tuesday

The holidays amplify and magnify dysfunction in families. ain't that the truth. Last night, my mother started her yearly frustration/depression surrounding the holidays. mostly due to her needs not being met. and who knows what else brings her down. we all carry alot of shit. some deeper than others. and my mother has always been half mystery to me. and half hero. and all love.

don't be stupid

”Love is never any better than the lover. Wicked people love wickedly, violent people love violently, weak people love weakly, stupid people love stupidly…”

-Toni Morrison

black swan

had a dream that i was a ballerina dancing on the brooklyn bridge. it was my favorite dream in a long time. the flow and effort that dancing on pointe shoes required hypnotized me. i was waaaay into doing spins and little leaps in my graceful ballerina steez. i had a tutu and all that. sigh.
birth, death, and dreams can bring us so much more perspective that we give them credit for. when you truly pay attention to your dreams, your deaths, your births, ALOT of shit doesn't matter quite as much. it can be hard to deal with the pettiness of everyone and the complainers and whiners, but really-it's all just temporary. and alot of the time, it's not up to us anyway. hope that made sense.

hiatus

there are many reasons i have abandoned the blog.
too may to count right now.
soooo....
just watch this!
http://youtu.be/nGeKSiCQkPw

haiku

in nana's backyard
the spring sun hugged us softly
and birds sung sweetly

school assignments

I am not a member of an organized religion. Formal and documented belief systems don’t move or stir my soul. For me to be moved towards faith or a sense of enlightenment, I have to almost feel and experience it viscerally in my body. The sensation of spirituality that moves and resonates with me is not captured in a church service or bible passage. It is in the soil, the warmth of a fire, the remarkable beauty of a sunrise, and in the beauty of humanity.

            Both of my parents were raised Catholic and had my brother and I baptized and put through catechism classes to receive our First Holy Communion. Aside from these sacraments, religion was never emphasized or pushed on my brother and I. A relationship with God and all that is of a higher consciousness was always encouraged and nurtured. My parents, especially my father, were always sure to speak with us about the importance of prayer and the power of faith. The faith that was instilled in me was rooted in Catholic morals and Native American teachings. My multiracial ancestry has a strong Native American lineage from the southwestern United States. Along with the two aforementioned Catholic sacraments, I was taken to various indigenous ceremonies that nurtured my connection to my ancestors and to the Creator. It is this universal and holistic love and respect for all things that has guided me to my path as a compassionate learner and future nurse practitioner. 

chester copperpot

my mental health didnt feel so well today. gloomy cloud over my head kind of day. those days have become more frequent. call it a funk. a rut. a phase. yes, we'll call it that.

i've been able to identify two core fears driving these blues. 

1. fear that i'll never be a ____ or _____

2. fear that i dont have what it takes to get thru this grad program that's consuming my life and maybe my sanity

see how honest i am with you?! damnnnnn, and what have you done for me?? just kidding... 

anyway, these fears paralyze me sometimes on some days. to the point that i just wont study, wont do schoolwork, wont free myself from my preoccupations. this of course concerns me being an academic- integrity-kind-of-a-gal.

so im watching "goonies" and cooking dinner. im not even hungry. my appetite has been MIA which is also not a good sign. but i gotta eat. and i gotta study. but eating is more important right now. 

i never realized that chunk is really the hero in "goonies." if they had listened to him in the beginning that the fertellis meant trouble, they wouldve been spared all the drama. but then again, what a great adventure. and he saves them at the end too, with sloth. 

i liked what i heard yesterday from an old friend ("old" as in i met her in 2006. only 5 years ago, but shit, alot has happened since then), "we are the experts of our own experience." and how we are perfect the way we are in this moment.

how empowering. 

aromatherapy

lots and lots of schoolwork + laziness/lack of motivation= nothing accomplished.

im gonna blame it on the beckoning full moon, my own moontime, and the radiation.  these are my first world problems.

