Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. - Elias Canetti

I don't really think we should chose for the sake of choosing without thought ..I think disaster is something to be avoided if at all possible! I do think that avoiding decisions and avoiding taking some kind of lead or control can be worse than disaster.

Whenever I make a decision, I feel liberated. For a while, it fuels my days, even if it ends in disaster.... Sort of like trying a new recipe...even if the cake is terrible, there was lots of fun and lessons learned. (yes, my life is all about food):)

And I also think if we don't think for ourselves someone else will do it for us...and what could be worse than that...even if we are relatively safe or happy or not in a disaster..who wants to have their lives controlled? Anyone who does ...is ...sad.

and then there is the "taking responsibilty for your decisions"...I find people make decisions, have lots of fun, maybe end up with some unexpected problems and then want to complain or "wallow" in their circumstances...but remember the reasons, remember the fun, remember when you weren't worrying, remember when things were easy...we all have to pay the piper...either at the entrance or near the exit. Sooo get on with it, make new decisions and remember your life is a sum of all your past decisions. Nothing you can do about that...

Done.

except make more decisions

Fireplaces are starting up as the weather cools; cold still air, clear sunshine. A nice day for my mom's birthday. Yesterday, we took a little trip to Lancaster to see the famous Christmas Story play...I thought we were going to a small "homemade type" theater but, it was actually just like Broadway with live animals and flying angels. There wasn't a barefooted Mennonite in sight. The city is full of stores and merchandise. Those simple people are very thoughtful entrepreneurs which made me wonder if even the plain are phony. Maybe not, though. Maybe it is just "their way". The show was great. The dinner was ample with desert being wonderful with homemade all you can eat ice cream...needless to say my stomach hurts today. I really enjoyed the craft stores. I cannot carve, build or quilt in my wildest dreams but I like seeing the efforts of others who can. The town felt Christian, the people were happy and understated and everything was clean and proud.

This past Thanksgiving weekend was spent with lots of family and friends. It felt nice to catch up and reconnect. Today we cooked, cleaned and caught up with the laundry, went to church and visited my nephew for his birthday. Tonight, I watched the movie about Daniel Pearl, the journalist who was killed in Pakistan a few years ago.

The world is full of people trying to broadcast their message. Good and bad. People cry out. Some know what they have to say, some really know what they want and who they are and what they need to share and others babble and overcompensate for what they can't find or what they don't know how to handle. Shrieks, costumes, movies, cries, plays, demands, blame, and self mutilation (otherwise thought of as plastic surgery) are all avenues for exploration of our souls. Sorrow is for the ones who cannot cope or understand change, difference, jealousy or loss and sometimes that is turned into violence or vengeance. Sweetness is for the ones who take a situation, create a message and teach and share and even prosper in spite of it. Those full of anger and hate either for themselves, their lives, their future or for all the "others" in the world will never see the beauty that they are welcomed to...for an onlooker that is hard to understand.

A Positive attitude, taking control, living with dignity and integrity are all really a better way to cope and live.

Whether your cold, or hot or sick or poor or lonely or angry or unfortunate there is some way to take what beauty is left and use it, but first you have to process the bad stuff and send it on it's way. I sometimes wonder if that is impossible for some people to do.

Terrorists cut Daniel Pearl's throat while video taping the whole thing. His body was found cut up in ten pieces. He did nothing except be who he was: An American Jewish journalist working for a leading publication, I think The Washington Post.

Now, his young son and wife travel and smile and find strong people in the world to write about, his parents run a foundation in his name.

Thereafter, Life's little problems seemed very minute, almost absurd.

Today starts the preparation of the celebration of Christ's birth. We can either enjoy it or complain about it, we can either hate it or do something else. We can either find the simple pleasures or be overwhelmed with commercialism.

It is our choice and it is in our control to chose the beauty.

I really do believe we are all able to chose.

My life, in my head especially, is lived like a fantasy. I like a feeling of enchantment.

I am off today, it is cool and rainy and windy..weather I really love. I will bundle up in snuggly rain gear and walk around the neighborhood later, maybe I will stop at the library or the museum. I wanted to spend the afternoon with my husband but he is in arbitration today...so be it. I guess I'll just have to cavort with the fairies. Hot steaming tea is medicinal after cooling off from the gym and walking through the quiet neighborhood in the cold rain.

