Category Archives: About Me

The Happy Stillness Between

Posted on by

I find myself sipping mate and gazing over my desk and plants out at a new skyline. Several days ago, I moved to Richmond, VA from Danbury, CT. The move was a grueling 28-hours of loading the truck, driving overnight, and unloading the truck. My partner and I took only a 30-minute nap to get us through the driving, knowing that there are an infinite number of less tiring ways to move, we wanted it done as quickly as possible. Our main hiccup was finding a way to navigate the ~400 miles along the East Coast on highways that allowed trucks because our U-Haul was quite robust. We learned that there is no setting on Google maps for truck routes. Luckily, we know how to read maps despite the prevalence of technology in our lives and found a route using our brains, yes unusual.

We’re mostly unpacked now, just a few more projects to do before we will be completely settled. We’re chipping away at these tasks, such as hanging paintings and donating no-longer needed items. Knowing our apartment is in a good place, my focus has shifted to the next adventure. Later this week we travel to Paraguay to visit my friends there. It’ll be my partner’s first time to the country where I did the Peace Corps and where my mind always wanders when time slows. Slow as it is now.

Medical school, at least as it is organized at my school, is a sprint that comes to a halt not at graduation but at Match Day, several months before graduation. It’s not a bad system. It leaves time for vacation and residency onboarding tasks while also giving us students a moment to enjoy non-medical pursuits before we plunge into the rigors of residency. But, when one is accustomed to a sprint too fast to breathe, as those of us in medical school are, the slowness of these days between Match Day and residency is as strange as a journey to a new, very different country. I’ve read more books for fun these past few months than I have in years. I’ve hiked and slept and pondered life. I started baking again, something I hadn’t done since I returned to the US from Paraguay in 2016. I’ve planned trips and moved.

I wanted to come to Richmond early, many of my peers won’t move to their residency locations until weeks prior to our start date this summer. I’m a person who centers at home, regardless of how new the home is to me. I like moving, but I also like time to settle before I’m expected to excel in life pursuits. I like time to find the grocery store and walk the neighborhoods that’ll be my stomping ground. Yesterday I did both of those things – I found a grocery store which had nice spinach (the primary way I grade grocery stores) and I strolled through a giant cemetery not far from my house with trees that had new, full leaves and singing birds.

It’s beautiful in Richmond and the politeness of the South is a welcome kindness after living in New England for years. New Englanders don’t, for example, say “hi” when you pass them on the street in a city or let you cross the street without threatening to run you over, even though there’s a red light for oncoming traffic. I’m too new to Richmond to have major complaints, but so far, the things that bothered me in Connecticut aren’t present to the same extent. I do admit, I’m not used to having streets named after important people from the Confederacy. I don’t yet fully understand how those imposing names from the past will impact my life though I know they already do and will in new ways here.

Richmond is green and quiet for a city. My apartment is high up without taller buildings around it. It has ample windows. What this means is that I’m surrounded by sun and have a stunning view of the sky. My few days living in Richmond have taught me that it’s a place of expressive skies – which is something I always loved about Paraguay too. The clouds cross the sky with bright colors and exciting shapes. The morning, afternoon, and evening look different in the clouds and sky of Richmond. My apartment, specifically, has a magnificent view of the sunset.

I lived in Washington, DC for 6 years before I did the Peace Corps. And while Richmond is distinct from DC, coming back to the DC-VA-MD area feels like returning home. I’m happy to be back. I’m happy to have arrived when the weather is absolutely perfect, just before the humidity and heat of the summer set in. I have about a month to explore Richmond before I start work. Richmond feels completely different from Vermont or Connecticut. I’m happy to uncover the opportunities hidden in this new place. Opportunity to learn to be an excellent doctor but, also, opportunities to explore life beyond medicine. I’m excited to reconnect with the urban passions I have and to find new ones that suit me in a green, urban home. And small mountains aren’t too far away in Shenandoah. I’m grateful for the slowness of these days so that I can sit with my happiness. Life has taught me that, much like sorrow, complete happiness is fleeting. So, I’m pleased to have time to revel in this happiness storm until the next emotion rolls in.

