Category Archives: being myself

Last night, or early this morning …

Posted on September 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

in the wee hours, however you look at it, I visited my late husband’s grave.

Yes, myself, a proclaimed chicken, was in the darkened graveyard with only a  flashlight, my phone and a blanket to sit on.

There is no cell service there, but my music is on my phone, and having that was imperative to my visit.

The music.

My car is out of commission at the moment, so I took my mom’s car.  It was ok, but I really missed being able to put the top down and feel the heaviness of the cloudy, brooding sky above me.

I was feeling broody, manic and a bit discombobulated … much like the sky above me.

Starless.

Moonless.

Dark.

I know that, for the most part, I am misunderstood.  Only a handful of people understand me, or say they do …  and even those … well, sometimes I wonder if they really do and why they bother in the first place.

I know how I am, how I can be and I live with it.

I don’t expect others to.

I don’t count on them to.

It has been nearly four years since he left without saying good-bye.

He isn’t the first to leave without saying good-bye, but at least death is a reasonable excuse.

At our wedding, while a lone bagpiper was winding his way through the cemetery where he (my late husband, not the bagpiper)  is now buried, I had Annie’s song played.

I hadn’t given that song to anyone before or since.

It was his.

Now, it is mine.

I played it at his grave last night when I told him goodbye.

I’m not going back.

I don’t want to go back.

I want to move on.

I want to sleep at night.

I don’t want to sleepwalk.

I don’t want to dream.

I want days that are not filled with uncertainty and second guessing myself.

I want to be able to look at myself in the mirror and not think hateful things.

I want loyalty and friendship and peace of mind.

I want to be free.

I told him that, at his grave, where he really isn’t anyway.

He would, were he here, say without malice as he did many times, that it was my Sagittarian spirit coming out … the plain speech and tell it like it is even if it hurts mentality.

I guess I do.

I don’t expect that to change.

I want to be free, but I think I said that already.

I don’t think that is too much to ask.

To be free.

Isn’t that what everyone wants?

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Posted in a photographer's heart, a woman's tears, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, daydreamer, death, dreams, driving, emotions, feeling crazy, feelings, free, from my heart, Life, life experiences, Moving on, Photography, Sagittarius

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Picking and culling …

Posted on September 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

is a real pain in the nether regions.

I’ve been going through things in my house today, what to keep, what to trash and I find that there are really very few things I have any use for.

It seems that the most important things to me are my photo albums, laptop, external hard drive, camera, national geographics, 1000 places to see before I die book, coffee grinder, a portrait I drew of my dad as an Airman, the photos my daughter and nieces have drawn through the years, a blown glass wine cork and my lava lamp.

When it comes down to it, that, out of a houseful of useless things, doesn’t amount to much.

I suppose, if I needed to, I could easily put all my “treasures” in a garbage bag and live happily under a bridge.

I like hot showers, though, so that might pose an oppositional equation.

I have friends and family who have things that they treasure.  I don’t really treasure anything.

Not anything I can hold in my hand.

They are just things.

The objects I treasure aren’t objects one can take off the shelf and admire … they aren’t really objects at all.

God.

Creation.

Friends.

Family.

Loyalty.

Music.

Words.

One can’t own this stuff.  They can simply be a part of the magnificence as it as unfolds, one day into the next.

I didn’t mean to have an epiphany while cleaning house and doing laundry, but it just happened.

I had the chance to drive across the Hoover Dam back when you could drive across it … and drive through the desert to get there.

I had the chance to stand before the Lincoln Memorial and know that I was living a dream.

I have so many places I want to see, so much of creation that is only a picture in my mind, not one imprinted on my soul for I have not seen it for myself.

I want to.

That is what I want to hold onto.

The dreams of what can be accomplished, what can be sought after, what can be found simply by following the imagination.

I have things that my late husband gave me.  They are good for nothing but reminders.

The memories are in my heart and mind and soul.

I’m not really big on memories as it seems the difficult ones, the hard ones … they are the ones that come to mind.

I have to work to bring up the good ones.

So I’m culling more than picking … and I feel good about that.

Someone I admire a great deal …

likely much more than is good for me …

once told me they occasionally live a John Denver kind of life … I’m going to try to be more John Denver-ish myself.

