Wintertime cozy

As the days get shorter and colder, I have been trying out new ways to be cozy. I have had some successes and some failures.

Success: Cream of Wheatlessness

Finely ground brown rice, quinoa, millet and sunflower seeds cooked like porridge in a pot of hot water. I believe the most delicious ingredient in the mix is the quinoa, so you can be generous with it when grinding the grains. I also sometimes add cornmeal and/or buckwheat groats.

Less successful: Sweatshirt sharing

friendsgiving

I arrived in Philadelphia this evening and within an hour I was at a potluck, sitting on a couch talking with two doulas...good omen? I'd like to believe so.

When I arrived I met up with Nikki (the daughter of my dad's old navy friend who became my friend a few years ago). She met me at a train stop in Kensington and we walked a few blocks to her friends' house where they were having a "friendsgiving" meal. I said hi to some familiar faces and slowly tried to make my way to the food table. I had not had much to eat on a full day of traveling and socializing seemed impossible without some nourishment.

As I was scooping myself some collards in peanut sauce, the woman next to me introduced herself. We stood together eating from blue plastic plates and began a conversation. She asked why I was in Philly, I told her I came for an interview at PENN, she told me she was a beginning doula, and the conversation proceeded as one might assume: we talked about being doulas, hospital vs. home birth, and everything in between. Later on in the the evening, another woman arrived who was also a doula and she joined our conversation.

All in all it was encouraging in the sense that there are folks here with shared beliefs and perspectives about birth that I can be supported by. It was real in a way that I got to hear the frustrations of women working in the struggle to re-humanize birth on this coast and in Philadelphia particularly. It is going to be challenging to work in a city where there is only one known home birth, licensed midwife. Also, Pennsylvania still does not have a licensure pathway for midwives of this state thus making midwifery "illegal". It will be a challenge and a necessity to be working in birth here if this is where I end up. I feel that I may up for this sort of challenge.

more to come...

breaking the blog block

Something is better than nothing and some things are better than others...

it is a wish and a regret

to wonder and wander

to want and not get.

So far, this are the most sharable pieces of writing I have got so far. I have taken up daily writing, just to begin a writing discipline. It is tough to be writing pages of nonsense everyday just to get back into the practice of it; to clear the cobwebs.

I have started reading a book called: Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. It is a very simple yet important book about how writing is spiritual practice and a way to self-knowledge. It is a good companion book to what I am pursuing in my own life currently.

News:

I have become quite grateful for my renewed student-hood lately. Being in such fast-moving, material-rich classes has been keeping me on my toes. There is no room for laziness or sliding into a slump. I have been impressed by myself and inspired by my memorization and organization skills. I have been motivated by my motivation. I am doing very well in all of my classes and feeling like I can do anything. Having less time has somehow helped me to take advantage of the free time I do have to read, write, and go for long walks.

I will be in Philadelphia from Saturday, November 27th until Tuesday November 30th to have a tour of PENN and an interview with the midwifery department. Philly friends: I want to see you!

down-back-down-back-up

North by Southwest Roadtrip 2010 was a blast. Special thanks to our supporters and hosts. Oregon, California, Arizona, Mexico---we love you.

Been back in business here in Seattle for a little over three weeks now. I started back to school and feel my brain grow day by day. I am currently learning about the properties of matter and memorizing the skeletal system. Along with Chemistry and Anatomy/Physiology, I am taking a beginning voice class. Learning techniques such as breath, relaxation, projection, etc. has been incredibly interesting when applied to daily life and speaking. I am constantly fascinated by the power of the voice as an instrument of expression, whether it be through song, poem, or speech.

Olive LOVES our new place. We live in a house with 6 potential cuddle buddies that is located next to a wooded park full of fluffy squirrels.... what more could she ask for.

Finished my UPENN application and I am going to Philly at the end of November for my interview with the Midwifery department. Wish me luck.

Many of you will be happy to know that I began writing again today. I don't have anything share-able yet but the pen and the page have been reunited in my life.

More to come.

Category Three: North by Southwest Roadtrip

The first few weeks of September Basil and i are going to drive down through Oregon and California until we get to the Bisbee, Arizona. We will be making this trip to visit friends and family and ultimately, to get Olive who has been living with Jade in Bisbee since I was in Guatemala.

We have an open-ish itinerary so if you are in any of those states and want us to stop by, let me know.

