My job requires that I use splenic dendritic cells, harvested directly from the spleens of mice. The cells cannot be stored or cultured for any length of time because they mature and become useless very quickly. This means that every time I do an experiment involving splenic dendritic cells, a mouse must be killed, and its spleen harvested immediately.
I am already "exempt" from killing the mice myself - a co-worker does it for me. This was not always the case. At first, it was assumed that I was merely sentimental about rodents (on account of having them for pets) and that my discomfort would pass. (I am leaving my moral qualms with the use of animals for various human purposes out of this post.) Then, I proved myself utterly useless in the euthanasia process by crying so hard that a) I could not even SEE the mice through the tears and b) I had to keep taking off my surgical mask to blow my nose. Ok. So somebody else will do that job.
Now, I receive the spleens, which are approximately 1.5 cm, red, bean shaped organs, on ice immediately after they are harvested from the mouse. The spleens arrive with bits of connective tissue still attached. Before I begin to process the spleens (to extract the cells I need), I have to remove the little bits of fatty tissue. I do this with tweezers and surgical scissors. It takes about 5 minutes.
What has convinced me that I should never, EVER try to be a doctor is this: even though I've now processed more than a dozen spleens, I cannot get used to the sensation of pulling off the fatty tissue. I've always had a sense - unsubstantiated until now - that I would be unable to cut in to the skin of any organism, dead or alive. Many people have tried to convince me that performing surgery or autopsy or dissection is not as repulsive in actuality as it may seem in concept. This does not appear to be true for me. Every single time I clean those spleens it absolutely sickens me. I have no experience cutting any other kind of tissue, but something deep in my brain tells me that it FEELS WRONG. I just seem to have this built-in visceral knowledge that tissue is NOT SOMETHING YOU CUT, just like I have built-in knowledge that I should never break a bone on purpose, or never put my hand in a fire on purpose. I just can't get used to it.
Other people do not appear to have this mental block. This is a good thing, since if I ever need surgery I'd very much like to have a surgeon who is not freaking out. But man oh man... I'll leave doctoring to those with stronger stomachs than I.
Nov 16, 2008
Nov 4, 2008
thanks be
MY COUNTRY, WE DID IT!!
OBAMA IS MY PRESIDENT!
I'm so excited I don't think I'll sleep all night.
OBAMA IS MY PRESIDENT!
I'm so excited I don't think I'll sleep all night.
Sep 9, 2008
Walden Pond
We set out just as the sun was going down. It was a cool night, cooler than it had been since May. The roads were beginning to clear out, but the streets were full of people, overflowing from clubs and bars. We pedaled through the city, on our best Law Abiding Bicyclist behavior.
Once out of the city we picked up the bike trail. There was no moon and the trail isn't lit, so we were in total darkness, the way illuminated only by our own headlamps. The trail goes on for 15 miles or so, and although there were some people along the way at the beginning, pretty soon we had it all to ourselves. We took over the trail, flying in to the dark. The farther from the city we got, the clearer the stars became.
When I'm cycling along, time seems to pass very quickly. Almost two hours had gone by before I looked at my watch. We were in a rhythm, moving steadily through empty town after empty town. The air got steadily colder. In several places cold air pooled in valleys and as we glided down at 30 miles per hour we all got the shivers. The night was very live.
As soon as we got to the trailhead that leads to the pond, we switched off our lights - lest anybody notice us slipping down to the water - and quietly walked our bicycles in to the forest. The trail happens to be one of those trails that, despite having been there several times before, never quite looks the same twice. Maybe it's the dark, maybe it's the fact that one is always whispering to one's friends instead of paying attention to the route, or maybe the sprit of Thoreau himself cannot bear to see any adventure become familiar.
When the water was finally in front of us, it was gusty and chilly. We had cooled during the walk to the edge of the water and we were plenty cool, but you can't bike all that way to Walden and then sit out. We stripped down - there's really only one way to swim in Walden at midnight - and plunged in to the cool water. The pond was completely empty under the stars. Beautiful.
Once snacks were eaten, water gulped down, feet dried, and bicycles adjusted, we hopped back on for the ride back. There's nobody on the road late at night in the suburbs. We rode four abreast, bombing down the road as is every cyclist's dream. It was *cold*. We picked up the pace. We were flying!
