Miracles. They glide by us every day but when we became teen agers we stopped seeing them. And now that we're adults, we don't even remember that miracles were ever a part of our lives.
Today I drove under a rainbow. One end started in downtown Charleston and the other end reached across the harbor to James Island, bouncing it's prismatic colors across the sky. In fact, it's pale twin glistened above it, a double rainbow. I've only seen a handful of those in my life. And what surprised me today, other than rounding the bend by Ellis Creek to come face to face with this small miracle, was how many people in cars around me didn't bother to look up. For the most part, their cell phones seemed to hold more attraction than did this vision.
I am still thrilled by the sight of a rainbow, always unexpected. And excited when a dragonfly visits me. Blue wings drumming the air. My mother once tied a string to a dragonfly and threaded the string through my grandmother's kitchen screen door so I could sit safely inside, holding the end of that string, while my pet dragonfly buzzed on the otherside of the door.
I've watched moonflowers slowly open when the night sky sparkles above. The flowers glow white- a white that glow-in-the-dark colors can never mimic.
Venus flytraps enthrall me. I cannot bear to watch a naive fly succomb to the flytrap's allure. Man eating plants. Science Fiction in my back yard.
I hold crystals to the sunlight and watch prisms dance across the floor. I gather precious Southern snowflakes on my tongue. I gasp when I see a harvest moon hung low in the sky, peeking betwen pine boughs.
I contemplate how the universe could ever have begun. And watch stars twinkle and blink at me.
And I wink back.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Story Tellers
I'm convinced there are two types of people in the world: Those That Tell Stories and Those That Listen to Story-Tellers.
This fact became clear to me when my sister and I visited our brothers in New Mexico. I was struck at how quickly we settled into our familiar story-telling selves. As if we'd never left childhood to travel the world of adults.
My husband's family are not a tribe of story-tellers. In fact, they don't talk very loudly, they don't like to bring attention to themselves, and they use an abbreviated form of conversation that, after 5 years, I still haven't learned. "You go on up that street to that corner and turn." How far, up which street, to exactly which corner and is that a left or a right turn? Their shorthand is familiar to them and among themselves they don't have to ask, "What the HELL are you talking about?" I'm sure they're perplexed by my need to know why we're going up that street and what chain of events prompted the journey.
My family, on the other hand, have no need for shorthand. We will tell you, in greater detail than you ever knew you wanted, why the street is named for the person it's named for, exactly how many blocks/feet/miles we're travelling before we turn at the exact name of the corner and any interesting landmarks we'll be passing on the way.
We want you to understand the circumstances of the travel. How the decision came to be made. The precipitating events. We'll want you to know a brief history of everyone in the car. And the relationship those people have to us. We'll tell you what time we're leaving and when we'll be back. And it will be FUNNY! Now, occasionally, we find ourselves taking poetic license with our memories. But this, too, is never planned.
My family is hilarious. And my sister is the Queen. Won't someone offer her a daytime talk show? Not content with a mere recitation of events, we'll give you all the side-splitting anecdotes you can stand. My family's perceptions are just a little off center- not enough to be truely bizarre- but certainly not average. It's like being in a Cohen movie. And our stories go on and on ... and on and on.... and on some more. My husband's niece, also not of the Storytelling genre of humans, calls my ramblings, "side bars." I love it. She succinctly describes us. She may not have been giving me a compliment, but that fact flew right over my head when she told me.
Some people do not want to call attention to themselves. My sibs and I don't purposely do that, but sometimes it just happens. We're often so wrapped up in telling a funny story to one another that we don't realize that people have gathered to listen. Wrapped up in our yarns, they nod and smile and laugh when we do.
And if you look closely, the people listening are... Those That Listen to Story Tellers.
This fact became clear to me when my sister and I visited our brothers in New Mexico. I was struck at how quickly we settled into our familiar story-telling selves. As if we'd never left childhood to travel the world of adults.
My husband's family are not a tribe of story-tellers. In fact, they don't talk very loudly, they don't like to bring attention to themselves, and they use an abbreviated form of conversation that, after 5 years, I still haven't learned. "You go on up that street to that corner and turn." How far, up which street, to exactly which corner and is that a left or a right turn? Their shorthand is familiar to them and among themselves they don't have to ask, "What the HELL are you talking about?" I'm sure they're perplexed by my need to know why we're going up that street and what chain of events prompted the journey.
My family, on the other hand, have no need for shorthand. We will tell you, in greater detail than you ever knew you wanted, why the street is named for the person it's named for, exactly how many blocks/feet/miles we're travelling before we turn at the exact name of the corner and any interesting landmarks we'll be passing on the way.
We want you to understand the circumstances of the travel. How the decision came to be made. The precipitating events. We'll want you to know a brief history of everyone in the car. And the relationship those people have to us. We'll tell you what time we're leaving and when we'll be back. And it will be FUNNY! Now, occasionally, we find ourselves taking poetic license with our memories. But this, too, is never planned.
