No, I can’t explain why I haven’t blogged.  Sometimes the pace just doesn’t allow me to sit and think about writing, or rather I do think about it.  And sometimes there are things I cannot write about because I want to protect the privacy of the girls.  It’s not all easy times… not for anyone’s life.  So I’ve been immersed in issues of safety of the girls, mental illness, the limits of what we can manage at Shishur Sevay in terms of safety.  I really do feel like a couple of months have been lost.  I also saw my last post was about wanting an airplane.  No, I’m not going anywhere.  We aren’t going anywhere.  But we do have to move.  I’ve said it a long time.  It’s an issue of money, which makes us like many other families stuck in bad places because they don’t have the money to move.

Playing in the Garden

I started exercising regularly, moved my bike next to my desk and I can read on the laptop, but I can’t write really.  One day I want to build a laptop tray that will fit across, but right now, my cycling takes time that I might be using for posting.

Multitasking

Well, there is more — My first book, A Woman in Residence, was published by Random House in 1982, and went through some other editions but eventually went out of print.  I’ve just completed uploading it for Kindle and it should be available as an ebook in the next day or two.  It’s a book of my journals when I was in training in Obstetrics and Gynecology.

A Woman in Residence

I have a lot of trouble describing myself so I asked a friend to help, and she sent me this to put on the file for uploading, but I’d already sent it to Kindle.  What she wrote:

Dr. Michelle Harrison has been an advocate for women and children throughout her more than four decades working as a physician, educator, and author. Her books include Self-Help for Premenstrual Syndrome and The Pre-Teen’s First Book About Love, Sex, and AIDS, and her work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal,Mademoiselle, and Glamour. The former executive director of Johnson & Johnson’s Institute for Children, Dr. Harrison currently resides in Kolkata, India, where she runs Childlife Preserve: Shishur Sevay, a unique, non-institutional home for orphaned girls. You can follow her work at www.shishursevay.wordpress.com,

Yes, it’s true.  In India people don’t understand I’m just doing what I always do, what I’m about : motherhood, healing, doctoring.  When I was in college I was told by the Dean that I would never make it to medical school, and I did.  The book, A Woman in Residence, is about my time as the first part-time resident in Obstetrics and Gynecolgy.   When I started trying to help children in Kolkata, I was told I could never open a home, that the government wouldn’t give me the children.  But they did, and those children are with me, and I’m doing what I love, and what I’ve been blessed to be able to do.  When I was 17 I wrote a school essay about wanting to care for orphans.  It just took a long time and a seemingly indirect journey to get here.

My big girls have grown too quickly.

After the Dance Performance at School

Dosa and Pizza at the Mall for my Birthday.

Ganga and Mummy

News wise– our rabbit died and I decided we would get guinea pigs instead.  In the US these are common pets in homes and in classrooms.   Here they are mostly eaten.  Anyway, I wanted two (girls) and instead we got four (supposedly girls) and then OOPS! one night at midnight the guard watched these three babies born.  The big brown and black one is the mother.  We need to do something quickly.  So I guess if anyone wants a guinea pig, just let us know.  We are giving them away for free (as pets).

Surprise! Guinea Pig Babies

I’m glad to be blogging again, but I didn’t get on the bike this evening.  It’s OK.  I’m OK, just trying to keep up with my life.