When I called Mamie to ask if I can come over for a visit she said "Well I have some business to take care of, and errands to run, but I guess I can wait and go later. I have to go out for a while". She sounded as if she had her coat and scarf on. I referred to my patient information sheet to double check her age, 89; oh, not so old I thought.

"Would it be better for you if I visited later this afternoon, around 4pm"?

"Oh, yes, that would be just fine", she said with a smile in her voice.

"OK, see you then".

At 4 p.m. I found myself on another street with most of the houses falling apart. The house I was looking for was the one that was standing sturdy. The windows were clean and shiny, the front door had a second heavy black iron door protecting it and the steps were surronded by a fancy iron gate with a latch. I listened for the squeek of the hinge as I opened the gate...smooth as silk..."HMMMMM", I thought.

Mamie answered the door while wiping her hands on a towel. She was in a pristinely ironed blue flowered house dress, rolled stockings with white anklets and a white sweater. Her shoes were black and rubber soled. "Come on in, come right on in"!, she said with delight. She showed me into the dining room. The house was lovely like something plucked directly from North Carolina. I admired her furniture and her housekeeping. She smiled. She listened to all I had to say with great intent and was relieved to receive a medication box to hold her pills so she can be reminded when to take them. Her blood pressure has been a bit out of control because she sometimes forgets to take her pills. She thought the box was beautiful. It was nice and big and easy to see and read. Her blood pressure was a bit high. Mamie was intent on skipping salty snacks, luncheon meats and even bacon. She mentioned she did most of her own cooking from scratch. I pulled up a chair. We chatted about good southern food and just how to make a good sweet potato pie. We compared her Southern chiterlin's to my Italian tripe. My stomach started to gurgle and I prepared to leave. I promised to return in one week to re check her blood pressure. She blessed me a thousand times and was genuinely appreciative of all this effort. A flu vaccine completed the visit.

As I was packing up my bag to leave this warm and cozy home she asked me if I remembered (even though I looked way to young to know her...she said)an actress called Ava Gardner. Well of course I did. I mentioned a few favorite movies and she chimed in about a few others. Mamie went on to say she was a very good friend of Ava's. Her mother worked for Ava's mother who ran a boarding school. When Mamie's mother died at a young age, Ava's mother took her into her own home to live with them and she worked with her at the school. She mingled with Ava in the house and watched as she dressed and shopped and as she was courted by many handsome men, including Frank Sinatra. Mamie met all of the big stars: Bing Crosby, Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, JR...and many more. She said Frank loved her Ava the most, that Ava was his one true love. She said the wedding was a dream, but Ava had a roaming eye and a dancing heart for thrills and excitement. She broke Frank's heart.

Mamie went with them to Hollywood. She worked for them but she said they treated her like family with love. When Ava died, Mamie was in Philadelphia by then, moving here at the request of her sister who was ill and needed her. She went back to North Carolina to the funeral which was packed with family, friends, and many, many movie stars including Frank Sinatra. Mamie said he was always a gentleman and always made her heart flutter, too....like many other women.

If you saw this lady on the street, on the bus, at the store, in church, even in her lovely home, you would never imagine she traveled the world and lived among the stars. She readily says it was thrilling and remembers it fondly. She doesn't live there anymore and most of those people are gone from this world but they are still alive in her heart and instead of that making her sad, it makes her happy that she can still feel it and remember. She said she lost a daughter at a young age, a daughter who was a nurse and while working at a hospital at 46 years old she collapsed and died of a heart attack. She said her daughter was a good and lovely person. Some people say to her how can she go on day in and out without that killing her, but she says "I take the day God gives me and accept it as a gift. I feel like things happen the way God wants them to happen and I try to do the best I can with it". She has another daughter and a son. I told her to teach her daughter how to do that good southern cooking. Teach her those family recipes and those special ways of doing things. Mamie said she was teaching her this morning because her daughter is taking over the Thanksgiving dinner and wants to make all the special dishes her mom always made for her, for Ava, and even for Frank.

Nothing is ever the same but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate it for what it is now.

"May you live all the days of your life." Jonathan Swift

"Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights." Pauline R. Kezer

The rain was falling as if someone was pouring it from buckets behind the thick gray clouds. I wore rain boots and a rain jacket with a hood and huddled around my bag and papers to protect it all from the rain.

The house was the last on the block next to an empty lot filled with debris. The neighborhood has become very run down and seemingly foreign but not really due to any foreigners.

An older, very thin white man answered the door. His beard stubble was a few days old, his clothes look less laundered than his face. His rented house was grimy and cold as it had no central heat due to his gas being turned off for not paying the bill. The winter didn't even begin, I thought. He would pay something tomorrow to the gas company and they agreed with at least 150.00 payment to turn it back on. He was hopeful. He was glad it was not cold out. It was very damp and the wetness in the air intensified the dog odor of the house. It was actually hard to breath. Loud whinnying and howling and barking and growling came from the back of the house. His nephew walked in the front door with a 5 foot tall bag of dog food. I hesitantly asked, "What kind of dogs do you have"?

"Pit bulls", he said. "You have to have pit bulls in this neighborhood to survive". "Don't worry, those big babies are in the back yard". I imagined them gnawing through the back door. I could hear their slobber. The first floor of the house looked as if it was under demolition. My patient says he likes it there...the rent was very reasonable. I wondered how anyone can live in such filth and disarray, such coldness. I wondered what they did all day long? How much TV can someone watch. Why didn't they clean up or throw things away? Basic shelter. I'd rather live in a tent.

