Forever. Also, a day.

It has been a long time, friends.

So much has happened in the past year... I accomplished miracles, loved deeply and experienced great loss and great adventure. In the past year I ran a half marathon, I reunited with a lover (although it ended, it shaped the corduroy pocket in my heart that holds all my very best things), both my maternal grandparents passed away within a few months of each other and my one time beloved, fluffy fluffy dog, Fancy Pants, passed away as well. During this same year, my youngest niece was Bat Mitzvah-ed, I reconnected with dear old friends, went to my 20th year college reunion and generally became aware of how rich my life is in terms of connection. I also saw and did wonderful, magical things: I saw a meteor shower, bathed in wild waters in multiple states, slept under the stars in the gulf of Mexico, the woods of New York and the wilds of Alaska, I saw horizontal lightning, double rainbows, dolphins and manatees and flying fish, took a niece to Alaska to camp, hiked a peak in the Adirondacks, nursed a sick mother back to health and made and ate good food and loved, connected and felt, a lot.

Currently I am looking at a new job, it starts in October and will be working in the OB/Gyn department at a public health facility caring for the under served. I also have finally registered to take my boards and will be sitting for them at the end of the Month. I am still in the PhD program, but just by the hair of my teeth. I have a meeting at the end of the month that will make my decision to stay or go.

I have had a lot of loss this year, but also accomplished wonderful things. I have shed a lot of tears this year - both for sadness and joy - but I think it is an understatement to say that I am well. I feel strong in my heart - happy (mostly), healthy (thankfully) and very, very rich in connection in terms of friends, family and loved ones. And, today I learned that I have paid off my car (just in time to repair the bumper I bumped into submission), so yay for that!

I will try to update this more regularly - and by that I mean more than once a year.

As ever, when change is in my heart, poetry is on my mind. It is fall, which always sways my heart toward sleeping in the woods...

Sleeping in the Forest I thought the earth remembered me, she took me back so tenderly, arranging her dark skirts, her pockets full of lichens and seeds. I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed, nothing between me and the white fire of the stars but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths among the branches of the perfect trees. All night I heard the small kingdoms breathing around me, the insects, and the birds who do their work in the darkness. All night I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling with a luminous doom. By morning I had vanished at least a dozen times into something better.

from Sleeping In The Forest by Mary Oliver

Beauty

“To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don’t need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

I was in a conversation contemplating that which makes us compelling to ourselves and others the other day. I was trying to name that certain un-graspable thing that is held within that makes a person radiate; that beckons and shines. I couldn't of course... precisely because it is unique for each person. I think Thich Nhat Hanh captured it pretty well in the quote above, so I thought I would share it. Be yourself passionately, friends. You are beautiful.

In other news, two weeks ago I ran that 10k I set my sights on in November. I did it in 59 minutes and 40 seconds. Not too shabby.

Sunshine and stuff

It has been a very long, cold winter.

I went to Florida for a week in search of sunshine and mojo. Had a lovely visit; am now home again safe & sound.

Break ups are hard, no matter how needed or how amicable. Holding my cards close this time. We'll see how it goes.

PhD still slow. Need to do my boards; need to *STUDY* for my boards, then do them. Decided that I can do it and that my Mojo will return.

Digging in for these last few weeks of cold before the spring hits. I'm like a little spring bud reaching through the snow toward the sun.

I can do it. I can do it. I can do it.

That's all I got.

It's Been Raining Here

Let the rain kiss you. Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops. Let the rain sing you a lullaby.

Langston Hughes

It's nice to think about it that way. I haven't been. In my mind the rain is a wall of cold driving drops that penetrate directly to the core of the heat of me; they sizzle when the cold of the drop hits my skin.

I am procrastinating. I need to go jog in the rain now. I dread the first drops will be sharp and cold. I think I will be glad I went once I actually go. I think I will be grateful for the smells and sounds and feel of the air and rain drops on my skin.

Edited to add report from a jog:

The rain lifted once I started, and it brought warm air instead of cold. I was too warm -- so warm I had to take off a layer at the top of the staircase. There's a late blooming butterfly bushy looking thing in the park. It has these bloops of deep purple which are made up of tiny flowers. It is next to the butterfly bushes that bloomed this summer/fall -- but they are all barren looking now, with this hybrid brazen purple bush prancing behind them. I ran down an old street I used to live on. The retired folks were out on their lawns raking and doing last minute fall-clean up. I waved hello and felt like I was home. I'm very glad I went. I ran 4 1/4 miles. My furthest in a very long while. My goal is to be able to run a 10k.

Seasons and Change

My trip to Alaska was wonderful. I did not expect it to be and prepared for it to be terrible... so that was a very nice surprise. I went camping and Halibut fishing and saw old friends. The camping and fishing were both a bit of a bust, but the time spent together was good and healing. I didn't think I would ever be able to say that, so I am grateful. I had no expectations. I am glad for what I have had.

Today is chilly and sunny, a fine introduction to Autumn. The leaves are beginning to turn gold and crimson and the daylight fades by 7pm. I like the late day sun this time of year, and the air is clean and brisk lately. It makes me feel like the air is smiling.

I leave tomorrow morning to go on a brief camping trip... I look forward to the glory of the Adirondacks in the fall but have some trepidation. It is a test, one similar to what I just engaged in on my trip to Alaska: It will either be wonderful and open the door to possibility or be disappointing and point the way to the door. I can be at peace with either.

I spent the day packing and preparing and drinking ginger lemon grass tea. Both make me think fondly of my father and remind me that I must remember to pack things to paint with.

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."