Love in the time of corona #4

Well, we are still here. The days drag on though I have more things to do than ever. I am now making face masks by the dozen. A friend has just sent out her 13th DOZEN masks to our local hospital. And I just got another order for 84 from a methadone clinic; that's 7 dozen. Industrious lady. I couldn't figure out how come no one at the grocery was wearing one these past few weeks until it dawned on me that they cannot be bought for any amount of money, so I started making them. Here is the link: https://www.nytimes.com/article/how-to-make-face-mask-coronavirus.html complete with instructions from the CDC. I am using all the fabric left over from making my grandkids' pajamas so we have masks with Puppy Paw Patrol fabric, lady bugs, happy dolphins, Lightning McQueen, etc. The pharmacy inside the store happily agreed to give them out. They are going like hotcakes. (What are hotcakes? Wikipedia says it is a synonym for pancakes which usually go quickly.) I have even started making masks with a large round vinyl insert for lip readers to use.

Never before have we been faced with an invisible enemy. But, hey, I am a conscientious objector, and I still have to fight? Really? The whole human race has to fight this one.

The mystery of suffering is unanswerable. We can't explain it, so instead we lament, and try not to freak out.

And now I am confronted head-on with White Privilege.  Yes, I am a JAP, a Jewish American Princess. Yes, I am white. Yes, I am educated. Yes I have African-American son-in-laws and Black grandbabies and an Asian foster daughter. And Black friends, but am I color blind? Does this make me a White Supremacist too? Is my silence in the face of injustice my sin? Lots to think about. Lots to ponder.

I was laid off from work which has become a blessing. I have had time to write and read more and after one thing led to another I sent an inquiry letter to a publisher about my latest project and actually have a nibble. So I have sent on the beginning chapters and am on pins and needles waiting for an response. I will keep you posted. I promise.

The Tattooed Lady

I am going to veer off from my usual topics here and post a very personal story that I want to share.

The Tattooed Lady

or We Are Survivors!

This year marks 50 years ago that I survived childhood sexual assault. I was 14 at the time. Two men assaulted me throughout the night, leaving me half naked in a corn field at 4 in the morning when they were done.

In my very immature 14-year-old brain, I figured I would rather kill myself than wait for them to come back and find me and carry out their threats. Of course, I had to tell the sheriff what happened. Yes, I could identify their house. Yes, I could describe them. Yes, they were caught.

In the 1960s we didn’t have victim services--at all. No one knew what to say, so no one said anything at all. After my suicide attempt my parents sent me to a state mental hospital (after not talking about what happened or its suicidal aftermath) which is where the psychiatrist said I would be safer than left to my own devices. I didn’t meet with the psychiatrist or any other health care professional during my entire sojourn there.

Where I spent two years pacing the halls and crying. But I survived. I eventually left. I finished school, worked, traveled, grew up.

My life had all the ups and downs every life has. Then mine became decidedly richer: I found the love of my life, had five amazing children, continued to travel, was awarded a fellowship to return to school after the children and received my state midwifery license in 1989. I wrote a book* and became an author, a grandma and an artist all at the same time. Life is still full and busy and, like brandy, my husband only gets sweeter with age. I am blessed and deeply grateful.

* Ma Doula: A Story Tour of Birth, North Star Press, was released on June 1^st, 2015. In 2016 Ma Doula won as a finalist in the 12-state Midwest Book awards.

Continue forward to this year, 50 years later. I’ve moved on. I tried to forget. I stuffed all of the rage and shame and fear down so deep I hardly knew it was there, but every time I looked at the white slash marks up and down my arm, I was reminded. I hated my arm. I wore long sleeved blouses all of my life. I didn’t want anyone to see my past carved out there so clearly.

Then the miraculous happened: about seven years ago I was at a doula workshop and during our lunch break, as I was wandering around, taking in all the vendors there for the day, I happened upon Victoria and her henna booth. Cool, I thought. She invited me to sit down and have a henna tattoo done. They were so beautiful and magical. When I was settled, she gently reached out to take my arm which I quickly drew back. “Not that one. It’s ugly. Do the other one,” I said. I could actually see a shift in her eyes as she carefully continued to pull my left arm onto the little table by my chair. As she took in the 12 inches of my own handiwork she said, “Then let’s make it beautiful.”

I was stunned. I couldn’t say anything. I let her paint as my mind was swimming with this new paradigm on the whole of my arm’s life. She not only completely covered the scars, but it was elegant and beautiful. 

  

After that I bought some tubes of henna and learned the art by drawing over Victoria’s patterns as they began to fade. This experience had really opened a whole world of possibilities, short sleeved shirts being one of them. It definitely stopped the horrified looks every time I went to the doctor or had my blood pressure checked.

Fast forward (back) to my 50^th anniversary this year. What appeared to be a grave error on the part of my medical practitioner turned into a miraculous teaching and healing that would direct the next ten months in particular, and then the rest of my life. This was also the year I turned 65.

