The Lesson In A Smile

I’m not sure who I had living in my heart yesterday but she was not walking a path of peace and loving kindness. You see this doddering fat older man with an overflowing cart of crap he didn’t need cut me off as I was going to be the very next person in the line behind someone with only three items. I was all “Score!” and chest bumping myself because I had also found a great parking place near the front doors and was able to finagle the big boat van into it without a lot of parking and reparking. I found everything I needed easily without any questioning prices or comparisions and I stayed on task the whole way through so when this guy obliviously toddled in front of me and it harshed my whole mellow. I needed that mellow because almost up until that point, I had spent the afternoon nagging my sons to just do their chores and stop whining about it. In fact, the drama surrounding the dishwasher and light cleaning duties were why I was being so pushy because I stopped at the store on my way to a little celebration at the salt mines and stood every chance of being late.

So I got stuck behind this guy who probably didn’t have a life because why would some one wear ratty looking sweat pants in 90 degree heat with beat up old shower shoes and why else would anyone move that slow unless they didn’t have someplace to go. Like me. I had somewhere to go. Of course all my tappy-footed fuming and glaring at him through my sunglasses thinking all sorts of uncharitable thoughts about how rude he was to just walk in front of me without noticing I had fewer items. And how dare he miss the fact I was moving quickly because my life is much more important and meaningful than his so I should be allowed to go ahead of him. Finally, I was obviously dressed for something other than a trip to Walmart. Because, really? If I wear a fancy blouse and silk cigarette pants to shop at Walmart, I must be worse off than he is… And then my uncharitable voice went for the passive-aggressive and I called one of my coworkers and told her in a very loud voice I would be late because the lines at the store were really long and someone was rude enough to cut in front of me. The cashier looked over at me when I was talking to my friend, just a quick glance, probably noticing my cart wasn’t terribly full and no doubt noticing my impatient demeanor and automatically bracing herself for an abrupt and rude customer.

When this man finally finished his transaction, dithering over his change and receipt and then pausing to exchange pleasantries with the cashier it was my turn and the clock in my head stopped ticking: goingtobelategoingtobelategoingtobelate. I could breathe a little easier and it was my turn. I looked up at the cashier noticing her beautiful smile and a warm spirit radiating through it. I was suddenly swept up in her quiet energy and felt myself further slow down and a spontaneous genuine smile spread across my face. smile and not a polite return-of-the-smile smile. I noticed her name was a lovely old fashioned name you don’t see very often and asked if she went by the shortened version or the long version. She told me she didn’t like the shortened version very much and pronounced it slowly making it even prettier. Grace went by another name yesterday and it was Beatrice.

After I slithered back to the car, thoroughly ashamed of my childish behavior. Murmering a little prayer of “Sorry I’m such an asshat God. Can you help me?“ I switched on the radio. A song was playing which described how someone had been lost and doing bad things discovered grace and his life was turned around and away from that person he had been before. The way this guy described his life he had been a pretty bad guy, not just suffering from a momentary lapse of human kindness. It made me remember I can moment by moment change my heart and my outlook. I also realized grace doesn’t have to be gigantic or have long term life changing repricutions, and no matter how big or small, the moment just after I have been transformed by God’s grace I am shiny like a baby just out of a bath. A baby who usually runs out of the bath and within five minutes or so is besmirched with the grim of day to day living as a human being.

Thank you Beatrice, I needed this wake up call. Yesterday was hardly the worst day of my life but it wasn’t terribly easy either. The lesson in your smile will be what I remember and not my petty disappointments.

Nose To Nose With Buddha And Having Local Fry

Yesterday and today are our "free days" in Siem Reap. We finished our Saturday through Monday three day tour of the temples early Monday afternoon. I think the high point of the Temple Tour was stopping at a Buddhist Temple near Buphuon Temple. The Buddha was one of the largest we had seen and dated from the late 19th Century. That this beautiful statue had survived Pol Pot was miraculous. The elderly women, three nuns and a laywoman, had also managed to survive those terrible years, too. I paid tribute to the Buddha and laid a few dollars where other’s had given offerings. I’m not one of these women who seek out that woo-woo metaphysical Power of Womyn. I think the whole “Goddess Within” movement is, frankly, a bunch of BS and a bastardization of several cultures. But the feminine energy. The Woman Energy I felt at this temple was palpable. After I paid tribute to Buddha: I turned to walk away and one of the nun’s, ancient with Betel stained teeth, grinned widely at me and motioned for me to approach the alter again and she waved The Girl up as well. We both bowed before them and the women gathered around us: bowing, waving incense and chanting joyful sounding sing song verses over us. It was easily one of the most sacred moments I have experienced in many years. When they were finished they tied red yarn bracelets to our right wrists. Our guide told us they offered us prayers of peace, prosperity and joy. I was extremely touched they allowed us, both Western and Christian, to partake in such blessings. I think Tida--our guide--was moved we were interested in doing such a thing. She has a sense of reverence for the stories each temple tells and touches her own spirituality each time she visits. Sharing the temples is something she wants to do and the temples still take Tida’s breath away. I was even more proud of my red yarn bracelet after she told us this.

