Dawn awakes to
the robin's carol and
the coo of a dove.
They coax buds of
elderberry and maple to swell -
a signal for scales to fall away.
A springtime promise
of new life.
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Friday, March 22, 2013
Trip Planning - With the Weather Channel
Yet another storm is making its way across the midsection of the country. I've lost track of how many times this winter that people's lives have been disrupted in major ways by weather.
I don't know how people emotionally respond to weather conditions in other parts of the world. But its effects are felt in sometimes significant ways in this temperate zone of North America. Here in the Upper Midwestern city in which I live, hospital beds are overflowing with depressed people.
When I was seeing clients, I learned there was a predictable pattern. In January, which seemed to last at least six weeks, people were too busy coping with shoveling snow, keeping their cars running, and scraping ice off of windshields to call a therapist. By February, people figured that whatever was bothering them would go away when snow began melting - a lot of "hanging on to the edge" by their fingernails. But by March, they were desperate.My phone would ring of the hook, creating a spike in the number of clients I saw.
Years ago, mortician shared with my husband that more people died in April than at any other time -counter-intuitive to thinking that post-holiday times would see an increase in deaths. What the mortician figured is that people hung on to life through winter. When April came, they "let-go" and poof, their bodies did too. So don't breathe too big a sigh of relief when snow-melt runs down the streets. It could be fatal!
When our children entered college, we were no longer bound by school schedules. We discovered that a couple of weeks in warmer places made the lengthy winter more enjoyable. No longer did we experience weather-impatience - and we avoided the "March blues," sometimes known as cabin fever.
We recently returned from a trip to the Southwest - a trip we hoped would give us respite from this particularly long winter. Instead, heavy use of the Weather Channel (and our dandy new iPhone was a second tool - how tech-savvy we are becoming!) became our major route planner, in order to avoid this winter's series of monster storms.
It was not the vacation we had dreamed of for months! Although we planned well and missed the worst of the action, winter weather played a major part in our time away. Ana adventures we did have!
When we left, Storm Saturn was due to hit that evening. We drove late into the night to to be out of its path. Now I will say - looking for a motel in the dark in unfamiliar territory is not too cool. From the freeway, we saw a sign for an AmericanMotel, thinking it meant AmericInn. Wrong - we spent the night in a $50 a night place modeled on those storage bins. It was clean with an old-fashioned TV- but definitely not the more luxurious quarters we wanted. The fun had begun!
Still tracking the weather, we spent the next day marveling at the migrating sandhill cranes in mid-Nebraska, one of the seven wonders of the natural world. But the next night, the Weather Channel missed predicting snow coming earlier into Denver during the evening rush hour (as did my nifty iPhone). We slid around iced roads with other folks in the dark - again searching for a motel. Dang - gotta do better than this. Southern Arizona here we come!
Overcast skies, rain, sleet, snow, and temps in the lower 50's in Tucson - are we in the right state? Not exactly the weather we had dreamed of for months. But at least no snow on the ground.
When it came time to head home, I plotted out the storms - thank you, Weather Channel. More snow predicted for the Midwest. - but I could work with that. However, we got caught in snow on the Coronado Trail in eastern Arizona, a magnificent 90 mile stretch of road up and over the mountains, a white-knuckle drive through an incedible fairyland of vistas and trees heaped with snow. The next morning, my big guy scraped a good three inches of snow off our car (yes we are still in Arizona). Moving on, we went to the Petrified Forest National Park, where wind was blowing so hard, we could barely stand up. So much for hiking.
In eastern Colorado there was more snow to scrape off the car. But we had missed another big storm - two days before, the motel had been packed with stranded travelers - zero visibility and blizzard conditions. I was getting good at storm-avoidance!
In western Iowa, we followed a monster storm by a couple of days - but the evidence was chilling (pun, pun). They were still hauling out semi trucks that had left the freeway, sometimes tipped on their sides. There were abandoned cars - and many skid marks where cars had left the road. Just like the video clips I'd watched on TV during January and February.
Our experience was nothing like the suffering these storms brought to Chicago and across to the East Coast, where some people are still without adequate housing after Hurricane Sandy. But awareness of extreme weather remains on our minds.
Why aren't more people paying attention? Is it too late to reverse what humans have wrought upon our earth? Are folks right, who say that we should just learn to adapt to these changes?
We are smart people - writing off extreme weather as inevitable does not seem very smart. I want my grandchildren and their children to have a place to live. What will it take to let go of our fatalism and passivity - and begin addressing these very real problems created by climate change?