pollo loco

i realize i havent talked to you in a while so here i am. so now what? well i finally got my first bible paper out of the way. it was hard for me. but i got it done, so whatever. and i am definitely feeling more balanced this weekend. i stepped out into the nite air with angela on friday nite and then had lunch with old coworkers on saturday. we were once girls, and now we are girls with more responsibility and education. lauren said at lunch, "i feel like we all grew up together." we all worked together in 2006ish when we were all in between BA's and the next step of life. so now many of them have their master's degrees and a couple of them have fiances. i dont have either. but hey................i have organic chicken drumsticks defrosting in my fridge and thats more than most of the world has.
so another week will start tomorrow. another week will be done with after seven days and that is another week closer to my BF visiting and another week closer to being done with the semester and onto a new one. i dont really like how i am so "destination oriented" right now. i really should be more in the moment. i'll try, i promise. my first twelve hour shift at the hospital is gonna go down on wednesday so i gotta pack snacks galore. too bad i dont have money galore to go and buy snacks galore. but then again, there is the organic chicken....

commentary

somehow the "christian worldview" has caused a huge deal of disaster and pain throughout history. and now i am asked to write papers and respond to questions from a "christian worldview." asking me how i utilized my "christian worldview" in nursing care. well that's what i get for going to a "christian" school. ummm, how did i utilize a "christian worldview?" how bout draw my blood and verify that i am a survivor of christian worldviews. all of my peoples died at the hands of "christians." go for it,  draw my blood.

pep

i am lucky and blessed. my heart is full. i have a crush on my boyfriend. now time to get in bed by myself and watch an old blackandwhite movie. my excitement about nursing school is MIA at the moment. stuff will work out for me. it will it will it will!

his mama

Today i went to the little local library to work on my paper. going to the public library in the middle of the day on a thursday is excellent for people watching/observing. lots of retired people reading the paper, checking out books, just hanging out. and then there's other students such as myself trying to make something of this life and of this human body. its a great hodgepodge. I sat down next to an older man who was falling asleep and waking himself back up while watching war movies on his portable DVD player with his headphones on. I guess you could call this man "disheveled" and one may draw conclusions that he is/was an alcoholic and maybe short of adequate resources in this life. His hair was matted, his face weathered, his tennis shoes muddy, his fingernails dirty, and his belly big. i wondered if this was an activity he does often; going to the library to watch movies on his DVD player. an activity to fight the loneliness. i imagined what kind of girls broke his heart and who's heart he had broken. i pictured any of those ladies who loved him so seeing him today, with his old dirty clothes and big scraggly beard and i wonder if they'd still think he was attractive and lovable. i also thought about how people will probably judge him by his dilapidated looks. he looked like an old falling apart house in a bad neighborhood. im sure he had a mother who loved him and thought him to be precious and wonderful. at one point he was young and full of dreams and couldn't even fathom a "portable DVD player." or maybe not. maybe his mom wasnt so nice and loving. maybe he's a great inventor who had the idea for a portable dvd player many winters ago. maybe.
all this thinking going when i should have been writing my paper.

true to trudell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbjzujo1Qx8

what was

i used to be a blob of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). like clinically. i really was a ptsd blob. no no, "ptsd blob" wasnt my diagnosis. i think it was probably something like "panic disorder with agoraphobia" and a good touch of ptsd. nasty shit. thank god im past that part of my life. growing up in a neighborhood where little girls are victims of drive by shootings and your street goes on lockdown by a SWAT team one christmas nite in the early nineties can do a number on the psyche. i remember pulling the covers over my head in the heat of summer, thinking and hoping that the blankets would serve as a shield from any stray bullets. and then there's the creepy people who seemed to come into my life and fuck with me. age 4 and then age 17. not great moments in life. but now the great moments are endless, so whats there to complain or mope about?????