Tida’s story unfolded over the course of three days and I think she is easily one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. Her father had been a physician and lied to the Khmer Rouge: told them he was just an assistant and then refused to go to the “retraining” school (aka The Killing Fields) but would gladly become a farmer. Her elder brother and sister didn’t fare so well. They were professionals and were disappeared when she was very young. We aren’t quite sure how Tida managed but she resisted her mother’s pleas to quit school at 16 and marry like the other girls in her village. Tida managed to make enough money to finish twelve years of school and learn English. She put her self through three years of university and trained to be a licensed guide through UNESCO. She did marry but is divorced with a daughter who lives with her parents, a day’s journey away. Tida has no interest in marrying again: “I can go anywhere and do what I want if I’m not married.” Her next goal is to learn yet another language. I have no doubt she will accomplish this. The Girl and I were amused Tida was a favorite with all the young men working at the Angkor complex. You could hear their hearts speed up when she spoke to them. Our driver Kriss is hopelessly in love with her and watching the two of them was a Rom Com waiting to happen but Tida is not budging so they’ve only met cute and disagree cute and haven’t arrived to the hook up cute place.

It’s a well known fact I like to watch people and there are certainly lots of different people to watch. The children at each temple with their pleas to buy a scarf, cold drink, bracelets, books, flutes, puppets and other what-not are all very sweet and extremely incessant. A few of them try to tug at the old heart strings: “Buy from me so I can go to school. . .” We happened to know school is free when you are eight so this didn’t work with us. I imagine it works with many people. There were so many of them I felt like if I did buy from one of them I would be swarmed and never heard from again, buried under flutes and scarves and puppets and cold bottles of water. So you ran the gauntlet and waved them off with “no thank you’s” and “not today” sorts of replies.




We did have additional guides at the first temple we toured: Beng Mealea, an example of a temple that hasn’t been rebuilt. The young boys greeted us in the center of the temple and led us on a “special” tour, oblivious to our advanced ages and well used knees. But it was worth it, they knew were all the good stuff was: bas relief fragments, tree root sculptures and things our guide hadn’t seen before. All of this was done free of charge: they were just killing time exploring and practicing their English before afternoon school. This was their home, their kingdom and their playground. They could rehearse the history because they had spent so much time hearing the history in several different languages. The oldest boasted he spoke a little German and French as well as English. It was a lovely welcome into the Khmer culture, people who have welcomed us each step of the way.



The other tourists aren’t too dreadful; the usual American Frat Boy hijinks in Pub Street, beautiful young Western women, scantily clad and then upset when they garner leers and catcalls (WTF did they expect?) ; middle-aged folks like us somewhere between cruise ship and intrepid mentality; young families from Australia and certainly NOT America because the tuk-tuks don‘t have care seats and the little precious dears might eat something with dirt on it or have a less than pristine experience. There are a couple of billboards around town reminding people--Western men specifically--if they abuse a child not only will they be arrested in Cambodia but they will be turned over to their home governments. We’ve only seen one blatant example of this sort of “tourist”. He was outside of Bayon and was trying to gain the attention of a young woman: “You really should untie your hair, it’s too beautiful to be hidden.” was his oily, British come on. It made my stomach turn and I will go to my grave kicking myself for not marching up to him and demanding he bugger off or I would alert the officials. I did notice an older woman was hovering close by. But this young woman was obviously uncomfortable. Later, at the temple, while I was being blessed I prayed for forgiveness and protection for the girls Sir Perv was coming in contact with. And yeah, I confess I later whispered a beggy evil prayer that I would see him again and step on his toe or spit on him because I’m not quite to the level of Buddha and Jesus and don’t walk the path of peace when it comes to people exploiting other human beings.



