We had been warned.  Our siblings and many of our parents had sat at the feet of Miss Smith and Miss Tracey before us.  We knew the legend of the dynamic duo of written communication, so we already both feared and trusted them, and we knew that we would learn.  Sweet goodness, would we learn.

We met Miss Smith sophomore year of high school.  We all left our 5th period classes early to make sure we weren’t late.  Late was not an option.  Each time the door opened, another of our classmates would leave the casual chatter of the hallway behind them and enter into the deafening tension of the room.  There we sat in silence–waiting, motionless, sweating profusely–until the bell rang.  A squeaky pair of orthopedic shoes broke the quiet when Miss Smith emerged from her office–somewhat confused, but certainly not unamused, by our obvious terror.  Over the course of the next year, she taught us the commandments that the Modern Language Association had inscribed into the sixth edition of its handbook.  We kept a record of our own wrongs against it in a coded portfolio, onto which we documented how many times we committed each of the 27 possible grammatical fallacies in the papers we submitted.  “7s,” for example, were comma errors, and they were generally forgivable mistakes.  “2a, 2b, and 2c” were fragment, run on, and comma splice.  They were, in all circumstances, blasphemous and would negatively affect the lives of you, your children, and your children’s children.  “13” meant “awkward wording,” and you might commit this one, for instance, if you loved adjectives and adverbs SO MUCH that you tried to superfluously cram all of them into every sentence (I’m not sorry.)  Spelling always counted.  Sentence diagrams were either perfect or wrong.  No paper was ever spared the judgement of red ink.  However, Miss Smith was fair.  We were all imperfect, but we all understood exactly why.

Towards the end of the year, Miss Smith stood before our class and apologized.  She said that she had misplaced our essays on Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self Reliance” that we had been writing for several weeks, and so our grades would be postponed.  Our collective terror had loosened a bit over the course of the year, so we responded enthusiastically. “Don’t even worry about it,” we laughed, “why don’t you just give us all 90%, and we’ll call it even.”  She paused with a knowing smile until our laughter subsided. Her response was simple and profound:

“You wouldn’t want that.”  

Then, there was silence.  We were given an unspeakably empowering moment to reflect and discover that she was right.  We wouldn’t, in fact, want that.  The articulation of our thoughts was flawed, and those flaws had consequences.  That had been made abundantly clear.  Even so, the thoughts themselves were significant.  They were worth exploring, worth documenting, and worth reading.  We feared Miss Smith.  We feared her rightness, her thoroughness, her honesty, and her judgement.  While it felt safer to hide from her behind the mediocrity of a passive A-, in that moment we realized that our fear of failure had been overthrown by the desire to be heard and the desire to improve. Our fear of Miss Smith had not lessened, but we knew she would hear us, and we knew she would make us better.  With that, we became high school juniors.

If you are familiar with the character of Edna Mode in Disney’s “The Incredibles,” then you have a fairly accurate representation of Miss Tracey’s excellence, eccentricity, and haircut.  In her equally intimidating charge, we began to dabble in writing style–sentence length, structure, punctuation, and the sort.  I relished the flowery images that Jane Austen could paint with her many lovely words.  Miss Tracey preferred Hemmingway’s brevity.  Nevertheless, she taught both authors with equal respect for their voices.  We continued to track the pesky but downtrending numbers of “7s” and “13s” we produced, and by this point, none of us had been branded by any sort of “2” in many months.  Miss Tracey assigned us a short story writing project.  She explained the paper’s topic, expected length, and required features.  She then made this announcement: “If you can convince me that you did it on purpose and with good reason, you may now break the rules.”  For instance, if it was the most effective way to communicate our point, we now had permission to knowingly submit fragments to Miss Tracey.  Fragments!  “2a,” the chiefest of all literary sins, was not only forgivable now, but…sometimes the best option?  What freedom!  What opportunity!

To this day, that short story is my favorite thing I have ever written.  It was the immediate result of burdens being lifted, and I used that freedom to create something that was creative, articulate, and heartfelt.  The rules were no less important now, of course.  I could never have communicated my point if I hadn’t first learned them.  But the rules were no longer the point itself.  They were tools–habits that I needed to master to give substance to my voice.  My grammar had not been destroyed, but rather freed to focus on its purpose.  The idea that our English department sought to develop was never merely “how” we write, but rather, “why” we write at all.  By the end of senior year, you could line up “A” papers on the same topic from ten of my classmates, and I could tell you who wrote each one.  The grammar was uniformly good, but the voices–articulate, clear, and insightful–were distinct and uniquely worth reading.

One of the most difficult concepts in Christianity for me is the difference between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.  They seem so different.  Old Testament God seems to focus on law and consequence, where Jesus preaches freedom and purpose and grace.  I cannot claim to wrap my head around the wisdom and movements of God.  However, thanks to my high school English department, I can understand the importance of rules and the joy of freedom, and I can understand how they must be gifted in that order.  Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, obeying the law will cause me to do the most right.  But what about the other time?  And anyway, in a system where “spelling always counts,” I am paralyzed and condemned by the running portfolio of my faults.  Why would I act?  Why would I speak?  What if I am wrong? Instead of trying and failing and facing the judgement of an untouchably holy God, wouldn’t it be safer to be passively mediocre and try to hide from Him?  

“You wouldn’t want that.”   

Enter Jesus.  He hears, and He helps.  He pours His blood over the portfolio.  It covers the red ink, and no marks will ever show up again.  The tally system is gone.  He frees us from the paralyzing rules by defining their purpose, and He gives them back to us as tools.  There is no “2a,” there is no “13,” there is only the prompt to love God and love people.  You’re free.  You have a voice.  Now, write your story.

