Poetry?

Synthetics carefully wrap my feet,
To protect them,
To help them,
To let me move with comfort and sureness.
I set forth, trusting my cozy shoes to keep my feet safe
As I pound the pavement in search of fitness.

Lungs are on fire.
Shins are screaming.
Muscles would be stiff if they could be.

Walking at last
The Synthetic is removed
And bare feet touch hard ground.

Unyielding concrete scratches,
Pebbles wound,
Stiff muscles make short steps.

The fire leaves my lungs.
My shins begin to prefer speech over screams.
My feet are unprotected, unsafe, shoe-less,
But happy.

Happy feet are bare.

Change is Coming!

The Bucket List

Today in CPE we watched and discussed the movie "The Bucket List." Pretty decent movie about facing death, and some of the hospital experience. In discussing it, our supervisor asked if we had a bucket list. I didn't really think I did, but realize there are some things I would like to do before I kick the bucket.

1) Visit six of the seven continents (the ones that are really populated) for at least a few days if not a total of a week or more. (So far: 3 out of 6)

2) Be in all 50 USA states, even if only driving through them though I would like to make a stop in each (Can't remember how many I've been in so far)

3) Do a multi-day hike to traverse a major park or trail (like the Sheltowee Trace trail)

4) Publish a book

5) The movie mentioned two questions that Ancient Egyptians believed they would be asked before entering heaven: Have you experienced joy in life? Has your life brought joy to others? I would certainly like to easily answer both of those in the affirmative before I die. Not just, did I experience a singular moment, or grant one moment of joy, but overall.

6) Drive a (race) car at ridiculous speeds (on a track).

So far that's what I've come up with.

The Things People Say

I'm reading a book on infertility (When Empty Arms Become A Heavy Burden, Glahn and Cutrer, 1997), and one of the chapters is about what to do when people say the wrong thing. To break the ice, it lists some of the "favorite" comments that the authors and others have heard, often along with either an interpretation of why the comment hurts, or what they wish they could say back. I haven't heard too many of these personally, though I think Luta might have. But I've gotten to the point where reading them is funny, even though if I were to hear them it would hurt.

The chapter broke the sayings into groups. Here are those from the "Miscarriage" category:

"You know it's for the best."

"The baby was probably deformed--this is nature's way of taking care of it."

* "You're young." *

"You can always have another."

* "At least you know you can get pregnant." *

"At least you never knew the baby. It would have been harder if it were five..."

What really made me laugh? When we first decided we needed to start seeing medical people about infertility, since it had been a year since we saw a doctor about our miscarriages, the nurse we saw said one of them verbatim. And she might have said another, and said some other things not on this list which were equally unhelpful, like "A year is just an average. It takes some people longer". Hers are marked with a *. Which is one of the reasons we aren't going back to that medical group anymore...