Today’s guest post comes from Steve Grooms.
Let’s imagine that life has beaten you up lately, and now you hurt. Maybe the Powers That Be at your office decided to erase a favorite application off all the hard drives and force you to learn a new one. Maybe someone said something unkind when you were at a vulnerable moment. Or—if you are like me—maybe you said something incredibly stupid, or you sent out a tasteless group email that you desperately would like to suck back now.
For many of us, taking one of life’s little blows isn’t a great challenge. But sooner or later you are going to experience a cluster of indignities in a short span of time. Maybe you clash with your teenager and then have a flat tire on the way to work. Maybe you try on last year’s pants and find you can’t even get the zipper up now, as you have supersized your butt, and a day later you learn your taxes are going to be audited.
Just imagine that you are hurting. You need to do something profoundly comforting because you are stuck in a bad place. You need to lick your wounds.
What do you do?
Do you lose your pain by throwing yourself into company, maybe going to a party you’d hoped to avoid because now you know that forcing yourself to be social will fix what is wrong? Do you whip out your phone and call the one person on earth who will never let you down? Or are you more inclined to hide from the world, retreating into a quiet place where you surround yourself with things you trust to bring you peace of mind?
What activity will cure you now? Do you read? If so, what author or book can you trust to make you feel better? (This is a time I often re-read books from favorite authors.) Is there a particular location that will soothe you? What music will you put on, or do you prefer the purity of silence?
I am told that some folks can make themselves feel better if they dress up. Ha! My normal clothing is extremely unstylish. When I feel blue, I’m apt to lower my standards, going from a comfy sweatsuit to an OLD comfy sweatsuit that is so threadbare it would make a stranger worry whether I could afford my next meal.
Perhaps you turn to food if you need to feel better? What food? Something sweet? Something your mom used to cook? How ambitious do you feel when you are repairing a bad mood? Many folks turn to alcohol at such moments, and I don’t need to mention how risky that is!
Some folks know they can wash away a bad mood by soaking in the tub. Others go for a
run or take a long hike in a beautiful place. Some grab a dog and lose their pain by making the dog happy.
A woman friend was prone to depressions. Her cure was to clean her home. When Beth was down she would grab a vacuum cleaner and suck all the dirt out of her environment, running the machine nonstop for several hours at a stretch. If sufficiently disturbed, she would wash everything in her home “larger than a paper clip,” including the walls and the underside of furniture.
What do you do when you need to lick your wounds?
Trail Baboon 
If I lick my wounds they will taste like peaches.
Woke up at 5:30 from bad pain in my left hip. Cannot sleep on my back; the pain will wake me in an hour. On my left hip, the pain wakes me in 2-3 hours. Now about every third or fourth day the pain wakes me at about 5:or 5:30 from sleeping on my right hip. All of this comes from my mess of a spine.
This morning I went in the fridge to get water to take Excedrin, the only NSAID that cuts my pain. I bumped the red cup of peaches. Every morning I make a drink for Sandy.She has to take a powder each day which is gritty and tastes bad. So I blend the powder with half a can of peaches, strawberry jam, and a bit of water. Every other day there is half a can of peaches in a cup in the refrigerator in the same red cup. This morning I bumped that cup. I tried to grab it, which spilled its contents onto the lower shelves and several containers. The cup hit the floor and broke, spilling more fruit and syrup all over the floor, which I had cleaned yesterday. A piece of the cup cut my foot. Picking up the cup a piece of cup cut my palm. I have everything out of the fridge and cleaned. The floor cleaned but I will do a more thorough job later.
After my back rests, I will clean the inside of the fridge. An then lick my peachy wounds.
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Oh Clyde, so sorry for the early morning pain and mess. Glad that you still have a sense of humor about it. So good to have you back on the trail. We’ve missed you.
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That is certainly one of those bad situation where life can get you down that Steve talks about in today’s blog. Good luck recovering from that, Clyde. You have given the word peachy a new meaning.
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It is so good to hear from you, Clyde, even if you confirm our fears about how things are going. You have more good friends here than you might know.
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makes for a good laurel and hardy bit but no fun i real life huh? sounds like you wont have to worry about waht to do with that extra couple of hours you had to figure out what to do with this morning. it couldnt have been the water that spilled… it had to be the peach syrup. dang.