Category Two:The Golden Plum

Home is where the plums are. Last week Basil and I moved into a beautiful home with some friends in the Madison Valley area of Seattle. It is a corner house that has a bountiful golden plum tree in the front yard. The tree has to be at least 35 years old due to its size and from what we've heard from the folks in the neighborhood.

Just about everyday we meet someone new who comes to ask if they can pick our plums. They claim they are the best plums they have ever had. Some say they grew up in this neighborhood and have picked plums off that tree for twenty years. Others bring us their golden plum jam made from the plums they've picked. They truly are the best plums I have ever had and the best way to get to know our new neighbors.

The house is Forest green with a red door and a golden mailbox. Basil and I live upstairs with Jordan and the soon-to-come Elisabet. Downstairs live Helen and Jason, two new friends brought to us by Craigslist.

Madison Valley is, well, a valley. It is on the backside of Capitol Hill, just before Lake Washington. Capitol Hill is a very steep hill and most of my friends and all of my classes are upon it. So I am getting back into urban hiking.

It feels so good to live in community again.

category one: vocation

i realize that i may not have shared with some of you my change of plans which took place a few months ago while i was in guatemala. i decided not to go to the midwifery school Maternidad La Luz in El Paso. instead i am going to go into Nurse Midwifery.

in case you do not know, there are different classifications of midwives. There are traditional midwives: usually indigenous women practicing the old way of midwifery that is sometimes integrated with some new practices. There are unlicensed midwives: women who are midwives but either live in a state where there is no opportunity to gain licensure (where midwifery and homebirth is outlawed) or women who choose not to get licensed because of the limitations that licensure would put on their practice. There are licensed midwives called Certified Professional Midwives CPMs who have obtained a state specific licensure and can attend homebirths and sometimes work at birth centers. There are also Certified Nurse Midwives CNMs who have a nursing certificate and a masters in Nurse Midwifery. These midwives are usually found working in hospitals and birth centers, but many also attend home births.

now the state-to-state licensure for CPMs does not permit one to deliver babies in the breech position or twins, the regulations don't allow you to serve women who desire to have a vaginal birth after having previously had a cesarean section. There are more standards but these are the main ones that stand out as being quite restrictive. After much thought and reflection I decided that these restrictions would be very difficult for me to deal with. Nurse Midwives have different standards of care. They are given more credit for doing the same work as CPMs but they have a nursing degree which gives them more autonomy. I also made this decision because I would like to be able to work in public health and CPMs are limited as well in this area.

So for the present this means that I am taking a bunch of science classes at the community college and applying to graduate programs in Nurse Midwifery. I am applying to UPENN in Philadelphia as well as UW here in Seattle. I might apply to others but I have not decided yet.

summer in the city

view from our dining room table.

you don't know SQUAT!

but you should because SQUAT is a new anarchist birth magazine. the first edition has just been published and it includes an article from your truly so read, buy and support SQUAT. click here http://magcloud.com/browse/Issue/84951 to view and purchase.

goin' local

friends and folks,

starting tomorrow, june 20th, my phone number will be going local. that's right. i will be able to be reached at 206-445-3611. that's all for now.

back to the emerald city

im back. returned to seattle last wednesday evening. thursday basil and i moved into our capitol hill summer sublet. its a really sweet one bedroom with lots of big windows and houseplants. saturday was summery and we rode our bikes to vashon island to be at cory and shauna's wedding and we camped on the island that night before riding home sunday. the past few days i've been trying to register for summer classes at seattle central community college: waiting in lines and going from office to office filling out various forms and showing my photo ID a ridiculous number of times. its been no-stop newness and resettling, but all very fun and exciting.

there are many of you i wish to call and talk to in the next few days/weeks. my phone number is the same as it was before i left 520-508-0191 if you feel so inclined as to drop me a ring. here are some photos of recent life. enjoy.

what happened while i was gone?

for the last week and a half i was in chiapas, mexico. during that time volcán pacaya erupted, a hurricane hit, towns were flooded, mudslides slid, roads were demolished, some people have gone missing and some have died.
yesterday morning i left san cristobal de las casas for xela. the trip usually takes 6 hours or so but yesterday it was about 12 hours before i arrived. the highway was wiped out in some places and in others it was covered with mud and debris. arriving to xela was no less comforting. it was somewhat of a ghost town. several streets were blocked off and big plies of pavement and mud lay on the corners and the streetsides. many homes have been flooded and 5 people in xela alone have been found dead.
my flight is scheduled to leave next wednesday from guatemala city. i think things should be cleared up there by then. currently no flights are coming or going due to the ash from the volcano and the heavy rains. traveling around the country is a bit more difficult now so i am gonna spend this next week in xela and take another round of classes at the language school to get in the last bits of grammar i have yet to learn. i am also going to volunteer at a local women´s weaving collective and refresh my tejer skills. making the best of it.
so in case you were worried, im alright, just slightly stranded for the time being.