The whole saga is being written as a book called Elopement Risk so I won’t go into details here other than to say that as I was being weaned off a mild anti-depressant, I was prescribed Trazadone and by the 5^th day on it, was into a full-blown psychotic episode where I was hallucinating, had stopped eating and sleeping and my mind was convinced I was on an epic religious crusade, complete with Satan stalking me from behind attempting to thwart my successes along the way. Yes, to say it was bizarre is an understatement. It was like going on my first LSD trip at 65. It took two whole weeks in a psych ward for the effects of the errant drug to leave my system and once again get a good night’s sleep.

The miracle, however, is that I had the opportunity for the first time in my life to talk about the past and all the things that had bubbled up during the last two weeks in the hospital.

Even when I went home, I was required to continue psychotherapy (having been diagnosed with PTSD) and found a wonderful woman who actually understood what I had been through. After several months with Janice I was invited to join a 10-week workshop/group therapy program called, “In the Wildflowers” with five other survivors of childhood sexual abuse. What an eye opener. I had never heard any other woman’s story. I could share mine and each time I did I remembered more and more details and was able to work through the pain. It was freeing. It was amazing. God had found a way to heal me, even at 65.

About this same time I stumbled upon a website for women who had survived mastectomies and chose instead, rather than reconstruction and breast augmentation surgery, to cover the scars with beautiful tattoos.

I was awestruck. Such brave women, and they were all around my age! What a revelation! I could permanently cover my scars with something beautiful. This idea ‘blew my mind’ as we would say back in the ’60s.

So, I got my first tattoo. I designed it and found Nora, a budding artist who has perfected the art. 

I love it. I even love my arm, after 50 years. I thank God and Janice and Victoria, and Nora and all the amazing women who have blessed me this past year. I am grateful.

Stephanie

Love in the time of Corona#3 3/30/2020 Confessions or what people tell me as a midwife

Love in the time of Corona 3/30/2020 #3
What people tell me

We are part of an elite group; people whom other people think they can unload all their secrets to. All their ailments, all their sins, all their dirty laundry. I might as well have a sticker on my forehead that reads: "Midwife." I can be on a bus or an airplane and after the usual introductory chit chat, the next thing I know my seat mate, let's call her Susan, is recounting every gory detail of her last labor. I can be at a book signing and as I ask for a name to address my signature to, I am hearing a blow-by-blow account of Judy or Leslie's last birth. I recently went to an authors' club that I belong to and a new gal, Ruth, cornered me after the meeting to describe her traumatic delivery, asking if I thought her practitioner was a fault for the debacle. The same thing happened in line at the grocery store last week, except this time I heard about the 72-hour labor this woman had endured.

Not unlike the priest in a confessional, I listen. I don't judge, I don't correct. Of course I know the first stage of labor doesn't/can't last 72 hours; pre-labor is normal. Sporadic contractions are a way the body prepares for the real thing. Called prodromal labor, it is labor that starts and stops before fully active labor begins. It's often called “false labor,” though many couples start counting the hours from the first twinge. They often start walking, thinking they can speed up the process, but then by the 2nd day of this, become completely exhausted and imagine this is all part of the birth process, when in fact they should have just rested, gone on with their regular activities and try to be patient till the real thing kicks in, which by the way, no amount of rest can stop at that point. Medical professionals recognize that the contractions are real, but they come and go and labor may not progress. True labor---the active stage of labor--begins in earnest when the contractions become regular, about 5 minutes apart and the cervix is at 4 cm or greater. 

I was at the post office recently, mailing some copies of my book, when the clerk asked what my books are about. I told her I write about being a midwife and tell true stories about the families I have worked with, from Amish home births to the refugee and homeless communities of Minnesota for the past 30 years. And--you guessed it--I get all the details of the clerk's C-section which ends with asking if I think the C-section had been truly warranted. As if I had been there. So I give her my standard C-section response: "I am sure there were compelling reasons to do it. I am just so grateful that we have these options in our country while it just isn't available in other parts of the world. Are you both doing well now?"

But now I am the authority on such things. On anything!

For the first time in my little life, I truly don't know what tomorrow will look like, or next week, or next year. I felt, for the first time in 10 days peace from this:

Pope Francis meditated on the calming of the storm from the Gospel of Mark during the prayer service over which he presided on the steps of St Peter's Basilica on Friday evening. Here is the full text.

“When evening had come” (Mk 4:35). The Gospel passage we have just heard begins like this. For weeks now it has been evening. Thick darkness has gathered over our squares, our streets and our cities; it has taken over our lives, filling everything with a deafening silence and a distressing void, that stops everything as it passes by; we feel it in the air, we notice in people’s gestures, their glances give them away. We find ourselves afraid and lost. Like the disciples in the Gospel we were caught off guard by an unexpected, turbulent storm. We have realized that we are on the same boat, all of us fragile and disoriented, but at the same time important and needed, all of us called to row together, each of us in need of comforting the other. On this boat… are all of us. Just like those disciples, who spoke anxiously with one voice, saying “We are perishing” (v. 38), so we too have realized that we cannot go on thinking of ourselves, but only together can we do this.

