I felt like crap this morning.

But luckily, I put on my jogging shoes and finally kicked myself outside.

I am grateful for the run I just took. Even though it is rainy, freezing and grey, I was outside, sweating, using my muscles, smelling flowers and enjoying my fabulous neighborhood.

I am grateful that my new job rocks, and will continue to rock, even though I’ll have to do some time on nights.

I am grateful for my new girlfriends who have been cracking me up, and going out for cocktails, really good food and music, even though we’re spending too much money.

I am so grateful that my patient didn’t die yesterday when I messed up the IV tubing on her levophed and her blood pressure dropped to 40/nothing.

I could go on forever, but those are the ones I want to remember today.

Another poem

Here’s another poem; this one I heard on Writer’s Almanac. I think I liked this one so much because of the way it shows how easy it is to perceive or create barriers that “prevent” us from following our hearts, when in reality the barriers aren’t there at all…

Looking Back in My Eighty-First Year by Maxine Kumin

How did we get to be old ladies—
my grandmother’s job—when we
were the long-leggèd girls?
— Hilma Wolitzer

Instead of marrying the day after graduation,
in spite of freezing on my father’s arm as
here comes the bride struck up,
saying, I’m not sure I want to do this,

I should have taken that fellowship
to the University of Grenoble to examine
the original manuscript
of Stendhal’s unfinished Lucien Leuwen,

I, who had never been west of the Mississippi,
should have crossed the ocean
in third class on the Cunard White Star,
the war just over, the Second World War

when Kilroy was here, that innocent graffito,
two eyes and a nose draped over
a fence line. How could I go?
Passion had locked us together.

Sixty years my lover,
he says he would have waited.
He says he would have sat
where the steamship docked

till the last of the pursers
decamped, and I rushed back
littering the runway with carbon paper . . .
Why didn’t I go? It was fated.

Marriage dizzied us. Hand over hand,
flesh against flesh for the final haul,
we tugged our lifeline through limestone and sand,
lover and long-leggèd girl.

Free Time

On December 15th I started a new job, which involves 2 months of classes, tons of homework, and a big test. It’s been several years since I’ve been a student (the kind with homework), and I had forgotten what it is like to have no free time! Even when you are taking a break, there is always something you should be doing. The funny part is how effectively a big pile of homework can inspire you to write songs, paint pictures, knit, take photos, or even clean the house and pay bills. Anyways, February 10th is the big test. Hopefully I’ll pass on the first try, so I can get back to just being a worker bee, with no more homework!

A couple poems

One of my yoga teachers has taken to reading poetry during shavasana. I’m not usually into poetry, but maybe my post-yoga stupor has made me a little more receptive. Anyways, twice now I have had to run home and look up the poems she read, because I was so taken with them. I am going to post them both here. (PS – That photo is from the Presidential Palace in Delhi.)

Mahadeviyakka

Sunlight made visible
the whole length of a sky
movements of wind,
leaf, flower, all six colours
on tree, bush and creeper:
all this
is the day’s worship.

The light of the moon, star and fire
lightnings and all things
that go by the name of light
are the night’s worship.

Night and day
in your worship
I forget myself

O lord white as jasmine.

SOMEONE UNTIED YOUR CAMEL

I cannot sit still with my countrymen in chains.
I cannot act mute
Hearing the world’s loneliness
Crying near the Beloved’s heart.

My love for God is such
That I could dance with Him tonight without you,
But I would rather have you there.

Is your caravan lost?

It is,
If you no longer weep from gratitude or happiness,
Or weep
From being cut deep with the awareness
Of the extraordinary beauty
That emanates from the most simple act
And common object.

My dear, is your caravan lost?

It is if you can no longer be kind to yourself
And loving to those who must live
With the sometimes difficult task of loving you.

At least come to know
That someone untied your camel last night
For I hear its gentle voice
Calling for God in the desert.

At least come to know
That Hafiz will always hold a lantern
With the galaxies blooming inside
And that

I will always guide your soul to
The divine warmth and exhilaration
Of our Beloved’s
Tent.

~ Hafiz ~
(The Gift — versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

Taking a stroll in Mumbai

None of the photographs I took on my trip seemed to capture anything close to what it felt like to be there. In order to take a picture, I would have to find a safe place to stand, where I wouldn’t get hit by a car (or bike, or moped, or plowed over by pedestrians.) Finally, on my last night, I turned on the video on my camera, and just carried it with me as I walked. It makes me a little carsick to watch the videos I got, but I think it gives a more accurate impression – I also like that I got some of the sounds of the streets!

Meanwhile, I have to mention the heartbreaking news coming out of Mumbai. Everyone I personally know is safe. But I keep thinking of a friend we made while we were there. He was Muslim, and lived in Jaipur. A few things he mentioned gave us the impression that the fallout from previous “bomb blasts” throughout the country were already making things a little scary for Muslims in India. I can’t imagine how they must be feeling right now.

Indian feast.

Look – no silverware!

Seattle in the Fall

I took these while walking to my friend Cathy’s for an evening of singing.

An explanation?

There are a zillion reasons this video makes me happy. But I’m not sure I’ll go into them…

Onions.

I drew these while watching a movie the other night. I was TIRED and uninspired, and had no desire to draw, but… homework is homework. So I flipped through some food porn until I found something relatively undaunting. But of course, as soon as I started drawing, even a pile of onions felt next to impossible. I think it only took about ten minutes until I started to actually enjoy myself. How many times do I have to have this experience in order to re-program myself? If I just push through that uncomfortable period when I first start drawing, then I end up getting into a completely blissed-out zone. So why does it take so much freakin’ will power to just get started? Whatever. I guess the “why” doesn’t matter. The important thing is that I just keep at it.

A drawing, and a few other bits

It’s true – I like to read my horoscope. It is just way too fun when something rings true, as happened this week, in the Stranger:

“It’s finally the right time for you to hear a piece of advice you weren’t ready for before. If I had told you this any earlier, you would have at best misinterpreted it and at worst had no idea what I was talking about. But in recent weeks you’ve recovered a portion of your lost wildness, which means I can confidently reveal the following truth, courtesy of poet Charles Simic: “He who cannot howl will not find his pack.” Love it.

I finally did some drawing the other night. I’m hoping to go to India in October, but the trip is sort of dependent on a few things genuinely out of my control. In the meantime, I am thinking positively. So…let me correct myself: I am going to India in October. How’s that?