Spring rainstorm last night
found me driving a friend
to the emergency room
of a major Chicago hospital.
Big city emergency room
predictably
enveloping us
into endless waiting.
I was not the main event last night.
I was a supporting character,
so I had the luxury of waiting as a spectator,
watching the waltz of life
that paraded in and out of
the dim, stale, oatmeal-tinted waiting area.
The only spots of color
were ER red neon
and slick educational posters about HIV.
I watched the waltz from my swaybacked plastic chair--
The wheezing elderly man with a grubby bandage covering half his face.
The scared and squabbling parents of a screaming toddler.
The worried Chinese grandparents who brought in their feverish grandchild, but who spoke
only Mandarin.
The exhausted-amused parents whose son had shoved a ball bearing up his left nostril.
A pre-teen boy with a broken foot.
A basketball player with a broken finger.
A young girl with strep.
Tiny feverish babies.
And us.
The partners in this dance were the staff members-
nurses, doctors, EMT's, firefighters-
who stepped into and out of each individual swirl
on the ER dance floor.
This dance was far more familiar to them, and each of them dealt
with the rise and fall of fear/pain/anger/sorrow
in his or her own way.
Ambivalence.
Empathy.
Brusque efficiency.
Humor.
Compassion.
It was a dance with no beginning and no end
as the dancers themselves appeared then departed
leaving to be eventually and inevitably blown
into the spring rainstorm
outside.
CHM 3/2016
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Thursday, March 24, 2016
A Theory of 30
Today's post will be vaguely mathematical.
Spring rain was drizzling down upon us yesterday, as it is today. I had been sitting at the table for awhile sending e-mails, writing down scraps of stories as they drifted into my head.
I decided I was thirsty and stood up to get some water. In standing up my temperamental knees gave me a sharp, decisive jolt. Probably to remind me who was boss.
My knees weren't always this uncooperative. 25 years ago they only hurt if I fell upon them in some violent fashion. But then I became a teacher of tiny humans which meant I spent a lot of time sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this is a bad thing to do to grown-up knees. Sit cross-legged I mean.
Now I have knees that can sense a change in the weather and that complain at random times.
But here's the gist of this post: I don't feel inside like I should be at the point where I have temperamental knees.
Inside I don't feel like I am 49 years old. Inside where I really live I feel like I range in age from 15 to maybe 21. Inside I flutter from whiny negativity and self-doubt to blazing confidence and back again, neither extreme seeming particularly where I should be at the age of 49.
So this is how my brain arranged this realization:
49=15
Then I thought back a few years and tried to remember how my insides felt then.
My brain drew up a helpful table:
30 = 27
35 = 24
40 = 21
45 = 18
50 = 15
55 = 12
60+ = 9
This made sense to me. I think 30 is the turnaround year. A lot of people spend their 29th year trying to squeeze as much out of their waning 20's as possible while trying to push that 30 as far away as possible. But 365 days is still 365 days no matter how hard we might wish time would slow down or speed up. So we turn 30 and start making that slow mental u-turn.
I'm not saying we regress in any way as we make this u-turn. We don't lose anything--except maybe our inhibitions as the gap widens between our aging bodies and our rejuvenating inner eye. This is a u-turn of our inner relationship with the outer world. How we see ourselves and other people and events and places. How our insecurities and confidence in ourselves changes.
It's an imperceptible shift. I certainly didn't see it coming until I was already far into it.
And while I'm not in a big hurry to stand witness as my own gap between chronology and inner self widens, I think there are worse things than to eventually approach the world through the cosmic, questioning eyes of a 9 or 10 year old.
Even if it does mean that I have achy knees.
Spring rain was drizzling down upon us yesterday, as it is today. I had been sitting at the table for awhile sending e-mails, writing down scraps of stories as they drifted into my head.
I decided I was thirsty and stood up to get some water. In standing up my temperamental knees gave me a sharp, decisive jolt. Probably to remind me who was boss.
My knees weren't always this uncooperative. 25 years ago they only hurt if I fell upon them in some violent fashion. But then I became a teacher of tiny humans which meant I spent a lot of time sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, this is a bad thing to do to grown-up knees. Sit cross-legged I mean.
Now I have knees that can sense a change in the weather and that complain at random times.
