"My great-aunt Alice, Miss Rumphius, is very old now. Her hair is very white. Every year there are more and more lupines. Now they call her the Lupine Lady. Sometimes my friends stand with me outside her gate, curious to see the old, old lady who planted the fields of lupines. When she invites us in, they come slowly. They think she is the oldest woman in the world. Often she tells us stories of faraway places.
"When I grow up," I tell her, "I too will go to faraway places and come home to live by the sea."
"That is all very well, little Alice," says my aunt, "but there is a third thing you must do."
"What is that?" I ask.
"You must do something to make the world more beautiful."
"All right," I say.
But I do no know yet what that will be.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

What are the colors of pain? Hopelessness? Grief?



In trying to understand my life lived in dirty nurse scrubs in an ICU....I write a lot.  There are so many things to say and not many places to say them....as in most careers a lot happens we just don't say.  Here is my way of trying to describe the colors of pain, hopelessness, and grief.  

Old.
Cold.
Turning white.
Quiet.
Diet.
Turning yellow.
Despair.
Repair.
Turning red.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Turning, twisting, raging, blue.
Task.
Mask.
Turning around.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)