2 days of unending rain and grayness. This morning, I was driving over the Fifth Street bridge, complaining in my head about how annoying it is when the windshield fogs up. Then I looked to my right and saw a man walking across the bridge with a flimsy hood pulled down over his head. Walking. I felt like such a jerk, like I do so frequently these days. Life is so good to me and yet each day of self-development seems slow and grueling. Each day, I try to step back from my self and my petty problems and truly see the world and the people in it. Some days I fall flat.

Yesterday my partner and I drove over an hour in torrential rain to take care of our patients who live afar. Some days I really dread that clinic. Yesterday, I felt like what we were doing mattered. We welcomed back into the fold people who had been lost to our care due to the circumstances in their lives. By loving them and encouranging their success in their treatment, we take one more step toward eradicating the virus. It's a strange war, but an important one.

Sometimes I feel more successful in the war on HIV than I do in my own life. The emotions and conditions of 5 people living together has its moments. I feel forgotten and pushed aside by friends that I once had so much contact with. But I have learned through the years that the important thing is to always keep reaching out. Never give up on the people you love. What at once seems hopeless can blossom into a thing of beauty.

We have a patient who comes by our office once a month to pick up his medicines. He could get them at the pharmacy but he prefers to come to us. I think he just enjoys coming to see us. He cooks things for us and waxes philosophical in our little lobby. And in our corner of the city, the stigma of HIV does not exist. We make sure of it.

The foggy windshield finds where it belongs in my consciousness if I work diligently at my vision.

Stiff Bones

I've been listening to a lot of Ani again recently. I had lost a CD I really liked and I got it again and it has filled me to hear it fresh. I play it loud in the car when I am alone and I sing along. It makes me feel alive. I think I am most afraid of falling asleep inside as I grow older. Mostly I can't sort out if that feeling is physical or emotional, so I am taking a few steps to try and sort that out and remedy it. Last night we watched the documentary about the Bones Brigade from the 80s and it took me back to a time of so much energy! Just pure and raw. I felt myself smiling a lot throughout the film. I'll never get on a skateboard, but I will find something to get my bones moving before it's too late. I ordered myself an mp3 player so I can get some tunes going through my ears again. It's too quiet. I need to sing. I need to write. Those I know who have the luxury of not working, or being fulltime writers, are lucky indeed. But my job is also an endless fount of thoughts and stories.  I guess you just have to choose which things in your life are going to have to go, to be able to do the things you feel most called to do.

Stagnancy

I wrote more when I had children tumbling all around me- laughing and crying and messing things up. When I could not possibly concentrate. More than now, sitting alone at the computer, the only noise the hum of the machine I am typing on. This makes no sense to me. There is something missing that I must recapture.

Driving down 5th street yesterday, I saw 3 boys on skateboards. The skaters don't look much different than they used to: caps turned backward, Vans, sinewy arms in tshirts. As one of them hopped the curb I felt like I could feel their live teenaged energy. I wanted to reach my finger out and stick my finger in that socket and get a jolt of it.

Because although I feel happy, I also feel stagnant. I need to move. I feel old.

Easy to think about things, but not as easy to do them.