YouTube – Lysol: cleaning from the inside out

Just found another book that I really want to read. Incredible.

YouTube – Lysol: cleaning from the inside out

Much to say

I have much to say, which means one of two things…I will either say not much of anything at all because too many random things are bouncing off the walls of my cranium…OR…I will say much, and it may or may not make any sense whatsoever.

To begin: I am reading a lot of very exciting books right now. I think too much. I may need to cut back a bit. This reading can be a little on the addictive side. I finally finished Alice’s Adventures and Through the Looking glass…and I was underimpressed. Alice’s Adventures was pretty good. Some interesting parts that weren’t in the movie I remember. I really loved most of the nonsensical poetry – especially the Walrus and The Carpenter (always has been a fave), and some of the made-up words were fun - but some of it just went on and on and on… Through the looking glass made it ever so clear that the stories about Carroll’s drug use are absolutely true. Absolutely and without a doubt. Honestly I finished reading most of the book over a month ago…and then just let the book just sit forlornly on my nightstand with the last few pages unread….because it was getting quite torturous and I was not fond of either the Red or the White Queen and by the end I mostly just wanted them and Alice to shut their faces. The most enjoyable part of the stories for me, were the lovely illustrations…Alice and the Dodo, the Jabberwocky, The Lobster Quadrille, the Mad Hatter. All quite lovely and familiarly comforting.

Here is a snippet of my favoritist – the Walrus and the Carpenter as told by Tweedledee:

“the sun was shining on the sea, shining with all his might: he did his very best to make the billows smooth and bright – And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night…”

Now, I am also re-reading A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf. I am absolutely in love with Virginia Woolf. Enraptured. Reading it now for bookclub and I can’t wait to talk about it with my favorite ladies. As I have said before, I literally devoured the book at lightening speed before, so I am looking forward to savoring it now.

Reading Nursing by Jean Watson. She is my nursing hero. I find it interesting that a great deal of what I teach is in this text. I have studied her theory and ideas at various times, but not to the depth I would like…but it is oh so obvious how much she has influenced my practice. I am about half-way through this one – which is pretty good considering that I have mostly been reading this one at the gym while on the elliptical machine. It is quite stimulating really. I want to talk about this one more in depth, to better serve my nursing readers…but I will have to cogitate that a bit further.  For now, I will just share a quote that says much:

“A humanistic-altruistic value system is a qualitative philosophy that guides one’s mature life. It is the commitment to and satisfaction of receiving through giving. It involves the capacity to view humanity with love and to appreciate diversity and individuality. Such a value system helps one to tolerate differences and to view others through their own perceptual systems rather than through one’s own”.

I am also reading…rather working through The Artist’s Way. I don’t know how artistic I am becoming but it is so very therapeutic right now during a time when I really need it. This is a recovery workbook, whether you are recovering from being a blocked artist or from grief and loss or Whatever. Cameron’s gentleness and fierceness are beautifully inspiring.

Last but not least, 1984 by George Orwell. It is fascinating, depressing, scary,…well that is all I have to say for now. That and that it is giving me freaky dreams. But I guess that is what I get for reading it before sleep.

Last student is finishing up…so I am too.

2nd Annual Contemplation of Feet

This past Wednesday I had the honor and privilege to once again serve Nashville’s homeless by washing their feet. The event was Project Homeless Connect and I was there with 23 (yes twenty three) of my amazing nursing students volunteering with Room in the Inn (shout out to those at Room at the Inn – you all ROCK!!) at their foot clinic and at registration. Some students were “down in the trenches” with myself and other volunteers (including one of my most favoritist persons in the world – you know who you are). Other students helped to register people for the event – which included taking a brief history and hearing a lot of their stories.

This year, as last year, I was profoundly impacted. My role was a little different this year – I was the only medical-type person there for much of the day, in addition to coordinating students.

We think we have problems. We get upset over trifling things we call “problems”- bad traffic, long lines in stores for Christmas shopping, difficulties at school (as an instructor or as a student), problems with this or that relationship, etc. We let these minor problems fill our thoughts and assume such importance. Truly they are as nothing. A day volunteering in a setting like this really puts things into perspective. Traffic may be bad, but we get to drive and have the luxury of a car. Lines may be long, but we have the money to buy presents (however small) for our loved ones, and we will likely receive presents in return (something we often take for granted). School may be hard – but we have the luxury of attending or in my case – the luxury of having a good job. We may have problems in our relationships, but we know there is someone who loves us. For many of the individuals we met Wednesday, many or all of these luxuries are so far out of their reach it is hard for me to even begin to fathom how difficult to obtain things I so easily take for granted.

