The dive...

As I step into the blue stretched out around me, there is a peaceful intensity.
There is just the sound of breath echoing through a device, filling this sacred space.
So few people have the chance in their lifetime to venture into this mysterious realm. It is a terrifying privelege to be here.
To do this -  to be here - requires study, dedication, and fearlessness. As I step in, I feel the weight of this gear, this funny costume on my body,  gear which I rely on to keep me safe and alive here.
Time reigns supreme in this world.
Utter reliance on the clock, your partner in the blue, and the air supply.
Suddenly, inevitably, there is a moment of claustrophobia that washes over me as some part of my brain recognizes what is happening and feels inescapably trapped behind goggles and a mask that cover my mouth.
 “Breathe,” I say softly to myself.
 “Breathe,” says the whoosing echo of inspiration and expiration.
“Breathe,” says your partner/teacher/guide’s eyes as they stare into yours.
My focus sharpens and time disappears.
I am here.
My hands rest at my chest, in stillness, allowing everything to move around me like some unique choreographed dance that I join in, once appropriate.
And off into the depths of the blue we venture.


______________________________________

My reflections from week 1 in the operating room during my surgical rotation. The parallels between surgery and scuba diving were profound for me...

My attending physician told us before we started that if we feel like we are dizzy or going to pass out when we step up to the operating table, we needed to step away and leave the room immediately.
My first surgery, scrubbing in and standing at the sterile field, blue all around me, the scalpel piercing the skin of the abdomen releasing a slow ooze of bright red blood, I felt a swell of familiar anxiety - a mix of claustrophobia, fear, and somewhere deep down there, excitement for this journey into the unknown. I immediately thought I needed to leave, but quickly recognized the feeling. It is the exact feeling I get the first time I scuba dive on a trip. I know how to deal with that.
Breathe.
Breathe again.
Allow the focus to sharpen like the tip of a 10 blade..
And then it all opens up.


The OR is not for me. I am way too sensitive. Also, I came into medicine to interact with patients and there is something removed, stoic, and almost disengaged about the OR. Empathy feels absent. The patient is wheeled in, slightly sedated. Doctors, nurses, students and scrub techs gather around the bed and unceremoniously shout out roles, finals checks, supplies, patient identification and BAM the patient is injected with anesthesia and they are almost instantaneously under. Within moments, their eyes are taped shut, a drape is pulled over their face and suddenly they have become a bag of organs surrounded in sheets of blue paper, demarcating the sterile field, to be avoided like lava for those not scrubbed in, so as not to contaminate the field. Lights, camera, action - the patient’s body is opened and the exquisitely skilled surgeons go to work with their talented scrub techs who anticipate every move that the surgeon will make, every utensil needed. They swim through the room with deliberate, meticulous grace. Like a symphony - each musician plays his part. The crescendos of the surgery marked by increased intensity, rather than noise - which dulls to a hush. Though when it ends, there is no applause. There is no curtain call. The anesthesia wears off, the tape is ripped from the eyelids and a radio calls for transport.

Surgery is phenomenal, necessary, life saving. And 100% not why I just spent 7 years and $150,000 going to school. I honor it, I respect it, and I cannot WAIT for this rotation to be over.

This is not my photo... I grabbed it from google.
...But this is the blue of an operating room.

Pause for Medicine

Note to self: DO NOT read these entries at any point over the next few years when you want to take a break from studying.

I just read this one: http://aloveninja.blogspot.com/2011/09/ramai.html

And this one: http://aloveninja.blogspot.com/2011/10/wanderlust-must-trust-or-bust.html

They were actually just on my notepad on this computer from 2011 and I opened the notepad to paste a screenshot of some histology I was studying and BAM got sucked into my past.

I found myself sitting here with a gaping jaw... slightly shocked and embarrassed like a child who suddenly wakes up having sleep-walked into the living room and pissed themselves. Standing there confused about how they got here and what is happening right now.

What the hell happened to my mermaid scales? What happened to that barefooted gypsy queen with wanderlust oozing out of my heart and stars in my eyes?

How did I get here to Pomona - literally the armpit of Los Angeles. The real big shitty. Studying for the most intense thing I could ever do? Memorizing disease etiology, clinical findings, treatments for hundreds of diseases I had never heard of and couldn't pronounce until the moment I hear it and suddenly need to know it like it's something I've known my whole life.

This is no joke.

I'm in my first week of this program and I can't actually comprehend how all this information that I am staring at in a pile that is just enormous could possibly fit inside my head at the end of these two years.
I will actually BE a PA in two years. And then I will go back to taking adventures around the world and falling in love with humanity and squeezing the nectar out of this life like I used to.

So for now - I guess I just hit the pause button on everything and anything in my life and just bury my head into these books. Continue to try to drink water out of this fire hose...

BRB.

Para la gente...

I'm sitting in my room in Cordoba, Argentina at the tail end of my fifth week living here, reflecting on this country while listening to this song: El Angel de la Bicicleta

I am from a country who quotes one of our leaders saying that our nation is "of the people, by the people and for the people." I was raised to believe that this is true. We are taught in school that we live in the best country in the world... one that has freedom and opportunity beyond measure compared to the rest of the world. The US is definitely great, and there's nothing like catapulting yourself half way around the world (as I do often) to look back with perspective and recognize what you have and how lucky you are to have it.