Fortunately we haven’t exploited our gastrointestinal systems with the "local fry". Yet. Buddha knows I’ve tried: iced tea, iced coffee and every flavor of amok available from the dodgiest of market stalls to Air Con luxurious restaurants. But the best food we’ve had was at this restaurant outside the last temple we toured. Of course I don’t remember the name of it and can’t find the picture of the menu but trust me it was an Anthony Bourdain meal: interesting but straightforward “Local Fry” made especially for us by a woman and her two eldest daughters while the younger girls played quietly and tormented their baby brother. Ahhh the international language of siblings. Nice to know in a place so foreign to me some things remain same-same.

Mall Rat

Beav had a Young Life thing to go today in Stepford so I took myself to Stepford Mall. I was really excited about going, too. To begin with it was a great excuse to NOT finish the laundry or clean the house or go to the gym. But it also felt like some sort of event. And it‘s not like I‘ve been sitting at home staring into space for the last week or so. Or shoveling coal in the mines. We spent a week in Texas looking at all sorts of wonderful things. And my return to work didn‘t make me want to hack up a lung or gouge my eyes out so I couldn‘t work ever again. I’m no stranger to the mall, I was there a couple of weeks ago buying something to wear for my stepmother and father’s party in Texas. And I can’t make some claim I don’t like going to the mall so I don’t shop. Wow! I can’t imagine the email Dad would send fact checking that statement. One would have thought my fourth hour class, senior year was held at the local mall. I enjoy shopping most of the time and I had such an air of expectation today because I was buying things for other people--not my kids people either--versus the painful process of trying to buy myself clothes. Once upon a time I was skinny and now I’m all doughy and middle-aged and frankly bordering on fat so buying clothes isn’t fun anymore. Besides that, all the sudden the clothes at places like Express or The Limited look trampy and the ensembles at Talbot’s are looking good. Today, a wave of depression swept over me seconds after I said: “ohhhhh I like that green dress” in the direction of a Talbot’s window display. I think this makes me officially old. I might as well get out the polyester pant suits, buy three packs of high waisted gramma panties and call myself done, right? Thank goodness Anthropologie has some cute things--palate cleansers as it were--that weren’t too precious or young and would look ok on an almost fifty year old. If the almost fifty year old weren’t bordering on fat. If the almost fifty year old could justify spending $158 on a cotton picque dress. If this almost fifty year old didn’t need to buy a silk sleep sack, waterproof walking shoes and a camera bag. I know that adorable little dress, which reminds me of something my mom would have have worn ro a barbeque in 1968, won’t keep the bed bugs off of me, protect my toes from ancient rocks, or allow me to easily access my camera in SE Asia next month. Two things I hate about being a grown up: the ability to prioritize needs and a sense of fiscal responsibility. Twenty five years ago? I would have bought the silly dress and limped through a trip with stubbed toes, prayed we didn’t have bed bugs in our hotel room and dined on ramen this week so I could have that dress.

This afternoon, I assumed the rest of the world is on a spending diet so it was an ugly surprise the parking lot looked like the day after Christmas. What the heck? There’s a recession on! Greece and Portugal just killed our stock market; we are engaged in two wars and Iran is acting goofy! Gas is about to go through the roof after a big accident off the Gulf coast! Why were so many people shopping? Maybe the weather? It’s May 2nd and we are still in sweaters and jackets with a threat of snow hanging over us, folks aren‘t working in the yard but pining after Ed Hardy shirts and shorts? I had plenty of time to think about all of this as I circled and circled and circled trying to find a place to park. I was thinking about the recession as I trekked towards the mall and remembered something my nephew (here after referred to as The Secret Squirrel) said about the economy: “When people stop buying all this useless shit they don’t need…that’s a depression.” The Secret Squirrel hit that right. But I did notice most people walking to their cars weren’t groaning under the burden of packages. While I’m hiking in from the back forty and spinning thoughts about Greece, junk bonds and the recession a young couple walked towards me. She was crying and hanging onto their toddler; he had a pained and defeated expression on his face, his body tense with anger, fists clenched as he swung his arms while he walked in long deliberate strides: “We are flat broke, that’s why we can’t do it. Broke. I don’t know what I can do to make you understand this. . .” They were dressed in modest and nondescript clothing and they didn’t have any packages or bags except a small Hallmark sack and it swung back and forth, a mocking and falsely cheerful footnote to their conversation. At first his tone and body language scared me but there was an air of reserve about him which told me he wouldn‘t hurt his wife and child. He wasn’t a big man but he had the bearing of someone in the military, muscular and cropped hair. I felt crushed inside: what if he was one of the many veterans who couldn’t find a job…Why the hell were they at the mall to begin with it they were so broke…Why are they so broke..Does one of them have a problem with compulsive spending…What did she want to buy? Was it for their baby?…They better not be buying Mother’s Day gifts because their mothers’ need to help them… Was she going to be safe in the car and at home with him?…My gut told me he wasn’t an abusive man but a man who was upset he couldn’t give his family all they wanted. My impressions and thoughts morphed into silent tears which spilled down my cheeks.

