Ananda the zen bunny

I've been having a recent uprising of anxiety within me. It's like a little battle-- I try to keep it subdued, and every so often it says, "You can't keep me down, woman!" and uses guerilla warfare to render me helpless. That's what happened today-- it made me fumble through my ICM interview and not be able to really connect with my patient, it did flips in my stomach as I sat in the library, and then I attacked back with my secret weapon... The anxiety has nothing against the meds...
After the long day in which this battle took place, I came home and told Ananda (Sarah's bunny), "I passed a tapas place today and they had paella mixta. And you know what it had in it? Bunny!" She wiggled her nose. "Bunny, Ananda, bunny! How do you feel about that?" She hoped over to the side to my side and smelled my fingers...
Ananda is a zen bunny. I've come to realize that. And as a zen bunny, she is my new role model for taking life one moment at a time...

But what I should really post is this week's writing:

Neruda wanted to write his verses out of wood--
smooth
dark
long-lasting his
testament to Matilde a totem
standing tall for ages
I've wanted to write barefoot verses myself
slapping against wooden floors to a bomba
or
making crackling noises of leaves breaking under feet
a prayer to my ancestors--
who knew only a bruja and
sugar cane fields

maybe
I'd add the sound of breaths
blowing up latex gloves
(with the powder on the inside)
in the backroom of an office, me and my 2 brothers as we knew medicine
once upon a time
examining beds covered in crinkly paper and glove balloons
sometimes it still seems a more perfect picture

I'd add the smell of the ocean on a sunny day for Selina
who was once a name on a birth certificate and is
now a young woman and
I had nothing to do with that

My mom
would be a pinch of pride
the good kind and the bad kind
the kind that told people about her daughter the writer in the same tone
that she spoke of her daughter the med student

my abuela... that would be a hard one...
her verses would be the curve of an orchid and the
sound of running water and the
cool feel of the bathroom counter as she washed the street grime off my bare feet
(I still wash my feet in the sink sometimes)

and for me...
I think the taste of salt would do
not NaCL or perfect crystals
not hypertension,
a contribution to action potentials,
not salt as I know it now
but salt
some years ago
the one that clung to the skin of the people I've loved the
one that coated my lips after a day of waves
in and out of my sleep
and the salt that sometimes tells me I just can't deal anymore

Just salt
for salt verses


A note on the above: Selina is the oldest of my little sisters. I got to spend some time with her over Christmas break and, well, she's pretty much amazing.