Cream

Ivett made a scrumptious Hungarian dessert, created from whipping cream, mascarpone cheese, honey, rasberries, chocolate cookie crumbles and butter, decorated with a single walnut.

I could mention less delectable moments in my day -- Nika's meltdowns, my feelings of helplessness and turmoil; Avriana's nocturnal demands, Gabe's anger when forbidden to climb the stairs. Learning Greek grammar. Anticipating David's notable absence during his upcoming surgery rotation....

But in all these moments lies some gift. Love of the Universe, open wide the doors of my earthly self to receive the Life that's here in my living room. Amen.

Med School Wife Day 3

My babysitter has a saying, applied broadly to any situation she simply can't stand: "This isn't working for me." Variations include, "That doesn't work for me," "This just doesn't work for me," And "That isn't gonna work for me."

Which would describe how I feel today about my husband's medical education, which takes him randomly away from me, our family and any sense of a normal life rhythm, and makes him go to random locations to do and watch random stuff that's supposed to help him be a good doctor someday. Screw it. I am a creative person, and I can think of lots of saner ways to make qualified physicians than to haze them.

David thought the time away would be compensated for by his happiness overflowing upon return to the homefront; but the last few days he's been drained as pasta noodles before the sauce. This sucks. An unqualified sucks. With the qualification that I am being forced to develop competencies I would not otherwise find myself discovering in the dim light of hopeful necessity.

tangled dead branches mixing with green

Just behind my development is a patch of woods, just stretching enough to convince you for a moment that the natural world is breathing, despite the widespread conquest of stripmalls and condominiums. The natural world is breathing in those woods, letting its finished tree branches fall to the dank, earthy ground to rightfully rot back into creation; comfortable with the cycles of life that incorporate animal crap into the roots of supple young sapplings twining upwards toward raven nests made from dead twigs, new vines interveaving with older generations ready for fire kindling, a sense of ease and acceptance permeates the wise natural world. Things die, stink, give life. Things germinate and come alive to sing and race and return. And death never has the last word, for the natural world. Decaying old things are part of the landscape, the food for life.

I went for a walk today with my family, feeling angsty about some (relatively) minor things. When people want someting of me that I do not want to give, I react. React with aversion and anxiety; words like, "flight," "get out of my inner sanctum" and more visceral feelings difficult to name rise up, and I fight the old crap within me that hinders me from calmly setting boundaries without feeling awry and dismayed, gruilty or angry for having to set them at all. I instinctively push people away when I feel they want something from me that I am not comfortable sharing or giving, when I feel their emotions, desires or needs intrude on my psychological space. Peace is disrupted and I am furious; how could so-and-so dare disrupt my peace with their feelings or perceived needs that conflict with my feelings and perceived needs? I become more angry over the disrupton of peace than whatever substantive issue triggered my internal dissonance in the first place. And then the self-hatred for being so easily thrown off course, for not being enlightened or spiritual enough to be what I intellectually understand.

And then I see that the natural world breathes just fine amid the animal crap, rampant, earthy decay and brittle dead branches leaning and tangling with sapplings and middle-aged pines. Life in the forest accepts that there is no life separate from bothersome things, no nourishment other than the crap of other beings and the decay of old stuff. There is no paradise in the natural world. Just composting. And everyone in the forest is okay with that, as far as I can tell.

I know this lesson is for me. Paradise me be out there somewhere in the Beyond with Jesus, but as an incarnate human being, there is no life separate from bothersome things, no nourishment for growth other than the crap of other beings and the decomposition of old stuff into energy I can use to become someone beautiful for God. No paradise here, ladies and gentlemen. Just composting. And I'm hoping to become a little more okay with that, because there really is no choice. Compost or die; compost and live.