At the end of every shift, I walk through the nurses’ station and say goodnight to my coworkers before taking the weight of the stethoscope off my shoulders and leaving through the ambulance bay.

“Goodnight; be careful!” they respond.

It’s now as much a part of my vocabulary as “see ya later,” but until I moved to Kentucky, I only said the phrase “be careful” if someone was imminently going to smack into a wall.  I’m not sure if “be careful” is a Kentucky thing or an emergency medicine thing–essentially “I don’t want to be cutting your clothes off in trauma bay in half an hour, so hands at 10 and 2, sister.”  Either way, it’s not the only Kentucky-ism I’ve noticed.  There’s also “do you mind” vs. “do you care.”  For instance, in Kentucky, if someone wants me to bring them a brownie, instead of “would you mind bringing me that brownie?” they ask, “do you care to bring me that brownie?” I never know if I should answer, “No, I don’t care to,” or “yes, I would care to,” so I usually just eat the brownie myself.  Semantics, ya know.

I went back home recently, and for the first time in several years, I got to unpack a suitcase and live like a real Nashvillian again for a couple weeks.   As I listened to and talked with people who have known me forever, I felt myself relaxing into a language that I used to speak exclusively.  It’s hard to articulate the differences between how Nashvillians talk and how Kentuckians talk, but I can feel it, and speaking Nashvillian again felt familiar and comfortable and refreshing.   I went to Costco with my mom, and the guy giving away samples of lentil soup asked me where I was from.  

“Well I’m a Nashville girl, but I live up in Louisville right now,” I chirped with my mouth full.

“Oh, that makes sense,” he said, “I thought I heard some Cincinnati in your accent.”

I choked, faked a smile, and stomped away.  Cincinnati accent?!  No, lentil man!  I am a darling southern belle who says “y’all” and blesses hearts, and you will speak to me accordingly, if you don’t care.  I mean mind!!  If you don’t mind!  Oh, bother.

Through his assaulting comment, lentil man taught me an important lesson.  I am changing.  Now, that’s not news to me.  Christian and I like to talk about the ways the Lord has taught us and changed us, especially over the past few years.   But as I have become more comfortable with what the Lord is doing with me, I’ve eased up on asking Him for help.  I coasted.  I settled into who I had become and thought I could rest there for a while.  Growing is hard, and I grew, so mission accomplished, right?  Wrong, apparently.  Change is inevitable.  I am always becoming something different, so either I swim towards the Lord on purpose, or I float passively in an entirely different direction, but either way, I will move.   

I was blindsided by a change that I had not wanted or even noticed.  I wasn’t paying attention to my voice, so I didn’t notice my “A” sounds turning into “E.”  Something that used to confuse and annoy me had become something that I fully embraced, and I did not even “mind” or “care.”  And while Northern vowel pronunciation is not exactly a character flaw, I am forced to consider the other areas of my life that may be changing against my will, and I am reminded by the lentil man to move with purpose and to “be careful.”  

There is a solidarity among groups of people who work in similar roles, even if they work in different places.  Empathy comes easier when you have already walked several miles in similar shoes, and it seems natural to celebrate the victories of one as a triumph for all.  It was, therefore, with a swell of pride that I recently learned of a study at one hospital which found that, when compared to other specialties, medical personnel within the ED had the largest bladders.  Go, Team!

While flattered, I am not surprised by this prestigious designation.  There are many mantras in our ED, but I think the general vibe can best be summed up by the affirmation, “I can hold it.”  I have worked beside and learned from some tremendously strong and selfless people on the front lines of medicine.  They hold it together.  They hold each other up.  They hold their tongues.  They hold to their training.  They hold pressure.  They hold hands.  And when potty breaks are a luxury that they can’t afford, they just plain hold it.  They think under pressure, show grace under fire, and carry heavy loads with poise and stamina.  

But no one can hold it forever.  All great leaders have had a place to escape for solitude, silence, and refreshment–a place to unload and to refuel.  Jesus had a mountainside.  Harry Potter had the Room of Requirement.  We have Bed Nineteen.

Bed Nineteen is our negative pressure ventilation room.  Its official purpose is to be a place to put patients if we are concerned about super contagious airborne pathogens like TB, but its off-label use is much more consistently helpful.  Because of its negative pressure, Bed Nineteen is essentially soundproof.  Also, it is the only room in the ED that has an attached bathroom that can only be accessed through the room.  Therefore, it is the only place in the ED where you can be two full doors away from anyone else.  Its benefits are especially high-yield on days when there are tacos or bean soup in the cafeteria, but it is a benevolent space, no matter what we are unloading.  It’s a great place to privately UpToDate something you know you should already know, or do a happy dance that your last shift before vacation is two hours away from being done, or pray for another person you just diagnosed with cancer.  Bed Nineteen is important because silence and solitude and self-awareness are important, even in small amounts.  We all function better when we know we have a quiet space available, even if we can probably hold it anyway.

Over the next few months, our band is breaking up, as many of the providers who taught me their craft over the past few years are chasing wonderful new opportunities.  My prayer for my friends is that they find the Bed Nineteens in their new departments, and that their teams rally around to hold them up–I know they will do the same for their new teams.  It is difficult to describe the graceful way these Men and Women handle the stress and chaos of their work–the ED is a bit of a jungle.  Fortunately, there is a jungle expert, Jungle Book author Rudyard Kipling, who describes it quite well.  Thanks for your example, and thank you for making it easy to, in the words of King Louie, “wanna be like you.”

 

If–by Rudyard Kipling

 

If you can keep your head when all about you   

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

 

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!