I can't tell you how many times I've come home to hot showers, clean streets, and a functional government and thought to myself how lucky I am. I recognize my incredible privilege having been born in California and I don't take it for granted one bit. However, these past five weeks have really brought that privilege into perspective and been weighed against human rights - for instance the right to healthcare, education and clean water... all of which are lacking in the amazing country that I am from.

Argentina is phenomenal.

Without doubt there are problems in all of these sectors - education, healthcare and sanitation - here in Argentina... but they are available and free to everyone regardless of how much money you have or what area you live in.

I work at a hospital with incredible doctors who went to medical school for free and practice exceptional medicine at a free hospital. They fight and strike when there are murmurs of privatizing our hospital. They are FOR THE PEOPLE.

Argentina has turned out some incredible warriors for the people.... Che Guevara, Peron, Pocho Lepratti (for whom El Angel de la Bicicleta is written)... People here are committed deeply to one another. There is no doubt in the minds of the Argentines that you take care of your fellow man and provide for them. The medical system is based around this.

I am so moved by this nation and the people within it. I love Argentina.

Lyrics for El Angel de la Bicicleta:

(this badass warrior of the people stood up to the police and said, "¡Bajen las armas  que aquí solo hay pibes comiendo!"  - Put down your weapons... only boys are here eating... He stood up to the police and died for it. This song honors his fight and people listen to it with such passion and gratitude. It inspires me to no end.)

Cambiamos ojos por cielo 
sus palabras tan dulces, tan claras 
cambiamos por truenos 

Sacamos cuerpo, pusimos alas 
y ahora vemos una bicicleta alada que viaja 
por las esquinas del barrio, por calles 
por las paredes de baños y cárceles 
¡Bajen las armas 
que aquí solo hay pibes comiendo! 

Cambiamos fe por lágrimas 
con qué libro se educó esta bestia 
con saña y sin alma 
Dejamos ir a un ángel 
y nos queda esta mierda 
que nos mata sin importarle 
de dónde venimos, qué hacemos, qué pensamos 
si somos obreros, curas o médicos 
¡Bajen las armas 
que aquí solo hay pibes comiendo! 

Cambiamos buenas por malas 
y al ángel de la bicicleta lo hicimos de lata 
Felicidad por llanto 
ni la vida ni la muerte se rinden 
con sus cunas y sus cruces 

Voy a cubrir tu lucha más que con flores 
Voy a cuidar de tu bondad más que con plegarias 
¡Bajen las armas 
que aquí solo hay pibes comiendo! 

Cambiamos ojos por cielo 
sus palabras tan dulces, tan claras 
cambiamos por truenos 

Sacamos cuerpo, pusimos alas 
y ahora vemos una bicicleta alada que viaja 
por las esquinas del barrio, por calles 
por las paredes de baños y cárceles 
¡Bajen las armas 
que aquí solo hay pibes comiendo!

Meat, cheese, bread, repeat.

I'm a vegan. I also don't eat wheat because it makes my stomach do all kinds of painful backflips. I'm basically screwed in Argentina... home of the biggest beef lovers on earth. People think I'm insane, but I'm used to that growing up being me.

I woke up to the smell of meat cooking in a slow cooker at 11:45am. I realize why they don't really do breakfast here. Nobody is awake! I left the party early last night and others stayed out until 7am. Argentinians eat dinner so late in the night - way past my bedtime - at 11pm or so and then dance the night away. I decided I wanted to walk around the city center and my hostess, Andrea told me that we are in the middle of the town... the city center has a microcenter which is mostly pedestrianized and bordered by the street where we live. The only thing is that I was going out walking at 2pm and they told me that everything would be closed. 

It reminded me of Toulouse, France when I went down to visit my friend Cary who was living there while I was living in London. I remember her telling me that in Toulouse, Sunday is the day you spend in bed with your lover. Nobody gets out of bed to go to work or to do anything really. Argentina seems to be similar although there were many people out and about, there was just nothing open. I found where all the people were... down at a huge park called Parque de Lastejas. People had these little easels set up everywhere that children could sit down and paint on for some amount of money. It was brilliant. I love seeing that. Some people were drinking wine, some were playing Pokemon Go like zombies, but for the most part, people were just sitting in little groups on blankets and talking to one another. I walked down a tree lined street and then up onto a bridge where I could see the museums and art in the park, the play structure where the kids were playing flanked by men holding these super tall sticks with multicolored bags of cotton candy hanging off of them, and the people all sitting together talking, laughing and just having a Sunday together. I guess here on Sunday you spend it with your lover, but you just get out of bed as opposed to those lazy Frenchies. :)

As I wandered around Cordoba and clocked nearly 15,000 steps, I saw that Argentines love their children - especially babies, and love their dogs - especially French Bulldogs and poodles, and LOVE their meat, cheese and bread. The only storefronts that were open were panaderías and heladerías. People seem to love ice cream too. Another no-go for me. It appears to me that people here are not particularly warm and friendly and embracing like in Mexico for instance, but rather they are just amicable and nice with an air of reserve and dignity. I must say though, my hostess Andrea is an exception to that as she is so warm and wonderful. I feel so lucky to be living with her. Maybe it just takes a while to break through to see the warmth beneath the cool exteriors.

