Track

Nothing stands alone. 
It doesn't does it? 
Locomotives run on steel rails of strength disproportionate to imagination.
What if you could be the locomotive.
What if you could be the engine of all that happens,
your essence and force steaming off the top,
magnificent weight of words and deeds trailing behind farther than sight.
Wouldn't that be powerful beyond description...
looking down at the manacles on your wrists,
imagine naked pain and youth as they melt away into leaden trails
to form your track.

And this is when you find the fuel to overcome the friction and the gravity
of your situation.
This is when you move inch by inch 
until you are flying and pulling the world along with ease.
You do not stand alone, for
you stand for too much.
Accompanied, though...and beloved.

River Bend

She sold herself down the river
in such minute quantities
the fish never even got sleek or fat,
but simply swam away
in ignorance of what they had eaten.

The water too clear to reflect
anything but what she wanted to see;
it would remain a vision to haunt her,
of who was blind,
and who was left to see...
when she was there no longer.   

"It's Alive!" New days with GANS

Yesterday was my first day as a State Board Member of the Georgia Association of Nursing Students (GANS). It was one long day, let me tell you, in what has become a progression of extremely long days with little break. "Welcome to Nursing!" needs to be tattooed on my arm or something.

I used to say, Welcome to nursing school!" Now I realize that this is the pace of nursing in general, so I'd better just get used to it. Now one free hour can seem like an entire weekend's rest, if applied properly.

MJL and I went to see Frankenweenie late last night. I love, love Tim Burton movies. I knew it was a short movie, and I just needed to rest my brain. It wasn't as good as other Tim Burton faves of mine, but, the dog was so adorable, and the movie had real charm and quite a few inside jokes (example- the town Mayor is Mr. Burgermeister.) 

Our school is "Kaplanized, " meaning we follow a Kaplan structured curriculum (in general), and take Kaplan Integrated tests throughout our courses. Kaplan administers the NCLEX, so this is supposed to prepare us for familiarity with Kaplan style questions. It's nothing like the review sessions that Hurst and ATI put on...we get regular lectures, powerpoints, etc all taught by our instructors. It's just every so often we take one of these standardized tests which are "normalized" to the whole country. It allows our professors to see how we stack up against other schools and students at our level, and also to predict how well we are learning the material for the NCLEX. We had a big Kaplan in health assessment this morning. 

It's funny because we all come out moaning and thinking we did terribly, which is exactly what I hear about the NCLEX. 

I think this experience with State GANS board will be an education that is trial by fire, much like these Kaplan tests. Are you ready to lead as an RN? Can you take the lead in the face of little information and an incredibly short transition from past Director to...Hey! You are the Director now!  ( I got a 1.5 hour transition roughly, though I know the previous director is available to me for help...but she is a busy nursing student who has served her time.)

I had a moment of panic in the middle of Frankenweenie. I had let my mind rest in the movie, following the little doggie with the stitches and the bolts in his neck. Suddenly, I remembered what I had just gotten myself into...on top of school and everything else I do...thank goodness no one was there to record my heart rate and respiration!

In those situations, I have to stop and ask myself some questions, no matter how much I am doubting myself:

1. Is anyone else here going to do this job if I do not?  (maybe? No?)

2. Is there a reason I was given this job and not someone else? (usually yes)

3. Do I believe that anyone I can readily think of can do this better than I can-

    right now, right here?     (usually not. they have their own things to do)

4. Are people looking to me to take charge and handle this? (always yes)

5. Can I think quickly and creatively in this situation? (usually yes)

6. Do I trust myself, my incredible support system (you are all the best!!) and God? (emphatically yes)

Then everything else will work itself out. Maybe a better mantra is:

If I work my hardest; it will work out.

My hardest and best effort may be different on different days. School comes first- for the benefit of the patients. But I may sacrifice a few grades in this effort for GANS. Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe I focus too much on grades. Potential future employers will not ask me much about my grades. They will ask me what things I have done to develop myself into a leader? what makes me different than other candidates? And how can I show that I am patient centered, not self-centered. 

All of us on this new GANS Board are giving up so many other things we could be doing with our time..because we want to be better leaders. Who is it that we need to lead as RNs? Other nurses and patient care personnel. And for whose benefit? The patients.

I got into nursing to care for the patients. Being an effective leader will benefit the patient every time.

One last anecdote...I remember when Jason and I brought Reid home from the hospital; he was three days old and in his little car seat carrier. We set him on the coffee table and sat on the couch looking at him.

