As if anybody knows what I was talking about.......

Paul Simon is singing in the background and it makes me feel like dancing with diamonds on the soles of my shoes. I'll never forget the first time I saw him sing this on Saturday Night Live with Ladysmith Black Mambazo. It was vibrantly unique.........the melody and the merging of cultures. It's one of those songs I can't get enough of........it fills my office as I compose.


Today, these greyish walls, which I have adorned with inspirational signs of course, feel more expansive because I have been playing toe tapping dance wannabe tunes. I filled the air with the big band sounds of Frank Sinatra belting out Gershwin and Sammy Cahn classics........

The way you wear your hat
the way you sip your tea
The memory of all that.........
No, no - they can't take that away from me.

Or.............

Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away..............
Once I get you there where the air is rarified
We'll just glide, starry eyed
Once I get you there I'll be holding you so near
You may hear angels cheer cause we're together...........

You humming yet???

I've sung to the Proclaimers........."I'm on my way".............. to Lyle Lovett....."That's right! You're not from Texas" ............to the Replacements singing about a "Waitress in the Sky".......

These songs make me feel more balanced..........and help me write the sad stories I have had to focus on today. It's a strange thing, to be writing about sadness and disabling illnesses all the while listening to Sinatra or Simon............. but it helps me detach enough to find the words needed to compose my client's stories. These clients are applying for disability pensions, which means more money, which means more attention from social services.

A large portion of my day involves meeting with clients in their homes or in my office to listen to them relive their painful history. Afterwards, my role is to write up a report that accompanies the medical information provided by their doctors. Often the medical information is scantily one dimensional......a diagnosis attached to a couple of words. It's my responsibility to draw a picture for the review board that fills in the life with breath. Today I have relived tales of schizophrenia, autism and chronic alcoholism. I've written about drug addiction, attention deficit disorder, depression and Hep C. The human beings who shared with me await........ and as much as I wanted to write their personal pain as soon as I had met with them, I needed time to process, to figure out how I would pass it on.......how I could breathe air into their application. It's the only way I know how to do it right. It's the only way I know how to portray their realism.


The Medical Review Board who review the reports, who have the last say on whether or not a person's suffering is bad enough to grant them a permanent pension, is comprised of medical professionals who are brilliant in their field I'm sure. They have their own practises and their own patients as well as their role on the Board. They see patients in their offices. No house calls. No chance to experience knowing the broader picture.

Poverty at a distance

Illness in a formal environment

Miles from the gutter

Miles from the rural disconnect of have nots.

It is my responsibility to describe a whole human being and the life they live. They need to know. The review board may not want to know, but personally I don't care about that because I believe that lives are not comprised of simple facts. Life is interconnective understanding. It is knowing your neighbours. Its about realizing and recognizing and reaching out to help others. So, I write in 3 dimensional multi-sensory description.......the sights, sounds and the smells.

Real.

I am capable of being present during the initial interview......... openly compassionate, fully attentive, interactive, encouraging as they learn to trust me. I often hear truly horrendous confessions from deep wounds. The full impact, however, of what I have heard doesn't hit me until I begin to write. Words make it finitely real. It's on paper permanently. Before that I can compartmentalize the individual's story for safe keeping with a sense of fiction possibly? I don't know..........I'm trying to figure it out. What I do know is that when I have to spend a day or two writing these reports, I am more emotionally spent than the original meeting.

So..........to stay balanced................to stay connected to my other "selves" I listen to music I would like to be dancing to, I venture outside to take deep fresh air breaths and enjoy the view of my downtown, I walk at lunch and interact with life. I write my thoughts............and I share them with you...................

As if anyone really knows what I was talking about........

Time to head home. I'm knackered.