Three daughters, each special in her own way. Last night I was looking at my middle daughter’s Facebook profile. I noticed one of her friends was planning to visit her soon and thought how nice that would be. Carrie’s almost halfway around the world.

I hadn’t heard from her for several weeks, so I sent her an e-card last week, just to tell her I miss her. She sent me an e-mail a couple days later. She had gotten my e-card at home, with all her children gathered around, and she started to cry. Her youngest daughter announced that she, too, missed her Mama’s Mommy and thought they should take an airplane in the morning to go and visit. It made me laugh, of course.

But Carrie has always made me laugh. When she could barely talk, she hid my pajamas in the nightstand, and laughed with a gleeful sparkle in her eyes. She made an impression on my future in-laws by hiding everyone’s shoes in a cherry tree. She was the only of my girls who could laugh and cry at the same time.

She is my middle daughter, and that always seemed like a tough spot when she was growing up. One day I just happened to see a greeting card for a middle child, talking about

Last night when I looked at her facebook page, I saw she had uploaded a new photo of her, her husband, and their youngest son. I downloaded it and showed my husband. She looked so cute and happy. Again, as she so often does, she made me smile.

This afternoon I got a phone call–a voice mail, actually–from Carrie’s father. He said she had had a mild heart attack. When I called my oldest daughter I found Carrie was still feeling chest pressure and heartburn. Last I heard, she was on her way to a heart institute. Now I am just waiting. And trying to stay above the waves.

McClatchy Washington Bureau sees far-reaching effects from Obama election victory, recognizing the far-reaching consequences of the Obama election win. The self-efficacy of the disenfranchised is raised worldwide, while disenfranchisement by power structures comes under scrutiny worldwide.

McClatchy Washington Bureau | 11/05/2008 | Around the world, Obama triumph lifts battered U.S. image: Some said Obama’s victory was a call to re-examine racial issues in their own countries.

“The Maoris and the Pacific Islanders are going to take inspiration from him,” said Calum McKenzie, 34, speaking from the Mustang Saloon & Grill in Auckland, New Zealand. A U.S. executive based in Bangkok, Thailand, said Obama’s triumph heartened foreigners who’d been distressed by Washington’s go-it-alone approach after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Posted from Diigo.

I’ve decided life is subject to the principle of inertia—oh, and that other law of physics having to do with objects continuing to move in the direction they start to move. That’s why it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, hard to go to bed at night, hard to start a new project, hard to stop in the middle of it, and hard to change focus from one project to another—or to start focusing at all. It also explains why new habits are difficult to form and old ones hard to break. It is hard to stand up and be assertive when we’re battered, and it’s hard to sit down and be calm when we’re agitated.

Earlier today I was considering withdrawing from the class I’m taking—even questioning if I should stop pursuing my degree. And just as I seemed to have no spirit left, an upward current of air lifted me above the waves.

Barely skimming across the tops of the water this weekend, I completed one of two papers and one of three freelance work commitments. Sometimes I feel waves rather than wind beneath my wings. But I will not surrendur to the sea.

Yesterday we had our earliest measurable snowfall in history. The chilled atmosphere lightened the rain until it formed floating flake clusters that collected enough to cover the tired October grass. And although it has been melting all morning, still a lace remains in the shadiest spots, and a few sugar lumps dot the tips of the Mugo Pine branches.

And as my husband pointed out, for awhile our weedy yard was equal with all the other yards in the neighborhood, because in the winter they all look the same, mercifully covered in white.

My dreams in stressful times always involve water. Water rising around me. Waves lapping at the windows. In the better dreams I’m in a boat on top of the water.

Perhaps it started when as a small child I fell off the end of a dock and a cousin pulled me out of the water. Perhaps it’s just because water is a classic representation of overwhelming circumstances.

In one dream I was in a boat on a sea with a vast dome above—not only surrounded by water but trapped from above. But somehow I found wings and was able to fly out above the boat up into the dome, where I found a window. Wings were my liberation.

And so Aviana is the part of me that, like a bird who, as Victor Hugo describes, pausing on “boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her and yet sings—knowing she hath wings.”

Taking flight…