I met some amazing people Wednesday, not only the homeless persons, but also the volunteers as well. People who freely give of their time, not just this one day, but on a regular basis. One man with kindly eyes was there last year, and told me he volunteers every week in different settings. Another gentleman said he volunteered at RITI every week that it helped him to achieve balance in his life. He told me he worked at the front desk of one of the high-rise condos within walking distance of RITI’s Campus for Human Development. Condos there run from almost 200k to well over a million bucks. This lovely man told me about how demanding and self-centered some of the tenants are and that many of them have so much. He walks from work to volunteer for a few hours with the homeless persons at the campus and it helps him maintain balance he said. Balance. I think we all need to remember that. The image of the wealthy man in a high-rise condo right up the block from the homeless shelter is imprinted in my mind…a picture of balance.

Several things  in particular struck me this year: calves, swollen ankles, smiles and introductions.

Calves: I really noticed some powerful calf muscles – so much so that I commented on several pairs. The owners of those calves just smiled and said “yeah”. “Walking.” Miles and miles and miles of walking. One particular pair of calves seemed totally incongruent with the rest of the woman they belonged to. She had tiny little ankles and Rocking-hard calves – but was otherwise obese. I wondered how much of that trunk fat was her body’s way of protecting her, sheltering her from the cold and the elements…just like her powerful calves enabled her to walk the miles she must walk. Her face will stay with me for a while. She seemed so touched that the pair of socks I gave her matched her sweater…she knew I picked them out just for her, and that seemed to mean so much to her. Just a pair of socks. I didn’t even buy them. But you would have thought I gave her the moon.

Swollen feet and legs: Now this is something I see regularly. And I have a regular response: (in short) elevate your legs above your heart, balanced fluid intake, reduced salt intake. I couldn’t respond that way here, and I found myself at a loss. How can I tell someone to elevate their legs when they must be on their feet and walking most of their day and they DON’T have a consistent or safe place to do elevate them anyway. Dietary instructions are a challenge as well, because when you eat what you can get when you can get it, it is hard to be choosy. I take for granted having a faucet to fill my water bottle with filtered water to drink my fill of and the luxury of walking down store aisles to choose reduc.

Smiles: such heartfelt smiles. Really thankful and grateful for what they were receiving. Not grasping or needy or asking for more. Just so grateful. Again and again I was told I had a “special place in heaven” because of the care I was giving them. They had no idea that they were giving me so much more than I could ever give them. Some people who were not involved have commented to me “ugh, feet” and “how could you wash feet”,  “thats gross” and other comments of that nature.  It wasn’t about the feet. It was never about the feet. And truly, the feet were beautiful and amazing.

Introductions: I try to introduce myself to people. I tend to forget people’s names (a horrible impediment as a teacher and a nurse) and I project that others do the same – so I introduce myself. Sometimes more than once. Students and other volunteers would often call me (as the medical resource person) over to look at something on someone’s feet and it would have been really easy to look at the foot, give advice, and move on. I made a conscious effort to stop and say “Hi, I’m Jennifer” to each person and make eye contact. Their faces would brighten for just a minute in just such a way that tore at my heart strings. Those faces said “people don’t usually see me” – a mixture of surprise, shyness, quickly averted eyes or incredulous eye contact. It is true. We normally try not to see them. I normally try not to see them when I encounter them on the street, especially when I am alone. My fears fed by the stereotypes. I am ashamed to admit that, but it is true. We all need to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be heard, to be cared for.

Two people that I will never forget:

A young mother of three. The youngest child 9 weeks old. She had been clean for 8 weeks. She seemed to be working so hard to make her life better for herself and her children. She wore her NA chips on a key ring at her waist proudly.

A very young man whose foot was partially amputated last month. Diabetes. He was doing what he could. Walking. Walking. Courageous.

I am grateful for my life. I am grateful for my life. I am grateful and thankful for my life.

more thoughts on Woolf

It is with much reluctance that I am returning A Room of One’s Own to the library. Rather, my husband is prying the book from my fingers in order to avoid incuring more late fees. Dang it.

