Tag Archives: About Me

What do you want to be when you grow up?

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“What do you want to be when you grow up?” one of my Paraguayan friends, who used to be my student, asked during my last visit to Paraguay.

I paused a moment before answering. I was surprised by the question because he and I don’t often talk about abstract things and because I’ve been feeling awfully grown up recently. “A doctor,” I said.

“That’s it? You don’t want to be a diplomat or someone rich or famous?” my friend asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“Oh, that’s cool,” my friend said. The conversation continued as I asked him about what he wanted to be when he grew up and we discussed more details of what I hope to do as a doctor.

I graduated from medical school on May 21, 2023. I received my resident medical license yesterday. I’m officially an MD! All that remains between me and practicing independently as a physician is residency (and fellowship if I further specialize).

People like to say “it’s hard to believe” when they achieve a particularly hard goal like graduating from medical school. But, let me tell you the truth, I don’t find it hard to believe that I graduated medical school. Why? Because I was there every minute that I studied at my desk and learned how to care for patients in the clinic and hospital. I read every test question and picked an answer. I showed up on time, managed my email inbox, pestered school administrators to get answers, and did voluntary projects to expand my learning beyond the medical school curriculum.

Becoming a MD is a lot of work; I did the work to earn my degree. Becoming an MD is also an amazing quest. I was excited when my patients were cured, I was humbled that so many people allowed me to take part in their journey to death or to better health, and I loved uncovering the mysteries of how the body works and what medicine can do. I’m grateful for every person who helped me along the way – from my family who cheered me on to the patients who let me care for them, from my classmates who struggled and soared beside me to the numerous physicians who taught me. I did the work, but becoming an MD takes a village. There were many people in my village who were my heroes and who guided and supported me as I journeyed through medical school.

The last months of medical school left me feeling awfully grown up. Grown up in the tiring kind of way. My friend’s question helped remind me how much growing is left. And how, somehow, I’m lucky enough to be growing while building my dream. Next stop on the Doctorhood Quest, residency!   

The Happy Stillness Between

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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.

Goodbye Danbury, CT

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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.

At Long Last, I Know Where I’m Doing Residency

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Last time I wrote, I was waiting for Match Day (the day graduating medical students find out where they’re headed to residency). I’m now on the other side and know that I’m heading to Richmond, VA for internal medicine residency! I’m stoked!

Having never applied to residency before, I wasn’t sure what it would be like when I started the application process last April. Now that the year-long application cycle is done, the thing that surprised me most about applying to residency programs was how hard it was to decide which program/location I wanted to go to most. Let me explain a little bit about how the residency application process works to put my challenge into context. Then I’ll explain my process.

Applying to Internal Medicine Residency

When applying for residency, medical students rank all the residency programs where they interviewed from their favorite to least favorite, and residency programs rank all the applicants they interviewed from their preferred to least preferred. Both the applicant’s list and the program’s list are called “rank lists” because they rank their options in order of preference. Then, a computer program attempts to match the students with the highest program choice on their rank list and the programs with preferred applicants on their rank list – if you’re familiar with sororities then you’ll realize it’s the same system used to place new recruits in sororities.

There are many internal medicine residency programs each with multiple positions to fill, so entering internal medicine is less competitive than entering a specialty with fewer available residency positions (for example surgery or radiology). What this means is that, if they have between 10-15 interviews (the magic number that almost guarantees a match somewhere), US-based MD internal medicine applicants (like me) have a lot of control over where they go for residency. According to my research, most US-based MD students will end up in one of their top 5 internal medicine residency choices. So, I knew the order in which I placed the top 5 programs on my rank list had a large influence on where I’d end up for residency.

Challenge of Forming My Program Rank List

Having the above background, here’s my processes for creating my rank list (realizing every medical student has their own process). You might think that the programs (themselves) would have enough unique features to guide how I ranked them. However, the more I researched and thought, the more it seemed that all my programs were more similar than disparate when it came to almost everything except location. Using program culture as gathered from my interview and academic rigor together, I was able to determine which programs I would rank in my bottom third (well below the top 5). I still had to put all the programs in order from my first to last choice with special emphasis on the top 5. In other words, I felt confident that I’d become a good physician regardless of which of the programs in my top two thirds I attended. I also came to realize that the location could potentially change the course of who I would become as a physician and my future life. This did not simplify things but rather made them more challenging.

Being a geographically flexible person, I interviewed with programs mostly on the West Coast and in the mid-Atlantic region (plus a few outliers) with no preference for one region over another. The geographic clustering came out of a long list of criteria I used to define the ideal place where I’d like to live and was how I determined which residency programs to apply to in the first place. As I continued to research after interviewing, I found that these same criteria (which I hoped to use to rank program locations) were often mutually exclusive. For example, I wanted a location with a diverse patient and physician population that was also close to mountains. My list of comparisons went in a similar fashion with all programs missing several criteria (just different ones). I realized the hard truth that I simply couldn’t have it all when it came to location.

