Monday, April 6, 2015

4/6/2015 Living Without an Agenda, poems of the day

Aleathia says:

Ok.  I spent the last two days sweating out fevers, body aches, headache, and abdominal pain on the couch.  I had to miss work which I hate to do, but every time I was up for more than 5 minutes I felt like I was going to pass out.  I slept over 14 hours yesterday and today I wake up feeling a bit washed out, but better than the last few days.  Back to the grind I go.

Today I would like to share an affirmation from Pema Chodron.  Her words often help me get through any of life's problems.  In the work that I do, Emergency Nursing, there is a high probability to get burnt out especially when I work nights.  It is easy to get jaded about the patient's that come in, because often we are treated like waitresses who bust their asses and never get a tip.  We often don't get thanked for waiting on people hand and foot, for wiping their asses, cleaning up their vomit, and making sure we send them out in one piece.  It wears on a soul and yes we get edgy and judgmental at times.  There was a case recently where I wasn't as compassionate as I could have been.  I wasn't mean, but I didn't believe the patient's opinion of the situation and that person ended up having something wrong with them.  I am the first to stand up when I make a mistake at work.  I feel bad that I acted that way, because I am usually very intuitive and understanding.



As I have been sick, I was thinking about this person that I wronged and today I read this passage from Pema Chodron:

"Could our minds and our hearts be big enough just to hang out in that space where we're not entirely certain about who's right and who's wrong?  Could we have no agenda when we walk into a room with another person, not make the person wrong or right?  Could we see, hear, feel other people as they really are?  It is powerful to practice this way,  because we'll find ourselves continually rushing around to try to feel secure again--to make ourselves or them either right or wrong.  But true communication can happen only in that open space."--Pema Chodron



The poem for 4/5/2015 had a prompt of "vegetable":



Warm Tomatoes on the Vine

My child's mind
is tenacious
unforgiving,
her world concrete
and literal
once the daily
imagination faded.

She speaks of her Nana rarely
though she knew her well enough
before she passed.

When my mother died
she didn't cry
and it crushed me.

Where had I gone wrong
that she didn't understand
the magnitude of what had happened?

Last summer, out of nowhere,
she began to sob about how
she would never get to garden
with her Nana again
or eat warm cherry tomatoes
from the vine while she smoked
cigarettes and drank beer.

She wouldn't get to learn how
to keep slugs away or when to plant beans.

I couldn't say a word
but hugged her tight,
let her have that moment
to feel her grief
I was sure hadn't existed.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015

April 5, 2015


and the prompt for today is "something not as it seems":


Secret Society

On the outside
he’s blunt,
often grouchy.

My daughter tip-toes
around him in these moods,
has learned silence a virtue.

She never mentions it,
she knows this is who he is...
intelligent,
impatient,
and analytical
knowing he is always there
to educate and keep safe
secrets she cannot tell me.

They don't hug.
Instead fist bump
and say niceties
to each other.

I can't ask for more
between my child
and a step dad.
I remember
so much worse
from my own
experience.

On Easter he brought her home a basket.
She was stunned and inside there was a card
that made her cheeks cherry and give him a hug.

Later I asked what was in the card
and he told me to never mind that.
“If she wanted you to know,
 she'd have shared. “

He smiled to himself.
He likes to be what people
           think he isn't.
It keeps us guessing
and always wanting
him even more.

Aleathia Drehmer 2015

April 6, 2015

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