Advertisement

Goodbye Danbury, CT

Posted on by

I rose before the sun because that’s what I like to do sometimes. I looked out the window as I sipped my mate. The horizon over the buildings on Main Street slowly changed from black to blue to gray to yellow. I surveyed my plants which sat merrily between the window and me. I watered the dry ones and sipped my mate a little more. I could tell from the sunrise that the day was going to be sparkly and sunny. It was a slow morning, so I didn’t load my backpack into my car while it was still dark to go to the Catskill Mountains as I might have a different day.

Later in the morning, my husband and I crossed Main Street and went to our favorite café in Danbury. They served delicious guayaba pastries and a very good breakfast skillet. Later, I walked down Main Street, which was lined with family-owned businesses. I passed my favorite corner store where I could buy all the ingredients to make chipa. I then passed my favorite Danbury restaurant – a Peruvian place that served ceviche and had the most colorful murals depicting the collision between a traditional Peru and a futuristic one. My favorite mural included a llama and a UFO. Next came the public library where my husband so reverently got a library card as soon as he moved here; his love of libraries comes from his mom, and he takes library cards very seriously. I turned up a side street and walked by the newish office of a nonprofit I’d worked with for a few years. They did many things, but in our work together we strove to increase health literacy among Spanish speaking communities. I then turned up another side street. This street was lined with giant, fancy houses. There were also flowers along the way.

I continued my walk through the streets to a large park. I climbed a small mountain (perhaps better called a hill) and stopped at the lookout. The view was especially good because the leaves weren’t out yet. I saw Danbury spread before me. I could see the hospital where I’d spent the last few years training as a medical student. I was done with my studies there and was preparing to move to a new city for residency. It was odd to look at the hospital from this vantage point at this stage in my medical training. I did this same walk shortly after moving to Danbury. That first time, I remember being so excited to see the hospital view which then foreshadowed the learning I would do there. It seemed that both a million years and only seconds had passed since I first saw this view of the hospital.

Medical school was consuming. Yet, the years I lived in Connecticut and the year I lived in Danbury were filled with many non-school endeavors not limited to having ice cream from many different local shops, exploring the abundant water features in Connecticut’s parks, and trotting more than 100 miles of trails in parks surrounding the city. As I reflected on my years in Connecticut, the sun twinkled around me. I dwelled on my mixed feelings of on one hand being excited to move and to start a new adventure while on the other hand being sad to leave Danbury.

Danbury surprised me.  I didn’t know anything about it before I moved to Connecticut to do my clinical training. The city quickly won me over. Danbury treaded a perfect line between being an urban region reasonably close to New York City while also being far enough from the big city to have many parks and proximity to natural spaces. Many things on my Danbury bucket list remained uncrossed off as I prepared for departure. And, yet, while life in Danbury could have continued, it felt like the perfect time to move. I wasn’t seeking greener grass, the grass was plenty green, just a new place with different opportunities.

There’s nothing fantastic about Danbury like The Mall in Washington, DC or Broadway in New York City. The small details and the community of Danbury held my attention during my time here. I liked the down-to-earth nature of the people in Danbury. I liked the brightly colored murals that dotted the buildings along Main Street. I liked that I could easily find empanada shells, plantains, and all the ingredients for chipa. I liked that I heard many languages in the hospital. I liked that there were many different cultures represented in the parades I was never aware of ahead of time and always got caught in somehow. I liked the green spaces within the town. Thinking about leaving, I’d most miss the people I worked with in the city and in the hospital. I’d also miss having the Catskill Mountains nearby. Those mountains filled my soul with joy each time I hiked them.

