Deciduous, Decidedly

All red blossoms and leaves verdant green
Fell, rotten, froze
Eventually my guise,
Out identity
If you didn't know me before,
Without,
You now won't glance, see
Only sticks
Stripped twigs thinly remain.
Naked, bare
You'd think them dying, strange
Oh, no.
This is not death,
Everlasting honesty,
Just a glimpse,
Purge,
Fleeting truth,
Look- see
Making way
For spring's bright color
Rest before summer's
Exhausting heat
And a glimpse,
To prepare,
To ponder,
That true fall
That last winter
With Peace.

I am not crazy

Valentine’s day recently passed and I celebrated in my usual manner; by filing my taxes. It didn’t take long because my life is remarkably uncomplicated. While I wait to see where I’ll be in April, study in preparation, and line up shadowing opportunities, I jog daily, bake, and hang out with my grandparents. Despite this simplicity, I do not have the clarity that I did in Uganda. I returned to the states a bit suspicious of the conclusions I reached overseas. I wondered if I could trust such out of context decisions. Cluttered now with my so much well intentioned advice, competing opportunities, chances to compare myself with others, and life details, details, details, many days I often cannot see the big picture. What am I doing? And why on earth? I realize this is the reason I went to Lesotho in the first place and part of what attracted me to the Peace Corps. The ability to think; clarity, solitude—and it is what I experienced. I have begun to respect the space for thinking that I had there. I am not confused about where I am going or what I am doing. I am not bewildered. I am not lost. I am, instead, one of the only people I know who have been able to think about what I am doing, to stop the hamster wheel, get out of the cage and make active decisions.

Cards

When it’s cold outside and you don’t have an ice shack or a hunting license (or even a gun), you end up with--- cards. I have developed my strategy; simply all or nothing. Like in crazy rummy, I hold on to my high cards until I can get them to count for me. If someone else goes out first, I lose, big. If not, I really win. As I was holding my cards, hoping that no one would go out first, hoping that the right card would come my way, I realized that this is my life. My masters’ and Peace Corps are great wild cards but not a complete hand. I have some small cards but am holding my hand for bigger ones. I turned down a position as the County child protective services caseworker. It would have been a decent hand. It would have led to a decent life. Instead, I held onto my cards. I’m turning down the small things that threaten to make me settle; a date with so- and- so; a minimum wage job, anxiety over future debt. I’m giving myself permission to take these three months at my grandparents house to study Calculus, Chemistry and Biology (some with and some without a classroom class) to review my MCAT books, to apply and look into different pre- med and med options, and to read. Paul Farmer, not a good bedside book because it fills me with drive to pursue medicine, teaches me that my background is valid and my future pursuits worthwhile—to keep holding onto these cards, to try for the big ones. I did hold those cards last night and made 500 points in one round (instead of the 20 I would have otherwise). The next round, I lost, also grandly. I do worry that I am throwing away the bird in the hand for the elusive flock in the tree. My life, however, is not exactly like cards. First of all, as a first world citizen, I don’t have to worry as much about someone else ending it for me. No, instead the round is very, very long. Too long to go out settling for what I have in my hand so far.

Men are falling from the sky!

A fellow returned Peace Corps volunteer told me, “Sarah, boys are just falling from the sky, I met Luke at a bar last night and now he’s my boyfriend!” --Not this sky, kiddo; I thought. Between classes (with kids 7 years my junior)

and singing at senior housing communities, I seriously doubt anything but snow from this sky. Yesterday afternoon, my grandfather, who had previously been joking about finding me a lonely rancher sat me down for a serious discussion; “I don’t want you to die alone, Sarah.” “Oh Lord!” I thought, on my way to work “Now I’m dying alone; and here I was hoping for at least a Golden Girls’ house beforehand.” At work last week, a little lady from Laos (mother of 10) put me on a machine with a former marine, not so bad looking. “Sarah, you single?” She asked. “Good; Robert, he single too. He vewy nice boy.” I mentioned this to another girl at work, and found that an entire ploy is in place to get Robert and I together. Don’t worry, she said, If Robby doesn’t work out, Sam over there is single too. I know he’s a good man. He loves hunting and fishing. She then proceeded to list each of Sam’s material possessions (and describe his hunting trucks). After all, she says, I don’t want you dying singe, now. Imperfect though they may be, men are indeed falling from the sky, like half fermented grapes from the very well functioning village grapevine. It won’t be long before I find myself on a date at the shooting range, pheasant field, or ice fishing pond some Saturday afternoon.

