I Do Love Subcultures

The Palm Six at a Family Wedding

In India we showed you photos of the Arabian Sea, clever monkeys in our yard, and electricians climbing telephone poles barefoot. Now the excitement is Jayson getting a free photo shoot. 

My Grandmother asked on the phone tonight when my next blog was going to be...  When Grandma asks it is so very hard to deny her. So, the moral of the story is, if you need anything of me, just have my Grandmother call and ask for you.  Her name is Eleanor and she is wonderful.  Here goes the blog.  

I left off last having a series of medical dramas in the family.  And the drama continued as we were sitting in the cafeteria of St. Mary’s hospital (connected with the Mayo Clinic) in the first hour of six of my Dad’s open heart surgery when a phone call came through saying the doctor needed to see us.  Yikes, of course we assumed that they found something even more dreadful upon “cracking” him open.  But the doctor kindly said that after a series of consultations (some sort of high intensity scope and two other doctors), they decided not to open him up.  We were all a bit stunned.  Adding further to our shock, doctor said that this happens maybe once or twice a year.  We felt grateful, extremely grateful, to be in that very small percentage.  So, my dad was awakened an hour later and was told that he could go elk hunting this year. 

I must say that while I was at Mayo I fell in love.  I do love subcultures.  Any sort really.  The bird watchers, the Trekkies, hip hop, juggling, organic, Pokemon, etc... you get the picture.  Any group of people that have their own little code.  And my newest subculture love is the Mayo clinic.  You guessed it folks.  First off, who doesn’t love a whole gaggle of people in light blue scrubs.  Second, everyone there really knows their stuff, experts to the max, and there really is something lovely about experts.  Third, the amount of organization that pulses through there is over the top.  And I am not really an organizational junkie, but man, I was convinced that I must be the biggest dummy in the world if they can effectively do hundreds of surgeries a day and I can’t figure out how to get my kids to put their shoes in the one basket I ask them to.  (Full discretion, I really don’t know how many they do, but its lots.)  Anyway, all that to say, I did ask Jayson if there was any desire within him to go to med school... 

Within our current routine I’m finding myself engaging more fully in the present moment.  And I don’t mean to say that flippantly or with cliche.  It comes from a deep place in me.  I’m learning how to be more responsive to what is.  The high’s and low’s of unemployment/job hunting; the unexpected and acute emotions that come along with my dad’s health; living in a house of a three-generation, eight-person family; and having such a dramatic change from crazy India to near calm Bemidji have continued to impress upon me the gigantic amount of energy it takes me to just stay present for this day, not having a clue what tomorrow will bring.