Some time with the Zapatistas

I came to san Cristobal de las Casas, Chiapas, about 10 days ago just to spend a few days and renew my visa for Guatemala. But life has a way of opening doors one never even knew existed. I met some folks at my hostel who invited me to a benefit documentary/music show for the people of Copala, Oaxaca. If you arent familiar with the situation there you can check out http://contralinea.com.mx/ and http://redaccion.nexos.com.mx/?p=1313 these websites are in Spanish but they might be available in English too. In short, the community of Copala is occupied by Mexican military for trying to govern themselves and create an autonomous community similar to the Zapatistas. There are kidnappings, interrogations and killings. Recently there have been solidarity caravans (similar to 'freedom rides') of activists to the comunity. Several of these activists have been kidnapped and two journalists from the Mexican magazine Contralinea have been killed by the Mexican military. This benefit show was a way of showing support and raising money for the people of Copala.
At the show I met the small but inspiring activist community of San Cristobal. I also met a Spanish nurse named Marc. Marc had come to Chiapas to help in the health clinics of the nearby Zapatista communities. I told him what I have been doing and he invited me to come along to help with the women's health promoters in the community.
Last Sunday Marc and I went up into the mountains to the Zapatista community called O`ventik. We arrived arounf 11am and went up to the gaurd post at the gated entrance to the community. Three men in black Zapatista masks greeted us and asked us why we were there and what our intentions were. They took our passports and went into a little house nearby to talk with the people in the community who are in charge of who can enter and leave the community. We waited a good 2 hours outside the gate to recieve the verdict. During that time we sat in the shade of a tree and taught eachother trabalenguas, tongue twisters, from our respective languages.
We were granted permission to enter and meet with the Junta, the local governing group. We waited another hour or so outside the building where the Junta meets before we were asked to come in a sit down on a bench in from of a table where the Junta was seated. Men and woman comprised the Junta, all with thier faces covered with either black beenie-maskes or red bandanas. They asked us again why we were there and what we wanted to do in the community. Marc told them about his past experiences working in other Zapatista health clinics and that we wanted to stay and help out in the clinic there for a week. They told us to come back the next day and they would tell us what they had decided.
The next day we returned to O'ventik. We met with the Junta again after being screened once more at the entrance of the community. They granted us permission and actually welcomed us into the community for a week.
We were brought to the clinic/hospital where we were introduced to the coordinator of the clinic. She is a young woman with soft, bright eyes and she welcomed us warmly and told us a little bit about the place. The clinic there serves as a local clinic, like in other communities, but also serves as the main hospital for all of the other Zapatista communities. They have three ambulances to transport people to and from the hospital and to handle emergencies. This clinic is also where the health promoters from the othe communities come to get trained. A group of about 30 people come to study and working the hospital 10 days out of every month. They were studying during our time there.
We gave ourselves a mini-tour of the clinic while the coordinator went back to work. We waited a few more hours for her to return and show us to where we would stay. In the meantime we played cards and were invited to eat with the community in a communal kitchen/cafeteria. At the meal we met a Mexican public health doctor from Veracruz who is living there with his wife for a year. We also met a Spanish Pediatrician named Icko who had been working in O'ventik for 6 months and had just returned from a little travel break.
After the meal Marc, Icko and I were shown to our rooms in the upstairs dorms of the clinic where the students were staying. It was early evening now and we went down to the hospital to participate in the shift-change meeting to get the low down on the patients who were being treated there and meet the promotores.
The next days we observed and participated in the genral consultations of the clinic. I also spent a lot of time in the gynecology room helping with family planning and prenatal visits. It was strange to work in a more medical environment after so many month working in homes. I had the opportunity to apply some of the things I had learned from Eulalia there in the clinic such as the uses of some herbs and prenatal massage for different types of pregnancy discomforts.
I am back in San Cristobal now and I still can't believe what I have been doing with myself the last week. It was a really wonderful experience to be able to participate in such a strong community of people, to contribute and to learn. I have long been an admirer of the Zapatistas and their values of freedom, land, preservation of culture, and autonomy but now my admiration goes a lot deeper.
Tomorrow or Monday I will return to Guatemala. More to come soon...