I walked and walked aimlessly through the city occasionally referencing a map that my program director sent me in my welcome bag. I stopped into a bread store and bought a croissant and ate it because I figured with my choices of bread, cheese and meat - butter and bread won't kill me - although meat really might. I've never eaten red meat in my life and I actually don't think that my body would know what to do with it.

I pretty much fell in love with Argentina today though. People are stylish and beautiful and walk everywhere and love to be outdoors in the sun and seem to just enjoy life so much more than most other places. It's now 7pm and of course I am starving for dinner but my hostess won't be making any food until closer to 10pm - something that will comprise of wait for it... bread, cheese and meat. Guaranteed. Luckily she bought me all kinds of beans and rice and veggies and told me that her kitchen was my kitchen and that I should just make food for myself because I'm pretty sure the thought of cooking for me stressed her - and all Argentines - out.

So far so good. The food is obviously a big difference for me, but overall I feel like I am going to seriously love this country and this city!

Argentina día cero

Saturday Aug 6, 11:00am  - Day Zero

I just arrived in Argentina!

My very first South American adventure and sixth continent I'll explore.

I am sitting in the domestic terminal at Buenos Aires airport where I'll catch my connection to Cordoba... the city I will live in for 5 weeks and study primary care and social medicine while living with an Argentine family. My love, Carlos will come down in September and I will meet him in Buenos Aires for my sixth week in this country. We rented a little condo in the middle of downtown Argentina. My friend Pedro, who is an Argentinian medical doctor who is getting his PhD at UCSD and I work with on several projects, has told me where I should stay in BA and we followed his advice and booked on air b n b. This will be my first time air b n b-ing in a foreign country as well. Hey!! I'm in a foreign country!

Besides Mexico, which I go down to work across the border most weekends, I haven't actually left the country in a long time. (Long by my standards anyway). According to the faded stamps in my passport, my last international adventure was when I went to Honduras to work at a medical clinic for 5 weeks in December 2014/Jan 2015... That means I have been in America for a year and half which seems like a LONG time for me.

I feel a familiar greasy, wired, under-slept yet hyper aware and also floating in a weird state of consciousness after the 22 hours of travel to get here. I cannot wait to take a shower and lay down at my new house. I hope my host family is happy to just let me veg out and not make me tell them my life story because I don't know if my brain can do that much Spanish right this second... I can certainly get by and communicate and understand what I need, but at this point, I am just wiped out and don't know if a chit-chatty conversation is going to be a fluid as I would like it to be.

I feel like I totally underprepared for this Spanish accent which sounds much more like Portuguese than Spanish to my ear at this point, although I'm sure I will adapt soon enough.

My first impressions (although I've only seen two terminals in the airport) is that this place is cold and they love meat, bread and cheese, and they all speak like they are making love to the words as they swish out of their mouths. There is something very European about this place too... not just because of the mix of cultures as you always see in the extranjeros line of the customs hall at any major airport in the world. It is something else here. The way the Argentines dress and carry themselves... The countryside visible through windows... the light. It reminds me of England in a way but also France. I haven't put my finger on it, but I'm sure I will.

3:30am - technically DAY ONE

Just got home from a night out with my hostess, Andrea. Andrea speaks clearly and slowly but always in Spanish and we have gotten down with some cool conversations about international and local politics, service to humanity, healthcare and more. She was pretty nervous about what to cook for me so I told her that I would just cook for myself and made a bunch of beans and rice and veggies. I am comprehending about 70% which is great but definitely leaves some gaping black holes in conversations at times - or so I thought.

I keep on imagining what would happen if I thought I understood but really I wasn't getting it at all. I thought she invited me to come to a party with all her brothers and their wives outside of Cordoba but I wasn't totally sure. Maybe she was just telling me that she was going... 

I awkwardly asked again and went in and got dressed even though it was already 10pm and I was totally ready for bed. I have this "just say yes" travel mentality that has almost always proved to unlock amazing adventures for me so I had to just say sure and jump in her car. We drove for quite a while and pulled off at a gas station where she jumped in the back and her brother Sergio took the wheel. Watching Cordoba go by I realized that the Europeanism here is also accented by a Southeast Asia feel. There is a blatant disregard for the law and the rules and a laissez faire that you find in SEA and actually Mexico too. Many areas are falling apart and graffiti is everywhere.

We made a few more stops and then ended up in a countryside kind of area at a club for Lawyers that was hosting a birthday party for a friend. We walked around and every person there kissed me on the cheek instead of shaking hands and didn't even question who I was or why I was there.

We sat at a table with nine of us. Andrea, her brother Sergio, another brother and his wife who was an amazing dancer and didn't stop shimmying even when we were sitting still, Andrea's cousin and his pregnant girlfriend who is a school teacher and teaches English, Andrea's other brother who runs a Malbec vineyard and hooked us UP with the most amazing wine, and his girlfriend of 11 years who he hasn't married because they don't believe in marriage. Everyone chatted in the swishy, beautiful way that Argentines do. "Zsho" instead of "yo" and the rest of the sentence just tumbles together like softened meat falling off a bone. 

