Death and Taxes

I learned (or maybe that's relearned) a good lesson this week: the wisdom of Neil Gaiman is not for everyone.

Once a month the clinic has a staff meeting. We rotate through giving inspirational quotes known as "Thought of the Day". Wednesday was my turn. Now I don't find myself inspired by tales of misplaced cheese (though I did read it for a previous meeting - swearing the entire time) or even fish being flung through the air. These type of "inspirations" usually leave me wondering what someone is trying to sell me or turn me into. That being the case, I reached for my own favorite bit of inspiration and appropriated it from The Sandman. Specifically the story arc "Brief Lives" and the comic summarized as, "The dogs of art, The people who remember Atlantis, concerning mammoths and falling walls, truth or consequences and other places, when I dream i sometimes remember how to fly, ancestral voices prophesying, bored, she makes litttle frogs, who controls transportation?" Anyhow, for those of you who don't know the reference, we meet 15000 year-old Bernie Capax who gets squished by a wall and brags to Death, "I mean I got what, fifteen-thousand years. That's pretty good, isn't it? I lived a pretty long time." Death responds, "You lived what anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less." I squished around a bit for brevity, but I love that, "You get whay anybody gets ... a lifetime. No more. No less." It sends shivers up my spine and my inner voice always adds on something like, "... to bring joy or pain, peace or sorrow," or, "... so make it shine." Unfortunately, I must not have conveyed it well because there was just silence after I finished. Lesson for me: Even in a place where death happens regularly, don't bring it to the meeting table.

On a brighter note our taxes are done! Such a relief. Now all we have to do is not spend our entire refund in Korea. I think we'll be safe on that count.

Bring joy and make it shine :)