I turned from the view of Danbury and the hospital and started walking down the small mountain. I’d started out this walk with the intent to reflect on my favorite things about Danbury and I had done that. Now, it was time to be present. It was spring. I’d done this walk so many times that I knew where to expect the skunk cabbage that was always the first spring plant in the wetlands here. It seemed right that as Danbury was coming alive with spring, I was preparing for my own new beginnings. I knew the seasons in Danbury well. I was curious how they’d compare to my new city many 100s of miles south. I knew they’d be different.

I smiled. I liked how sunny Danbury was and how mild the weather was for a New England city. “Goodbye for now, Danbury,” I thought as I saw a skunk cabbage near the trail. I noted the contrast between the sunlight and tree shadows on the leaves below my feet. I started back toward my Danbury home, not home for much longer but still my home that day. “Goodbye for now, Danbury,” I thought. I watched a robin hop near me. I loved spring in Connecticut.

Nothing to Do but Be Happy

Posted on by

The water is so clear it’s like looking through nothing to see the creatures and plants that are stuck in small salty pools contained in the rocks until the tide comes in again. I’m on the edge of the tide, so an especially high wave crashes on the rocks and skuttles across the other pools and seaweed to reach the pool absorbing my gaze. The longer I gaze into the pool, the more I see and the more the patterns swirl. The wind ripples the surface of the pool, such that I must be patient if I want to take a picture – timing my snapshot for when a high wave isn’t threating to dowse me, and the wind isn’t distorting my image.  

I love walking along the ocean’s edge and gazing into the tidal pools – each is a mini world populated by the randomness of being caught in a rock hole as the ocean slides toward center, letting its edges dry for a few hours. The creatures in the tidal pools are waiting for the ocean to return but, until then, they live their lives and try to avoid the birds and others searching the pools for their next meal.

I can’t help but identify with the little stripy fish in the tidal pools. My life, too, is in the tidal pool phase. The daily requirements of living and being a responsible adult remain, but I’m suspended in time – I’m caught between being a med student lost in her studies and residency. These days I’m finishing up my last medical school credits, by design some of the easiest courses I’ve taken. I continue to strive to remember the medicine I know and solidify and learn new things. But mostly I’m enjoying the salty air while I wait to find out where I’ll do residency.

As my husband pointed out recently, “There’s nothing to do but be happy.” It’s hard as a planner to not think of the future. But, when you’re in limbo there is no future only now, the moment. Once I know where I’m destined to train as a resident there will be hundreds of things to sort out – but none of these things can be tackled until I know where I’m headed. I have about a month of not knowing and shortly after that I wrap up my last rotations of med school.

The stripy fish darts around the tidal pool, at first worried I’m going to eat it. It becomes bolder and still as I wait; its attention span is shorter than mine. I peer into the pool. We stare at each other. The sound of the waves is my soundtrack. The sun is sparkling in the sky. By some happenchance of luck and delivery on the part of my planning nature, 7 of my last 12 weeks of medical school rotations are in Puerto Rico, which is even more awesome when you realize these weeks fall exactly in the worst of New England’s winter. I’m studying while I’m in Puerto Rico, but I have plenty of time to explore the island.

Nothing to do but be happy and be present. And it’s not a hard task with the sun shining down on me, the waves and wind fluffing my hair with salt spray, and a party of palms and plants wearing their best green, red, and yellow dancing at the edge of the beach which abuts a turquoise sea. Nothing to do but be happy, what a wonderful situation. Eventually the tide will come in and I’ll be tossed into the wake of wrapping up school and starting residency, but that’s the tide chart of a different day.   

Welcoming 2023

Posted on by

Fog

by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

2022 was a year of achievement. I finished my last exam and clinical rotation of medical school. I applied for residency and got cool interviews. I went to my first medical conference. I got married. I re-combined houses with my husband after he graduated from nursing school and started his first nursing job. I did some of my longest hikes. I feasted frequently.

2023 will be marked by change including finishing medical school and starting residency in a place yet-to-be-determined. I started with Carl Sandburg’s “Fog” because quietness, absorption, and forward movement are the 3 themes I think will get me through the whirlwind of transitions that will unfold in the coming months.

