7 days

My weeks seem to be overwhelmed with an abundance of strange and wonderful things. Please forgive my recent habit of writing lists for updates instead of prose.

Tuesday:

• I convince myself that I have an infection and need antibiotics since I'll shortly be boarding a plane to a land of no healthcare access (which to an uninsured individual means no access to Mexico..).


• I make a trip just across the border to buy some Cipro (an anti-biotic which kills stomach bugs (picked up by say, drinking the water in Monterrey...), urinary tract organisms, as well as anthrax should one happen to have that too). The pharmacist tells me that it is illegal to bring this specific medication over the border, before offering me a bottle of Toradol to put it in. Thank you shady border pharmacist.


• Giddy with my purchase of Mexican pharmaceuticals at an outrageously low cost (along with my friend who bought a years worth of Yasmin), we skip back across the border and head back to the clinic.


• We receive a call along the way to inform us that our "clinic coup" has happened earlier than expected. I'd love to elaborate on the topic, since my giddiness at that point was uncontainable, but I will err on the side of being "professional." Basically there was a lot of bad stuff going on in the clinic, and when I came here, I realized that perhaps my reason for being here beyond patient care was to help in the revolution and rebuilding of wonderful Holy Family. I am happy that I will be able to leave knowing that the clinic is returning to the wonderful work and care it was built on 25 years ago.


• We went out for margaritas to celebrate. Where? Weslaco residents' favorite "bar:" Chili's. Haha, I will never get over this being one of the "local hot spots."

The Holy Family crew

I go to McAllen, where I've been house-sitting, to pack up my things. Shortly after arriving I begin feeling itchy/burny/tingly: at first in my hands and feet, and then all over. Not wanting to have an anaphylactic reaction alone, I finish up and quickly head for the clinic. Mid-drive, I start blacking out, and pull over to hang my head between my knees. I call the midwife/family nurse practitioner, who reassures me I won't die and that "anaphylactic-like" symptoms can be a side-effect of Cipro. Great. I pull myself together, drive home, and induce a Benadryl-coma.

Wednesday:

• Wake up 6 hours later for the staff meeting which has been moved to IHOP, as the clinic is under siege.


• Hop on the plane to Denver for a "business trip," miss the connection in Dallas due to weather, and finally arrive around 11pm.

In flight entertainment

Thursday:

• Hang out with my family who "just happened" to be in Colorado visiting my sister.


• Cards were played. Food was eaten. Sleep was had. In that order of importance.
  

Friday:

• Business day: I spend the afternoon/evening writing health education modules for my sister's actuarial consulting company.


• All work and no play makes Rachel and Kristen dull sisters: we indulge in some mountain biking and Estes Park's own locally roasted coffee at Kind Coffee shop.

Saturday:

• More work for Kristen. Back on the plane to Texas. Plane majorly delayed due to pressurization issues.


• I have the pleasure of staying at a crappy motel in Dallas' airport-land. I love having a motel room all to myself, especially when paid for by American Airlines. Where do they get the decor for these rooms? is what I want to know though.

Sunday:

• After 6 hours of sleep, I hustle myself out of bed and back to the airport.


• There's a laboring patient when I arrive in McAllen, so the midwives can't pick me up.


• I finagle a borrowed car and make it back just in time for the birth. Beautiful.


• My co-workers attend a Christian rock concert. I opt not to.


• I spend the evening wanting to go to bed, but feeling guilty because there's too much to catch up on, and thus crack myself out on chocolate and home-made tortilla chips and achieve marginal productivity until 1am

Monday:

• Exhausted and hungover from junk-food and insufficient sleep, it's back to work. The office is peaceful and happy under our new democratic rule.


• I am pleased but in denial about starting my last week of work at Holy Family

Playing 6-handed Pitch

Spring, 2009

Wow, Looking at my last post, I cannot believe it. I cannot believe my state of mind then compared to now. I cannot believe how fast the past 3 months have slipped by. I guess I can summarize the time passed by saying that winter passed through me. I hibernated for a good several months. I found myself (accidentally) continuously couchsurfing, hesitant to sign a lease on a place as I spread myself all over the country (via the internet) looking for jobs, unsure of when or where I might go.

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