I will have the courage to submit my book, my poems, my photographs.

I will have the courage to feed my wanderlust and see the place I long to see.

I will simply have courage.

I earn a paycheck as a nurse, it is true, but in my heart, I am more and, at the same time less.

I only have so many years to live.

What is that song?  100 years?

There is no point in deluding myself that I will ever make it to a hundred years old.

Why wait?

Why indeed?

The innumerable stars of the sky

The innumerable stars of the sky

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Love is the most powerful of emotions

Through Abby's eyes ... i miss this sweet girl

Through Abby’s eyes … i miss this sweet girl

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Posted in art, artist, being myself, believer, blog, blogger, bloggess, cemetery, confidence, creation, death, dreamer, dreams, emotions, Freedom, friends, from my heart, home, imagination, It is what it is, lava lamp, Life, life experiences, little things, nurse, Pentax, Pentaxian, Photography, poem, Sagittarius, through the eyes of the spirit, vulnerable, wanderlust, words

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Learning from Gracie as she contines to grow …

Posted on August 31, 2013 | 1 comment

is an experience in humility.

She has Down’s Syndrome, but you wouldn’t know it by listening to or watching her.

She runs, plays, swing, argues, wrestles, loves, hugs, manipulates and somehow ends up being the center of attention wherever she goes simply because she has a larger than life personality.

She knows what she wants and how to get it.

Usually by putting her innocent-looking, pixie-faced, tinkerbell eyes on her Papaw.

He can deny her nothing.  He says he can, but he can’t.

Or maybe won’t is the better way to say it.

She has him wrapped as tight as Dick’s hatband around her little finger, her forefinger, her middle finger, her thumb.

He is wrapped.

Period.

Ice cream, Papaw.

Okay.

Pretzels, Papaw.

Okay.

Murder the neighbor and bury them in Louisa’s spring, Papaw.

Okay.

It is a joy to watch her as she learns to manipulate the ones she knows are easy marks.

I, on occasion, an am easy mark, but for the most part, she knows that Nini means business and expects her to act like a human child; but even I have my limitations when she flashes that smile and says “I love you, Nini”.

I am, after all,  human.

She is growing up so fast.

It seems like only moments ago that she was in the NICU with lines and tubes and a tiny body that looked as though it would break with a look and shatter with a touch.

But she passed the shatter stage a while back.

She is a pistol, is our Gracie, and as tough as nails.

She doesn’t take no for an answer, asks a million questions one after the other and could give Flash Gordon a run for his money when she feels like it.

I think we have all chased her (and lost) at some point, while she laughs and skips and eludes our efforts to catch her.

She is a bit like the gingerbread man.  Catch me if you can, she says, knowing we are too slow to be any real threat.

She went back to school this week and loved on all her classmates as though they had been cruelly separated for years.

I don’t know much about anything but I know this … a hug from Gracie can make the worst day, the most difficult moment, the hardest trial seem as nothing.

She has way about her.  A being, an aura, a spirit … call it what you will, but it is irresistible and it is life-altering.

She has a way of making you feel, at the moment, as though you are the most important thing in the world; and the ability to make you believe it unequivocally.

I cannot imagine, and will not imagine a world without Gracie for it would, without doubt, irrevocably break my spirit.

She is the epitome of sunshine.  I’m pretty sure when Jimmy Davis and Charles Mitchell wrote “you are my sunshine”, they did so because they had a premonition about Gracie.  God is cool that way.

She is a bright spot in the lives of everyone she come across.

It would be my great pleasure for all of my friends to meet her, to know her and to benefit greatly from one of her “I love you even if you are an idiot” hugs.

She doesn’t take into account how smart, how talented, how boring, how nerdy, how geeky, how crazy, how messed up, how depressed, how out of touch or how indifferent you are.

She changes lives, just by being, by smiling, by living.

A smile from Gracie, unless you are the devil  himself, will melt you like warm chocolate.

She is, unto herself, an entity.

There really is no way to avoid the beauty that enters your person when she hugs you tightly and puts her little face into your neck.

She is a gift from God.  A simple truth.

