domesticity

late nights revising and rewriting
hoping and praying with my fingers
on the keypad
for something more stable
my ankle boring into the wood floor
the fridge humming
where is the dog?
i wonder if I will get anywhere
i wonder if i was a gypsy too long
if no one will believe me
when i say
i want to lay down roots
-but i do-
i'm tired of traveling
i'm tired of moving
i want the boring life
a house
a family
a stable job
tea in the morning
and broccoli at night
my piano in the living room
my best friend at my side
he'll be home soon
with a van full of stuff
ready to start a new life
--together--

Traveling is a mindset, not a place

It's been two years since I returned to the states. In 2012, I did not take one flight. This year, I joined my sister and friends on a short jaunt to Iceland (which I wouldn't do again- I'm no longer built for those hasty American glimpses into foreign lands, skittering along the surface and returning exhausted). Though I've visited copious amounts of our fair country since arriving back via old-timey automobile transport, I'd say the theme of the last year especially has been slowing down and traveling in place. 

Traveling has very little do to do with actual movement, and much more to do with your mindset. I can travel just as easily in the Portland metro area, as I can anywhere else. My years of actual travel have honed my observation skills and opened my mind to listening to people's stories and interacting with strangers. I find myself traveling every day, in different ways. 

It's in the small interactions with folks around town. It's listening to my patients who are from all over the world and relating to them, having been in their home post office in Phnom Penh or their home town of Saigon or Lviv. It's visiting fill-in clinics not knowing what I'll find and making friends unexpectedly. It's seeing the light change in the sky and the weather shift from season to season. It's meeting couples on the hiking trail, and having them show up in my exam room another day. It's mulling things over and working it out on paper. It's approaching each day as an experience to be had with things to learn. 

My travels have made me a better person and better able to relate to others. I've learned to appreciate simplicity and beauty. I've learned to forgo shopping in favor of wandering. I've learned to be open to chance encounters and appreciate a friendship, even if it only lasts ten minutes.

It's been a strange experience not wanting to go anywhere. I feel rooted in a way that I could not have been before embarking on my time overseas. It's taken me a while back here to feel that I was on solid ground. I have a good relationship. I have family. And I'm in a place I love. I've been able to work and enjoy my patients. And bike and feel healthy with the great food we have in the Northwest. 

Maybe it's my age. I'd spent my entire childhood and early adulthood doing everything right, moving at the fastest pace possible, crossing off all the markers of adulthood, never taking time to understand what I thought was important about life. Now that I'm back, I feel relaxed and happy to be in one place. Hugged by trees and mountains, and free to breathe the fresh air of the Northwest, I think I've found home.

[looking at flowers and light]

[my bike takes me through the world, the best form of transport]

The People of Walmart

"You know that orange VW van in the parking lot?" I asked my assistant, Felecia.

"Yeah, is that yours? I saw it and thought maybe it was yours and you were sleeping in the parking lot!" She was laughing.

I'm filling in at Walmart. Every day I park next to the VW van because it makes me happy. She'd seen my actual car too, with the magnets on the side for Justin's advertising business. 

It doesn't take long for the staff to figure out I'm a gypsy.

I dress up like a doctor. In corduroy skirts, sweaters and smart boots. I don't go as far as applying make up. But I wash my face and pull my hair back.

After a month and a half away from the clinic, I'm fresh and unburdened. Patient care comes naturally and I know I'm really making connections because my patients are open with me, and we're all laughing by the end.

The truth is I hate Walmart. I'm morally opposed to the place. When I returned to the states, my sister Molly used to ask me if it was ok if we went there. And it was. After four years overseas, I'd begun to understand why people liked shopping there. Everything under one roof, open 24 hours a day in some locations.

But I've gone back to my old ways, and I've personally banned the place due to their employment practices and their impact on the local community. I'm not sure how I feel about working alongside the optical shop there. But it's on a temporary basis and I need to keep my skills up to successfully pass the NC boards.

I decided that I wouldn't shop in Walmart the entire time I worked there. Then upgraded my challenge to not even set foot inside. And finally encompassed the whole shopping area surrounding the store (which includes any store you could ever dream of within about a ten block radius) to say that I am not going to buy anything except groceries.

Patients want to know what I'm doing there. When I tell them I live in the Outer Banks and just work when I want, it's met with usually acknowledgement of a good choice but sadness that I won't be there next time. The patients of Walmart are actually about half insured. Mostly black. Lots on Medicaid.  Only a few unemployed. Hard-working, basic people.

One woman who was about sixty with grey long hair and a heavily lined narrow face, asked me what I liked to read. I told her, "sustainability stuff, gardening, modern fiction, memoir." She kind of whispered, "Like Mother Earth News?" And when I nodded. "Are you a Hippie?"

I shrugged, "Maybe."

Then, "I took LSD!"

I didn't know what to say to that. Uhh thanks for sharing? I'm not that kind of hippie. But anyway. That's my patients. They spill everything.

Mostly I like the regular people who I see. I've yet to be mistreated by a patient, something which happened regularly by the retired military, ex-officer, NATO crowd.

My assistant is a sweet smart 25 year old from New Jersey. We keep the office peppy and it's actually even fun to be at work. Even if it's a Walmart. And I'm doing six days a week. It's only for a month, and then I'll be back to the Boonies of the Outer Banks for a while.