I don't know how people emotionally respond to weather conditions in other parts of the world. But its effects are felt in sometimes significant ways in this temperate zone of North America. Here in the Upper Midwestern city in which I live, hospital beds are overflowing with depressed people.
When I was seeing clients, I learned there was a predictable pattern. In January, which seemed to last at least six weeks, people were too busy coping with shoveling snow, keeping their cars running, and scraping ice off of windshields to call a therapist. By February, people figured that whatever was bothering them would go away when snow began melting - a lot of "hanging on to the edge" by their fingernails. But by March, they were desperate.My phone would ring of the hook, creating a spike in the number of clients I saw.
Years ago, mortician shared with my husband that more people died in April than at any other time -counter-intuitive to thinking that post-holiday times would see an increase in deaths. What the mortician figured is that people hung on to life through winter. When April came, they "let-go" and poof, their bodies did too. So don't breathe too big a sigh of relief when snow-melt runs down the streets. It could be fatal!
When our children entered college, we were no longer bound by school schedules. We discovered that a couple of weeks in warmer places made the lengthy winter more enjoyable. No longer did we experience weather-impatience - and we avoided the "March blues," sometimes known as cabin fever.
We recently returned from a trip to the Southwest - a trip we hoped would give us respite from this particularly long winter. Instead, heavy use of the Weather Channel (and our dandy new iPhone was a second tool - how tech-savvy we are becoming!) became our major route planner, in order to avoid this winter's series of monster storms.
It was not the vacation we had dreamed of for months! Although we planned well and missed the worst of the action, winter weather played a major part in our time away. Ana adventures we did have!
When we left, Storm Saturn was due to hit that evening. We drove late into the night to to be out of its path. Now I will say - looking for a motel in the dark in unfamiliar territory is not too cool. From the freeway, we saw a sign for an AmericanMotel, thinking it meant AmericInn. Wrong - we spent the night in a $50 a night place modeled on those storage bins. It was clean with an old-fashioned TV- but definitely not the more luxurious quarters we wanted. The fun had begun!
Still tracking the weather, we spent the next day marveling at the migrating sandhill cranes in mid-Nebraska, one of the seven wonders of the natural world. But the next night, the Weather Channel missed predicting snow coming earlier into Denver during the evening rush hour (as did my nifty iPhone). We slid around iced roads with other folks in the dark - again searching for a motel. Dang - gotta do better than this. Southern Arizona here we come!
Overcast skies, rain, sleet, snow, and temps in the lower 50's in Tucson - are we in the right state? Not exactly the weather we had dreamed of for months. But at least no snow on the ground.
When it came time to head home, I plotted out the storms - thank you, Weather Channel. More snow predicted for the Midwest. - but I could work with that. However, we got caught in snow on the Coronado Trail in eastern Arizona, a magnificent 90 mile stretch of road up and over the mountains, a white-knuckle drive through an incedible fairyland of vistas and trees heaped with snow. The next morning, my big guy scraped a good three inches of snow off our car (yes we are still in Arizona). Moving on, we went to the Petrified Forest National Park, where wind was blowing so hard, we could barely stand up. So much for hiking.
In eastern Colorado there was more snow to scrape off the car. But we had missed another big storm - two days before, the motel had been packed with stranded travelers - zero visibility and blizzard conditions. I was getting good at storm-avoidance!
In western Iowa, we followed a monster storm by a couple of days - but the evidence was chilling (pun, pun). They were still hauling out semi trucks that had left the freeway, sometimes tipped on their sides. There were abandoned cars - and many skid marks where cars had left the road. Just like the video clips I'd watched on TV during January and February.
Our experience was nothing like the suffering these storms brought to Chicago and across to the East Coast, where some people are still without adequate housing after Hurricane Sandy. But awareness of extreme weather remains on our minds.
Why aren't more people paying attention? Is it too late to reverse what humans have wrought upon our earth? Are folks right, who say that we should just learn to adapt to these changes?
We are smart people - writing off extreme weather as inevitable does not seem very smart. I want my grandchildren and their children to have a place to live. What will it take to let go of our fatalism and passivity - and begin addressing these very real problems created by climate change?
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
Reluctant Spring
Late March in Minnesota -
sun rises to a cloudless sky
welcome sight amidst the
snow-covered, below-freezing terrain.
A small opossum wanders a side road
disappears into the brush.
Perhaps she is seeking
a warmer place.
A fluffed-out gray squirrel pays attention
to a small damp place oozing from
the ancient Schwedler Maple.
I too, sample its sweetness.
A concert of birds overflows
backyard feeders. A distant cardinal
sings its signature spring song.