She sees life and people  in one dimension and that is unbiased love.  She doesn’t understand anything else (except the occasional temper tantrum that makes the Kraken look like a goldfish).

But we’ll save that tidbit for another day.

For now, by proxy, be encouraged by Gracie. She is a power to be reckoned with and it is wonderful to be a part of this precious child’s life.

“It’s Nini” she says, as she runs with her arms outstretched to me.  Every other thought in my head dissolves for it has no power against such beauty.

I am thankful for her.  I am grateful for her.  I am indebted to her.

May God continue to bless our sweet Gracie.

She is beautiful and she makes everything and everyone around her beautiful as well.

like a mermaid, she take to the ocean ... free and beautiful

like a mermaid, she takes to the ocean … free and beautiful

no matter where she goes, she will always be her daddy’s girl

Sometimes, only a papaw will do …

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Posted in being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, child, childhood, dreamer, dreams, emotion, emotions, Encouragement, from my heart, Gracie, Greeting Cards, happiness, happy, joy, kids, Life, life experiences, little things, love, niece, peace, Photography, words

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One of the longest weeks on record …

Posted on August 30, 2013 | Leave a comment

is happening now.

In real time.

I was so disappointed this morning when I woke up to realize it was only Thursday.

I fell asleep on the couch last night and woke up just in time to get in bed before nine-thirty.

My body was convinced I was dead since I haven’t been in bed before midnight in months.

But I wasn’t dead … just exhausted.

And it isn’t even a full moon.

The Harvest Moon comes in September.

God help us all.

I have sleptwalked (is that even a word?  I don’t think so, but I’m past worrying about vernacular correctness), twice this week and once, spent some time (how much time is still undetermined) sleeping in my back yard … not camping, as in sleeping bag, campfire, guitar player, roasting marshmallows, but …

On.

The.

Ground.

With the spiders and other things that creep in the night.

Never, I heartily assure you, is it a good feeling to wake up outside when you started out inside and then wonder how you actually made it to the yard without falling off the porch and breaking half the bones in your body.

I am, it seems, fairly agile in my sleep and maneuver as well or better as when I am awake.

I now have nightmares about my nightmares.

Scary.

And then …

I  hit a deer on the way to work yesterday and in doing so, messed up my car enough to put it, for the moment, out of commission.

The deer, other than a probable bald spot (this deduction coming from the amount of deer hair on my car), seemed no worse for the wear.

It is the first time, ever, that I have hit a deer.  It made me cry right before it made me puke.

Never mind that the deer jumped up, looked directly at me as though cursing me to hell and back then bounded over a fence, I was physically ill.

Twice.

The September raptor migration along the spine of Clinch Mountain is coming up and I need my convertible to completely enjoy the experience of driving up the mountain.

Top down.

Wind in my face.

Sun on my skin.

These are things that are of utmost importance to me.

My weekend warriorness (again, not a real work, but whatever) kicks into gear once Autumn gets here.  Five  A.M. never seems quite so early on Autumn Saturdays as it does when I get up during the week to go to work.

Go figure.

Two of my sweet little patients have passed away.  It takes me about two minutes to fall in love with them.

I have said before I am too softhearted to be a nurse and yet … well, here I am.

I haven’t taken a photograph in over a week.  Not because there hasn’t been anything to photograph, for each day offers something magnificent, but because …

I don’t even know.  I don’t have a good excuse.

I am too tired to even try to come up with an excuse.  Judging from the posts and messages from facebook friends and tweeps, I’m not the only one feeling the weariness.

It’s been a busy, busy, busy … well, you get the picture, week.

Ok, let’s be real here, a busy month.

My teacher family and friends are wishing they were, even now, at retirement age.

Talk about wishing your life away.

But even though I am exhausted, I am thankful.

I am more thankful than I am tired and that makes up for all the other stuff.

Most of the time, anyway.

