In Praise of Night Nurses

Midnight shift nurses have 7 senses. The 7th sense is an action sense. It lives in that nameless place which connects heart and brain, and allows night nurses to do precisely the best thing to make their patient feel better. Beyond the palliative stuff that medical staff does anyway. Night nurses possess the sparkling essence of caregiving.

My friend Beckie has been in surgical intensive care for a month. She is heavily medicated and in and out of awareness.

The night nurse braided her hair.

Night nurses are mythological beings come to real life. Like fairies, unicorns, wizards and pixies, they practice their magic just outside the white noise of everyday living.

Most humans cannot detect their specialness.

A night nurse, years ago, rustling about her IV-checking and pulse monitoring, found my surgery bear, Paulette Goddard, had fallen off my shoulder onto the bed. Unaware she was observed, she picked up Paulette and tucked her back in the crook of my neck.

Night nurses are human beings elevated on earth to the next plane of existence.

Barb Barton

Perfect Sunday afternoon: Barb Barton playing music, good friends and chocolate-covered potato chips.

Barb Barton - http://www.barbbarton.com - is a gift wherever she is, but we were fortunate that she agreed to come to Holly for a private concert.

Home concerts are a booking dream, if your favorite artist[s] are amenable (which Barb is); you can round up some guests, give good directions: and if you've booked Barb, prepare yourself to be transported.

Barb's music is comfortable like a favorite tshirt, warm as a grandmother's hug, and when she's got something serious to say, as powerful as the Great Lakes that kiss our rocky, piney shores good morning and good night.

She described how she writes her poetry and then finds the music to go with; but as she began to strum the beginning bars of "Willow," she told us "this song came from somewhere else."

Somewhere else is where the poetry and the voice of Barb Barton take you. It's a place I love.

What's grand about Michigan is grand about Barb's music. Her guitar strings can reverberate and hum like the big trees in a summer wind, or whistle like shorebirds on the hunt. In her lyrics, you see the moon reflected on our copper rivers; the sun on a bleached log; the drifted snow sweeping a farm field; a morel mushroom keeping quiet company with the ash trees, nestled into autumn's fallen finery.

Hard as I've tried, I still cannot listen to "My Michigan/Letter to Joshua" without some tears.

Treat yourself to her website:

http://www.barbbarton.com

Mosey through the samples from the CDs. And book a concert! Barb's email is on the site. You will be as thrilled and transported as we were on Sunday.

We will be buying the newest CD with "Turtledove" just as soon as it is available, too.

Chocolate-covered potato chips? Get those while you can at Sweet Retreats in Milford, MI. Colleen will show you where they are, if they weren't whisked away already; right after she tells you "welcome."