I spent five days in the hospital this week – not as a patient, but as a visitor, an observer, a worried spouse, and a woman who had preconceptions blown over by kindness, intelligence, and wonder.
But first with the worry.
I rushed my guy to the ER Friday afternoon after insisting on taking his temperature. Why oh why do men like to “play it cool” even when in obvious discomfort? I suppose the answer to that goes back millennium, maybe to the first cavemen. Continue reading
Juliana knew exactly who she was as early as kindergarten.
“You’re so smart!” her teacher said because she could read her ABC’s not only forwards, but backwards.
By sixth grade Juliana was the “school genius.” After she completed an IQ test, the results were given to her parents in whispered joy by the principal, with Juliana sitting right there. No one ever told her the results, but her parents’ faces shone like the sun. Continue reading
The chimes persisted. As I tossed and turned in my bed, sheets askew, a sheen of sweat layered on my body, I really couldn’t tell if I was imaging the tiny tinkling sounds, or if they truly existed.
I’d watched the clock sneak slowly across its yellow-lit globe: 1:01 a.m., 1:10, 1:21, 1:44, 2:01, knowing I should make my eyes stay shut. Surrender to sleep like a bear surrenders in his winter cave. But I felt more like a fox, wide awake in the sleeping hour, needing to explore and hunt in the starry night. Continue reading
“The writing class dug out my neuroses in 30 minutes,” Susie claimed.
Her therapist nodded, eyebrows raised.
“I mean, I’ve been seeing you for five months and all you say to me is ‘how does that make you feel?’” Susie continued, pushing her bangs away from her eyes. “Yet in the class I attended on a whim, I discovered things I never knew about myself!” Continue reading
Sightseers into Pilgrims, by Evangeline Paterson
I used to think --
loving life so greatly --
that to die would be
like leaving a party
before the end.
Now I know that the party
is really happening
somewhere else;
that the light and the music --
escaping in snatches
to make the pulse beat
and the tempo quicken --
come from a long way
away.
And I know too
that when I get there
the music will never
end.
roughwighting 