”A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!” Says Richard III in Shakespeare’s play. For some reason in Russian it’s only half a kingdom or rather tsardom for a horse. No matter but early in the morning I want to give up half a kingdom for being able to turn on my side. There is multitude of small things that is impossible to appreciate in normal life. Taking a shower was a huge undertaking that required 40 minutes of time, careful preparation and flawless execution. But it was way worth it at the end.
I have finally received a letter from my daughter. I wonder if most of the teenagers omit punctuation thus leaving a lot to interpretation. She wished me luck with surgery and it made me wonder whether the letter was delayed or else. The rest of her letter sounded like a famous Russian skit about a noblewoman calling home to find out if everything was OK during her absence (https://youtu.be/L6xHsmY_0vA?si=dEF8TTwDF6yTsb3g). And I really tried very hard to split that one huge sentence into parts to figure out who had pink out, cut her foot, got sick, etc. It is obvious that epistolary genie has been sleeping in the bottle for a while. I wonder about famous letters from the XIXth century making it to books and being so fascinating to read. I am not even going into kids not being able to write or read cursive for that matter. I do write a letter to my daughter every night and every single night there is something I want to say to her.
I often feel sorry that I was not gifted with any creative talent. My mom draws and can accomplish any craft she puts her mind to, sawing, knitting, cooking, papercraft, etc. My son can draw and play musical instruments. I have a deaf ear to music, I cannot sing (not even in the shower), my drawings are super primitive, and I can only knit straight rows. I always envied those who could get to the instrument and start jamming. Neither can I write with the kind of smoothly flowing sentences. I can do a lot of theses things much better in my dreams. On the other hand sometimes I think that creating a plan for success for my patients and actually bringing it to life is my talent even though it does not happen that often. It feels like photography – you do hundreds of shots before you get the composition and the lighting just right.
And my last thoughts for today are about taking risks. Life is about taking risks. Surgery is a risk, getting chemotherapy is a risk. Getting behind the wheel is a risk. Putting your child behind the wheel feels like a much bigger risk than doing it yourself. Thankfully, not all the risks are Russian roulette. I am totally against unnecessary and unfounded risks like taking a selfie at the edge of the cliff. But the rest of our lives is making decisions every single day and taking those risks. I took risks of going against recommendations of my doctors and adding a whole bunch of my own stuff and I continue taking risks. Today I feel like risking stopping pain meds. It’s a small risk but I could be in for a rough night. We’ll see. There is a Russian saying, “one who does not take risk never gets to drink Champaign”. I will not if my risks were worth it next Tuesday.