Saturday, November 27, 2010

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...

Friday, November 12, 2010

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!