hey soul sister

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bear with me on this (non-d related) writing journey,

ramp

“Life is what occupies your mind at the time.”

A man once told me that. He said it within the body of a spoken paragraph intended as a precursor to the next four.

How peculiar a preface, as if to say that that which doesn’t involve the mind is disconnected from that which we consider to be most essentially ours.

Life.

Your life.

My life.

What begins as a simple pseudo-philosophical outlook on being concedes to something deeper with surprising complexity.

For if content and context form the contours of life, then one’s life is exclusively theirs. Yours. Mine. Hers. His. While this coincides with language structures, the human experience leads us to feel otherwise. We feel an intersection, connection, human to heart, human, to heart.

Look in and listen. Study the topography of another human’s emotionhood and discover that even the most basic values are built upon labyrinthine metaphors.

Like a good read. Open as teen, one thing. Open as adult, another. I comprehend what is relative to my existence in that place at that time. Yes.

Relativity.

Going further.

The logical compliment, the negation, of what life is not… According to the wise man’s logic:

Life is not that which does not occupy the mind at the time.

Strolling about town, I come upon a child and his mother, also strolling. In an act of mass impulse, thoughts of future children and livelihoods become narratives. Consumed by what may become, the question begs answer, if life is that which ocupies the mind, then does my life become what I imagine it to be in any given instance?

Assuming that it is, that my life is what I imagine it to be, then what is there that can be considered ‘not life’? For in each passing thought, for in each inquisitive moment begging to find “is this life”, by this maxim it is bound to be result in a yes, for it has entered the mind.

If life can be what one envisions it to be by occupying the mind of such things, then the negation cannot be true.

The wise man’s maxim rings loudly with the kind of value and validity we rally behind. We can logic our way into disbelief, but little can we do to say no to the kind of hopeful messages that encourage growth and progress. It is with great intensity such maxims to hold true. Growth and progress.

If life is what occupies your mind at the time, then life is what you imagine it to be filled with and made up of, unrestricted. You get to create the colors and shades, textures and shapes.

You get to drive the tale, the narrative, the way.

You get to be the author of your ever developing self and that authorship lends a sense of power to the individual.

You can be whatever you want to be, whoever you want to be, wherever you want to be, if you can just let it occupy your mind.

Thank you, wise man, for your exercise in couch philosophy and the inspiration to imagine a world of possibility right here from mine.

___

this piece was first published on medium: how peculiar a preface, how a false maxim can one-up the truth.

movin’ on up

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yesterday this went viral on facebook:
Screenshot 2014-03-06 10.38.43

stuffed with doubt, my curiosity won over my hopes of not biting the bait.

i clicked.

i went in expecting to be underwhelmed and uninspired

BUT THEN…

mind blown

this is seriously cray cray crazy.

it is called Spritz and it could change the way we read FOREVER.

personally, i like books and the visceral experience of turning the pages, but for reading news and the like, this would be GRRRRRREEEEEAAAT!!

here is “The Science” behind it, which basically moves the words for you with the ‘optimal recognition point’ at the eye line. if you don’t have to move your eyes around to locate the

start out at 350wpm:
words moving

here is my only holdup: dry eyes.

watching that thing move so fast and not wanting to miss anything makes blinking happen less.

plus, when i try and remind myself to blink, i am so focused on blinking that i miss or forget the content.

even with the blinking con considered, i’m for it because now i can say i can read at 600 wpm and that makes me feel like this:

whaddup

what do you think?

i was left to my own devices

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lungs
i’ve been experimenting with writing lately.

finding various channels to sort of ‘start fresh’ like you would in a new city.

it’s been a great exploration so far, and a very personal one.
so far, my writing has centered on itself.
yes.

i’ve been writing about writing.
but not like how-to’s or do’s and don’ts.
not like historical analysis
or a genre investigation…

nope. i’ve just been writing about the way that i write.

which is this:

i find a sentence that moves me, even though i am not sure why.
i flow from there.
by flow i mean write without stopping.
i sometimes jump back into an incomplete thought, if i feel taken by it’s lack of clarity.
when something ‘isn’t clear’ i have to elaborate or fix it so that i understand what i was trying to say.
that’s the self exploration squared.

i’ve already learned a lot. ex: i generally find a way to criticize myself, i use the rule of thirds, and i say ‘i’ a LOT.

it feels good to find the freedom to explore this sort of external introspection publicly.

examining the way i say something as apposed to what i say is really satisfying.
i can’t help but wonder what subject i will move onto once this one becomes exhausted.

in my most recent writing experiment, i felt a strong urge to find a way to rope in diabetes somehow. i tried ever so hard but came up fruitless.