Autumn is Southwest Virginia

Autumn is Southwest Virginia

Autumn in Southwest Virginia

Autumn in Southwest Virginia

Autumn in Southwest Virginia

Autumn in Southwest Virginia

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Posted in a photographer's heart, Autumn, being myself, blessings, blog, blogger, bloggess, climbs and hikes, creation, dreamer, dreams, friends, from my heart, hiker, Hiking, Life, life experiences, Mountains, Nature Photographer, nightmare, nurse, October, Pentax, Pentaxian, photographer, Photography, ragtop, sleepwalk, sleepwalking, soft-hearted, Southwest Virginia, Southwest Virginia Blogger, the wonder of nature, through the eyes of the spirit, Time, trail shoots, VA, wanderlust, words

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In order to gain my support from “Big Business” for worthy causes …

Posted on August 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

I have to sacrifice my own personal social media information and that of those that I choose interact with?

What kind of racket is this?

Businesses pretend to want to help spread news and articles of import; to support schools, sports, academics, Universities and the like, but there is a catch.

A rather large, bloodletting catch.

They want you to support them as they “give back” but before they allow you to give your support or share their stories, they ask for personal information and information on others who may have no desire whatsoever to support their cause.

I find this abysmal.

Oh, I’m sure their “people” could come up with a hundred good reasons why I should give up the information they ask, but if they really and truly wanted to help the entities they say they want to help, to share the stories they find so important, they wouldn’t have to resort to blackmail to do it.

That’s what it is.

In the end, anyway.

Blackmail.

I call a spade a spade.

Their policy is “I will allow you to engage our help in supporting causes important to you, share stories that may benefit your peers and friends and all you have to do is let us have access to your personal information and the personal information of people you know”.

The only thing missing is a baseball bat to the back of my knees.

I won’t do it.

I won’t give in.

I refuse to be coerced to hand over what they ask simply because I want to help.

I can write a check that will do no more than clear the bank and implicate no-one other than myself.

Target and NBC are two of the offenders that I have had personal interactions with.

I was really bummed to have to give up NBC’s news app because it is one of the best I’ve come accross.  As it stands, there are things I see on there I want to share with my peers … understandable, right?  NBC, however,  won’t let me share unless I give them access to my facebook profile and friends list.

And Target, a store I used to respect, won’t support the schools they say they will support unless I “tell all”.

They go on and on about supporting schools, but they require a blood payment.

I think not.

I’m not going to play along.

I’m not going to “give up” my own personal information or that of others in order to support anything through big business when I am perfectly capable of doing my part to support it however I can.

Which I have.

Many times.

I don’t have much money, but what I do have, I am happy to give away to help worthy causes.

I don’t need big  business, conglomerates and super-store powers who are more interested in trying to trick me into giving them what they want than they are in supporting the entities they pretend to be behind.

They call it tit-for-tat … i call it something else entirely.

I refuse to play their game.

Maybe I am cynical in some ways.  I never thought of myself as that way, and now I wonder.

Maybe I am.

Maybe I am the type of person that doesn’t give up everything just because a big name is willing to support the same thing I do.

I have standards and rules that I live by.

They aren’t written in stone, but they are my guidelines.

What these big companies offer is little better than the gang of thugs that offers to “protect” a business and then beats the crap out of the owner if they don’t accept their protection.

I find that reprehensible and if they don’t, they should.

Shame of them.

I won’t be a part of it.

Asking something in payment for giving freely is not, in any shape or form, giving freely.

I hear my drummer calling … I believe I will go march to it.

A kick in the teeth is a kick in the teeth irregardless of the animal.

A kick in the teeth is a kick in the teeth irregardless of the animal.

Seriously?

Seriously?

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Posted in being myself, Big Business, blackmail, blog, blogger, bloggess, choices, facebook, feelings, friends, from my heart, help, in my opinion, It is what it is, Life, life experiences, NBC, News, peer pressure, Photography, racket, Sagittarius, society, supporting education, supporting worthy causes, Target, Time, Twitter, words

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People who drive convertibles …

Posted on August 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

learn some things that the average Joe may not consider.

Now, Jeep owners (which I dearly hope to become one day), consider what they drive a Jeep, but it is, without room for argument, at the end of the day, a convertible.

I’m not talking about the Jeeps that aren’t really Jeeps but call themselves one.  Those don’t count and will never count.  Sorry if your toes are stepped on, but really?

That being cleared up …

We learn to watch the sky.

We know the difference between just plain clouds, rain filled clouds and clouds that are in the process of emptying themselves onto the earth.

We know the difference between a fog bank and a rain band.

