what its like to be in the crap

I was walking down the hallway the other night, and the crazy patients........ (psychiatric).......  were yelling out crazy things from their rooms.

(* and by crazy, I mean literally crazy.  Psychotic.  Seeing things.  Hearing things...... thinking you're the FBI............. or the devil). 

And I was carrying the last adult diaper in the hospital towards my patients room.  As I got closer to the smell, I thought to myself wishfully, "I'd rather be writing a blog about the blues".  And so, here it is.

The Blues is like hospital work in that it's all about what it's like to be in the crap.   
At risk of sounding too "smart-ass", (like one of those Star Trek dudes that wear the costumes and speak Klingon) I've been studying Blues music recently and I discovered that the Blues is played on a positive (major) scale with an occasional stretched (minor) note (referred to as a blue note).  I think it's ironic that the technical aspects of the music tell the story of a relatively sunny life (major scale) being corrupted by the occasional stormy monday of a blue note, because that's real life.

POINT:  generally, Life is good, but sometimes it sucks.         

I've never listened to blues music until just a few years ago.  That said, I'm a white dude that grew up in the redneck suburbs of Houston Texas, listening to Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd.  I Played in a couple of "hair bands" (karma?) in the eighties (See pic of me now, above "about me" segment on the right of the screen).  And as a child my mother played me the classics like Elvis, Chuck Berry, and Bo Diddley.  But, I think if you were to hunt the roots of all that music, you would eventually find the blues.   And the thing about the blues is that it's relatable.  Somewhere, sometime there were more innocent days, and then somewhere something happened and everything broke loose.  (sound familiar?).      

So here I am now, walking towards a funky room, carrying the very last disposable thing separating me and all the crap.  And all the way down the hall I'm listening to the crazies yelling at me.  And suddenly I find myself wondering where all this crap came from, and how it all got started.  And of course I wanna know if anyone has ordered the freakin diapers yet, and I'd like to know if anybody knows when the CRAP they're coming in?!!  

Stats

How vain is this? I just started this blog and I can't stop checking the stats to see if anyone else is reading this besides me. As it turns out, the jury's still out on how this blog is doing over here. But apparently I'm very big in Belgium.

The 7 Tower Blues

Sitting on my bed with my oldest son (9 years old).  He's laying beside me, drawing pictures of Star Wars "armor, and weapons".  He has no idea the kind of things that happen in this world.

I'm very thankful to have a community of people to do life with.  It comes in handy in times like these.  Working as an oncology (cancer) nurse we have to live with a lot of sad endings.  Just found out about a young girl who we've been caring for, giving Chemo, etc.  She coded yesterday and did not survive.  The things I remember most from taking care of her were the marine like stubble left on her head after she had shaved it from Chemo.  I remember her kids coming to visit.  Small children.  4 or 5 years old.  They will one day have a difficult time remembering her.  I remember being happy along with her when she found out she was in remission.  I remember the day she found her cancer was back.

I don't want my son to grow up and know the worst of what this world is like.  I want him to stay here in this moment sitting next to me drawing pictures of Star Wars stuff.  I want to live in this moment with him, this time right before bed, forever.  But one day he'll figure it out.  One day, on some level, he'll experience something of it himself.  My prayer for him is that he has a community of people to go through it with someday.  Because, as a friend reminded me recently, you can't do this life alone.  Community, I think, is how God lives in this world.  I think we see something of the light and love of God through each other.  Community is spiritual.