Today I:
– Went to the gym and walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes. It was hot and miserable.
– Gardened for 2.5 hours. My yard looks AWFUL – the hickory nuts that the squirrels eat and scatter shells has caused patches of my lawn to die. So I tried raking up the shells. There are thousands. I’m seriously contemplating going out there with my heavy duty vacuum (I know, I know, bad idea). This week, I need to go out there with some weed killer and then fertilizer and seed to see if I can get some lawn back. Or hire a lawn person to do it for me.
– Showered and collapsed on the couch for an hour because ow, ow, ow
– Ran a couple of errands (but not the grocery shopping that I needed to do)
– Went to my friend Sarah’s house and painted her kitchen and bedroom
– Did my federal taxes. Still have Wisconsin’s to do, but hey! Refund!

I’m dead. I’m achy, everything from my shoulders to the balls of my feet where two lovely blisters have taken residence hurt. I’m on call tomorrow (yes again. I’ll save you the rant) and I think I’ll be limping into the hospital.

“All You who Sleep Tonight”
Vikram Seth

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above –

Know that you aren’t alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

Another reminder today of why I’m glad I’m graduating: the neurology program where I’m training seems to be dissolving. The chair of my department, Dr. J, is leaving. He stepped down as chair a year ago, but they’ve never been able to fill the position, so he’s been “acting chair.” Then several neurologists left: 3 of the child neurologists, 3 epilepsy doctors, 1 movement. In January, the dean of the medical school (who influences how the hospital and the clinics are paid and run in many, many different ways) was sacked on a Sunday night. While everybody is happy to see him gone (believe me, he had few supporters and is the root cause of most of the deserters), we currently don’t have a dean, which makes everybody nervous: big decisions get postponed, people don’t want to take positions here, money for research gets funnelled elsewhere, etc. And now Dr. J, who I adore and idolize and wish, someday, that I could be a quarter as brilliant and meticulous in my neurological exam and localization, is leaving.

I’ll admit that I’ve had many frustrations with the neurology department. When I started here, the program director (who was not the same one I interviewed with, nor was I told about a change in management before I started) was brand new – he had just finished fellowship. Unfortunately, Dr. W had been a resident in the program only two years before, and many of the attendings remembered him as a resident and had a hard time accepting him not only as an equal, but in an authoritative position. Within a year (with the combination of decreased financial compensation for teaching), most of the attendings stopped giving lectures, stopped doing teaching on rounds, stopped doing journal clubs. In essence, all of my education has come from my program director and I don’t like or respond to the way he lectures. Neurology was my favorite subject in medical school – I excelled at neuroanatomy. It’s been a different experience in residency. I don’t regret doing the combined residency (most of the time) and I have learned so much, but I do wonder if I would be close to a “mini Dr. J” if I had gone to another school. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate Dr. W – in many ways he has been an excellent program director. He has worked endless to try to improve our working conditions and he is always, always available for any question or concern or problem. He’s come over to my house when I was having flooding problems (he lives about a mile from me) and many, many times, he’s supplied the residents out of his own budget. I just don’t agree with his teaching styles or some of his management skills.

In any case, I’m kinda glad to leave behind this drama. Politics exist everywhere, but I hope to be blissfully unaware of my new department’s problems for at least 6-9 months.

Anyway, today’s poem is one that I apparently downloaded earlier this week. I have no recollection of doing so (eta, it apparently downloaded itself when I clicked on one of those websites that had automatic midi music and flashing gifs – the things I go through to find you poetry!), but it seemed appropriate. It is lovely read aloud though: hopefully by clicking on the link, you’ll only hear some random person’s gravelly voice and not tinny “harpiscords” http://www.eaglesweb.com/realaudio/yeats_to_a_friend_whose_work_has_come_to_nothing.ram

To a Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing
by William Butler Yeats

Now all the truth is out,
Be secret and take defeat
From any brazen throat,
For how can you compete,
Being honour bred, with one
Who, were it proved he lies,
Were neither shamed in his own
Nor in his neighbours’ eyes?
Bred to a harder thing
Than Triumph, turn away
And like a laughing string
Whereon mad fingers play
Amid a place of stone,
Be secret and exult,
Because of all things known
That is most difficult.

I just got back from the gym. And am off to bed, so I can wake up in 6 hours and go again. I think. I haven’t made it to the “5 o’clock gym date” this whole week, because by the time that wee hour of the morning arrives, I’m very cozy in my bed and don’t want to wake up. Going to the gym sucks me of three hours of sleep in the morning. Exercise just has a hard time competing with that. I’m seeing benefits in duration though, already.

In any case, no time to search for new poems. So this is stolen from the Writer’s Almanac from yesterday.