Oh Jah! South Dakota

In Uganda, when a young college graduate loses her job and is broke, she goes back home. Home is where your extended family is, where there is always a second cousin or an uncle or a grandparent to stay with and help out. In Uganda, when an astoundingly successful person finishes her career, she buys land and a house at “home” and cares for nieces, nephews and elderly relatives. I don’t know if I succeeded or failed; if I am choosing this or have no other choices, but I have also gone home to my people. I stay with my grandparents who refuse to let me pay for anything and want me to focus on school. I will stay with my cousin this summer, whose husband is an internal medicine specialist supervising USD medical students. Yes I wonder if I should go to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. Yes I wonder if, in this state of 800,000, I could ever meet people to connect to. Yes, I am very annoyed that The Economist is taking so long to be delivered. Yes, my yearly habit of crying has become weekly. Yes, sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing. It is especially hard that those in my age group have such vastly different lives and outlooks. My people, however, my family; get it. They have me whether they wanted to or not. And I’ve got them.

Christmas Present 2011

Last year, for Christmas, I took a big piece of butcher paper and mapped out my options. This year, I was accepted to the prestigious Columbia University premedical post baccalaureate program. Wow, I got into Columbia! Now I could go to New York in two weeks and start going to the oldest and best program in the nation, with direct linkages to the nation’s top medical schools—if I really wanted to. Why the note of hesitation? Columbia would involve picking up and moving to a new city—when, due to previous moves, I am no longer accepted as a resident in any state! And it would involve burying myself in debt-- Columbia’s is the most expensive program in the nation, with linkages to the most expensive medical schools in the nation. That’s fine, I’ll just plan on making tons of money or I’ll go to the military. But is that why I started this journey? Do I want to be limited to the rat race of expensive medicine living in expensive places? Good thing I visited some doctor and med school friends in Detroit before I came, all of whom warned me not to get into too much debt and all of whom emphasized that it is not the program but the MCAT scores, and later on the med. school scores, that count. One laughed hysterically at me when I mentioned Columbia’s pre- medical price tag—about $100,000 When I started this journey, I wanted to be a meaningful part of a community. I wanted to have the skills to help people practically, and I wanted to be financially sound. I kept thinking of my grandfather, a family practitioner in a small Iowa town. When I think about going to New York in January, my stomach just begins twisting—and it’s not from Christmas cooking. For now, therefore, I am going to South Dakota with my grandparents. It is where I can take the classes I need for one tenth of the tuition costs at Columbia. It is where I can shadow doctors, work, and even be part of the Dakota Sunshine Singers—who sing oldies at different nursing homes. I am still applying to Johns Hopkins and am considering Columbia, If they’ll accept my excuse for deferment, and if I can afford the $500 for holding my place, that is.

Odessius

I recently had lunch with a friend, whose 21 year old son was done with college and in the local fire force. Wow, he is set for the rest of his life already and here I am, at 26, doing what? My 17 year old brother is making commission selling phones, drives a BMW, and looks on me with unbridled distain—“What are you doing, Sarah?” “ I’m not going to spend the rest of my life in school!” “I’m helping Mom and Dad, you abandoned them!” I know he has no clue, but it is still hard. I guess I have to ask, what did I get out of the last 5 years? Apart from Bantu languages and the real taste of pineapples, what did I learn? When I started this journey, I wanted a chance to think, to breathe, a wilderness experience. I wanted a colorful mosaic backdrop on which to paint the rest of my life. More than that, in my gut, I just had to go, I had to do it. Thankfully, I read Homer’s Odessey before coming home. On his way home from the war in Troy, Odessius lost all his booty, his ship, and his crew. He was delayed for over a decade, held up by various goddesses and vagrants, but, in the end, he returned. Despite all the delays, despite all the loss, despite, at times, regretting his life, he never regretted making the journey. It was, after all, the journey that made his homecoming the most epic poem of several millennia. His journey made him.