The ride back puts you in a sort of reverie. You pedal on and on, mile after mile, in the still darkness. The bike wheels make a very comforting whirring noise, like a window fan on a summer night. When you stop at a red light, everything is still - there are rarely cars going the other way - and you can hear your own breath. When you start up again, there's no engine noise, nothing to break the stillness.
We rolled in without much fanfare in the early hours of the morning; the feeling of stillness sort of... sticks. Once in the door, we scattered, each of us putting away our helmets, fetching snacks and tossing our shoes off and falling in to bed.
Heaven on wheels!
Once out of the city we picked up the bike trail. There was no moon and the trail isn't lit, so we were in total darkness, the way illuminated only by our own headlamps. The trail goes on for 15 miles or so, and although there were some people along the way at the beginning, pretty soon we had it all to ourselves. We took over the trail, flying in to the dark. The farther from the city we got, the clearer the stars became.
When I'm cycling along, time seems to pass very quickly. Almost two hours had gone by before I looked at my watch. We were in a rhythm, moving steadily through empty town after empty town. The air got steadily colder. In several places cold air pooled in valleys and as we glided down at 30 miles per hour we all got the shivers. The night was very live.
As soon as we got to the trailhead that leads to the pond, we switched off our lights - lest anybody notice us slipping down to the water - and quietly walked our bicycles in to the forest. The trail happens to be one of those trails that, despite having been there several times before, never quite looks the same twice. Maybe it's the dark, maybe it's the fact that one is always whispering to one's friends instead of paying attention to the route, or maybe the sprit of Thoreau himself cannot bear to see any adventure become familiar.
When the water was finally in front of us, it was gusty and chilly. We had cooled during the walk to the edge of the water and we were plenty cool, but you can't bike all that way to Walden and then sit out. We stripped down - there's really only one way to swim in Walden at midnight - and plunged in to the cool water. The pond was completely empty under the stars. Beautiful.
Once snacks were eaten, water gulped down, feet dried, and bicycles adjusted, we hopped back on for the ride back. There's nobody on the road late at night in the suburbs. We rode four abreast, bombing down the road as is every cyclist's dream. It was *cold*. We picked up the pace. We were flying!
The ride back puts you in a sort of reverie. You pedal on and on, mile after mile, in the still darkness. The bike wheels make a very comforting whirring noise, like a window fan on a summer night. When you stop at a red light, everything is still - there are rarely cars going the other way - and you can hear your own breath. When you start up again, there's no engine noise, nothing to break the stillness.
We rolled in without much fanfare in the early hours of the morning; the feeling of stillness sort of... sticks. Once in the door, we scattered, each of us putting away our helmets, fetching snacks and tossing our shoes off and falling in to bed.
Heaven on wheels!
Aug 27, 2008
oh, the places you'll go
Lately, I've been waking up at strange hours of the night. For no particular reason. Usually from some strange dream. I lie in bed, staring blankly in to the darkness and thinking unimportant, sleepy thoughts. And then all of a sudden I'm blindsided by a fact. Just creeps up silently and springs over me. Lissa, you have no idea whether or not anything you experience is real. Everything you feel could be an illusion. The people you know could be figments of your imagination and you could be horribly, horribly alone. Or, Lissa, you have no idea what your purpose in life is. Or, Lissa, it is actually possible that everybody who says they love you is lying.
Um, what the heck? These are thoughts you need full body armor to confront, even at high noon in the best of circumstances. But half-awake and chilly in the middle of the night? You've got to be kidding me. It's impossible.
Seriously, what do you DO about that? Here I am, living my life. I get up, I do my thing. Once in a while I do something abstract and complicated and I call it "success". Once in a while I do something abstract and complicated and people are unhappy with me and I feel horrible. The things that I do are so incredibly specific to my situation, this ridiculously engineered existence that I live. It's incredibly hard to make any sense of it. In order to know if anything I'm doing is worthwhile, I suppose I'd first have to know if humanity is worthwhile, then if civilization is worthwhile, and so on with education and music and love and friendship and engineering, all the way to whatever my latest dilemma is. About something like whether or not I've called my grandmother recently enough. It's dizzying.
