Sunday, September 18. 2005
september 15, guadalajara, mexico. the first night in mexico was one to remember. it so happened that it was the night of a celebration all over the country. at around 11pm, a man steps on to the upper level porch in the town square. the man is a magistrate, but he represents hidalgo, the mexican hero/ horseback priest from two centuries ago. the din of the people subsides, as he shouts............................¡VIVA MÉXICO! the throng erupts in ecstatic shouting, screaming, jumping, chanting ¡viva méxico! ¡viva méxico!. stylish teenagers with red white and green headbands begin pushing through the crowd in circles, creating a whirlpool of bodies in the middle of the street (note traffic lights and a fireworks tower overhead). from babies riding on padrés shoulders waving flags to town elders barely 5 feet tall, all were swirling, shouting, laughing, smiling, as they were pressed from every side. this was a party. i have really never seen such pride and love of country as i did that night, as patriotism seems to be out of vogue in the US right now.
it is hard to believe our journey has now begun... we have been ready for so long. justo and i are staying with his very WARM and friendly family in guadalajara, with whom we hiked a canyon this morning. we also got to play futbol and eat tacos with friends from their 200 yr. old church. i love it here, but tonight we will leave by bus for the southern state of CHIAPAS. there we will hike around the ruins of mayan civilizations that were creating beautiful stone cities, elaborate star-based callenders and writing systems, and perfecting agriculture while europe was stuck in the dark ages. after that we continue on through el salvador to santa ana, honduras, near the capital, tegucigulpa. just so you all know, i am having a great time and my spanish is coming along slowly. i miss you all and look forward to telling about more adventures, and hearing yours.
Thursday, September 1. 2005
summer reflections
it is the first of september now, can anyone believe it? sitting on the porch this morning, there is a chill in the air for the first time this year. the lake is glassy and every blade of grass has got a bright dop of dew. with the change of the weather i am thinking back on the summer. the smooth lake is reminding me of being at honey rock camp in northwoods wisconsin http://www.honeyrockcamp.org/ where the darkness of the water was rivaled only by the darkness of the sky. every star above had its corresponding star below as my friend and i canoed the lake for about 4 hours late one night. oh the days when you can stay up 'til 3 doing whatever you want to do! this is a photo taken at the canoe shack the day before. below is a camper i taught in sailing. we were preparing the boats for a storm that you can see overhead.
Tuesday, August 16. 2005
from behind the lens
tuesday night, 16th of august. from under the apple tree on candlewood lake, the moonlight falls all around me, nearly as intense as the light from the screen of my laptop as i sit here typing. what a full summer this has been already, and in many ways i feel this adventure is only beginning. the above picture was taken before i left norfolk, va for the year. as i took this shot, i was struck by the photographer seen through his own lens. one of my favorite writers, annie dillard, wrote a book when she was 26 called a pilgrim at tinker creek. she talks about lenses, and about how we see. reading chapter 2 of that book in the spring of 2001 remains today among the most earth-shaking experiences of my 25 year life. as a child, annie hid her pennies along the sidewalks of pittsburg and delighted herself at the thought of the lucky persons who would find them. the world is, annie contends, "studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside from a generous hand". Right now I can see things that i've missed all my life, and it fascinates me to think what pennies i may spy tommorrow that have always been hidden from my eyes.
someone recently told me that they thought ohio must be a boring state, full of corn and country folk. i could not disagree more, and i told them so. ohio is to me long warm summer days, tall corn that glows under the lightning bugs in a cool evening, warm and generous farmers and country families that so easily adopt you into their homes, if only to share a dinner. the pace here, the unhurried sense, the genuine interest in outsiders and visitors, is a thing of tremendous beauty. but i know about this place because i have had the chance to see, and to a friend who hasn't seen what you've seen, you can only try to paint them a picture. if they have the vision, if they can look through your lens, then they get to have the joy of a fresh new world. "what you see is what you get" (pilgrim, ch.2, by annie dillard)
Sunday, August 14. 2005
in clouds
The first morning after 3rd year, after saying goodbye to many of you, I was on a plane to California to see my close friend Liz and to explore the beautiful northern part of that state. As we were walking on Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco, where this photo was shot, we were swiftly enveloped in a bright white-grey translucent cloud. I learned that the cloud is called the marine layer and originates over the cold waters of the pacific ocean before being swept in to land. I wish that through this blog you could feel, smell, hear, and yes, even taste the air, bridge, people, cars, boats. For the full experience, as you view this image, turn the air conditioner down to 60 degrees, play an audio file of a busy waterport and a highway simultaneously, and have a friend lightly mist you with a spray bottle of salt water. Or I suppose you could just imagine it.
Monday, June 20. 2005
day in the life
june 20. 2005. 7:02 pm. Surfing the web @ panara bread on the corner of 21st and Colley in Norfolk, VA.
Let me begin my blogging career by mentioning that Chan rocks. Not only did he just set us up w/ this most excellent system, but he is just a great dude all around. One of the most loyal and enjoyable friends I've ever had. In addition, he is the only private citizen I know who has his own personal orbiting satellite/camera (uhhhh, i hope that isn't classified info, randall???), and he let me commandeer it for a couple of hours to take this photo. I must say I was surprised to see that countries are actually labeled when you see them from space. I guess I always assumed that cartographers added the titles later. huh.
A few thoughts on ending 3rd year of Medical School. Tomorrow morning I will wake up to the 3-tone ring of my palm pilot, about 2 hours earlier than I want to wake up, jump in the shower, as usual, eat a bowl or two of meuslix, as usual, don my scrubs, clogs, white coat (more like a light gray these days), sling my stethoscope 'round my neck, and off we go. We'll round, first myself, then my resident, then her resident, then the whole team with our attending physician. There will be times when I feel like a doctor, when my attending will ask me to interpret a chest XRAY, and my entire team will stare with mouths agape in disbelief as I pick up a subtle finding (hmmmm, looks like we've got a pneumothorax here). I will stand a bit taller in that moment, tighten the rope of my scrub pants, adjust my pager, and gleam like a newly minted penny. And as all good things must come to an end, in a few minutes my senior will bid me recall the mechanism of action of some random drug, and I'll swear internally, "I have hated biochem, I am hating biochem, I will be hating biochem"... then I'll stand with my mouth agape and a blank look on my face, hoping the compassionate intern will whisper the answer from behind my interrogator. If she as also hates biochem, which I entirely expect, since she seems a sane and rational person, then I fall again into the mire of ignorance, perhaps to the delight of my smirking interrogator. This is a day in the life. And as Randall has recently reminded me, tommorrow is the last such day... the last day of our general medical education. Trippy.