It is easy to recognize ourselves in this story. What is harder to understand is Jesus’ attitude. While his disciples are quite naturally alarmed and desperate, he stands in the stern, in the part of the boat that sinks first. And what does he do? In spite of the tempest, he sleeps on soundly, trusting in the Father; this is the only time in the Gospels we see Jesus sleeping. When he wakes up, after calming the wind and the waters, he turns to the disciples in a reproaching voice: “Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” (v. 40).

Let us try to understand. In what does the lack of the disciples’ faith consist, as contrasted with Jesus’ trust? They had not stopped believing in him; in fact, they called on him. But we see how they call on him: “Teacher, do you not care if we perish?” (v. 38). Do you not care: they think that Jesus is not interested in them, does not care about them. One of the things that hurts us and our families most when we hear it said is: “Do you not care about me?” It is a phrase that wounds and unleashes storms in our hearts. It would have shaken Jesus too. Because he, more than anyone, cares about us. Indeed, once they have called on him, he saves his disciples from their discouragement.

The storm exposes our vulnerability and uncovers those false and superfluous certainties around which we have constructed our daily schedules, our projects, our habits and priorities. It shows us how we have allowed to become dull and feeble the very things that nourish, sustain and strengthen our lives and our communities. The tempest lays bare all our prepackaged ideas and forgetfulness of what nourishes our people’s souls; all those attempts that anesthetize us with ways of thinking and acting that supposedly “save” us, but instead prove incapable of putting us in touch with our roots and keeping alive the memory of those who have gone before us. We deprive ourselves of the antibodies we need to confront adversity.

In this storm, the façade of those stereotypes with which we camouflaged our egos, always worrying about our image, has fallen away, uncovering once more that (blessed) common belonging, of which we cannot be deprived: our belonging as brothers and sisters.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, your word this evening strikes us and regards us, all of us. In this world, that you love more than we do, we have gone ahead at breakneck speed, feeling powerful and able to do anything. Greedy for profit, we let ourselves get caught up in things, and lured away by haste. We did not stop at your reproach to us, we were not shaken awake by wars or injustice across the world, nor did we listen to the cry of the poor or of our ailing planet. We carried on regardless, thinking we would stay healthy in a world that was sick. Now that we are in a stormy sea, we implore you: “Wake up, Lord!”.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Lord, you are calling to us, calling us to faith. Which is not so much believing that you exist, but coming to you and trusting in you. This Lent your call reverberates urgently: “Be converted!”, “Return to me with all your heart” (Joel 2:12). You are calling on us to seize this time of trial as a time of choosing. It is not the time of your judgement, but of our judgement: a time to choose what matters and what passes away, a time to separate what is necessary from what is not. It is a time to get our lives back on track with regard to you, Lord, and to others. We can look to so many exemplary companions for the journey, who, even though fearful, have reacted by giving their lives. This is the force of the Spirit poured out and fashioned in courageous and generous self-denial. It is the life in the Spirit that can redeem, value and demonstrate how our lives are woven together and sustained by ordinary people – often forgotten people – who do not appear in newspaper and magazine headlines nor on the grand catwalks of the latest show, but who without any doubt are in these very days writing the decisive events of our time: doctors, nurses, supermarket employees, cleaners, caregivers, providers of transport, law and order forces, volunteers, priests, religious men and women and so very many others who have understood that no one reaches salvation by themselves. In the face of so much suffering, where the authentic development of our peoples is assessed, we experience the priestly prayer of Jesus: “That they may all be one” (Jn 17:21). How many people every day are exercising patience and offering hope, taking care to sow not panic but a shared responsibility. How many fathers, mothers, grandparents and teachers are showing our children, in small everyday gestures, how to face up to and navigate a crisis by adjusting their routines, lifting their gaze and fostering prayer. How many are praying, offering and interceding for the good of all. Prayer and quiet service: these are our victorious weapons.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Faith begins when we realise we are in need of salvation. We are not self-sufficient; by ourselves we flounder: we need the Lord, like ancient navigators needed the stars. Let us invite Jesus into the boats of our lives. Let us hand over our fears to him so that he can conquer them. Like the disciples, we will experience that with him on board there will be no shipwreck. Because this is God’s strength: turning to the good everything that happens to us, even the bad things. He brings serenity into our storms, because with God life never dies.

The Lord asks us and, in the midst of our tempest, invites us to reawaken and put into practice that solidarity and hope capable of giving strength, support and meaning to these hours when everything seems to be floundering. The Lord awakens so as to reawaken and revive our Easter faith. We have an anchor: by his cross we have been saved. We have a rudder: by his cross we have been redeemed. We have a hope: by his cross we have been healed and embraced so that nothing and no one can separate us from his redeeming love. In the midst of isolation when we are suffering from a lack of tenderness and chances to meet up, and we experience the loss of so many things, let us once again listen to the proclamation that saves us: he is risen and is living by our side. The Lord asks us from his cross to rediscover the life that awaits us, to look towards those who look to us, to strengthen, recognize and foster the grace that lives within us. Let us not quench the wavering flame (cf. Is 42:3) that never falters, and let us allow hope to be rekindled.