Of course I want to be right. I want it to turn out, in the end, that I did the right thing with my life. But the energy it takes to face up to the task of determining whether or not I'm on the right track is too much for me to handle. (Humor me here. I know I'm 22. But you never know what's gonna happen tomorrow.) So I lie there in bed and I just wipe away those thoughts. I tell myself that my senses do not deceive me, that my existence is real. That my life will be made purposeful if I live it well and that I should not hope for anything more. That I am not as alone as I feel. That it will be ok in the morning. I have no proof, but there are lies you have to tell yourself... there are things you cannot face alone.
When I wake up, and the sun is streaming in the windows and I can hear my housemates up and about in the rest of the house, and I can see B sleeping soundly right next to me, the world is a whole lot friendlier. But it does leave me with a feeling much like jet lag. I feel as though I've been away a long, long time. I sit at the breakfast table. My friends filter in. I'm so relieved. They seem so real in the bright sun. I want to jump up and hug them and tell them I made it out safely and how glad I am to see them again. But this seems silly and unwarranted. I eat my toast and smile.
Um, what the heck? These are thoughts you need full body armor to confront, even at high noon in the best of circumstances. But half-awake and chilly in the middle of the night? You've got to be kidding me. It's impossible.
Seriously, what do you DO about that? Here I am, living my life. I get up, I do my thing. Once in a while I do something abstract and complicated and I call it "success". Once in a while I do something abstract and complicated and people are unhappy with me and I feel horrible. The things that I do are so incredibly specific to my situation, this ridiculously engineered existence that I live. It's incredibly hard to make any sense of it. In order to know if anything I'm doing is worthwhile, I suppose I'd first have to know if humanity is worthwhile, then if civilization is worthwhile, and so on with education and music and love and friendship and engineering, all the way to whatever my latest dilemma is. About something like whether or not I've called my grandmother recently enough. It's dizzying.
Of course I want to be right. I want it to turn out, in the end, that I did the right thing with my life. But the energy it takes to face up to the task of determining whether or not I'm on the right track is too much for me to handle. (Humor me here. I know I'm 22. But you never know what's gonna happen tomorrow.) So I lie there in bed and I just wipe away those thoughts. I tell myself that my senses do not deceive me, that my existence is real. That my life will be made purposeful if I live it well and that I should not hope for anything more. That I am not as alone as I feel. That it will be ok in the morning. I have no proof, but there are lies you have to tell yourself... there are things you cannot face alone.
When I wake up, and the sun is streaming in the windows and I can hear my housemates up and about in the rest of the house, and I can see B sleeping soundly right next to me, the world is a whole lot friendlier. But it does leave me with a feeling much like jet lag. I feel as though I've been away a long, long time. I sit at the breakfast table. My friends filter in. I'm so relieved. They seem so real in the bright sun. I want to jump up and hug them and tell them I made it out safely and how glad I am to see them again. But this seems silly and unwarranted. I eat my toast and smile.
Aug 12, 2008
a survey
I don't know about you, but sometimes I go on internet-quiz binges. I'm most likely to take a lot of ridiculous quizzes like "which vegetable do you most resemble" (ooh, I hope I'm broccoli, the green tree of awesome!) or "which famous detective are you" (Sherlock? please?). However, once in a great while, I get serious. Today it's chilly and rainy and I've got lots of time, so...
There are a lot of different versions of the Myers Briggs Personality type tests on the internet. I often find the test questions nearly impossible to answer. For example, mypersonality.info's test asks whether you are more likely to "say things as they are" or "avoid conflict" in conversation. My goal is to do both! Similarly, the test asks whether I process information through "my 5 senses" or "my intuition". As far as I'm concerned, intuition and sensory perception are completely intertwined. Your intuition comes from noticing things - a posture, a tone of voice, a glance. I tend to find the tests frustrating.
So this morning, while feeling philosophical, I decided to take 6 different Myers Briggs tests. (Mypersonality.info, Human Meterics, Kisa, Personality Pathways, Similar Minds, and Know Your Type.) Are they consistent? Totally bogus? Does changing one answer give you a completely different result?
