Moliere Sez:

"It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."

Damn strait!

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

-- Maya Angelou

Of Snow and Seasons and Sandwich Bags

Christmas came and went. The morning was cold and snow-covered. White and crisp and filled with laughter and children opening presents and the sleepy ache of waking early after a night well spent. Sweet lazy smiles. Pancake breakfast and Christmas dinner and baby Nora all smiles and coos. By the end of the evening, the rain came and washed all the snow away.

The weekend was a bit of a trip to another dimension. Hints at what was or could have been in other circumstances. A side-step into a place that is not mine to have or want. Things that do not exist to be given to me. Snow fell again last night while I slept. A 5-inch layer of pristine white fluffy snow to erase it all. I wonder if it actually happened?

If you unzip the ziplock with the peanut butter buckeyes, they will be gone before you can remember. When you re-seal the ziplock, crumbs and all, red and blue combine to form purple. Lock it all inside so it doesn't leak.

Three a.m.

I often feel that my work is never done; that I never get a day where I can put it away. I have been working all night on a paper that I made little progress on again.

I long for something to cling to.

There is precious little in the world to cling to at 3 am aside from a lover or hope. When your papers are not finished and your eyes are too blurry to hold themselves open against the burning and the florescent lights these things seem far away and too intangible to rely on... there is the hope of feet on wooded paths, welcoming weather and the prospect of finishing the paper with fresh eyes and a cup of coffee. There are the facts of the night air, which is soft and wet and smells of leaves and twigs and the promise of freshly made doughnuts in the morning. But mostly, there is fog.

Tonight fog clings to the ground.Round and full she curves herself around the dips and rises of the earth like a lover.

Lovers and hope are what we cling to. No wish comes to us simply. There is always a twist. Tonight, ankle deep in this lover's fog I accept gratefully the twists.

Robbed!

Today a cold soaking rain kept me from my daily run. I put on my outfit and bundled up and started... it took 16 steps before my running pants were soaked through (they are really Laura's cast off pajamas from Victoria secret, but I don't have the money for fancy yoga pants, and they usually keep me warm). I put my laundry through, tidied my papers and reviewed the outline for tomorrow's meeting.

I hope it goes well.

Not an ethical issue, they say. I had an argument with my teacher about it. I didn't intend to, but when she said that it wasn't an ethical issue and dismissed it without discussion... well, I took offense to that. Lesbian health and Women's health is a big deal to me - if lesbians are disproportionately effected by an infection that can cause some pretty hefty health sequelae, and standards of care aren't up to date in recognizing that this infection is passed sexually between women who have sex with women, I think its an ethical issue. I mean - who's responsibility is it to make sure protocols are evidence based? And when they aren't, did someone do something wrong? What about the patient - did they suffer harm? Do they have to suffer to be treated unfairly? I think it is an ethical issue, they say its not -- it's simply standard of care issue. i do not believe they are mutually exclusive. Whatever the case may be, I can do a re-write (thank you, powers that be). I think I am too personally invested in this particular issue and should choose another issue. Alas, they told me I have to keep the same patient, so where does that leave me? At my advisor's encouragement I am going to speak to the co-teacher of the course to ask her to be my reader, ask her for advice on how to proceed and hopefully not ruffle any feathers from now on. Wish me luck...

Fox trot

A fox crossed the road in front of me as I drove into school this evening.

A funny sight in the city... they really do trot.

Cardinal Summer

Fall is here. Brisk rain-humidified air, the saturated colors of trees turning their flushed cheek toward winter, the smell of earth rising from the damp soil; the crunch of leaves underfoot. It is my favorite season. I shared it last year, this year it is just for me... it feels good to allow my focus to turn inward; to be finding my way toward contentedness. I've needed it.

The summer passed by without even being a summer. The days were cool. I used the air conditioner only once. It was marked by a visit with my dearest friends from college - long overdue and sweet and intense for the longing I've held in my heart to hear their voices in unison again.... and a local cardinal influx. The bright calls of the cardinals followed me everywhere I went this summer. A longtime friend called it the cardinal summer, and it was. Sitting on the back porch of her house, overlooking the steep drop of the woods as they plunge toward the lake, I was surrounded by bird song. I wrote this there, it was for someone who broke my heart but I loved anyway:

Cardinal Summer

In my retreating dream
you call to the Cardinal
your laughter-tinged
red-winged mating song
unrolls the moss underfoot;
calls spring leaves from bud --

The stirring and the first rays,
the sleep-heavy arm
around the warm contour of your body;
eyelids fluttering toward open.

Soft.

Soft, I rise
to bird-twitter commentary
on the rising of the sun.

-- Summer, 2009


People come in two camps. The kind that go to the ends of the earth for you and the kind that won't cross the room. It was a cardinal summer for me, not just for the bright song of the birds following me, but also for the lessons learned in this regard. For all the tears that ushered it in, it was filled with realization, birdsong, laughter, fire, accomplishment, tromps in the woods... and the kind of friends that would go to the ends of the earth for me.

Lost & Found

I lost something. I am not positive that I know what it is, but I miss it.

I think it might be gratitude? Maybe its trust or faith? Maybe its love. Its something soft and ungraspable and lovely.

It has something to do with the surprise wave of joy that seeps in and lifts you up and grabs your attention so you are left marveling at the beauty in the world. I want surprise beauty, the melt of the heart accompanied by the wisdom of a child's words, the feeling of acceptance that comes with old friends and easy laughter.

I realize that I have to stop looking so hard. It will find me when I have let my shoulders drop and am ready to take in what the world has to offer.

I haven't been making room for that.

Loss and fear and hurt have raised walls -- thick stone walls that rumbled and thundered and shook the ground when they rose in preperation to protect me. I called them forth. They keep me safe while I am busy preparing.

I have been very busy preparing. First for my written qualifying exams and now for my oral defense. I am preparing so that I can pass and go on to do more preperation ...and so that I don't have to think about the choices that lay before me and so I don't have to prepare to walk away.

I hate walking away. I want to find something good in the hard stuff. I want to have my cold unforgiving stone walls and be open to the world and its beauty and all the good things at the same time. I can't have both.

I think I search for these things in my dreams, but I never find them. Instead I wake up clutching the sheets, my knuckles white and my pinkie fingers numb. I wake up filled with sorrow for all the loss, for the questions I have answered wrong, for the darkness of the safe place I've made.

I have decided that to find what I am looking for I need to let the wall go. I need to let go of preparing to prepare to do something I don't want to do. Life is short. I must open my eyes and experience the world and be here today, walking the earth. I can't do that dragging a big stone wall around.

The Gift and The Lesson

Sometimes friendships last a lifetime. Sometimes they are just passing through. We chose who we bring close and who we push away.The friendships that last are the ones we make space for and nurture.

Sometimes people you hope will be friends for a lifetime are just passing through. Leave them with kindness to remember you by and let them pass. Perhaps your paths will cross again someday under different circumstances, perhaps not.

Acceptance. Forgiveness. Kindness. Love.

These are both the gift and the lesson.

What's to say?

I have been talking to myself lately. But just in my head. I am a nice person, give good pep talks, that sort of jazz. Decided I should ought to give me own self the kind of support I normally reserve for others, so I've been giving it a try. I wonder why I never thought to check in with myself like that before.

Turns out, I really appreciate the insight and encouragement.

Of course, maybe I've gone off the deep end.