But here's the gist of this post: I don't feel inside like I should be at the point where I have temperamental knees.
Inside I don't feel like I am 49 years old. Inside where I really live I feel like I range in age from 15 to maybe 21. Inside I flutter from whiny negativity and self-doubt to blazing confidence and back again, neither extreme seeming particularly where I should be at the age of 49.
So this is how my brain arranged this realization:
49=15
Then I thought back a few years and tried to remember how my insides felt then.
My brain drew up a helpful table:
30 = 27
35 = 24
40 = 21
45 = 18
50 = 15
55 = 12
60+ = 9
This made sense to me. I think 30 is the turnaround year. A lot of people spend their 29th year trying to squeeze as much out of their waning 20's as possible while trying to push that 30 as far away as possible. But 365 days is still 365 days no matter how hard we might wish time would slow down or speed up. So we turn 30 and start making that slow mental u-turn.
I'm not saying we regress in any way as we make this u-turn. We don't lose anything--except maybe our inhibitions as the gap widens between our aging bodies and our rejuvenating inner eye. This is a u-turn of our inner relationship with the outer world. How we see ourselves and other people and events and places. How our insecurities and confidence in ourselves changes.
It's an imperceptible shift. I certainly didn't see it coming until I was already far into it.
And while I'm not in a big hurry to stand witness as my own gap between chronology and inner self widens, I think there are worse things than to eventually approach the world through the cosmic, questioning eyes of a 9 or 10 year old.
Even if it does mean that I have achy knees.
Thursday, March 10, 2016
2016--The Year of the R Rated Presidential Debate
I was driving to work this morning, listening to NPR on the radio-- jockeying for position, as usual, amid the early-morning semi trucks, speed demons and steering wheel multi-taskers (because everyone knows the safest way to drive is when you simultaneously talk on your phone, apply makeup/shave and drink a venti Starbucks latte).
A news segment began wherein teachers and students were being interviewed about the challenges of using this year's televised presidential debates for lessons.
It was heartbreaking and infuriating enough to listen to these poor teachers describe how they were trying to build real-life lessons and learning for their students, using the current presidential debates as a kickoff point. These teachers were trying to stay fair, using clips from both the democratic as well as republican side.
Visions slipped into my head of being one of these teachers, standing in front of 25 or 30 middle school students, the republican debates on the computer or tv screen, and suddenly finding myself scrabbling for the remote control to mute the innuendo and nastiness.
Most of the teachers said that they had to eventually resort to using only select clips of the republican debates, and then re-building their lessons to focus on how NOT to engage in presidential debate.
Anyone who knows me will understand that if I were in any of these teacher's shoes right now, I'd be doing the same thing--trying to give equal weight, equal consideration to both sides--republican and democrat. I'd wield my words carefully to avoid bias.
I don't need to tear down others just to support my own beliefs.
People do not need to tear down other people just to support their own beliefs.
This would seem to me to be a general rule of being a human being with a large brain and opposable thumbs.
The republican candidates evidently did not get this memo.
I'm not saying that all democrats are better and more ethical than all republicans--both of the democratic candidates have done their share of talking over each other and hollering as well. I'm not even saying that all the republican candidates are equally to blame for the disgraceful parody of presidential debate that they are currently performing. But the republican debates seem to have run right off the path as one of the republican candidates slipped into the proverbial gutter, and the other two followed along behind him. They might have followed slowly, but they still followed.
And so I will say this...
if a person aspiring to be the president of any country does not possess the self control, maturity and respect for the position to control himself/herself in a televised debate, they do not have the self control, maturity and respect for the position to succeed.
We expect a presidential debate to be respectfully adversarial to a certain point. We even expect the exchange of fairly intelligent, articulate jabs and maybe even some pithy teasing.
As the republican debates stand so far, they are not respectful, not intelligent and some times not even particularly articulate as they holler over each other. I won't even get into the whole "tiny hands" debacle.
In the NPR piece I heard this morning the students interviewed (roughly middle school age) all had similar reactions to these debates: the candidates were acting like children. One student had seen parts of the Donald Trump rallies (which, I acknowledge, are not equivalent to the presidential debates, but are indicative of the political climate at this time). He was clearly troubled, his voice serious and amazed as he described watching Mr. Trump say something insulting, only to have the audience cheer him on and echo it.