Why I’m Here
by Jacqueline Berger

Because my mother was on a date
with a man in the band, and my father,
thinking she was alone, asked her to dance.
And because, years earlier, my father
dug a foxhole but his buddy
sick with the flu, asked him for it, so he dug
another for himself. In the night
the first hole was shelled.
I’m here because my mother was twenty-seven
and in the ’50s that was old to still be single.
And because my father wouldn’t work on weapons,
though he was an atomic engineer.
My mother, having gone to Berkeley, liked that.
My father liked that she didn’t eat like a bird
when he took her to the best restaurant in L.A.
The rest of the reasons are long gone.
One decides to get dressed, go out, though she’d rather
stay home, but no, melancholy must be battled through,
so the skirt, the cinched belt, the shoes, and a life is changed.
I’m here because Jews were hated
so my grandparents left their villages,
came to America, married one who could cook,
one whose brother had a business,
married longing and disappointment
and secured in this way the future.

It’s good to treasure the gift, but good
to see that it wasn’t really meant for you.
The feeling that it couldn’t have been otherwise
is just a feeling. My family
around the patio table in July.
I’ve taken over the barbequing
that used to be my father’s job, ask him
how many coals, though I know how many.
We’ve been gathering here for years,
so I believe we will go on forever.
It’s right to praise the random,
the tiny god of probability that brought us here,
to praise not meaning, but feeling, the still-warm
sky at dusk, the light that lingers and the night
that when it comes is gentle.

“Why I’m Here” by Jacqueline Berger, from The Gift That Arrives Broken. © Autumn House Press, 2010

*sigh* I just lost my whole post. Sadly, I don’t have time to recreate it, so just the poem tonight. It’s one of my favorites, a poem that I recite during difficult and trying times, or when I’m lonely and overwhelmed.

(For background about the poem, this was a nice article)

Time for the Gulls
by Carol Lynn Pearson

It’s time, Father,
For the gulls, I think.

My arms shake
From flailing my field.
I sink,
Broken as the little stalks
Beneath their devouring burden.

I yield it all to you,
Who alone can touch all things.
It’s time, Father,
For the gulls.

I will be still,
And listen for their wings.

You may not have realized it, but we’ve been having a little bit of political fun here in Wisconsin. It’s been fascinating to see how involved people have gotten on both sides and how sustained it’s been. Today was the mid-cycle elections, which (I found out this year, d’oh!), happen every year for the nondenominational, er, nonpartisan races. There were two real races: that for state supreme court and for county executive to replace the seat vacated by our wonderful, thoughtful, listening, full-of-grand-ideas, compromising (can you hear the sarcasm??) governor. Wisconsin public radio is reporting that the voter turnout was close to 60%, for a regular fall session, that it remarkably high, for spring, it’s astonishing; I love democracy in action! Less than a third of the precincts have reported yet – as I’m still trying to get up and exercise at 4:30 in the morning, I don’t think I’m going to wait up for results.

Poem for today is one that I discovered last year, on the interview trail. One of the attendings who interviewed me in Detroit was a nice guy, but just a little on the intense side – meaning, within minutes of meeting me, he wanted to know what things in life brought me pleasure, how I foresaw the ethical values affecting medicine, and what was the meaning of life. I tend to be a philosopher, but only after warming up, and I was quite off-guard through the interview. In any case, somehow poetry came up and he stated that this was his favorite poem. After reading it, I could see why. I know extremely little about the poetry of the eastern cultures, and I didn’t even realize that there were well known Muslim poets (very western-centric of me, I know). Let me know what you think of this one and if you have any to share.

His Winter Crop by Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)

I have
Seen You heal
A hundred deep wounds with one glance
From Your spectacular eyes,

While your hands, beneath the table,
Pour large bags of salt into the heart-gashes
Of Your most loyal servants.

Dear world, I can offer
An intelligent explanation
For our suffering,
But I hope it really makes sense
To no one here,
And come morning,
You are again at God’s door
With ax and pickets,
Eloquent petitions and complaints.

Think of suffering as being washed.
That is to say,
Hafiz, you are often completely soaked
And dripping.

The only advantage I can see in this
In the Friend’s long-range plan
Is that when the Beloved bursts
Into ecstatic flames

This whole world will not turn into
A bright oil wick all at once
Then divine ash,
And ruin His
Winter Crop.
From The Gift

If I make it through this week, without snapping at my passive-aggressive, inefficient, endless rounding attending, I will consider it a success. Last time, it took about 3 days for me to decide that I did not enjoy working with her. It took less than 15 minutes today to remember why. Of the 7 days that I’ll be working with her, I’m on call for 3. Did i mention the long, long hours?

This poem has nothing to do with the above. 🙂 Or maybe I’m feeling like I need a catfish right now.

Your Catfish Friend
by Richard Brautigan

If I were to live my life
in catfish forms
in scaffolds of skin and whiskers
at the bottom of a pond
and you were to come by
one evening
when the moon was shining
down into my dark home
and stand there at the edge
of my affection
and think, “It’s beautiful
here by this pond. I wish
somebody loved me,”
I’d love you and be your catfish
friend and drive such lonely
thoughts from your mind
and suddenly you would be
at peace,
and ask yourself, “I wonder
if there are any catfish
in this pond? It seems like
a perfect place for them.”