change of tune

on thursday i left calderas for xela. things got a bit rough in the last week or so. im not sure how it happenend but over time i was being included less and less in the pre-natal, postpardum and labor visits and then i was left out of two births altogether.
seeing as that was why i was there (and paying to be there) i had a talk with eulalia and the director of the program and decided to leave 2 weeks early.
we had a few heart-to-heart conversations and there were no hard feelings. i guess it was just time to move on. i have been sick with a cold-like, head-compression, moco-drippin something for over a week now and still got some lively activity goin on downstairs so it is nice to just chill in one of my favorite cities and take care of myself.
ive got a few more weeks before my departure and a visa to renew. im not sure what my itinerary will look like but a trip to mexico will definatley be on it. i have decided to stay in xela until i get well again and then have some more adventures.
thats just about all for now...stay tuned.

Gringo time

About a week and a half ago Eulalia told me she was going to go to the Centro de Saludin Itzapa to pick up some papers. I remembered that I had some friend from the language school in Xela that were volunteering at a bike/bike-machine shop called Maya Pedal. I went with her to Itzapa, asked a traffic officer where the bike workshop was and surprised my buddies. I surprised myself too. I was buzzing with excitement and minor symptoms of culture shock. All of a sudden I was eating vegetarian food, listening to classic rock, playing with bikes and speaking slag-ful English. But it was oh so good for me to have some friends.
I spent the whole day there and we planned a weekend together in Antigua set to take place the following weekend.
It was my friend Antonio's birthday on Friday so we all met up on Thursday evening at a favorite little guesthouse called Casa de la Estella. We ate delicious pupusas, drank some beer and just enjoyed each others' company. Nick and Sarah (some great new friends from NC) were heading to Honduras Saturday and invited me to come along. The bus fare was $7 and the ride was only 5 hours so I figured, why not go to Honduras for a day?
We left at 4am Saturday morning and arrived before noon. It was hotter than Hades and we were a little dazed from lack of sleep and sluggish from the heat. We found a cheap place to stay and walked by a plaza filled with white cowboy hats attending a May Day celebration. We mostly just napped and chatted and then I left the next morning and returned to Calderas.
I was in serious need of friend and freedom time but in some ways it made going back to slop-paced country life without friends real hard. But it was worth it.

Parasitos!?

Hey folks and friends. I have found myself here in Antigua with a lot of time to spare while waiting for fecal exam results. I may have parasites. Don't worry its not like before, no dehydrating rear end explosions, just a consistent dull abdominal pain and some serious gas. I thought I would be safe and get checked out while I'm here and medical care is real cheap-free.

On the lighter side, I have some time to blog. A suppose a lot has happened since I last wrote words on the blog. There have been a total of 6 births in Calderas since I have arrived. Unfortunately, 3 of those 6 ended up with cesareans in the hospital. I has been challenging at times to have differing opinions about the birth process than Eulalia. Two of the three sections, in my mind, were relatively normal births that were just taking a long time. I think that I would have probably been less upset about these decisions to go to the hospital if the situation at the public hospital were different. The women are not allowed to have anyone with them and, if it is not an "emergency" (which can be disputable), all laboring women wait for a bed in one big waiting room together with only plastic or metal chairs to sit it. On average women wait 12-24 hours to get seen or to get operated on. During this time there is not sufficient staff to attend to them. One of the women told us later that she was waiting next to a woman whose baby had died inside of her 3 days earlier and she was waiting to get it taken out of her. This same woman received a tubal ligation after her c-section and I don't this I have ever seen such a poor suture job. The sutures were incomplete and sloppy and a piece of pink flesh was protruding from there the incision was not closed all the way. The incision itself was 10-12 inches long which is completely unnecessary for either procedure. This would have been a easy-win medical malpractice suit in the states but here if you are poor and a woman, you have no rights. That's all I will rant on that topic.