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So nice to see you pop up here and there again Clyde. I hope soon you are up to drawing one of your cartoons again. I just love those.
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Thank you for the compliment on the cartoons, Jacque. But I will not likely be doing many more. For which you may want an explanation; and having started complaining, I will complain a little more and then not for a long time. I will keep it as brief as I can, to the one issue of why no cartoons.
I have been through many medical tests and visits. They have empirically proven, mostly at taxpayer expense, that I am old and that I have collected some more conditions that are chronic, painful, debilitating, incurable, and can only in small measure be ameliorated. The back issue is only a part of what has been diagnosed. The final bill for them all happened to come in on the same day, yesterday. $18,000 total, 10% of which I pay, somehow. And yesterday Sandy went into the medicare donut hole, just as she started on her 23rd prescription. She has had diabetes since our son was born 41 years ago. Only now does she have to start insulin. They will try with the pills, think it may work, probably not.
My back: they had to do an MRI on my upper back (two of those now, and me claustrophobic) to see what was happening at L12 (why is the most critical vertebrae only partly visible by the method they do the most common version of a back MRI?) So my whole back is bad, “pieces of bone and misshapen disks hanging on bruised nerves” in the words of the radiologist to my GP. Surgery would be radical and risky and unlikely to help in the long run. I am facing a wheel chair at some future point. But the upper back MRI not only shows more osteoarthritis but also shows I had/have Schueurmann’s disease, which only means more pain, debilitation, and no cure. I probably got the Schuerrmann’s from genetics and the hard work I did as a child. Those who read my novel will have some image of what I mean by that work. (I may write a guest blog about this disease in a lighter vein with a larger perspective.) PT has done some good on the lower back but there is nothing for the upper back.
Anyway, my now very bad upper back makes lifting my arms to an easel or even moving them around a drawing board painful and awkward. Also, the arthritis in my hands and wrist are now much worse. The psoriatic arthritis has bent and misshapen two fingers on my left hand (and I am left-handed). And the osteoarthritis is bulging nerve ganglia at the base of several fingers. These come and go, but are very painful to the touch and I can hardly bend my fingers some days. My wrists are also badly affected. So I cannot carve, can barely do any art (I do mush along at doing pastels, working about ten minutes at a time on good days, the results looking bad, worse than my usual, I mean). I am very awkward and clumsy, common effect of Scueermann’s, so I bump into and drop cups in refrigerators. I cannot turn my head very far and as a result backed the car into a barricade –$250 deductable bill coming on that. Typing is very hard; typing this will in the end take well over an hour. I make constant errors. I hit the caps lock key almost every time I try to hit the “a”.
So, no carving, little art, avoid typing. But I am still able to do the housework, laundry, cooking, and take care of Sandy at need, which are all that count. We did inherit enough money from my aunt in Florida to buy Sandy hearing aids ($4600). She is, as she says, “now back among the talking.”
If anyone knows anyone wanting some very good carving stuff let me know. I’ve got to learn how to sell on Ebay.
Done whinning, I promise. And to answer the day’s question, my method, like Krista, is obvious I am sure.
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I can help you learn to sell on eBay.
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You said once your list of complaints was no worse than what other baboons have had to go through. I think today you may be one up on most of us. How do you go from riding your bike 5000 miles a year to accepting the arrival of the wheelchair ? How do you not when it’s time . Sorry for your pain. . Feel free to express frustration anger sorrow over the transition to times of less. Less mobile less able less financially less able to anticipate a time when its gonna be good in the old terms
We are able to handle your stuff. Not solve it but handle it with you . Welcome back.
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Oh lord, Clyde, that sounds just awful. No amount of empathy, sympathy or compassion will heal you, but know that I, and I’m sure, everyone on the trail, would do anything in our power to help. Thanks for sharing.
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I am aware of how difficult it can be to have multiple medical problems that come on as you get older. That is just starting in my case. I saw it happen to my father. Some people are lucky enough to get very old without having too many problems. There certainly are plenty of people who do end up lots of problems. More help is needed for people in this situation. Please keep in touch with us if you can. Perhaps we can give you a little support by being available at least as friends over the internet.
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Clyde, I’m so sorry for all the pain you live with and I am also a fan of your cartoons and artwork, so am doubly sorry that the pain also means no more, or very little, art and very rare comments on this blog.