Embracing his cross means finding the courage to embrace all the hardships of the present time, abandoning for a moment our eagerness for power and possessions in order to make room for the creativity that only the Spirit is capable of inspiring. It means finding the courage to create spaces where everyone can recognize that they are called, and to allow new forms of hospitality, fraternity and solidarity. By his cross we have been saved in order to embrace hope and let it strengthen and sustain all measures and all possible avenues for helping us protect ourselves and others. Embracing the Lord in order to embrace hope: that is the strength of faith, which frees us from fear and gives us hope.

“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith”? Dear brothers and sisters, from this place that tells of Peter’s rock-solid faith, I would like this evening to entrust all of you to the Lord, through the intercession of Mary, Health of the People and Star of the stormy Sea. From this colonnade that embraces Rome and the whole world, may God’s blessing come down upon you as a consoling embrace. Lord, may you bless the world, give health to our bodies and comfort our hearts. You ask us not to be afraid. Yet our faith is weak and we are fearful. But you, Lord, will not leave us at the mercy of the storm. Tell us again: “Do not be afraid” (Mt 28:5). And we, together with Peter, “cast all our anxieties onto you, for you care about us” (cf. 1 Pet 5:7).

To comment on this please email me at ssskimchee@gmail.com

new 3/24 Love in the Time of Corona

Laboring Alone: from the link 
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/parenting/coronavirus-labor-birth.html 

Hospitals Bar Partners Because of Virus Fears

On a cheerier note, here are some ideas I have come up with to keep myself meaningfully occupied. Please send your ideas to me at: ssskimchee@gmail.com

1. I have started re-writing my midwifery protocols should our county/state be locked down. I have already heard of places that are calling up retired providers to offer their services if needed. If I were pregnant, the last place I would go to deliver would be a hospital under the present circumstances. If a family chose to stay at home instead, and had been isolated for the minimum 15 days, I would consider assisting at low-risk home births.

2.  I have called a nearby animal shelter to find out if they are planning to place their animals in foster homes. I would consider fostering or adopting a dog.

3.  Every day that I have been isolated at home I have learned a new quilting pattern, reproducing templates from my quilting books and sewing them in miniature, one a day. They are quite challenging, not only because I have never made this particular pattern before but because they are so tiny. Keep the little gray cells challenged!

stay tuned for more. Please send me any of your ideas at ssskimchee@gmail.com

“I have not stopped crying,” said an expectant mother who learned that her husband could not be with her when she gives birth.

Love in the Time of Corona #2

Friday night
It is amazing what other people resort to in these times. One friend finished a novel. Another writes poems. I write because (like Joan Didion) I don't know what I am thinking until I write it down. But now is different. Even after writing it down I am still floundering. We have never been in this place before. We have no clue what this new world will look like next week, or in a month or year. On the radio I hear people suggesting good books for others to read, (never mind that the libraries are closed) or suggestions about ways to save money and connect with your kids. All the palaver about whether we can stop distancing by April 14th is so vapid. You are kidding, right? China is not over it yet, and we're going to be in 2 weeks. Uh-huh.
STAY AT HOME: ‘YOUR GRANDPARENTS WERE CALLED TO WAR. YOU’RE BEING CALLED TO SIT ON YOUR COUCH.’ 

You CAN do this.

When my daughter turned 13 we discovered a large bone tumor on her arm. I freaked out, of course, and insisted she be seen immediately and withing a few hours we are hearing about the possibility of cancer, loosing her arm...etc. On the way to Shriner's Hospital in Minneapolis it occurred to me that we were entering uncharted territory and that is what I proposed to her: "We have no idea what this will be like, what will happen next, but it is a new adventure; something we have never experienced before, and I believe God knows it all and we can trust that He will be with us." I hope that gave her courage. Perhaps my strength, my curiosity about the future could strengthen her. I will have to ask if about that, though it is 20 years later now.

As a writer I am both energized and simultaneously exhausted. As it all sinks in, day after day, I ponder that I can see how some people can panic and become unglued, but I am hyper-curious, if there is such a word. I can write endlessly all of a sudden: books on being the last woman on earth, though I don't do science fiction. I can write all sorts of apocalyptic fiction, the cosmos are the limit.
But then I think of Anne Frank who hid in an attic for 2 years. She couldn't go outside. And they didn't have enough food. She wrote:
 I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be 

happy.

another great blog from Lima, Peru:
: http://rollingluggagers.blogspot.com/2020/

To comment on this please email me at ssskimchee@gmail.com

Love in the Time of Corona #1

Love in the Time of Corona*

*a take-off from the book Love in the Time of Cholera (Spanish: El amor en los tiem/podcasts/pos del cólera) is a novel by Colombian Nobel prize winning author Gabriel García Márquez. The novel was first published in Spanish in 1985. Alfred A. Knopf published an English translation in 1988, and an English-language movie adaptation was released in 2007.


I am hoping to write a short piece here every day. Maybe I am hoping to somehow lift up others' spirits. 
I can share my reflections, my thoughts and things other people have sent me that are worthy of repeating.

