Category: Uncategorized

On VOTE 2020

So here’s the thing. Saying the word Politics has historically made folks cringe. Like Money, Religion and Sex talk at the Thanksgiving spread. Even now as I write spread, I kinda want to talk about sex. And I’m not a dude. I mean, a woman talking about sex at a Turkey dinner feast… this is our future. Yes? As is Politics, Religion, Money. Perhaps 2020 has asked us, impolitely, to give voice where we did not have voice — where we once cringed, felt shame; maybe walked away from a partner, job, a city, or a dinner table too quickly. We have been living in a culture chasing positive vibes only, white feminism,(I stress white) and dominance for far too long. Trust me, I’ve tried the kool aides — but it was a bit too sweet. Sour can be fun, unsafe and honest most times. Didn’t say comfortable. 

I guess what I’m saying is we were made for these times. To walk a new walk. Integrate politics into our everyday lives. It is no longer something for “special” people or billionaires — and never was meant to be, though somehow it was built this way. But as we’ve seen, things that were built can also be broken down — Like the song Brokedown Palace, we were meant to roll. We are political, social, spiritual, creative, scientific, sexual love machines, my friends. All of these elements exist in our healthcare, places of worship, schools, corporations, families — It breathes and whispers to us as we walk in the woods — being cut down, and swims in the oceans filled with our waste. 

I think 2020 has roared at us, to be wild. To question our choices and other people’s actions — ie, our politicians, lovers, bosses, sisters, friends, priests. Police. We are waking up. This is a good thing. 2020. VOTE. And vote with your eyes open. Your hearts pumping with justice and love. ❣️ Thank you for stopping by.

#44

Tis the day. I was born. But being born is something I’m used to…again and again. And with birth there is death; also quite familiar with death. I was never baptized. Kinda consider myself lucky — As I have gotten to choose who and what does the baptizing in my many new beginnings. Transitions. I never belonged to the church; also pretty lucky. Those that carry on confessing to a white man, well, I was on to that BS before you could say hallelujah. Anyway what a digression, I wanted to speak on what I’ve learned, mostly between 43 and 44. 

I’ve learned that things aren’t as scary as we make them out to be in our head. And now, yes, things are actually kinda scary and it’s not in our heads. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s truly a shake down and break down(personally and collectively) I have learned more love for humans across the aisle and continents. I looked into the eyes of many strangers on my travels and witnessed myself — Love returned. A belonging. I learned that I can do it!! I never set out to prove that — but it sure feels good to climb mountains both literally and not. Btw, I went down a mountain the other day with a man — came up solo. A woman and a Mountain; oh there’s so much more to this. I cannot explain the profound exhilaration at its peak, tears and laughter at once. I imagine it’s the collective feelings of a woman’s soul. Giving birth to something — another Being, her voice, her business, art // HERSELF.  

This year, for me, I’ve learned blood is not thicker than water. I’ve learned that not only Spirit has me/holds me/carries me, but my chosen family as well. As I write this it’s like cupid has a thousand arrows in me. I have been love struck by so many beautiful humans — on my many trips around the sun. But this year, now in the arc of our planet’s awakening, I am, to the moon, grateful for the container(a small set) of women on my stage. I am thankful for the deep inquiry, the conversation — the reciprocity. The healing. The “how do we charter these waters?” Together. 

“Tits up” (who knows where this comes from?) Oh and…..Life is Fucking short!

Holly

On 2019-2020

Leaving NYC last year, at this time..now, feels like a thousand lifetimes ago. Currently it’s like I’m waiting for the man behind the Green Curtain, in OZ, to show his face. The face we are all holding our breath to see — As it is, so many faces.  

I left, not to find some — Thing, but as if it was the next, one foot in front of the other. With the help of the wind, behind my back, friends I am forever grateful for, and an emptied retirement account(I wasn’t going to leave my moola in the hospital’s hands) I set sail; by air.  So I guess it’s kinda like I retired. haha/ And it’s time to get back to work….differently of course. 

I think I was kinda bored in the city; the same day in and day out. Not that there’s anything wrong with routine/structure. It’s quite helpful. And comfortable. Yet running the same patterns and drill, ie working hard for the money and then seeing it all disappear, in one clean swoop; something wasn’t adding up. And did my salary buy me beautiful and tasty things too…indeed.  But that salary couldn’t buy the feeling of a futbol game on a dirt road, in Egypt, with a few young barefoot boys/young girls on the sidelines — rooting and cheering for the team with the woman(from New York) to win. Priceless. These tiny humans are the  heroes of my 2020.  

From Europe to Southeast Asia. From SE Asia to Northeast Africa and back to Europe again. The end of 2020 a vastly different view than the end of 2019 — For everyone. Trust me I have wanted to skip right back out of America or sail out to sea with some handsome man (in my fantasy) as I’ve been feeling an extreme of emotions. None of what I have to say is probably too helpful in these times; times of unrest, the lifting of the curtain, the new order — or shall I say, the new weird. A weird that is going to get all the more so.