And, in my opinion, it is not whining to be honest about what you are experiencing. There is no reason to try to pretend that you are doing fine when you are doing anything but fine – at least with us.
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Clyde… what Edith said!
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The case for putting half a can of ANYTHING into a little jar… :}
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This was meant to go under Clyde’s first entry.
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Steve, you’ve got to be kidding me! I’ve done way too much wound-licking in my day to want to create some imagined misery that I can try to make better. I will say this though, the next time your friend, Beth, feels miserable, she’s most welcome to come clean my house.
That said, I don’t generally focus on what’s wrong with my life. I’m a rather pragmatic person by nature, I think, and don’t spend much time dwelling about everything that isn’t perfect, and there’s plenty that isn’t; I try to make lemonade out of all those lemons. And, a good soak in the tub always helps, and so does a good cry. Vacuuming would be my last resort.
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I once turned Beth loose on the cabin. She vacuumed for over two hours. I had to pull the chord to stop her.
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Good morning!
I turn to solitude when I’m really hurting. I read or listen to music. This is likely not the best thing to do, but for some reason it’s very soothing to pack a lunch, grab a bunch of CDs , and hit the road. I can drive long distances easily and I love it. I listen to music and let it drown all the sorrow out of me.
I like “purity of silence,” Steve. It describes beautifully the way I’ve come to feel about solitude and silence. When I’m at home I rest and recover in total silence.
Work is taking everything out of me lately, ‘booners. Nice post today, Steve. I’m trying to read all the later ones but it’s hard to keep up. I will sign my name because I’m pretty sure I’m going to be a blue doily.
Krista
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I’m like you, Krista. When I feel blue, I want to go hide and surround myself with sweet distractions. Rationally, I know this is not smart. I really should run toward people, not away from them, when I’m licking my wounds. Thanks for writing, and good luck with work. I hope you feel you made the right move when you took this new job.
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Sorry to hear that work is getting to you, Krista. Hope it’s not a permanent situation. Solitude and quiet are important to me too. Now that I’m retired, I don’t have to interact with anyone all day long if I don’t want to, and there are plenty of days when I choose not to. It seems like a luxury to be able to make that choice.
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Krista, I certainly miss you here on the TB. You can always come to my house. My dogs are wonderful “Wound Assistants.” Recently I had some nasty influenza that morphed into a sinus infection which is still with me. Nurse Lucky and Nurse Bootsy were wonderful solice.
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Good morning. I’m no good at recovering from a bad situation. Grin and bare it is about the best I can do. In a really bad situation I might down a few drinks. Mostly, I just do a lot of sulking. Probably the very best thing I can do in a bad situation is talk to someone about it.
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I hope you don’t bare to much in public, Jim. That could get you in whole lot of new trouble.
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I’ll try not to do that, PJ. Of course, you know that I am a lot like tim when it comes to exposing myself by making errors. .
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That wasn’t an error jim now zip up your pants
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Just teasing, Jim. I knew what you meant, but it was just too delicious an opportunity to pass up. 🙂
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At first glance I thought it was “Gin and barer it.” 🙂 It might take some alcohol…
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“Gin and bare it…”
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Gin and bare sounds like a recipe for disaster, BiR.
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From personal experience, I can attest to the fact that vodka and bare it leads to trouble.
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i tend to have so much in your face stuff going on these days that if i went to find solitude i amy never return. i instead try the turn and face the raging bull tactic. peaches now that will get you. early morning trying to get water to ease you pain and having the killer cup of sugar syrup launch iteslef into my foot and palm would be more than i could deal with in the wee hours. i think i would get down on my knees and wash the big chunks and head for a refresher session in the bed before coming back to do the real clean up.
i try to imagine what moves i can make to best get ot the fix end of the situation. if its bills, how do i round up some dollars. if its pants how do i stop eating chips, it changes but it does so with enough familiarity that i can anticipate which hat is needed.
i sure like it better when i am ahead than when i am forced to play catch up but… the only waty to get there is to get caught up first.
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It sounds like you are dealing with a lot, tim. Is there some way we can help? You are always there to help others.
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
I have been known to pout and gripe from time to time. As a child I had a case of “pouty lip” that my parents would tease about, saying, “A little bird might perch on that lip!” Three years ago when my business partner took herself down in a blaze of ignominy, The Trail Baboon was a blessed relief. However, my true comfort is Food, Glorious Food. Good food. Grandma’s recipe food. COMFORT FOOD.
