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]

Seen in Berlin..

while walking, just before I flew home to the US.

Thoughtful post to share

A Voice From The 1% does a good job of addressing the questions raised surrounding the Occupy Wall Street movement. I've walked by protests in action and they appeared to be quiet people, clean and tidy, but still I did not know what I thought. I have always believed that while I have made good choices in my life, there is little that separates me from someone who has much less in life but a few strokes of luck.

Our country is in a state of demise in many ways and these protests are putting the our economic inequalities into question. For this I am proud- of the American right to free speech and that we are able to effect changes in this country. No matter what happens or whose side we are on, there is success in being reminded of the democratic process, of speaking up when we believe things need to change, of starting the dialogue.

I saw a sign today...

For "Romantic Sex on the Beach" - a drink. Which I admit is terribly cheesy for a name. However, I indulged myself in thoughts of what a Romantic Sex on the Beach drink would contain if I were making it.

I decided: mashed blueberries, lime juice, a bit of maple syrup, club soda and a mint leaf. And then a dark chocolate on the side. But I think I would rather call it "Sex in the Woods by a Campfire But Just a Little Bit High Maintenance." If I start a bar, that is what I will call my signature drink.

And then in the morning I will make my cranberry almond scones and call them something likewise enticing, such as, " Waking Up is Much More Nice When You Have Magical Happy Scones." I am thinking we will only be able to have about three items on the menu with names that long, but it will be easier that way, and then I can be really specialized in my offerings.

Revolution

"But this is how the revolution begins: a few of us start chasing our dreams, breaking our old patterns, embracing what we love (and in the process discovering what we hate), daydreaming, questioning, acting outside the boundaries of routine and regularity. Others see us doing this, see people daring to be more creative and more adventurous, more generous and more ambitious than they had imagined possible, and join us one by one. Once enough people enbrace this new way of living, a point of critical mass is finally reached, and society itself begins to change. From that moment, the world will start to undergo a transformation: from the frightening, alien place that it is, into a place ripe with possibility, where our lives are in our own hands and any dream can come true."

I am not a foodie.

Recently, I read Grass Fed Up in the NYT, lamenting the proliferation of foodies, and associated irritations. I thought, finally someone has spoken the truth!

I tired of chasing the lastest restaurant craze about six years ago, after realising most restaurants were serving food which tasted worse than what I could prepare at home, and it was more expensive. Unconvinced that restaurants were they high road to eating, I embarked on cooking with various cookbooks, only to discover simple is better and often the newest cookbooks are really just reworkings of everything that's already been.

Excuse me if I don't get breathless with the fantasies of saffron tinged soup or truffle oil. I just want to eat something simple and good. And preferably mildly healthy. I don't want to be dragged all over town, waiting to try the lastest food craze only later to be followed by gastro excitement from some sort of high fat "delight".

I just don't care. I don't care if I eat frozen vegetables every night. And cereal when I feel like it. And apples every day. And now that it's been shown you can survive and even lose weight on junk food, I am not going to lose sleep about my diet.

This obsession with the latest and best food taste, beer, going out to the newest restaurant- it just doesn't seem that important to me.

BMW Welt Munich: One of the coolest things in Europe (if you love cars)

This weekend, I train-jaunted to München for a couple days, meeting some friends from Katterbach clinic and wandering around town. Munich is incredibly walkable and I'd guess liveable also. (I sort of wanted to move there.) Yesterday we walked around town to the Marienplatz (where the famous clock is- they were having a Vegan fest!), Viktualienmarkt (food and nicknacks), a flohmarkt and then to the Hofbrauhaus for several hours before dancing into the wee hours of the night. Very fun.

Today a few of us headed to BMW Welt, where the Munich plant is located, with a showroom of about twenty new BMWs and adjacent museum with cars, planes, engines, motorcycles dating back to 1918. Pretty amazing. We were there for several hours. I could've stayed all day.

The last section we walked through before leaving was a spiral ramp around the rotunda of the museum. At the bottom of the rotunda sat an inspiration car with the following written on different parts of the car:

"Protect me from what I want."
"Lack of charisma can be fatal."
"Monomania is a prerequisite to success."
"You are so complex you don't respond to danger."
"The unattainable is invariably attractive."
"What urge will save us now that sex won't?"

Very interesting indeed. I would go back. I thought it rather fitting that the 1972 Olympic park is right next door- both are full of wonderment and inspiration.

(I am sorry no pictures.)