An Ode to Nipples

Coming soon...

You arrived again last night.

You arrived again last night.

Void of emotion, void to feel,
You appeared before me with no appeal.

I asked you how it was, Life after life.
One glance, one crease of the mouth, elevated, neither sullen nor trite.

How much longer must you speak and hasten to me?
The hue of your golden mirage again engulfed my sea.

I despised your pain! I detested your condition!
You were stuck, contained, concealed! A heart imprisoned with inhibition.

And I begged for your mercy, pleaded for your freedom!
For the captor's injustice foretells the iron oven.

And I was useless, stone cold with mere eyes to see.
To watch you suffer, like a small pup chained from his mother-- I resented the will to be.

"If there is no peace for you, there can be no peace for me."

And I laid my head down slowly, tenderly into my bed.
Without bombs exploding or muscles atrophying or ruptures to my head.

Bien Venidos 2012!!!

It's been awhile for ole Betty to enter the big girl blog realms again.

And so, news of my adventure has taken another direction. I am leaving beloved West Virginia for the state of Tennessee. To the city of Nashville to be exact. To the institution of Vanderbilt, precisely. I'll be back in school and in the SICU. Oh dear Dolly!!! This is exciting, yet clearly sad. My heart made it's home here for a while and when you love something or someone in a way that has changed you, you never stop loving. It's impossible to try. It's there. It's invested. It's a gift given freely and willingly. You can only say goodbye and bid it good tidings for the future.

I've had an irreplaceable 1.5 years here in West Virginia with people with more character than I have ever met in my life. With towns with 80% of the population below the poverty line, I have seen The Great Ache rage through hearts and lives in a place where people forget that their value supercedes the coal, supercedes the land, that truly, they are the hidden treasure of this place. They are rooted and fortified in Appalachian roots. Ain't nobody gonna taint that shit!

Through my weenie roast and hollar expeditions, my late night square dancing, meals shared with strangers, sick patients who unexpectedly passed, and moments with my precious geris, I have learned a bit about the pilgrimage of us...the journey of our own human nature...and a bit about me. Here are some thoughts:

-We all deeply, deeply want to hope in something or someone. We want to hope that our lives will work out, that the world will work for our children, that we will have played the game right and not failed to a measurable degree. We want to hope that in the end, we won't be alone. That somehow, we have been INTIMATELY connected to someone or something. That be a person, God, or an overwhelming feeling of understanding will convey that we're alright, we've made it, and grace has prevailed. Somehow, someway, grace has won.

-Our deepest cry is for compassion, understanding and respect. We forget that though we're different, we're so much the same. To listen to the human heart, and WANT to listen to all it's follies and beauties. TO be honest about our insecurities, our mistakes and issues, and being ACCEPTED and loved by something...this reminds us of the possibility of being redeemed. YOU ARE WORTHY OF ADORATION.

-We absolutely wail over in hunger for an engagement with life. This means everything: with people of all ages, with nature, with arts and crafts, agriculture, laughter and silliness, with community, with serving others and giving of our time. We want so badly to engage, but often get paralyzed with self-interest and fear. Most times we are our worst enemy, but we can learn together how to fight that innate tendency, so we can let life further birth life IN us.

-NEVER STOP EXPLORING. We must share our wacky discoveries and opinions. Embrace the youness of you. Boring is safe. I say we grow a pair and dive in!!!! And Let Captain Vulnerability take you where it needs to go.

I will miss you big honkin state of WV-- you've made me a hell of a Betty Coughlin-- and even though the path doesn't produce the change, it puts us right there where the change can occur-- to grow, to change, to see, to become fully who were we made to be.

You are what you love, not what loves you. That's what I decided a long time ago. --Donald Kaufman

Also, 2014, I'll be back. Patch Adams' hospital will be finished in Pocohantas County... possibly the first real hospital since Florence Nightingale. I'll be there, guaranteed.

This is why. This, is why

Thanksgiving prayer: Thank you God for this world and your love. Thank you for this life and the ability to dream and love and laugh and cry. Thank you for the Sun and stars. Thank you for every person who has come before me and will come after me. Thank you for music and art. Help me to continue to listen for your guidance. Thank you for your animals, trees and water. For the food we eat, the clothes on our backs and the roofs over our heads. For community. Thank you for the Mystery within the Mystery. The light within the light. The darkness within the darkness. May we remain in awe and wonder, in your balance and presence forever and ever. In peace and gratitude.
Amen.
Mason.

To Ms. Leons.

There you are again.
Sinking sulkily in your bed with the basin tray next to your brows.
The blinds are raised, and the dusty, stained heater chirps forth it's air.
The paint-chipped walls, the blown out bulbs, the ole 1960's finest toilet bowl.
They await in standstill, those that inoculated me with grace over and over and over again.

The room presented it's finest findings! You got the crown! as it's prize treasure.
I could have sworn you were Sophie, but in person and non-wagging form.
With the widening of your eyes I was greeted with the sign. Yes, I saw the sign.