Quietness

Life is loud whether visiting with friends and family, undertaking adventures, or working. In all pursuits, inner quietness can act as a grounding point. This year my primary goal is to cultivate my inner quietness.

Absorption

Residency is a huge leap of responsibility from medical school. It’s the first time I’ll get paid to be a physician, but with more responsibility comes a ton more to learn. In this context, I’m planning to tap my inner sponge and absorb as much knowledge as I can.

Forward Movement

Whether the days are long or short each one is a step forward. This can be difficult to remember in the moment. As I work through the joyful and unpleasant times of 2023, I hope to remember that my efforts are moving me along life’s adventure even if it’s not readily apparent how each piece fits together.

Battle at the Kitchen Sink

Posted on by

Disclaimer

This is a throwback story from my Peace Corps days. I’ve been thinking a lot about Paraguay lately and decided it was time to share some of the stories I didn’t share when I lived there. I always find myself thinking about Paraguay when the weather gets cold in New England (my current home), because I miss the sun and the mango trees Paraguay reliably had year-round.

Setting

The last quarter of my 27 months in Paraguay as a Peace Corps volunteer. Which is to say, I was very comfortable. At that point, Paraguay was my home.

Battle at the Kitchen Sink

It was grapefruit season. I remember this because we had gone foraging for grapefruits. In Paraguay there’s a citrus season (there’s also a season for every fruit you love… passion fruit, avocadoes, mangos, pineapples…). The Peace Corps volunteers who came before me had shown me how to hunt for grapefruits, so it was one of the first things I showed the new Peace Corps volunteer visiting me that weekend. It was her first time traveling beyond the training community in Paraguay where all Paraguay Peace Corps volunteers in my era spent their first three months learning language, culture, and other skills they might need once they arrived in their sites (where’d they work for 2 years). She was visiting me to learn about what it was like to transition from training to working in Paraguay.

After our lesson on foraging grapefruit, I showed the visiting volunteer (just as the Paraguayans had shown me) how to peel the grapefruit properly. This involved using a knife to carefully cut the peel off in a spiral, leaving a thick layer of that bitter white stuff that hides under the colorful part of the peel. I showed her how to cut a little cone-shaped hole in the top of the grapefruit. Then, how to squeeze the whole thing and suck the juice out until the grapefruit was dry. This is how Paraguayans most frequently eat grapefruit and oranges. It is my preferred method above all methods I’ve tried.

We then had lunch. I took the dishes out to my kitchen sink, which was located outside my apartment in the back under a mango tree. I had running water (which was nice) but my kitchen sink was outside – an unfortunate location on rainy days, but perfectly fine on this day. I set the dishes in the sink and then looked around for my soap and sponge. As with all full sinks, the sponge was hard to find. I went to dig under the dishes to see if it was there. Sitting among the dishes exactly where my hand had just been when I put the dishes in the sink, was a tarantula about the size of my palm.

I don’t know your position on spiders. But, living in Paraguay I developed a set of rules for all home invaders. Spiders were included in that list and my rules for them were as follows: they received the death penalty if they were too big and in my home territory (which included my sink), if they were too close to my bed, and if they were too close to the toilet. If they did not violate any of these rules, I was willing to live peacefully together. The tarantula in my sink resoundingly violated the size rule permissible within my territory.

My heart thumbed. I didn’t know much about tarantulas, but it was the largest spider I’d seen outside of a zoo exhibit. I yelped (sound effects are always part of my life) and then promptly went to find my bottle for fighting invaders (obviously I developed rules for invaders because there were many including ants and roaches). My invader-fighting bottle was a rather short (maybe 10 inches in length) plastic bottle that was square and originally contained my favorite yogurt in Paraguay.

I banged at the tarantula as hard as I could. Of course, having never fought one before, I was jittery.

I missed.

The tarantula climbed out of the sink, plopped on the ground, and started marching toward me.