I have had a lot of down-time...a whole lot of it. As I have previously posted, I have been playing guitar and tejiendo (weaving) but there are some days I get some serious cabin fever. I guess babies aren't born everyday in a rural mountain community and there isn't much I can do about it.

music time in calderas

Abramcito on the guitar

La Banda

Badass Loncho

I have bought a guitar to pass the time. It has become my new best friend. I've been learning how to play songs I love and having jam sessions with the kids. Here are some photos from music time.

fotos!

tejer

This is where i live: San Jose Calderas

catching up

so i have gotten a bit behind on the blog. since the last post i completed a week and a half of language studies in Xela. i learned a lot and i am really glad i decided to study a bit before my time with the midwife.
i was able to learn a bunch of grammatical skills that have allowed me to be a bit more articulate and have also helped my comprehension. i had a few opportunities to translate from texts and from oral presentations at the school. i was translating sections of Our Bodies, Our Selves for my teacher because she wanted to know more about menopausia :) it was a lot of fun and i made some great friends. Xela is a fun place full of so many luxuries of comfort such as raw milk yogurt, yoga, whole wheat bread, webcams, fresh peanut butter, used book stores and really great hot chocolate and coffee.
early morning April first i took a bus from Xela to Chimaltenango, Chimal to Antigua where i met up with Eulalia. Eulalia met me under a tree near the bus terminal in Antigua. i saw her walking up from a distance and new it had to be her. she is short in stature and rather thin with a long black braid down her back. she practices traditional dress of a long woven skirt with a colorful belt and a short sleeved emproidered top. her son Daniel and his children were waiting nearby in his red pick-up truck. we hopped in and headed to San Jose Calderas.
Calderas is about an hour to an hour and a half from Antigua and is only acessible from a bumpy dirt road full of stones and sand dunes....ok, im exaggerating, but it is impossible to travel either way without traveling most of the way in a dust cloud and consistently bouncing at least 5 inches from your seat.
fast forwarding a bit... i have settled in quite nicely here. i have a room of my own on a piece of land shared with Eulalia and three of her sons. They each have three children from ages 2-14. The kids have been my most faithful friends, always ready to play a game with me or have a tickle fight.
Eulalia has her own kitchen. it is a small block building with a gas stove and also an open fire; the best of both worlds. she is a great cook and loves coffee as much as i do. every afternoon at about 4 pm she looks at me and smiles and says "tengo ganas de tomar cafe." she says is is like medicine to her. im not sure if she means because she is addicted or because of its medicinal qualities. i think it is for the later because i hear her recommend coffee for a multitude of enfermidades. i have been offically accepted as a tortilla maker. i was schooled in hand made torilla craftswomanship last week and on saturday i helped 20 or so other woman in the community make hundred of them for a wedding. according to them, as soon as i learn to wash clothes better, i can marry. (they think i use too little soap but i disagree)
Eulalia is the town nurse, curendera, midwife and most anything else people need. she is pretty impressive for a 70 something year old who has had 10 children, lost two and a husband to the violence and has been catching babies for over 40 years. we get along quite well and i have been christened with the name raquelita, or mi raquelita according to abraham (the three year old grandson).
on thursday i complete two weeks here and i have already caught two babies with eulalia, felt numerous bellies of expecting mothers and listened to many tiny heartbeats. i am so grateful for the hands-on approach she is allowing me to take. i get to cut cords, clean and weigh babies, inspect placentas and all that good stuff.
most recently i came down really sick really fast. on sunday we attended a birth and i wasn't feeling so great. we came home and i went to lay down and started getting chills and a fever. the fever lasted for several hours followed by extreme diarrea. by 1am eulalia suggested we go to the hospital. she called a friend in the community with a car and he took us to the public hospital in antigua. i got hooked with the my first IV to recieve anitbiotics and fluids. apparently i was severely dishidratada. they kept me for about 5 hours and sent me home with the guatemalan equivalent of pedialite and some antibiotics.
i feel 95 percent better a day later and i am so very grateful for the existence of antibioticos and free public medical care. it amazes me that in countries that don't even offer public education past middle school still recognize the importance of public medicine. i don't even want to imagine how much i would have paid if i had gone to the ER in the states.
alright, that's enough for now but i may be back to antigua on sunday and promise another post soon. excuse my spelling errors my mind keeps getting stuck between spanish and english spellings and things come out in an interesting mixture. maybe that's a good sign?
love and blessing to each of you.

down from the mountain

excuse me for not posting very much over the last few weeks. i had little access to internet and inadequate time to blog when using the internet. this will be more of an informational update but i promise some good stories soon.

on friday i left the mountain school for one last week of language studies in xela. it was sad to leave that place and my teachers but i don´t think it will be the last time i will be there. i spent two weeks en la escuela de la montaña, i learned a ton and met some beautiful people. for my graduation from the mountain school i wrote my first poem in spanish and read it aloud to the group. it was the last poem i posted here on the blog. i apologize if you do not know spanish, i can translate it if requested.

