It's been awhile. I've taken some time off the merry go round of my mind and settled on the one thing I probably should be doing: studying. Now that my clinical year is behind me - yes, behind me! as in the rearview! - I have just a few lingering details to put on the plate, ponder, and eventually devour. Job prospects are materializing, the date of my board exam is set, a few members of my family are heading out this way for their first ever visit to the Pacific Ocean in a few weeks for my graduation, and I am honored and horrified and humbled and giddy at the prospects and possibilities of what the future holds.
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| A good crew: The ladies in my class during "Movember" 2011 |
I've also taken a break from writing because I've been collecting stories and looking for places to put them, as in publish. At the same time, I've been getting up into these glorious Cascades and I've been chasing storms. Maybe I've been chasing stories about people like I seek out a good storm, or vice versa. As a writer, one always begs a bit subconsciously for "unfortunate" events--a storm, a shady interaction, an interesting character--because that is where we get the fuel for our trade. The tinder for the flames that keep us warm through the night. That "night" meaning our entire life.
Now that I am literally on the tail end of my training as a physician assistant I am left with a handful, heck, a treasure full, of stories. I didn't even have to go very far to find many of them. Some of the most heartfelt ones arrived on my clinic doorstep, precisely on time, on a sunny Tuesday afternoon or in a spitting downpour. I have met middle aged men at the end of their rope, who have never told a single soul anything about how they "feel" or have felt or have struggled or maybe even how scared they maybe have been at some point in their life. Society tells them that, from a young age. The same way it tells my father and brothers: Buck up, be strong, don't show emotion. Well, I see the ramifications of that not so sage advice on a daily basis, on the tear stained cheeks of homeless men who have waited a lifetime to dispense the flood of emotion.
I've allowed myself to become insufferably close to patients rather quickly, sometimes too quickly, having to hold back a hug because providers need to set boundaries with patients and so many patients do not have good boundaries. You would never think that a hug could hurt, but they can, sometimes even physically. I've wanted to hold the gnarled and wrinkled hands of another human confessing great and personal things to me but then wondered if that gesture was for me or for the patient? I've met women generations older than me. One 90 years old, riding the city bus around like a teenager, coming in to see me because she is only able to walk 8 blocks now instead of 10 before she gets winded. She is going out of the country next month. I don't worry about her one bit.
I do worry about some of the younger patients. The teenage girls who see on TV that the skinny/waifish nearly starving look is "in" (is it?) -- who decide that looking strung out is sexy, like the lead character in "Breaking Bad"-- who then confess to going on craigslist and looking for a "heroin boyfriend". Who then end up sitting across from me, gaunt, disheveled, with track marks riddling her forearms and several abscesses the size of gulf balls from "muscling" the drug into her body by needle. I have empathy for her, and she is more than one. I ask her, "Do you still think being an addict is sexy?" It is rhetoric. None of it is sexy.
Now that I have a moment to stop and spin on my own, the stories keep coming. The ones I've already shared and also the ones that have built up, also the ones to come. People are amazing, amazing creatures. So intricate, beautiful. So pained and suffering. So full of hope.
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| Watchful. Waiting. The world and I. |
And so I catch their stories, I save them. I cherish them, the same way I cherish a good summer storm. Because both can change a perspective, can level a moment, can change the energy of the air we breathe. Growing up in the midwest, we experienced the epic, green-hued, sky-twirling, riveting cloud storms. The tornado warnings. The sundry dark wind settling over the rural fields at 2pm. The excitement that things just might fall apart. Of course I was much younger then, I knew there would be people to pick up the pieces--those same people if I ever needed them--my folks.
I think most of us batten down the hatches in the rain. In the hint of wind through the window. It is one thing I have come to love about Seattle. People live in the rain. They walk with briefcases and business suits. They don't have umbrellas. It's just water and as my dad always told me, "Your skin is waterproof". But we don't get those epic thunderstorms out here. When there is thunder its somewhat entertaining to watch my Seattlelite friend's flurry of posts on Facebook declaring "Thunder, yes!" and "Thunder in Seattle!!"
We are giddy. We are ridiculous. We are sublime. We are each our own individual storm.
I'll keep collecting stories if you tell me where the big storms are. If you post there is thunder I swear I'll feel it too. I think we will probably both be excited in the same way. And either way, there is so much work to do. So many stories to be told. So many stories, to live.