Not for the first time . . . or the last.
A persistent breeze twirls
a tassel of last year's grass.
Wind touches a
nearby wind chime.
Tomorrow,
spring will begin -
marking the birth of
our oldest daughter!
We remember that
Washington, DC spring day
with daffodils, forsythia, and
cherry trees in full bloom.
Perhaps promises of warmth
will prevail.
Written on March 20, 2013
-Clem Nagel
sun rises to a cloudless sky
welcome sight amidst the
snow-covered, below-freezing terrain.
A small opossum wanders a side road
disappears into the brush.
Perhaps she is seeking
a warmer place.
A fluffed-out gray squirrel pays attention
to a small damp place oozing from
the ancient Schwedler Maple.
I too, sample its sweetness.
A concert of birds overflows
backyard feeders. A distant cardinal
sings its signature spring song.
Not for the first time . . . or the last.
A persistent breeze twirls
a tassel of last year's grass.
Wind touches a
nearby wind chime.
Tomorrow,
spring will begin -
marking the birth of
our oldest daughter!
We remember that
Washington, DC spring day
with daffodils, forsythia, and
cherry trees in full bloom.
Perhaps promises of warmth
will prevail.
Written on March 20, 2013
-Clem Nagel
Friday, March 15, 2013
Always With Hope
Much of my life, I have been a trouble-maker . . . even now.
Always seeking to "fix things" in a world seen as being
filled with greed, hatred, intolerance, and suffering. It is
easy to allow internal bitterness and cynicism to wash over me . . .
and I am the one who suffers. I search for an anchor to help
my heart and soul be a place of peace and integrity.
Always, with hope that I can live in the present and
have compassion and allow
my suffering and anger to melt away.
Always seeking to "fix things" in a world seen as being
filled with greed, hatred, intolerance, and suffering. It is
easy to allow internal bitterness and cynicism to wash over me . . .
and I am the one who suffers. I search for an anchor to help
my heart and soul be a place of peace and integrity.
Always, with hope that I can live in the present and
have compassion and allow
my suffering and anger to melt away.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Hospital "Fraud"
I am still trying to digest Time magazine's issue ( the third week of February) devoted to the question of hospitals' profit system.
Many of us have joked about about a single Tylenol costing $5.00, when we have looked over a hospital bill. This small amount of money in the larger scheme of the care we receive is a small thing - compared to our gratitude of receiving treatment by caring health professionals.
And we have all heard stories of people driven into bankruptcy because of huge bills due to hospitalization and treatment. But those are other people with anonymous faces. We offer up our sympathies for their plight and then move on with our lives, hoping we do not get caught in the same circumstances someday.
Find a copy of this issue of Time magazine - on a newsstand or from the library. At 24,000+ words and filled with facts and data, it is slow reading. Frightening reading. It highlights not marginal hospitals somewhere but some of the big and most respected systems in our country - the places you might hope to be fortunate enough to receive treatment - if you are seriously ill.
My husband once buried a 103 year-old woman, who was healthy until the last three weeks of her life. She used to do things like call the library for a book and be told there was a long waiting list. She'd say "I'm 100 [or whatever her current age] and put me at the top of the list because I don't know how I long I have left." And they would.
We might hope to be like her - never need major medical treatment, nothing beyond a occasional cold or minor flu. But the reality is that this system "survives" based on the need for high profits - and it is likely to be a place we will need to turn at different points in our life.
Many of us have joked about about a single Tylenol costing $5.00, when we have looked over a hospital bill. This small amount of money in the larger scheme of the care we receive is a small thing - compared to our gratitude of receiving treatment by caring health professionals.
And we have all heard stories of people driven into bankruptcy because of huge bills due to hospitalization and treatment. But those are other people with anonymous faces. We offer up our sympathies for their plight and then move on with our lives, hoping we do not get caught in the same circumstances someday.
Find a copy of this issue of Time magazine - on a newsstand or from the library. At 24,000+ words and filled with facts and data, it is slow reading. Frightening reading. It highlights not marginal hospitals somewhere but some of the big and most respected systems in our country - the places you might hope to be fortunate enough to receive treatment - if you are seriously ill.
My husband once buried a 103 year-old woman, who was healthy until the last three weeks of her life. She used to do things like call the library for a book and be told there was a long waiting list. She'd say "I'm 100 [or whatever her current age] and put me at the top of the list because I don't know how I long I have left." And they would.