I had to sit on a bench before I started shopping so I could collect myself and have my daily menopausal weep. The young man’s desperate pain was not a foreign emotion for me; a knot of remembrance settled into my stomach and because I can’t turn the caregiver thing off, I wanted to rush after them, cramming all the cash I had on me into her hand; mumbling something about knowing what it‘s like to be “flat broke“. But I didn’t do it because the second after the impulse occurred to me, such an action felt incrediblely intrusive and ultimately embarrassing. So I opted for the Wayne Dyer solution: stopped what I was doing (except for the weeping) and imagined them both surrounded by a healing white light and then I prayed for grace and then I offered up one of those beggy Santa prayers: “Please God I don’t need a thing: give those kids everything they need and then some. Anything extra you had for me: send it their way. I have plenty.” I’m glad I didn’t force money on them because God can give them way more than the measly forty bucks I had in my wallet.

After I told God thanks for letting me treat him like Cosmic Santa, I dried my eyes and continued with my little shopping expedition: Borders (prezzie), Vickies (prezzies), Nordy’s (lippy for me) and Anthro (just for a peek, cuz I had extra time) But in each store I saw other people like those kids, while they weren’t arguing with one another they seemed a little tortured by those things they couldn’t have and going through the motions of enjoying the beautiful and amazing things at The Mall. The majority of the shoppers were joyless (except for the folks in the Apple Store). A few wore lost, vacant looks as they stumbled along their way. Brain’s numb from the excess of our world and the lifestyles of the White Suburban Middle-Class. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t my fiscal responsibility that kept me from buying an overpriced dress I don’t need but the sad and lost people cruising the mall on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

Waiting For Anne

I’ve been sick for what feels like a week when it’s only been for a few days so I haven’t been writing like I usually do. I did spend most of Sunday in the yard and gardens. It was so immensely satisfying to clean up my lovely plants so the new growth was revealed. A few things didn’t make: a couple of relatively hardy things which really surprises me when meanwhile my Pinks wintered over and a couple of delicate hard to grow perennials are thriving. The fruit trees have started to bloom and Wally even noticed how beautiful they were on his run this afternoon. We are leaving for Texas on Thursday and when we return it will be just the right time to clear mulch and prepare soil for the expanded veg bed. I’ve ordered golden beets and English cucumber from Burbee along with the usual suspects: Cosmos, Zinnias and Hollyhocks. My friend, Charlie, has a small green house and has started our heirloom tomato plants. Sometimes, I’m not sure what I’ve done to deserve such generous friends. I will gift him and his wife a large tin of my special herbs d’Provence blend and a couple bottles of tarragon and rosemary oil. I’m already looking forward to playing with the herbs. I swear, the weeds are worse this year and I spent two hours pulling stupid little weeds out of the rocks and out of the garden. It seemed like they would sprout up behind me as I walked away. If I were really talented I would do a CAD piece a la where I’m walking away as dandelions sprout up behind me. The dogs (Buddy was visiting Sunday while his mama went on a ski date) enjoyed each other’s company while I worked. Those two yard apes crack us up. They charge the fence whenever a dog walks by (frequently on a warm weekend afternoon) and act like they are going to kick some dog ass any minute. After they have finished “taking names” they run around one another in a sort of victory dance. If they were people, I swear those two would be trash talking at the fence and then doing airborne chest bumps like a couple of fraternity brothers on a bender. I must say, spending the day in the yard was a two-edged sword. The sun was good for me but the pollen, not so much.

I actually called in sick to work not one but two days. I never call in. My paid time off is too precious and is really just for vacations, right? Screw using it for actual sick leave! Had there been someone to replace me on Thursday I would have stayed home sick that day, too. I slept most of the two days I was supposed to be working. On Friday I resurrected myself from bed just in time to pick up Beav from school and managed to pull it together and go to Annie LeMott’s reading at the our big and famous indie bookstore. A couple of times I just wanted to slide off my chair and curl up on the floor for a little nap. Not feeling well saved me from spending any money. I sat on the floor in a corner waiting for my number and wrote in my journal. Writing in public makes me feel extremely pretentious and a little fake. Complete projection on my part because I think most people who sit and write in public are completely fake and pretentious. Writing is a private act and in order for it to be work worth reading it must be preformed in quiet isolation. So no one can see--at times--my desperation.