Good one for the moment from Austrian Neurologist Viktor Frankl:
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
What is to give light must endure burning.
The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.
Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
A human being is a deciding being.
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
Viktor Frankl 

Two links I highly recommend:

https://youtu.be/i-4nMixIh5M

www.//cnn.com.audio/podcasts/corona-virus

and this from a friend in Kenya:

*CORONA HAS ITS ADVANTAGES*

Message from an ex-MP from Egypt

*DONT CURSE THE CORONAVIRUS*

✅It has brought back humanity.

✅Brought back people to their Creator and to their morals.

✅It has closed down bars, night clubs, brothels and casinos.

✅It brought down interest rates.

✅Brought families together.

✅It has stopped people eating dead and forbidden animals.

✅So far it has moved one third of military expenditure to health care.

✅Arab countries have banned shisha, (shared hookahs.)

✅Coronavirus is pushing people to prayers.

✅It undermines dictators and their powers.

✅Humans are now worshipping GOD rather than progress and technology.

✅It is forcing authorities to look at its prisons and prisoners.

✅It has taught humans how to sneeze, yawn and cough.

✅Coronavirus is now making us stay at home, living simple lives.

It has taught us how to wash our hands.

*We thank GOD for waking us up to reality and for giving us an opportunity to ask Him for HIS Forgiveness and HIS help.*...

Stay tuned for more. I might not agree with all that people send me, but please take what you feel speaks to you. ~ ss

writers' block and a recent birth study - how do the two jive?

I wonder ... and brain freeze.

I am part of a wonderful women writers' group. About ten of us, give or take a few, meet every month for lunch and go around the table updating the others on our progress, any new developments in our work, networking about new ideas, etc. Without fail, the majority will bemoan the fact that they have been so uninspired this past winter or summer; that they haven't found a way to buckle down and write consistently everyday. They try this method or that suggestion, and nothing works. So I started wondering why. What makes my brain, for example, sluggish, or decidedly blank or un-creative?

Is there a time that works better for me? Is there a place that works better for me? What kinds of reading material feeds my spirit? Does exercise help? Does coffee? Making love?

While pondering these conundrums, I thought about a study being done in Seattle. A group of childbirth professionals were wondering about a new phenomenon where couples in labor were coming into hospitals around the country, only recently, without birth plans, without a list of wishes. They had simply given up. It had all become too confusing and overwhelming. They surrendered to whatever staff were on duty and told them to do whatever they needed to do. You might ask what I am doing reading studies on prospective parents and current childbirth trends. The short version is that I am a retired midwife-turned-author.

What was scaring many of these couples was the fact that they could say what they might like to try or do during labor, but should a doctor suggest something different, or push for interventions, they were at a loss. How could they possibly contradict medical advise, signing a waver if necessary and risk harming their baby? The responsibility in the face of conflict was just too much. I get it.

So now you are asking what the two stories above might possibly have anything to do with each other. Well, it occurred to me that perhaps my writer-friends were experiencing the same kind of overwhelming, confusing, dis-functioning, paralyzing episodes that those parents were. Pondering how to go forward only produced fear. In turn the brain is left with no options. All it can do is freeze in self-defense until it can slowly thaw and heal. If we continue to bombard it with information, i.e. the millions of ways one can publish on social media, the lists of books on writer's block, the innumerable blogs for inspiring writers, ad infinitum -- is it any wonder we check out? Literally? Does the Information Age and the World Wide Web possibly have anything to do with it? It might even be super-human or heroic that we are even able to produce any writing at all, in spite of such overload.

To test my hypotheses I have begun experimenting with my own brain, the only one donated to the study thus far. First I wondered about how much new information I am feeding my brain on a daily basis. I could list the newspapers or radio every morning, then checking my email, scrolling the news there, then opening any interesting attachments. Next I would check my blog, perhaps work on an article I have been trying to write, taking a short detour to look up the latest Paleo recipes, then back to breakfast and the radio or music. Oh, yes, and volunteering once a week and working part time.

The everyday shopping, driving, cooking, cleaning, etc. have to be squeezed in besides. And this time of year there are garage sales all along the way that the car turns into almost on its own!

The night before last I had watched a movie with my husband and then read a memoir in bed for close to an hour. I mark important places with Post Its to review later. I am currently writing two memoirs simultaneously. One about our 25 years living and working with Hmong refugees, and one about entering the Land of Psychosis as I experienced it some years ago when I was inadvertently given a very powerful drug that I reacted badly to. It was an interesting trip, not unlike what I imagine LSD might be like. It gave me a glimpse, however, into what the mentally ill mind experiences all the time, year after year. I am now back to normal--I think. 

In my preliminary evaluations, I decided there was too much information coming in at too fast a pace. I was reacting by trying to produce as much in ratio to my writings at the same time. I was simply TOO BUSY. That went for reading, screen time and radio. I noticed that on the days I was really on a roll, I would be even more exhausted and often took a nap by four in the afternoon, have supper and tuck in early, sleeping in until eight the next morning. It was exhibiting almost like a self-inflicted mania. What would happen if I just stopped? (What would happen if I didn't was an even scarier prospect.)