at first thought, i felt a sense of failure. i couldn’t do something i wanted to do.
at second thought, i experienced a softening sense of success. for once the big D didn’t make the cut.

it got me thinking about why i’m writing about the way i write.
it got me thinking about a claim i’ve always made about my muse like it was an all in bet.

diabetes, or the anger and fear that resulted from my diagnosis is something i have always credited for my entry into the mysterious world of word.

i was feeling so much and had to get it out. i needed to feel it leave me physically and energetically through pen or keyboard.

i was feeling so many things i didn’t understand.

i was lost and coping.

i was attempting to find my way back to a state of being i couldn’t remember.

and i think i am trying to find that place again now, only this time…

diabetes doesn’t fit in.
and i suppose that makes sense because the state i of being i was in prior to diabetes was, well, diabetes free.

even finding a bit of clarity there, this unexpected blues is throwing me for a loop. diabetes has never failed to relate to anything in my book. diabetes relates to disneyland (#makessenseifyouhavediabetes) for goodness sake!

being okay with diabetes not being a part of this particular exploration is something i am learning.

with that said, i’m incredibly excited to meet the driver.

it’s some inspiration right in front of me, but just blurry enough to miss.

there is something else driving this experimentation and i just can hardly wait to find out what it is.

_ __ _____ __ _ _ ____ ____ _ __ _____ ________
side bar:

writing about your own writing is weird.

and now, here, i am writing about the weirdness of my tendency to write about my own writing.

yikes. what a mess.

i am writing some really cryptic shit.

does anyone know an analyst?

clap along if you feel like happiness is the truth

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UPDATE !!! (2/27/14) : jesse had his first big relief today while spending time with his dad. he explained that all night and morning, there was a pain in his chest, likely the pleurectomy as the culprit. then, in a moment, the pain changed form and felt 10x better. he isn’t pain free, but he describes it as a 2 on a scale of 1-10. that’s the medical stuff and all signs of improvement.

now when it comes to feelings of the heart, we were both replenished this afternoon, when lancet came in to get some scratches and give some cuddles. here are the photos. prepare to be happy:

Happy Lancet w jesse

lancet jesse hands

Screenshot 2014-02-27 15.14.07

Lancet paws

faces come out of the rain

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waiting room
it’s the stillness of an empty hospital waiting area that brings me to tears for the first time since grabbing jesse’s hand when the doctor uttered the words, “you’ll be admitted.”

at that time, both jesse and i equated the words to dollar signs.

how could we afford this? would his insurance cover the expenses or would he be going into health debt before entering the debt maze of medical school?

i feel a slight sense of shame for this, but what got me caught up then was the notion that we could no longer afford the vacation we have been planning. i was swelling with sadness that we wouldn’t get to take the month of may off and get lost in the beauty and stillness of the west coast together before taking the big life leap that comes with jumping states and embarking on a new chapter for the sake of partnership.

we’ve had our gloves up in the air, yearning for the chance to catch a break.

beginning to feel like a victim, i have to back track. i’m not the one in the chair, he is.

my thoughts begin to shift. i become present.

back in the waiting room.

there is a man to the right of me, across a sea of empty chairs. he is a big man, wearing a nice red shirt and a large ring. i sit here with him in this stillness. waiting. wondering. hoping.

i look at him and i see a man, trying either to or not to sleep. i wonder if he is tired, or just trying to make the time pass faster. just as i begin to imagine how he is feeling and whom he is waiting for, a nurse comes out to him and says, “your wife wanted me to tell you that she has about three hours of surgery and so you should eat something, okay?” he grumbles with a slight nod.

with only that, i feel connected. i feel glued to my seat. right there with him. waiting. seeking news like it’s my life on the line.

i wipe my face clean of make-up strokes and consider everything in it’s right place.

1. jesse was laid off two weeks ago. he has time to recover.
2. his insurance lasts until march 31st. he has coverage to be healed.
3. he has a 6k out of pocket max, which is relatively small compared to the 200k bill he will be expecting.
4. i’ve been able to stay with him every night
5. he has an overwhelming number of friends and family members coming in to support him
6. we have online friend support to top it off
7. we have each other

i look back to the man in the red shirt and wonder if his way of coping leaves him without hunger and am thus reminded of my own. so i get up from behind the veil of the screen, and make my way to the cafeteria. i buy myself a bag of pretzels, some dried fruit, a cookie, and two kinds of iced tea.

i buy him a sandwich and a bottle of water.

without being able to muster up the courage to speak, i hand him the sandwich, walk away, reclaim my chair and pull back up the screen.

i let the tears fall again as i sit down, and from across the sea of empty chairs break bread with a perfect stranger.

i know what it feels like to not help myself because i’m waiting and nervous.
i know what it feels like being unable to help.
i know what it feels like to feel taken care of when you’ve mostly yet just felt alone.

in this moment, a tiny smile, or at least the feeling of a smile creeps up and i sense the relief.

waiting, wondering, hoping, with someone else, makes it all a little easier.

together knowing, everything will be good again soon.

