Tag Archive | values

Stork Bite

Oct17
I’m grateful for all the right tools, for the raised beds, snow on the mountains, and the resilient red salvia that keeps on blooming for any stray hummingbirds or other pollinators in need.

When a friend cut my hair the other week, she noticed a ‘birthmark’ on the back of my neck. I couldn’t believe I could have had a birthmark for 64 years and never known about it, but I asked my primary care provider today when I went in for a Medicare intake that was mistakenly scheduled since I have to wait til I’m 65 for that particular appointment. But it was good to see her, to hear that the weird bump on my finger was a benign cyst that is pressing on the nailbed making it grow crooked, but nothing to worry about; and that the strange red splotches underneath my shorn hair are what’s known as a ‘stork bite.’ This extremely common type of birthmark, found on nearly 30% of newborns, apparently remains in around half those people into adulthood. What a relief! With all the skin cancers I’ve dealt with through the years, I’m grateful to have a simple stork bite.

A stork bite, photo from Bing Images

Stork bite! It’s a hilarious phrase and I can’t stop saying it. I’m glad I had something to laugh about, because when I went to the pharmacy after waiting an hour for a clinic appointment I didn’t really need, they once again said that Medicaid didn’t cover the new Covid vaccine. I got impatient with the tech, because after the same person told me the same thing last week I had called around, including my insurance provider, and been told it was covered; I’d called the store manager and she said there was a mistake and to come get it anytime. Well, I put my foot down this time and made them call the number on my card, but as the situation unfolded I felt like an ass for holding up the line behind me and being cranky to the helpless tech. Turns out it’s true, City Market won’t take Medicaid for the Covid shot; the store manager had double-checked flu shot coverage, not Covid.

As I waited, though, instead of fuming and getting more impatient, I called to mind that it wasn’t their fault, they work hard, I didn’t want to make anyone’s day worse, and I gradually surrendered to ‘this is how it is.’ The tech who had taken the brunt of my bad attitude had left the scene while the pharmacist was on the phone trying patiently to learn how they could give me the shot. When I heard her say, “So we need to get pre-authorization?” I called to her “If I can’t get it today I’ll just go to Safeway.” “Are you sure?” she said. “Yeah.” So she hung up and came over to apologize, and I apologized for getting cranky. But as I drove home I thought about the feelings of the other tech, who had taken a break. I put myself in her shoes: I’d have taken a break from me too. I felt awful for bringing discord into her day just because I was annoyed and inconvenienced.

Maybe she was already having a tough day. Maybe my attitude would make the rest of her shift more difficult, or maybe she’d go home and still feel bad about that interaction. The possible ripples and ramifications of my impatience plagued me, and I could really understand the truth of how we create our own suffering when our actions are out of alignment with our values. I value kindness and patience, and I had not been kind nor patient. Granted, I had not spiraled into a tizzy as I might have a few years ago before mindfulness practice, and I wasn’t stewing at her or the situation all the way home. So I’ve improved myself some. But not as much as I’d like to. Once I got home, I called the pharmacy and offered the tech a heartfelt apology, and she was grateful for it. So was I.

Adventuresome Spirit

Jul17

Me, skydiving in Delta? Who’da thunkit?

Of course I didn’t go skydiving.

I like routine. I like every day being more or less the same in its outline, with only the specifics varying: which birds do I see and hear more in the morning, which in the evening? what novel am I reading? which plants in the garden are drooping and which are losing leaves to the multitude of marauding grasshopper species? who will call today to chat? which mindfulness meeting am I attending or which meditation am I leading? what work will I do today? I live a peaceful and content life. I prefer that it doesn’t get interrupted.

But it does, sometimes, and then I’m grateful for Equanimity: Equanimity doesn’t mean that we don’t have preferences. It means that “we recognize that all our experiences, whether painful or pleasurable, offer us opportunities to grow and learn and that all our experiences are equally valuable.” Sigh. Topaz had to go to the vet in Delta today, a 45-minute drive one way. Here the high temperature was 98℉; in Delta it was 103.

I learned that from the Native American End-Days Christian man in the car next to me where I parked in the shade at Confluence Park to eat my Sonic cheddar poppers and drink my limeade in peace, while Wren enjoyed her ice water. We were spending a couple of hours waiting for Topaz to get her abscess drained at the vet. Of all days. The hottest day so far this year. He checked his in-car thermometer. But I’m not complaining. At least we’re not in a humid clime, or in southern Arizona, for example. I’m grateful I can afford vet care for my pets, and have a car with working AC to ferry them when needed.

She’s fine. It took me awhile to figure out the likely origin of the abscess, but as we drove home I remembered the knock-down drag-out fight between Topaz and Wren that I ended with a gentle kick when Wren had Topaz by the throat cornered in the sunroom. That was probably the wound that got infected, not a bite by the giant vole she was devouring on Saturday. I noticed a small-marble sized knot in her cheek yesterday morning, and am grateful that the vet could see her this afternoon.

Ronnie was a friendly guy, who said he usually plays his guitar in the park but it was too hot today; he was just getting out of the house this afternoon, sitting in his black car in the shade slowly drinking a gallon of iced tea. “Do you have God in your life?” he asked out of the blue, sort of but not quite shouting across the space between our cars as I crunched a Sonic popper. I thought about it a second. “Yes,” I said, thinking of all that I mean by God.

“That’s great!” he said. We talked through six poppers, and I listened with caring attention to his witnessing the power of the Lord in his life. It was a moving story. But then I had enough, and it was really hot, so I wished him well, blew him a kiss, rolled up the windows, and cranked the AC. I still had a couple of hours before I could pick up Topaz.

I headed back to wait in the air-conditioned waiting room of the vet, armed with limeade and Kindle. But then I took a detour. Time to spend (not kill), and the sign to Devil’s Thumb Golf Course caught my eye. I’ve lived in this valley 31 years and never been there. My old adventuresome spirit kicked in. So we turned right at the light. Gas, AC, cold beverage, time, a usually reliable vehicle, and an unknown road. Wren and I were off on an adventure!

Some interesting houses along the lane through town, and then the road left civilization and wound through the dobes, nothing in sight. I followed the few signs but missed one, and ended up at the small Delta airport, where I fantasized for half a second about skydiving. Backtracked, and took the narrow but well-maintained road toward the golf course in the desert. As is usual with unknown roads, the drive out, through barren hills with uncertain destination, felt long–I actually felt my body tense up with anxiety: what if I got a flat? what if there was no cell coverage? how far was the golf course? how far could it be? It was funny: my brain knew I could handle anything that came up, and that it couldn’t be far, and that surely people drove this way regularly; but that sense of the unknown set my body on high alert, and tension in some way separated my awareness.

Then, in the distance, there was the golf course.

The drive back to town was uneventful, and I laughed at myself the whole way.

I had vowed on the drive to the vet to stop on the way back at the Fruit Stand. I’ve also never been there in all my years here; the cows have always enticed me. I wanted more cherries. They had a few bags but not what I was looking for. I cheerfully greeted the man who finally came into the cavernous warehouse, and then hit the road for home.

So no, I didn’t skydive, but I drove far enough out of my comfort zone to practice some equanimity, to stretch my complacency, to practice bravery, calm, and loving-kindness. It was a splendid adventure! These days, an emergency trip to a distant vet on the hottest day of the year so far, a new road, and an unknown establishment, are all the adventure I need.