So I did. I went almost a week without the news, the radio, TV or my laptop, and turned off my phone only checking it twice a day. Instead I walked, sat outside watching mama ducks nervously trying to keep track of 17 baby ducks, sipped herbal tea and did nothing. I took a nap. I don't remember what else I did. It was pretty quiet. It helped that I was visiting a friend in Wisconsin that week, but once I got home I committed to doing without for a while more. I cleaned off all the tables and desks at home. I mended the little pile on the sewing machine, then I put away the sewing machine.

I am trying to keep my desk tidy. The more cluttered it is, the more frantic my mood, I've noticed. It makes me wonder about the wisdom of our Amish friends whom I had gotten to know when I was practicing midwifery. No cars, no computers, no phones. Perhaps we humans were actually meant to live like that. I wonder how normal this pace we have gotten ourselves into is. I no longer think that modern man (and woman) have been blessed with technology. I wonder if in reality it is a curse. We only relate to one another in tiny time slots now, like my writers' group: two hours in any given month at most. If there are ten of us, that is about five minutes each to talk, given we need to eat during that time, too.

In the end, perhaps writing and birthing babies isn't all that different. Nature will take care of both if we let Her. Each one works well without a whole lot of interference. Granted my brain isn't in the same place as my, well, you-know-what, but I need to respect both and the time and space needed. 

The Pope names 2020 the year of the midwife (and doula - ss)

Pope: Midwives might have the most noble of all professions

OSSERVATORE ROMANO | AFP

Kathleen N. Hattrup | Jan 21, 2020

Francis asks for prayers for nurses and midwives as 2020 has been designated their year

Pope Francis on January 19 applauded the designation of 2020 as the “Year of the Nurse and the Midwife.”

He suggested that “midwives carry out perhaps the noblest of the professions.”

And nurses, he said, are not only the most numerous of health care workers, but also those “closest to the sick.”

The Holy Father has often mentioned his esteem for health care professionals, especially nurses, one of whom he credits with saving his life.

In 2018, he departed from a prepared text to praise this nurse:

With your permission, I’d like to pay tribute to a nurse who saved my life. She was a religious nurse: an Italian Dominican sister, who was sent to Greece as a professor, highly educated … But as a nurse, then, she arrived in Argentina.

And when I, at the age of twenty, was at the point of dying, she was the one to tell the doctors, even arguing with them, ‘No, this isn’t right, we need to give more.’ And thanks to those things, I survived. I thank her so much! I thank her. And I’d like to say her name here, in your presence: Sister Cornelia Caraglio. A great woman, brave too, to the point of arguing with the doctors. Humble, but sure of what she was doing.

The pope invited prayers for all nurses and midwives.

“Let us pray for all of them, that they may do their precious work in the best possible way,” he said.

Rewriting the Bucket List

Rewriting the Bucket List

It is way overdue. Seventeen years later and it is definitely time. When I turned 50 my mother no longer knew me. She had early-onset Alzheimer's, the one kind of dementia that might be inherited, according to the studies.* That gave me pause to think. I might not have much time left to do all the things I want to do. She had amassed a mansion filled with all of her collections: Turkish rugs, Persian antiques, Chinese Closinné, French perfumes, Russian jewels, Tiffany lamps. And then she was too sick to enjoy it all for very long. 

So I thought hard about what I wanted the next years of my life to look like. I didn't see precious collections as part of that picture. I saw instead quality time with my children, maybe travel, maybe do some writing. The first half of my life had decidedly been packed full of adventure: a stint in a Hindu ashram, and later several years as a contemplative nun in a Catholic monastery. Next came marriage, most unexpectedly, and five beautiful children; then the log cabin and our back-to-the-earth era, the intentional community era, the leaving-the-community era and all the drama that entailed along with whatever drama a houseful of teenagers could think up. No one died, no one ended up in jail... knock on wood. I survived in one piece, I think.

The first bucket list was open for additions. At one point I became obsessed with India. I found a volunteer position at a school in Karnataka, all expenses paid. I passed the rigorous application process but ended up in a psyche ward instead after a horrible reaction to a medication I was inadvertently prescribed. It took almost a year to fully recover. I could certainly choc that experience up to education, but the hospital was not on the bucket list.

About the time of the first bucket list I decided to keep my brain young and hopefully fend off Alzheimer's by delving into a new project each year. The first adventure I assigned myself was to learn Korean. I spoke passable Hmong after our years sponsoring Hmong refugees who landed in Minnesota after the Vietnamese war. This would be a cinch.... It turned out to be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life, but I trudged on, probably due to an obsessive-compulsive disorder. But in spite of that, by a decade later I could read, write and speak Korean, though not like a native speaker yet. I would need to spend a year or more in Korea to do that. This past year I tackled Transylvanian peasant cross stitch, using patterns that date back to the 1600s. Much less stressful than Korean, though definitely challenging.

Loosing my hearing wasn't part of my bucket list. By the time I was 60 I had maxed out my hearing aids and was slated for surgery to turn off my inner ear vertigo. A rough year spent in bed more times that not. The alternative was to keep falling and breaking more bones. The surgery was brilliantly successful and I was given a whole new lease on life. It didn't restore my hearing, I was down to hearing only 24% of audible speech, but hell, I could do this. It wasn't cancer. I could no longer hear well enough to work in the hospitals as a midwife but I had lots of other ideas up my sleeves.