I didn’t miss the second, third, and fourth time I tried to hit it.

Luckily, the new volunteer was at the front of the house and did not witness this battle, though I told her about it promptly thereafter. All in good time. She would likely battle her own home invaders during her years in Paraguay.

Reflection

These years since I’ve returned to the US have been challenging as I plodded through pre-med classes and several jobs and now, medical school. I’ve encountered many challenging situations with people who act tough and aren’t particularly nice. Most, if not all, of these tough-acting people have never battled a tarantula. Knowing that they lack tarantula experience has put my interactions with them into perspective. Afterall, toughness is relative, like all attributes.

There are many times in medical school where I’ve thought of my Peace Corps days as reminder that the current challenge is not harder than ones I’ve encountered before. Resilience comes from knowing where you’ve been even if others don’t. It comes from applying skills you learned in the past to new scenarios in the present. Most challenges can’t be overcome with a plastic bottle weapon. But, having a plan and being ready to implement it even when surprised can be applied to almost anything.

Did the Jones Cheat?

Posted on by

I strode along one of my most frequented paths which combines my town’s main street and a side street that parallels it. I like the route because it represents two separate worlds despite their proximity. The main street is scattered with restaurants reflecting the many Central and South American cultures that comprise a large portion of my town’s heritage, hair salons, family-owned gift shops and clothing boutiques with their signs as much in Portuguese and Spanish as English, churches, places to learn English and send money orders, and empty store fronts. The side street is lined with one-family homes so large that if I lived in them, I’d need a map to navigate them and an intercom to find my family members in the far reaches of rooms and floors away from me.

As I crossed a four-way intersection, navigating the streetlights (including their left turn arrows) as I always do because I don’t think the walk signal ever turns on, I came upon the first house in the row of mansions. I slowed my pace. There was a landscaping crew. This was a common sight on this street and in many places in Connecticut – people spend lots of money on their lawns here. You always know a landscaping crew because they have big beaten-up trucks with letters painted on the side and a big trailer behind. What made this crew different was that they didn’t have mowing equipment, pruners, or leaf blowers from what I could tell. They weren’t even looking at the plants in the yard. THE LANDSCAPE CREW WAS HANGING CHRISTMAS LIGHTS AND CHRISTMAS WREATHS FOR A PRIVATE HOME.

I thought of that scene in The Grinch where one neighbor is using the Christmas light gun to decorate her house and the other neighbor is blowing electrical fuses to try to get her Christmas light display to just turn on. It never occurred to me that people might pay someone to hang their Christmas decorations at their home. Businesses obviously do that, but a private home having someone else decorate for Christmas?

On a later night, I passed the house of the family who had paid a crew to decorate for Christmas. Their house looked fantastic but in my heart of hearts the decorations were empty. I found myself wondering:

  • Is decorating for Christmas more about the quality of the decorations or is it more about the combination of annoyance and joy of putting them up and then criticizing and loving your own work until you must go through the added chore of taking the decorations down again?
  • Is decorating for Christmas about the quality of your house decorations or the conversations that go into convincing various family members or friends to help you hang decorations or the determination required to hang them all by yourself?

I found myself leaning toward the belief that decorating for Christmas was a lot about the journey and less about the end. Having decorated many a Christmas tree I cut down in the middle of my dad’s woods as a child, which is to say that we had untrimmed trees in all their asymmetrical glory, I find myself solidly believing that what makes home Christmas decorations special is that they were done by amateurs in the spirit of holiday cheer, family fun, and acceptance of an imperfect final product. It’s not that I faulted this family who paid to have their house decorated for Christmas, it’s just that their approached seemed business-like. Much like the Christmas displays on 5th Avenue in NYC, the house with decorations hung by a hired crew was beautiful.

I found myself chuckling about the concept of “keeping up with the Jones.” I found myself glad I grew up in a space and time where lawns were sometimes mowed by teenagers, often not mowed recently, and sometimes mowed by livestock. I’m not sure why the imperfection of unprofessionally maintained homes warms my soul, but it does. And as the holiday season unfolds, I find myself thinking about what exactly is most important in creating holiday spirit.