Apparently not! On all 6 tests, I came up INFJ (also see this, this, and this). Then I went back and retook each test, changing the answers to the questions on which I was completely split. The result: 3 tests came up INTJ. Two stayed INFJ. And the last came up INTP. These particular changes were not surprising. Some of the tests show you to what degree you are, say, Introverted instead of Extroverted, or Intuitive versus Sensing. For the first two letters of my type, I always scored very strongly "IN" (Introverted Intuitive), but the last two letters, T/F and J/P, the scores are more middle-of the road. Therefore it makes sense that, overall, changing the answers that I struggled with resulted most often in a switch from F (Feeling) to T (Thinking) and, slightly less often, in a switch from J (Judging) to P (Perceiving).
I have to conclude that there *is* consistency in these results. In all 6 tests, there were quite a few questions that I felt I couldn't answer truthfully, but in all cases, the answer I eventually chose, even while finding it inadequate, lead to the INFJ personality type. The INFJ type does, I feel, describe me fairly well, but as I read through it, I thought that several particular things were missing. Those qualities - broadly, interest in logic and technology and interest in math and language play - are hallmarks of the INTJ and INTP types, respectively. Even more interestingly, from the point of view of the INFJ, the INTJ and INTP represent "Companion" and "Compliment", respectively. (Other types represent "Neighbor", "Counterpart", "Contrast", "Cohort", "Pedagogue" and so on.)
I think it's probably rare that any one person feels totally comfortable being described by 1 and only 1 type. I think I'll call myself 70% INFJ, 20% INTJ, and 10% INTP. Wait - scratch that. Can I be Type Broccoli? Or The Next Sherlock?
There are a lot of different versions of the Myers Briggs Personality type tests on the internet. I often find the test questions nearly impossible to answer. For example, mypersonality.info's test asks whether you are more likely to "say things as they are" or "avoid conflict" in conversation. My goal is to do both! Similarly, the test asks whether I process information through "my 5 senses" or "my intuition". As far as I'm concerned, intuition and sensory perception are completely intertwined. Your intuition comes from noticing things - a posture, a tone of voice, a glance. I tend to find the tests frustrating.
So this morning, while feeling philosophical, I decided to take 6 different Myers Briggs tests. (Mypersonality.info, Human Meterics, Kisa, Personality Pathways, Similar Minds, and Know Your Type.) Are they consistent? Totally bogus? Does changing one answer give you a completely different result?
Apparently not! On all 6 tests, I came up INFJ (also see this, this, and this). Then I went back and retook each test, changing the answers to the questions on which I was completely split. The result: 3 tests came up INTJ. Two stayed INFJ. And the last came up INTP. These particular changes were not surprising. Some of the tests show you to what degree you are, say, Introverted instead of Extroverted, or Intuitive versus Sensing. For the first two letters of my type, I always scored very strongly "IN" (Introverted Intuitive), but the last two letters, T/F and J/P, the scores are more middle-of the road. Therefore it makes sense that, overall, changing the answers that I struggled with resulted most often in a switch from F (Feeling) to T (Thinking) and, slightly less often, in a switch from J (Judging) to P (Perceiving).
I have to conclude that there *is* consistency in these results. In all 6 tests, there were quite a few questions that I felt I couldn't answer truthfully, but in all cases, the answer I eventually chose, even while finding it inadequate, lead to the INFJ personality type. The INFJ type does, I feel, describe me fairly well, but as I read through it, I thought that several particular things were missing. Those qualities - broadly, interest in logic and technology and interest in math and language play - are hallmarks of the INTJ and INTP types, respectively. Even more interestingly, from the point of view of the INFJ, the INTJ and INTP represent "Companion" and "Compliment", respectively. (Other types represent "Neighbor", "Counterpart", "Contrast", "Cohort", "Pedagogue" and so on.)
I think it's probably rare that any one person feels totally comfortable being described by 1 and only 1 type. I think I'll call myself 70% INFJ, 20% INTJ, and 10% INTP. Wait - scratch that. Can I be Type Broccoli? Or The Next Sherlock?
Aug 10, 2008
Why I Love Brightwater
When you get out of the car, this is the very first thing you see.
The trails around the cabin are covered in centuries of pine needles. On the springy pine needles, you can run almost silently.
This trail takes you to the top of Wildcat Ledge, from which you can listen to the ocean.
On the top of Wildcat Ledge is a flat forest completely carpeted in moss a full foot deep.