And to those that are finding these days all too inconvenient, disturbing your peace/comfort, ruffling your feathers — well, this is the OZ we’re in. This is the dismantling. The rebirth. The hurt and pain..in our face. This is Justice. This is the people — those that have been on the sidelines for far too long. This is love. This is change.

On Medicine

As I look back, I think I’ve seen one Doctor cry; a Surgeon. Thank the Surgery Gods, I felt more human in his presence; in an industry creating robots out of living, breathing, dying bodies. He was unaware, a thick green curtain separating our hearts, me witnessing his pain/sorrow. I guess the two go hand in scalpel — Pain. Sorrow.  

They say in Medicine one must protect oneself; not just with masks, gloves, and gowns and things.  There’s a different kind of armour, invisible to the naked and goggled eyes. Doesn’t cost a thing and is actually made, right here in America. It’s a shell. Like a turtle wears. We go there when we’re blue, when we’ve lost a patient, can’t save a patient, look in the eyes of our patient, with news we feel unfair to tell. And perhaps we’re pressed for time. In and out. Right? A timer on our tool belt says, the Practitioner has 15 minutes. And what about time? Especially, the time your patient(though I think they’re called clients now) thought he/she still had. The I love you’s. The changing of winter to spring and summer to fall. All things beautiful, funny and sad — Things time cannot tell.     

Maybe we also go inside this shell, well, when we’re ashamed — We didn’t have the time and space to sit with that person. Whether colleague, friend, or patient. We go there, to have a bottle of beer or two. To numb out. Forget all things messy. After all, we wouldn’t want the public, a so-called superior, or a client to find, we’re sometimes messy. 

On the contrary. Medicine. It’s messy. Messy as hell. 

And while we’re on contraries; those shells, they do come at cost. I think they come at a cost of sharing our human-ness. The mess in the human. The something other than our pride and influence we boast to tell. It’s a deeper thing, inside that shell. Filled with other stories, we don’t dare to share. Less palatable. More Human.

No Title

A year ago today I boarded a plane to Rome. Ohhh Rome, bless Rome. Bless Italy. Bless New York, New York. Bless this Earth. You are dear. I don’t know about you, but I’m Romanced by this life….to go by foot. By boat. Air. To travel is to have one’s own wings. ⁣
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With my romance comes sadness and anger and the most awe too. I’m scared sometimes, more so for humanity than our environment. We, after all, are the Beasts in the Beauty. She will stay and make new life — in one way, shape or form. A woman always does. Birth something new, from destruction. ⁣
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We however, get one go. Or so I think so. On this magic carpet ride — with her majesty. Yet we have not realized we do not own her, have authority over her, or reside under her. Her air, water and dirt — At least not, until we’re dead. Are you dead yet? Some of us act like it. Remember, nor or you King.⁣
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I heard recently, “Can we have social justice without environmental justice?” I’d say no. I’d also add the word Health. If she is unhealthy — So will we be. Unhealthy. If we do not know what love is, truly, for this beautiful and glorious blue dot, we will not know Beauty in another. Nor ourselves. Period.⁣
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🌹Do You Realize, by the Flaming Lips is now in my head. Let’s go listen.
And as I read this over a 🐦 flew in the house. Hahaha. And back out.

Ode to Medicine

Our hospitals aren’t built for “what will you do for me?  Us?  Same as politics –They’re stories from the same book  —  I remember smelling the hierarchy in the air within a week, and wanting to quit my job that first year.  “Holly, you can’t quit now, give it three years,” said a New York, New York BF of mine — if we could even call him that — I stayed nine years and seven years respectively, with said men. Both men. We cannot deny Medicine lies in bed with the Man, after all. 

A year and a bit ago, before packing my bags, I went on an interview with another NYC hospital.( to some this is repeated information) But what I did not tell you is, the women I sat across from in a windowless, cluttered, shoe box office with, told me to come back with “real questions.”  I was taken aback at the time. Today, I laugh. They weren’t ready for me. As most our structures aren’t ready for us — to rip the band-aids off. Tear the statues down. Humans who finally have the heart to ask, “what have you got?”  What will you do? How do you care? Tell me about your culture. Your values. Your leadership. No, they weren’t expecting me to pull an orange journal out of my bag filled with curiosity.  My values. Agency. 

Wahe Jio, I sit here on my front porch, in the middle of nothingness. With a life to be filled anew, with essentials, imagination, power(not one upMAN-ship) creativity. Relationship. Right relationship. With service — eyes reformed. There being no us and them, actually. 

Just Love Actually. That is the Medicine.