really hot tea

so i absolutely love psychiatric nursing. so far. friday is the day of my mental health nursing rotation and it is a pleasure for me. others may feel intimidated or uncomfortable around those who are in the mentally ill category but i find great ease in approaching those who have a wound on their psyches. i think its because i  realize we're all just one beat away from "crazy." at least i know i am...sometimes. and in the past, im sure i was "crazy." psych nursing warms my heart and breaks it at the same time. true love.  it breaks my heart that it seems a good number of these patients in this particular psych hospital are just being warehoused, medicated, and then discharged. insurance doesnt pay for individual therapy for each of them, so their personal issues and hurts are not always explored and identified while hospitalized. its a load of crap i tell you.

yesterday's jabber

It’s a billie holiday kind of morning. Overcast, Sunday, just me. Thoughts, too many thoughts. Thoughts are not real. That’s a problem. We believe our thoughts make up our realities. And I disagree with that. My cup of green tea is real. My messy hair is real. Billie holiday’s voice in my CD player (I don’t do ipods) is real. Tiger still sleeping is real. Let’s keep it logical and rational, folks. Keep the illogical and irrational to the emotions. Whats real is that I woke up feeling quite lonely. Yes, living alone has its downs. The ups are many. The downs are few. But when they hit, it’s a good slug to the stomach. 

she's a gemini

so i'll be thirty this year. kinda excited and ready to bring on a new decade. the twenties were kinda.....painful. but almost a soothing kind of pain. seriously. like....the pain and inner turmoil became like big cozy couches. haaaa, i wonder if that has to do with the many therapist couches i sat on during my twenties!!! whoooohhoooo!  my brother got pretty drunk at my twentieth birthday and made a speech before i blew my candles out. he was saying something about how i was now committing myself to a new decade of life. and boy did i commit myself. commitment's easy for me. i can do it with my eyes closed and then BAM, suddenly ten years have passed. i think i probably moved at least 15 times during my twenties. many many addresses, roommates, neighbors, parking situations, rental agreements, landlords, boys and gentlemen, sketchy neighborhoods, foggy sunsets, houses without heat, homes with heart, thousands of dollars in rent money.....
but this is not what i was planning on writing about when i opened up my mac right now.
how about my tiredness that has trumped my motivation at this point.
how about how i love my life.
how about how i have tendonitis in my right forearm and typing hurts.
how bout that?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhega1bctNk

"i had to lose myself"

at times, i truly wonder if my great grandparents look at me lovingly from the other side and think im absolutely crazy for putting myself through all this schooling. i do wonder.

rx for compassion

im into this kind of stuff.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4L7FAEAdZE

today: organic breakfast, shower, video chatting, yoga, lunch, hike, farmer's market, studying. and more studying to come. abundance. gratefulness. whining. fatigue. weirdness. always. me. you.
tomorrow: grind. learn. love.

full moon

feeling lunar. learned today that some surgeons will not operate if its a full moon because patients tend to bleed more. thats how powerful the moon is. it affects our insides. it literally pulls at us. respect that beautiful sphere in the sky.
ughhh i was supposed to go to a full moon ceremony tonite at one of my favorite people's house but alas, school has spoken. i have to re-take a test tomorrow and i gotta gotta pass it. serio homes. this particular test requires math and you know how i feel about math. and if you dont know of the volatile history i have with arithmetic, well consider yourself informed! so no, im not going to pray to the mama luna tonite. im gonna practice IV calculations. all good. school is worth it. it has to be.
so yeah, tomorrow i have clinical (meaning i work a 6 hr shift at the hospital) then im off in the afternoon and thursday is my day off. not bad. not bad at all.
in case you were wondering, ive been sleeping very well. havent had insomnia in months actually. problem is, im so cozy and involved in my slumber that its hard to pull myself out of it. just one more dream, just one more please.
and i have one thousand full moons beating in my heart for a certain someone. and thats just how it is. thank goodness.