If you walk silently through the woods, you're likely to see a deer or a fox.
Back at the cabin, Harmony rocks at her mooring on a still afternoon. The mast makes a lovely clinking noise.
The sunsets can be spectacular.
Like lava in the sky!
Jul 7, 2008
doing "nothing"
This summer I am not working, but as a friend of mine wisely said, "nerds abhor a vacuum". At the end of May I announced my intention to "do nothing", but somehow there is still not nearly enough time in which to do all the things I want to do.
But the pace of life certainly is different. No homework, no schedule. This leaves time for thinking. When I decided not to work this summer, I decided to *think* instead. I decided to use the summer to Figure Things Out - what exactly I was going to figure out was, um, undecided. I thought that without a crazy schedule, things might rise to the surface.
And they have. This is my mid-summer report on Figuring Things Out. Since Figuring Things Out is a subject notoriously difficult to convey - hey, if they were easy to write about, they wouldn't count - I'm posting a series of vignettes I've written over the past week.
It begins in a dark place. Warning: the following dream is very disturbing.
**********************************
#1
In the dream, I was in my grandparent's house, although my grandparents weren't there. Instead, in various rooms in the house, were all but a few of my closest friends, puttering around, reading, doing their own quiet thing. I was in the study, looking through my grandfather's old desk, trying to find something. I got distracted, though, by examining the many little things in the small drawers of the desk. I can only remember one of those objects - a letter opener with a wooden handle - but in the dream, I got completely carried away, poking through the drawers for hours. Then the dream made an awkward shift to the next phase. I was still standing in the study, and a sickly aura had enveloped the house. Everything seemed blue tinged and silent. When I breathed in the air felt slimy and wrong. I floated out of the study and in to the dining room. Hanging over one of the chairs was one my friends, swollen and limp and blue and purple - dead. My heart raced. There was poison in the air. I tried to run to the other rooms to alert my other friends. But I was frozen. I floated, with no sense of the ground or of force at all. I could move, but painfully slowly. The force my muscles put out didn't move anything, it just disappeared. I was swimming through the air madly when I finally got to the next room. The friend who was in that room was still alive, staring at me with little comprehension, obviously under the effects of the poison. I opened my mouth to give the warning, and found that I had two tongues. All I could do was choke. I tried to speak a few words, but my friend could not understand. I realized I wasn't speaking English, though what exactly it was I'm not too sure. I reached out through the inexplicably thick air and tried to grab my friend. But everything in the house, my friend included, seemed to be rooted to the spot, unreachable. Despite using all my energy I could not make any difference. I fought through the closing air to the next room. There was another friend sitting, facing away from me, looking out the window. I tried to make a sound - any sound, but I choked again. As I floated there, my friend slid from the chair to the ground. I was too late. I gave up. The dream made another abrupt switch. I was running across a wooden bridge that was covered with sand. I must have been somewhere in Maine. This time the air was almost nonexistent, hypoxic, thin. I ran effortlessly until I came to an empty wood cabin. I went inside. It was completely bare except for one man sitting at a desk in the corner. There was no other furniture. The man at the desk was bush with some paperwork, and gave me the sign to wait. I stood there for a very long time. Finally, he beckoned me towards him. I opened my mouth but found I still had two tongues. I couldn't speak. He sneered at me. "There was one you could have saved, sitting in the door way, near the fresh air," he said.
I woke up soaked in sweat. It was 5 AM and still hot outside. I had only been asleep for two hours. I took off my sweaty tank top and stood at the sink and splashed water on my face. I looked in the mirror. Only one tongue. Maybe nobody had died after all.
**********************************
#2
I started out on the run knowing I didn't feel well. I told myself that if I wasn't comfortable, I'd stop running. I always tell myself things like that. It doesn't make any difference.
A mile in, it hurt. Ten steps later, it hurt a lot. I leaned my head back to get a better angle on breathing. Swallowed hard.
As I rounded the corner and passed the sandwich shop, I couldn't swallow. I stopped running and walked a few steps. The seconds ticked by on my watch. 11 seconds. I started running. I felt like some strange LEGO person, cobbled together out of parts that didn't match. My legs were restless, my lungs healthy, and my stomach (for which running is supposedly no work at all) an ill-fitting piece, the weakest link.
