The Room

Remember floppy discs? Of course you do . . . you do right? I still have floppy discs. I still have some actual floppy floppy discs. Now there are memory sticks. These are much more efficient, hold more information, are smaller and are not as easy to break.

I found my floppies while going through a box in my spare bedroom. Can we talk about my spare bedroom? I love it! It may be my favorite room in the house. I do love my bedroom, where I keep all my clothes and get sound sleep (most of the time, but tonight is not one of those nights.) And I love the kitchen because the food is kept there.

But the spare bedroom allows for something that no other room does. It contains my scrap booking stuff, a desk, a grad school book shelf, and a newer big beautiful bookshelf. This bookshelf is the home to many lovely, colorful books. Sadly, most of these books are unread. I never realized how many book I have until I got them all in one place. The spare bedroom is also the home to all the boxes that have not yet been unpacked. Home to the box that contained the floppy discs.

I will share a picture of this room as soon as my camera battery is done charging. Which, by the way I found the charger, in the box with the floppies.

But here is what is so special about the spare bedroom. It allows for me to be. Be creative, be messy, be thoughtful, be me. It is messy because for now it is where I shove everything that does not have a home quite yet. I do hope for the room to become functional sometime soon though.

Whenever I enter the room something magical happens. I am surrounded by my favorite things - books, pictures, my Ipod and random other things. Soon the room will host my purses on a handy purse holder that will hang on the backside of the door.

When in this room I am inspired. Inspired to create works of art - pages of scrapbooks, ramblings such as this. Inspired to read these fabulous books I posses. And energized to live and be in this room.

I hope to share more stories and pictures of this wonderful room - but for now thanks for reading this babble.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

Since I have had more time on my hands lately I decided to read a book. ‘The Spirit Catches you and You Fall Down’ by Anne Fadiman caught me when I saw it was on the required reading list for my social and cultural class this fall. (So not only did I read a great book, I also got ahead for next semester!)

Fadiman’s book contains the true story of the clash between a Hmong family whose daughter (Lia Lee) was diagnosed with severe epilepsy and the American doctors that treated the little girl. Both parties desperately wants to do what they believe is best for Lia Lee. Unfortunately both ideas are polar opposite and their lack of understanding of each other leads to tragedy.

It was easy for me to have a connection with Lia Lee, who was born in Merced California on July 19, 1982. I was born an hour north of Lia just about one month earlier. While Lia and her family were struggling to understand and compromise with the doctors I was growing up in a very white town where such conflicts did not even enter the minds of most of its citizens.

Fadiman’s empathic story telling leads you to more fully understand both sides of the story. Her dedicated work is truly magnificent, eliciting years of her time which she spend with the Lee family, Merced doctors, social and state workers and Hmong educators, interpreters and cultural brokers. This unique book is a part historical, part cultural, part medical and part therapy book. In the preface Fadiman states “I am sure that if I had never met Lia’s doctors, I would be a different kind of patient. I am sure that if I had never met her family, I would be a different kind of mother.” Having read this profound book has made me a different kind of person.