roots and wings

Have you heard of Brene Brown? I love her research and her...

Sun, 24 Mar 2013 22:27:11 -0500

Have you heard of Brene Brown? I love her research and her books. She inspires me. You can buy this parenting manifesto at her website.

“‘Oh, you’re real! Oh, Aslan!’ cried...

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 23:10:41 -0500

“‘Oh, you’re real! Oh, Aslan!’ cried Lucy and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.
‘But what does it all mean?’ asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
‘It means,’ said Aslan, ‘that though the Witch knew the… Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.”

~ C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

[posted by Santa Cruz Books]

"The creative adult is the child who has survived."

Wed, 07 Mar 2012 13:01:16 -0600

“The creative adult is the child who has survived.”

- Ursula K. LeGuin

Wild, Wonder-Filled Boys and the Art They Make

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 21:43:12 -0600

Wild, Wonder-Filled Boys and the Art They Make

The Art of Play

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 13:27:32 -0600

The Art of Play

From Conception to Birth: it's magic, it's mystery, it's divinity

Sat, 19 Nov 2011 13:20:02 -0600

From Conception to Birth: it's magic, it's mystery, it's divinity

below is my personal essay for a resident editorship that i am completing soon. it has been 2 very...

Fri, 14 Oct 2011 19:24:00 -0500

below is my personal essay for a resident editorship that i am completing soon. it has been 2 very good years…

“The story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all.” — Frederick Buechner

As psychiatrists, we spend our days immersed in stories. I remember as a medical student, scrambling to fill in the appropriate boxes on my clipboard: chief complaint, history of the present illness, past psychiatric history, et cetera. My interviews as a pediatric intern seemed just as disjointed, as if I were a robot collecting data to compute a “diagnosis.” As a child and adolescent psychiatry resident, I have gradually become more fluid in my “data gathering.” And now, rather than asking about a myriad of symptoms, my interviews invite the patient to tell me her story.

My love for stories translates to the written word as well, so when I heard about the AACAP News resident editor position from Dr. Kim, my heart skipped a beat. I spend a lot of my free time reading and writing a variety of things: textbooks, periodicals, poetry, and children’s books. As a child and adolescent psychiatry resident, I often tell parents that reading to their children is one of the most important things they can do. On a greater level, I think psychiatrists can be pivotal when writing great periodicals, stories, and commentaries. Our depth of abstraction makes us unique to the medical profession and positions us to be a voice of clarity in an increasingly complex society.

And as much as I struggle with the media and all its moral quandaries, I think child and adolescent psychiatrists have an even greater obligation to society by keeping our voice in the media. I think opening a resident editor position for the AACAP News Media page is a very important position, not only for me to get more inside experience on how a periodical is published, but also to discern what our profession stands for when it comes to public awareness. For the media of a nation, can become a child’s every day psychology.

But we get bogged down by the data too. And those are the times I know to tread lightly. By examining every statement under the microscope of theoretical frameworks, it is easy to forget that this is a running narrative. As child and adolescent psychiatrists, we are a bit like editors. Amongst the signs and symptoms, these are stories to be excavated. And with any manuscript, the editor sees the hidden beauty and polishes it to refinement — all in an effort to transform the story, making it better and if not better, perhaps more meaningful.

As I transition to adult residency, I suppose my focus will be less on beginnings and more on middles and endings, but with an insight to how the story can unfold and develop. And that adult mental illness can stem from difficult childhoods, but not always. Perhaps my role will even be to help those remember their own stories amidst the progression of diseases that fade memories. In the mean time, I hope to stay connected to the world of child psychiatry and use my skills as a writer and editor to contribute to the publication of AACAP News. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.

Photo

Thu, 13 Oct 2011 20:46:12 -0500

My very first piece at the Art House America Blog, Steeping in...

Thu, 26 May 2011 12:31:00 -0500

My very first piece at the Art House America Blog, Steeping in Time and Tea.

Pied Beauty

Mon, 16 May 2011 11:55:00 -0500

Glory be to God for dappled things —
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced — fold, fallow, and plough;
And all trades, the gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow, sweet, sour, adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.

-Gerard Manley Hopkins

When my mind is weary and I can’t take the world for another minute, I like to fold into a poem and stay a while. Lately I’ve been reading the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, a man who shares my passion for ephemera and was particularly good at natural and religious poetic journaling; taking notice of such things such as rising steam clouds, full rainbows, melting crystals and dappled light. Some days, I like to borrow his calibrating eye and try to see the world as if documenting it’s tiny splendor were my only duty.

days like this

Sat, 14 May 2011 19:43:00 -0500

whenever i’ve had a bad day, or am feeling lonely, or am at odds with the world, my husband does this thing where he pretends that my dog is feeling the same way.

“You okay, Tina?”