I made it back home in 31 minutes. I was sure I couldn't have gone another minute, but that's what I thought at minute 26, too. I stood in front of the sink again and splashed water on my face, holding my neck back in a funny position so I could swallow. I looked at myself in the mirror. The pain was completely invisible.
**********************************
#3
It rained on the day of graduation. All 2000 of us lined up in 4 rows, in the athletic fields, our mortarboards shielding us from some of the rain. I didn't feel well. It was a big day, and I'd just spent 2 hours waiting in a hugely crowded, incredibly hot gymnasium (wearing my robe, of course), talking to dozens of students. The air was pretty charged. Graduating from MIT is kind of like taking the top off 2000 soda bottle that've been shaken for 4 years. Of course, put me in that kind of energy, and no matter how celebratory the mood, I'm like to go under.
I stood in line, moving forward every once in a while. We had about half a mile to walk to the lawn on which the ceremony would take place. Even 10 steps seemed like too much for me. I watched people jumping out of line to hug family members, people shouting across the lines to their friends. I took a few more steps. I couldn't swallow. Was this how I was going to graduate? Would my family line up with their cameras, tears in their eyes, to take a picture of me in this state, barely able to focus my eyes, wondering if I'd be able to hold on? Would I have to forgo shaking the President's hand, and slump in my seat as the next person in line collected my diploma? Is this really want I wanted to remember about my graduation?
Of course I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to feel instantly well, I wanted the sun to come out and the rain to stop. But throwing hate at my kind of pain only feeds it. C'mon Lissa, I told myself. You've pulled through before. You don't have to give this up. You can just take one more breath. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine.
It took a quarter mile. I followed the guy in front of me and didn't look up. But when we neared the entrance to the lawn, I realized that I was actually... fine. I looked up. It was still raining. The grass was slick and well-trod and the entire audience was clad in identical MIT ponchos. But all of a sudden it looked beautiful. I passed through the entrance and in to the sea of people. I heard a shout. My family was to the right, all of them waving like madmen and yelling and snapping pictures. I smiled - and it was easy. Later, as I shook the President's hand, my sister jumped up in the audience in excitement and obscured the video my mom was making of the moment. No matter. The videotape wouldn't have shown how good I felt right then, anyway.
**********************************
#4
"When the spring comes, the grass grows all by itself."
But the pace of life certainly is different. No homework, no schedule. This leaves time for thinking. When I decided not to work this summer, I decided to *think* instead. I decided to use the summer to Figure Things Out - what exactly I was going to figure out was, um, undecided. I thought that without a crazy schedule, things might rise to the surface.
And they have. This is my mid-summer report on Figuring Things Out. Since Figuring Things Out is a subject notoriously difficult to convey - hey, if they were easy to write about, they wouldn't count - I'm posting a series of vignettes I've written over the past week.
It begins in a dark place. Warning: the following dream is very disturbing.
**********************************
#1
In the dream, I was in my grandparent's house, although my grandparents weren't there. Instead, in various rooms in the house, were all but a few of my closest friends, puttering around, reading, doing their own quiet thing. I was in the study, looking through my grandfather's old desk, trying to find something. I got distracted, though, by examining the many little things in the small drawers of the desk. I can only remember one of those objects - a letter opener with a wooden handle - but in the dream, I got completely carried away, poking through the drawers for hours. Then the dream made an awkward shift to the next phase. I was still standing in the study, and a sickly aura had enveloped the house. Everything seemed blue tinged and silent. When I breathed in the air felt slimy and wrong. I floated out of the study and in to the dining room. Hanging over one of the chairs was one my friends, swollen and limp and blue and purple - dead. My heart raced. There was poison in the air. I tried to run to the other rooms to alert my other friends. But I was frozen. I floated, with no sense of the ground or of force at all. I could move, but painfully slowly. The force my muscles put out didn't move anything, it just disappeared. I was swimming through the air madly when I finally got to the next room. The friend who was in that room was still alive, staring at me with little comprehension, obviously under the effects of the poison. I opened my mouth to give the warning, and found that I had two tongues. All I could do was choke. I tried to speak a few words, but my friend could not understand. I realized I wasn't speaking English, though what exactly it was I'm not too sure. I reached out through the inexplicably thick air and tried to grab my friend. But everything in the house, my friend included, seemed to be rooted to the spot, unreachable. Despite using all my energy I could not make any difference. I fought through the closing air to the next room. There was another friend sitting, facing away from me, looking out the window. I tried to make a sound - any sound, but I choked again. As I floated there, my friend slid from the chair to the ground. I was too late. I gave up. The dream made another abrupt switch. I was running across a wooden bridge that was covered with sand. I must have been somewhere in Maine. This time the air was almost nonexistent, hypoxic, thin. I ran effortlessly until I came to an empty wood cabin. I went inside. It was completely bare except for one man sitting at a desk in the corner. There was no other furniture. The man at the desk was bush with some paperwork, and gave me the sign to wait. I stood there for a very long time. Finally, he beckoned me towards him. I opened my mouth but found I still had two tongues. I couldn't speak. He sneered at me. "There was one you could have saved, sitting in the door way, near the fresh air," he said.