I just have to quote one more line (or several rather). Her “peroration” that concludes the book.

“What is meant by reality? It would seem to be something very erratic, very undependable – now to be found in a dusty road, now in a scrap of newspaper in the street, now in a daffodil in the sun. It lights up a group in a room and stamps some casual saying. It overwhelms one walking home beneath the stars and makes the silent world more real than the world of speech – and then there it is again in an omnibus in the uproar of Picadilly. Sometimes, too, it seems to dwell in shapes too far away for us to discern what their nature is. But whatever it touches, it fixes and makes permanent. That is what remains over when the skin of the day has been cast into the hedge; that is what is left of past time and of our loves and hates.”

The she speaks of how it is the writer’s “…business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us.”

She certainly does a fantastic job of relating her reality…making her world so very real. This writing gives a glimpse into the world of a female writer of the 1920’s….and takes you back into the ‘reality’ of a similar kind in centuries preceding. At the same time the words she shares are relevant today. Knowing where we have been, where we have come from and what we have come through as women not only gives encouragement and hope, but also pride…yes, I am proud to be a woman….a woman that writes. Even if just these little trivial blog attempts.

I can say quite honestly that this book is one of,  if not THE best book I have ever read. Awww, quit all the noncommittal nonsense. It is the most wonderfully splendid, thought-provokingly marvelous work I have ever read. So there.

on loving Woolf

I have so many thoughts swirling around about Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own” that it will be virtually impossible to get any of them down on this page in a form where they make the least bit of sense whatsoever. I have 4 pages left to read, and I want to savor each line. I often find myself at this place at the end of an exceptionally good book – hesitant to read the last few lines and bring the reading to a close. Damned library is pushing me on, as the book is due and damn someone else for putting the book on hold and not allowing me to renew. I really must purchase this book, but have tried to save pennies by doing the library thing. Damn them.
This is quite possibly one of, or even THE best book I have ever read. I long to write as Woolf does, to lay out my thoughts with such imagery and in such a way that it hardly seems like reading at all…it is more like opening Woolf’s very own cranium and being privy to her thought processes.
There is also so much to be said about the content of this book. Women writers and the challenges they have had to overcome. Woolf longed for a time when women could write on all subjects, unencumbered and unfettered…just as writers. It was not common for women of her time, and not at all of women previously to be writers for the sake of writing…for that to be what they were instead of something they did as a passing fancy or cute idiosyncracy. I wonder what Woolf would think about women writers today. Would she believe them to have freed themselves of those fetters and difficulties that weighted the woman writer down and did not leave her free to write with passion purely as a woman, and not a woman burdened by the difficulties of her time or a woman trying to write as a man. I wonder. I am not sure of the answer. Certainly there is so much more freedom for women today, but then again, we have not freed ourselves of the responsibilities of family and social life but have rather added the responsiblity of work and the “man’s” world to the long list of distractions. Not that this is at all a bad thing. And certainly there are lots of women who write just to write. And we have the great examples of women like Woolf herself – we are no longer hampered as she said, by the lack of an example for “we think back through our mothers if we are women” and today there certainly are writers in our history.

I have more thoughts but I just stopped by for a moment and now I must get some things done.

Cut like a buffalo

“you know i look like a woman but I, I cut like a buffalo”

These words, from a song by the Dead Weather,  beloved Jack White’s latest endeavor, speak volumes about how I feel today. Take these words to mean what you like, and in the context of the song they may not mean what they mean to me – but you get my drift. For me, these words symbolize how strong and powerful and beautiful I feel today. I feel alive and grateful. I ran the majority of 4 miles this morning (did 5 miles twice this weekend) and I am ready for my 5 mile race this Turkey day. I have this song on my running playlist. It makes me stretch my stride and feel like I can run for miles and miles. “I am strong, powerful, and beautiful…I can do anything.”

Now I realize that this post is quite along a different track than my last few. But this time of year, I like to meditate on all that I have to be grateful for. This is so much the more poignant for me in the face of recent and ongoing grief. That pain is still there…although it is no longer consuming my days. A lot of this is helped by the fact that my husband is home and he loves me so very well. His love is so supportive and foundational. It was there even while he was gone, but it was . I have beloved friends that love me and family that love me very well. Loved well. That is such a good feeling.