Pike Place Market

Posted on by

I sat and ate a biscuit with a high cheese-to-dough ratio and a heavy pad of butter soaking into flaky perfection. It was my first true meal of the day. I was hungry and still having trouble believing I was on the US West Coast, having started my day on the US East Coast. The time change was confusing – the journey across the country was space and time travel. This biscuit shop was on the ocean edge of Pike Place Market in Seattle. Before arriving, I hadn’t known biscuits were popular in Seattle, but I was glad to find several biscuit shops as I wandered about the city.

The last time I’d been to Pike Place Market was in high school on a family trip. But, as all the places of family lore are, the market was familiar because my mother had told me about it many times. My parents met in Seattle. I’d lived there for several years before our family moved East, back to the coast of my grandparents. Pike Place Market is a place of fish stands and cute cafes. It’s full of people.

As I experienced the market for the first time on my own and as an adult, I was most struck by the maze that was the market and the perfect, stunning flower bouquets wrapped in parchment paper. I also liked the mosaic mural of North American birds. The mosaic bird mural reminded me of the bird murals in Harlem (where my sister lives). Per my sister, the bird murals in Harlem depict all the birds that will go extinct sometime sooner than I’d like. I wondered about the mosaic mural birds, would a day come when those birds (too) would only be found in murals?

I liked that Pike Place Market unfolded as a maze. It reminded me of Mercado Cuatro in Asunción, Paraguay. The markets share a maze layout, haphazard vendor stands, a huge range of goods, and people-filled walkways. Pike Place Market lacked the feral kittens that Mercado Cuatro had, but it had its own large bronze pigs with bronze pig hoofprints throughout the market. I followed the hoofprints for a bit. I decided the pigs were a good addition to the market.

I would later learn that the Starbucks in Pike Place Market was so busy because it was the founding Starbucks and people visited it for that reason. I was familiar with Starbucks because I’d worked there when I lived in Washington, DC. The Starbucks in Pike Place Market was much fancier than the one where I’d worked. However, I wasn’t inspired to stop at the first, ever, Starbucks. There were too many other places to choose from for me to pick a place I already knew.  I found a tea shop that sold crumpets (which I didn’t know existed outside of fairytales) and got an earl gray tea.

I was mildly disconcerted by the neon lights in Pike Place Market; they seemed a little aggressive for an enclosed space with so little wiggle room. I did like the nooks with tables and chairs and the scattered sculptures I stumbled upon when I rounded sharp hallway corners. I followed the hallways, stairwells, and odd steps until I thought I’d explored the whole market. I found the public bathrooms on both sides of the street. They were not striking, except that their stall doors were very short. A tall person could easily see over them.

I spent time looking out over the construction next to the market at the ocean. It was drizzling and cold, so I was glad I had worn my puffy coat. The waterfront was in flux. I’d later learn from a family friend that there used to be a highway between the market and the ocean. But, for many years now, they’d been slowly working toward reclaiming the waterfront. It’s funny how we call progress building roads and buildings, only to realize years later that beautiful park spaces are more important. I was glad that someday I’d be able to walk from the market to the ocean, but not today. This visit, there was no direct way because of the construction.

Once I felt that I had a good mental map of the market and had seen enough, I turned back to the city to explore its streets. Seattle was a home to me, but not a familiar one. It was a home of my distant past and the setting of early family stories. I wouldn’t have time to return to the market in the morning to watch them throw fish during this Seattle visit, but I knew I’d be back again. And I was grateful to have my own memory of the market. Lore-made memory to re-lived experience.

