First Words
…thoughts of an anachronistic, solo pediatrician
by Glenn Feole, M.D.
"Be careful too that the reading of your story makes the melancholy
laugh and the merry laugh louder," Cervantes, Prologue to Don Quixote
Contact: ishmaelish36@gmail.com
Blog site: ishmaelish36.blogspot.com
June 11, 2014
Chief Complaint:
“Chief complaint: nose”
Anserious
Anecdote:
 |
| From a trip to Austin, Texas |
Mary, a cute three year old, had her turn sitting on the exam table. She had developed a fever and vomiting and, upon questioning, both she and her seven year old sister had admitted to having sore throats.
Mary had watched me do a throat culture on her older sister. She had taken in every detail. Her sister hadn’t liked it but had done well.
Mary was worried and her eyes started to water a little as she managed to smile kindly at me. We had a nice relationship.
She then looked at her Mother.
“Mom, cowgirls don’t cry, right?”
April, 2009, South Carolina
Poem:
Arcady
Wheelchair tipped back, precariously balanced
his Mother's hands on the light blue pads
softly holds a motionless head
in a silent upward wide-eyed gaze
his toddler's legs hanging limply.
Alone in the middle of this littered green field
sooted trees with heads bowed low
Dorian columns sprout from Paterson soil.
A massive gray building looms far off
filling his vision with cold stone
and silently obliterates the summer sky,
his Mother watching him in silence.
Could this attic form bring him memories
of pastoral scenes, a maiden’s pursuit
as distant from him as this dark stone
or remind him of the ancient dark force
that must have lashed out even then
at watching children in the glens of Arcady?
Glenn L. Feole, M.D.
Paterson, New Jersey
May, 1987
Coup d'essai:
I was thinking about joy and social norms, happiness and social mores. As always, my mind drifts off to Thoreau's Walden, to Yeat's Lake Isle of Inisfree. Again, I think of my experience at the Westin Hotel in San Francisco (luxurious, comfortable and isolating) vs the SF International Hostel (humble, unostentatious, nonmaterial, friendly, social).
Here is a quote from one of my favorite authors (Oliver Sacks, M.D.) on his trip to see ferns in Oaxaca, Mexico. He has just boarded the AeroMexico plane.
"We are scarcely off the ground before everyone gets up - chatting in the aisles, opening bags of food, breast-feeding babies - an instant social scene, like a Mexican cafe or market. One is already in Mexico as soon as one boards. The seat-belt signs are still on, but nobody pays any attention to them. …this instant fiesta, this sunny laughing atmosphere all round me. How crucial it is to see other cultures, to see how special, how local they are, how un-universal one's own is. What a rigid, joyless atmosphere there is, in contrast, on most North American flights."
from Oaxaca Journal, by Oliver Sacks, M.D.
Favorite Book, Author:
V. S. Pritchett
Insightful, deep, funny, poignant short stories, as good as Chekhov and Jhumpa Lahiri.
See "Blind Love," "The Nest Builder"
Favorite Song/Musician:
Fleet Foxes
Their songs are quiet, simple in their beauty, the lyrics poetry
Favorite Movie:
Triplet's of Belleville
Beautiful art and drawing; meditative…few words; poignant themes (Grandmother and grandson); passion (bike racing)
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