i want to be surrounded by this

i dont think i'd ever feel disgruntled again.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4dMnAPZu70

throwing my arms up

anyhow, its my first day off of this second semester of grad school. started it off with a humble breakfast, shower, cosby show episode, and bit of internetting. gotta take tiger and his bff on a little nature walk so they can get their jiggle wiggles out and i can sip in some aroma of damp dirt.  yoga, giving tiger a bath (he's long overdue), studying, dinner with angela also fall onto my agenda.
a couple of mornings ago, my bedroom was filled with a fantastic pink light. it was the sunrise. but i also believe it was my grandma. it was too beautiful to be ordinary. she is now part of the great mystery above and all around us. thanks for the pink sunrise embrace grandma.
well, suddenly i became popular again and there are many social engagements that i am tempted to engage in this coming weekend, but we shall see how efficient i am with time. because you know....i gotta pound my head against my textbooks to make sure i understand and can articulate certain nursing concepts. and actually all i really wanna do is go and get my tattoo worked on this weekend.  i was telling gabriel last nite that i just wanna finish school so i can get a good job, travel good, eat good, and sleep good. that may sound ungrounded and selfish......but shit........
okay, i should drink some water and jet. whatta  lame word, "jet."

clear skies

there's a few things i really dont like about nursing school. obviously, i dont like instructors who design their classes to make you feel incompetent. please......im a grown woman (most of the time) who got herself a college degree and busted her butt to get her nursing pre-recs done-im not dumb. dont try to fuck with me and scare me with your unorganized, poorly thought out tests. if i wanted to feel dumb and belittled, i wouldve gone to med school.
and here's a special "hello" to my girl, nancy. she reads these words. i type the words. and i am happy for the use of my hands and for the technology of a computer. without writing this stuff down, it would get pretty cramped.

for real though?

ugghhhhhh, they werent kidding when they described my grad program as "accelerated, rigorous, and intense." first day of the semester and we're handed an 85 question pop quiz for a class that hasnt even started yet!!!! ayyyyyy, so long to the lounging evenings of tiger walking, dvd watching, leisure reading....
hello cramming, theorizing, cussing, pacing, reading, lack of sleeping. it's all good. i had to give myself several internal pep talks today, reminding myself of my true fortune and privilege to be a student in this "prestigious" nursing school. i love school. i really do. i dont love homework so much. i like my time to be my time. but alas......when you're a lowly student and you want the school to give you a degree so you can go out and pursue a legit career, your ass better obey! obey, i will.
being around the chatter and blabber of nervous nursing students has helped me tap into the zen within me. for reals though. cant engage in the frantic energy of nervous classmates. because gawd knows, i can be a nervous wreck if i give myself the permission to be. after years of nervous wreck detox, i gotta hold onto what little zen i may have cultivated.
and i want to sleep. and i want to hear drums. and smell fireplaces. and cuddle with my man. and eat gelato. and talk shit.
and i miss my grandma.
i have one grandma left. gotta see her soon.
love you.

what i read at the funeral

A Grandma’s love is priceless

Solid like fruit trees

Tender and sweet like apricot cobbler.

“Come on young’ins,” she calls to us in that warm New Orleans drawl, waiting to hold our hands with hers

Hands that raised eight children, cooked up adobo dreams, and handed a piece of her feisty mind to whomever bothered.

A Grandma’s love is priceless

Blunt like Mardi Gras

Consistent and graceful like a Catholic mass

Humble like Thanksgiving bellies full of pancit and southern humor.

A Grandma’s love is priceless

Thick like East Los Angeles history and insistent like Mama Frances’s vigilance on justice

Intentional and unapologetic like Crisostomo Christmas feasts on Muscatel Avenue

A Grandma’s love is fun like a New Orleans brass band, rainy day movies, off color jokes, and junk food parties

Festive and direct like black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day

A Grandma’s love is the soft and profound stare of her last days,

The lingering heaven-sent embrace.

Our Grandma’s love is priceless.