We know, when driving in familiar places, all the little turnouts that serve as places to put the top up quickly when there are rain bands and cloud emptying ahead.

We know how hard it is raining just by looking and as such, whether we can get by with leaving the top down and letting the sprinkles simply fly right past us or take the next turnout we come to and put the top up moments before the typhoon hits.

All of this being said, I found myself caught by surprise tonight.

I was nearly home after attending an event my daughter had invited me to at her University.

Eight miles to go.  Only eight.

But I wasn’t paying attention to the sky.  No, I was blasting the Eurythmics at earsplitting and singing along with Annie and David.

I ran into the rain, in between turnouts, and it was, as people around these parts say, a frog strangler.

Before I could get to the next turnout, pull over and put the top up, I was soaked to the skin and so cold, my goosebumps had goosebumps.

I find it ironic that the song I was singing at the top of my lungs while driving much faster than the law allows was none other than “Here Comes the Rain Again”.

Coincidence?  I don’t believe in them.

Fate?  Hardly.  What would it have to prove?

Pure ecstasy at driving free and wild with the music loud and getting rained on?

Yep.

That made my night and smoothed over a minor “simply couldn’t be helped” disappointment.

Life.  It often isn’t easy, but if you can live through it, it’s a lot of fun.

rain is one of my favorite things ... it comes just after snowflakes that fall on my nose and eyelashes ...

rain is one of my favorite things … it comes just after snowflakes that fall on my nose and eyelashes …

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Posted in a photographer's heart, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, clouds, convertible, excitement, Freedom, jeep, music, nature, Photography, ragtop, rain, weather, words

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Sometimes, for reasons I can’t explain …

Posted on August 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

I cry.

And then, when I go to work, which unfortunately, I have to, I cry there too.

I try to hide it, but sometimes, it is obviously, due to the questions and odd looks, evident, for I am questioned.

Or maybe mentally assaulted is the better description.

Have you been crying?

What have you been crying about?

What’s wrong?

Why yes, I want to say … I have been crying nearly inconsolably for absolutely no reason at all.

None.

I have broken things that I don’t really care about, deleted things that I did and find myself on the outside of everything I hold dear to my heart … but that is simply a byproduct.

Just forty-eight hours ago, I was manic and driving 90 miles a hour to keep up with my thoughts.

But there were no tears.

Only euphoria.

But now, I cry just to be crying.

One jag after another until I have a headache and nothing, other than red and swollen eyes, to show for it.

I cry at song lyrics, at the rebuff from a friend, because the light turned red, for the homeless man I saw at the intersection.

I have no control over it.

I want to, but it is beyond what I am capable of.

For whatever reason, it pisses people off when you tell them you don’t know what you are crying about.

What?

Do they never, ever, ever cry without a reason?

Really?  Do they actually expect people to believe that?

Don’t worry, though, not everyone who swings between euphoria, ecstasy, and suddenly in the dredges of despair but still thinking in terms of the ecstasy factor, is nuts.

A few of us hold a golden trophy with our bipolar names on it, but not everyone.

It isn’t contagious.  Remember that.

It.

Isn’t.

Contagious.

And the oddness of it, in itself, is, in that in itself, there is oddness.

They want to know why.

There isn’t a why.

They want to know what about.

There isn’t a what about.

I used a gallon of the “it get’s the red out” Visine today.  A useless fluid that burns the eyes and does little to hide the fact that I was crying about nothing in particular.

Why is it so important to have something to cry about.  There are moments, such as the one I am currently in, that I cry because I simply can’t stop it.

I could make up stuff to cry about, but I shouldn’t have to.

I should be able to maneuver though this stage of my, what should I call it?, psychosis? without being put on the spot to try to explain the unexplainable.

Maybe I should start telling people I have a hangover.  Maybe that would be more well received than the response of I’m not crying about anything in particular, I’m just crying.

Because I’m nuts.

That always goes over well.

I’m nuts.

Does that soothe your mind?   Always have been and have little hope of being otherwise.

Sometimes I cry.

Get used to it or get over it.

If I am very lucky, it will only last a day or two and I can go back to being simply, though wonderfully, semi-manic.

I can assure you, it is much preferred.