I already had a two year old son, so I had been through this before. Jason turned and looked at me questioningly. I looked back at him and said, " Don't look at me! I don't know what to do with him, either!"

We both died laughing. It became an oft repeated phrase of ours in relation to Reid, who has always been smarter than we knew how to handle. It just serves to remind me, that even though you may have successfully done something before, or many times, each new time is its own challenge.

But I look at Reid now, almost done with high school and driving himself to Engineering orientation session at Ga Tech, and I realize I still don't know just what to do with him....hhahhahah.

I don't have to. All I had to do was my job to the best of my ability with both my sons. And the rest takes care of itself.

Just in case any of my fellow board members chance to read this post, I love you guys already.We may be a little stitched together right now like Frankenweenie, but the lightning has struck.

T. Sylace

Filigree

I couldn't let the month of September pass by without posting at least once. I have never missed a month yet.
Starting back to school has been a huge effort. It's getting to be too funny how many people tell me they had no idea what it took to become an RN.

I'm having a bit of trouble typing because I sewed through my finger earlier this evening. hahhaha...it happens. Watched Captain America last night on DVD. Yawn. Visually stunning, though.

I have thought all month about things I wanted to write about, but honestly haven't had one spare moment.
Between class, clinicals, reading, studying and assignments, I believe I am not exaggerating to say I am putting in 14 hour days.

I always post about Dragon Con, which was over Labor Day weekend. I did not break anything this year thank goodness. Security was tighter there this year, which means there were far fewer real freak shows. What a shame. Freak shows are what make Dragon Con a blast. Ok, I'm exaggerating.

I just wanted to say I am not gone. It's important for me to keep up with this.

It's nine pm. I've been studying all day. I feel like I should keep at it till I get my clinical journal done, and I need to look at dosage calculations for insulin. I'm trying to keep balanced. I still do creative things...bake things. On that note I should attempt a poem. It may be awful. I'm just going to let the chips fall and see.
Who can it hurt? Indeed.



Filigree

"Does this hurt?" she asked and asked sincerely but the reply was muffled.
Muffled by the sleeve of a dusty olive sweater,
muted by the passage of time in diffuse pain undocumented,
an erosion of what were nerves at the ends of appendages that used to connect
to something that recorded this and cried out, but no more.
She passed him a paper cut out puppet, a flat lacy man on a stick
reminiscent of black Thai shadow shows and all the humanity they portray
with only a simple filigree human on a stick.
"Show me where it hurts...show me with the figure." She wanted to help, would have helped
but a truckload of eiderdown had grown in his throat,
and binders the weight of a hundred books kept the sounds under the quilt.
He ranged his gaze through a routine of pleading to intense disinterest,
It was all he could do, after all.
Sometimes all she could do was hold him in her arms.
"I know, baby."
I know.


-Tara Sylace

Aries Full Moon September

I Swear

time removes what stands in the way,
obstacles melting to stains of forgotten origin,
dung-beetles marking the passage of the hours
in circus rolling mnemonic pantomimes.

nothing moves so much at once as
nothing moving for so long,
then titanic length spasms down the fault lines,
and the landscape is unrecognizeable

to anyone who ever passed this way before,
feeling the disorientation that proceeds a leap,
the dislocation that follows a landing,
I swear time knows more than we do.

A Star is Born

There are no words for how I love etymology.

Isn't that ironic? The very definition.

Play on words doesn't even begin to paint

the joy of a medium with no boundaries,

and no drying time- only the constraints of 26 letters,

which is none at all really, just switch to another language,

other sounds, an entire galaxy of words, more words than stars

for look at what it takes to create a star, but I can create a word

instantaneously and effortless to boot.

I wonder if you wanted that to say effortlessly...if your desire for symmetry

drove you somewhere a tiny bit off,

for once I do not have to care; this is mine.

Packed up in and amongst a catalogue of whys

and roots and prefixes 

connotations, allusions, questions always of where 

did that word come from,

whose mind, whose need- whose need to express something 

never before expressed, to someone listening

and in that moment

a star is born.

Over Coffee

seen from the corner of an eye,

maybe past a few wrinkles,

is a long view into the past.

the mind thinks

but it sees forward, and backward...

obsessively backward...

how often is one moment relived,

rethought,

reimagined.

the mind forgets the periphery,

all the eye takes in besides,

all the meat of the world unchosen.

not selected for memory, out on the fringes,

but the more real perhaps,

for all its solidity, in never being questioned, at all...