Fast forward

I feel like I've been living in fast-forward. As if working in a hospital wasn't enough like jumping into a vortex, working nights has completely added a new element of perpetual motion and general strangeness to my life. Ten days went by without me even noticing...my clothes and books and mail lay in the same exact places, my friends haven't been contacted, I may or may not have experienced sunshine or fresh air, and I haven't exercised in longer than I'd like to admit.

Coming back into what I would call "the real world" ie the space I've created for myself outside of work...ie the world I actually truly enjoy, seemed a little too foreign to me as I re-entered last night after 75hrs of work in the past 7 days--overnights--which makes it that much more disorienting, plus a 24 mile commute.

So on my few true days off (not including the ones where I sleep all day following a night shift), I try to cram in as much beauty and excitement as I can. I started out this past week's work stint with a bang last Thursday. I drove out to the Jemez with some of my new favorite people in SF: Susannah, Kaelie, and Evan, and hiked to the Spence hotsprings (just a little jaunt really, but we managed to get lost). There we soaked for hours, ate chocolate, and drank Turkish coffee which Evan made on a little stove he'd brought with. I had to keep laughing at how wonder-full it all was. Then I feasted on Moroccan stew at Harry's Road House and went salsa dancing at Corazón, where my friend, Patrick, was DJing. Despite being a little sleepy from the hike and the soaking, I had some of the best dancing I've had since I moved to NM. I met a man named Carlos with whom I had so much fun that we ended up going out for breakfast and chatting until they kicked us out at 3:15am. Then we drove around and continued our conversations on love, connection, dance, Peru, God and the universe, etc, etc, and when I got home I couldn't sleep because I was so energized by my connection with beautiful people and life that day. I stayed up until 6am, and slept until it was time to go to work that night.

I then had one night off between my next 3 nights on, which is usually wasted sleeping and being nocturnal by myself, but I ended up spending 9HOURS with my new friend, Carlos, which turned out to be just the medicine I needed to cure my sad little hospital-sucked soul. We went out for tea, went to my favorite yoga class, ate Vietnamese food--ran into two of his amazing friends, one of whom is a doula and volunteers for a program I admire very much, then went to see Avatar (amazing) and danced barefoot in the falling snow of the parking lot while waiting for the movie to start.

And we're back. I slept for 7 hours last night, which was wildly rejuvenating. What a beautiful thing it is to actually sleep when it's dark outside (ie when your body is supposed to).
Now I have another 2 days off, and I'm looking forward to what magic they will bring.... Today I'm taking a course at REI on how to use my hand-held GPS thingie, which my mom bought me for Christmas, because she is afraid of me getting lost in the woods (Dear mom, if only you knew the jungles I found myself wandering in South America....I plan to use the GPS thingie mainly for treasure hunting, aka geocaching). Then I have a birthday party to attend at my new friend's yurt. And tomorrow, though I am working at night, I am hoping to have another outdoors adventure, possibly involving snow-showing, as northern NM has been turned into a winter wonderland in the past week.

Carpe diem mis copos de nieve :)
love, Rachel

super sweaty and lovin' life