/kentucky

I bought the CD over a year ago at the nowhereelse festival in Ohio. I heard The Winetree live and thought it was gorgeous. I bought others for myself but this was for a friend. Today I realize that the entire album, every song, has sorrow and longing.

Which makes it an interesting choice for someone who said, “I am always happy.” The first time he said that, I thought, wow. That is not true. I don’t believe that, so who are you lying to? Himself first, right? Because it seemed so obviously not true.

I never gave him the album because he stopped talking to me.

When someone says an absolute, that is a red flag for me. I wonder if the CD was for the emotions that he is not in contact with and stuffs. I went through a time where I tried to unstuff all the old emotions that I hid in my complex and frightening household growing up. My biggest ones were grief, fear and humiliation. It was not safe to express those: they would be made into a story to entertain people. I started to deal with them two years after my mother died. My sister did too.

This poem, Butterfly Girl Comes to Visit, is about my sister and my unacceptable emotions. Another, Ride Forth, is about stuffing feelings and then bringing them up and letting them go. I’m not saying we are ever done. I don’t know if we are. I thought of it as going to the depths of the ocean. The trunk at the bottom is full of terrifying monsters, but I had to open it anyhow. And at the bottom or somewhere in the trunk, is Hope, just like Pandora’s box. It took a couple of years of work to get to hope. It was so hard in counseling that my days off were more difficult than clinic, and that is saying a lot, because clinic is hard work.

Our culture is so afraid of the dark and of emotions. By doing my difficult work, I could be present and tolerate patients’ often difficult emotions and say, “Well, I can understand why you would feel that way. It is a really difficult situation.”

I do not want to be happy all the time. I think that is silly. What I want is to feel my emotions, in real time, and be honest with myself about them. As Rumi says, grief may be sweeping your house clean for a new joy. How can we love without grieving?

Welcome to the rain and the winter and the dark, and welcome to resting and quiet, and the hope that the sun will return.

And on the other side: My mom loved me.

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An ideal death

Death is quotidian, isn’t it?

There is a movement to make death more ideal. I agree that we should talk more about death and find out what people want, but ideal is complex. The VA did a survey and found three ideal deaths. Which is your ideal?

  1. The Hallmark Death. In hospice, surrounded by family and friends, making peace with everyone, visitors from all over. My mother died of ovarian cancer. We had a hospital bed and a baby monitor and when she was awake, she would say, “I am ready to be entertained.” It lasted for 6 weeks and my grandmothers bones rose out of her face as her weight dropped. I was so tired by the end that I couldn’t see straight. She did not want us to cry, so my sister and I did not cry. Afterwards I wished that I had cried.
  2. No warning, sudden death. Take me, in my sleep, or suddenly, with little or no warning. The heart is the number one cause of death. My father went this way, in his home. I was the one who found him, though I’d expected it for over a year. He was a bit of a hermit and had horrible emphysema, was on oxygen and steroids, but he stayed at home. That’s what he wanted and I did not fight it. It was not much fun finding him.
  3. Fight every step. There are some people who remain full code, who have end stage cancer and want dialysis, who will not give in. My sister was in this category. She was a truly amazing fighter and refused hospice until the last week. This can be about believing that one can continue to hope for a miracle or it can be about social justice or about a promise to one’s family. Some families have said, if father had been able to access care earlier, he wouldn’t be dying, so he wants everything done. I can understand all of those feelings.

So which would be your ideal? Ideally we would talk to our parents and our children and explore these different ideals. I did that with people in clinic. There are interesting openings. A patient would say, “I don’t want to die of cancer.” I would say, “How do you want to die? What is your ideal?” They would be surprised and I would explain the three different scenarios above. “Put in your order, though we do not have any control.” I would say.

We do not have control. I did prenatal care and deliveries for 19 years and didn’t have control there. I always preferred to intervene as little as possible and only if I had to for mother or baby’s health. Once our surgeon went to take out an appendix and it turned out to be something else, so took three hours. I had called a cesarean section, but had to wait. The baby had a fast heart rate and it rose in those three hours. We finally did the c-section and the baby promptly looked completely fine. I have no idea why the heart rate rose from 140 to 180. We were all hugely relieved. Sometimes the cause was obvious: a short umbilical cord or a cord wrapped four times around the neck, but sometimes the cause is a complete mystery.

I talked to a person yesterday who has a frail 90 year old in their life. They said something about keeping them from dying. I said, “Well, they are going to die eventually.” Then I thought, I wonder if they have had the discussion: what is your ideal? Do everything, which may mean being in a hospital? Hospice? At home? And I sometimes see families fight, because siblings have different ideals and may not even be aware of it.

Blessings.

For the Ragtag Daily Prompt: quotidian.

I took the photograph of the neighbor’s flowers while I was walking the cats in the dark. I like it.