Breathing Deeply

I traveled to the North Carolina mountains with a friend this past week. For three days, I surrounded myself with trees brightly changing colors, waterfalls cascading down rock formations, and the quiet sounds of nature. I paused and breathed deeply. And then I was ready to enter the world again.

"When I Am Among the Trees"
by Mary Oliver

When I am among the trees,
especially the willows, and the honey locust,
equally the beech, the oaks, and the pines,
they give off such hints of gladness.
I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,
in which I have goodness, and discernment,
and never hurry through the world
but walk slowly and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves
and call out, "Stay awhile."
The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, "It's simple," they say,
"and you too have come
into the world to do this, to go easy to be filled
with light, and to shine."

CPE and the Introvert

It's no shock to anyone who knows me that I'm an introvert. I like being around people and being social. However, at the end of a long day or when things are stressful, I really want to be by myself and curl up with a good book or veg on the couch or zone out and knit.

CPE is forcing me into lots of solo introvert/recharge time. I spend my days at the hospital meeting a whole slew of new patients and am drained. I return home and hole up in my place.

So it feels like when I'm not at the hospital, I'm either recovering from being there or preparing to go back. I'm (only) at the hospital two days and one overnight shift a week - roughly 30 hours/week. But right now it seems like CPE is controlling the way I live my life.

Is it fall yet?

It's the middle of October. Yet the weather report still includes highs reaching into the 80s. I need it to be fall. It should be time for sweaters and scarves, for hot apple cider and pumpkin patches.

Guess even after three and a half years in the South, I'm still a Northern girl at heart.

And the world spins madly on ...

(pound, pound, pound, pound) MAINTENANCE!

(pound, pound, pound, pound) MAINTENANCE!

I was awoken this morning at 11am by this racket on my door. Maintenance had come to change the filters in the heating and cooling unit in my living room and bedroom.

No, I wasn't being particularly lazy this morning. I was recovering from being on call last night at the hospital and getting roughly three to four hours of sleep that was punctuated by two adult deaths and a perinatal loss.

I had hoped to sleep for four hours this morning. But I was roused from my sleep and reminded that my student world and the world in general spins madly on even though it seems to stop and be disconnected while I am at the hospital.