“Great,” I thought. “I can’t have it all when it comes to location and I’m confident that any program in my top two thirds will teach me to be a good physician…Now how do I put them in order?”

Having exhausted external factors to rank programs, I turned to self-reflection on my personal values and how those values might be upheld in the different program locations. Reflecting on personal values is a funny exercise and it’s not one I’ve had time to do since starting medical school (however it was a large part of my life as a Peace Corps volunteer so it’s quite familiar to me). It’s an odd and uncomfortable place looking inward and trying to make sense of the thoughts and feelings zooming around your mind. It’s uncomfortable in a different way than standing in the operating room for 8 hours or getting up at 4am to go to hospital so you can see patients are uncomfortable. I felt lucky and privileged to be in a place where I had enough choice over where I’d go to residency to grapple with something like personal values as a key part of my choice, but it was still uncomfortable.

The curious thing about values is that they form the core of who you are and while they shift with time my experience suggests they don’t change dramatically. Despite going around in circles trying to decide how to rank residency programs, I found myself most valuing the same things that sent me to Washington, DC for undergrad so many years ago: weather, quality of life, diversity, and politics. (I also value challenge, but residency is always challenging so that wasn’t helpful). So weather, quality of life, diversity, and politics are what ultimately determined my residency rank list order. All that hullabaloo to decide on a program based on 4 things that have nothing (and yet, perhaps, everything) to do with medicine.

Like many things in life, I won’t be able to go back and see how attending a different residency program would change the course of my career and life. But, in addition to being thrilled with where I matched, I’m at peace knowing I had a chance to look inward before I cast my dice this time. I find that in America we spend a lot of time looking outward, yet often the answer comes from within and not from without. I try to break this trend and make space to sit uncomfortably for a while to find the answer within when it comes to big decisions. I was successful this time around.  

Waiting Impatiently

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The gray of New England spring hung low as I traveled home from the airport. In short time, March would deliver the snow-rain I know the month for in the region where I grew up. I learned that the cold and gray, which can span 9 months out of the year here, was not for me when I left New England the first time. I stayed away for almost a decade until a desire deeper than my love of sun brought back to the state my parents chose for us so long ago, Vermont. I wanted to become a doctor. Medical school takes a forest of strong trees by your side – it takes a lot of willpower on your part coupled with family and friends to complete. Something made me pause when my medical school acceptances gave me the option to leave New England again. I didn’t leave then, choosing to stay close to my parents, my siblings, and my new Vermont friends. My compromise was a plan to move to southern New England, Connecticut, for the second half of medical school because my school had a clinical campus there and it suited me better than their Vermont campus.

I think the choice to stay close to family worked. As I write this, I’m waiting impatiently because in a few long days I learn where I’m headed for residency and, unless I’m gravely mistaken, I’ll leave New England once again. As a side adventure during the Doctorhood Quest, I scooped up a New England-grown husband. I often wonder if understanding the winters here is an important thing he and I have in common or if it’s just everything else that makes us a good match. I’ve also gotten to see my parents and sister more during medical school than in the almost decade leading up to it. I have good friends who saw me through the worst days as a medical student. I’ve come to call my Connecticut town home, even if the designation is fleeting.

This March’s late rain and snow squall isn’t unique to this region at this time of year – though it would seem other places where snow is unusual are getting slammed, weather patterns are becoming more and more confusing as climate change forges on. And while my roots are familiar with the snow and the cold, a few days ago I returned from 7 weeks in Puerto Rico so the coldness and gray is particularly unpleasant this week. It stands out to me how miserable March is here as I look out my window over my flowering orchids and assorted houseplants, many of which grow as weeds in Puerto Rico. It was at the ripe age of 18 that I learned how much I love the sun and living in sunny places even though I require sunblock, shade trees, hats, and other sun protection to enjoy the sun without turning into a lobster.

On Monday this week, I and many medical students across the country found out we matched into residency. And now, in a typical medical school approach of drawing things out longer than is reasonable and with no efficiency and minimal logic, we are all waiting until Friday until we learn the magic WHERE we matched. The day we learn where we will go for residency is called Match Day. Transitioning from medical school to residency is a boring process that makes little sense, so don’t ask about it. Just know that this week is moving at half the speed of any other week these past 4 years and that my excitement for Friday’s discovery is exploding. My excitement even makes the cold and gray outside acceptable though not welcome. Residency is the next and the last phase of the Doctorhood Quest before I am a doctor. I could, of course, continue onto fellowship after residency but that would be to further specialize. Residency will give me the skills needed to practice as an independent generalist in internal medicine (in my case, those pursuing other medical paths might finish residency as surgeons, psychiatrists, or neurologists to name a few areas of medicine that can start after residency).