____ _ ___ ____ ______ _ _____ _ ____ __ ____ __

SIDEBAR: Jesse is doing very very well. He had a small pneumothorax for the second time on Monday night and was admitted to the hospital for observation. After being administered O2 for 24 hours, and not seeing improvement in x-ray or CT scans, Jesse was seen by the main thoracic surgeon here at John Muir Hospital. Jesse is expected to have what is called a bleb. lung
It is a piece of lung tissue that looks similar to bubble wrap. A bubble can pop under physical stress and that is what the doc thinks caused the pneumothorax to begin with. The surgery will remove the bleb section of the lung tissue and staple the top of the lung back together.

Here is the drawing the surgeon made for us, which unintentionally ended up looking like a very happy lung:

Jesse is currently in surgery and I’m sitting in the waiting (and writing) room right now. I will post an update when I can after Jesse gets out. I am fully expecting him to recover with ease and come out stronger than before.

UPDATE! (2/26/14) – Jesse is out of surgery and in the recovery room! He is expected to be awake very soon and back in his hospital apartment room within the hour. I can’t wait to see him and all the funny things he will probably say while woozy from the anesthesia. More updates as they come. Bonus: There are a bunch of pictures of Jesse’s insides that I am going to frame and hang in my house. #winning

Update!!(2/27/14)- Jesse was hilarious coming out of surgery last night. As he was wheeled in he said, ‘the hero has arrived’ with his usual joke telling tone. It wasn’t an easy night, nor a restful one, but it did come with a lot of improvement. This morning Jesse got a plate full of yummy breakfast food, ate the bacon first and then shared that he felt like he had just had a thanksgiving dinner. He is asleep now and feeling good. 🙂 so all is well and on schedule. He should be ready to go home tomorrow night or Saturday morning.

Being Addicted to Poetic Prose: Why I’ll Never Be a Successful Writer

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DSC_0073 1

Originally published on my Medium page.

It is with a rhythm that I scribe, a cadence one better. With pauses and causes and intentions, I spill.

I want to tell you how I feel before I tell you what it is I’m reacting to because that is how I make meaning from surroundings.

I want to show you my internal intricacies as I discover them myself because I don’t often know what I am thinking until I write it; until I scatter the peices, figure out how they fit together and convert the image back into language.

I’ll never write successfully because this journey, from me to me and then to you isn’t succinct enough to stick.

It may afford relief to get out and to read, but at the end you and I, we, we may come to find that it is void of content, that there is no movement from there to here. We may find that in order to create a distance, to prove a point, a departure from this rhythm is required.

But I can’t learn to walk again, can I? My knees tilt slightly inward as I pace and I can’t remember to fix it. My awareness fades after the first block and it’s back to basics. Knees tilted.

This is my voice and I’ve had it since I was old enough to react to my own reactions.

I can’t learn to speak again, can I?

Teach me how, and I’ll find a way around it. I’ll bend it, twist it, mend it. Give me the fabric and I’ll make a quilt of leaves and flowers. I’ll reveal my layers before telling you I’m about to and leave you wondering what the hell that was about.

I’m speaking underwater, baited by the temptation that you just might understand the very simple word I am trying to learn to say. Fill my nose with water, attempting time and time again.

You wont hear me until I come out of the water and share that I was trying to say “Fear.”

Fear has kept me from breaking out of what I am good at. Here, poetic and cryptic, I don’t have to have a conclusion and the meaning can flow after. Here, a flawed plan is magic and revealing. Here, lies the warmth and comfort I’ve always needed to stand naked and raw in a crowded place where all but few passerbys walk with closed eyes.

I’ll never be a successful writer because the beauty and details of my blanket takes too long to see and I refuse to exchange it.