I dropped my oldest son off at the subway station..he was going to school. We were talking about his classes next semester: Biology(I said that isn't so bad, he said he heard it is a killer class/the instructor is hard), Calculus, Chemistry with a lab and a Race Class as an elective. He kissed me goodbye and said "thanks mom"...and I realized I push my fantasies off on my kids. I am glad he is working hard and doing relatively well ..I know he feels his self esteem grow as he reaches for those stars. He is the type who has lots of fun and adventure so I know he will balance it all and that will make him happy. I just hope I don't push the wrong one too far. Son #2 won't be so easy to push and then I'll be crying he won't listen to me and should strive higher. Oh well...

Since we are doing some work in the house I am trying to clear out closets, and get rid of things we do not use. I have a collection of ball gowns. I kid you not! There is this Cinderella connection when I climb into a vintage shop or thrift store or flea market to navigate, excavate and treasure hunt. There are others like me in those places. We are dreamers. We are comfortable around each other as we make each other feel more normal and maybe even sane. I've never been to a ball and I probably will not ever attend one..a really fancy one, that is..but I am drawn to dressy dresses, gowns, wraps, stoles, and silver shoes...oh and rhinestones and pearls. The time my husband and I went to the opera at the Met in NYC on a Saturday night will live in my mind forever..it was a fantasy date; everyone was dressed up and excited and serious, and the opera, Rigoletto was superb.

A friend of my sister's asked me if I wanted to go through her aunt's house after she died. I filled my car 4 times and drove back and forth from the suburbs with tons of stuff. I had a ball..it was like letting a child lose in a toy store. Some of the stuff I sold at flea markets to other dreamers and reachers, some I kept, and some I really use and love so much. I am gathering up the ball gowns to take to the vintage store in my neighborhood..they are very small so I don't think they will sell but she can use them in the window for holiday decorations. I am almost in tears to give these dresses away. This morning, while steaming brown basmati rice and putting on a pot of red lentils and roasting huge bulbs of garlic, I looked for a recipe for persimmon pudding. Persimmons sound and look enchanting. The fairies were flying all around the kitchen. I put on the pink strapless pleated dress...2 colors of pink, the top is pleated horizontally and then under the breast the pleats go straight down..it has a silk slip and the outside material is dreamy. I wore it while doing some decoupaging but then took it off..resolving myself to sanity, coming back to the real world. The fairies love my dresses too. Another is also strapless, thick black satin with a straight silk slip and a built in bra (how cool is that). The back zippers tight and a big bow covers the chest. My figure looks divine; like I was plucked from the 1940's. From the bow it is all netting with beads and it is shimmery black all the way to the floor with a small train..Oh MY....I love it. I put it on and tripped and hit my arm on the wall. How would I explain that kind of accident in an emergency room? I took it off, wiped the dust from my eyes and although the fairies were tugging at the dress, I folded it and put it in the bag for the store.

I think about yoga, seemingly different but really along the same wave lengths. We reach, salute the sun, hands rest in prayer. We lunge, stretch and hold a pose to think, ponder, strenghten, and connect. We connect the past and the future to ourselves. Antiques, vintage dresses, food, wisdom, and fairy tales all are part of a wonderful day of respite.

I try to remind myself Cinderella is a fantasy story. Snap out of it! Sooner or later, Cinderella herself will have donned practical wool pants and a cashmere sweater.

That reminds me, I wanted to order a few things from a store...just in case my husband and I spend a blustery winter weekend in New York City this year.

I can't help myself.

My new kitchen floor is slate. It reminds me of my grandmother's patio in Pennsauken New Jersey...I think she had flagstone,it looks similar except my floor is "rough", not smooth...I love that it doesn't show any dirt and that every time I look at it I think of the many nights spent outside with loads of people around and lots of food and as the night went on my grandmother would have a beer or two, enough to loosen her well..and she'd start to sing. Her invisible "microphone" and her swaying hips and her off key voice...she sang her heart out. She was one of the first persons who ever made me feel the realness of life and the way you can bring happiness to it however you can, you can have fun on your very own patio... I remember once my aunt saying my grandmother did not have a nice life. She grew up poor, was divorced, had two children who worried her and then remarried and had three more children. She never worked, never wrote a check, never really had any type of independence outside of the home. THAT did not stop her from pointing her finger upward at my grandfather and cursing him like a truck driver...as they say. Sometimes he'd laugh, other times he'd get a little mad, but whatever his reaction..he HEARD her. He listened. My husband sometimes reminds me of my grandfather...I think they are both the same Italian decent, (Strong but Gentile) is that Napolitan or Abruzzesse?(RO, I know I spelled them wrong).Just like my grandfather, my husband knows when to just ignore me and let me be..he lets me go on my tangents and keep some control...otherwise I may blow up and take the whole house with me. I have a lot more independence than grandmom had, but I sometimes wonder if I have her ability to really enjoy the moment...the way she did. I think my sister got that gene..really. But I did get the part where fun and love and happiness is just around...not particularly at the beach or in Europe (but it is in Italy) or at the mall...but around, and the more people that have it around that come around make it bigger...and better.

