Where in the World is Queenbloggy?

working through this

Roughly 7 miles away from my home is where 12 people lost their lives in a horrible mass shooting. In a hospital roughly 6 miles away lays a young mother, in and out of consciousness and paralyzed, who still does not know that her 6 year old daughter was among the fatalities. Fatalities that include a 27 year old who was celebrating his birthday, a 32 year old mother, a recent college graduate, a recent high school graduate.

Last month at "Jazz in the Park", a concert series in the park 2 blocks from my house, a woman police officer, off duty, was shot and killed.

In Park Hill, the next neighborhood over, there is gang related activity reported on a monthly basis.

I will never understand this. Why do humans inflict this kind of terror upon each other? Why must innocent people..children..be killed?

I have to recognize this hard knot of grief for what it is, even though it is entirely difficult to name. As a mother protecting her daughter from the dangers in the world, as a public nurse working in a large metropolitan area, as a woman who is starting to feel a real sense of anxiety in crowded spaces, my world is being rocked with fear. And that's such an unhealthy little monster to to live with.

I don't want to go to the public pool and be worried about gang activity, but I am.
I don't want to be scared to go on a walk after dark, but I am.
I don't want to find scraggly looking men going through the dumpsters in the alley, but I do.

I love Colorado. I am happy here. But my happiness comes more from the mountains, in nature, where all things feel right with the world. Here, less than 2 miles from downtown, we are urban. And though I personally feel a tight community of friends around me (and that does, also, give me true happiness), I find myself questioning if choosing this urban lifestyle is worth it while raising a young child. My husband makes the argument for diversity. I don't like that argument. I'm not looking for diversity, I'm looking for peace of mind and safety.

I feel shaken to my core with this recent movie theater shooting. My feelings are confusing and difficult to navigate. I know that I feel deep sadness for all the families of the deceased, and for that woman that goes in and out of consciousness, still unaware that her daughter is dead? I honestly don't think I'd want to be woken up.

Is this morose? Sorry. This seems to be the world we live in.

I want to be IN the mountains.

Where in the World is Queenbloggy?

Exactly where I am.

I am entirely through with ever questioning my judgement about living elsewhere. In the past few years I have been afflicted with the ideas that somewhere else is better. Closer to family (well that's a hard one to discount), closer to the ocean, closer to places that resemble my own childhood.

There is a feeling of true euphoria when I get in to MY element: the mountains. It never dims. I feel like a child running through a playground with a wide mouthed grin. " LOOK!"

I think it takes a lot of personal know-how to figure out where you belong. I don't have the tight family unit with parents living in the same house I grew up in. No where near that. I have a family of travelers and wanderers, living on opposite sides of the country. I've lived on opposite sides of the country, on two different oceans, at different points of my adult life. And now I live in the middle. I'm ocean-less. I traded in my oceans for Rocky Mountains, and for me, that was the better trade.

I'm going to start a new series called Where in the World is Queenbloggy? Clue: It will likely be in Colorado. The Colorado summer is JAM PACKED for us; it is like this every year. Every year we save up money and energy for the glorious summer and autumn season where we are climbing 14,000 foot peaks, boogeying to bluegrass music, or simply chilling around a campfire with a microbrew.

I will not lie that sometimes life is extremely challenging, especially with the summer months being SO busy. But when I leave the hustle and bustle of the job and the city, I'm back to where I belong, back to the peacefullness of the mountains and back to the inner KNOWING that I'm exactly where I should be.

I will always pray that Ellie finds her bliss in the mountains, so that she could always be happy living close to her mama and papa, and so she will know the humbling gratitude that is just outside her door.

slanted light

When the Sun hits the Earth, 

slanted light,

the world is sacred.

Bathed in silky, honey gold,

dew drops glistening, 

the morning songs of birds,

it is here that my heart feels whole.

Before the children wake up, and 

the work duties begin. Before the 

cleaning and the doing and the getting 

to places on time, it is here, hovering

below the surface of the busy world

that magic is happening.

I long for this time,
when I don't need to look good
or be a certain way or try to please anyone.
Where all that I am is only perfect,
where I can be
the wild, loving creature that I am.

I forget this, sometimes, 

and in hurried fashion try to compose myself

for a day of responsibilities.

I miss the magic when my heavy heart

is too busy to stop 

and remember the healing that is

hovering below the surface.

Today as I felt my muscles move my bones 

along a path bathed in honey gold

I felt tears welling up inside, wanting 

to spill out. Grateful, for the reminder

that wholeness is here for the taking,

.here, when the Sun hits the Earth,

slanted light

and the world is sacred.

Death: when everything goes RIGHT

I lost another patient. He (maybe a guy, maybe a girl, but I'm disquising it for HIPAA) was only 50. Fifty and INCREDIBLY vibrant. We used to talk about his adventures, climbing large foreign mountains, his photography, his really great taste in decorating. I liked him, a lot. We had some very poignant existential conversations.

(One time I spied on him on facebook. I actually do that quite a bit on my patients. I learned about really truly amazing things this guy had accomplished. I was very impressed.)

Watching a tumor in the brain grow is difficult. A myriad of things could happen, it just depends on what part of the brain is affected. Things start happening that are not normal. With him it was difficulties saying what he meant: word salad. You knew he understood but he couldn't get the words out to acknowledge it. Sometimes conversations took a good amount of patience and a certain finesse in trying to make the conversation less frustrating.

Eventually, and in a rather slow fashion, there was paralysis, a growing need for assistance in all activities of daily living. Eventually barely even able to speak.

And then the normal trajectory occurred: bedbound status, inability to swallow, sleeping all the time and eventually a comatosed state.