 

 

i’m only human

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Screenshot 2014-02-06 16.08.50
over the weekend, my father and i sat down for a heart to heart.
not the kind of h2h you have when you are in trouble or when bad news is being shared.
this was the heart to heart you have with a friend just simply,
to share.

my dad, or ‘faja’ as i like to call him, wanted to request one simple thing:

‘ask me questions about the me you have never known’

you see, my dad was married twice before tying the knot with my mother.
we hadn’t talked about it before. ever.
15 years of his life equated to a question mark in mind. . .

so, i was of course intrigued.

i was intrigued and touched by his willingness to share.

so, i asked him…

‘my first question is, what do you want to tell me?’

our conversation went on for about an hour that night and another hour the following night.
the idea that i know a lot more about a person i have been around for 23 years stumps me.
how?
how is it that i have spent so so so so so so much time with him, yet know so little?

he had always been there.
i had always been there.

i had just never asked.

while i feel a saddness for not having asked prior, i am more overcome with gratitude that i am blessed with a father that would so candidly say:

‘you don’t have a full picture of who i am and i want you to’

i unconditionally love my dad, but his space in my heart expanded as a result of his openness.

i’m so thankful for my dad’s existence. thankful for the person he is. thankful for the person he wants to be. and thankful for the person he helps me to be.

the end.

for you, i bleed myself tryin’

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160x600tag

i care about you.
i know it is bold to say that and you might not even believe it…
but i do.

maybe we have never engaged before.
okay: i’ve never met you. you’ve never met me.
we have never laid eyes on one another.
i don’t know where or how you live, or how you feel about society, it’s demands, it’s limitations, liberties.

i don’t know who you are.
but, without a nanometer of doubt,
i care about YOU.

i care about you because you and i share an understanding.
we understand a deeply engrained life-sustaining dependence
and we understand what answering to that relentless chemical demand is like
the stresses, the pains, the unexpected…

i know this about you and even though i don’t know you,
i want you to succeed.
i want you to feel good and not be bogged down by the requirements of dependence.
i want you to have all the tools you need
and
even though i don’t know you,
i want for you to survive and i will stop at nothing
so that you, a perfect stranger to me, can live on.

i don’t know you,
but i care.

that is why i decided to be proactive and give to Spare a Rose, Save a Child.

i give
because i care.

because i know you do too:
you can give here.

———-
Here are Spare a Rose, Save a Child posts written by diabetes advocates you know and trust. Join us.

Christel @ The Perfect D
Bennet @ Your Diabetes May Vary
Bea @ Cranky Pancreas
Stacey @ Portable Pancreas
Kerri @ Six Until Me
Manny @ Ask Manny Hernandez
Mike @ Socially Diabetic
Kim @ Texting My Pancreas
Scott @ Rolling in the D

Best of the Betes Blogs: January 2014

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BEST OF THE BETES BLOGS

When Sara invited me to host this month I was overwhelmed with joy and felt a great sense of pride. Reading through the nominated posts was warming, entertaining, and just a bucket of fun. Making selections was very challenging because they were all SO SO SO good.

Just after the Super Bowl blow out (go Seahwaks) and in the midst of Diabetes Art Day, I present to you the posts I selected for Best of the Betes Blogs this month:

Best Use of Humor: Mike Lawson at Socially Diabetic
Mike’s pancreas would be very social media active, if given the chance. Now, if we could only get him online for #dsma…

Best Vlog – Gavin at Diathlete
I’ve always avoided injecting in the arm because I feel like I have to pretzel (yes, that is a verb) and he makes it look so easy! Nice to see rufus there too!

Best Use of Photography – Alexis at I run on Insulin
Want to see a degraded lancet? Yikes! This guest post is awesome.

Best Advocacy – Sue at Test, Guess, and Go
Sue asks for a groundswell of support from the DOC in due time to increase CGMS accessibility.

Best Reference to a D-Celebrity – Katie at Princess of Pavement
Katie is a journalist who was interviewed by a running magazine in Canada. Her story is splashed about the pages and she gets two big big thumbs up for raising diabetes awareness.

Best Story of a D Meet-up – Courtney at Pancreassassin
#dsma counts as a meetup right? Here Courtney talks about goals inspired by a DSMA live chat.

Best non-D Related Post – Chris at The Consequence of Hypoglycemia
It was so exciting to hear the news that Chris was moving to the Bay Area. It was even more exciting to hear about the big proposal!

Best Post by a Type 1 – Renza at Diabetogenic
We all have trigger words. Renza talks about the word ‘compliant’ and it’s derogatory connotation for her as a PWD.

Best Post by a LADA – Manny Hernandez at Ask Manny
In memory of Barbara (jrtpup) on Tudiabetes, Manny wrote this beautiful blog post. It reminds us all to cherish and tend to our relationships now.

Best Post by a Type 2 – Rosie at The Fat Side of the Tracks
There were no nominations for this category, so I am going to point you to a blogger named Rosie (@Rosie_Tomato) that deserves our support. She participates in #dsma every week and has a lot of awesome things to say.

