Harvesting with Joy

UCSF College of Nursing

February 23, 2011

Dear Carrie Shaffer:

I am pleased to inform you that you have been admitted to the Masters Entry Program in Nursing (MEPN) at the University of California San Francisco beginning Summer 2011. We welcome you and wish you success in your studies.

(Logistics, Logistics)

Congratulations on your acceptance and welcome to the UCSF community. We are confident you will find your experience with us academically rewarding.

~ ~ ~

Sometimes during sporting events that aren't going so well for the home team, the announcers will say something to the effect of "this crowd is just waiting to erupt -- this stadium is waiting to explode with triumph." Well that is how these last five months have felt. Constantly on the cusp... expectant... just waiting to erupt. Those who plant in tears will harvest with shouts of joy. Like the crowd that explodes in triumph when the game winning touchdown, home run, or goal is scored, every cell in my body elevated to the heavenly realms in pure exultation when I read "admitted."

And I know well that all glory, honor, power is Yours, Lord.

"Not-me" Me

I met with a friend this week to catch up.

I've been treading water, close to the other shore but not able to make a sprint to it yet. Just treading for now.

Doing what I should be doing. Repeat.

Doing what I should be doing. Repeat.

My friend told me I seem to be living by the spirit. Not based on me telling him I am doing what I should be doing, but in response to me talking about waiting and matchmaking (or not) and going off the grid.

Anyway, he had a point. And - (deep breath for run-on fragmented thoughtstream) - I wonder if the stuff I do or think that doesn't feel characteristically "me" *is* what it means to be living by the spirit. Like is that "not-me" me actually the spirit and I am being supernaturally motivated? Can it be so subtle and subconscious? Can it be concurrent with the countless little and big parts of my life I DON'T surrender?

What I'm trying to say is... can someone be a wretch and a saint at the same time?

What I'm also trying to say is... I think my friend might be right about this presence. Getting here has been costly, but living this way is effortless.

30 before 30: #15 Paint on Canvas

The sea of science-heavy courses I waded through in the last two years has incited my neural cortex to tap into networks it has never used before. It has been an amazing experiment because somehow, someway I defied my english lit and political theory-trained brain and became a scientist. And while this is all very surprising and exciting, it also can be... extremely boring.

In my school electives, I never once took an art class. I remember taking a clay class and a drawing class at the Lafayette Community Center but I believe I was all of 6-8 years old at the time. This personal history is probably fine and understandable since the bulk of my creative energy has always been elevated in my writing and I showed no particular aptitude for art. But now I'm an adult who never took an art class.

Enter Beginning Painting.



Despite being enrolled in the most time consuming class known to the medical field this semester (Organic Chemistry), on Monday afternoons you will find me in Berkeley City College's fifth floor art studio alongside a fantastic conglomerate of overweight scraggly gray haired hippies, fresh out of high school dark lipsticked hipsters, buttoned up eyeglassed asians, and a few oakland-raised black athletes who need an easy A to keep their scholarships (all of this would be racist if it weren't true). Between the demonstration on how to make paint from dandelions you grow in your back yard to artsy fartsy videos that describe process to spending a few hours at Blick Art wandering around with my supply list to having the actual space and time to just TRY, I am profoundly stimulated.



Stimulated, yes. Good at it? Absolutely not. I'm a god-awful painter. What a glorious place to be when there is no real consequence to failure.

International Film Showcase at the Orinda Theatre

Although I am deeply envious of the people who are committed to reading the Sunday Times week after week, I have never been much of a newspaper person. As such, I am sure I regularly miss out on interesting tidbits or local events. So one advantage to living with newsie parents is having a mom who literally clips out articles and ads she thinks I should see. Last week, it was this article from the Contra Costa Times: "Orinda film buffs bring passion for Foreign Cinema home" which also featured the following picture of none other than my beloved friend Dori's dad, Efi Lubliner...

Efi is a long time film buff who also screens films for festivals and laments the fact that the Bay Area might never see some of the films he is exposed to due mostly to underfunding for a more widespread release. And so, the Lamorinda Film and Entertainment Foundation (www.ifef.org) brought the Norwegian Film called "Max Manus" to the historical Orinda Theatre for a limited engagement and intends to follow up with a new foreign film each month.

This weekend, your average theatre is showing visual vomit like Sanctum, The Roommate, The Rite, and No Strings Attached. If you share my disdain of these money and time wasters, you ought to go out and support a beautiful little local theatre and the efforts of a handful of your neighbors who are trying to contribute something special to our community. "Max Manus" screenings have been extended to February 10th and the next film is called "Illegal" and begins screening on February 25th.