THIS is the example that our young people are seeing. THIS is what is being broadcast nation wide--adults cheering on hatred, violence, intolerance. And the image of this is what will stay with our young people. Teachers and parents can backtrack and discuss and teach our young people how to think critically about what they are seeing. We can try dipping into history and explore the Lincoln-Douglas debates, view presidential debates of the past in order to assure our young people that not all candidates-- not all people--are like this.
But the IMAGE of this--the visual, visceral realization of how truly ugly adults can behave---this will stay with them, for better or worse. They may feel disgust or admiration but they--like many of us who are older--will never again be able to see a presidential race in quite the same way.
From NPR: "Explaining 'Small Hands,' Wet Pants to Your Kids This Presidential Campaign"
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/10/469897741/parents-teachers-shocked-by-language-content-in-gop-presidential-debate
A news segment began wherein teachers and students were being interviewed about the challenges of using this year's televised presidential debates for lessons.
It was heartbreaking and infuriating enough to listen to these poor teachers describe how they were trying to build real-life lessons and learning for their students, using the current presidential debates as a kickoff point. These teachers were trying to stay fair, using clips from both the democratic as well as republican side.
Visions slipped into my head of being one of these teachers, standing in front of 25 or 30 middle school students, the republican debates on the computer or tv screen, and suddenly finding myself scrabbling for the remote control to mute the innuendo and nastiness.
Most of the teachers said that they had to eventually resort to using only select clips of the republican debates, and then re-building their lessons to focus on how NOT to engage in presidential debate.
Anyone who knows me will understand that if I were in any of these teacher's shoes right now, I'd be doing the same thing--trying to give equal weight, equal consideration to both sides--republican and democrat. I'd wield my words carefully to avoid bias.
I don't need to tear down others just to support my own beliefs.
People do not need to tear down other people just to support their own beliefs.
This would seem to me to be a general rule of being a human being with a large brain and opposable thumbs.
The republican candidates evidently did not get this memo.
I'm not saying that all democrats are better and more ethical than all republicans--both of the democratic candidates have done their share of talking over each other and hollering as well. I'm not even saying that all the republican candidates are equally to blame for the disgraceful parody of presidential debate that they are currently performing. But the republican debates seem to have run right off the path as one of the republican candidates slipped into the proverbial gutter, and the other two followed along behind him. They might have followed slowly, but they still followed.
And so I will say this...
if a person aspiring to be the president of any country does not possess the self control, maturity and respect for the position to control himself/herself in a televised debate, they do not have the self control, maturity and respect for the position to succeed.
We expect a presidential debate to be respectfully adversarial to a certain point. We even expect the exchange of fairly intelligent, articulate jabs and maybe even some pithy teasing.
As the republican debates stand so far, they are not respectful, not intelligent and some times not even particularly articulate as they holler over each other. I won't even get into the whole "tiny hands" debacle.
In the NPR piece I heard this morning the students interviewed (roughly middle school age) all had similar reactions to these debates: the candidates were acting like children. One student had seen parts of the Donald Trump rallies (which, I acknowledge, are not equivalent to the presidential debates, but are indicative of the political climate at this time). He was clearly troubled, his voice serious and amazed as he described watching Mr. Trump say something insulting, only to have the audience cheer him on and echo it.
THIS is the example that our young people are seeing. THIS is what is being broadcast nation wide--adults cheering on hatred, violence, intolerance. And the image of this is what will stay with our young people. Teachers and parents can backtrack and discuss and teach our young people how to think critically about what they are seeing. We can try dipping into history and explore the Lincoln-Douglas debates, view presidential debates of the past in order to assure our young people that not all candidates-- not all people--are like this.
But the IMAGE of this--the visual, visceral realization of how truly ugly adults can behave---this will stay with them, for better or worse. They may feel disgust or admiration but they--like many of us who are older--will never again be able to see a presidential race in quite the same way.
From NPR: "Explaining 'Small Hands,' Wet Pants to Your Kids This Presidential Campaign"
http://www.npr.org/2016/03/10/469897741/parents-teachers-shocked-by-language-content-in-gop-presidential-debate
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