Blog Manifesto

Blog Manifesto


This blog is dedicated, as the title would suggest, to the qualities of being young. We are young writers. We are playful and sensitive, fluid and changing. We are unashamed with our art. We wonder at the world, puzzle over the meanings of things and twirl in delight at images and ideas that float by, grabbing at them as they pass. We are curious and constantly inquiring and prying concepts open and taking assumptions apart. We are on the ground, close to the earth. We have bare feet and wiggle our toes into nature. We carry our blankies still and wrap up cozy and comfy with each other and tell ghost stories and shiver at creepy things. We laugh and we cry and we take a lot of naps, drained from our outings and exertions.

We write as gifts to each other, tying them up in ribbon and leaving them around for each other to find, hiding and waiting for the person to wake up and read. Surprise! We weave our stories together to create a bond. One writes, then the other. then another again. We have a shared reality that we have crafted, bit by piece by patch, by string. We write simple, honest authentic things, with our unique voices. You can tell each one of us from the other, without knowing who wrote what. Our voices are clear and gentle and original. We whisper and our personalities roar! Like children, our feelings are strong, our passion for what we write shakes us. We are moved and sometimes left breathless, by our own words or the words of each other. We cannonball into each others spaces. We fall backward into each others writing, like into a pile of leaves or a soft bed. We gobble and grin and ask for more. (footnote kudos to JC)

Then we go to bed, wake up to a new day and do it all over again!

Friday, April 13, 2012

Dr. Rhule: Reading Sharon

Sharon's new eye doctor is interesting to me.  I have picked out enough information to discover that she doesn't tolerate the artificial odors of perfume or deodorant.    So Sharon goes in with her natural scent on her and no more. She even holds her breath, lest she breathe on the Good Doctor.  Toothpaste perhaps? Mouthwash? are they scented with death dealing MINT.  Is it all odors?  and are we glad she's not a gynecologist?

Her name is Dr. Rhule.  That cracks me up.  Our therapist was Dr. Bosse.  but he never was.

Does she get tired of the jokes about her name?

I ease further into Sharon's story. I recognize a situation like my own.  Hey I've had an eye exam recently.  Let me connect with this story.   I really want to be satisfied when I am down to the end, I want to nod my head and say.  YES!

I appreciate the drama of a formal eye exam. The chair.  the dim lighting.  The apparatus brought up way too close for comfort.   But I can't relax around a new doctor anyway.  It doesn't matter what body part you are going to be getting near.   I need to connect first on an emotional level.  Your name isn't enough for me.  You are wearing a white coat.  I've got doctor stories...

I need to connect.   They are busy, they are professional.  I need to hear them tell me the important magic words.  "If you get scared, I will stop."   but they are on a schedule.  They don't have time to stop.   It's a catch 22,  disclosing that I startle easy, scares me, dismays them, slows it all down and it's worse.   Better to deal with it inside myself,  even if my therapist tells me to warn and talk about it.  I usually don't.

I have to get through, without being in control.    Oh my.   I've learned to manage my panic without prattling. When they ask me how I am.  I squeak out.. fine.  I practice my breathing.

They don't need to know that I fasted before I came.  That I skipped breakfast, so my stomach would be empty. that my bowels would have less to loosen.    I'm fine.  That I sat in my car and visualized serene surroundings and counted peaceful wooly sheep on a lawn. One, Two, Three.

So there is Sharon, speaking up to the doctor as she mutters her notes.   Sorry?   I smile at the word.  I say Hmm? myself when I can't hear.  but "Sorry?" is recognizable to me, from books.  I search for a reference in my head.  Something formal. I think.

The Adam's family, the cartoon in the New Yorker. comes to mind.  Butlers, like Jeeves comes to mind.  BBC comedies come to mind.  Pardon me?  Excuse me?

Old words.  Now a days people say the short guttural HUH?  or the word my teacher was fond of correcting. What?  " Don't say What?"    That battle was lost. 

Sharon sits making sense out of the incomprehensible.    Eyes. diabetes, retinopathy.  and she catches onto the word.  MOLD.  M.O.L.D.  MOLES.

Her mind goes into overdrive.  Mine does that too, sometimes.   This is the point of the story,  I think.  Defenses and walls. Guarding and lowering them.  Knowledge and trust.

I should laugh. The doctor and Sharon are laughing together.  I should laugh in relief.  Whew!

The doctor is benign.  YES!





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