I'm trying to find something I don't like about China and so far, nothing comes to mind. We're off to Beijing in a few minutes---taking the train up there for a few days---but I'll be back soon as I now am connected to the internet from my room.
At last, again...I feel as though I have a pulse. It's almost sick to realize how dependent we Americans are on the internet.
Can you tell I'm excited? Well, I am. I'm smiling right now actually! Seriously. I am.
Among other things, I read the most daring and provocative and depressing book I've read in a long time over this past weekend: "Mysterious Skin" by Scott Heim. I don't recommend it to the masses...only to those of you who saw "Irreversible" and "Requiem for a Dream" and thought it was "nice."
Only a few more hours of packing, and my road to China will begin. First start? Interstate 94 West toward Chicago.
Maybe it's due to China. Maybe it's due to the pictures I see with co-workers, wrapped up in giggles and oversized grins, reflecting the inner child inside of us all. Maybe that's why it's so hard not to cry.
Not because it paints a frightening picture by juxtaposing alcohol up against other "more harmful" addictive substances. Not because it will probably fuel the paraonia already in most parents minds when it comes to wonderfing if their teenagers or college-agers still living at home are closet drunks. No, this book should be read for the very reason Zailckas writes in her introduction that she wrote the book: for the utter commonness of her own story. There is nothing terribly extreme or extravagent about Zailckas' experiences, but at the same time, her experiences are as harrowing sometimes as the darkest parts found within and beneath all of us. It's as if she's hitting the world (America in particular) over the head and going, "this happens all the time...why!?" Why is drinking part of what it means to be an American teen? Why is it that at age 21, it's expected that you get smashed and people look at you in almost shock and disgust when they hear you don't? What's wrong when someone is always asked for a reason they're NOT drinking, instead of those who do drink excessively in social situations? I'm all for drinking--believe me. I drink on occassion with friends, but these questions and so many more that Zailckas raised to the surface got me wondering 'what does drinking do to one's identity or more importantly, one's self-concept?' Especially when a kid starts at age 14, like Koren Zailckas did.
Even though the book runs a tad long, it sill reads (most of the time) like a fast-paced fiction novel---building up tension, heightening awareness, and brimming with greater and deeper insights the more pages you jumble through. And to top it all off, Zailckas never falls into the trap of self-deprecating writing. She manages to entertain, inspire, and tickle the annoying hairs on the back of your neck enough to keep you smiling, chuckling and shaking your head in awe throughout the book. So read it...and see for yourself.
"Are you ready honey?" She asks me whenever she passes me in the hall. Her face can barely bottle up all the joy.
"I'm gettin' there!" I'd say.
Once the "Neville Day" potluck party began, Carol was nearly bouncing of the walls as others decided to throw some hot dogs on the George Foreman grill. At the sight of this, Carol exclaimed "Make sure you brown them really good! I like my weiners brown!" and then laughed uncontrollably, as if she was in third grade and had just told the naughtiest joke to her best girlfriend. And then, she danced the waltz out of the break room to get some more ice for the diet pop. Everyone else just kept asking if she was drunk.
Once the party was well underway, Carol admitted to sucking down three cups of coffee a couple of hours before noon. This, a co-worker named Flo informed me, is "all she needs to get going. Once she's gone there ain't no stopping her no more." And this is part of why I love working at the hospital. People eat a little too much sugar, perform a little too many blood withdrawls, and start one too many IV pumps before going sailing into a mental state of euphoric oblivion. And of course, everyone merely shrugs and accepts this as normal behavior. After all, if there's one thing you learn after working at a hospital it's this: vocational norms and public displays of indecency don't exist.
Instead of splintered communions between strained faiths or no faiths at all, there was love. Instead of sharing a meal with a total stranger being as agonizing as getting fillings at the dentist, there was peace. And instead of self-centered receipients in attendence, there truly seemed to be the Holy Spirit dancing between the bride and groom.
It's no wonder then that at each one of these joyous occassions, I found myself soaring like a baby bird flying successfully for the first time. I found myself meeting and making new friends---not ones to be easily forgotten but to be quickly cherished. And now, I thank God for it all.
And another issue that cannot be talked specifically about in hospitals? Death.
As absurd to me as this seems (after all, we all are going to die) employees are trained not to talk about patients potentially dying. Even though it is a hospital and it seems this would be the safest place (if any) to talk about such a thing (i.e., I realize saying things like "she is dying" or "he only has 2 more hours to live" may seem out of place and a bit creepy for say, a high school locker room discussion or a grocery store checkout lane but at a hospital? Can't this be a safe place, if there ever should be a safe place, to talk about death?
I'm not advocating momentary morbid conversations all day long, plus the weekends. I'm simply wondering 'why' we westerners think we must be so "proper" and "professional" and "reserved" and "calm" and "collected" and "put together" when it comes to the subject of death?
All this to say, today I overheard one nurse tell another nurse "285 Bed 1 has expired." Which in farmer talk means "the milk has gone sour." However, in hostpital talk it means a "this person has died." As soon as I heard this while walking by, I stopped, looked at the nurse and then walked on. I don't think I like the idea of referring to people as if they're all gallons of milk just waiting to be thrown out. I don't necessarily think it's healthy to be reduced to a number and treated as if you're the one product that just didn't make it into the big supermarket aisle display this Easter season.
But alas, I have no alternative language code or system to offer the medical field so maybe I should just shut up. Maybe I should be walking around room-to-room while working at the hospital, labeling patient's foreheads with my human-expiration/death-date stamp. "Oh I'm sorry 265 Bed 1, but you're probably going to expire tomorrow so please---eat your over salted pieces of bacon and try not to think about it."