A Palindrome Birthday

Posted on by

The sun sparkles in my windows and alights on the forest of plants I nurture in my apartment. I’m recovering from a whirlwind trip to Oregon to celebrate the wedding of a long-time, dear friend. I stepped away from reading about acid-base disorders, electrolyte abnormalities, and the general unruliness of the kidney to write this post. Residency programs started reviewing applications yesterday; I wait for interview invites to trickle in. By this time next year, I’ll be in the throes of residency and I’m sure medical school will feel like a distant memory. But today, a few days before my 33rd birthday, I’m still in medical school.

Looking at the blue sky and the trees with leaves that are turning red, orange, and yellow, I’m reminded of the mountains that are hidden beyond the horizon of buildings that I see. The mountains are quiet from a distance, but hum with streams, wind, and birds when I embark on their paths. I’ve done 57 hikes (not all in the mountains and some trotting more than walking) since my last birthday.

This has been a long year filled with joy and determination. The number of hikes I’ve done reflects finding a balance between those two forces. Medicine consumes. Yet, since starting my last academic year of medical school, the harrowing nature of academia has dampened and the delight of caring for patients, solving medical mysteries, and contriving medical plans have returned to my lived experience. As I begin my residency interview season, I find myself thinking about life beyond school again. It’s a relief to be nearing graduation.

This year marked a big change; I got married. It’s interesting to shift from plotting my activities and setting goals to stepping back and thinking about sharing my life’s journey with another person who has their own activities and goals. To balance the individuals and the team who form a marriage is a daily endeavor. Of course, my partner and I have been unified for some time now, but something about making our union official and forever makes our collaboration seem more central to daily life.

Birthdays are my favorite time for reflection because they mark my personal new year. I looked back at the previous birthdays I’ve written about – 30 (happy and grateful), 28 (excited), 26 (seize the moment), and 25 (goal oriented). Thinking about their themes, what’s this birthday about?

When I walk along a ridge gazing out at the sky on either side or down a woodland path, I find myself quiet. Quiet in the sense of calm and content and, also, in the literal sense that there is less noise in the natural world than in the cityscape. I hope to hold the quiet I find on the hiking trail in my soul no matter what activity I’m undertaking. The hospital bustles with a din and the street outside my window screams with activity. Yet, I believe coexistence of noise without and quiet within can always be achieved; the way, however, seems as varied as the trails I’ve explored this year. Varied by person and varied by situation.

It’s fitting to focus on quiet movement as I wait to start a new life chapter, the chapter where I close the door to official school (potentially and likely forever) and open the door to learning from a new job. I love new chapters with that accentuated first letter, hopefully a quote, the foreshadowing of the chapter that just ended, and the delights hidden behind crisp pages. I can’t wait to see what this palindrome year brings. At the very least, I know it will bring change, for which, I’m grateful.

Joy

Posted on by

I most remember his rosy cheeks. The humidity and mosquitos hummed around us. We held hands under the shade of widely spaced trees in ferns as tall as our waists beside a beaver pond. There would be many moments I’d attempt to remember from our wedding day – etching them into my memory, writing them down play-by-play in my Spanish journal, and waiting giddily for our photographer to finally send us our photos. But, in those moments between words, I thought about how warm my cheeks felt and how rosy his cheeks were and how it was likely that my cheeks were rosy too.

I was joyful. Some cry when they’re overwhelmed with happiness, but that’s never been me. Happiness spreads across my skin like sinking into a warm swimming hole. The warmth then soaks into my core whereby settling my heart and obscuring all the things that normally zoom through my mind. Happiness is quiet. Contentment. Nothing but his rosy cheeks and my rosy cheeks on our wedding day.

The bright sunlight flickered through the canopy above alighting on my sister, who was our officiant, and our guests. The guests sat amongst the ferns as you might imagine in a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It seemed fitting that the cupcake shelves hanging from a birdfeeder hook and the brightly colored attire of the wedding guests would float across my mind like a scene from a play. As I gazed at the ferns, I realized that this was my midsummer dream. To make official what my partner and I already knew. These moments would give our relationship a label society understood. But despite the label, he and I knew that no one could truly understand what we meant because every relationship is its own unique product of its unique makers.

