Miss B: Update

The topic again surfaced this week at dinner.

Miss B.

Once a central part of our pandemic household, Miss B has disappeared.

“I wonder where she went?” our 3 year-old Sihasin asked between bites of pasta.

A little background:

It was a few months into the pandemic and Sihasin voiced that she wanted to go to school just like everyone else. She was feeling left out, seeing her siblings logging in each day to a world of learning while she was left behind. So Nizhoni, our oldest devised a plan. On times when she was not in school, she would sneak upstairs, put on a disguise, and become Miss B, personalized teacher for Sihasin. Let me explain that “disguise” was simply putting on a hat and sunglasses. I asked Nizhoni if she used a different voice as teacher, and she gave me a look. “Dad, that really isn’t necessary. I use my normal voice and I still don’t think she knows it is me.” (First blog on Miss B, September 2020).

Miss B, the teacher of all things a toddler could want to learn, was born. She began to expand her teaching her repertoire. Dance parties, guest teachers, arts and crafts projects. It was worthy of me giving a Miss B update in March 2021.

Shortly after that piece, Sihasin graduated to her own school at the UNM Children’s Campus. She was beyond elated to wear a backpack and have a school of her own.

Sadly, the requests for Miss B receded.

What is a teacher to do without a class to teach?

Where does a teacher find fulfillment when not in front of students?

We wondered these same things. Then, while riding in the car one day, the answer came in a surprising fashion. Miss B had simply adapted like the rest of us pandemic-beings, opening a new chapter in her life…appears she had gotten married as well.

North or South: Who will we choose to be today?

After soft landings

And warm laughter in Bosque Beauty

We circled together

Bringing that good medicine from each other

Giving our good medicine to the circle in return

 

We stood and contemplated one of life’s greatest challenges.

To the south we see water, trees, and tranquility. A falcon greeting us.

We pivot 180 degrees.

To the north we see cars, exhaust, concrete. A “Sonix” tempting us.

Feet in the same spot, but these two views are worlds apart.

 

Which will we choose today?

Bosque Beauty or Avenida Cesar Chavez?

When we find ourselves turning to the latter, can we find creative ways to gently turn gaze back to the former?

Will we trust life’s gifts (e.g. movement, prayer, community) to help us turn south when we feel a pull to the north?

In these questions lies the deeper one:

                                                Who will we choose to be today?

For those who weren't there for our Running Medicine walk/run on Saturday, a little context for the above piece. We moved in a beautiful place in Albuquerque known as the Bosque, set by the Rio Grande River. We visited a patch of yerba mansa, an herbal medicine shown in the picture above as we got our medicine through walking and running. When we circled together to stretch, we were in an interesting spot. To our south, we could see water, trees and the Bosque Beauty we had just immersed ourselves in. And to the north of us, a concrete landscape known as Avenida Cesar Chavez. We stood in one spot, but contemplated together how the simple act of turning to the south or to the north changed our lens on where we were drastically. You are welcome to join us for a walk/run anytime - https://runningmedicine.org  

The Race Continues...

I have talked about finish lines a lot in the 18 months of this blog. Most recently, Billy Mills crossing the line as an Olympic champion and Weini Kelati in the race to become a U.S. Citizen.

There was also a piece in February 2021 about the pandemic as a race, one where the finish line wasn’t quite clear.

Skip to the present.

We felt we had just about finished the race.

We could almost reach out and touch the finish line tape.

We could smell and taste the sweetness of being done.

Masks started to gather dust, lonely and forgotten.

In May and June, I remember referring to the pandemic in the past tense a few times. I always caught myself, but at the same time it did seem that it was more and more acceptable to do so. All signs pointed toward a receding virus as life opened back to normalcy.

Like a well-written play, delta emerges from stage left, disrupting the stillness as the crowd (us!) gasps in horror.

Let’s sit with this for a moment.

It is hard to be so close to the finish and then have the race extended. I don’t hear people acknowledging this. Instead, I hear anger, fear, exhaustion, and people struggling. Myself included.

By recognizing how hard it is to feel that the finish is so close and then have the race extended indefinitely we can begin to accept it. We can then move to processing it. And once processed, we can begin to heal and move forward.

Putting on my doctor hat:

The patient: all of us.

The diagnosis: "3rd Wave Distress Syndrome"

The prescription:

 Recognize, process, and accept the challenge this 3^rd COVID wave presents

        Get away from looking for the finish line in these months ahead.

                Each day, do our part to keep COVID from winning.

                        Breathe deep and give thanks for the day’s gifts.

                                Keep moving.

Cicada Wisdom

 

We made it east for a late summer vacation.

Over the last months, we had heard the buzz about the cicadas (one bad pun per blog entry allowed). Every 13 to 17 years, these harmless insects come out from the ground to mate. Supposedly, the noise from these creatures reached an ear piercing 120 dB, louder than a jet aircraft or a jackhammer. People were posting pics, videos, and even recipes of cicada delicacies.

My mom was so excited, she had saved us a collection of these beautifully mysterious insects. On our phone calls leading up to our trip she would remind us that she had (dead) cicadas to show us.

“Great, mom. Can’t wait.” Luckily, she couldn’t see my facial expression. Meanwhile, my kids were jumping up and down for the opportunity to see grandma’s dead bugs.

Well, we didn’t see live cicadas. They were well on their way to burrowing in the ground until 2038 when they will emerge again.

But there was a curious thing we did see. Trees that looked perfectly healthy with brown ends of their branches. Being a New Mexican and a physician, I immediately diagnosed the problem as either a lack of water or some fungal/parasitic disease afflicting the tree population.

