Inspired by the "Jungle Animal Hospital" episode of the PBS show, Nature:
Scarlet macaws sail
Bright wings snap like flags unfurled
Streamer tails ripple
Watch the episode here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/jungle-animal-hospital-scarlet-macaws-released-wild/14294/
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 23, 2016
I'm (Not) in Control
True confession time:
I have never been drunk. I have
never taken a drug that wasn’t over-the-counter or prescribed by a doctor. (Unless you count dark chocolate and the
occasional Starbucks Mocha Frappucino—I do appreciate a good caffeine jolt now
and again. Anyone else think they can actually
feel the exact moment when that mocha coffee goodness hits their bloodstream? Just me?)
This is because I am a control FREAK. I am not, however, a neat freak. A visit to my house on any given day will
confirm this. While I’m confessing, we
have had carpeting in our living room for thirteen years. I have never shampooed or steam-cleaned
it. I know, I know, it’s
disgusting. My approach to housecleaning
is basically a denial that it needs to take place.
But I hate to be out of control. It’s scary.
It’s unpredictable. And even
though I consider myself creative and fairly spontaneous, I also love routine
and predictability. When I am able to eat
lunch at home, I eat the same thing day after day (a quesadilla with refried
beans, spinach, and cheese and a side of plain Greek yogurt, preferably served
with an iced tea, in case you were wondering.
It’s easy to fix, I really like it—why change?)
Well, news flash to self—I am NOT in control, not now, not
ever. There is nothing like the potent combination
of a husband with a progressive, incurable disease, a teenager, and a job search
that continually hits dead ends to make me painfully aware of this.
Ironically, I gave a lovely and earnest speech at my high
school graduation about control. I said,
in my seventeen years of wisdom and pretty much zero years of actual life
experience, that even if we didn’t have control over everything in our lives we
did have control over our responses to the things that happened to us. OK, I’m actually a little proud of young me
for having such a mature outlook, but it’s one thing to say this at seventeen
and another thing entirely to do it when you’re forty-three and taking much too
seriously your Facebook friend’s question, “If you could run away, where would
you go?” because, honestly, you can think of lots of places you’d rather be
than in your bathroom cleaning up the pee on the floor again and you’re in a
hurry (again) because you can’t freaking REMEMBER that daily life now means allotting
extra time in your routine to clean up pee or [insert activity related to
caregiving here].
So, lack of control.
It sucks. I’m American and I’m a
feminist. I like to be independent. Not being in control often translates into (ARGH)
relying on other people to help you. I
am beyond grateful that there are people I can call upon to mow my lawn when my
mower is broken, fix lunch for my husband and make sure he’s OK during the day,
take my kid to or from some school event, etc., etc. But I don’t LIKE having to ask for help. And I’m embarrassed for people to see my
messy house and my messy life.
But here’s the thing.
I’ve been on the giving end of the help spectrum and it feels amazing to
be able to step in for someone when they need a hand. I like that feeling. But I’ve come to think that it’s equally
important to, at least sometimes, be on the other side of that equation. Accepting help gracefully means being humble
and feeling grateful. It chafes, but those
are skills I need to practice. And other
people appreciate getting to be the hero, too.
It reminds me of church work. For a long time, I did a lot of work on
multiple church committees. I tried not
to ask too much of other people. I just
tried to take care of everything on my own as much as possible. I told myself that I was sparing other people
the work but really it was about (Surprise!) me getting to have more control
over the activities so they could happen the way I wanted them to happen. I can’t do that now, and guess what? People step up when they have to. Things get done without me being in charge
all the time. Letting other people share
the burden prevents you from burning out to a hollow shell of a person who
mutters resentfully about others’ lack of involvement while simultaneously patting
yourself on the back for your own achievement.
Not that I speak from experience.
Yes, I have been that person, and I’m not proud of her. She is the opposite of humble, plus, she’s
super crabby. Not fun.
Did you ever do that “getting to know you” activity in
school or scouts or camp where everyone sits in a circle and passes a ball of
yarn around until you have a big messy web?
And the message is that we are all connected? It’s true.
We are. And I think we work best
when we take turns being in control—or at least as in control as we human
beings are able to be.
I could do a whole, other post about control and God and us and
how I think that all works. Short answer: I have no clue, honestly. I believe that God is somehow ultimately in control
and we’re not, but I don’t understand how or why things happen the way they do
if that’s true. I have trust in God but,
really, a little more clarity would be helpful.