Maybe it is just this family and their group of friends, but the impression I got throughout the night is that there is not really such a machismo man's world kinds vibe here. The men were all understated and just kind of holding the space for the women to be the bold, beautiful, shining lights in the room.

It made me think of Eva Peron and I wondered if that was a cultural thing or maybe just a coincidence, but the women here are strong and fierce and funny and loud and uninhibited and it inspires me to no end!

After a few hours of sitting and talking and eating and drinking, a man and women wearing these traditional looking Andean clothing - that looked Peruvian by looking at Carlos' photos from the region - walked through the room with a bowl smoking and another bowl full of herb looking things. They handed out the herbs - which I believe are sage and had everyone stand in a circle and put the sage on the burning coals causing a crazy smoke bath throughout the whole hall. Pregnant women and children covered their mouths and ran outside, but everyone else watched as the couple started doing this dance with scarves... First big scarves, then they switched to small scarves and then handed out scarves and flags to everyone in the room to swing around and dance to. I had NO idea what was going on but one of Andrea's brothers explained to me that this was a Pachamama celebration. It's a folkloric Bolivian earth mother celebration. He pulled up the Wikipedia page for Pachamama and showed me. I tried to skim it in Spanish but the Malbec was making my brain swim so I just got the gist and danced around with everyone instead.

Arrivals and Departures

I love airports and hostpitals.
I know.
NOBODY likes airports and hospitals. But I really do.

I'm sitting in Seattle airport just kind of vibrating with the hum of humanity. People complaining, laughing, scurrying, sitting. Everyone's feet are moving. Whether angrily or lazily tapping feet while waiting for a delayed flight or a long Starbucks line to move, or bags to arrive, or an airport employee to respond to a question or request... or boots clicking on the long walkways, clip clopping down coordidors with urgency so it sounds like horses running or a newborn baby's heart beating on the monitor before the mom goes into labor (a sound I heard two days ago while at the hospital waiting for my baby niece Anya to make her appearance and blow my heart open). People in an airport are moving, going somewhere or else waiting to move or coming from somewhere.

Arrivals and Departures.

I guess that's what I love. The coming and going - the rhythm a traveler dances to.

Two days ago my niece arrived and two days ago a wound on my grandmother's leg became infected and took over her body. Grandmere was raised Christian Science and has never taken medicine in her life. She refused treatment at the hospital, ripping out her IV lines, vomiting and hysterical. I think this might be the start of her departure.

My Aunt Lauren showed Grandmere photos of baby Anya - her first great-grandchild. The circle of
life is just so intense.
But when I step back I remember that it's all just arrivals and departures and I love that.
I love the human condition... that's why I am studying medicine and spending my life striving to be of service to people who are struggling... that's why I'm a traveler... that's why I'm an eternal gypsy who's always ready to go wherever the go is.

Yesterday my sister was in post-partum in the hospital with her little baby Anya. She hated it and couldn't wait to get out of the hospital. I didn't want to go. I didn't want her to go either. I love hospitals and I loved being there with the baby... in the lap of wisdom. Babies are pretty scary. They're so tiny and innocent and totally dependent on us grown ups.
Their arrivals are so magical.

I love the buzz of the hospital. People committed to being of service dancing around gracefully and elegantly amongst the storm of pain and chaos of suffering patients. People are born and die in the hospital. In and out. Ephermerality seems to loop in an eternal rhythm.

We shall see how long my Grandmere holds on, but regardless of how long it is - I feel as though she has printed her boarding pass and will be departing at some point in the near future. Afterall, time is just relative and we're all just floating somewhere between our arrival and our departure.

Paintbrushes

Paintbrushes

I used to think that these things were giant paintbrushes.

I only saw them in beautiful places, like along the Big Sur coastline.  Beautiful backdrops that look painted on the sky. So of course it made sense to me that there should be a paintbrush near by.

Whoever the artist is, was hard at work creating the masterpiece we see when we take a minute and sit back inside ourselves... take a deep breath and take it in.

I spent the last day of 2015 driving down the California coast from my parents' house in Carmel to our home in San Diego with Carlos. It just kills me. It really and truly blows my mind that this is where I was born.

I've been just so so so many places. So many BEAUTIFUL places. 

...The idyllic palm tree packed islands of southeast Asia. Palms so crowded they bow towards the crystal blue waters as if leaning down to take a sip of the beauty and cool off from the equitorial humidity. 

... High in the himalayas where ice capped mountains jet out above simple but profoundly beautiful landscapes adorned with tattered, multi-colored prayer flags and yaks.
... Volcanic land where fire and ice meet in an eerie rhythm in Iceland
... Tanzania, The Maldives, Caribbean Central American islands, Hawaii, Thailand, Japan, the whole West coast of Australia, the English countryside, the rolling hills of North Wales, the South of France... the list goes on and on.
I've been there. First hand. I've seen astounding beauty and yet the Big Sur coastline takes my breath away every time.

How could a coastline be so beautiful?

This was the end of 2015.
A roadtrip with my love.
A leather Indiana Jones "adventure hat" my sister bought me for Christmas.
Running my fingers along the paintbrushes while looking out at literally hundreds of humpback whales swimming gracefully, spouting water into the sky and undulating in the blue waters.

