August 30, 2014 Saturday "Picolia"

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

August 30, 2014 Saturday

Chief Complaint: (written on the chart before I go in the room)

Buramba Fever  (computer diagnosis when I looked up "malaise")

Interesting Name:

       Picolia

Anecdote:

    Emily was one year old and was almost walking.  She was precocious: she already had a six word vocabulary and had even used two words together.    Yet, as all parents do, the Mother was still worried about her developing normally and asked me with great concern and worry if there were any signs of delay.  

     I mean, afterall, her sister was running in circles by this age she told me in a pleating voice.  

    As she was expressing her concerns, Emily casually cruised up to her Mother's chair, looked her in the eye, puckered her lips together and with the utmost delicacy and care, formed a thin fragile bubble from the saliva arching from one lip to the other.  Emily then froze and a glassy look came over her eyes as she entered a deep, Zen-like  concentration.  She gently exhaled in infinitessimal increments as the bubble almost imperceptibly swelled to an enormous size and then abruptly popped.  

     She repeated this intricate process about ten times while continuing to stare at her Mother.  So much for fine motor development, I thought.  It was now time to check and see if she could do one armed pushups to demonstrate her gross motor skills.

          Westport, Connecticut   1990's

Coup d'essai:

     About fifteen years ago, I decided to read all of Shakespeare's sonnets.  I had remembered when my dear and gentle roommate at Princeton, Corky, was taking a course in Shakespeare and I asked him what plays they were reading.  He smiled and said, "All of them."  Ahhh….what a special time of such dedicated intellectual pursuit and friendship.  Well, I did read all of the sonnets…and it was an incredible, stirring and beautiful undertaking.  
     My favorite still is and always has been Number 74.  It also was one of the poems I carried around with me as a resident at Children's in Cincinnati.  It seemed to comfort me with the pathos and suffering that surrounds all doctors, in training and otherwise.  It gave me hope and kept me on a deeper plane.  
     I recall sitting in the warm sun one summer, eyes closed,  the trees gently waving in the sky above,  a cool breeze on my face.  I was in my twenties and I for some reason, perhaps the beauty of the day, made a  conscious decision to memorize this sonnet.  Right then and there.  It was liking eating chocolate…savoring each phrase, repeating it over and over as deeper meanings and connections slowly emerged, savoring each delicate rhyme of abab, the rhythm of the iambic pentameter, the elegiac progression of sadness and longing, of reminiscence with the passage of time, the beautiful symbols and, as always, the unexpected turn at the end, at the last two lines, the reversal of emotion, the joy.   Overwhelming.   

Poetry:

Sonnet 74

That time of year thou may'st in me behold 
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. 
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day, 
As after sunset fadeth in the west, 
Which by-and-by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest. 
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire 
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie, 
As the death-bed whereon it must expire 
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by. 

This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

     Shakespeare

Favorite Musician/song:

DC Talk "The Hard Way"

     My all time favorite DC Talk song…and I love them all.  I took my children several times to see DC Talk and we had a great time.  Their music I think was one of the profound spiritual influences on us as a family.  Messages of love and forgiveness and immunity   
    One of the singers, emerging after the show from his large traveling bus…came out with a gentle smile and introduced his Father to us, a frail African-American gentleman who also seemed very humble.  What other "rock star" travels with his Father on tour, I thought?  What humility and purity. 
    But, best of all, I was actually in the mosh pit with my children and…the incredible (and very large) bassist, Sugarbear, leapt out and I got to help hold him with my own two hands.  What a moment for my children and myself. 

Favorite Book/author:

Favorite Movie/DVD:

Finding Neverland, Kate Winslett, Johnny Depp, Dustin Hoffman

     A gentle and inspiring DVD.   I have always loved themes of the artist following his or her passion and love despite all expectations and obstacles.