We spent the better part of our spring break in DFW. Yesterday, as we began our long trek home, I switched on Pat Green. As in most of my moments of nostalgia, I looked around at the sleeping bed heads in the car with me. Like that aerostream trailer that carts around all the necessities - bedsheets to tea kettle, I thought about how everything I love was rolling down the interstate at 75 mph....How I'd be nothing without them.
Wave on wave will always say it all for me.
We've always been project people. There are so many times that I feel like we're caught between two worlds....one where we settle down and become comfortable with one home, one life. The picket fence. The other side of that coin is how much of our time has been spent moving from one project to another - growing together...becoming stronger, being a team. Somehow, the movement reinforces that our home is not in brick and mortar, but in each other. I attribute my comfort to the fact that I spent the first 4 years of my life on the road, but who knows....maybe that's just psychobabble.
As oak trees and streams gave way to pumpjacks and prickly pear....then on to purple mountains and run-down shacks, I cannot help but feel both comfortable and uncomfortable in both worlds. Like in that movie, Sweet Home Alabama...both shoes fit. I go to that world and miss this one, I live in this world and miss that one. We cannot live in two places, and our families will always be divided by 600 miles. I want it all, and I want none.
As we went through Midland, we stopped and switched drivers. I was ready for the break, and that's the half way point where we refuel. We got food, we dallied a little....not long. I thought about running back inside to go pee one last time before we hit the road, and decided not to. A few miles before Odessa, we passed a trailer carrying livestock that was swerving just a little...it kinda made us think that the driver might have been innocently pulling out some fries and a soda. Jay got around him - he drives a little faster than I do, and he prefers to stay away from the little car clusters on the road. About a mile or two later, he saw a flash in the rearview mirror - red and white hot about four carlengths back. He told me to look back, and a plume of black smoke was rising up into the air. We knew someone must have just lost their lives, and they did. Four people exactly...
If any one of those decisions would have been different, that could have been us caught between and not that man with the livestock. I'm thinking of their families tonight, and I'm thinking of the four bedheads going down the interstate at 80 who were spared.
There are times when nothing does it for me but a walk in the early morning as the desert sun is rising. Billy The Kid stood trial at an old courthouse-turned-thrift store 35 miles up the road. The summer heat is so hot, that it takes a cold pool of water and a salted margarita to cool one off. Then there's that other world...floating the river while turtles sun themselves, listening to live music at a country store, cities spread out further than some states in the union, bar-b-que.
Both are Texas, and both are very different. Both have my heart and the hearts of those whom I love.
I'm thankful that I've got the choice - I've got the option. What a great thing to be caught between - two amazing worlds...instead of two semi-trucks.
Something Deeper
"I feel like crap. My fever finally broke yesterday, and I'm just barely beginning to come around....ever wonder why we run a fever?" he asked. "Bacteria and viruses are temperature sensitive," I answered. "They are?" he asked, looking intrigued. "Yeah...when the hypothalamus elevates the body temperature, it's so that it can raise it to a level where the bacteria and viruses can't survive. At the same time, the liver sequesters iron and zinc so that the pathogen cannot replicate it's genetic material. Iron and zinc are required for replication." I answer. "Where'd you learn that?" he asked me, looking baffled. "From an amazing professor," I responded.
In the past, I've been lucky. Each semester since I've returned to school, I've been picking my courses by how they fit into my schedule. Without much to consider other than the subject matter and time slot, I've gone into the class with reasonable expectations and I've had very few disappointments.
Most semesters, I've had at least one instructor that really stood out - like the one who taught me this lesson about fever.
I'm the student that hangs onto every word. In a crowd of people facebooking, I sit in front of all those computer screen distrations and get every penny I can out of my instructor's time and energy. I'll be paying for this collegiate experience for years to come, and I don't want to get an education without getting an education. My future depends on it, and so does the future of my future patients.
So, this semester I've realized just how lucky I've been in the past to have educators who teach their material with passion in their voice and a glimmer in their eye. I've had to dig into something deeper as I've realized that there are professors who are distracted, who can at times teach their material with less engagement and enthusiasm than a teenager flipping burgers on a Saturday night. I've been disappointed. I've been frustrated, and I've had to really dig deep and learn what I can from whomever is willing to teach me.
The body is the most amazing, most incredible piece of equipment walking this earth. Science and art combined, the human being has infinite processes that take place every microsecond. In a field that has zero room for error, I am the one who is entering a chosen profession where I am caring for these souls....souls that often hang in delicate space where intervention becomes necessary. Patients need amazing nurses, and nurses need amazing educators. This doesn't alleviate the student's responsibility for self-teaching and reinforcement, but rather there must be a synergistic effect to allow the material, the professor's guidance, and the student's thirst for knowledge all come together.
So, this semester I've made sure that I've thanked those who have inspired and educated me in the past...who educate me still. They give more than they have to. For the student who soaks up knowledge like a sponge, it is known that their knowledge is not a result of their hard work alone, but of that of the instructor who invested a piece of them every day on that lecturn.
They stand elevated.
In the past, I've been lucky. Each semester since I've returned to school, I've been picking my courses by how they fit into my schedule. Without much to consider other than the subject matter and time slot, I've gone into the class with reasonable expectations and I've had very few disappointments.
Most semesters, I've had at least one instructor that really stood out - like the one who taught me this lesson about fever.
I'm the student that hangs onto every word. In a crowd of people facebooking, I sit in front of all those computer screen distrations and get every penny I can out of my instructor's time and energy. I'll be paying for this collegiate experience for years to come, and I don't want to get an education without getting an education. My future depends on it, and so does the future of my future patients.
So, this semester I've realized just how lucky I've been in the past to have educators who teach their material with passion in their voice and a glimmer in their eye. I've had to dig into something deeper as I've realized that there are professors who are distracted, who can at times teach their material with less engagement and enthusiasm than a teenager flipping burgers on a Saturday night. I've been disappointed. I've been frustrated, and I've had to really dig deep and learn what I can from whomever is willing to teach me.
The body is the most amazing, most incredible piece of equipment walking this earth. Science and art combined, the human being has infinite processes that take place every microsecond. In a field that has zero room for error, I am the one who is entering a chosen profession where I am caring for these souls....souls that often hang in delicate space where intervention becomes necessary. Patients need amazing nurses, and nurses need amazing educators. This doesn't alleviate the student's responsibility for self-teaching and reinforcement, but rather there must be a synergistic effect to allow the material, the professor's guidance, and the student's thirst for knowledge all come together.
So, this semester I've made sure that I've thanked those who have inspired and educated me in the past...who educate me still. They give more than they have to. For the student who soaks up knowledge like a sponge, it is known that their knowledge is not a result of their hard work alone, but of that of the instructor who invested a piece of them every day on that lecturn.
They stand elevated.
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