The reading was at the downtown version of our well known indie bookstore for the reading Friday night, plopped on the floor with my notebook out and head buried deep in my own thoughts and almost oblivious to the people around me. I felt like a “wadded up piece of paper” and really didn’t want to engage with the other LaMott fans. Besides, this bookstore intimated the Hell out of me what with the uber librarian type clerks. It’s not like they treat those of us from the suburbs like a hick at the Saks jewelry counter they are nice and helpful folks. The customers are mostly well-heeled “downtown types” equally intimidating to me. My assumption is all the customers and all the clerks hold a couple of MS degrees and a PhD or two so I feel like I can’t intellectually keep up with them and I just duck my head and go to the back of the line and sit on the floor with my moleskine and scribble madly hoping I don’t look as goofy as I feel. The other night as I was scribbling, I realized when Anne LaMott wrote Bird by Bird she didn’t have a degree. I’m not sure if she does now, either. This cheered me because there isn’t anything that makes me more discouraged than the back flap of a book lauding the author’s work at University Of Iowa, Princeton or Brown. So I it gave me hope that a college drop out was READING at this fancy bookstore and I was going to hear her read. Finally after six years of admiring her from afar.

I found LaMott late, I didn’t read her blog at Salon nor did I read Operating Instructions Wally is just a year younger than her son, Sam, and I didn’t read books about babies when Beav came along. But a few years later, I did read Bird by Bird and it changed my feelings about my own writing and made me realize, just like nursing, I am called to write. And all you have to do is read the archives of this blog to see how I feel about LaMott’s Christianity and her idea of Grace. I was very nervous about even speaking to her if I had the chance. My biggest fear is I would have some sort of fan girl melt down resembling a ten year old girl at a Jason Bieber concert. The notebook was my shield against getting all worked up with the people around me. Because the people around me, were complete fan girls and it was a little embarrassing.

As I waited for the reading, I started reminiscing about the other signings I had attended. The first one was Rita Mae Brown and I was mesmerized by her. Of course, the book was forgettable but it was still a big experience for me to hear her soft accent intoning the details of her fictive universe. Next up was William Least Heat Moon. I was so crazy about Blue Highways I carried a copy of it around with me for a few months and talked Ward into taking a small dirt road off a highway near Missoula Montana because a placed named “Rivulet” was at the end of the road. I wanted to see a town called Rivulet and it felt like something Moon would have done. Rivulet was a ghost down with a few shacks but the road through the deep forest was worth it. Besides, Rivulet is one of my favorite words. A few years later, Velkram Seth read from his book which followed a A Suitable Boy and it was a delightfully personal experience. There were very few people there and he had conversations with each one of us. He was completely charmed by my story of cutting his 1400 page novel into two pieces because the hardcover edition I had was just too heavy. His disappointment I didn’t bring it to be signed was endearing. My least satisfying experience at a signing was Joyce Carol Oates. Such a strange little woman who seemed to work at appearing affected and otherworldly. Oh if you are so utterly precious and ethereal spare us your drama by staying at home.

I do like to watch the people at these things; despite not wanting to engage with them. My fears of being an overwrought fan girl were in vain because the very idea of carrying on like a couple of the women who had been there since lunch time (it was six-ish) to be the first in line made me want to reach for a vodka martini with a Xanax garnish. The woman sitting next to me was in her seventies and terribly elegant: tall, willowy with her lovely white hair pulled into a chignon. She moved and looked like a dancer. She was sweet and did try to talk to me a couple of times but I wasn’t forthcoming. Mostly because at that moment a wave of malaise had swept over me and I wanted to lie down on the floor in the fetal position and sleep. I imagined this ballerina beside had once been Balanchine’s mistress; never fully recovering from the brief but passionate affair. When the affair ended, devastated, she left dance and moved to Marrakesh where she organized the first micro loan group. Sure, we would exchange phone numbers and after one coffee date she would realize I was too ordinary and offered nothing to her life and would then find it necessary to spend a few months avoiding me while I continued to try and set things up with her, blind to her disinterest in a friendship with me. Behind me were the quintessential 30-something housewives, over earnest and over thinking. These women make me wistful that I didn’t enjoy my children when they were little; they make me wishful for my youth. These women were way more self-confident than I was at they age, too. Not one single hand wringing comment over preschool. The last woman to enter the room had the most self-assured and thoroughly together continence I’ve ever witnessed. She was like Harrison’s character Dalva in the flesh. Her hair was wildly curly and swept back in a simple pony tail and she had on the hottest red Frye cowboy boots I’ve ever seen in my life. Had I not been sick I think I would have tackled her and stolen her boots; forget the reading.

