Oak creek canyon

Since the forest fire has the road closed 12 miles up the canyon, it is one of the few times you can reasonably travel up the narrow winding road by bicycle. I rode along with the road mostly to myself. First uphill with oak creek dropping down below me and red cliffs still riding above. Then I reached the beautiful bridge spanning the creek which was far below, with the narrow valley it has cut through the red rock lush with greenery. Then the road gently drops down into the cool of the canyon, now the green trees are a canopy above me and the air picks up the coolness of the creek and the smell of wet sandstone as I ride next to the water. There are deeper cool areas, and white rapids.. All of it flowing along swiftly but without any rush.  Around one of the bends are little cottages to rent or a private home and a sign for a general store. 

Mmmmonsoon

Mint chocolate chip ice cream and the first monsoon rains after a hot Tucson summer- both so cooling and delicious!

Red rock dweller

The tall cliffs dominate the landscape, so it is fun to spot the little details as I go running through the soft red dirt. The foliage is so green against the oranges, pinks, reds and yellows of the stone and dirt. It makes me wonder about using this dirt for clay. Definitely imagining the feel of adding water to this ground and squishing the mud into clay, and molding that into pots, sculptures, images of things like this beetle.

There and back

it is good to travel and come back.  From the Hopi Lands to home, on bike rides to class and back. entrances and exits we get to try out again and again. the doors shut and open again.

Down the road a bit

Today I checked the mail and found a glossy alumni magazine from my highschool...As I turned the pages looking for familiar faces I realized that my 20 year reunion for highschool will correlate (hopefully) with my graduation from Medical School. It made me think of a letter we wrote to ourselves in highschool that was meant to be delivered after 10 years..and maybe there was another for 20 years later. I remember some of what I wrote, but I am sure that much of it would surprise me now. I am both humbled by and grateful for this late arrival in med school. The adventures, jobs and friendships I could not have predicted sometimes hold my attention. On other days I think of all I have left undone, unfulfilled expectations I have for life, for myself.
I am glad there is no mail on Sundays.

Sew Sleepy

 Tough to sleep tonight even though I am tired.  It could be the street-vendor taco I had for lunch, or maybe it is the back-ache from sewing.

Well, I am glad I did that suture practice clinic a few months back. It came in useful today for a fellow with multiple facial and scalp lacerations.  They needed more hands on board sewing him back up, and he was not the most serious trauma in the small ER.  So I could keep suturing him up, while other staff members rushed to another patient brought in by ambulance, who coded right there.   Two hours of leaning over a hospital bed, two of us at once suturing, sometimes three. and there was more left to do.

I heard the Code behind me go from deathly silence, to the beep, beep, beep of  steady heart rhythm, to the patient crying on the bed from behind the bag mask.  Sobbing, grateful to be alive.  And we kept sewing. And the patient with the lacerations was relieved and so were we all because we were all in that room together.  The doctors with the patient who coded were laughing, that joyous laugh, and saying, man, don't cry you  are alive, you were spared.

And I think we all thought about what we were grateful for, and the patient still covered in black dried blood and fresh oozing red blood under my needle asked if his parents knew he was there and if he could go home, and wash and change. I think the shock was wearing off, but I also think that hope and gratitude are contagious, and right there, in that room, we had just seen a dead man come back to life, and a guy who seemed cut to pieces slowly put back together.  Makes me pretty damn grateful just thinking about it.

Dog in Disguise

 My dog, dressed up as the Saltillo tile floor. Clever. He also does great impressions of a dingo.  

I wish I had some sheep (or chickens, or ducks) for him to herd because he is smart and clearly wants a job .  And I know from our childhood Collie "Gus" that some breeds can herd anything..including the aforementioned and kids too.

And it makes me wonder about breeds of people...(NO, emphatically, NOT what you are thinking in terms of race) I am thinking of something more subtle that has to do with personality etc.  I guess these inventories we are taking right now to figure out our future medical specialty has me thinking about natural leanings and skills v. training and absolute choice.