My family is hilarious. And my sister is the Queen. Won't someone offer her a daytime talk show? Not content with a mere recitation of events, we'll give you all the side-splitting anecdotes you can stand. My family's perceptions are just a little off center- not enough to be truely bizarre- but certainly not average. It's like being in a Cohen movie. And our stories go on and on ... and on and on.... and on some more. My husband's niece, also not of the Storytelling genre of humans, calls my ramblings, "side bars." I love it. She succinctly describes us. She may not have been giving me a compliment, but that fact flew right over my head when she told me.
Some people do not want to call attention to themselves. My sibs and I don't purposely do that, but sometimes it just happens. We're often so wrapped up in telling a funny story to one another that we don't realize that people have gathered to listen. Wrapped up in our yarns, they nod and smile and laugh when we do.
And if you look closely, the people listening are... Those That Listen to Story Tellers.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Spooning My Patients
One of my patients this past week was a 19 year old young man, a victim of poor judgment and an ATV. Broken in several places and now sporting a tracheostomy tube, this young man also has a slight head injury. For him this means he'll do what you ask...for about 30 seconds...then he forgets and has to be re-directed. During my time with him he was focused on getting out of bed but, being unable to stand on his own, he wasn't allowed to. So someone had to sit with him constantly to keep reminding him to stay put.
He was a squirmer, too. He pulled things and tried to take his equipment apart. He sat up, then lied dow. He turned on his stomach. He lied at the foot of the bed. He hung his legs off the bed and then his head. We tried everything to keep him comfortable. He wasn't hurting, he told us. He wanted to drink water- but he can't because he chokes on even ice chips and would breathe liquids into his lungs if we let him drink. He was getting feedings through a tube- at least for a while until he pulled that tube out of his nose. When asked, he told me he didn't know what was wrong.
He had several episodes of diarrhea and had to be cleaned up. I know he was embarassed but he put up with 3 people in his room moving him from side to side while we cleaned his privates.
Several times he just grabbed my hand and rubbed it. He's the age of my nieces and younger than my son. I found myself rubbing his head and talking to him like I would one of my sick children.
He was tugging on my arm. I was sitting on the side of his bed. Before I realized it, I was holding this child in my arms, rubbing his head. I stopped being his nurse for a while, and became a mom. The young man settled down and went to sleep. I sat there with him for a long time, speaking softly to him, telling him he was safe and that he could go to sleep.
I went out with some friends afterwards and one of them, when he heard a colleague joke with me about 'spooning my patients' told me, "What if you had been a male nurse and that patient a female?"
WOW. He's 100% right. A male nurse probably wouldn't have done this if his patient had been a woman. Not if they're savy. Is it sexism? I do know it's the reality of the world we live in right now.
And the most common word used to describe a nurse is the word, "caring". Can a male nurse care for a patient in the very same way a female nurse can? Could a male nurse be a surrogate dad to a brain-injured young female patient?
Or should I have in a chair at the side of the bed, like they taught us in nursing school....
He was a squirmer, too. He pulled things and tried to take his equipment apart. He sat up, then lied dow. He turned on his stomach. He lied at the foot of the bed. He hung his legs off the bed and then his head. We tried everything to keep him comfortable. He wasn't hurting, he told us. He wanted to drink water- but he can't because he chokes on even ice chips and would breathe liquids into his lungs if we let him drink. He was getting feedings through a tube- at least for a while until he pulled that tube out of his nose. When asked, he told me he didn't know what was wrong.
He had several episodes of diarrhea and had to be cleaned up. I know he was embarassed but he put up with 3 people in his room moving him from side to side while we cleaned his privates.
Several times he just grabbed my hand and rubbed it. He's the age of my nieces and younger than my son. I found myself rubbing his head and talking to him like I would one of my sick children.
He was tugging on my arm. I was sitting on the side of his bed. Before I realized it, I was holding this child in my arms, rubbing his head. I stopped being his nurse for a while, and became a mom. The young man settled down and went to sleep. I sat there with him for a long time, speaking softly to him, telling him he was safe and that he could go to sleep.
I went out with some friends afterwards and one of them, when he heard a colleague joke with me about 'spooning my patients' told me, "What if you had been a male nurse and that patient a female?"
WOW. He's 100% right. A male nurse probably wouldn't have done this if his patient had been a woman. Not if they're savy. Is it sexism? I do know it's the reality of the world we live in right now.
And the most common word used to describe a nurse is the word, "caring". Can a male nurse care for a patient in the very same way a female nurse can? Could a male nurse be a surrogate dad to a brain-injured young female patient?
Or should I have in a chair at the side of the bed, like they taught us in nursing school....
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