“No.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I’m mad at Pickles.”

for some reason, this just pulls me outside of myself and makes me laugh out loud. thank you, baby.

lists

Thu, 12 May 2011 15:15:00 -0500

i found two lists on this blog that inspired me. i tend to be a list maker too. everything from daily to do’s to year-long goals, and subdivided into special categories like work, writing, home, family, etc. i especially loved the “what I’m looking forward to” and the “I remember” lists, mostly because i think they can help remind me to have hope for the future, and despite life’s many detours, to keep trucking along.

so without further ado, here is my list of “things I’m looking forward to”

1. traveling to Washington D.C. next week for the AACAP editorial board meeting

2. the Glen Workshop in June

3. starting a family, hopefully

4. summer bike rides around the neighborhood

5. nightswimming with my husband

6. re-starting residency next month (okay, not really, but i am looking forward to starting my last year of training so i can finally finish)

7. having a pretty backyard to look at while i write

8. mini-visits with friends and family over the summer

9. meeting and working with my new psychotherapy supervisor

10. reading summer poems and other light things

Life Lines

Thu, 12 May 2011 14:16:43 -0500

Life Lines

creative prayers i am working through a couple different books...

Wed, 11 May 2011 13:35:00 -0500

creative prayers

i am working through a couple different books on prayer, namely this one and this one, both recommended to me by different people at my church. both, i would recommend and the latter, for inner healing specifically.

i have never been a very good prayer. it still seems mysterious and elusive and while i haven’t directly heard God’s voice, i have sensed it in other ways.

one way of praying for inner healing is to pray creative prayers. in other words, to imagine God filling in the gaps of places you were hurt. envision God there, watching you at the time. what did he say to you, what was he thinking? let the prayer connect to God and imagine what he would want you to know. give it time to grow as a new memory. For me, when i prayed about the times i’ve felt lost and alone, i felt him say, “You belong to me.”

i’m trying to spend more time praying creatively over myself. it speaks to me in ways that therapy hasn’t, and for some reason i believe it to be right.

Photo: a lone poppy at Dallas Arboretum

"It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being:..."

Fri, 06 May 2011 21:03:00 -0500

“It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love.””

- Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

found on the back cover of Comment, Spring 2011 issue entitled, “Letters to the Young”

Not Words, but Meanings: an Ode to Friendship

Fri, 06 May 2011 19:27:13 -0500

Not Words, but Meanings: an Ode to Friendship

on fidelity of identity

Fri, 06 May 2011 16:30:00 -0500

of all the factors that make up my self concept, i would have to say that my vocational, relational, and religious identities have have had the strongest pull. vocational in the sense of what i am made for, how my body chemistry and it’s natural “passion meets the world’s greatest need;” relational, in the sense that i am a daughter, a sister, a wife and a friend; religious, in the sense that i hold various texts sacred and am called to worship and wonder at the divine.

i believe other factors too, play a part, but for me, these seem to weigh on my being the most, and integrating the three are the root of my greatest challenge. for the biggest question i have come to grapple with, is not if, but when my entire worldview is challenged, how will I be resilient? How will I stay true to my identity and in what ways, will I allow myself to change, all the while keeping with who my maker intended me to be.

If there is one tangible object that represents my mother, it...

Thu, 05 May 2011 01:09:00 -0500

If there is one tangible object that represents my mother, it would be a quilt. She spent my childhood making beautiful patterns - lone stars, flying geese, double wedding rings. each stitch was exactly even and the corners of the fabric joined together just right. she was a perfectionist, my mother - and at times was a little too hard on us. i tried hard to be the daughter she thought i should be. and i never smiled right in pictures. but to my mother, if things were perfect, she could love. i now know, this fear was a sign of deeper hurt and that she longed for love in ways her own mother couldn’t provide. but i have these quilts, these beautiful transitional objects, and they remind me of her.

Rose Triangle Bead Quilt by Carson Too.

At my last visit to the children’s section of the...

Tue, 03 May 2011 17:30:00 -0500

At my last visit to the children’s section of the bookstore, Ladder to the Moon caught my eye from the bright picture book shelf. Written by Maya Soetoro-Ng and illustrated by Yuyi Morales, this book was inspired by the author’s young daughter’s questions about her grandmother who passed away before they could meet.

The artwork is dreamy and romantic, the idea for the book was inspired by a Georgia O’Keeffe painting titled “Ladder to the Moon,” the ladder being the symbol of life’s wonderous journey. It is a mother’s personal narrative of a grandmother’s story, told to her daughter, about generational love and service to one another. I was just taken by this book, with it’s beautiful prose, story-art, and an imaginative prelude to sweet dreams.

Artwork by Georgia O’Keeffe

Read, read, read.

Tue, 03 May 2011 12:45:40 -0500

Read, read, read.