Since the new year, I have been working at a coffee shop, teaching some yoga, working the front desk of The Studio, doing some acting and babysitting, and bouncing around from gracious friends' fouton, couch, or spare bed.
I have been fortunate to really do all the things I've wanted to do since returning (except find a real job, mind you). I've been doing a good amount of salsa dancing--even got to attend the Chicago salsa congress with my wonderful Cedar Rapids/Iowa City salseros. I've taken part in community activism and building: working with Friends of Iowa Midwives to try to license midwives in Iowa and making a couple trips over to Des Moines capitol, fund-raising for a bus trip to DC for an anti-war rally, which I just returned from, as well as contributing my time to other small local projects and benefits. I've gotten to spend a lot of quality time with friends (living in their homes and all :-) ) and have made plenty of new friends. I celebrated my 24th year of life (woah). I've finished a few books.
Really, what can I complain about?? Well, that thing I wrote about in December, the reason I decided to come back to Iowa, the bookshelves and bed ideal, haven't exactly panned out yet... I'm starting to believe the Peruvian guru who told me that 2009 and into 2010 would not be active times for me in concrete matters. According to him, it is not supposed to be a time of financial bounds (you got that right!), it will not be a time for growing roots. Instead it will be a time of great spiritual and inward growth. He told me not to make big plans or get into anything serious because they will not hold. He told me it would be a time of loosing grasp of the material and superficial world (again--you got that right, I have never felt spacier: I've lost my wallet not once but 3 times this year!). He advised me to take the path inward, and use this time for self-exploration. And boy, am I starting to believe it!
And so, almost grudgingly, I have decided to give up my quest for what I thought I wanted so badly--that whole normal adult life thing with a steady income and a kitchen--and give into what the universe keeps trying to direct me to do (to which I keep holding up my hands and saying Nooooo! Wahhhh! I like having $ and drinking fair-trade coffee. I don't want to!!) (Inhale. Exhale.)
So my interpretation to this puzzle lies below:
I will go to Weslaco, TX to volunteer at a birth center called Holy Family. It serves low-income women and families, giving pre-natal care, education, and of course birth and post-partum care. Here I will be able to work as a nurse, and actually do work that I am passionate about, in a setting that parallels my ideals. I struggled when looking for work as a nurse in the US, because I do not believe in the care given in most settings (of course in the end, I found myself desperately reaching out to almost any job), so although unpaid and miles away from yoga classes and salsa dancing, this is basically my dream job. I will get to speak Spanish, help bring life into the world in a gentle and meaningful way; I will get to serve a population in need, and it will give me the nursing experience I need to get what my mother would call a "real" (I would simply call "paid") job later down the road.
I feel like before I was caving in--looking for something "normal." Really, a paycheck and a 9-5, so I could leave work and then get back to life. As much as I'm fighting it (out of fear or out of laziness, I'm not sure), I just don't think that's what life has in mind for me. I think I am meant to do meaningful work, to make a difference in the world. I can not just put in hours at a j-o-b and call it good at the end of the day. I am struggling now with the fact that I cannot immediately have all the skills I want to go out there to change the world. I'm coming to terms with the fact that I have to go be a peon for awhile, gather my skillz and really, myself, together, and then charge out there again. I cannot be charging around all the time...there must be time for re-grouping and deeply learning.
Phew.
So, here I go!
I'm headed to Texas after Easter.
Much love and gratitude, Rachel
PS
http://www.americansforunfpa.org/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=777
Reading this article reminded me of the need for good maternal care all over the world, with different issues in every country (most certainly including our own). It renewed my passion and sort of woke me up to the need to trust what the universe is laying out in front of me. To follow my own mantra (terrifying as it can be) to release expectation, take a breath, open up to the infinite possibilities that exist, and allow myself to be swept up by the natural current of life... (the trick is to have gratitude for this and not to feel burdened; to feel the gift of purpose and of work worth doing.) Or simply, to breathe and go...
my salsa loves
DC