Something else I am very very grateful for this year is my body. Basically that is what this post started out to be about…but the love and gratitude I feel generally for my world are very intrinsically linked to how I feel internally about myself. I am so grateful for the ability to look in the mirror and see good things about myself (even when I am naked!). To be able to move.and not huff and puff when taking a few extra steps. to run up stairs. to even contemplate running FIVE MILES. As you can read from previous posts (if you are so inclined), I have always thought of myself as the “fat girl” that couldn’t engage in sports or active activities. afraid of looking foolish, of being behind, not being able to keep up. Now all of that stuff doesn’t matter. I am not that girl anymore. I am active. I am increasingly fit every day. I am a runner of races. (well, the plural will be accurate after Thursday). And want to hear a secret I don’t like to share with many…. I have released 66lbs. That is a small person. I say release, because everytime I “lose” weight, just like with anything else I lose, I seem to look for it until I find it again. So now I am not losing, I am releasing.

and today I am so very grateful.

glimmer of sun

yes, actually that happened today. Both literally and figuratively. I feel like I am coming over a crest. Not saying that there won’t be another wave, but today I feel an eentsy bit better.

A lot has contributed to this, but the primary factor is that I saw my husband today on Skype. Seeing him and hearing him and resting in his love was so so soothing to my soul. To sound syrupy for a moment longer, he is a balm to my hurtsies.

Another balm for hurtsies is Virginia Woolf. I think I am adding more of her to my 50 list. I am currently reading A Room of One’s Own and it is absolutely sublime. I want to devour each succulent word. savor and yet devour. A Room is an essay on women and fiction -or at least that is the simplest explanation. It truly is so much much more. Oddly enough, or maybe not so oddly, her words are greatly comforting to me right now. She talks about the struggles and barriers experienced by women of prior centuries and of her day(copyright 1929) in expressing their artistic intent. She also carries the reader on these lovely thought spirals…journeys into worlds of thought so vivid, authentic and thought-provoking. It creates a desire in me to write…if only with a fraction of her eloquence…a desire to create…a desire to stand fully in my womanness and rejoice for myself and for all of the women who paved the way for me to stand where I am. sigh.

here are a few quotes from my reading today that I found particularly striking. they are taken out of context but are striking lines that stand alone:

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.”

“…we think back through our mothers if we are women.”

“…these are difficult questions which lie in the twilight of the future. I must leave them, if only because they stimulate me to wander from my subject into trackless forests where I shall be lost and, very likely, devoured by wild beasts.”

beautiful, gorgeous, stimulating words.

damned sadness

i am sick unto death of it. sick sick sick. i feel like i have been sad forever. i know that i am likely doing some avoiding, or maybe i am in denial, which just prolongs the feelings, but i hate it nonetheless. this week has been really hard. i am tired of waking up feeling sad. feeling sad about a lot of things and feeling a lot of damned grief. grief has always been an emotion which i avoid like the plague. i guess most people do. it doesn’t feel good. it is hard and uncomfortable and makes my eyeballs ache.but i have NEVER dealt with any grief like this. compared to this, the complicated grief i experienced as a result of rape and a lost marriage seem like nothing. that may be an illusion designed to protect my fragile self, but whatever the hell…this grief hurts. and it is complicated by other damned factors. stuff with another sister for one. primarily that my husband is half-way across the country and i have barely spoken with him. worry for him and feeling helpless because i don’t know what he is going through and i can’t be there for him. i miss him so acutely it is like a knife wound. we have been apart for much longer than this, so don’t think i am just being a clingy whiny baby (and if you do think it just keep your damned mouth shut).  but never under such trying circumstances for both of us. maybe this is supposed to be like this so i can have time with my sadness (damned sadness) and space to grieve, while allowing him space to deal with what he needs too. but the missing and the lonliness is torturous.

well it hasn’t all been black, so since this post is probably the most depressing post i have ever written (its all about perspective you know) i will briefly focus in on what has been good this week.