I found out that senior citizens could go to college for free in Minnesota so I quickly added sign language to my bucket list. I went for two semesters and was soon communicating with Deaf Minnesotans, my professor included. I have since been a recipient of the latest state-of-the-art hearing aids, one of which is not really a hearing aid at all, but a transmitter that "hears" what my right ear doesn't and sends it wireless-ly to my other, better ear's hearing aid. I am back on stereo, folks!

That year I added writing to my bucket list. I had dabbled over the years, but I wanted to write down the hundreds of birth stories that were swimming around in my memory banks. I thought I might have to self publish my first book since I wasn't a pro at this. I started attending writers' events just to get the hang of the territory out there. I'd ask dumb questions at the classes I signed up for, trying to grasp this new world of writing. I had never been required to take an English class--even in high school. I had gone to an experimental program, majoring in art which trumped all other subjects.

At one such writers' event I asked one of my random questions which prompted an editor who was present to approach me after the talk. She wanted to see my writing. She was serious. I was flattered but not quite hopeful. In the end she loved my stories. She loved them so much she took my first completed manuscript to a publisher/friend of hers who wanted to publish it. Wonder of wonders! It became my first book, which, by the way, won as a finalist in the Midwest Book Awards in 2016. The sequel is done and waiting for a new publisher. My last publisher died very unexpectedly.

I have continued to write. All of a sudden I am no longer a retired midwife, but have a whole new career. Then came the real shocker! Some young families in Romania bumbled across my book and started translating it into Romanian. Romania was not on my bucket list, and I doubt very much it is on yours, but this past July I flew to Romania for the book launch and sold and (signed) 70 books the first night after my talk. So many copies sold in the weeks after that that the Romanian version has gone back for a second printing. We are presently talking about publishing the sequel and 3 other books I have since written. They are offering to publish all of them in English and Romanian since it is cheaper to print them there than it is in the U.S.

Being at the birth of my grandson Theo was a highlight of the past three years and then again when our "adopted" Ethiopian daughter Anadi delivered Maraki eight months ago. This past year I have written short stories that are appearing in various magazines. I am currently editing the next manuscripts so they will be ready for the Romanians.

Although it wasn't on the bucket list, I got my first tattoo the year I turned 65. It celebrated fifty years of having survived sexual assault and my subsequent suicide attempts back when I was 14. It also covered up all of the residual scars I had carved into my arm. It is beautiful: a bumble bee on a poppy flower. Like the lilies of the field, God cares for us, even the most fragile of flowers, the poppy. The little bee reminds me of His most extraordinary creation, all packaged into such tiny insects. I no longer have to see those scars, but instead an exquisite reminder to be grateful.

So how have I rewritten my bucket list, anyway? I have knocked off India and Africa. If I am meant to I will go there. I don't have to scheme to make it happen. I still do not want an array of antiques or a Victorian mansion. I am actually quite intrigued with the idea of a tiny house on wheels, though I don't feel the need to plan for that quite yet.

Today my bucket list looks more like this:
1. Stay healthy. Eat properly. Exercise regularly.
3. Live mindfully. Walk slowly. Clear your mind often. Pray often.
4. Be grateful. Be peaceful. Listen to the world around you lest you miss a still small Voice.
5. Get rid of the superfluous technology. Check emails only 3 times a day.
6. Stop watching the news which only serves to depress me and in turn wind me up with useless ideas and images.
7. Take a pottery class.
8. Want less. Ask myself before buying anything, "Can I get to heaven without this?"
9. Learn Romanian.

*Aging with Grace: What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives, Bantam, 2002. In 1986 Dr. David Snowdon, one of the world’s leading experts on Alzheimer’s disease, embarked on a revolutionary scientific study that would forever change the way we view aging—and ultimately living. Dubbed the “Nun Study” because it involves a unique population of 678 Catholic sisters, this remarkable long-term research project has made headlines worldwide with its provocative discoveries.

Yet Aging with Grace is more than a groundbreaking health and science book. It is the inspiring human story of these remarkable women—ranging in age from 74 to 106—whose dedication to serving others may help all of us live longer and healthier lives.

WHAT THE NUN STUDY TEACHES US ABOUT LEADING LONGER, HEALTHIER, AND MORE MEANINGFUL LIVES

By 

The 2019 Birth Conference in Romania

excerpts from my talk in July in Romania

Since the 1990s, C-sections have more than tripled globally. C-sections now outnumber vaginal deliveries in parts of southeast Europe, Latin America and China. Even in poor countries, the rates can be extremely high. For example, in Bangladesh, less than 60 percent of births occur at a clinic, but when they do, about 65 percent of them are C-sections.

Such high rates are due mainly to an increase of elective C-sections, says the vice president of global programs at March of Dimes, a U.S. maternal and child health organization. "The procedure is done when it is not really necessary or indicated," she says. The rates can be even higher in private clinics. For example, in Brazil, 95 percent of births in private clinics are now C-sections.

