Stars in her hair: Inner Treasures March 1, 2018
By Anita White
Despite my outer struggle today with
bouncing finances I found my way to bountiful inner treasures and mystical stars that shine down on me. Financial ping pong is challenging, but somehow a
scoring point is made....…always in a non linear mysterious way.
Yes, despite outer stress inner
treasures remain. I happened to see Ann. (She is the woman who I know
who cannot see, but who “sees” me so clearly. I had hoped to call her and there she was walking down the hall. We sat
and talked. I unburdened myself to her and told her all about the
hoops I was jumping through in order to be certified and legal to draw at the hospital as
a guest artist. Ann said I needed to write about my experiences there so that is why I am
writing this now. Bless Ann.
Thus I write about my ensuing afternoon at the hospital.
So I drove north on familiar
Highway 55 about 1pm dodging potholes and ice. It was a bright sunny day and I
mused briefly as I always do about all the times I have taken this road north
to the hospital..Times I drove there to set up my show. Times I took Josh to
the ER. Times we rode in the ambulance. Times I followed the
ambulance and then knew I was assured of parking outside the ER. I always
start my parking worry way ahead of time and yet it always works out even if I
have to circle the block a couple times. I jokingly say I invoke my mothers
benediction who is the Patron Saint of Parking Spaces.
As I drove north I worried about
the art sale I am having on Sunday…feeling once again how R I D I C U L O U S it is to try to sell art.........oh well......
I banished my worries with the joy I felt
knowing I was going to get my official hospital badge today. That miraculously I
would be wearing a badge just like all the medical professionals I had
interacted with for years. My badge would show that I was there to draw. And
paid for it......another miracle.
As I anticipated parking was not easy. I
was about to go into the dreaded parking ramp and then actively lo and behold I did find a place. It was awkward but fine. Thanks Mom for taking a break from your
heavenly bliss to help me out!
I clambered over the icy snowbank and
didn’t slip (unlike the poor guy I just saw earlier this afternoon with a big
leg cast on who had broken his leg.)
I walked with determination to the
Emergency Room entrance, through the familiar sliding doors to the Information desk
across from the gift shop. There was a woman sitting at the desk with an
elaborate hairdo that had sparkly stars stuck into the beautiful braids in her hair.
I proudly announced that I would be
working there soon and that I would be drawing.
“Will you draw me?” she asked and I said “Yes I would.”
We chatted some more and she gave
me directions to get to the Security Department in the basement.
As I stood there I felt the ghosts of old
times gather around me as the doors to the Emergency Room swung open and
closed. I stood there talking to the receptionist but a part of me was coming
in and out of those doors…worried, stressed, uncertain and stressed all over
again. Perhaps running to get a coffee and pistachio muffin to take a break.
Perhaps it was midnight and I was finally going home. Perhaps it was 6 am and we had spent the night there. I swung through those
doors last April when I brought Josh in by ambulance. We entered ER
through the rear doors then. His vital signs were stable on ambulance ride
there, but the blood clots kept coming as big as his fist, a reaction to the warfarin he’d been on.
I drew
it all and tried to make the blood clots look funny with goofy smiles, but it
wasn’t funny. A cart was brought in with big plastic jugs and all afternoon
they filled them with his blood plasma. There was blood on the floor and I kept
drawing. I drew the immaculately coifed urologist specialist, her assistant and
Josh as he struggled. I hoped the Divine hand was reaching
for us just as we reached out in our difficulty. I drew all that long weary day.
I was in and out of those swinging doors many times. Never in my wildest dreams
did I know I would be standing near those swinging doors at the information desk asking the way to
Security so I could get a badge to work there. Although I was already working
there in a way. So I chatted with the woman with stars in her hair as I stood in
two worlds, straddling them both.
I
left and got on the elevator, down to Security, past the rows of yellow lockers
and the empty halls. Envious in my own way of all those walking past me with
their badges. I wanted mine and I wanted to be a part of it all too.
The guy in Security told me I wasn’t in
the system and couldn’t get my badge until I was all processed and finished
with my online training. I felt so disappointed. We visited a bit and I told
him about my upcoming project. I told him I had even written a poem about
getting my badge and did he want to hear it?
Then I turned into my dad James C.
White right before his very eyes. A shock of wild white hair grew as I stood
there with my poem in my hand. ( My dad loved poetry and shared it widely with
whoever would listen)
And this
is what I shared:
The Badge
crossing the HCMC skyway
over 7th street
on a sunny day
I watch
as the screaming ambulance
pulls
into the dock…
but you’re not in it
nor am I
I’m not watching
over you,
this time.
Just watching
Remembering how efficient
everyone was
and how concerned
as they leaned over you
badges dangling,
measuring your blood
pressure.
today I watch the ambulance
from afar
soon I will
get my own badge
so I can draw all this…
and all that….
He listened and the other guy standing
there listened….and we smiled….the ghost of my father dissipated into thin air
and it was just me and these two guys and my disappointment standing there.
I took the elevator back up to first floor
and got off. I told the woman at the desk that I didn’t get my badge after all.
Then I presented myself as formally as I could and asked if this would be a
good time to draw her?
So I drew the stars in her hair, her face, her
dark navy blue sweater. I drew her hair very carefully and the stars in her
hair which were somehow mystically twinkling at me from the far reaches of the
night sky. I drew her smile, her lanyard and her badge. She liked
the drawing very much. I said I was there to honor her… I treasured the moment and it revealed itself.
I left and went upstairs to cross the
sky way to get over to the purple building where I would go down to the basement
to have my mantox looked at.
Like every good person with a phone I sat
down to check my phone and scroll through my messages. As I sat on the red
metal bench I heard a groan and looked up to see a man in a wheelchair
struggling along. He had a long thin face, straight out of an El Greco
painting. He was a large man in one of those big wheelchairs I have pushed many
times. I asked him where he was going and if he needed help. He said he was
going to the Purple building. I said I can take you there and thus I came to
push *George with his struggles across the skyway. First I carefully lifted his
feet onto the wheelchair pads and off we went. We talked about the weather on
the way over and how hard it is to get around.
You might think I was being nice and that
he needed me to push him across the skyway to the Purple Building but really I
needed him to show me the way. He showed me how many people the hospital serves,
what a struggle it is to get around in winter, how helpless at times people can
be and yet how resilient. Yes I needed him as much as he needed me.
We waited a long time for the elevator to
come. Just when I thought it would never come we finally got on. There was a
guy on the elevator with his ear phones on.
We rode down together. I pushed his wheel chair out the elevator door
and as I reluctantly let him off at the first floor I knew he’d make his way. I
knew it wouldn’t be easy, but he’d do it even though I felt helpless letting
him go. I made my way down to the basement where I got my mantox read and it
was fine.
I took the elevator back up and crossed
the skyway again. I found my way to the Spiritual Center where I walked the
quiet inner labyrinth that mirrors the outer labyrinth of getting everything in
order to work here at the hospital. As I walked the inner labyrinth I remembered all
the times it was just me, Josh, a room with machines and tubes, an occasional nurse
and hopefully dthe Divine Hand fluttering around like a butterfly, waiting to land.
I walked with determination back to my
car on the sunny side of the street. Somewhere far above me the stars were
twinkling down on me smiling........ I could feel them.
