happy birthday to me!

me in a tree, ahhhhh

I'm not shy! I love birthdays, and today is mine!!! (and my friend Daniela's, and Meher Baba's: Indian Mystic who believed in the unifying power of love....)

Today was basically the best day ever. I woke up in a sun-filled room. Ate some rice (my favorite comfort food, and I have to admit, I've been battling a cold, so despite that, it was still the best day ever and it afforded me the excuse to eat rice for breakfast).

I went to my 4th day of my yoga workshop, another beautiful day of love and connection and beauty.

I did some yoga in a tree. Ah! Combining 2 things I LOVE (being in trees, and playing with forms).

I got the birthday blessing of 37 yogis with a thai massage from all of them at once.... Oh my, it was amazing! They all placed their hands on me and inhaled when I inhaled and pressed on me as I exhaled, all at once.

Then I went out to dinner with my ol' friend from Iowa City, Genie. She treated me to a feast of wine, macadamia nut cheese stuffed dates, beautiful salads, stuffed mushrooms, and vegan chocolate cake.

Then home to my brother Ted's house to watch some Olympics and drink tea, before heading to bed with the excitement of my last day of acro-yoga workshop and my friend Amy visiting me from Reno tomorrow dancing in my head.

Ahhh, what a beautiful quarter of a century, down the hatch! I look forward to at least 3 joy-filled more!!

Love! Rachel

Genie and me at Encuentro

PS other amazing days have included Sat with Ted: my first time ever sailing, which involved his two sailing buddies ditching out on a rainy day, which meant him, a new sailor, and me a semi-open-water-phobe and completely worthless 1st mate, nearly tipping over (aka capsizing) a couple times and basically going around in circles for an hour and a half before heading back.
And Sunday which involved a day of deliciousness: Dim sum in San Francisco with Ted and Jane, then storming the puddle-filled streets of SF with my friend Alexis, and topping the day off with vegan Mexican food in the Mission.
*Note, I am not vegan, but definitely appreciate it, and most certainly appreciate the boldness of anyone who does Mexican vegan, which is basically unheard of

Ted and Jane, bro and sis-in-law

Golden February

It's the month of my golden birthday, and I am living it up!

25 on the 25th.
I just returned from the 9^th annual International Salsa Congress in Chicago (amazing). And I’m leaving Friday—using up all my PTO—and going to Oakland for a yoga workshop, to visit my brother and some good friends, and to dance one night at the salsa-rueda congress which is coincidentally happening the weekend I arrive and will be attended by many friends from Santa Fe.

I woke up this past Sunday morning after dancing until 3am and being up till 5, and suspected I was paralyzed. My body was so heavy and tired from 2 days of workshops and 3 nights of dancing, and I simply lacked the ganas to move. I got up however, and went into Chicago to see the Chinese New Year parade and hang out with my dear college friends. Without the latter two or maybe latter one, I would have had literally no reason to even leave the hotel, which had all I needed—chocolate, trail mix, and most importantly: live salsa workshops, music, performances, and dancing 24/7 from Thursday to Monday, and let’s face it, it’s February in Chicago…there’s no need to be out there.

I was inspired and renewed by the bedazzled weekend, and was happy to jump back into work—for one week—before heading off again…

In other exciting news, I wrecked my car on icy I25 a couple weeks ago, and have since bought a 2001 Jetta, which my friend Carlos had to teach me to drive, as it is a stick and I never learned to drive one. I have only stalled at about 342 stop lights/hills and gotten 1 ticket because he left reverse out of his teaching plan (which did involve dancing bachata while driving and singing “baby you can drive my car”). I did not realize this oversight in the lesson until the time came to parallel park and I had to opt to park about 4 feet away from the curb. I will be leaving my car at the dealership when I go to Oakland this weekend, because as it turns out, I don’t have a key for the trunk and cannot get into it, so they will have to somehow make me one. When I dropped by today to tell them this, they looked in the trunk via the back seat (a feature I had not yet discovered…I know, who was with me when I bought this thing? The answer: myself), I was half expecting to see a kilo of cocaine or a dead body. Alas, it was disappointingly empty.

I know I’m overloading you with excitement here, but let me just slide in one more fun fact: the air mattress I have been calling my bed for the last few months has been slowly loosing air, leaving me to awaken on the wood floor at 4 am or 1pm depending on the current sleep schedule, with the task of blowing it back up (praise theelectric thingie). So needless to say, I am in the market for a real bed, but in the meantime am sleeping on a twin that I pulled from storage in the house. I’m not sure whether it’s an upgrade or not.

Lots of love and hugs to all, Rachel

Dancing at the Chicago Salsa Congress

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

Happy 2010!

