Placed on my heart............

I have heard people say before, "God placed you on my heart." I never really understood that before. But now I understand it clearly because it has happened to me. God has placed you on my heart. And you are constant in my thoughts. I think about you almost without stopping, like I do my own children or my parents or my closest friends.

But in a different way. I think about you and I think about the sadness that surrounds you. I see it in your countenance and I hear it, just the slightest tinge, in your voice. And I want to wrap my heart around it and ease it for you, or just take it and carry it for you.

I don't even know you well at all. I know almost nothing about you. You are a stranger in my heart, and yet God has placed you there for a reason. I don't even know what to do with these feelings. How do I reach out to someone who is a stranger? How do I cross the gap, continuing to appear normal and like I know what I am doing when I don't have the slightest idea what I am doing? How do I know what I can do to offer you compassion, comfort, love?

I know now that God has done this to me before - I just didn't realize it. There have been women I've seen in my practice, who I've grown especially close to, who stayed on my mind, who I worried about and thought about all the time and wanted to give them all the love that I can muster - all the love that a stranger can offer to another. It is a strange thing. And there have been friends of my children with whom I've wanted to do that same thing - take them in, hold them close, love them without ceasing, ease some of the sadness that circles around them like a halo, an aura, a moat.

Is it my own sadness that connects with yours? Are we kindred spirits? Does that part of me recognize that part of you?

I don't know the answer. I only know that God has placed you on my heart. I see your face whenever I close my eyes. I look for you everywhere I go, just to have the chance to offer you a smile. I lie awake in the night and wonder what I am supposed to do, if anything.

This morning, a small answer came to me as I sipped coffee in the early morning chill - I need to pray. And so I did. Paul told us to pray without ceasing. Perhaps that is a way to love without ceasing. Perhaps that is a way to love. I pray for you.

I send a wish to you - through magic and spirit - that you might know that there is a person here in this world, a stranger, who prays for you, and loves you without understanding why, it is just there. And it asks nothing in return, there is nothing you need to do. It just is.

Peace.

Dear Eliza.....

I am sending you this medal, dear Eliza.

They have cited me for bravery in the field.

And, oh I so believed I fight for freedom

I carried my truth like a shield.

But I've seen my brothers die, Eliza,

By hands that held our babes before the war

And I hear their mothers cry as I lay sleeping

And I don't want this medal anymore.

Can you hear the sound, Eliza?

Of the sad goose leading winter home.

I button up my coat and I hang my head down low

With the greatest kind of sorrow I have known.

I am sending you my heart, dear Eliza.

It's as broken as the man that holds it in.

And, though I make it home to your sweet love,

I don't think I'll be using it again.

There is so much I have lost, my own Eliza.

I've forgotten all the beauty in your sweet face.

Will we ever know the cost that we are paying

When we forget the ways of mercy and Heaven's grace?

Can you hear the sound, Eliza?

Of the mourning dove crying in the dawn.

There is nothing I believe but that freedom is not free

And there will not be a war that can be won.

There is nothing I believe but that freedom is not free

And there will not be a war that can be won.

-----Yours truly, Dear Eliza

I've just recently gotten this song recorded in the studio. It'll be on my next CD which, hopefully, will be out by the time autumn rolls around again.

Peace.

Talk about a face!!!

What a face!! My friend Laura sent an email today with Ozzy's picture attached. He needs a new home. If any of you readers (all four of ya!!) know anybody that might be interested, you can send me an email at folksinger@esva.net and I'll forward it on to Laura.

I told Laura I sure did wish that I owned my own house 'cause I take him right on in!! Baby would love to have a dog roommate. Jericho and Pete and Buster the cat who lives in the tree would not like it at all, but then, cats don't seem to like much of anything except to boss their humans around and to outwardly break as many rules as they can.

What a face this guy has!

Midnights in winter, the glowing fire
Lights up your face in orange and gold.
I see your sweet smile shine through the darkness
Its line is etched in my memory
So I'd know you by heart.

Mornings in April, sharing our secrets.
We'd walk until the morning was gone.
We were like children, laughing for hours.
The joy you gave me lives on and on
'Cause I know you by heart.

I still hear your voice on warm summer nights
Whispering like the wind.

You left in autumn, the leaves were turning
I walked down roads of orange and gold.
I saw your sweet smile.
I heard your laughter.
You're still here beside me everyday
'Cause I know you by heart.
-----Diane Scanlon and Eve Nelson, I Know You By Heart

I am listening to Eva Cassidy. She was amazing. You can hear her soul in her voice.
She gives me peace.
Peace.

Juggling....

Seems like I have spent a lot of my life's time juggling....... work, kids, family, budgets, school, more school, and then more school, fun, home, house, yard, dogs, cats, bills, faith, love, intimacy, solitude, friendships, sleep, no sleep, taxes, reading, knitting, thinking, praying, listening, talking, singing, writing, learning, grieving, mother, daughter, sister, wife, ex-wife, holding on, letting go........

