sounds and smells will take you home

So much of what we encounter daily is beyond what we see. Take a moment. Close your eyes. What do you hear? What do you smell? Is it something in the room? It is you? I lay in my tent this past weekend, having just awoken. I was in a campground in the Rocky Mountain […]

Nurturing the Eye

Not so easy, taking care of ourselves. That said, there are a lot of us out there that ONLY look out for ourselves. Finding the balance between self-love and being self-ish is an ongoing battle of the mind for some. Lately, I’ve felt a lot more negative energy swirling around me. Family of origin issues […]

Screaming Eagle

As I started down the skinny trail, it dawned on me that I had followed a bunch of twenty-somethings into an area I did not know. You idiot, I muttered. Twenty-somethings are invincible. I am not. I looked back. Going back was a long way back up the narrow cat track. I looked left and […]

Resurrection

Times are a-changing. They are always a-changing. My last blog was in December of 2016, when I decided that I wanted a fresh start in the blogging world. I created a new blog under a new alias. I wrote one blog in the past year. Lame. I’m a writer. So, it doesn’t mean I haven’t […]

Closure

It is time for new beginnings. Time to put the past to rest and move forward. A new chapter? No, a new book. It is time for this one to rest on the shelf where I can pick it up and read it when I need a reminder of where I’ve been. Letting go is […]

Hold the Phone

I was talking to a student today about medical futility and the ethical dilemmas that sometime crop up in caring for patients in the hospital. Sometimes patients are so sick that it appears there is no cure, no fix. It can be patient driven, a product of the patient’s environment, or progression of disease and […]

Dirty Vets

In my first year of nursing school, we spent time doing a rotation at the VA. Being that it was Memorial Day today, I recalled how much I enjoyed working with the veterans. Most of them were WWII vets with a few Korean War and Vietnam vets mixed in. The WWII vets were in their […]

Confusion Says

True story. I called a chiropractor yesterday to schedule a first time appointment. I had been seeing my favorite in Vancouver but he moved farther away…and well, it’s just TOO far. I do so much better when I have a guy watching my back. Literally. It has been over a year since seeing someone and […]

Thick Skin or Solid Foundation?

I’ve had several folks tell me lately that I must have thick skin to work in the field that I do. The heartbreak, sadness, and loss that is faced every single day in the 30 rooms on our unit… and likely in the 576 beds at our hospital…is phenomenal. Heartbreak isn’t just oncology. It’s everywhere. […]

Why are you?

I am. I need not be no other. A friend recently commented on how adventurous and free my life seems to be. This, I say, is the fruit of my labor. The years of not knowing who I was until I found me. The relationships I found my way out of in order to […]