I have been surrounded by love, by women that love me. by men that love me. my brother, my father, my nephews, and even my husbands friends who have kept in touch with me to make sure i am okay. beautiful women that call me, and come to see me, take me out, email me and generally let me know that i am loved. i am so grateful for all of them. truly what i want to do is lay in bed on stinking sheets and pull the covers over my head and sink into impenetrable sadness. but these wonderful women won’t let me. blessed women.

i went to a meeting on wednesday and there was this beautiful woman from a time in my past when i was in a lot of pain. she meant a lot to me then and it felt so good to see her now. then there were all the other women. this is a meeting of women that i used to consider family…and somehow i drifted away from them, perhaps i judged them or felt that i was ready for something else. the enveloping love that i felt at that meeting was overwhelming. i started to cry and it felt so healing to just let the tears pour down my face and know that all of those women were supporting me in my grief…women whom i have loved for long, women i barely knew, and women i had not met before. the tears flowed and i felt a tiny glimmer of healing. wrapped in the love and support of women in recovery. it is one of the most profound experiences of my life. then, when i left them meeting a post-it on my window said “you are loved” with a little heart. no signature. just an outpouring of love. i felt the message was straight from my goddess…showing me her love and telling me that i would make it through this.

and as if that message weren’t clear enough. the next day, my marathon clinical day, i left the hospital feeling so drained and dreading going home to an empty house. well empty except for two little inconsolable kitties who mew their distress at my distress and the absence of their beloved person. when i get to my car, there is a little note. i know not from whom…well i do know, again a note from my higher power. it said “i love your bumper stickers. god bless you too” (i have a lot of bumper stickers…love them, and one of them says “god bless everyone, no exceptions”). I needed that love, and i needed to be reminded of it today as i sit holding the phone worriedly, sadly.

Grief and Change

I have so much to write about.  These thoughts and various words keep zipping in and out of my mind, and I want to give them form and meaning but am feeling pretty incapable. Soothing…I need soothing, and these things called words that pour from my fingers can be like a balm on these hurt places. However, my choice of words and the words of others can also dig into wounds to tear and rend.

Truthfully I am sick unto death of hurtful words, words that divide and separate. Words that aren’t necessarily spoken aloud, but that penetrate the spaces between supposed loved ones with their stony silence and make their intent so very very clear.

I have the ability to use my words to hurt, to wound, just as words have been used against me. Such powerful little things! So easily misused! But for now I want to focus on words that heal, at the very least to heal myself.

I am reading Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own…and I want to devour it and run out and get everything ever written by this magnificient lady. Then I also want to savor every syllable and ponder the deeper meanings and currents of her words. For now, before I digress too far, I want to share with you some of her words that were of particular help to me yesterday:

“One only has to read, to look, to listen, to remember. But why say ‘blame”? Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in its place?…Yes indeed, which was truth and which was illusion?…I spare you the twists and turns of my cogitations, for no conclusion was found…”

Friday there occurred a minor catastrophe that is creating great hurt in my family. It is this minor catastrophe that the words above were so helpful to me to process. This occurred on the wake of a much greater catastrophe from which none of us had yet begun to heal, but instead were dealing with the thrust back into normal life after the storm. That in itself was painful and a challenge for us all, I know. I never imagined how painful, how much regret, how difficult to walk amongst others as if in a fog and feel so distant and removed. To say that my cogitations have been convoluted seem inadequate to describe my thought processes as I sought to make sense out of a lot of chaos. I am coming to terms with the reality that I will never make sense out of it, but hope to find peace. The greater catastrophe was the death of my oldest sister last week. I have much to say about that, fleeting thought forms that desire to be given these hard little black forms on this screen. But that will have to wait.
The minor catastrophe (minor only in light of the major) is the loss of my younger sister. No she is not dead, but she feels very lost to me and to others in my family right now. You know, I always heard about people doing crazy things when someone died; crazy things that were so hurtful. But I never imagined how harmful, how difficult to all those grieving and never imagined that it would truly happen in my family until it started last weekend. I am almost still in disbelief and I want to deny that she could…ah well, I don’t feel ready to write about that now. And maybe I will never feel ready. But I do pray for peace for us all.

And all of this while my husband is dealing with his own grief half way across the world…and I cannot be there. And I miss him so much.

Words

Purveyors of guilt-land

doling it out in measured doses.

‘here’s some for you…

and plenty for you’

shoulds and should nots

shame and blame

there’s plenty to go around.

don’t worry, you’ll get your share.

seeming innocous words

slender snaky tendrils that creep

and spread

then wrap ropey tentacles around vital places

and choke.

armed with pruning shears sharpened

with truth and hope,

i cannot snip away each new shoot.

‘ah, there you are’

implanted in my head.