I guess we make room and adapt to our situations. We take control of what we can and we either let go of or ignore what we are ignorant of or unable to control..letting someone else handle those things. Sometimes that someone is God.

At some point we evaluate our lives. We DECIDE what we WANT, what we NEED, and what we don't want to be bothered with anymore.
Some of us do this later than others. Some really get there too late.

I think this broom sweeping helps us find happiness. We really can, at some point, decide on the things that make us happy and really try to go with that flow more times than not and also come to terms with what we have to put up with, or do, to get through, to get on with the fun stuff...so we do it. And we try to do it well and without fretting because then we've got life by the bullhorns and we can decide how our life will go, what our days will be like and how each minute is really our own to HAVE...
when things get in the way...then, we have to deal with them one at a time.

Today I visited a patient I've been seeing every day for the past few weeks. 6 weeks ago she had a baby by c-section...her incision became infected and her belly opened like a volcano...we fill the crater each day with gauze and now a new wound vac machine and will continue to do so until it heals. She is a trooper. The baby was in the intensive care nursery from birth, on a ventilator with minimal brain waves...one complication after another. Last evening her baby boy passed away. She rushed by cab to the hospital for the umpteenth time for a final time. That little boy never had a peaceful day in his life. He deserves a peaceful ever after. Nasita goes about her day, caring for herself, helpless for her son and she prays and deals with it. We talked about her childhood, the baby's father, we talked about what she hoped for when she moved here from Georgia and how life presented a different picture for her. It was evident her life in Georgia was full of good memories, her family is still there, one sister is here. She talks about the stuff her mom went through, the life her aunts had and she sees in comparison her life is just life, albeit a tough one already, but life.

She will probably never forget her little boy and it may bother her for the rest of her life but hopefully someday she'll learn how to deal with it...either she'll pray or run or work or write or cook or sing. OHHH, maybe she'll sing. Maybe she'll sing in a way that will turn that sorrow into some kind of hold and happiness for a future grandson or granddaughter.

Somehow, some good will come of it.

WOW I must be really busy.

I have blogs backed up in my head to last for the next 10 years!

Since I've started my new job I've been busy..not really so busy, just busy getting to know something new.
I kind of miss my life. I miss my time and I miss my ponder-ings and wandering and day dreaming.

I am reading "A Thousand Days in Venice" (again) and love her descriptions of their indulgences in Venice...wine, food, churches...my kind of book. If anyone knows a read Italian person, or a native Italian man, this is a must read..because she is right on the nose with her insights.

We are also doing some work around the house. The dust and mess is driving me nuts. I am forever cleaning and rearranging. For some reason God did not give me girls; nice girls to help around the house. I got dirty, rotten, smelly boys, 4 of them...great kids but they don't clean or cook or do laundry or put their clothes away.

My husband does help with all of that though, I think he feels bad I don't have any daughters.

These past couple of weeks I've been building up my patient load. I am in my own territory..what my preceptor calls the "hood"..just the city. Goodbye suburbs, good riddance. As pretty as it is, I cannot stand the driving, the traffic and all the space. I've said it before, the houses are unbelieveable...really, I've never seen anything like them before.....

back here...with real live, real people, people of all different colors and accents and smells, people with dirty hands and matted hair and people singing on the street corners. People with covered heads or uncovered bellies, engravings on their backs and arms and necks, people with character. Ok, maybe some of them don't have jobs or money but they have character. As long as they read!!!! Some don't do that either. That is another thing...some never read, never been to school, never really worked, never done much...but they KNOW things..they are wise and rich in personality and can tell stories. Some have things inside them that was put there and grew and expanded and it is all they need. Well...almost.

