Thursday, November 28, 2019

Guess What?

I’m doing very well. Very very well, in fact. Headed towards, well, normal.  I’m also cartooning regularly again after a looooong break. And posting on Instagram.  So follow me and join the fun: @priscilla_gilman



Monday, September 26, 2011

What's Up With Me?

Obviously, I've fallen off blogging.  I'm popping my head up momentarily to say I intend to be back, but not for a while.  I'm taking a sabbatical from blogging to work on two things: traveling to a new doctor, and writing for print.

I'm sure there's something clever I could say, but I just can't think of it right now . . .

Love to all you good folks,

Priscilla

PS.  If you haven't already, "Like" my page on Facebook or sign up for email notification of new posts (see left sidebar of this page), so we can stay in touch.  I may make an occasional post before I'm back for real.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Pride Goeth Before . . . Well . . . You Know . . .

Click to enlarge:


This was some weeks ago, and since I have become an expert on all oral-hygiene alternatives, thanks to suggestions from everybody.  The day after my appointment, I had to sleep for three hours after flossing — which was not encouraging.  But I think I was still exhausted from the outing, and I can report that I’ve been doing my duty since.  I have decided simple tools are best: a brush and twine.  And Larry reminds me that I do love the rubber poker-thingie for gum stimulation.  Highly recommended.


Sunday, July 24, 2011

Simplify


Lately I’ve been lying in bed thinking of things to get rid of.  I can’t recommend it enough.  Great way to let go of the person you were going to be but have turned out not to be.  Not to mention the person you were but are no more.  Also, the person you thought you ought to be, but never really wanted to be.

In the evening, when Larry is available to obey my commands, I use him to make my dreams reality.  Stacks of books to pass on and mounds of stuff for the thrift store are growing, as is the peacefulness and functionality of the room where I spend my days.

Bye-bye Priscilla the scholar, performer, painter, dancer, dresser-upper, crafter, collaborative theater facilitator, social conflict studier, biker, swimmer, hiker, traveler, etc., etc., etc.  Bye-bye Priscilla who turned sick in college and still wants to finish what she started then.  Bye-bye Priscilla who dropped out of graduate school sicker and thinks she’ll get back to those projects sometime, somehow.  Bye-bye all past Priscillas, who are just fine being in the past and don’t need to be dragged along forever.

Bye-bye Priscilla who wants to impress and Priscilla who must prove herself.  Bye-bye Priscilla who thinks, without admitting it, that owning cool interesting nice objects will make her somebody that matters.  Bye-bye Priscilla who owns for the “ought” inside, for the person who gave her the thing she doesn’t need or really even want anymore, except to be for somebody else, some little bit, something she is not.  Who has energy for that anymore?  Good-bye Priscilla who wants to be everything, do everything, please everybody, who thinks if she works hard enough, she will do it.  Good bye all.

Hello now.

Hello open space, possibility, stillness, listening.  My life is small, real, good.  My little bowl of porridge is not too hot and not too cold.  I have three good chairs.  I have places to lie down where I need them, and my bed is not too hard or too soft.  There’s Larry working on his computer upstairs, despite the heat.  There’s the lush world outside my windows and birds still singing about summer.  There’s death coming and life renewing.  New writing and art and friendship and quiet and truth calling.  And enough space opening, here in my room, my home, my mind, my heart, for what is to breathe uncrowded and become what will be.  My enthusiasm bubbles up, apparently eternal.




Wednesday, July 13, 2011

The Way It Is

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Six Weeks Since I Posted

Nine weeks ago, my friend Alan went to the doctor for the second time with symptoms of numbness in the left side of his body and a dropped foot.  The doctor, who had previously said he wasn’t worried, now sent him to the hospital for an MRI.  Alan has been there ever since.

The images showed a mass in his brain, and a few days later biopsy confirmed it to be a malignant tumor.  The biopsy also caused bleeding in the brain, resulting in paralysis of his left side and a variety of other effects, some of them rather strange.  For his three weeks in the ICU, I didn’t know if I would ever have a real conversation with him again, and I knew I couldn’t go see him.  He lives far away.  This is one of the frightful things about being sick I hadn’t experienced yet: not being able to be with somebody you love who’s sick.



In place of traveling I sent him audio recordings of myself almost every day.  Then he was released from the ICU and took up the phone again—a kind of resurrection experience for me.  We’ve talked most days in the six weeks since.  These two months have been a complicated, hard, draining, beautiful.  



I feel content with what has been possible for me, honored to have been intimately involved, and a little trepidatious about what I can manage longer-term. Alan will be released from the hospital this week after having had six weeks of radiation, chemotherapy, and acute rehab.  The rehab continues; otherwise, none of us really knows quite what is next.  I’m hoping now to resume posting regularly here.



Here’s a poem by Alan, from I about a year and a half ago:

   That days like fall leaves
   fall, yet do not accumulate--

   arithmetic fail--
   nor yield decrease--

   their number at all
   can only then

   be one and one
   and one and one.

For more of his poetry you can go to http://magnoliapresscollective.com/Emily.html.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Upon Hearing the Thick Accent of the Australian Prime Minister



I.e., like this.


(With love to all my friends and readers Down Under.)

Monday, May 9, 2011

ME/CFS Community to President Obama: Help!

When Courtney Miller asked President Obama about the abysmal state of funding for ME/CFS research, he said,  “Now, I will confess to you that, although I’ve heard of chronic fatigue syndrome, I don’t have expertise in it. But based on the story that you told me, what I promise I will do when I get back is I will have the National Institute of Health explain to me what they’re currently doing and start seeing if they can do more on this particular ailment. Okay?”  To see the exchange for yourself, fast-forward to 46:50 in the following video:




My latest activist cartoon is a followup to Courtney’s question.  It’s meant to be faxed by Billions and Billions of people, along with their own messages, to President Obama.  Click on the image to see it full-size, and head to this link at the ME/CFS Patient Alliance forum for instructions on downloading the file and faxing.  (You do not need a fax machine to participate!)



Please re-post the Obama cartoon on blogs, forums, and websites.  Give my name, link back to Heaven In My Foot, and—most importantly—link to the instructions for faxing it to Obama.

(Thanks to Lynn and Tina for their work on this! and to Lynn for the idea to do it!)

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Insight of the Day

Wednesday, April 27, 2011


 
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Cartoons at Heaven in My Foot are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.