jenxie

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I have a confession to make. Art is not my biggest passion. Having said that, I want to explain that I have many passions, my family of course being the biggest. We laugh a lot, even with 2 boys and all the angst that comes with teenagers, we laugh. I have just moved back into the house in which I lived the first 20 years of my life. My husband and I spent 3 years remodeling it, and even though the house is updated it still retains the character of my youth. If I sit real still and listen I think I can hear my childhood. I think I can hear the chaotic sounds that turn a building of walls and floors and furniture into a home- the tones and pitches of kids and teenagers and their armies of stray friends that filled the beds and couches and floors of that house over the years, the harsh arguing of siblings and the murmuring of hurt feelings, the music that ricocheted off the walls, the fussings of a stressed out Mother, and the chuckle of a Dad who loved a good practical joke. Every time I walk through the house or roam the mountain of land, I am flooded with memories… there was a lot of laughter there then, too.

Medicine is a passion. I have been a nurse for 20+ years, mostly working in ICU’s and cardiac units and respiratory units. Now I am a Nurse Practitioner and see patients in an office setting. I thought I would be bored with office medicine but after spending the last 5 or 6 years of my hospital career in management, I enjoy getting back to the roots of my profession. One on one with patients- that’s the fun. I get to hear mini novels every day, and sometimes help shape the story and maybe change the endings. I find a lot of spirituality in all the intricatcies of the human body, especially when combined with that undefinable core that is the essence of being human. I have no doubt in my mind that it is no accident nor evolution from a single cell organism that has us where we are today. I stand in awe that I am blessed to be able to do this “job”. How many people get to save a life or prevent a disease or just be there when the soul decides it has had enough and wants to quietly slip away? Miracles, of which I am merely a witness instead of an instigator, surround me every day. I have a dear friend studying medicine in Germany. She excitedly emails me her discoveries and asks for answers to her questions and I laugh and tell her she has surpassed my knowledge base already. She is now exploring cadavers in Anatomy class; dissecting muscles down to individual fibers, peeling away layers of fascia, following trails of vessels as if they will lead her home.
I asked her if she has found the soul yet.

Why on earth do we think life forms on another planet would need carbon, or water for that matter? Why is believeing we evolved from a salinic ameobic like organism any less crazy than believing in God? I have spent my entire life studying science and often find it suffocating. I first noticed the arrogancy of science when I was still in Elementry School. I would lose myself on the floor of the library reading The National Geographic magazine. I was enthralled by the photographs, and devoured the articles (still do), but I soon realized some discovery or theory would be touted as the “truth” until a few years later something would refute it and suddenly we had a new “truth”. The contradictions made me wonder how they could insist I believe something they kept changing to make it fit their discoveries. I study and use science every day and find it very intriguing. I marvel at technology and where it may lead – it makes me curious and hungry. Yet, I look at science critically because I have seen it close its eyes and shut its ears to events because they can’t be explained by the theories it possesses. I am often amazed (and dismayed) at how easily scientists can sway the public to their points of view. I have first hand experience with happenings that contradict science, belie medicine, just make no logical sense, so I believe there are other explainations for happenings in this world. I don’t think the scientist have it figured out at all.

Once I was very passionate about horses, spent most of my youth showing Quarter Horses and marveling in their beauty and athleticism. I still have horses. I don’t compete anymore, but I do love the smell of a horses neck right under the mane. Can you conjure smells? I think I can sometimes- sawdust, grains, leather. What about sounds? A nicker, a stamp of a hoof, raspy breaths after a gallop. Even now, driving by a freshly cut field of hay makes me inhale reflexivly, as if my body remembers…

I am passionate about my country. I love America. It is truly amazing and even with all its problems, I would not want to live anywhere else. I have traveled to different countries; spent a month in Brazil studying it’s healthcare system, visited friends in Europe, have seen the beauty of the Carribean, the life of Mexico, and stepped foot in Canada but, my oh my, what a gem we have in America… I know people that roam the world and then berate America for its idiosyncrocies. I want to tap those people on the shoulder and have them look around, hard. I want to ask them if they have ever been chased at night by a swarm of sand crabs nipping at their heels on the shores of North Carolina. I want to ask them if they have ever ridden an ATV for miles through the desert of Arizona, then crawl to the edge and look out over a truley grand canyon. I want to know if they have ever stopped to listen to a man sing Amazing Grace acapella on a side street in New Orleans, singing so sweetly it makes you go all quiet and still and makes you believe. I want to ask if they have ever ridden a horse all day in the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, only to lay their head on a rolled up jacket in the back of a pickup truck and watch the night sky rain meteors? Have they ever dipped their toes in the ocean on the other side of this country? Maybe next time I will ask.

But this is an art site, and yes, photography is a passion of mine. I have been clicking the shutter for many years, mostly with an early 1970’s model Nikon, for which my husband traded a homemade boat because he didn’t have the money to get me a birthday present that year. It came with many lenses and gadgets that I had no idea what they did. Still not sure what some of them were. But I played, and spent a lot of money on film. A lot of my favorite photographs are lying patiently in a box waiting for resusitation by a scanner. I am grateful to a professional photographer friend of my Fathers’ that encouraged me when I was young. He pointed out what I was doing right, never talking about the things I did wrong. Maybe he saw a talent, maybe he was just being nice. I am certaintly not what you would call an accomplished photographer, but sometimes I get lucky.

So… if you have made it this far in my biography, you have a small window into my inner thought processes… but don’t think you have me figured out because I’m not that easy. Just when I think I am catching on to lifes’ machinations, it oils the handgrip. I slip a bit and grab somewhere else.

Sometimes I think the whole key to living this life is stamina.

Footnote: My Mother recently lost a battle with lung and brain cancer. She was a fiercely independant woman, suddenly handed a 6 month life sentence.

What do you do with that kind of news?

What would you do today if you only had 6 more months to live?

Think about it… then do it.