The sign. That weird, inexpressibly esoteric sign. Familiarly esoteric, though.

And I had not forgotten you, nor your smelly vomit.

And to be socially adept and polite, I anticipated my mindful inquiries with "How have you been? How are you feeling? What's been going on in your life lately?"
But I don't want to ask those questions. I don't want to talk. I don't even like talking, really.

I wanted to tell you that I've watched you Monday and Tuesday, and then Wednesday through Friday. Every time I came into the room, you've tried to raise your neck up a little farther to see more past my big head. Your bodily function odor held it's own up in this joint. Even so, your flatulence became my normal background music and secretly, I jammed to the beat.

And you lie there. And lie there. There. There. There in that bed. And you tell me how you've been married four times, how your daughter is gay and now in your life, you think. Day in and day out. Lying there. Thinking.

And you try to nutshell yourself to me. Signifying marriage, fetus' sexuality, and your current practices. But I didn't come for the nutshell, I came for the nut. I like you, the nut.

And I fill your cup full of pills and you smile, indicating, "Wow, I'm excited you're young and have life to live and I know you." That's what you tell me, all the time.

And now I do want to talk. I do want to ask you some questions. How do you do it? How do you take me as a big bally munch of gooeyness, thrown into the swirly lands of depravity and redemption, insanity and complete lucidness meeting up for lunch, and onward to a land where I feel a wound healed without any skin? I beg of you, why?

And so, as the swanky heater cranked itself through the wall, so too the heavens raged on chanting, knowing that their light could no longer be concealed.

The Buck of the buck.

Last night I had a dream I was "buck" at Buckhorn. And. it. was. awesome. I dreamed I was running with Hank and Frieda past the kitchen, past the sun-drying laundry being blown by the wind and into the meadow. I ran through the wild-flowered meadow and past the confluence and headed up to the ridge. By this time my dream became even better because I dreamed that the dogs weren't with me anymore but that I was now a dog running up on the ridge. (Yea, of course I was a mutt/lab mix...goes without question people). I got up to the ridge just in time before the sun was setting and I laid down in the grass. Then in my dream I started having a dream while I was a dog. I heard a British woman's voice that sang me a song, or a poem of sorts. Her voice began out way too high-pitched and opera-like, which made me want to strangle my dog ears. But then softly and gently I heard her singing words all too familiar. It was a poem I had written there quite a time ago. I had been obsessing over Emily Dickinson's style-meter and her proper and beautifully ornate English words. Her style made me tingle inside, mmmm mmmm. Her words were full of poignancy and like beloved Flannery's stories, I never knew what would come of it in the end.

Oh beautiful blades of grass
How you sway to and fro,
And to sways you
You seldom hither to know

But yet your graceful movement
Does much to catch the eye
And if you did so alone,
I'm afraid I would rather pass on by

And alas as a chorus of dancers--
As waves of elegance collide
So do I, join you, in this perpetuating
mystery, well disclosed, well disguised.


And then I woke up. It was so nice to revisit Buckhorn. It was so nice to hear me try to be like Emily Dickinson. And it is always nice to receive that little nugget of peace that God whips out onto ya. Just because it was a dream was it not real? Things outside of this world happen to us all the time. And they are completely and perfectly real and unreal all at the same time.

Wanting Change So Badly, Quality Road Humps on How to Get There.

Change. BIG word, many meanings. And if anything transparently obvious has occurred since the last election in 2008, the people have utilized the constitutional right to speech. I do get this edge of tingly excitement inside me when i think of my generation implementing it's own genre of "populist movements." Major pump fist, America. And by this I'm not just referring to the Occupy Wall Street movement, but also the Tea Party movement that initiated itself in early 2009. Also, the hundreds of thousands of protesters who made their voice known against policy changes of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin, who cut thousands of public government workers' pensions and benefits as a means for appropriate state growth.

When you stop and look at so much of the kind of activism that has been triggered, the Tea Party and the like, as a result of Obama's efforts - TARP, the stimulus package, and now the health care reform - there is a lot of sense this government is changing.

And if we even look more globally, we see the beginnings of the Egyptian democratic movement unfolding, leading continued democratic trends in the Libyan ruling class against Gaddafi and now into Saudi Arabia. And interestingly so, how articles published by the very wealthy ruling families of these countries confirm the need for meaningful and significant social and political changes in Arab nations.

Well I'll be damned. "Change" becomes the number one trendy word of the era. And fun to spice up, occasionally, like, "No, no, we want EPIC change!" or "REAL change is happening."

To me, this appears absolutely mind-blowing. It's fascinating, truly. And I think we can all relate significantly to this feeling-- partisan feelings aside. When we feel wronged, we respond. Some of that takes action differently... some people feel it strongly and adamantly enough that emotions shoot through the roof and they act in the first way that makes sense and can commonly make their subjective proclamation reflect adequately.