I don’t get to the crying stage very often, praise the Good Lord, but when I do, I’m there.

Nothing that can be said, no pats on the head or uninvited and unwanted hugs can change it.

It is what it is.  Those who feel this way from time to time know, without a shadow of a doubt the sheer amount of courage it takes to move from one minute, one hour, one day into the other.

The rest of you … I will always be an enigma and I am tired of trying to explain it.

It is what it is and that is simply the way of it.

It doesn’t change who I am because this, accepted or not, is who I am.

If you know me you already know that.

If you don’t, you never will.

No hard feelings.

Tomorrow is a brand new day.

a light shining in the darkness, whether in day or night, is a grand thing.

a light shining in the darkness, whether in day or night, is a grand thing.

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Posted in a photographer's heart, a woman's tears, afraid, alone, anxiety, being myself, bipolar, blessings, blog, blogger, bloggess, Bodie Island, courage, cry, dreams, feelings, from my heart, Judge, Life, life experiences, peace, Pentax, Pentaxian, Photography, strength, words

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Here comes the rain …

Posted on August 12, 2013 | Leave a comment

as it has for the past several days and, if truth be told, off and on during the entire summer.

I have heard much complaining and lamenting about the rain but I am not one of those lamenters.

Lamenters, for those who are shaking their head and saying that Gina is making up words again, is a real word.

I love the sound of the rain.

The song it sings, the  music it makes, the symphony it employs, the instruments of nature it brings into its midst; wind, leaves rustling, grass shuddering, thunder bellowing.  There are few things more magnificent than the first drops that fall only to be followed shortly by a cacophony of sound that only God can make.

And soon, it will be Autumn and the leaves will be, much in part due to the gratuitous rain, brilliant.

Anyone who lives in the mountains where seasons meld one into another knows that a rainy summer brings on an awe-inspired, much-anticipated, brilliant beyond imagination, much sought after, Autumn.

I shiver in anticipation of October.

Tit for tat.

It can’t all be perfect.  Can’t all be just exactly what everyone wants for everyone wants something different.

My dreams are different from a hundred others’.  Their dreams are different from mine.

But with patience, they all come to fruition.

Patience is the key.  That and faith, which makes the patience less daunting.

James Taylor sang “I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end’.

I feel like that sometimes.

Feel that if there isn’t rain, or a storm or some wind and some lightning that I will simply wither away into nothingness and everything I ever hoped to accomplish will be in vain.

I need the rain.

I need the thunder.

I need the storm.

Without it, I am insignificant.  And I don’t want to be insignificant.

Embrace the rain.  Stand in it and let it saturate you to the skin.  Revel in the wonder and magnificence of water falling from the skies.

It is beautiful if you let it be.

So let it be.

Play in the rain.

And be joyful.

without rain, an impossibility

without rain, an impossibility

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Posted in a photographer's heart, Autumn, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, changing seasons, creation, dreamer, dreams, feelings, from my heart, God, happy, Life, life experiences, Mother Nature, music, nature, nature's symphony, Pentax, Pentaxian, Photography, rain, Southwest Virginia Blogger, the wonder of nature, words

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If I were granted a single wish …

Posted on August 10, 2013 | Leave a comment

I know, without hesitation, what I would wish for.

And, though it is second highest on my list and likely what many of my friends will think of first, my most cherished wish is not to own a  jeep.

It is to be able to play the piano.

No, not simply play it, but to master it.  To become one with it as though it were an extension of myself; much, I suppose, in the way my camera is now.

A part of my heart, my soul, my spirit.

A bursting forth of all the melodies that live inside my head.

I practice and practice and practice and yet never seem to make any real progress.

Oh, I can play at it a bit, but let’s, for a moment, live in reality, shall we?

I can’t remember a time in my life when I didn’t wish I could play.

Wanted, more than anything else, to be able to sit down and just play.

Whatever.

Whenever.

I have friends who play.

My friend Randy is a genius on the piano and many times, I have watched his hands move effortlessly across the keys and found tears that I wasn’t even aware of sliding down my face at the simple beauty of the sight as well as the sound.

He played one of his original pieces at my late husband’s funeral and it was astounding.

It is the song I most request him to play.