We might hope to be like her - never need major medical treatment, nothing beyond a occasional cold or minor flu. But the reality is that this system "survives" based on the need for high profits - and it is likely to be a place we will need to turn at different points in our life.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
Healing For our Country
Most political analysts agree on one thing - that our federal government is broken. We have become a polarized nation that has forgotten several important premises.
When someone is elected as a Senator or Representative, they run for that office as a member of one party or another. Then they come to Washington bringing their election campaign with them, forgetting that once elected they represent all of the people in their district or state. Even if their election is a landslide, there are still people at home who wanted another candidate to hold office. Since most elections are tight races, that means that up to fifty percent of the people represented lose their voices in any legislation proposed or passed.
Elected representatives make much of going home to listen to their constituents. But exactly who are they listening to - and who are they ignoring?
The second fatal flaw in our system is the lost art of negotiation and compromise. The motto becomes hold the line and don't compromise your values and vote as a party bloc. Not a workable way to function! Add the disarray in the GOP and Democratic differences - and that we have not figured out the formation of coalitions as have our Europeans neighbors to accommodate more than two political parties. No wonder substantive change does not occur.
A third factor has been formation of powerful lobbying groups who wield an enormous amount of power that drowns out voices of people like you and me. And being able to hide where that money comes from adds to that power.
How can we heal? There are so many critical issues that need to be addressed. Climate change, a broken health care system, an economy that continues to increase the wealth differential between those who have wealth and the rest of the people, and a crumbling infrastructure are just a few of the challenges that we need to address.
Sometimes it seems the only way to heal would be to totally start over - throw the bums out as is commonly said. Putting in place an entirely new Congress solves nothing. The problems run deep - and replacing the players does not re-write the play.
The best that any of us can do is to continue to try and be heard - all our differing opinions and ideas for solutions. Perhaps then we can grope our way into a healing place not dominated by blame and deliberate misinformation..
When someone is elected as a Senator or Representative, they run for that office as a member of one party or another. Then they come to Washington bringing their election campaign with them, forgetting that once elected they represent all of the people in their district or state. Even if their election is a landslide, there are still people at home who wanted another candidate to hold office. Since most elections are tight races, that means that up to fifty percent of the people represented lose their voices in any legislation proposed or passed.
Elected representatives make much of going home to listen to their constituents. But exactly who are they listening to - and who are they ignoring?
The second fatal flaw in our system is the lost art of negotiation and compromise. The motto becomes hold the line and don't compromise your values and vote as a party bloc. Not a workable way to function! Add the disarray in the GOP and Democratic differences - and that we have not figured out the formation of coalitions as have our Europeans neighbors to accommodate more than two political parties. No wonder substantive change does not occur.
A third factor has been formation of powerful lobbying groups who wield an enormous amount of power that drowns out voices of people like you and me. And being able to hide where that money comes from adds to that power.
How can we heal? There are so many critical issues that need to be addressed. Climate change, a broken health care system, an economy that continues to increase the wealth differential between those who have wealth and the rest of the people, and a crumbling infrastructure are just a few of the challenges that we need to address.
Sometimes it seems the only way to heal would be to totally start over - throw the bums out as is commonly said. Putting in place an entirely new Congress solves nothing. The problems run deep - and replacing the players does not re-write the play.
The best that any of us can do is to continue to try and be heard - all our differing opinions and ideas for solutions. Perhaps then we can grope our way into a healing place not dominated by blame and deliberate misinformation..
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Dodging Raindrops
As a young child, our neighborhood gang would get bored
as summer dragged on. We argued about the darnedest things.
Like this debate:
When a light rain shower began, we would sit under a tree.
We discussed whether we would get wetter going from
"point A to point B" if:
1. if we walk slowly, looking skyward all the time,
skillfully dodging as many raindrops as we could.
or
2. if a person would run really fast to get to "point B"
and get hit by more raindrops along the way?
We discussed and argued this intriguing question endlessly . . .
and we experimented over and over endlessly.
Just as in today's world, we discuss whether short,
intense, catastrophic wars are better in the long run . . .
than endless, drawn out ones.
as summer dragged on. We argued about the darnedest things.
Like this debate:
When a light rain shower began, we would sit under a tree.
We discussed whether we would get wetter going from
"point A to point B" if:
1. if we walk slowly, looking skyward all the time,
skillfully dodging as many raindrops as we could.
or
2. if a person would run really fast to get to "point B"
and get hit by more raindrops along the way?
We discussed and argued this intriguing question endlessly . . .
and we experimented over and over endlessly.
Just as in today's world, we discuss whether short,
intense, catastrophic wars are better in the long run . . .
than endless, drawn out ones.
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