And I always laugh when I am with my ladies, we're looking pretty spiced up walking down the street, and men honk or yell out the windows at our raging, unbelievable hotness. And I always laugh and ask, "Why in the world do they do that?" And sometimes when I ask guys why they do that, they don't know. They just do it because they feel like doing it to get our attention. I keep telling my friends I can't wait for one day when some hawt stud does that to me and I take off after him in his vehicle and say, "You sure did capture my heart with that sexy, sexy honk." It could happen.

Strange. But it doesn't hit far from home, right? Something moves us and we respond. Protesting has become a key element of our response, and we have seen it hit all over the place.

I think deep down, we are disappointed. Deeply, deeply disappointed in a system that albeit known to us, has failed. Failed us in our dreams. Failed us in our hopes. Failed us in attempting to be human together as a nation. And even though I make fun of the word change, I really think it's a word to translate our deepest urges to try another way, to repent, to let go our greed and consumerism and remember what makes us who we are at the deepest level. We're the United States of America, significantly founded on premises so extreme-- that our roots we're to supposedly propel us towards greatness.

And I am in favor of change-- to our economical policies and our relinquishment of lobbying bureaucracies to determine what our country cares about. We want to remind others, as well as ourselves, what we care about. And by looking at "them," I am also look at me. Little ole betty. I want to act against the injustices that corrupt, the daily inequalities that forgo human rights and ignite despair in the lives of the helpless and powerless, and I yearn to give to aid the well-being of us, together.

I have to admit--- my life is pretty chaotic. I used to be super disciplined and super all-knowing (duh) but then life kept bitch slapping me all the time that my brain would fill with lots of thoughts all the time (and sometimes really awesome magical thoughts) and presumably making the realization that I didn't know anything (such a shame). It would be so much better if I was married and had 2 and half kids and lived somewhere mightily awesome with a really fat chunky dog because then I could attribute my chaos to that. But I'm not married. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A DOG. Just a killer great stuffed elephant named Hermie (who comes alive at night). Sometimes I need a vacation from myself. But I'm with myself day by day, and sometimes--even for just moments--I can set aside my chaotic brain and act in small ways towards the just and goodness of our people and land.

So, what I am getting at is that practical action initiated into our day-to-day awesome lives is where the most effective, and potentially feasibly, collective change can occur. And by God, we can do this.

BUT HOW?

Here are my ideas:

1. Curb that appetite, homegirl. The fact of the matter is not that we will not consume as American people, but on WHAT will we consume. Will we buy those jeans that are made by cute children laboring from poor working environments while we rage in super trendiness in American style? Which matters? And honestly, when we take the time to care about our choices and the rippling effect of our choices, it takes effort. SERIOUS effort. And that is when we decide between what we care about and laziness/comfort. Most of the time we buy to boost our self-esteem and remake some sort of value to our "value." Look good, dangit, but do some good while lookin it. And the whole "localvore" is not for raging liberal hippies. It's caring about the community around you and supporting them through intentional economic endeavors. (Though I do admit that the raging liberal hippies have stunned me with some awesome ideas before)

2."I'm a lover, not a fighter," once said Michael Jackson. And I'm pretty sure that today the saying to lead the way of change would be, "I'm a giver, not a taker." And that essence, truly I think we know we are alive when we give, and especially to those who are in legitimate need. Though I'm a Pinterest junkie and junk junkie connoisseur, I truly don't want to live a narrow-minded life that forgets my neighbor and hesitates to see past my own interests. You are your brother's keeper, and that is s gift beyond compare. Who are the marginalized in your community-- who are just as hungry for love and acceptance and care as you are?

3. Discipline in the Financial Realm. It speaks for itself. And I am not saying much because me and Dave Ramsey need to spend a little more time together.

4. Make it, bake it, CREATE it! Surely most of us feel stifled in our creative process a lot of the time, but you can be renewed in that by returning make to the basics. Again, this take effort. I am attempting to learn how to knit (I have fat fingers so it's been a process) and also learning how to relish certain ingredients to whip up a convenient and healthy meal anytime. I first encourage you to hit up trying to grow your own food! There is such a beautiful thing about eating things in which you've witnessed the process of it's growth (This is not a statement to encourage you to eat your cat). Use your farmer's markets-- farmers really are the coolest people I know. Not a lie. Go to junkyards, check it at goodwill, find treasures that are considered "junk." All matter of perspective, people.

5. Broaden your civic engagement. Find volunteer opportunities that vary in accordance with groups of people where you can learn how things are run and voice inequalities that may exist in different lines of policy. We think we know, but really we don't know much because we don't get involved with those that make decisions and are geared toward tomorrow's future. Read your local history. Let's learn where we've been to see where we can go.

6. Brainstorm continuous ideas for change right where you are.

7. Live simply in content. Get over yourself and your expectations. Today is the best thing that's ever happened to you.

I think our influence on how we incorporate change is more contagious than we realize. I suck at these things a lot-- knowing the small yet heavy power they have in the small movement of things is incredible and sometimes overwhelming. But when we sow into the things of true life and goodness, we will surely bring a change in ourselves, and the mighty change in us as a people.

“When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.” ― Paul Hawken