2015 was a tough year. A beautiful year, but challenging.

I brought in 2015 in Honduras while working at a medical clinic and local hospital.
I came home and began my last semester at Mira Costa before starting UCSD.
I went to Canada for the first time and loved it!
During the summer months, my parents moved from San Diego back to Carmel, which was hard for me. I felt like a chunk of my support system had been removed.
But I still had my close friends who I had skype and email relationships with, and distance didn't take that away. But death did.
Birdie's death in September came down on me like a wall of bricks that crumbled and broke me in pieces. I started UCSD a few weeks later and have done my best to hold it together but it's been incredibly painful for me.
I started working in Tijuana, Mexico at a clinic for a really underserved community over the border every other weekend and then I spent the winter break in Carmel, San Fran and Napa and headed down the coast on new years eve to spend with my Tawney in LA.

My year wasn't painted exactly the way I had wanted it to be painted. There were more dark shades of blue than I had expected, but I guess that's the beauty of life and this lifelong canvas we are painting. It's up to us to bring more light to the canvas.

And so... meditation. Focus on light. Breathe it in... Send it out.

Sky Mind

Where is the sky?

Point to it.

…Chances are you pointed up.

Where is your mind?

Point to it.

… I bet you pointed to your head.

But think about it.

 Isn't the sky out in front of you - at the horizon line?  When you're standing on the beach looking around you, isn't the sky all around you?  If I stood right in front of you, wouldn't there be sky between us?  I mean certainly if we were skydiving together, there would be sky between us. So…  Is there a place where the sky starts?  Where it ends?  Does it stop at our atmosphere?  Well then what about the night sky?  Aren't the moon and the stars part of the sky?

Those stars we see in our starry night sky are millions of light years away and have probably likely burned out by now, but we are seeing a snapshot of what that star looked like millions of years ago.  It's just taken years for the light to reach our eyes.

So is the sky just an illusion?  Or a collection of gas molecules and astronomical mysteries? Or a log of very old events, like a cosmos history book?

What about the mind?  Isn't it the same?  Isn't it just non-matter space?  If you are still pointing to your head to show me where the mind is, go ahead and put down your hand first of all.  

But really - Where you are pointing, I see hair, skull bones, dura mater, neural tissue cells and fluids. I don't see a mind.  

Point to your thoughts, your emotions, your memories. Where are they? I've dissected a brain before, and I can tell you… it's all matter.  I guarantee that the being I dissected once had dreams and feelings, but they were not in the matter I was cutting open and inspecting.  I cut into a brain…. not a mind.  So where is the mind?  And more importantly where does it go when it's no longer associated with a living body?

I love this sky/mind analogy/conundrum.

Makes me think that the sky and the mind (or as some call "the soul") are just as infinite and intangible yet absolute in their existence as one another.

The Buddhists say that the mind is eternal… just like the sky.

I love to think that Birdie's mind is still here. His spirit… his soul… it's part of the sky now.

(Birdie -Adam Dube - was one of my best friends who drown 6 weeks ago off the island we lived on together once upon a time.)

You know how when you leave a head of garlic in a bowl for a while and then take it out, there is still a smell or essence of garlic that remains for a really long time?

I feel like Birdie's life left an essence behind in that same way.

There is still an eau de Birdie in my heart and in my life.

I miss him pretty much every day and have to shake my head and wash the feelings off of me before they grab hold and suck me down into deep sadness.  I almost feel like he's just on a really long boat trip and is still coming back to main land soon.

I guess that's one of the hard parts about loving and losing a pirate.

You're so used to them being out at sea, it's left as a permanent assumption  - he'll make landfall again. He must.

I was writing to him a lot after he died… Imagining that the emails would bounce up to the infinite space (where I like to think his eternal mind and soul reside now) and on their way back down to his gmail account, they would cross his essence and he could receive me somehow.

And then I got this weird text message that was totally blank.

It said from "unknown" and the body said "message not found"

It tripped me out but I thought - aw…. it's probably just a weird phone glitch.

Then a few weeks later I was at the doctor's office and thinking of him and suddenly I got another one just the same and I LOST MY SHIT.

I was convinced that he was reaching out to me… that he hadn't let go of this world and hadn't crossed over and he was trying to reach me.

And then finally I decided that if anyone wasn't letting go it was me.

Nevertheless - I got these texts from nobody in the ether space and they are trippy and shook me up.

I also keep seeing snails in the sky - corroborated by my sister and my boyfriend… so I know that they are there in broad daylight… painted across the sky.

Our symbol… the snail.

We were always telling each other to look for snails in the clouds as messages from one another.

It was our way of reminding one another to be our own unique selves - wonderful and weird and authentically us.

SNAIL LIFE

He is somewhere now.  I know he is.  He's infinite.... somewhere.

I like to imagine that he's in the sky… 

Everywhere.

Dear Birdie,

I feel you in every ray of sun.

After the most painful night of grief I’ve ever felt, the sun still came up the next morning.

It peeked up over a building behind me as I was walking and wrapped it’s arms around my shoulders and neck.

“You always bring the sunshine, Zan.” You’ve said that to me many times, and wrote it on a birthday card I still have from you.

