A lilac spotting

Now that we are finally entering spring (and no longer experiencing snow in late March ...), the blooms and leaves are popping up all over. And I saw a lilac just coming into bloom on my way to the co-op this morning.

I just learned about tulip fields outside of Woodburn. A trip might have to be on the agenda this weekend. I have great memories of going to see the tulips fields in Mount Vernon while in college, jumping between the rows of flowers, taking silly pictures and Lady Susan surprising a physics professor.

Night float is finally over. I had 16 nights of working the general pediatric wards spread over 4 weeks. My day and nights are completely screwed up. I've never taken melatonin before but I think I'm going to take some before bed the next few nights and see if that will speed up the conversation back to normalcy.

For those who don't know, NPR has a great program called Speaking of Faith hosted by Krista Tippets and she has a book out by the same name. During the program she speaks with people of all different faith traditions, religious, spiritual and not either. The conversations are fascinating. In the book she talks about her journey to her present state of spirituality and why she feels that discussions of faith are of vital importance for our country and the world. I've just started delving into the book and found the following provocative. It is part of Letters to a Young Poet by Maria Rainer Rilke.

... to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

I'm certainly not very good at sitting with uncertainty. I want to know that everything will work out okay, that I've made correct decisions ... choosing Port Angeles over Walla Walla, Miguel's decision to leave MMHS and come with me even if it means that he won't be able to get a high school English job next year, that we'll have healthy children, have I learned enough during residency to be a competent physician, what bigger energy or force is in the universe that connects us all together ...