(w)hol(e)y (e)vent

here's a slice of life - cake:
I adapt because I can.
For many of the people with whom I live and work, lots of things are not under their control...
for a whole host of reasons ( disability, age, illness, pain, addiction, alcoholism...) there is too much contingency, chaos, and crisis to manage...
hence, they do not " adapt" because they cannot

and so the past 24 hours have not been all that unusual...
a woman on the slow-- but probably inevitable --COPD slide into respiratory failure...
an eleventh hour vigil at the walk -in clinic for an emergency prescription...
a mom who will lose her son because she cannot stay off the booze and the drugs...
another mom who wonders what to say to her seven year old who was called a motherf@#&er on the ride home on the school bus...
a young woman sent to emergency for a tetanus shot after the child she was working with bit her hard enough to break the skin...

tears, fears, shame, dread, weariness, desperation, indifference...
calmness, compassion, cold quiet rage...
silence, humour, acceptance, solitude, gratitude
moonlight...
now,
if only I could practice a little impulse control when I spill my @#$%@! coffee...