I’m excited for what’s to come. I made a picture frame for taking pictures at my Match Day party with “Adventure Awaits!!!” written on it. Perhaps you get the Up reference. The picture frame is a party feature that’s a throwback to my Paraguay days. Paraguayans know how to throw a good party. At my Match Day party, there will be an ice cream cake, food, a banner, and streamers. And, of course, I’ll celebrate with my family. I’ve been working towards this day, the day I get into residency, for 10 years. It’s hard to believe I’m here, but it feels real. I can’t wait for it to be Friday, March 17 aka Match Day 2023.

Nothing to Do but Be Happy

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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

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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.

Pike Place Market

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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.

Joy

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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.

Home

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And the last of three orchids I’d nurtured was sending up new flower shoots. It was the second of two my fiancé had given me when I finished my first medical board exam (about a year ago now). Ironically, I was sliding into studying for my second board exam as these orchids sent vigorous spikes forth with flowers that erupted like fireworks. It seemed my exam schedule was on orchid time.

The orchids weren’t the only plants I’d lugged from one state and town to the next. But, in that moment, their colors overshadowed the perfect leaves of the plants around them. Their colors were competing with the new rug I’d bought when I moved into my fourth (and hopefully last) home of medical school only a week or so ago.

I called it the sunny-side-up rug as it was bright yellow and white like a perfectly cooked egg. Somehow the plants looked greener next to the yellow. The yellow beside the purple African violets and remaining orange blossoms of the Christmas cactus and the orange-salmon ever-blooming crown of thorns was representative of the contrasts in my life. And the complementary colors of the yellow rug and purple flowers reminded me of my roots and my newest stethoscope which I’d decorated with colored zip ties representing the rainbow but paired by complementary color. The stethoscope decoration was an attempt to ward off stethoscope theft and, more importantly, a personal reminder of the same roots for which the contrasting colors in my apartment were a metaphor.

My roots are in the arts and carpentry and the outdoors which is a mix of dirt, water features, plants, trees, and rocks. And my new home reflected my foundation in these things. My time in the clinic and hospital often reminded me from where I’d come. Not so much because anyone I worked with or spoke to in these settings knew my history but because their ignorance of my history was so glaring and central to my relationship with them. It is easy to get lost in the world that is healthcare especially when that world is not even in the universe where you grew up. 

They say home is where the heart is. And when you’re a doctor in training you know that the heart is in the chest. Which complicates things when trying to find your home because your chest is wherever you happen to be. While I don’t think wherever I am is home, my idea of home is not so far off from knowing the heart is in the chest. I’ve had many homes. My tendency toward multiple homes may be a complication of split custody and two homes as a child – though, more likely, the shiftiness of where I call home stems from my personality-defining feature of being a wandering soul. Not wandering in the sense of a gypsy who is constantly moving, but in the sense that one place has never been the only place I called home. My life leading to medical school and through medical school has reflected that. Depending on what you count as moving, I’ve moved over 10 times in the past 10 years spanning two countries, three US states, and several towns in most of those regions and called each location to which I moved home.

When you’ve moved as much as I have, you develop a keen sense for what kinds of places can be called home. And you also learn that some places are easier to call home than others. My new apartment that contains the re-blossoming orchids and the sunny-side-up rug is one of those places that was instantly home. As soon as I opened the front door for the first time, I knew I was home. Home for now and home until I leave. The homy feeling might have something to do with the expansive windows. As a green thumb, the bigger question is not how or why I grow plants but rather if I seek places where my plants will thrive or if seek places where I will thrive. It’s easy growing plants when you need the same thing as they do. Sun. We need lots of sun and sunny days or else we get irritable and fade.

The new apartment was also home because I’d picked it from multiple options. I’d lived in the area for a while and surveyed the land. I’d used the knowledge gathered from my surveying to decide that this new town was the town in which I wanted to live. At least for now. The new apartment was also home because it was the first lease my soon-to-be-husband and I had signed together. It was a new place for us to both start new phases. He, his nursing career. I, my last year of medical school.

Seeing the flowers, the yellow rug, and the ñanduti (colorful Paraguayan lace) I’d placed on every empty surface in the apartment and thinking about the art that could fit on the broad walls made me feel happy in my new place. As I sat drinking my mate in the morning sun, I felt peaceful. As I looked out the windows; thought about how close I was to finishing the third year of medical school, a hard year to say it shortly; and considered all the wonderful things that would unfold in the coming months I felt at home. My literal heart was in my chest and my memories of past homes were in my metaphorical heart and both hearts were here in this apartment. Here, life followed the rhythm of the orchid flower cycle. Here was home because of the colors and sun and feelings that filled the place.

PS: it turns out I’ve written a post titled “Home” before…back in October 2014 when I lived in Paraguay. If you’re curious how my thoughts then compare to now check it out.