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The Mind of Me: 09-20-11: Honesty. Open-Mindedness. Willingness. HOW. I find that these 3 principles improve my life every day I practice them. They are very simple a...
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September 25, 2011
September 23, 2011
One from my archives... On Life and Death
This has been stored up in the unpublished section of my blog for two years now.
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To my shock and regret, I realized recently that I am actually quite superstitious.
Miss CC has been sickly lately, battling some nasty bugs and concurrent pneumonia.
When she had turned dusky and we were speeding to the ER, I held her little blue hand and sang a little song. I smiled and cooed at her and tried to assuageher my fear. I realized then that since she was born I've had in the back of my mind this idea that we've been trying to avert Death's pesky pursuit for the last two years, dodging and darting about, leaving a zig-zagged trail -- you know, as if that helps.
And each one of these seemingly desperate events feels like it must surely be the last, because I've somehow managed to be influenced by our strange socially constructed notion that death, in its dark and smoky anthropomorphic form, does indeed hungrily pursue us and that eventually, if we are caught unguarded, will prevail.
But it's not really this way. As unlikely as it seems, life prevails.
Or perhaps it's just that these days we are blissfully ignorant of how diligently Death pursues us. Germ theory, antiseptics, vaccines, scientific medicine... all these things have had a profound impact on staving off Death and his pesky scythe.
In pre-scientific medicine era, Charlotte would have been born only to immediately begin starving to death. There would have been no surgery, no IV nutrition, no ability to sustain life. This precious girl that's sleeping peacefully in my lap as I type would have been an unknown.
*****
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That's where I stopped writing two years ago. And now a four-year-old Charlotte sleeps peacefully in my lap again. I can feel her heart beating slowly against my leg, and again I am pondering life and death. Her heart beats so slowly because of her faulty wiring. But faulty wiring doesn't mean faulty heart. Charlotte has, in just four years, touched more lives than most of us will in a lifetime. And though it seems like we've often had to sprint away from Death, I think really what's been going on is that Charlotte's been running so furiously towards Life!
The piece is disjointe
d, which is why it never got published. I am a good started, not such a good finisher. I know when I started writing this two years ago I was going to finish it up by praising modern medicine and the doctors that saved her life for the third time. Two years later I still thank them, but I can't leave out one very important person! I have to thank Charlotte... thank her for saving so many other lives with her kindness and purity and inspiration. Imagine what she'll do with the next four years! And the next, and so on!
I feel so fortunate to be her mother, though I can't imagine what I did to deserve such a special honor. When she sleeps at my side, or naps on my lap, I gaze at her with profound wonder and awe. To me, she hung the moon, as they say, and is busily painting the stars as well.
_______________________________________
To my shock and regret, I realized recently that I am actually quite superstitious.
Miss CC has been sickly lately, battling some nasty bugs and concurrent pneumonia.
When she had turned dusky and we were speeding to the ER, I held her little blue hand and sang a little song. I smiled and cooed at her and tried to assuage
And each one of these seemingly desperate events feels like it must surely be the last, because I've somehow managed to be influenced by our strange socially constructed notion that death, in its dark and smoky anthropomorphic form, does indeed hungrily pursue us and that eventually, if we are caught unguarded, will prevail.
But it's not really this way. As unlikely as it seems, life prevails.
Or perhaps it's just that these days we are blissfully ignorant of how diligently Death pursues us. Germ theory, antiseptics, vaccines, scientific medicine... all these things have had a profound impact on staving off Death and his pesky scythe.
In pre-scientific medicine era, Charlotte would have been born only to immediately begin starving to death. There would have been no surgery, no IV nutrition, no ability to sustain life. This precious girl that's sleeping peacefully in my lap as I type would have been an unknown.
*****
____________________________________
That's where I stopped writing two years ago. And now a four-year-old Charlotte sleeps peacefully in my lap again. I can feel her heart beating slowly against my leg, and again I am pondering life and death. Her heart beats so slowly because of her faulty wiring. But faulty wiring doesn't mean faulty heart. Charlotte has, in just four years, touched more lives than most of us will in a lifetime. And though it seems like we've often had to sprint away from Death, I think really what's been going on is that Charlotte's been running so furiously towards Life!
The piece is disjointe
d, which is why it never got published. I am a good started, not such a good finisher. I know when I started writing this two years ago I was going to finish it up by praising modern medicine and the doctors that saved her life for the third time. Two years later I still thank them, but I can't leave out one very important person! I have to thank Charlotte... thank her for saving so many other lives with her kindness and purity and inspiration. Imagine what she'll do with the next four years! And the next, and so on!I feel so fortunate to be her mother, though I can't imagine what I did to deserve such a special honor. When she sleeps at my side, or naps on my lap, I gaze at her with profound wonder and awe. To me, she hung the moon, as they say, and is busily painting the stars as well.
September 19, 2011
This one is all about me :)
Finally things are getting sorted out!
I've got two wonderful internships this semester, one at the local Public Library Archives. I am processing old dusty boxes containing legal cases from a few decades back. It makes me 'eart a-flutter to be around all the old dilapidated books and photographs and artifacts. (it also makes my lungs hurt so I don a surgical mask, the kind I'm always swiping from hospital clinic visits) The only problem at first was the struggle to resist the compulsion to push the button and let the moving shelves close in on me, smashing me betwixt moldy and dusty. But, then the archivist informed me that there are built-in preventions for that very thing, and so it's not possible. Damn. I mean, it seemed such an adventure.
The other is a paid internship in a similar setting. Oh how my heart throbbed when I first laid eyes on the wonders contained therein. Not only do they have old moldy books and things, but photographs, objects, blueprints, things I can't even identify but they are old and rusty and electrical looking. And art. They house all the corporate art, racks ad racks of it. ~sigh~ There is a museum section as well so I will be assisting with setting up exhibits. Heaven!So there's the fun stuff. The mo' funna stuff is that I've been enjoying the company of some lovely ladies, as we all try to find our niche in the artsy world. Heera, the soon to be locally famous celebrated henna artist, has been very busy attending events and promoting her art. She has also been busy covering me with henna.
She does great work, wouldn't you say? Susan also has been ramping up her jewelry and Motherly Creations business, and we three went in on a booth at the recent Babypalooza. I sold a goodly amount of babywearing ring slings.
(HennaJenna. The way in, as you can see, is through my brain.)
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