Now with the advent of Netlix streaming you can combine the comfort food with comfort viewing–The Sopranos, Madmen, Nurse Jackie, House of Cards, West Wing, Carol Burnett….
And for serious wound hygiene add those things to a trip “to the lake Up North.”
I feel better already.
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The food I eat these days is nothing like the food my mother served up, Jacque. But I’ve noticed that when I need to repair my damaged self I might cook my mom’s tuna hotdish :).
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Morning all. Nice bit, Steve. When things get me down, I like to keep busy; quiet reflection doesn’t help. Gardening, walking the dogs, making cards in my studio…. these are all activities that can keep me from wallowing. Unfortunately for the state of my house, cleaning is not something I turn to in any kind of mood.
OT – thanks for everyone’s advice last night on my pepper-burning thumb. PJ called me and suggesting soaking in milk – that did the trick! And now I know I need to be VERY careful with those little peppers – they are HOT!
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Plastic gloves!
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I don’t have plastic gloves so I just put my hand in a plastic bag when I deal with hot peppers – and am VERY careful about not touching any peppers with my bare hands, washing my hands frequently, etc. I’ve been burned enough times that I’ve learned to err on the side of caution.
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Normally when I deal with hot peppers I use my knife judiciously but these little things are so small that it was hard to use just the knife. So, yes…. from now on these peppers will get gloves!
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They say you should go volunteer somewhere – help people who have it worse off than you. I would be more apt to do that if youtube hadn’t been invented. How can this not make you feel good?
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Hoping to embed
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fun
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One reason I find this topic interesting and a reason I chose to write about it is that I’m fairly sure I do all the wrong things when I need to lick my wounds. I seek out a dark, quiet place when I should instead do something active outside. I retreat from people when I actually know that being with good people is the right choice.
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Steve – is there a school near by? Volunteers are always needed to help students with reading, writing and math. And like YouTube, kids can give you a lift.
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After reading Clyde’s post, I feel very fortunate to still have a pain-free existence and really nothing impairing my day to day functioning. When I divorced almost a decade ago, I spent the first few years like a heat-seeking missile trying to find a man to fill the ache for companionship. I made every mistake I possibly could, ultimately falling in love for the very first time in my life. When I discovered that I was the only one in love and he abruptly decided to return to a 20-year long relationship about six years ago, I began the process of loving myself rather than seeking it from outside my own skin.
This has worked well and gotten me to a place where it’s downright unimaginable to share my space emotionally or physically. At any given time, I’m amused, entertained, deeply-engaged, exasperated, or otherwise filled with the sense that I am indeed with somebody special. In a sense, I ultimately found the best roommate or partner in the world: me.
The hard part has been when my medical conditions forced me to temporarily have to depend on other humans. Newly diagnosed at nearly 70 with a major seizure disorder has made it mandatory that I take a strong medication which comes with side-effects, the worst of which are loss of physical stamina and feeling emotionally fragile. The condition itself seems imaginary in that I remain 100% asymptomatic and “normal”. I do, however, live in fear that another grand mal event will take way my right to ever drive and render me stranded in this stripped-down lifestyle. Four months ago when I was told I couldn’t drive for three months, my emotional reaction was far worse than being told that I had a lethal cancer. It took me by surprise and was sadly unraveling until I made the decision I’d make puddle-jump trips to very nearby places for food, dancing, and prescriptions. In so many ways, my life had already been stripped to the bone and losing the ability to leave the cottage reduced it to bone marrow.
My neurologist told me last week that the amount of electrical misfiring in my left temporal lobe is not unlike a time bomb ready to go off and that the only thing to be done about this is to heavily medicate in the hopes that I remain seizure-free. Again, since I can’t feel it and it doesn’t manifest in any observable way, you could say, “It’s all in your head!” and be right. And so, my “new normal” is co-existing with this knowledge without allowing it to drain the quality of my life. Compared to living with chronic physical pain, however, this is a walk in the park.
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I’m amazed at your poise in dealing with this uncertainty, Cb. Sure you don’t really have much of an alternative, but I find it astonishing that you seem to handle it with such grace. Hope your lack of energy doesn’t prevent you from dancing.