For a mom, an elected C-section can raise the chance of death by at least 60 percent, and in some circumstances as much as 700 percent, several studies have reported. And it increases a woman's risk of life-threatening complications during childbirth. The risks rises even further in subsequent deliveries. 

That said, the last birth I attended only 7 months ago started out quite uneventful. The mother ate only organic food. She practiced yoga. She was in great shape, determined to have a natural birth. After laboring for 30 hours without medication, we realized that everything that could go wrong was going wrong. A rare sepsis infection was causing untold havoc internally, where we couldn't detect it--until then. Finally Anadi had a C-section. Had she been in her home country of Ethiopia and not in the U.S. I am sure we would have lost them both.

So what's driving the global rise of C-sections?

It's likely three factors working together: financial, legal and technical, says Holly Kennedy, a professor of midwifery at the Yale School of Nursing. She says, "As an obstetrician told me ... 'You're going to pay me more [to do a C-section], you're not going to sue me and I'll be done in a hour.'" 

I am convinced that the root cause of the problem originates with the fact that these 3rd world countries are enamored with what they perceive as superior medical care as seen and taught in the United States. America is not actually leading the world in health care. Here are some sobering facts:

The U.S. is a worse place for newborns than 68 other countries, including Egypt, Turkey and Peru, according to a report released last month by Save the Children. A million babies die every year globally on the same day they were born, including more than 11,000 American newborns. Cuba is doing better, much better.

America is 48th on the list of the safest countries for mothers to deliver in. Maternal death is greater in the U.S. than in Cuba, Hungary, Chili, Mexico, and Slovakia. America does not have this all figured out. 

So why am I here? 

First of all, my hope is that you don't look to the U.S. as a role model for going forward in the future. Birth has become big business at the expense of mothers, babies and families. To top it off, the current situation is affecting even those who claim to be pursuing more natural methods and family-centered birth.

A trained home birth midwife in Minnesota where I come from charges from $6,000 and up (that is about €5,339.) In New York city prices are even higher. Those fees are not paid or reimbursed by insurance companies. A doula cannot be hired for under $600 or €537 per birth in Minnesota. The usual rate is $1,000 or €896s. Middle and lower class families can no longer afford such luxuries. 

Birth is not a business. It is an honor to be called to do this work. It is a vocation, I believe. It doesn't matter what tools you have in your medical bag if you cannot bring love, compassion, humility and respect to each woman you serve.

That said, my hope is that you don't make the same mistakes that other countries have made as they go forward seeking answers for themselves. We have much to learn from these mistakes but we also have examples of what does work and why, and how.

How many of you have heard of Ina May Gaskin? She led the resurgence of midwifery in the U.S. and later in much of Europe during the 1970s. Year after year, decade after decade she and midwives like her, learned, often by trial and error, often from friendly doctors, and also by listening to women and their families. This was uncharted territory. They had to be brave, they had to be daring. They understood the huge responsibility this work carried and, I assure you, they went into it trembling. Prayer, humility and respect counted as much as education and knowledge. There is no easy fix here. I cannot teach you what it has taken me, or Ina May or Carolyn Flint or others years and years to learn, but we are all behind you. 

I do not presume to know all the political or logistical issues that face you here in Eastern Europe,  so I won't even try. I can only guess, so I will not assume to tell you what you need to do. But I will listen to your concerns and tell you everything I know. I won't have all the answers, but I might be able to tell you where to get the answers you seek. I don't have more lectures planned. I am hoping we can use what time we have to talk together.

So who am I, anyway?

I am a retired licensed midwife. I also trained as a doula, a lactation consultant, taught neonatal resuscitation, and a whole bunch of other certifications, but first I am a woman, a mother and a grandma, hoping to bring what I have learned to other women. I will share absolutely everything I know; it was freely given to me and I must pass it on to the next generation. I have never charged for my work or time. Occasionally an insurance company saw fit to pay me. Others offered what they could. 

I have 5 grown children, 8 grandchildren so far, and a wonderful husband who has put up with so much over the years. Ina May was with me when I had my twins 37 years ago. No one in Minnesota would agree to even let me try to deliver them naturally, even though I agreed to have them in a hospital, so we went to Tennessee to her midwifery school to have them. It was my children who actually wrote the rules at home as teenagers: They decided that we would have no more talk of bodily fluids at the dinner table from then on. I had assumed everyone wanted to hear all the details of the most recent birth when I got home. 

When I lost all but 30% of my hearing about 6 years ago, I had to retire. I could no longer hear well enough to attend births. I began writing my memories of the past 30 years, all true stories. I found an editor and a publisher and all of a sudden now I am writing books and giving seminars. 

 Left: The English version

I have written 3 books on birth so far. I am currently looking for a new publisher. My original publisher died quite unexpectedly last year. My first book is here in Romania to purchase during the conference. I am hoping the sequel will also be available to you soon, and my book on bonding soon after that.

To contact me write: ssskimchee@gmail.com

Stay tuned for more!

The Romanian translation here below:

And a HUGE thanks to all who made this possible!!!