Inspired by Sarah's latest Wislawa Szymborska post and life.
--
appetite
How easy to love the ones who love us back!
To crawl through the eons that separate face from face,
to fight with such intensity that your wounded
hearts only grow closer on reconciling.
How hard it is to love the ones
who do not love us back,
whose battles become permanent wedges and tight smiles.
How many of them life hands us
until to love becomes
a duty
an obligation
a responsibility.
A weary hand feeding its body
purely out of necessity
with food that lost its taste
long ago.
How this heart craves the flavor
this palate is denied.
How this mind longs for meanings
this throat wishes it could choke down.
Instead,
this shell lives in seas
of cold oatmeal and spoons clinked with haste.
The machine requires sustenance
to keep loving
without receiving
(with a secret hope
that one day
the clouds will thunder into existence
machines who love back).
-Anita
--
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
thank you note
I owe so much
to those I don’t love.
The relief as I agree
that someone else needs them more.
The happiness that I’m not
the wolf to their sheep.
The peace I feel with them,
the freedom –
love can neither give
nor take that.
I don’t wait for them,
as in window-to-door-and-back.
Almost as patient
as a sundial,
I understand
what love can’t.
and forgive
as love never would.
From a rendezvous to a letter
is just a few days or weeks,
not an eternity.
Trips with them always go smoothly,
concerts are heard,
cathedrals visited,
scenery is seen.
And when seven hills and rivers
come between us,
the hills and rivers
can be found on any map.
They deserve the credit
if I live in three dimensions,
in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space
with a genuine, shifting horizon.
They themselves don’t realize
how much they hold in their empty hands.
“I don’t owe them a thing,”
would be love’s answer
to this open question.
-Wislawa Szymborska
to those I don’t love.
The relief as I agree
that someone else needs them more.
The happiness that I’m not
the wolf to their sheep.
The peace I feel with them,
the freedom –
love can neither give
nor take that.
I don’t wait for them,
as in window-to-door-and-back.
Almost as patient
as a sundial,
I understand
what love can’t.
and forgive
as love never would.
From a rendezvous to a letter
is just a few days or weeks,
not an eternity.
Trips with them always go smoothly,
concerts are heard,
cathedrals visited,
scenery is seen.
And when seven hills and rivers
come between us,
the hills and rivers
can be found on any map.
They deserve the credit
if I live in three dimensions,
in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space
with a genuine, shifting horizon.
They themselves don’t realize
how much they hold in their empty hands.
“I don’t owe them a thing,”
would be love’s answer
to this open question.
-Wislawa Szymborska
Saturday, November 12, 2011
pretty sure
I'm pretty sure you exist out there, somewhere. I refuse to believe that a heart would be made to long for someone who does not exist.
I wish you'd introduce yourself soon. I'm getting tired of waiting for you, hoping I'll find you in the eyes of everyone I meet. There's little bits of you in all I see, in all the beauty of the world, in the stories I hear and the stories I tell to my own heart.
I'm looking forward to that moment when I look in your eyes and know that you see me, and that you've been looking for me too.
Until then, I guess I'll just keep my feet on the ground and my eyes to the stars, letting the bits of beauty in each moment overwhelm me.
I wish you'd introduce yourself soon. I'm getting tired of waiting for you, hoping I'll find you in the eyes of everyone I meet. There's little bits of you in all I see, in all the beauty of the world, in the stories I hear and the stories I tell to my own heart.
I'm looking forward to that moment when I look in your eyes and know that you see me, and that you've been looking for me too.
Until then, I guess I'll just keep my feet on the ground and my eyes to the stars, letting the bits of beauty in each moment overwhelm me.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
38 years
I love that look you give him when he's telling stories about you. The way you roll your eyes and snort, telling us how someone's got to set him straight, after all. You've been married for 38 years now, with one son and more memories than you can remember anymore.
You told me that you're scared, and that you wonder if it's even worth fighting anymore. You're afraid that you'll suffer through all these treatments only to find that the cancer remains. All the pain, side effects, uncomfortable procedures--all for nothing. You're more afraid of false hope than anything, afraid of what will be left if the treatments don't work, afraid of the weight of broken dreams, afraid that your heart won't be able to take any more bad news.
But I don't want to let you give up hope. Every time I see you, I want to make you roll your eyes and set that cancer straight.
And I watch your husband tell your stories for you, reminding you each day of the fight you've always had. Every day, even when you refuse to eat or get out of bed or watch the sun go down, he's right there with you.
Yesterday we took you outside to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair again, for the first time in weeks. I watched you smile as I sat at your side. And I hoped for you. God, how I hoped for you.
You told me that you're scared, and that you wonder if it's even worth fighting anymore. You're afraid that you'll suffer through all these treatments only to find that the cancer remains. All the pain, side effects, uncomfortable procedures--all for nothing. You're more afraid of false hope than anything, afraid of what will be left if the treatments don't work, afraid of the weight of broken dreams, afraid that your heart won't be able to take any more bad news.
But I don't want to let you give up hope. Every time I see you, I want to make you roll your eyes and set that cancer straight.
And I watch your husband tell your stories for you, reminding you each day of the fight you've always had. Every day, even when you refuse to eat or get out of bed or watch the sun go down, he's right there with you.
Yesterday we took you outside to feel the sun on your face and the wind in your hair again, for the first time in weeks. I watched you smile as I sat at your side. And I hoped for you. God, how I hoped for you.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
The world's buttery sheen
Everyday, I try to find something to be grateful for.
Everyday, I try to create something to be grateful for.
My hiatus from medical school has been strange. I keep breathing in all of the third year emotions of my friends and former classmates: frustration, anger, joy, wonder, exhaustion. It's more negative than positive. Is medicine more negative than positive?
I realized today that if I had done either medicine alone or anthropology alone, I could have been better at them in that nauseating academic way. Sacrifice my soul for higher honors, spend more time in the ivory tower writing publications for 5 people to read and 10 people to skim.
For all my losses, for all my pauses, I am more human.
My sorrows have only led me to kindness, constantly trying to enact it, never knowing how, stumbling, fumbling awkwardly through my phrases and gestures.
Meanwhile, my buttery heart melts and oozes its contents all over my body.
These days, I like to breathe and wait for my thoughts to vanish.
Everyday, I try to create something to be grateful for.
My hiatus from medical school has been strange. I keep breathing in all of the third year emotions of my friends and former classmates: frustration, anger, joy, wonder, exhaustion. It's more negative than positive. Is medicine more negative than positive?
I realized today that if I had done either medicine alone or anthropology alone, I could have been better at them in that nauseating academic way. Sacrifice my soul for higher honors, spend more time in the ivory tower writing publications for 5 people to read and 10 people to skim.
For all my losses, for all my pauses, I am more human.
My sorrows have only led me to kindness, constantly trying to enact it, never knowing how, stumbling, fumbling awkwardly through my phrases and gestures.
Meanwhile, my buttery heart melts and oozes its contents all over my body.
These days, I like to breathe and wait for my thoughts to vanish.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
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?
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?
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
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.
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.
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