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Thank you, PJ. I find that mornings are difficult because each day I have to start my defense mechanisms up again. Kinda like heating up your car on cold winter mornings until it can run comfortably. This explains why I stay up til 3AM and arise around 10AM – this routine successfully helps me avoid the morning doldrums to some extent. As to my dancing, I’m still going weekly but pooping out much faster. The doctor has me transitioning from one anti-seizure med with side effects onto another type hopefully without.
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Really sorry, Cb. Clyde too. If only life were fair.
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For some obscure reason this popped into my head as being relevant to today’s discussion: 🙂
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Right now my biggest hurdle is that some of my coping mechanisms go back to when it was “just me” and they don’t always adapt well to having to be Mom while I am needing to retreat and lick my wounds. Sometimes I just hold it together until Daughter has gone to bed (or to a friends or whatever), but that is not ideal because the hurt can come leaking out when I don’t want it to. Talking to my best pal helps – in part because putting whatever is causing an issue into audible words helps me re-frame whatever is bugging me and that re-framing alone can be useful – but, like the taking time to be by myself and have a good cry, that often has to wait since I am beholden to more than just me these days. And then there are those times where it’s all low-level stuff and I don’t realize it’s bugging me until I notice the pattern of “Eating All the Things” or not wanting to be out of the house too much…when I get like that, I try to find something that feels like it will re-fill the well of my resources – sometimes that’s time to sit and have some time to be with myself (reading, writing, just being quiet), sometimes that’s going out and dancing or laughing with my friends (my book clubs are good at renewing my inner resources), on a nice evening it may just be sitting outside and soaking in some vitamin D. I can’t be alone too long – I need tribes. And when, on occasion, my current tribes aren’t filling the gaps, I have been known to explore around looking for a new tribe (sometimes additive, sometimes replacement) – tribes for laughing, tribes for creativity, tribes for sharing, sometimes they overlap. Being married to an introvert, he doesn’t quite “get” my need for tribe, but he understands I need it – and is good about pushing me out to my tribes at those times I don’t see that is what I need (after bringing me chocolate or baked goods).
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Greetings! Lovely thoughts for a thoughtful blog. I do many of the things mentioned, but mainly isolate myself and sulk around. Cleaning is the last possible things on God’s green earth I would ever do when feeling bad. Eating, taking a long, hot bath and crying in bed are high on my list of self-comforting behaviors. And karate, of course. It seems odd, but after all we’ve been through the past couple years karate has been a great source of channelling anger, frustration, anxiety, sadness, etc. I do karate with great power and intensity — more than most. When I see other women and moms walking through their karate forms and curriculum, I try to convey that they channel their “inner anger” to bring more intensity to their movements. It’s weird, because I’m normally a very easy-going person, but doing sports or karate and I become very competitive and intense.
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I became especially aware of the different ways people restore themselves when feeling low when I was dating so many different women. I am highly inclined to be a nourishing person. It ran in the family, actually. My first inclination when someone I care about is hurting is to nourish them (pamper, massage, compliment, cook for, etc).
I was slow to see that didn’t suit all the folks I cared about who were low. One person wanted to be left strictly alone for a day or two. nothing else was tolerable. One person wanted to socialize and have a party, but I was strictly instructed to avoid trying to improve her mood or even to acknowledge that she was in a mood; we had to pretend nothing was wrong until (amazingly) nothing was. And some loved chocolate truffles.
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Huh. I’ve never had anyone pamper, compliment, massage, or cook for me when I was feeling low (and not many other times either!). I don’t know if I would want the massage, but, gosh, I would be willing to try have somebody I like try to cheer me up with that type of thing.
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I’m in the “leave me alone” camp. But, if you prepared a nice candle-light dinner, depending on what the problem was, that might be welcome.
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Thanks for asking, Steve! Many of your responses resonate with me. This is gonna take a while – glad I stayed here while everyone else went to the beach.
Usually I go straight into “fix-it” mode if there is something I can do to change things, as when I lost a job in NYC. Would have been majorly depressing, but I did find another. If it’s not fixable, the first thing I do is have a good cry as soon as possible. Getting over a broken heart (early ’70s) entailed lots of listening to Joni Mitchell albums, and long walks on the beach.