When I got the news that you died, I felt like this endless, deep, dark hole was pulling me down and I wasn’t ever gonna get up.  I tried to sleep, but every time I closed my eyes I saw you… frantic, in dark water in the night, trapped under a boat.  The hard bottom of the boat above you in every direction. A drunken, disoriented mind trying to hold your breath longer and longer, until you couldn’t hold it any longer.

That’s when I flip out and start bawling.

Right now.

Love is reflected in love. You were MY sunshine.  You broke through the darkness during times when I was sad and brought me laughter and that smirky smile where your eyeballs disappear and your eyes just turn into upside down crescent moon slits, the big, goofy smile… the many smiles that made up your arsenal of disarming lovable expressions.

You used to call me in the middle of the night. (Somehow when you were drunk, time lost it’s meaning and time zones didn’t matter.)  Countless times I woke up at 2 or 3am to a Skype call from you - having a beer and watching the sun go down.  We loved to share sunsets.

YOU brought the sunshine, Birdie.  You just saw it reflected in me.

So where are you now?  You’re infinite now. I know that.  The intangible feelings, thoughts, love, joy, dreams… the things that made you you… they are somewhere. Maybe redistributed into the atmosphere. Maybe swirling together as potential energy in the ocean, ready to convert to kinetic energy as a wave and barrel the friends and family who love you and miss you, and need to be surrounded by you.  You have no body left to snuggle us with, so maybe you are just in the waves, in the sun… The energies in nature that surround us and hold us and embrace us. Maybe that’s where you are.

When people die, they are glorified and it pisses me off. Everyone has to qualify how close they were to the deceased and talk about what a legend they were and how awesome they were. Nobody ever says, “Ya. but he was kind of a douchebag. I remember when he did all these bad things. I kind of hated him.”  I always wish that people would talk truth about people when they died.

The thing is… with you… my sweet Birdie…

There isn’t anything bad to say.  The truth is exactly what hundreds of people are spreading across social media…

You were their sunshine.

You were such a good man.

Albiet kind of selfish sometimes - i mean, you fucking buried our pet bird without me. You didn’t even let me get out all my hippy sage, and magical stones, and tibetan singing bowl to do a proper ceremony.

But aside from that - you truly were a fucking legend. You were.

I loved you so much.

In the last three years I went through so many short lived stupid relationships with dudes that you were always there to lend some advice about. Usually always to get rid of him and move on to someone who appreciated me… and then I found him.  We were supposed to go to Burning man next year. WTF? How can I ever go to that festival again, without you?

Every time i questioned my path, you brought me back. Reminded me that I had to be a doctor so I could support you when you were older.

WTF?

I just can’t take it.

I can’t fucking believe you’re gone.

I”m borderline mad at you right now. And I know that’s crazy.  Is anger one of the stages of grief?

Here’s been my stages: 1. Hysteria 2. Hysteria 3. Choking, sick, profusely sweating, fevering, hysteria 4. Full blown denial. (I actually went through a whole delusion where you were making this shit up. playing the dickest practical joke ever) 5. Xanax coma for about 24 hours. 6. Now I’m out of bed and kind of pissed.  You had SO much more to give the world.

SO much.

How could you do this?

You were NOT a lifer out there. We talked about it all the time.

ALWAYS talking about wanting to get home and settle down, but then also have freedom to travel.  You weren’t supposed to die at 31 in the water.

In that water that you and I swam in a hundred times. The water you threw me in to see the phosphorescence.  The water we tried to swim across the channel, hammered at 4am and then I swam over a sea urchin and flopped myself into a canoe of a local fisherman and smashed his eskie. (we'll leave out the rest of that story)... the same water.  THAT was your deathbed? No. No fucking way.

Shit. I’m headed back to 7. Hysteria.

Everything hurts. I ache for you.  I ache for your sweet mom and dad who let me use their washing machine in Aus and dye everything I had pink.  I ache for your gorgeous sister who I never got to meet but knew so much about. I ache for your adorable, hilarious, hospitable Crescent Head besties who put me up and showed me the greatest time ever.

I ache for John and Ainz and Joey and Tom and Sas and the rest of the Mentawai family who cherished you and loved you and honored you and adored you. They brought us together.  I can't imagine what my life would look like without you... and now I have to.

I ache for my own heart and this emptiness inside of it right now.

I’m gonna go sit in the sunshine to try and feel you.

I love you forever.

RIP Adam Dube

July 4, 1984 - Sept 1, 2015

Whistler while you work... (and reflect and reflect and reflect as always... in all ways)

I blinked open my eyes after savasana meditation and started giving cues to wiggle fingers and toes. 

Teaching yoga is so second nature to me still, even after years of being away from it.

We finished class and sat surrounded by 360º windows looking out at the gorgeous Blackcomb mountain, Whistler mountain, and trees for as far as the eye could see in literally every direction.  We hung around in that yoga room of my dreams and talked about the difference between living in the heart and living in the head.

The first time I heard to Dalai Lama speak was in Los Angeles, before I found him again in India and spent three days at his temple hearing talks and ultimately taking refuge with him surrounded by Bhutanese monks and my surf Buddha friend who's island I had been living on.

The LA experience was... well... very LA. Cheryl Crow opened for him. No... really. She did.