Ode to New York

I don’t know if I’ll live amongst your grit and high rises, again. I adore juxtaposition; gorgeous garbage like Debbie Harry once said.  Walking and ringing a citi bike’s bell, panting at the peak of the bridge, I used to yell. When a train roared by —  Blurry Brooklyn people.  Something had changed. Was it me?  You — Or does new become old and sometimes old, no longer fit? Yet always stands still. 

There has been a call to walk amongst the wild things. Not the wild nights, like when I was twenty five to thirty two. Miami. LA — I will neither forget you. Cities I have loved and left. All pieces of me like a jigsaw puzzle. Though I hate puzzles. Somehow completing them creates borders like the burbs  —  Suburbs.  Secrets they can never keep. The city is good at keeping secrets. 

Sometimes we think there’s nothing more when there’s a world breathing, waiting for us to walk through her doors — in the thickness of her trees. Rivers and lakes. Overseas. The mystery of a lover we have yet to meet. On a dusty desert road. Crickets singing us to sleep. I stand before the mountains now as I once beheld your sky. Line. I remember the long  bathroom waits while the girls did their own — lines. 

There was a feeling of being so small and yet in the most awe of her majesty, New York. A life that rubs off on you in the dark rooms filled with jazz, glasses clinking, whispers of anticipation. You can smell it at the subway stops — variety. Different colors on the sidewalks. Rose colored glasses donned by a newbie. So fresh. Love at first sight. Dancing on Ave A, underground. Hours and hours past midnight.

New York, New York will you hold my secrets tight?  While I sip this new New. New Mexican delight. 

Our lives and Medicine

I woke up missing the sense of community today, of the Operating room corridors I once ran up and down and from room to room in search of supplies. Though I never felt our medical system had their shit together,(Hey, — This is healthcare in America — and yet we are so privileged) I was at least getting some good exercise. I miss the soft(older the better) and smelly scrubs….yes, there’s something to the scent of a new med student or resident excited and nervous all at once to make their very first cut or suture fleshes of skin, back together again. I know. I know. Oh, and I can actually smell those bovie plumes now. Ya know, that instrument that dissects and controls bleeding in one magical wand. I miss the characters mostly. I don’t know if there’s another structure in the world, at least in an urban place like NYC, that houses the most dynamic, quirky, nerdy, fresh, caring, striving, hardworking, risk taking, humans all in one place. From across all walks of life — Politically, socially, economically — unified(and sometimes not) to take care of other human beings. It’s quite miraculous actually. Such a complex system, that each and everyone one of us walking this planet cannot, and will not escape being a participant of. Well, I digress. For some, the choice becomes this or that. My health or supper on the table. My health or the roof over my head. The health of my child or the health of my mother. 

There should never be an OR; only an AND — in Our Lives and Medicine.

Letter to our youth

Please keep your head high while your heart is low. Your spirit — stirring, broken. I understand what it’s like to mend pieces back together again.To make something Whole. I know it has been hard to see what you’re seeing. Hearing — Feeling. The hate. Grief, anger, confusion, violence, fear, death — outside. I can imagine what is going on… inside. 

You my dears are the Golden Thread. It may not feel this way, but there is a reason for your Being. Here. Now. I don’t want to tell you these moments will make you stronger. Maybe not at first — The World needs a new perception of strength. As you sew this New Earth — with your Love. Vision. Action. Kindness. As we unthread. Because, what we created is losing Life — Breath.   

You are here to ask the questions. How did we get to where we are? Why? And what do I imagine? It will not be easy, but you were made for this, even in all your broken houses — the talking heads. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all you are about to Become. Transform. YOU ARE The MEDICINE.  It will take time. Rest when you need to. Take a day off school.(yes, homeschool) Take care of your Self.  And please, see the beauty still. Tell the world your truth — call out that which doesn’t sit, right and left. Continue to un-label this life. This or that. Invite everyone to take a seat at your table. 

Walk with your head high even when your heart is low.   

From August

 I sit here in the high Desert of Northern New Mexico. It is August, this I know. Three days after a Full moon in Aquarius, a pandemic and revolution wage on. A divisiveness seeps into American Culture like no other. Today I feel the emotion rage; like the marvelous storm I had pleasure to bear witness to, only days ago. I want to smash my coffee cup against the adobe wall. Let the brown water dissolve this divide, creating a new story, on the smooth mud surface. I’ve lately come to recognize that it’s not about getting it together. That a flying cup across the room, may just be the bridge to freedom. Being cracked wide open as the desert just did, after her perfect storm. A symphony that happens once in 20 years leaving deep grooves, splitting the desert floor wide open; new channels in the making, like the shape of my throat that longs to release her song. To share. Exhale. And clear the tears from her heart that have lived there, hers and theirs for so long. Strong and Dignified, the newly formed cracks say today, “I have you.”  May you speak, in all shapes and forms so that others may surrender to the mystery. The wildness. The power. The magic medicine of a desert flower and perfect storm.  ⁣