Which brings me back to his rosy cheeks. He was wearing his finest suit and the fanciest shoes you’ve possibly ever seen.  The paisley on his shoes and the paisley on his tie had nothing but their name in common, but they each worked well with the stripes of his suit. His tufty blond hair curled above his sparkling eyes and his cheeks were flushed because we were outside, because we had walked through the forest to get here, and because it was a hot midsummer day.

I thought briefly about our guests, the witnesses to the words we were saying. They were the people who had played the biggest roles in our lives since we became a couple. I listened to the words my sister said, then he said, and then I said. We had all thought about, written down, and practiced what we were going to say. Yet, it seemed more improv than rehearsed lines. How could any of us have imagined exactly how this moment would be? We couldn’t. There’s delight in comfortable spontaneity. As I replay those moments now, the rosiness returns. The memory is one of the clearest definitions I have of joy.

Learning to See

Posted on by

Before I moved to me latest city, the people I talked to about the city during my travels through medical school rotations didn’t have anything good to say about it. One person said there weren’t any good food. Others said there wasn’t much to do. When I moved here, someone went as far as to tell me it was dangerous. And, while I listened carefully because I knew little about the city myself, I had a suspicion they were wrong.

When I was a child, I learned to see the trees and birds around me. I learned to name them. I could tell a white pine from a red pine or a sugar maple from a red maple. I could tell you the sound of the chickadee and the hermit thrush. I knew the difference between a red wing blackbird and an oriole or a bluebird and an indigo bunting. This type of seeing was the outcome of growing up in the middle of nowhere while surrounded by women who knew these things and shared them with me.

Early on, I learned to tell the difference between real wood and fake wood. I could identify sloppy joints and beautifully joined boards. I judged furniture and house finishings based on their joints. I could tell you how sheetrock differed from plaster. I understood these things because my father had taught me to notice them. My mom taught me to see colors and how they might be paired. I still notice boldly paired colors and they bring me joy regardless of if I find them in a painting or on someone’s clothes.

As a I grew, I learned to name the flowers in people’s gardens because I worked in a greenhouse. I was trained to tell the difference between a rose and a lily, for example. My parents taught me to notice architecture. What makes a classic New England home look as such and how that differs from an adobe house. I came to understand what a well-built house is.

When I moved to DC, I learned how to see a street for what it was. A pathway to somewhere. I learned how to chart my course and tell if I was safe on a particular path within moments. I learned to see the places, like underpasses, I should avoid at night and the places that were filled with architecture, trees, and flowers. I learned this out of necessity and because I have a savage passion for walking and walking and walking.

When I moved to Paraguay, I learned to see what someone was trying to say because I couldn’t always understand their words. I learned to see if they were lying, or friendly, or joking. I learned to see why some people might follow God. I started to understand why life in Paraguay is different from life in the United States. And I learned to see that difference as both beautiful and challenging.

In medical school I’ve spent years learning to see exactly what a normal breath is and how stretchy skin should be. I’ve learned to see how the heart and abdomen are when all is well and what an infection looks like. I’ve learned to understand almost every part of the body and to see when it is healthy.

All this learning about how to see I carry with me always. And, when I moved to my latest home, I applied my seeing to understand what this city was. I learned that there is a lot to say about Danbury. I found the trails (there are numerous) where I can run and walk among the trees, birds, and flowers. I’ve noted the buildings with outstanding architecture. I found half a dozen murals with beautifully blended colors. I’m mapping out the good eateries—so far, I have a recommendation for every meal of the day plus elevenses and snacks. Much like Paraguay, Danbury is filled with people who don’t look or speak like me. But, when I took the time to observe my neighbors; it became apparent that they are a bunch of people trying to carve out a little space to work, eat, and be merry. I came to understand they were just like me in many ways. And, noticing our similarities, I understood that this city suits me. Seeing is something that takes practice. But once you learn to see you can begin to understand.