I woke up soaked in sweat. It was 5 AM and still hot outside. I had only been asleep for two hours. I took off my sweaty tank top and stood at the sink and splashed water on my face. I looked in the mirror. Only one tongue. Maybe nobody had died after all.
**********************************
#2
I started out on the run knowing I didn't feel well. I told myself that if I wasn't comfortable, I'd stop running. I always tell myself things like that. It doesn't make any difference.
A mile in, it hurt. Ten steps later, it hurt a lot. I leaned my head back to get a better angle on breathing. Swallowed hard.
As I rounded the corner and passed the sandwich shop, I couldn't swallow. I stopped running and walked a few steps. The seconds ticked by on my watch. 11 seconds. I started running. I felt like some strange LEGO person, cobbled together out of parts that didn't match. My legs were restless, my lungs healthy, and my stomach (for which running is supposedly no work at all) an ill-fitting piece, the weakest link.
I made it back home in 31 minutes. I was sure I couldn't have gone another minute, but that's what I thought at minute 26, too. I stood in front of the sink again and splashed water on my face, holding my neck back in a funny position so I could swallow. I looked at myself in the mirror. The pain was completely invisible.
**********************************
#3
It rained on the day of graduation. All 2000 of us lined up in 4 rows, in the athletic fields, our mortarboards shielding us from some of the rain. I didn't feel well. It was a big day, and I'd just spent 2 hours waiting in a hugely crowded, incredibly hot gymnasium (wearing my robe, of course), talking to dozens of students. The air was pretty charged. Graduating from MIT is kind of like taking the top off 2000 soda bottle that've been shaken for 4 years. Of course, put me in that kind of energy, and no matter how celebratory the mood, I'm like to go under.
I stood in line, moving forward every once in a while. We had about half a mile to walk to the lawn on which the ceremony would take place. Even 10 steps seemed like too much for me. I watched people jumping out of line to hug family members, people shouting across the lines to their friends. I took a few more steps. I couldn't swallow. Was this how I was going to graduate? Would my family line up with their cameras, tears in their eyes, to take a picture of me in this state, barely able to focus my eyes, wondering if I'd be able to hold on? Would I have to forgo shaking the President's hand, and slump in my seat as the next person in line collected my diploma? Is this really want I wanted to remember about my graduation?
Of course I wanted everything to be perfect. I wanted to feel instantly well, I wanted the sun to come out and the rain to stop. But throwing hate at my kind of pain only feeds it. C'mon Lissa, I told myself. You've pulled through before. You don't have to give this up. You can just take one more breath. Don't worry about it. It'll be fine.
It took a quarter mile. I followed the guy in front of me and didn't look up. But when we neared the entrance to the lawn, I realized that I was actually... fine. I looked up. It was still raining. The grass was slick and well-trod and the entire audience was clad in identical MIT ponchos. But all of a sudden it looked beautiful. I passed through the entrance and in to the sea of people. I heard a shout. My family was to the right, all of them waving like madmen and yelling and snapping pictures. I smiled - and it was easy. Later, as I shook the President's hand, my sister jumped up in the audience in excitement and obscured the video my mom was making of the moment. No matter. The videotape wouldn't have shown how good I felt right then, anyway.
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#4
"When the spring comes, the grass grows all by itself."
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