But throughout this process was a family that was advocating for his best care. He had his "team" which was me (the nurse), a social worker, and chaplain who gathered together frequently to figure out what modifications needed to be made to support his current status (which was constantly changing). There were music vigils (an AMAZING perk at The Denver Hospice where I work) where a a harpist played and sang soft, soothing music while family gathered around him, holding hands and crying, not needing to use confusing words. He ended up having several music vigils. He had visits from a priest, and most importantly he was always surrounded by people that loved him.

He died peacefully on Wednesday night with his entire family at his bedside, ready to say goodbye, loving him dearly.

It was the perfect death.

I often feel sad in this job. I get attached to people or I have empathy for their family, making the death of my patient feel very heavy on my heart. It's impossible to avoid the sadness sometimes. Being so close to death can be so intense on a person's soul. But sometimes, and often on the rarer occasions, everything goes right. Sometimes the patient and all that surround him find peace. And in those occasions the sadness is not as prevalent as the gratitude: gratitude for the person, for my job, and for the experience of being there to help make it perfect.

We are all going to die, and as I watch people do it with grace, it makes my own mortality feel sacred.

I sometimes go back in forth in my belief systems on what happens when we die, sometimes claiming to be an atheist. But if I were to be true to myself, true to my what heart feels itself knowing, then I believe that spirits really do soar, far beyond the cold capabilities of a dying body.

When Karma comes to bite you in the bee-hind

So it seems we are again a family of four, again because last year at this time my niece Maya was staying with us. This time around it's my nephew Izak, a sweet and loveable 10 year old who has always tugged at my heartstrings. He's with us for two months, and despite some rather annoyingly redundant conversations about all the tricks his new cell phone can do, he's really quite a delightful kid. He's never been to Colorado before, never been away from home really, and so he is brave and wonderful on so many different fronts. Unfortunately the gap between him and Ellie is somewhat gargantuan in kid time: 7 years, but she still finds his presence exciting and pays no heed to the fact that he really isn't all that interested in pretending to eat fake food or saying her newest favorite phrase "wooshie gaga!" a million times during the day. He tolerates her and I can spy a very sincere and sly smile spread on his face when she gets his attention. He ain't foolin no one!

So do you want to hear about how I did something bad and then pretty much manifested that bad thing upon me IMMEDIATELY and how let this be a lesson to all of you that those karma points are real, yo!? So we decide to brave the fireworks, at a rather annoyingly large venue but one of the few actually HAVING fireworks, as, I don't know if you've heard but Colorado is sort of on fire right now. (so sad). Anyway we get in the line of cars, which we were leery to do anyway, see that it's a million miles long, slowly creep our way to a road that's blocked off, ask the parking attendant "how do we get out?" and he pretty much tells us that we can't. The road we got there on is now a double lane one way road. I repeated the question, "so how do we get out?", I mean he's standing in between us and a free and clear ROAD with a couple of little measly cones on it. He gives us a MAJOR attitude and he's really just being such a jerk that it ignites something in me. Who is he to say that we can not leave this MASSIVE CROWD of people?  So this is where the words fell from my mouth and started gathering together to figure out how to make this happen. "Look, we're having a medical emergency here!"(Don't judge me, I meant it as a harmless fib to get us out of the MADNESS). This of course is awesome to tell a lie right in front of impressionable children in the backseat of the car and one of my finer moments in parenting. The guy is a full blown jerk who very begrudgingly lets us through yelling as we make our way through the cones "HURRY UP!!" and soon he is a rearview thought and we are on the sweet road to freedom. We truly did INTEND to leave but last minute decide to access another, MORE awesome part of the park, because, well, suddenly we could.

This is the part where karma came and BIT ME ON THE ASS. As we are waiting for the fireworks to start there is a gloriously grassy hill that all kinds of little kids are rolling down. Ellie is ON IT. Excited beyond measure! Rolling down in awkward little bursts and having the time of her life. Even my nephew joins in on the carefree frolicing. And then, in a mere moment, Ellie stops mid roll, cries out in pain "OUCHIE!" and starts cradling her arm. I actually got it on video.





I look at it. It doesn't look broken. But the "ouchies" are relentless. The fact that she's cradling it makes me completely nervous. She won't straighten it out.

And that folks is why our 4th of July fireworks turned into a trip to the ER.

p.s. It wasn't broken.

Month in review: June 2012

Mike had a birthday!

Ellie spent much of the time with just her swim hat on.

Brewfest! Man was it HOT!

I had a birthday, too.

Backyard jam sesh, 3 year old included!

We got to meet POPPY!!

And I got to hang out with my lovely ladies.

This is called urban campfiring. 

And see this totally badass and AWESOME terrarrium? (please note the unicorn)

Handmade by this girl. I LOVE IT!

Kalie came to town!  (And we went to a lot of Jazz in the Park's)

Little birthday ride with my friends up to Vail pass.

Nitty Gritty Dirt Band with my new and very cool friend, Olivia!

We had some sad times, too. Sad times where we got to be with our family .

We had to say goodbye to Kelly. This was deeply sad.

But in that grief we got to connect with family we don't get to see very often. (Come visit us again soon!)

This is us at a wedding in Breckinridge.

This is the bride and groom, Derek and Becca. I told Ellie she was a princess.

This is what we did after the wedding.

Ellie got swim goggles and thinks they are the coolest thing ever!

I got a banjo and think it's the coolest thing ever!

Sitting on top of the world.

Ellie's first ever fireworks. The sky turned to magic!

This was a really intense month. Intense heat. Intense sadness and joy, Intense fear and intense peace. I don't know that I like to say that I live so "intensely", but man, I can sure say that life is full! 

And summer continues on!