I've made a mess of things, more than once. I'm sure there are more messes to come before all is said and done. I've had egg on my face (and everywhere else!) more times than I'd like to think. But I'm persistent! No one could rightly accuse me of giving up or of being a quitter! (Well, someone did recently but that was a situation that needed quitting. I was just the one who was brave enough to do it.)

Life is a juggling act. It can be a blur and a mess - but it is also an awesome thing to watch, an art form all in itself. A beautiful dance. An unending series of lessons learned and balls dropped and picked up again. Sometimes, when the balls are all in the air, and my head is spinning, and the exquisite timing hits its stride and I am doing it and doing it well - I wonder at the dazzling speed of it all and wish that I could stop the juggling act in midair, just so that I might hold each thing, solitary and precious, only if just for a little longer.

Time flies.

Peace.

I'm gonna survive

After five days of the nastiest bug I've had in a long long time, I've decided I'm gonna survive! I woke this morning with no fever, no chills, and a headache that's settled down to a dull throb - a headache I'm used to rather than the pounding, screaming headace that I had that had me convinced I surely had meningitis. I feel so much better today. I am back on call this afternoon and even got a little housework done (though I still haven't gotten around to mopping the kitchen floor - my least favorite of all housekeeping tasks!).

I woke up Thursday morning to a blanket of snow surrounding my house. My house sits a half mile out a sandy dirt road, with fields of winter wheat all around it. The winter wheat is up now and is as green as the fields of Ireland. An absolutely beautiful color to see in the middle of winter! The snow wasn't as noticeable in the fields because the winter wheat is starting to get thicker and taller now. It looked like the only snow that had fallen was in my big yard. Like I was on some kind of island. It was so lovely. I wish I'd have had the time and the energy to take a picture. As it was, I covered my shivering and aching body in warm clothes, donned hat and mittens, and headed down the road and across the Bay to give a deposition.

Depositions in malpractice cases are a nasty business, any way you look at it. It doesn't matter whose side you're on or even if the case has nothing to do with you or your practice - somewhere in the course of things, someone will try to make you out to be a liar, a sorry excuse for a practitioner, or both. I was not in a good frame of mind anyway. They kept me there two and a half hours, and, as I expected, the opposing counsel did try to make me out to be a liar and a lousy practitioner. I guess feeling like crap worked to my advantage because I did not put up with that kind of crap and gave it right back to him. Funny thing about the whole deal is - there is NO reason that I would lie about anything to benefit the person this lawsuit is against! Not i my wildest dreams, not in a hundred years.

I came home from the experience, nauseated, aching, cold to the bone and crawled into my nest. I slept until well past dark. I got up for a little while and tried to eat but my tummy was having none of it! I went back to bed and slept for another twelve hours.

My friend Michele made me a big pot of homemade chicken noodle soup yesterday. It had six different herbs in it from her own back yard. She said she blessed each one as she added it to the pot. It fixed me. Such kindness in the midst of things is better than any medicine I could have taken. And each soothing mouthful of that soup calmed my inside.

Today I am much much better. I'm gonna survive after all. I'm back on call this afternoon and even managed to get some housework done.

Better get back to work now. Chin up! It pays the rent!
Peace. Stay well.

It's coming.......

.....and like the IRS, it's out to get you! The "flu" that is. And there's the flu-flu, the throat-flu, the Austrailian-flu, the stomach-flu, and some bizarre kind of respiratory thing going around that's landing people in ICU. All viral. All some mutation of some other virus that mutated from some other virus and so on.

It's creeping into my bones while we speak. I woke this morning with a headache to rival the worst migraine I've ever had and a burning-like-fire throat. Worse than those were the aches in my joints and the inability to get warm. I've been under a blanket as much of the day as work would allow. Fortunately, it hasn't been busy at the hospital today. But I have seen three patients just this afternoon, in labor and delivery, pregnant of course, but with the stomach-flu. I'm getting a different virus, and I sure don't want the stomach thing. Plus I don't want to spread the in-the-throat-chest-head-and-bones virus on to anyone else! But it's hard to go without breathing while trying to get the job of evaluating someone done well.

I gotta make it through tonight. Then I can stay in bed all day tomorrow if need be. I have to go across the Bay on Thursday to give a deposition. Will the fun never end?! Ought to be an even more interesting experience with a fever. I'm already almost beside myself with anxiety about the whole damn deal! Might as well get delusional, huh?! GREAT way to spend Valentine's Day, too. Bah-humbug to that one anyway!!

I hope all of you, loved ones and strangers alike, are spared the flu this year. If you haven't gotten your flu shot, you can still get it. Drink lots of water, get lots of rest, and try to stay warm. Eat your vegetables, too! And a couple of oranges, apples, and/or other good fruits a day.

Good luck! It's a viral jungle out there.
Peace.