Surrounding this crowd of adoring women and the few men who were good sports were pictures of the writers who had read at the bookstore before. The first picture my eyes landed on was of David Sedaris. Of course. Because I want to be the lesbian version of Sedaris. Regrettably, I’m almost the lesbian version of his mother sans cigarettes and alcohol. I do have terrible fantasies about just letting myself go, drinking gin out of a white coffee cup and locking my kids out of the house in the snow so I can be alone. I’m not sure I’m qualified to be the lesbian version of Sedaris because my childhood wasn’t messed up enough either. Nor did anything funny like the Miss Coppertone contests happen. There was not a photo of Raymond Carver, one writer I regret discovering shortly after he died. Carver is the reason why attending readings by favorite authors is important to me. The tenuous quality of life is one of the lessons I’m learning this year. It is becoming important to me to seize opportunities when I can do and see those things which matter to me. Seeing LaMott read is one of those things.

I am happy to see I didn’t cry or squeal or say something asinine or stalker-ish which has resulted in a restraining order against me in Marin County when she approached me (as she did many people) and asked if she could sign my book. She looked me straight in the eye and fully engaged with me for about thirty seconds with a presence that seemed natural without pretense or force. I could feel her pray a silent prayer for me. She was probably begging God to please not let me breath on her.

What My Hands Remember

My hands are mannish and rough. If the rest of me were not visible you would name me as Crone rather than Mother. But even as Maid I had old hands. My hands are wizened by years of hand washing and hand holding and they are not strangers to work or dirt or other hands. They have been the first hands held by countless new humans, fresh from the peaceful lair called womb. Tiny hands gripping my mawkish, oversized crooked index fingers. I hope my hand was the first of many held, for safety, strength and passion. The trust those new humans put into my hands was pure reflex response: put something in a baby’s palm and watch how the fingers close around it. One of the many subtle signs of fully functioning human-ness: you can hold hands at birth.

My hands are care worn, like my heart. My heart and hands are covered with sunspots, wrinkles, finely etched crevices from the burdens they have carried. These Icabod Crane fingers are part of a last hand held. Ugly but strong they sought the hand of the dying to offer up comfort or courage to take those last breaths. A human touch to ease the passage but whose ease is still unknown: mine or theirs? Some have gripped with powerful strength afraid to let go of this familiar plane of consciousness no matter how hostile it has become. Others offered me a quiescent clasp of mottled warmth more to assuage my own regret and sense of loss knowing they must travel to the next place and reunite with near forgotten hands, eager to welcome them and love them once more.



That’s a meditation I wrote as a response to Luis Alberto Urrea’s writing prompt he offered on his fan page at Facebook. What a gift to have a 21st century master respond to my writing. I don’t even care if he tells me to never ever EVER write anything aside a shopping list, my name or a mortgage check again. This prompt: “What My Hands Remember” could be the first step towards moving my life’s work into the right brain place of the metaphysics of Care, and away from the left brain place of tasks and deadlines. The weight of burn out I’m suffering threatens to reduce my patients to disease states rather than fellow human beings who are suffering. I hope this sticks because I am rapidly becoming the nurse I have absolutely no respect for and frankly hold in contempt: The nurse who doesn’t care. Yeah, the job is done, it’s done correctly but it’s done by an automaton and not a flesh bearing warm blooded human with a soul.

“Today's Blessing: ‘I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world.’ Neruda”


Naruda always manages to say it just right and I stumbled on this lovely line today which describes how I felt last night contemplating the prompt. Only I’m not a poet and couldn’t frame my emotions in such a beautiful image.

I’m not sure if I’m to the point of “singing through the world” but I’m humming and the tune is catchy.