It was unexpected and actually pretty perfect. She just sat on a stool and sang a song I'd never heard that went, "if we could only get out of our heads... out of our heads... and into our hearts...."

I'm reflecting on that this morning laying in bed looking out the window at the gorgeous heavy fog gobbling up the tree line as skiers fly towards me on carpets of snow that seem to lead to my window...  Because (as I discussed at length yesterday after teaching yoga) I have made a transition backwards... I have moved from a place where I lived in my heart at all times up into my brain. This has been a conscious transition for me.  I have moved away from the way I was raised... to intuit and to feel all things at all times... and I have begun to question everything from an analytical, scientific perspective.  I have walked away from the yoga world and every time I find myself on my mat, a part of me sighs deeply and profoundly and I feel complete.

But then I blink my eyes open and I walk back to my chemistry book.

We  talked about this physician who had just done a study putting Buddhist monks through an MRI machine while they are meditating. I love this idea of bridging the gap between heart and mind...

Although I need to spend some time in my head before I can make it back to my heart.

I wrote an article for my friend's blog - http://365til30.com/2015/02/19/project-30-zan/... It was about reflecting on my twenties from my thirties...

Wow. I am in my thirties. This is weird. Life is moving so fast.

And so I take a long breath and look out at where I am. Here. In this moment.

I just talked to my best friend Cary about saying fuck it to "forever" because it's a fallacy.

Step out of the forever fallacy... Forget about the future and just be here now.

Zoom out. 

Look at right now and smile.

When I flew up here on Tuesday evening, Kiran - the 14 yr old I was escorting on the trip up here, was shocked to hear that I had never been to Canada. You mean I been all over the world multiple times to countless countries and yet never went to visit our next door neighbor?  It is a tad ridiculous.

Especially because it's gorgeous here. So docile, mellow, polite and aesthetically beautiful.

The last two days I have been skiing for the first time (although I have snowboarded for most of my life)... Skiing is new. And here I am in utter paradise.  On one of the most beautiful mountains in the world. Staying in the penthouse of La Chamois - this gorgeous hotel/condo where I can see straight out to the mountains and watch skiers fly down the mountain towards me.

I am surrounded by trees, oxygen, life, family, laughter, babies, love and kindness.

I am so lucky to be here.

Fuck the forever fallacy.

Be here now.

Canada is killing it for me right now.

I will be back.

Thank you Roatan

 I'm sitting on my deck in the most perfectly rainy morning looking out over the ocean I've come to know over the last five weeks. I know where the reef changes and where the shades of turquoise shift and the direction the tide pulls...

And this is my favorite incarnation of this ocean view I've called mine since I've lived here...

This one where the horizon melts into the sky and it's just some kind of grayish blue dome that sweeps up and back over me. The turquoise strips of water and pounded down by fat, tropical raindrops and somehow the color disappears below the surface.

I love the sounds on mornings like this.

Temporarily the chirps and Squeeks of the jungle pause as though everything alive has unhinged its jaw and turned its face upwards to drink in the baptism from the sky.

The various roofs from nearby houses echo at different pitches - the corrugated tin rooftops are my favorite.

Water lands on the palm fronds encircling my house and then pour down like a natural gutter system - a waterfall of rainwater spilling onto the dirt and sand earth.

It's my second to last day here on Roatan. Day 32. I just walked back from the school where I tutor the kids in English twice a week and made it home just before the skies opened up.

I've loved working with the kids.

We sit in a little nook filled with donated text books and work on worksheets for reading and writing.

They are such sweet little kids.

This afternoon I'll have my second to last day at the clinic! In all honesty, I am not sad to leave Roatan- but I am a little sad about leaving the clinic.

It's been such a remarkable opportunity to experience GP clinic work in an underserved community and be given such autonomy and trust by the doctors!

I really feel as though this has made me want to go into family medicine.

I love the variety of patients and conditions... The constant puzzle to figure out what the problem is and then sort out a treatment plan.

And I love taking time to chat and talk to the patients about their condition and lifestyle and habits... I love new people, so I think it's a good environment for me!

We had a little girl yesterday who came in with respiratory distress during a serious asthma attack. We had to give her hydrocortisone IV and she was nebulized for hours. She was such a brave, sweet little girl who watched the needles go into her arm and didn't flinch or cry but just toughed it out.

I sat with her and held her hand a little and let her listen to my heart with the stethoscope...

When I went to give her mom the medications and discharge them the little girl wrapped her arms around me and gave me the longest, tightest hug and then kissed me on the cheek.

My heart melted in that moment.

I love this work.

But I am ready to go home.

I told Carlos the other night on FaceTime how I had surprised myself by how much I missed him and how homesick I was.

Usually when I travel I am just so in the moment and in love with the Now, that I forget to be homesick... 

And yet on this trip- for as wonderful and fulfilling as it's been... I was never fully here.

I was always- in every minute- back home with my dogs and my family and Carlos.

I don't know if I'll ever come back here.

Something tells me I won't.

But then, when has my life ever been predicted or predictable.

If I do come back I would live on the West End- in a place like where Dr Diane was living across from Sundowners... The place I stayed on New Year's Eve... And I would work in the mornings so I could dive and or practice yoga in the afternoons/evenings at Earth Mamas

(I'm writing this here as a note to myself so I can remember if I ever look back here)...