this afternoon i start my first day of classes at PLQ (proyecto linguistico quetzalteco). the school here is much larger and the classes are 5 hours instead of 4. im hoping to finish covering all of the grammar in the spanish language...i know its kind of ambitious but i shall attempt to cover it all.

it has been interesting to see the changes in my language/speaking skills. i feel like i understand the language structure and grammar more but speak less fluidly. i think this is because i have noticed how poor my grammar has been and i am attempting to incorporate my new knowledge of grammar and break bad habits. this has made me speak more slowly and more thoughtfully which hopefully will carry over into my english :)

En La Montaña

Aquí en la montaña
hay piedras antiguas, sensatas y enterradas.
estan enterrada en la misma tierra
que crecen los arbóles, las hierbas
y nuestras propias piernas tambien.

Aquí en la montaña
el aire esta embarazada con la promesa
de vida y muerte
y la vida que siempre sigue cerca de la muerte.

Nos sembramos aquí
y sembramos esperanza tambien
entre mundos.

Aquí en la montaña
enseñamos y aprendamos
y cuando nuestros pechos
llenar del aire fertíl
reconocemos las raízes que compartimos.

enterramos nuestras diferencias
en la misma tierra
donde residen las piedras antiguas y sensatas.

Day Two

Today i arrived in Xela after a 4 hour bus trip through the highlands. What a ride. Guatemalan busdrivers handle an old school bus like they are in the Indy 500. The busdriver´s attendant accomplished amazing feats of human strength and fearlessness, jumping out of the back door, and climbing on the roof to retrieve someone´s bags while the bus veered around sharp corners at high velocities.
When we arrived in Xela I took a taxi to Hostel Quetzalteco. They give student discount ($3.50 per night for a private room). I went out for a walking exploration of the town and it was much larger and maze-like then I had expected. Needless to say I got myself turned around a few times and was very grateful to see an office for a tour agency where I found a map. Then I found El Parque Central and had myself an ice cream cone.
It is warm here but today Im all covered up. Yesterday I gleefully spent the whole day walking around Antigua and sitting in plazas wearing nothing more than a skirt and tank top. I wanted to soak up all the Vitamin D I´ve missed out on in the past year but instead I got real sunburned. It serves me right. I´m not sure why I thought I could spend a whole day out in Central American sun after a winter in Seattle and not get burned...
Tomorrow I will go to the mountain and start the language school. I´m looking forward to spending time out of the smog and horns of cities for a while. Thanks for tuning in. Hasta Luego.

Bien Viaje Festividades

For those of you who are in the Seattle area I am having a little get together the night before I depart for Guatemala. I am calling it a, "see you soon" party. The festivities will be at Watertown Coffee on March 3rd at 8pm- ? If you want to come earlier they have a pretty great happy hour from 4-7pm. There will be food, drinks (available for purchase) and ping pong (free of charge). Watertown is on 12th in between E. Cherry and E. Jefferson (near SU and my apartment). If you can make it, I would love to give you a hug and beat you at ping pong.

Movin' Along

Hello friends and family. In a couple of weeks I will be leaving Seattle for Guatemala. I will be attending Proyecto Liguistico Quetzalteco, a language school, for three weeks before beginning my midwifery apprenticeship. I will apprentice for two months and return to Seattle on June 9th to celebrate the union Cory and Shauna on the 12th. From the middle of June to the middle-end of July I will be roaming about a bit eventually ending up in El Paso sometime in August. September 1st I will begin the midwifery program at Maternidad La Luz for one year.Whew.
The next few weeks here will be full of farewells. I have decided to let Olive have new people care for her. Olive will be living in Madison, Wisconsin with our dear friends Heather and Mike indefinitely. This was a tough decision but I feel like they are able to give her a lot more stability and attention than I will be able to in the next few years. I will also be saying goodbye to Seattle as home and all the folks in my life here. The last six months have been full of loving friends who will be dearly missed: my neighbors Nikki, Chris and Viva, the mothers I have helped in birth and their new babies, my Co-op family and my new love Basil.
I will try to be diligent about posting has things move along. thanks for tuning in.

where have all the words gone?

I am in what seems to be the middle of a creative drought in my writing life. I haven't written a poem in months. This is not the longest time I have gone without writing but this is the first time that words are not floating about in my head, forming themselves into little patterns and rhythms to accompany me on my walks home.
I have felt as though i am mourning the loss of a friend. Perhaps this is a commentary on my last poem, "Oh Wonder". Well the plea is still pleading, return to me oh Wonder.