I am definitely a 'mixed breed' in the personality/medical specialty leanings area....making those inventories one thing one day and another the next!  

Dingo today, Shepherd tomorrow...

Old York

  I loved my years in York, England.  I took this picture one spring/summertime there. It is near two particularly wonderful places....

A French restaurant called "The Blue Bicycle" where every meal was perfect...and it only made it more delicious to know that a few decades prior, the 'dishes' on the menu were of the feminine variety,  and other articles of interest were smuggled up from the water below.

The other is an old half-timbered hall that, among other things, held a concert of live Tango music and dancing...by candle light.   yes, the candles were melting with the music, ah!  

Shades of Grey

White is my favorite color, even though people tell me it isn't a color.  Grey is my favorite color of cat. And Red is the only color for a really wonderful blanket...you know it is warm just by looking at it.

Any day in Medical School that allows time for considering favorite colors is a wonderful day.

Actually, any day in life, for that matter that includes such great things as homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches made by fabulous housemates is a kind of holiday.

Happy favorite color, tomato soup and grilled cheese day to you all!

Art is a Lie...

.....that shows us the Truth.       -Picasso

Free Range

Cycling on Arivaca Rd, a small town on the way to Nogales.  People here have horses, or goats or cows or dogs.  The road signs warn cyclists to slow down for the cattle guards, and tell everyone with a picture of a cow and the words 'free range' that you may be surprised at what wanders into the road around the next bend.  

I was reading an article in the New York Times this morning about how if you literally sit inside a boxed space versus sitting outside of that space you will be more creative (think outside the box), the same goes if you are allowed to gesture with both hands rather than just one when considering different viewpoints (on the other hand).   I have read similar studies done before about walking and talking/thinking versus sitting still...the obvious is true - when you move, your thoughts have free range.

I grew up in a small town and spent a lot of time barefoot and building forts and playing in the hills behind our house. Maybe the lack of a neighborhood, straight streets and playgrounds helps to explain why I never understood the term 'thinking inside the box'.  What box? I thought. How do people get into this box and what do they think about in there?  It is still a  mystery for me.  All I know for sure is after a day of class, I crave fresh air and space, and I study better with a good view of the mountains in the distance.

Kosher sewing

I have never been one who was closely acquainted with pig's feet, until tonight.   A little scalpel work, some monofilament and I was throwing stitches left and right with my fellow students.

So many things in life that need sutures...lets throw a few stitches into our politics...I am thinking of the lyrics "come together, right now, over me".

But not so fast, you say, think of all the 'dangerous webs we weave'  of bringing pieces together that are better apart, or of staying at our loom, weaving while the world moves by, like the Lady of Shallot, we are lost in the river of our own imaginings of what might be.

How dangerous it is, to be armed with a needle, and thread, and a vision of what should be.

I want to ride my bicycle, I want to ride my bike

This is a local place to build your own bike from pieces of old ones.  I tried here first before buying my new bike, and I still like the idea....

Mechanical objects have their own logic.  Nobody has to tell you something is right or wrong, it either actually works or it doesn't.  And you like the way it works or you don't.

I love the subjective nature of people (as opposed to mechanical objects), getting the pieces of say, the physical exam to flow smoothly is not just a mechanical feat - it turns out, people are different mechanically - light pressure to one is heavy to another - too heavy, too light...and what are you conveying non-verbally and verbally - this is complex machinery, rewarding to make it run relatively smoothly for all those involved.

So I love to ride my bicycle, whether spinning in the gym, or past the saguaros in this desert - for the sheer mechanical 'this is right'-ness...and the passing hills and houses and cacti are surprisingly un-opionated about my conversation or body-language as I ride by, and that suits me fine, since all I think of is the feel of the road and texture of the air.

Ride in Style

This is Vic...he is a pro cyclist who came along on our Tu Nidito Ride for a Child training ride today.  We covered 25 miles in early morning Tucson fresh air.  We took an easy pace, so even I could keep up on my brother's 20-year old mountain bike.  Vic kept me company for part of the ride and gave some good training tips, as did Jimmy-the ride leader (who grew up with and rides with Lance Armstrong) and Jimmy's dad Johnny who kept my training partner Valisa and I company.