Fishing On The Susquehanna In July
by Billy Collins

I have never been fishing on the Susquehanna
or on any river for that matter
to be perfectly honest.

Not in July or any month
have I had the pleasure — if it is a pleasure —
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

I am more likely to be found
in a quiet room like this one —
a painting of a woman on the wall,

a bowl of tangerines on the table —
trying to manufacture the sensation
of fishing on the Susquehanna.

There is little doubt
that others have been fishing
on the Susquehanna,

rowing upstream in a wooden boat,
sliding the oars under the water
then raising them to drip in the light.

But the nearest I have ever come to
fishing on the Susquehanna
was one afternoon in a museum in Philadelphia,

when I balanced a little egg of time
in front of a painting
in which that river curled around a bend

under a blue cloud-ruffled sky,
dense trees along the banks,
and a fellow with a red bandana

sitting in a small green
flat-bottom boat
holding the thin whip of a pole.

That is something I am unlikely
ever to do, I remember
saying to myself and the person next to me.

Then I blinked and moved on
to other American scenes
of haystacks, water whitening over rocks,

even one of a brown hare
who seemed so wired with alertness
I imagined him springing right out of the frame.

I absolutely adore Billy Collins’s poetry. I discovered him thanks to a 3 year old boy who became a YouTube sensation (for your own good, click and listen). I had no idea that he was the Poet Laureate and had to find out more about him after that. Some of the lines – “balanced a little egg of time” – yes, those are why I love poetry.

You know that giddy, butterfly feeling when everything is going well – the sun is shining and the weather is warming up, or perhaps the trees have blossomed or the potential that the boy you’ve been eying is flirting back, or you’ve just received affirmation from people you respect and admire and love that they respect and admire and love you back. That feeling. That’s what I’m feeling tonight because of an incredible concert with Vienna Teng. Not only was it a solo performance and she the main act, but she played for two hours, then signed autographs and posed graciously for photos, and then, then, invited the remaining audience to sit on the stage around her piano while she serenaded us for another 45 minutes. I had almost prime seating, right across from her piano – but directly facing the stage lights, so all of my pictures have halos and spots. But, oh, oh, to get to see her play and hear her sing and talk to her: bliss.

So the poem today is actually one of my favorite songs of hers, one that she performed tonight. I think it reads well as poetry as well (although punctuation is off…).

Kansas by Vienna Teng

Sun sets in an ocean of brown farmland haze
Power lines draped across roads you could drive on for days
Well it’s all too perfect
Time to look back at us now

Endless and empty like Kansas
Our cities of clouds
Flat on the table like Kansas

I lay down in sheets suddenly worn threadbare
Every wall I lean on transforms to sliding doors and thin air
Well I hope yours is kinder
Let go of this when you find her

Bury this hard
Down underneath your white canvas
Our houses of cards
Flat on the table like Kansas

It’s not regret
Just an unexpected accounting of debts
Only now called
No it’s not regret
Just remembrance is all
Of how close we had come
The war almost won
But I sent up our flag and moved on

You and I
Lost to the winter like Kansas
And all my goodbyes
Flat on the table like Kansas

I am, in a word, overwhelmed. This graduating and moving across the country bit came sooner than I expected. As Gretchen Rubin in her Happiness Project blog often states: “the years are long but the days are short,” and how true that has been. The list of stuff I have to figure out before moving seems to grow exponentially every day: endless paperwork for privileges, billing, licensing, etc, decisions about renting versus selling my house (which could be paragraphs, so I’ll spare you the drama. Tonight.), finishing this poster for the presentation in May, Grand Rounds on April 22 and I just barely decided on a topic, but I’m still trying to narrow it down: Music and the brain, which is fascinating but too broad. Do I talk about disorders affecting music appreciation? Perception? Rhythm? How about the recent discoveries of the neurophysiology of music and the particular brain cortices and pathways involved? Or maybe music therapy for stroke and Alzheimer’s patients? Obviously, I have no clue. Add in daily studies for Medicine Boards – I’m behind again on my schedule *sigh*. And did I mention that I’m on pediatric neurology this month, on-call every third night, which means fragmented sleep and long hours. Lastly, I’ve decided that I *must* get reasonably back into shape before starting fellowship, so I’ve been getting up at 4 bloody o’clock to exercise for the past two weeks (honest prevails me to mention that I’ve only made it half the time. But still!) – this morning, I was so exhausted and tired that I could barely stay up straight on the machine. Keep reminding me that it’s good for me, okay?

It’s National Poetry Month. I’m going to attempt, like every year, to post a poem a day. Anybody want to take bets how long I’ll last? I just discovered this one and I love the imagery.

Evening
By Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell

The sky puts on the darkening blue coat
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you watch: and the lands grow distant in your sight,
one journeying to heaven, one that falls;

and leave you, not at home in either one,
not quite so still and dark as the darkened houses,
not calling to eternity with the passion
of what becomes a star each night, and rises;

and leave you (inexpressibly to unravel)
your life, with its immensity and fear,
so that, now bounded, now immeasurable,
it is alternately stone in you and star.