listen to my heart

since feeling is first / who pays any attention / to the syntax of things / will never wholly kiss you

~e.e. cummings

I granulated

This week I made a life goal. I earned my nurse practitioner degree, the day after the 20th anniversary of my 20th birthday. I wanted it for myself. I worked hard for it, on my own, for three years with next to no support. Friends I thought I could count on walked away, jealous or disinterested. There was no partner I could rely on to make me a meal or place a blanket over me when I fell asleep on the couch after typing days on end. I did it. I did it all for me. It is the first time in my life I have done such a wildly selfish thing. I did it because I woke up one day with the cold realization in my heart that if I don't define who I am for myself I will never, ever, be the woman I hope to be. At the end of the day, we all die alone. The only goals we reach worth having are the ones we make for our selves, so I made a decision to reach for what I wanted. I live this life putting one foot ahead of another on this path I forged from thin air and hope. I am proud of myself today. Tomorrow I hit the pavement again looking for work.

"If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” ~ Audre Lorde

Shoulders back, chin up.

“It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it.”

Lena Horne

Vernal Equinox & More Poetry

Today is the vernal equinox. Night and day are poised on the threshold of equality and tomorrow the scales will tip in favor of the sun.

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling

-W. Whitman

Yes Mr. Whitman. I agree.

Give me the sun... long winter nights and cold short days have seeped in. Dark and bitter and too cold to remember the warmth and melting I long for. I am ready to let the sun warm the earth again. As I walk the wooded path I find my self urging the earth to soak in the sun's heat. My hope is that the warmth will linger in the ground so that even if it snows again, it will soon melt. The bulbs in the park know no fear, they reach toward the sky with wild hope and zero restraint. They do not think of the pain of a quick frost or the feel of the cold... they see only the sun and reach for it with reckless abandon. I cannot be that now -- but I can urge the earth to accept and soak in the heat, and I can open my windows and doors and let in the fresh spring air and breath it all the way into the core of me. There is much I cannot have and much that I can. Today marks the beginning of a new season. I have to go now -- the sun is calling to me. I'll leave you with another poem -- I dedicate it to the change of season, to slain frost and new flowers and the blossoming of spring --

For winter's rains and ruins are over,
And all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lover and lover,
The light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten,
And frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.


Algernon Charles Swinburne

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.