Tipping Over

Out of balance tonight at yoga, where of course the meditation was about.....finding balance.  Being off kilter...well that happens....but tonight it was FULL THROTTLE off kilter, and there I was in yoga, being encouraged to consider balance......within the body.....within the mind....within the spirit.  I was thinking, what is the purpose of all this being out of balance?  What can it point me to if I allow myself to really feel it? How freaking uncomfortable it is!  I could barely hold a pose.  I could not find my breath.  I needed water (stepped out and got it).  I felt clumsy.  I could not find acceptance.  I was self-conscious.

I'm very fond of telling myself  "just do the next right thing, take the next right move," when I feel this kind of overpowering negativity. Came home and drank a bottle of water.  It's just going to have to be enough tonight!  

Not perfect yet!

I considered this in yoga class today:  every minute I am doing yoga is a minute I am NOT complaining, irritable, nasty, depressed, gossiping, worried.......and every minute I am doing yoga is a minute I AM focused, listening, strong, experimenting......this is the kind of thought that runs through my mind during yoga class.  You notice I did NOT say that I am COMPLETELY focused....I recall that I even thought to myself....that's a good blog subject....hmmm....perhaps the mind wanders a bit.

Mike Mulligan and Heidi

Driving along, minding my own business, as they say....out in a somewhat rural area, but driving through some road construction, I happened to pass by one of those huge earth moving kind of machines, it was close and completely put me in mind of a tyrannosaurus rex, with its huge mouth open and ferocious.  I immediately thought of Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel, a favorite book from childhood.  Now I have no idea if that big machine was a "steam shovel," or if there are even any steam shovels left in this advanced world, but that's where I went with the image.

Mike Mulligan.  I think I always thought it was a "boy's book," because it was urban and about work (don't ask...somehow I made the equation....work=boys)...but we of course had other books -- Blueberries for Sal! (plink!plank!plunk!) Make Way For Ducklings! The Little Engine That Could! All these books, their covers, the wonderful illustrations, even the authors (Watty Piper! What a name!).  And we got those books -- over and over, apparently -- from the library.

What a wonderful place a library is.  I hardly ever go to a library anymore.

Caddie Woodlawn.  Of course, the Little House books.  The Borrowers!  Tom Sawyer (oh that love story with Becky and Tom), Little Women.  And Nancy Drew, Sue Barton, some other nurse series, and even the Hardy Boys every once in awhile....and the greatest story of all time: HEIDI.  I could not get enough of that girl.

I know my mother loved it that I was a reader, and I in turn loved it that my daughter was a ferocious reader.    

I believe my gratitude list tonight will include Mike Mulligan, because he really took me back to a pleasant place today.  THANKS MIKE!!

WhenThe TV Doesn't Work

So really it's the remote that's not working.  Started last night while we were doing our usual veging out.  No channel changing...stuck on HGTV (aaargh!!! Love it or List it!!! aaargh!!)....then one moment of remote-ability which got us to Video on Demand, but that was it.   None of the new batteries we shoved into the back of the remote would get it to work.  Of course it was Saturday night, so we left an e-mail for our cable provider who we know from past experience will bring us a nice new remote.....but not until Monday or (nooo......!!!!) Tuesday.

Now Sunday night is my favorite TV night.  Last week the latest HGTV Star (formerly Design Star) competition started up again.  Also there's 60 Minutes.  In January it'll be Downton Abbey again....I am hopeful our remote will be working then!!  Also, last Saturday night we watched three episodes of House of Cards on Netflix on the TV which was awesome.  So in many ways my weekend schedule is RUINED by the dead remote.


I truly do not consider myself a TV-holic, but it has certainly been instructive today every time I had that impulse to "watch" TV (alot of times it's just background, but I'm sitting there, and it's on....).  But then there was the yoga I did this morning and the half-hour my husband and I both hung out on the couch in the living room (non-TV room), reading this afternoon.  And the forty-five minutes we worked on a couple of garden projects we've just started.  Nice.

Already paying dividends, that broken remote!

You probably already know this, but....

I love my job.  I'm lucky that I don't have to DO ANYTHING TO the people I visit.  I don't have to take their blood pressure, I don't have to ask to see their skin on their butt, I don't have to watch them get up out of a chair and walk across the room.  I get to visit people in their homes and offer a listening ear and an open heart as they talk about whatever they are willing to share about how things are going for them.  So much of what I hear has to do with how they feel in the "health care machine."  So much of what we do as health care providers has pretty much nothing to do with what the patient actually wants or feels.