And he does.  Play it for me, that is, because he knows I have a love to hear and watch him play.

I have other friends who play, ones I have heard though have not seen, but in my mind, I bring their hands into focus as they make music out of the air they breathe.

I hope, one day, to see it as I hear it, for while it was beautiful to hear, it would be magic to see.

It is the only thing that I can think of that I would give up photography for.

Yes, I said it.

I would trade photography, something I love more than life itself, for the ability to sit at a piano and play with the knowledge and privilege of an accomplished pianist.

Those who play often take it for granted.

That ability.

That gift.

That beauty.

I make music.  Some of it quite lovely … but I don’t read music and therefore cannot write music which leaves me with no way to portray it or save it so that I can play it again.

And so it is, though a lovely thing at the time, lost to me when I need it most.

I don’t want to depend on others for something that completes me and yet, I find myself doing exactly that.

And sometimes, I am simply left wanting, wishing and imagining.

Such is the way of it and, I suppose if I want it to be different, I will have to bring to the surface my inner pianist.

She is there, I know she is.  I just haven’t found her yet.

pianist

a pianists’ hands

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Posted in a photographer's heart, artist, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, dreams, jeep, Life, music, Photography, pianist, piano, through the eyes of the spirit, words

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I have bruises on my hands …

Posted on August 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

fairly large ones, as well as numb fingers, that are the result of 500+ chest compressions performed on the presumed dead, but revivable (that really is a word) mannequin at my CPR recert class on Friday.

Usually, it is little more than a formality, but the instructors were being monitored by the powers that be, so there were no shortcuts.  I’m going to have bruises for weeks because I, being nearly six feet tall and pretty strong, can produce a mean, straight, rigid armed, muscles flexed, chest compression.

I was transported back to another time and reminded of my days as a Paramedic when CPR was a fairly regular occurrence  …

Unfortunately, I let both my TN and VA certifications expire after I got married because my husband frowned upon me spending 24-hours at a time with men who weren’t him – never mind that I was trustworthy, a straight arrow to the core, it bothered him … and out of respect for his feelings, I left the position.  Now, years later, after he has passed away, I don’t have the desire or drive to go through the classes again to obtain that status and so …  there you go.

But … broken ribs, bruised sternums, lights, sirens and driving 80 mph on the back roads …  starting large bore IV’s into unwilling veins, using the defibrillator (before the advent of the AED)   in the back of a rig as it swayed and bumped along the rutted roads,  riding to the ER, straddling the patient on the gurney, counting out loud with the chest compressions as doctors and nurses waited outside the door was a rush that cannot be duplicated.

It was like an episode of ER, back when it was a decent show and actually still on air.  The early George Clooney days.  Good times emerging from the worst possible scenarios…

and yet, I digress …

that scene was at least a monthly and sometimes, depending on the time of year, a weekly event.  There are times when I miss it  … As much as the job, I miss the  extremely cool pants  …

I have held the neck of an injured person, whispering words of encouragement as the Jaws-Of-Life cut the top off a car as easily as opening a can of tuna,  inserted a chest tube to relieve the pressure of a pneumothorax, performed a cricothyroidotomy in order to make a patent airway, intubated with the McIntosh blade, which was my laryngoscope of choice  because it was curved and, in my opinion, more conducive to sliding between the vocal cords than the straight Miller blade.  The vocal chords, when visualized in reality, are really quite beautiful and an anatomical enigma.  (an adrenaline junkie?  maybe so … ok, yeah, probably) .

But given all of those things, the lifesaving techniques that I am able to employ, I still have to recertify in a CPR refresher course every two years.

In May, I performed CPR on a man who dropped like a stone while pumping Gas (and lived to tell about it because of early intervention and initiation of EMS … I shouted call 9-1-1 to a baffled lady who did it out of pure shock)  but that, as far as the American Heart Association is concerned, doesn’t count for anything.

Go figure.

And in two  years, I will get to do it again.

Good grief.

reallly? REALLY?

reallly? REALLY?

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Posted in a photographer's heart, Adrenaline Junkie, being myself, blog, blogger, bloggess, CardioPulmonaryResucitation, confidence, courage, CPR, emergency room, EMT, Paramedic, Photography, words

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