I actually remember being curious when Joel died (9/2007) about how I would handle it. What worked to keep me from getting completely snowed under was giving myself enough time to process whatever I was feeling. I took a leave of absence from my part time job at the bookstore (which ended up being permanent). For some people this would be too much time on your hands, but there was so much that seemed to need attention, it was fine. Husband and I had been warned that we would go through this differently, and so we did. I reached out to people, he stayed close to home and worked internally, our usual patterns. (I do remember telling the story to people who got way more of an earful than they’d anticipated.)
The people I reached out to couldn’t always provide what I needed. I figured out that I didn’t really have a best friend. Then Dale’s Blog happened. You all have no idea how much you have helped…a complete non-judjmental place to write a little bit each day has been a godsend.
Two big things I learned by the second year were –
1) don’t take it personally. Central Casting (God or whatever you wish to call it) doesn’t want you to be sad for the rest of your life. Go do something, anything, to help the world – it needs it.
2) If you have a day that throws you, let yourself cry for a while, and then get outside somehow.
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What a thoughtful response, BiR. You might know more about this topic than any of us. It interests me that you cannot give a simple answer, for even our moods have moods and are not all the same.
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Oddly enough, Steve, what I’ve told here is ALL that I know. I’ve had one big wound and was able to cope, but I don’t know what I’d do with something like depression, or another kind of chronic adversity.
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BiR – I agree about our blog. I had to try to explain us to someone today….it’s still very interesting to explain the great surprise of finding and being part of this community.
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This blog is an amazing place. So true, BiR, this is a very supportive environment. I so appreciate the willingness to share very private matters here. We enjoy a lot of good-natured ribbing, silly inside jokes, more or less cogent or helpful advice, and a lot of genuine caring.
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OT: loved this from yesterday – “I have lots of skill at multi-nontasking when I look around and see all the things I haven’t managed to get done”. Think that’s going in the next G.O.A.T. revision…
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I agree!
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Wow, great topic, Steve.
I think I used to be better at dealing with my emotional pain than I am now. Going outside to “be in nature” always helped and when I lived in various places where it was easy to 1) be alone outside and 2) I didn’t have to do anything more than take a few steps away from the house to be surrounded by woods, lake, meadow, etc., then I would always go outside to be alone and this was incredibly healing. Heck, sometimes it helped to just look out the window.
Now, however, I live in the City. Ugh. When I am down, which is frequently, it just seems like so much effort to bike, walk, take a bus, or drive quite a ways to be in nature. Especially if I want to be Alone (which I do) and want it to be Quiet (which is very hard to find here). And it seems that I have so many responsibilities pressing on me that I often am not able to take time when I need it. So I eat, mostly sweets. Sometimes I garden, which can be helpful. I check out lots of books from the library, and don’t finish most of the ones I start, and don’t start many of them. When I am low, I avoid social events, except for BBC and my every-other-week phone call to my best friend. Oh wait, I guess that is most of my social events anyway. Ha! Well, IF I got any invitations for social stuff, if I would definitely prefer to lick my wounds alone than go out and try to act like everything is fine.
This comment sounds pretty whiney, huh? Oh, well….
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Not whiney, Edith, but painfully honest. Seems like you’re struggling right now, but I find it encouraging that you’re willing to “talk” about it here. Hang in there, friend. You are dealing with a lot of stuff that weighs heavily on your mind. Sometimes you just have to give yourself a day off.
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A road trip to the Upper Peninsula by myself sure cures what ails me! Right now I’m catching up with the trail looking out my motel window at Lake Superior as the sun goes down. I heard a good concert in the nearby park earlier this evening by an old-time band called “All Strings Considered”. I also locked myself out of my motel room twice this afternoon and had to go get the third key from the office…. not a tragedy but rather embarrassing.
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Doubletake
Human beings suffer,
they torture one another,
they get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
can fully right a wrong
inflicted and endured.
The innocent in gaols
beat on their bars together.
A hunger-striker’s father
stands in the graveyard dumb.
The police widow in veils
faints at the funeral home
History says, Don’t hope
on this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
the longed for tidal wave
of justice can rise up,
and hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
on the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles
and cures and healing wells.
Call the miracle self-healing:
The utter self-revealing
double-take of feeling.
if there’s fire on the mountain
or lightning and storm
and a god speaks from the sky.
That means someone is hearing
the outcry and the birth-cry
of new life at its term.
Seamus Heaney,
The Cure at Troy
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ooooh yes
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great stuff pj thanks
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