Putting It Out There

Friday, The Beav could barely disguise his unmitigated joy when I announced to him the sad news I had to put down the Honda. God does answer prayers because I know that kid prayed to Jesus the mechanic would tell me the Honda was terminal so he wouldn’t have to drive it. (I wonder how Jesus is doing with that PS 3 cuz I know how June is doing with it) When I got the news my first reaction was a panicky feeling in the pit of my stomach: Wally was coming home for a few months so how in the Hell were we going to coordinate two work schedules without killing each other. But I’m getting pretty good and taking deep breathes and pushing away the panic and invite hope in an effort to overwhelm the fear. This worked for about a nano second before my monkey brain took over and within about thirty minutes of spinning on the situation I had a picture of myself walking eight miles home in a foot of snow because Wally wasn’t answering his phone to avoid picking me up. I worried about the car all weekend, and vacillated between buying a hoopty, a new car for myself or just making do with sharing a car. All of the possible solutions irritated me because euthanizing the Honda wasn’t my idea and I hate unhappy surprises and I really hate not being in complete control of a situation. I was already concerned about the shape Wally was going to be in when he came home this week and dealing with stupid car issues was just One. More. Thing.

Once upon seven years ago, I would have looked at this situation as proof God really hated me and wanted me to suffer because that‘s how He rolls. Nowadays after I’ve become bored with worrying about situations I can usually hand it over to the Universe to do with it what it may. But I’m terribly impatient and if my Requests Of The Management aren’t answered with the answer I want to hear in a few hours I start to lose hope. And worry all over again. It’s like I’m sitting at a table with God and I slide a festively wrapped package towards him. I’ve wrapped up my worries with lavish wrapping paper and a large festive bow because I have spent so much time worrying about what’s inside, the box should look extra special. I slide the box slowly towards him, proud I’m giving a gift as big as the one in the box. But just as God starts to pull at the ribbon I hold my hand out and stop him from unwrapping it and snatch it away from him. I do this every time I ask the Universe to help me with something. I pull my lovely package or worry over the car back to my side of the table where I can unwrap it and rearrange it. I haven’t learned to leave the burden on the table. Like I’m as big as God and really what does he know I can manage this so much better? Ego much? Last week I was re-reading Plan B by Anne LaMott and one of the essays is about her son Sam‘s desire to meet his father. After they find him, she prays he will reach out to Sam and when it takes a long time she becomes angry with God. One thing leads to another and LaMott realized the lag time between asking and receiving was necessary. She says something so simple and so remarkable about this waiting, God needed time to work on it. Yesterday evening as I was leaving the parking garage at work I passed by my dream car which led me to think about the car issue and I was about to pull the package away from God again when I stopped myself with the words: “He is working on it.” And then all alone in the car, I prayed out loud (something I thought only crazy people did) “I don’t know what to do about this stupid car situation and I’m not expecting a car to fall out of the sky and hit me in the head but if I’m supposed to have a second car, point it out to me in a very concrete fashion, like with a sign on it: “Here’s the car June” but nothing opaque or woo-woo, so I don’t miss it. And could you make it before I’m walking home from the hospital after a long shift or Wally can’t take a job because it’s not on a bus line? Thank you”

This afternoon I was talking to Wally while he was waiting for his airplane very far from home and we were discussing the poor old Honda and I realized I hadn’t worried about it all day. As we talked about it, I realized I wasn’t starting to worry about it and I was aware of how good it felt to really let go of something. For the first time in a very long time I had really walked away from a burden without turning around and picking it back up again.

Tonight I received an email message: “I need to talk to you. Please call.” I responded to the message and I was offered a car that I can pick up in January it is neither a Hoopty or a Beater but a perfectly respectable and well cared for car. But because I am my own worst enemy, I almost didn’t accept the gift. I even wrestled with why the gift was given to me. Was it offered out of pity because I was whining about having a car payment? . . . What if I had guilted someone into giving me something. . . Could my pride allow me to accept the gift?

The Girl’s simple words were: “Just take it.” But I had to wrestle around with the idea of this gift a little longer until I realized not accepting a gift freely given is like denying someone’s compliment. You know how it is, someone tells you your shoes are cute and you say: “Oh these old things, I’m kind of sick of them.” It makes the other person feel sort of bad.

I realized I’m not good at receiving gifts. Part of leading a life of gratitude is accepting the gifts we are given and not turning them away. I’m all about offering thanks for the stuff that looks like a goodie and a treat but these last few weeks, I have been given disguised as bad things. My gut feeling tells me Wally’s return home is for a reason so big I can’t imagine it. Weird Hormone Boy I mean Beav’s attitude made me realize I was once the same kid and it‘s ok to be self centered at fifteen because he will grow out of it with a little guidance and some boundaries. This whole car situation helped me realize for the millionth time I have only first world problems. My poor sweet ailing dog has made me realize how close we are as a family despite the divorce. Finally, as a result of the insanity at work I have been given a clear picture of what I’m supposed to do with my career. Maybe I’ll get to a point of saying “thank you” rather than “help!” when I hit a bump in my road.