The ones I really love are the ones who look homeless or plain or disheveled but are really intelligent and witty and wise and great at things like guitar playing and writing poetry and cooking in a skillet. Or the ones who run marathons every week or sing in the choir or live above a dance studio. They are the ones who walk 19 blocks to and from work in every kind of weather and dress for living, for walking, for outdoors. The lawyer who smokes cigars everyday at the corner store with his buddies, or the doctor who roasts whole pigs in a bakery oven and makes homemade wine, or maybe the one who plays cards on a wobbly table and drinks coffee and eats jelly donuts every Tuesday and Thursday. Or the quiet man who plays soccer on Sundays. Or the lady who creates beautiful mosaics or runs the local consignment/vintage shop.

ok..enough.

I am back to Nursing the sick and administering to the needy. Sometimes I feel like Florence Nightingale and sometimes I feel like Mother Teresa and sometimes I feel like me. It is what I like to do. Paperwork overwhelms all of us. It is actually prohibitive but I try not to complain too much about it because it comes with the job and I know that, so I do it and they pay me a nice paycheck at the end of the week for doing it right. Thank You. But I also get to talk to one person at a time, to delve into their problems, to help them figure out a way to feel better, if at all possible. What a nice job to have! I get to hold wrinkled old hands and some young smooth ones too. I get to offer a word of encouragement..and the best benefit of all is when I am told "Thank You so much..you've been a God send", or "Can you be my nurse all the time?"
I am no God send, just the one sent that day that accomplished some kind of hope or comfort. It is really easy. And I am the biggest winner in every situation.

This past weekend I worked. Weekend patients are not my "regulars". They just need a visit. I see them once and then maybe never again. It takes seconds to connect with a patient. I am an intruder in their home for maybe one hour of their life. And yet I am left, and I hope they are left, with something. It is a connection, a human connection, that is as quick as putting a plug in a socket. Instant electricity, instant heat, instant mobility. It is almost the truest sense of love. It is giving without knowing. It is trusting without fear. I learn deep feelings and problems in less time then it takes to cook a meal.

It is amazing what people are going through on the other side of their closed doors. Their are hundreds of thousands of wounds, drains, I.V's, catheters, sutures, staples, walkers and oxygen. It is amazing the pain people have...Percocett, endocett, Duragesic patches, Morphine, hydromorphone, Ibuprofen, dilaudid, and lots of aspirin. You can't imagine how creative a person can get trying to make a comfortable bed; sofas, chairs, all kinds of mattresses, pillows and blankets are everywhere...even, as I found one person, a bathtub is being used as a sleeping compartment.

Then there are the pet attachments. I had one lady who called home to talk to her dog..she would leave messages on the answering machine so her dog could hear her voice. She said he was so grateful for her calls! Crazy me, I thought this was so nice of her.

I was at a 50 year old man's home on Saturday. After his lung cancer went into remission, his daughter got married and he felt "like a bull". Then he went from 210 lbs to 165 lbs in 2 weeks. "I watched myself disappear." "I knew something was wrong." Then, the diagnosis of brain cancer. "I had 2 good months". I wonder why I couldn't of had more time, a few years, a year even.....why 2 months?" It doesn't make any sense. His wife sat with her mouth open listening to him, as if this was the first time she was hearing these words.

I taught a little boy to wash his hands. We lathered up with antibacterial soap and sang "the Happy Birthday song" 2 times,really loud, dried with clean paper towels and turned the faucets off with the towels ..and then we held our dry, clean hands up as we donned our gloves and I then taught a 10 year old how to do change his grandmothers bandages. He does them every night for her! My kids barely change their own underwear!

Life..the real kind. People, the real ones.

One of my patients was a midwife...the old fashioned kind, without a degree..she worked in the Labor and Delivery Room with the OB/GYn's teaching them things they were shocked to learn. Her own daughter is an herbalist.

Another patient listens to rap music all day long. She is 97 and loves it...and hesitates to let me lower it so I can hear her heart beat and her Blood Pressure. I told her if she starts to rap I will never come back. We both laughed.

I have also been trying to do some recruiting and marketing and fund raising for my old high school. This is really a grass roots effort and takes lots of thought and planning. I like it, though.

At some point in life it becomes about giving, not getting. It gets to be about helping and doing for others. Mother Teresa or not...it is how life should be lived.

Otherwise it is like a big beautiful empty house. Pretty, but lacking. Nice to show, nice to look at but feels a bit wasteful.

Life should be anything but wasteful.