He agreed to take all his medications, eat well and follow up with his doctors and scheduled diagnostic tests. I instructed him in checking his blood sugar but he said he lost his machine. He can tell what his blood sugar is by how he feels. I left my phone number for his reference and told him I would check back on him in one week. He appreciated my visiting and my reaching out to him with care.

I didn't have the heart to tell him someone pays me to do this. I felt ashamed that I did not think I'd be so inclined if it wasn't in my job description. I offered him the flu vaccine and he accepted relieved it was free of any cost.

He was very nice, seemingly very quiet. I wondered how he managed those dogs. His nephew was there for a while. He helps him as best as he can. Do they strive for anything better? Do they plan on vacuuming the rugs or getting some Mr. Clean in that kitchen. Bleach and paint would be better. A broom would help. A laundered blanket would feel good, I am sure. How cheap can the rent be?

I started to understand the homeless population a bit better. I'd rather be homeless. I think.

This is America. We are free to live as we chose, however we chose. This situation is definitely a choice because it is really not necessary; not forced, not demanded. I should remember that more often. I should realize that freedom is a great gift no matter how it is utilized.

Then I remembered something I heard on a Discovery Channel show...how human beings are the most adaptable animal on the planet. We adapt better than any other animal, eventually. Many, many times that is a good thing but often it is a bad thing.

"Repetition of the same thought or physical action develops into a habit which, repeated frequently enough, becomes an automatic reflex." Norman Vincent Peale

"They are able because they think they are able." Virgil
(I guess the opposite is true too)

"What really matters is what you do with what you have." (Shirley Lord)

Kafka on the shore is a really good book (I am listening to the cd's)...(I can't think of the author's name now)

I am a fan of Asian writers. I am always so surprised how much I enjoy them.

Some of my favorite books by Asian writers are

Balzac and the Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
Kitchen (something like banannna)
Never Let me GO (Isiguro)
The Remains of the DAy (Isiguro)
When we were orphans (Isiguro)

The GOOD Earth (Pearl s Buck..who was not chinese but the book is about china and was one of my first books I fell in love with)

Falling Leaves (Adeline Yen Mah)
Waiting (Ha Jin)
Crazed (Ha Jin)

can't think of anymore...

I took one of those internet tests the other day. I do not know why but I answered the questions. It was a test to tell what kind of life you may have lived in the past. I know some people do not believe in all of that and maybe I am not supposed to believe it according to my religion, but, I do. There has to be a reason why some things are so interesting to me. For instance, I love foreigners (almost any kind), I love foreign movies (especially Italian and Spanish and French but also Russian, and Polish and many Asian and African cultures) yet learning a foreign language is so hard for me.

I also am enthralled with music and art yet I have very little real knowledge or expertise about it. When I go into an art supply store or a museum, I shake, just as I do in an antique, vintage or even a thrift store or if I read or see anything to do with the 20's, 30's 40's, or the depression or the turn of the century or when I am in a book store or library. I cannot draw or paint to save my life but I feel like I should be able to do that, I feel at ease around all of that. ...you can say it is all related to my likes and dislikes but I feel like it is more ingrained that a mere like or dislike. I love anything hand made. I greatly admire people who can knit and draw and make furniture or those who can make delicious bread from grain and water or soup from water and a couple of vegetables. I am actually envious of those individuals who are thrifty, who can stretch a dollar and live on a budget, who can live on pennies a day without sacrificing comfort or happiness. I admire those who are calm and graceful and organized. I admire those daring and non conforming.

anyways....I was doing the test and the results were that I was an artist in ONE of my past lives. Someone in the FINE arts.
No wonder I have so much self esteem. I knew I was famous or brilliant at one point or another!

After thinking about it, I think I was a famous painter (I will not say a writer because I want that for this life and cannot even think it is something in the past) who lived or traveled in China, Japan, India, Thailand, Italy, France, Poland, Israel, and different parts of the US...then I lost all of my money and lived without fame and fortune but very happily for a while with many children. I do not think I ever lived alone. Now, I love being alone but living alone feels very strange, not at all like something I was ever familiar with....

I would post the test for you all to try it, but I lost it.

Being a brilliant artist I am prone to losing things.

Last week it was warm, a couple of days of true Indian Summer.

The trees in the park are bare; less than two weeks ago they were full and colorful. The ground is carpeted with large and small and crispy, red and brown and amber leaves. The trees seem so much taller without the shrouding and canopy of their clinging offspring. Will I feel tall after my offspring are shook from my vines? If you know me, you know, it is possible for me to feel many things, but tall is never one of them. Is ignorance bliss? Is wished for ignorance bliss?

Walking through the park with my precious little dog I feel like it must be a fairy tale. After rain that fell in sheets like waves of a waterfall, leaves now fall like bright yellow snow. I am tiny and exposed walking without shelter or camouflage.

I am only walking the dog in the park but this is how it feels.

Life. Fairy tales. Seasons. Shelter. Offspring. Pets. Love. Strong foundations. Straight backbones. Reaching spines. Feeling tall. Walks. Rain. Warm sun. Wind. Cold. Beautiful leaves depart and return, depart and return. Life. Fairy tales.