moments

I delivered a baby girl yesterday.

My hands were the first hands to hold her in this world--the first human contact she has ever had outside the womb. It's pretty crazy when you think about it, what a privilege that is.

The other day one of my friends was reflecting on how amazing it is to get to be present for these life-changing moments in the lives of others. To get to be there for those moments that change everything, both the good and the difficult.

But then came the question: are we making the time to be for those moments in our own lives?

Resilience

When I'm in the clinic, part of me is there and part of me is wrapping my head around Arthur Kleinman. This is just a tribute to the humbling stories you get to hear in primary care.

Like the Ukranian woman who survived world war II; whose husband was sent to Siberia when she was pregnant with her first child, never to return; who endured the cold noodles, applesauce, and black coffee of the camps where others asked her how she was so pretty despite that horrible food when everyone else looked so miserable ("I am of good stock," she said); whose second husband, whom she met after coming to the US, promised her an iPad for their anniversary he didn't live to see; whose children remembered and bought her the iPad and got her drunk with joy and alcohol at a dinner overlooking the Mississippi River.

Still going strong in her late eighties, and despite her losses, she is a lively woman who refuses to be crushed by sorrow.



Today was one of the most beautiful October days I've ever felt, and I spent it in a way that a few years ago I thought I might like to. My gray skies are passing clouds, and nothing compared to the pain that these patients have suffered. But you can still drown in a drizzle.

Medicine continually reminds me it is but a drizzle; but I continue to create my own storm to drown in.

Durga

I am a warrior.
I have the strength of the elephant
you imagined I was after you took my tusks and fled.
But I need no tusks to conquer a coward.

I have the power in my bones to decapitate you with my hands alone,
I have the beauty of my skin to seduce a thousand predators,
the cunning to convert them to prey,
I have the love of an elephant's heart to forgive
the wisdom of an elephant's soul to never forget.

I abandoned your elephant on a train;
I have no need for symbols.
And the elephant I gave you
will never be more than a symbol.

A coward with ivory is
still a coward.
My tusks will not protect you as I did.

An elephant without tusks
can still crack a coconut under her foot.

Overtime

You apologize for
the blood on your pants
the fading scars on, the size of your soft white stomach
your thin hair, graying at forty, that would curl if cut short
the cancer that left you with your left breast and an unfinished reconstruction
and then the cancer that stole your right kidney

(Ironic that the left side, the sinister, was so good to you)

You apologize for having dreams
for your mother, who died even when you gave them up
for your guilt
for your pain

in short
you apologize for
existing.

I apologize for
hiding behind a cloak of professionalism that says
I am not allowed to cry with you
I am not allowed to hug you

Instead I tell you
cold water and hydrogen peroxide will get the blood out
Instead I give you
my open eyes and hope you can feel my heart in my irises
Instead I send you
into an empty world where you are not only alone but lonely
an empty world where no one apologizes
but you
and me.

--Anita

with that moon language

Admit something:
Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."
Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise
someone would call the cops.
Still, though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect.
Why not become the one who lives with a
full moon in each eye that is
always saying,
with that sweet moon language,
what every other eye in
this world is
dying to
hear?

-Hafiz