(Hint, hint, God.)
If you're my age, you're probably feeling an urge to go watch some Janet Jackson videos after all this talk of control, so I won't keep you any longer. I guess I'm not sure what the takeaway is today, friends, other than to say
that I’m learning how to accept my lack of control over my life. It’s a
process and a work in progress. I’m learning.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
A Good Night's Sleep
Your specifics may be different, but perhaps some of you can
relate…
Last night:
Between midnight and 1:00 a.m.: After spending too long looking at Pinterest,
head to bed.
Between 1:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m.: Quit reading book review book, turn out
light, and go to sleep.
Approximately 2:50 a.m.:
Become aware that there is some sort of repetitive, scuffling noise in
the hallway. Investigate. Rosie (one of
our cats), is engaged in what appears to be a hunting mission involving some small,
unseen creature who is apparently behind or beneath an unsteady stack of file
folders, pocket folders, binders, and notebook paper that has been sitting ”temporarily”
on a cart in the hallway for the last thirteen years. Blinking owlishly at overhead light, stand
in hallway for several minutes debating what to do. Try to flush out the critter? (Probably a mouse—probably, in fact, the
source of a rustling that I heard in a nearby closet earlier in the day and
which I tried to convince myself was just the floor creaking as I stepped on it.) Arm myself with a flashlight, proper shoes
(the thought of a mouse running across my bare toes is too horrible to
imagine), and a broom? Ignore the whole
spectacle and return to bed, hoping that it will all go away?
3:00 a.m.: Ignore it
is. Return to bed, latching door for
good measure. Que sera, sera. Comfort self that at least any rodent bloodshed will occur out
of sight and earshot. Hopefully.
3:15 a.m.: Sniffly,
germ-laden child materializes in disconcerting way beside bed and informs
me that she can’t sleep and in fact has not really been asleep AT ALL in the
several hours since I left her. Ply her with snacks and allow her to get into bed with me. Cats, who have been
shut out of bedroom due to vermin situation, now eagerly converge onto
the bed, pinning our splayed limbs in various uncomfortable positions. Tippy in particular makes it clear, through
repeated and imploring vocalizations, that his exile from the bedroom has been most
unwelcome. Push Tippy off the bed.
3:30 a.m.: Drifting
off into a pleasantly anxiety-free slumber, am awakened once more by child
announcing that she has decided to return to her own bed. Agree
that this is best and roll over, enjoying the luxurious feeling of now having plenty of
leg room. Two cats fall to the floor in the
process.
3:45 a.m.: Finally get to sleep.
4:38 a.m.: Awake to
puzzling silence to discover that power has gone off, thus rendering both white
noise machine and alarm clock ineffective. Muttering incoherently, get up and scrabble for flashlight, knocking an empty sticky
roller to the floor with an echoing clatter.
Step on empty sticky roller. Find flashlight, turn it on, stumble out to
living room to retrieve phone in order to not be late for work in the morning. Wait.
It IS morning. Sigh loudly. Phone light flashes annoyingly. Shove phone halfway under pillow.
4:45 a.m.: Power
returns. White noise machine whirs to
life. Now clock blinks annoyingly. Reset clock and alarm. Use light from phone to make sure that clock
is being set to “a.m.” and not “p.m.” Shove
phone back under pillow. Go. To.
Sleep.
7:15 a.m.: Alarm goes
off. Rise and shine!
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Music Heals
“Music can minister to minds
diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles
of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of
all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.”
--Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
--Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
I
don’t know about you, but I would LOVE for something to rid me of “all the
perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart.”
Shakespeare thought that music could do the trick there, and he’s
right. This isn’t exactly new—people have
used music as a tool to soothe for probably as long as there have been babies and
parents to sing them lullabies—but multiple scientific studies in recent years
have fortified belief into proven fact:
music can heal.
According
to some of these studies, music can do the following (*):
- Soothe premature babies, calming their heart rates and helping them sleep better. Live music either played (by music therapists) or sung (by their parents) to the babies in the NICU not only helped the infants, it also helped calm their parents.
- Improve the functioning of our immune systems.
- Reduce stress (How many of us already knew this?).
- Reduce anxiety before surgery better than prescription drugs.