This week I took a new patient who has no regular family doctor to a "transitional" clinic which sees patients temporarily while they seek a regular provider.  I had to take her, because she is just that impaired and frail that she would never have been able to get there on her own....and she lives one-quarter of a mile from the clinic.

 P.S. the reason she had to go to the clinic AND HURRY UP AND DO IT THIS WEEK is because without a doctor's order, the home care clinicians cannot make any visits -- well, they can't make any BILLABLE visits.

 The questions on the health history forms!!!  "Do you feel safe at home?"  "In your relationships?"  CHECK YES OR NO!!!

How about this.....when you first sit with a patient, during your CONVERSATION with them -- no, not an interview, not a session where you mostly look at the computer screen as you input answers (alot of times incorrectly -- believe me)....how about this....sometime during your conversation, let them know that if something is awry in their lives, in their home, in their relationships or family, you are open to hearing about it and brainstorming with them about what they'd like your help with.  Explain that you know that what goes on in their lives affects their medical condition and whether they feel like taking care of themselves.  Explain that that is why you are checking in with them about this seemingly extraneous topic.

BUT don't put a check box on a history form and call yourself open to hearing about family violence.

OK end of rant one.

Beginning Again....and again

It is never too late to begin again.  If you are having a day where you start out being creative and end up sobbing about all kinds of things....well, that might be a day to post to your blog even though you haven't done any posting for two years.

It was a crazy day in Kathy-land when I decided to make each of my children a scrapbook upon their high school graduations.  My daughter graduated in 2009 and today I finished hers.  Mostly.

When you put together a scrapbook celebrating someone's life up till now, you get continual glimpses of the past, looking through photos and papers and national honor society pins, etc., etc.   You see pictures of yourself looking just a little better and younger on the verge of tears saying goodbye to your daughter at her new college dorm room on her first day on campus.  You look through elementary school yearbooks to make sure you mark her pictures with the correct grade, and you gasp in pain and joy at how adorable and unique she was/is.  You acknowledge that any commentary you write on a scrapbook page is just a tiny representation of the love you feel in your heart and soul for this child, now an adult.

Consider this: despite the troubles my mate and I have caused each other over the years, we didn't do such a bad job raising our two children.  We took them all around America and overseas.  We encouraged their activities and friendships.  We kept them in church and school and provided structure and tradition as well as new ideas.  We loved them fiercely even when we were crabby and depressed and distracted, and we hope against all hope that they know it and can feel it even when they are crabby and depressed and distracted.

Here's to the future!  May it be filled with love and hugs, with tears and comfort.  May we continue to appreciate each other with all our many and varied foibles and oddities.

Church #8

Church #8

October 2, 2011

Finally got myself back in the pews.  Today I chose a nearby “United” Church – I think it is a yoked congregation? Of Methodists and UCC.  Maybe.  The hymnals were UCC.  The disjointed sentences reflect my disjointed sense of church and spirituality. 

Today was Youth Sunday and also World Communion Sunday.  The small youth group presented a slide show/video of their recent mission trip.  This part of the worship definitely took me back to watching my own two on all their Youth Sundays.  What I kept thinking was – it doesn’t look like such a big deal – but it is!  It’s wonderful that they’re up there, creating and in charge. 

So I did not hear a “sermon” from their new minister.  She did preside over communion, which was with several different types of bread – pita, cornchips, rice cakes and then intinction. 

The church appears to have a major commitment to environmental stewardship and what they called “external ministries,” i.e., outreach or mission in other church language.  Not a large church, but I got the feeling everyone has something to do and everyone participates and supports the ministry of the church.  I don’t always get that feeling.  

There were at least seven Prius cars in the parking lot.  Yes, I counted.

They were extremely friendly to this visitor; I was greeted three times before I got to my seat.  One of the greeters sat with me, but maybe that was just her usual pew! 

I didn’t recognize most of the music, but they did play a song by Susan Werner – I swear I’ve heard her before on NPR or some such place.  It was great.  It’s called “help somebody.”   They used it to jump start their stewardship campaign.  I loved it.  

So – back to church!  I feel so peripheral to it all.