Tu Nidito served us bagels and drinks after the ride and gave us a tour of their lovely facilities.  The rooms are painted in bright colors - jungle scenes, or dreamscapes.  Great spaces for kids and teens who need to grieve, laugh, paint or blow-up in the Volcano room! (padded walls, punching bags).  I am even more impressed with Tu Nidito and so glad to being Riding for A Child in El Tour de Tucson.

Here is the website to donate to the child I am riding for "Landin' and other kids at Tu Nidito who are seriously ill or grieving a seriously ill parent or sibling.   http://tunidito.kintera.org/rideforachild/engel

Training wheels

9 miles today, training on my brother's old red mountain bike.  I wanted to post about 20 pictures from the bright-colored farmer's market, the fountains, tile, the old men playing steel guitar.  I could smell the fresh red peppers tied together drying in the sun.  I wandered through the farm-grown melons and tomatoes, the local honey and found green peppers, fresh then torches lit and oila! roasted!

I wandered to a quieter corner, the french bakery - everyone hugged the french woman who baked the pastries and breads, after tasting them, I wanted to hug her too.

The evening is cool, I have a red sweatshirt on and the white lights remind me of the strings of lights above Clarendon street in Oxford, I would sit on the curb eating ice cream, and the arches of light made it taste better, as did the students and profs riding by on bicycles, flying school colors on the scarves around their necks in the autumn air.

Red in the Studio

The cloudscapes today were....beyond description.  The air was cool and I passed people sitting on porches and curbs, kids getting a haircut outside.  It wasn't a study kind of day, it was a day to be in your eyes, not your head.  The perfect day to visit a lovely artist in her studio and see a tree slowly unfurl across the canvas.

That is my cup of tea (or not)

I am a tea fanatic, truth be told, was one before I lived in England.

I wanted to order peppermint tea in Spain on a visit there. My server had no idea what I was talking about. We discussed in both Spanish and English what I wanted and still, no luck. Finally the server said "do you mean peppermint infusion?".

So the source of our misunderstanding was the precise terminology, you see only the drink made from the leaves of the plant camellia sinensis (the tea plant to you and I) is actually tea, everything else is an infusion.

Sheesh, glad we cleared that up.

Through the window

Outside that window it's getting cooler, below 80 at night, in the mid-90's during the day.

I am a fan of looking out of windows, some of my favorites are train, plane, boat and beach house windows.

Ah, the beach, sometimes the desert feels like an underwater landscape -the cactus are corals.

In a sailboat on rough sea, though, I would rather be at the tiller, splashed with sea and rain water. One time when I was little, we were caught on some rough water and I went down and hid in the bow of the boat, and was afraid of the sounds I heard. It was cold and windy and wet on deck, so not a bad idea at that time. Now, I want to know how to sail that boat, I want to know when to run with the wind and when to tack.

These are my people

I took this picture in an antique shop a few months ago, but it fits with today. Here are a few of the reasons why:

for some reason various people have been discussing past and future Halloween costumes,

my housemates' friend brought her dogs to play with their dog here at la casa de nosotros,

Shabbat dinner with my peeps makes me feel a little like that little dog,

and the best line from watching last night's outdoor movie in downtown Tucson, the original Grapes of Wrath in glorious black and white, is of course Mama's line "We are the people"...

Point of View

Sometimes you stand in one place, but the perspective changes. When I looked through this 'viewfinder' I could see houses on the hills that I had thought were barren. Earlier this weekend, I was surprised to find the Catalina's as green as Ireland (but with different foliage).

Over the past few weeks I feel my perspective shifting in every way, microscopic to telescopic, climbing on a cliff or hiking down a ravine, insider and outsider, anatomy and psychology, histology and patient interviews.

When you look at the stars you feel small and time is large, while studying ants and butterflies just makes our lives seem impossibly long and our bodies enormous. Medicine is both of those views at once...and I am also the stars and the ant and the butterfly.