- Help pediatric patients in emergency rooms experience less pain when having IVs inserted (and also make it easier for nurses to insert the IVs—Can you hear ER nurses everywhere uttering up a “Hallelujah?”).
Between
reading about these studies and also reading about 1) purring as stress relief for
both cats and their humans (**) and 2) an ultrasound treatment that was being tested
on mice whose brains contained the sort of plaques and tangles associated with
Alzheimer’s disease in humans (***), I wondered if vibration alone (music =
sound = vibration) would have similar beneficial effects. As it turns out, other people have wondered
that, too. In one study (*), researchers
had Parkinson’s patients sit on a mat that transmitted acoustic vibrations
(picture sitting on a subwoofer while it’s vibrating) for a certain period of
time. They found that exposure to the
vibrations appeared to improve the patients’ mobility and reduced their
tremors, at least on a short-term basis.
While
not a scientific study in and of itself, the music therapy provided to
Alzheimer’s patients as seen in the movie “Alive Inside” (in which unresponsive
dementia patients are provided with iPods loaded with music meaningful to them)
produced amazing and inspiring results.
People who had shut down or had been uncommunicative due to their
dementia seemed to “come alive” after listening to the music. Many were then able to communicate more
effectively and lucidly after listening.
The music often called up memories for them of their pasts, which they
could then talk about. In most cases,
the music had a visible, immediate effect on their mood—faces lit up, smiles
appeared, and some (including those who normally seemed unable to converse) began
singing along. I defy anyone to watch
this documentary and not walk away believing that music can sometimes be a medicine equal
to or better than any (expensive, side-effect-laden) drug.
In
my personal life, I have experienced music as a healing, or at least
stress-reducing, agent as well. Several
years ago I had jaw surgery in which my lower jaw was broken, slid forward, and
screwed into a new position to improve my bite (and thus lessen the terrible
TMJ problems I was experiencing). It
was, needless to say, painful. One thing
that helped tremendously was listening to a CD of Native American flute music
performed by R. Carlos Nakai. I am
convinced that that particular music had actual healing qualities for me. Recently, as I deal with a life made
increasingly difficult by the dementia that plagues my husband (accompanied by worries
about finances, and career, and being a parent, and the state of our country
and our world), I have relied heavily on music to strengthen my spirit and
battle my anxiety and depression.
Especially effective, I find, is the song “Don’t Be So Hard on Yourself”
by Jess Glynne (for maximum efficacy, crank to a high volume and sing along at
the top of your lungs while driving—feel free to dance in your seat and slap
the steering wheel in rhythm for emphasis).
I’ve also witnessed what music
does for my husband, a music-lover and a former band instructor for many years. Listening to “his” music (which spans
multiple decades and genres) moves him to tears and to delight. We can move to it together—and although he’s
still able to talk and communicate relatively well with me, we can connect
through the music in ways that seem to bypass or surpass ordinary spoken language.
Perhaps
the most moving proof of the power of music I have ever seen, though, occurred
during an afternoon near the end of my grandmother’s life when she (no longer
able to speak much) sang along with my mother and aunt as they sang the old,
familiar hymns she knew and loved. She
didn’t seem to know where she was or who we were and she couldn’t really talk
to us—but she could still sing those songs.
Music, temporarily, gave her a voice again and gave all of us in the
room a tangible, vocal point of connection.
Music
is an incredible medicine. It’s a gift. I believe it to be from God, who wisely gave
us so many tools, beyond tablets and liquids and syringes and radiation
machines, to soothe us, to restore us, and to heal us. So go forth, my friends, and sing. Sing a song.
Sing out loud. Sing out
strong. And all shall be well, and all
shall be well, and all manner of things (including you) shall be well.
*
“Music as medicine” by Amy Novotney.
American Psychology Association. Monitor on Psychology, November 2013,
Vol. 44, No. 10, page 46. http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/11/music.aspx
**
“Can Your Cat’s Purr Heal?” Article on Animal Wellness Magazine’s website: http://animalwellnessmagazine.com/can-your-cats-purr-heal/
*** “Experimental ultrasound treatment targets Alzheimer’s
brain plaque” by Randy Dotinga, CBS News website, March 12, 2015. (Study itself is found in the March 11, 2015
issue of Science Translational Medicine).
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/experimental-ultrasound-treatment-targets-alzheimers/
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