I also have seamless evidence God has a sense of humor because the car I will be driving this spring:


Mini van.


Verrryy funny God. But thanks.

Delusions Of Happiness

One of my favorite blogs is here. Gretchen provides tips on Wednesday and they are always salient and timely. This week was no different. I had such a bad day on Monday, I was still reeling from it by Wednesday. A sort of numb PTSD feeling like I experience after an emergency that doesn't go well or a difficult death. Because of HPPA, I can't go into the particulars but lets just say I spent most of a twelve hour shift in one room and it wasn't because the patient was unstable and the doctor unwilling to send the patient to the ICU. Nope, this patient was completely out of control and in order to keep him off the floor I had to literally sit at his bedside and reorient him constantly. If my other four patients needed anything, the charge nurse had to come to the bedside while I threw pills and whisked bandages off and slapped them back on my other patients. I could go into a rant about this situation and why the patient was out of his mind and who it is but I would be (deservedly) fined five figures and lose my job. Anyhow, early Wednesday, cruising my blogs when I'm greeted with the "9 Tips for having a good bad day"

"Where the hell were you on Monday" I mumbled into the screen as I begrudgingly started reading. Begrudgingly, because I was in such a place that "bitter" and "angry" was starting to feel like a baseline emotion. Basically, I dumped all the water out of my half full glass so it would be empty. To be really woo-woo about it: I was giving my power over to someone else, namely to a patient with self-inflicted dementia. Who frankly, given how they have cared for themselves don't deserve the level of expertise and compassion they have received in my hospital. Anyhow, by number three (ruminating) I was hooked and realized how fruitless hanging on to the "no good terrible day" had been. To clarify, I didn't spend Tuesday in the midst of whining and moaning about my day at Crazy's bedside. I forced myself out of the house and pulled weeds, deadheaded flowers and decompressed in the dirt. But I did find myself returning to Monday's events and wishing I never EVER had to work as a nurse again. Whenever I contemplate not being a nurse I get a little sick inside. This is my calling and I'm going to let one really fucked up alcoholic borderline personality push me away from the bedside? If I did this, shame on me, I would be giving him my power.

Wednesday afternoon, I looked to number 7: "Act the way I want to feel" Which wasn't hard because we had this unseasonably cool and humid day yesterday and before I even tackled Gretchen's tips, I had been in the garden overcome with joy we have tomatoes on the verge of ripening. But I had the nagging sensation of counting down the hours before I had to return to work on Friday and I did not want to return with dread and a heavy heart. I wanted to return with hope for a better day and a patient who had the right mix of psych drugs on board so his thoughts and actions were a little more organized.

Yesterday afternoon, after Wally and Beav cleaned the house for me (beautiful job they did, too) my Ipod gave me a wonderful song I just discovered and downloaded last week. Too bad it's from a regrettably sappy movie Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Bob Schneider is a few years younger than me and maybe he is being Gen X and ironic when he wrote these words but I have taken them at face value:

There is a universe that can't be seen
It's just a feeling if you know what I mean
A delectable dimension undetectable by sight
It'll fill up your heart in the dead of the night
Some say its an astral plane
Can't be described can't be explained

The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile

Oh is our life just an illusion
There is no need to figure it out
The separation exists not in your love filled heart
But only in your mind
The real story's all around you
Even now it surrounds you
Even now I feel the power

The world exploded into love all around me
The world exploded into love all around me
And everytime I take a look around me
I have to smile

I contemplated these words for a long time yesterday and I felt my spirits (aka "vibration") lift. Since I have spent eleventy thousand dollars in therapy, I find it exquisitely simple to act the way I want to feel. Once upon a time I thought acting cheerful like some sort of Little Mary Sunshine--you just need to turn that frown upside down and it will be a sunny bright day and all your problems will go away!--sort of dreck was just that: dreck. How dare I live an unauthentic emotion! To feign happiness in the face of bitterness, despair or frustration was lying to the world. Maybe it is a lie. Maybe being happy when things look bleak is a form of delusion. Or perhaps its just a way of looking around the road blocks to the place where love is exploding and the love in one's heart is not separated by the hell living in one's head.

All I know is my heart is full and love is exploding all around me. Thank you Gretchen and Bob.