So- I guess this is my last post from this adventure.

Thank you Roatan.

Yoga: something old, something new

The cicadas all started at once - their seemingly orchestrated stringed instrument bodies creating a crescendo of sound that gradually drowned out the squeaks and chirps of the jungle and the nearby crashing of waves on the beach.

The wind was blowing through the palm trees that surrounded our woven grass roof and rain was falling intermittently- scattering across the folds of the yoga hut and sneaking through little gaps to sprinkle us gently like a baptism.

Four red lanterns hung in the corner of the hut casting a meditative glow across the hardwood floors. The candles and incense flickered in the wind.

I closed my eyes with back flat on the earth, palms open to the ceiling, body drained, worked, and cathartically  cleansed and let my breath guide me into a deep savasana meditation.

This was my first yoga class on Roatan the night before last... My first yoga class of 2015... And in all honesty, my first yoga class in a LONG time that I was fully in.

Yoga has taken a turn for me in the last few years and has been a process of undoing... Of unfolding... And basically devolving for me.

I am rarely drawn to practice and when I do it is a chore for me instead of a place of peace and union, like it used to be.

I found myself in this class instinctively kicking up into pincha mayurasana from dolphin pose only to hear my deeper self say "maybe not today. Stick with dolphin." From camel pose I lifted up to drop back into my familiar kapotasana only to hear that voice laugh a little and say "I'm not sure we do that any more."

All these old poses that were the "next level" I had evolved into and become... They were no longer available to my body because I'd been off my mat for so long and my muscles were unprepared for them.

And in this class, tucked back off the main road in the warm island night air... I didn't really mind that this was where I was- because for the first time in a very long time I was actually enjoying my practice and not fighting through it to prove to myself that I still could... It wasn't merely a competition with myself - a physical exercise I was going through the motions doing... It was actually something  that it used to be for me long ago before I forgot how to feel this... It was a moving mediation and a little sacred space where I could let myself lay down and just be.

I walked down the road to the Sundowners bar and ordered a glass of shitty red wine and looked out at the rain dripping off the palm trees and wondered if it had something to do with the fact that I was back in the real tropics... The climate where my body feels it's best.

In San Diego I practice at a studio called "Yoga Tropics" which is ironic because I have a strong aversion to going to class there. Although I do like it and as a seasoned yogi and certified yoga instructor I can appreciate that it's a good class... It's just not something that pulls me or draws me in.  But here in the real tropics, I am left dreaming of returning to that beautiful evening class bathed in the red light.

Unfortunately I am working in the afternoon/evening this week at the clinic so I can't make it back to the class again, but maybe that's for the best. I love to hold that image in my head in its perfection instead of going back and finding flaws or having it be not as beautiful as I imagine it to be now.

I have 9 more days on this island.

I absolutely love the work here. The clinic is a truly phenomenal operation that I am so grateful to be a part of- especially after spending last week working in the hospital... What a dichotomy.

This is the hospital:

This is the clinic:

Maybe a photo doesn't do it justice.

The hospital is scary and uncomfortable- broken and rotting.

The clinic is a beautiful haven of health for the people who are willing to wait and come to see a slew of amazing people who are here to volunteer their services and help. A full pharmacy, a lab, pediatrics, OBGYN and a loving environment.

Although I really love the work here,  I am aching to get home and see my family, Carlos and my doggies. I think I knew I would be homesick when I was leaving SD last month.

Something inside of my is shifting.

I know... I know that everything inside all of us is ALWAYS shifting- but since Monday (Jan 5th) I really feel something shaking free that's been hanging there blocking something else for a long time.

I can't explain what it is...

And honestly- my mind always skips to malaria- and the time I spent after my infection that left me in a haze and feeling lost, isolated inside myself and a stranger in my skin all at once.

My vipassana a year and a half ago broke through something bigger and maybe this is a residual chunk of something else- an emotional blockage- or else just something I can't define or understand.

Nevertheless I feel clearer and fuller. More whole since that hour and a half spent on my yoga mat- and I want to remember this- carry this with me into 2015.

I didn't set any resolutions of NYE. I didn't even do my ceremony where I draw a circle on a piece of paper and write inside the circle what I want to manifest for myself and outside the circle I'm ready to release for the year...

So here I am on Jan 7th- back at my favorite coffee shop I walked 1.6 miles up a winding road to get to...

And I'm setting my intentions:

I intend to exercise every day because it makes my body, mind and soul feel right.

Even if it's just some squats and climbers and crunches in my bedroom in the morning... Or else running on the beach... Or taking a long walk... Or swimming with dad... Or taking a dance class or spinning class. I need to do something every day of this year.

I intend to practice yoga. 

(Note: this is not a part of the exercise intention because that's not what this is... I intend to PRACTICE YOGA- something that is different to what I've been doing the last few years. It's something I used to do and I know what i'm talking about)

I intend to maintain my 4.0 GPA and get clear about my path forward towards medical school or else PA school.

That's all. Exercise/yoga/academics.

Everything else in my life right now is really good and just how I want it.

I love my job, I love my living situation, and I love having such a sweet man in my life who loves me back and treats me so well.

Here's to 2015