Best Post by a Type Awesome – Olly at Diabetes UK
Heartwarming! I loved reading this family approach to grand slamming a diabetes curveball. Brotherly love is always a good ending to a tale.

Best story of a D-mistake – Joanne at Death of a Pancreas
Great post about listening to the BGs and rolling with the punches. Make sure to read the disclaimer at the end! 😉

Best Motivational Post – Jen at Young, Fun, and Type 1
Jen celebrates the new year by bringing her awareness and ours to the support people in our lives who make life with D a little better. All good warm feelings.

Best Diabetes Art – Kim at Texting My Pancreas
Cartoons on taking apart a dexcom sensor and adding a steampunk flair = #winning.

Best Comments: Jessie from T1D Active Living
I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with Jessie over email, instagram, twitter, and within the blogosphere. She always has something heartfelt to say. She is on our radar!

__________________________________________

Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate others for Best of the Betes in January and thank you to all the D-Bloggers who wrote and shared:
Manny at Ask Manny
Sara at The Pump and the Second Hand
Joanne at Death of a Pancreas
Olly at Diabetes UK
Meri at Our Diabetic Life
Heather at Unexpected Blues
Alexis at I run on Insulin
Kerri at Six Until Me
Kim at Texting My Pancreas
Jen at Young, Fun, and Type 1
Sue from Test, Guess, and Go
Chris from The Consequence of Hypoglycemia
Jessie from T1D Active Living
Katie at Princess of Pavement
Mike Lawson at Socially Diabetic
Briley at InDpendence
Jess at Me And D Blog
Rachel at Probably Rachel
Laddie at Test, Guess, and Go
Sara at Moments of Wonderful

___________________________________________

Here is the text to use to get your button:

Replace all [ ] with . [div align=”center”][a href=”http://www.bestofthebetesblogs.com” target=”_blank”][img src=”http://momentsofwonderful.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/bbblogo-final-e1309479808835.png”%5D%5B/a%5D%5B/div%5D

It will look like this:

sha shakin’, i’m

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couch

i’m nervous as shit to jump states.

five months before the leap and my anxiety level is in the stratosphere above everest. the more i try and control the feeling of being afraid, the more my subconscious squeezes at my spirit like a hand clenching putty.

facing the questions speeding my way regarding the forthcoming move have felt a little like daggers, little stabs at the vision of my future i’ve had for a decade.

last week while riding on bart, my heart rate sped up, my breathing felt labored, the train felt smaller and filled with more bodies.
more bodies breathing the air i was moment by moment realizing i needed more of.
each approaching stop made my final destination feel further away despite the fact that i was moving closer.
my chest was feeling tight
i started to wonder if i was going to be in the wrong train at the wrong time.
was something going to happen here?
a train wreck?
a person with a gun?

panic was setting in and i knew it was coming.

but then, north berkeley bart faced me with open doors and i walked out.
i went up the escalator
i walked out of the bart station
and i smiled as i saw the car
of love an support
waiting there to pick me up.

hugs.
hugs and laughter.
panic overridden.
crisis averted.

for the family that brought me back to reality, i’ve decided to face the questions and begin planning the answers.

i’ve told you i’m nervous.

but have i told you that what i’m most nervous about is not following the narrative i set forth for myself even before high school?

i’m scared to death at the thought of giving up on the story of my life i wrote in 8th grade. the one about moving mountains, being independent and powerful, and having followed my dreams.

i was just like every other kid who believed i could and WOULD change the world.

until writing this out, moving meant the abandoning of my dreams because it didn’t fit the narrative course i’d imagined years before.

because that narrative didn’t involve me loving another person, it didn’t involve me giving the support, time and space necessary for another being to grow into the potential they imagined for themselves back in 8th grade.

in the next five months, as i question:

what will i do there? how will i find friends? how will i make money? will i be able to find a routine that is conducive to managing my diabetes well? and will i be happy?

i’m going to keep in mind that allowing a new narrative to unfold, one in which i am the type of person who would risk everything for the greatness of another, is a more beautiful tale than i ever could have imagined.

i am going to affirm my heart’s path by bringing my thoughts and awareness to the fact that what i thought up for myself in this life i have already accomplished and i’m moving beyond it.

i AM moving mountains.
i AM a strong individual, powerful enough to make seemingly self-contradictory life decisions
i AM living my dreams right now.

i’m showing my 8th grade self that the narrative i had back then was reaching only for the clouds, and that now my sights are set on the galaxies far far away.

i’m getting more than i’d bargained for and the adventures ahead are only exponentials beyond the scope of my vision.

i’m on the right path and it feels good to remember how much i love that truth.

move onward, my friend, onward.