Feeling sad, and mortal

For a friend, because I hope one day he will see me as a friend, too.

I cannot give you solutions to all life’s problems,
Nor do I have answers to your doubts or fears
But I can listen to you and share it with you
I cannot change neither your past nor your future.
But when you need me I’ll be by your side.
I cannot prevent you from stumbling
I can only offer you my hand to hold on to you so you won’t fall.
Your joys, your victories, your successes are not mine.
But I truly enjoy it when I see you happy.
I do not judge the decisions you take in life.
I constrain myself to support you, to stimulate and to help you if you ask me to.
I cannot draw limits for you within which you must act,
But I can offer you the space needed to grow.
I cannot avert your sufferings when some pain is breaking your heart.
But I can cry with you and pick up the pieces to armour it again.
I cannot tell you who you are, nor who you should be.
I can only love you as you are and be your friend.
These days, I have been thinking about my friends, amongst whom you appeared.
You were neither on top, nor at the bottom, nor in the middle.
You were not heading nor concluding the list.
You were not the first number, nor the last.
And neither do I pretend to be the first, the second, or the third on your list.
It’s enough if you want me as a friend.
Thank you for being one.

--Jorge Luis Borges

Lark Rise to Candleford

Dorcas Lane, you are my new best friend.

First times.

I held a stroke patient's hand yesterday. It was his second stroke. He wasn't even my patient. I was just sitting in to observe a transcranial doppler and he just happened to be the patient. But as I was leaving I caught his eye, and he looked at me while he was laid out on the stretcher, unable to move his right arm, with a tube stuck in his nose and a doppler probe on his right eye. He was edematous and it was obvious he was having difficulty breathing. He could not speak. And I thought of how my mother looked before her second open heart surgery--I thought of how my dad, who's hypertensive, might end up just like this man. And I smiled at him encouragingly, and for one wonderful moment he smiled back--and then to my horror he burst into tears.

I tried to get him to calm down, telling him that he shouldn't cry or his BP would spike. I held his left hand, the one on his stomach, and tried to stroke it reassuringly, and it was the most amazing thing ever to feel him stroke back, though a little bit weakly--his thumb moved over mine even though he was still crying, and seemed unable to stop. He made no sound--his shoulders just shook and tears streamed down the sides of his face--and somehow that makes it worse.

A day later and I'm still crying. I know that I will come face to face with death many times over the next years. Rather than reassure me, or remind me not to make a big deal of it, it just makes me more afraid--for my parents, for my patients, and most selfishly, for myself.

The art of losing

The art of losing isn't hard to master:
So many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master,
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

Being unrealistic

My mind spends half the time in PGH and half the time in Camelot, dreaming, dreaming.

No wonder I don't get any work done. On the other hand... The Once and Future King, sigh.

Besoin d'amour pour remplacer l'habitude

Tout doucement
Envie de changer l'atmosphère, l'attitude
Tout doucement
Besoin d'amour pour remplacer l'habitude
Tout simplement
Arrêter les minutes supplémentaires
Qui font de ma vie un enfer
Je l'aime encore mais plus vraiment.
Tout doucement
Sortir de ses draps et de son cœur
Tout doucement
Sans faire de bruit pour pas qu'il pleure.
Tout simplement
Changer de peau oublier tous les avants
Fermer les yeux se sentir de nouveau autrement

Tout simplement
Fermer pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Si encore il m'attend ….
Tout simplement
Fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Tout simplement fermé pour cause d'inventaire
Dans mon cœur dans ma tête
Changer tout vraiment.

Curieusement les aiguilles tournent
Mais ce ne sont pas celles du temps qui passe
Presque en silence quand on débute on s'aime
C'est pas vraiment la solitude mais c'est la certitude
D'un sentiment indépendant de son attitude

Oh ! Tout simplement
Fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Changer tout vraiment.
Si encore il m'attend…

Tout doucement
Sur la pointe du cœur tourner la page
Tout simplement
Choisir un nouveau livre d'images
Tout doucement
Prêt à apprendre à aimer passionnément
Tout simplement
Une autre histoire dans un monde différent

Tout simplement fermé pour cause de sentiments différents
Reviendrait peut-être dans un jour, un mois, un an
Dans son cœur dans sa tête
Si encore il m'attend….