I've been meaning to check back in for awhile, but overwhelmed with work and travel, and not wanting to sit at the computer, I have been uninspired to do so...until now!

It all started with an 8am post-shift craving for a bean tostada and a fountain drink after three nights of working the graveyard (which means leaving home around 6:20pm and arriving home around 8:15am). I spent all 3 nights tending to a 35 week old baby (> 1 month early), who was having some respiratory issues and needed to be tube fed and oxygenated. Working with my shifts in a row like that basically means that I disappear from the "real" world entirely, and go into a semi-zen like state of sleep, drive, work, drive, sleep (Repeat x 3), and really I prefer it that way, because then I don't try to squeeze in any sort of outside distraction (or pleasure). I just get into the groove and go with it, and honestly, it goes by relatively fast...the only thing is, I loose track of time completely, and since the hospital is not my ideal place to spend my time, I usually come out of it feeling like I'm wasting my life a little...but regardless, on with the story! (and mind you, I'm positive in the end, because if it weren't for my lifestyle, events would not unfold like they did tonight).

So tonight (well now that I write this at 5:38am, I mean last night) I slept in after my last shift until 6pm (tostada coma). I then went to a meditation at a dojo from 6:45-7:45, showered, and then my friend Patrick came over to salsa dance and chat in my kitchen until about midnight. I then went to Corazón, where my friend's funk band was playing. Thankfully he put me on "the list," so I got to breeze on it, and I was immediately blown away by the jam my ears were hearing...It turned out that John Popper of Blues Traveler was in town to record a record and jumped up on stage to jam out on the harmonica with them. I threw my funk down, and danced with some boys who were traveling around the wild west from Nebraska. I then proceeded to close the bar down with the band (and John Popper, who kissed my hand on the way out), something I never would have done in my normal waking life, as I'm generally (and supposed to be) a morning person.

As everyone was leaving, two guys were trying to call a cab, and I offered to drive them home instead. It turns out that one owns 6 regional radio stations and the other is a musician/producer. Needless to say, I arrived at a phat pad and they invited me in. I figured, why not, really? It may be nearly 4am, but I'm on night shift schedule. So I went in, warmed myself by the fire while drinking wine, hot-tubbed under the stars and brightly shining crescent moon, checked out the production studio, got some free music, and had a generally faaaabulous evening! They invited me to go skiing, so I just may take them up on that soon....
I returned home, and was still wired, so went for a sunrise hike while intermittently writing this.

In other news:

• We've had some drug addicted babies recently, which has motivated me to contact a non-profit to come to Española called project prevention, which gives drug addicted women $ to go on long term birth control like IUDs or to get their tubes tied.
• I'm trying to ward off becoming the fat nurse by doing lots of hiking and exploring around Santa Fe. The land is so beautiful and strange here; I love it! So I'm basically never hanging around home: either working, sleeping, dancing, or exploring. Lots of outdoor loving to be had here.
• I had a nice Christmas in Santa Fe, albiet nontraditional. I had a Solstice/Festivus couchsurfing party the week before. My work party was two-tiered: one at the casino (naturally) for the whole hospital, which involved the finance guy karaoking "Baby Got Back," and a party for my unit with the traditional New Mexican Christmas foods: sopapillas, tamales, red chile beef enchiladas and green chile chicken enchiladas (of course), pumpkin roll, and a big delicious bowl of guacamole. My sister and brother-in-law (Kristen and Dave) came down Christmas day from Denver and we ate Indian food and went hiking. And on Christmas Eve, I did the gallery stroll down Canyon Road with my wonderful roommate, Amanda, to enjoy the farolitos (luminaries), bonfires, and carolers.
• For New Years, I went up to Colorado for the 20th anniversary show of a bluegrass group called Left Over Salmon at the Boulder Theater and got to love up my old friend, Sarah G. I found myself high for about 5 min in the hot-boxed theater, despite not smoking a sniff, and giggled my head off about the idea of stuffing all the fallen glitter into my pants.... On New Years day I hiked around Golden with Kristen and Dave and checked out Lo-Hi, where they are hoping to re-settle.
• Now that's it's 2010 and I'm finding myself a little more settled in New Mexico (though still traveling a lot domestically for congresses/workshops and still debating a move to Albuquerque for school or the outlying areas of Santa Fe), I'm thinking more about what I want to manifest and culture in my life....I see salsa dancing, yoga, honing my healing skills (be it reiki, chinese medicine, and/or midwifery), ever-more mindful eating, and living in a community that inspires me to live a more connected and intentional life...with lots of laughter and dancing of course! Let's see what kind of magic I can conjure!
  

Sending everyone love, peace, and fun surprises this new year! xoxo, Rachel

Festivus party outfit

PS If you haven't seen Avatar yet... do!

Skipping around crazy beautiful New Mexico