It was neither.

The browning of the trees was in fact a phenomenon called “flagging”. It turns out that the cicada females lay eggs in the smaller end branches of trees. This leads to a natural pruning of the tree and as the branch breaks off and falls to the ground, the cicada eggs get a free ride to the dirt to live for the next 17 years.

                                                        An example of flagging

I thought about flagging and what it can teach me and all of us.

Heading into a 3^rd wave of covid, we probably have some dead branches on the surface. We might be ashamed by how this looks to the world. We might even pathologize un-necessarily, thinking of these as a sign of disease, drought, etc.

Beyond looking into the mirror at ourselves, we probably notice some dead branches in the people and community around us. Again, eyesores that might make us wonder if all is well…or if all will ever be well again.

Nature, and particularly the billions of cicadas that came out to play in 2021, are reminding us that flagging is necessary, a normal part of life’s hum. It brings about new life, both for the tree and the insect world. Flagging helps shed stuff that needs to be let go of, dropped to the ground. And that seemingly dead branch that has fallen is actually bringing new life through the cicada it carries to its burrowing spot in the soil.

And this process of flagging is not bothered by the mega-quick Instagram/Twitter speed of our current world. In social media time, the dead branch would fall off and sprout new life in seconds. Our personal and societal flagging that will bring new life and new ways may be on a much longer time course, like our cicada relatives. Well, hopefully not a full 17 years…

The Power of Perception

Today, in heat and humidity in Tokyo, the men's 10,000 meter race will take place.

Let's time travel for a moment.

The year was 1964, the last time the summer Olympics were held in Tokyo prior to this year. 

An unknown American was in that race. Billy Mills, hailing from the Lakota Nation, entered the race with a personal best that was a minute slower than the world record holder Ron Clark who was the favorite to win. Mills had suffered discrimination and hardship throughout his life, including losing his mother when he was 8 years old. He reflected on advice from his father during the mourning over losing his mother:

"My dad told me I had broken wings. He said, 'I am going to share something with you and if you follow it, someday you may have the wings of an eagle. Look beyond the hurt, the hate, the jealousy, the self-pity. All of those emotions destroy you'. 

He said, 'Look deeper, way down deeper where the dreams lie. You've gotta find a dream, son'. It is the pursuit of a dream that will heal broken souls."

Cut to the race. 

Last lap. 

Mills has stuck with two other runners who are now battling it out as a trio. He survives being tripped and almost falling to the ground with about 350 meters to go. Of note, the American announcers on the call ignore Mills and focus on the other two runners (from Tunisia and Australia), as if they don't see him right there in the mix.

And then, out of seemingly nowhere and with seemingly no time left to catch up, Mills puts on a sprint that made the other two look as if they were frozen in time. 

With a few seconds to go, Billy Mills passes into first. He wins, the first American to win the Olympic 10,000 meters, and to this day the only one to win at that distance. Close to a minute better than his previous best.

Mills recounts something beautiful in these last 15 seconds of the race:

"As I go by the runner, out of the corner of my eye, in the center of his jersey, I saw an eagle. It was so powerful...back to my dad. 'Son, if you do these things, someday you can have the wings of an eagle.' I have got to do it now! Wings of an eagle! I won! I won!"

I go to find the runner with the eagle on his singlet to tell him that the eagle helped me win. I found him. There was no eagle [on his singlet]. It was just the perception.

I feel so strongly that perceptions can create us. Our perceptions can destroy us. We can choreograph our journey."

The power of perception. What we may discount as visions, as delusions, as hallucinations may be life bringing us to something bigger, better than we ever imagined. The eagle Billy Mills saw was as real as it needed to be. It allowed him to push to a level he might not have found and connected him to something greater. It displaced all doubt and uncertainty and focused him on the finish line ahead.

When we see that eagle on the metaphoric shirt in front of  us, may we simply have the courage to dig deep and say as Mills did, "I have got to do it now!"

Video of Mills talking about the Tokyo race (above) and a story from WBUR in Boston 

that was the inspiration for this piece here.

Room 11

We had a great conversation throughout the telehealth visit.

Maybe one of the best of my week.

John seemed to really appreciate our time together.

We got ready to close the visit, something I still find a bit awkward over the phone. No body language to rely on or to which I can react.

You would think Zoom would be better, but I still find the closing of a Zoom meeting or visit even more strange. You say bye, but you don’t want to click “end meeting” too quick, as this could be taken as your desire to get outta there FAST. Like in the pre-COVID world if you sprinted for the door.

But even worse is when neither party makes that “end meeting” click. You find yourselves staring at one another in a kind of middle school dance weirdness. Staring at each other, no longer in a meeting but also still there together. Staring. Awkward. Weird.

Back to John.

I wished him a wonderful day. About to hang up the phone.

“Doc, do I just leave the room myself?”

Huh?

“Do I just let myself out?”

Huh?

“I am in room 11 in your clinic.”

Huh?

In a COVID-ain’t-quite-done-yet moment, I had had a 20 minute telephone conversation with someone who was sitting on the other side of the wall, in my clinic. With all of my patients prior to John being telehealth visits that morning, I had missed the nursing triage paperwork that clearly said “Room 11” when it came to seeing John.

We laughed. John at me. Me at me.

I got up and went to room 11. We laughed some more. A hug and then I walked him out of the clinic.

We all find ourselves in similarly strange, awkward, and hilarious moments as we emerge from the depths of the pandemic. Meetings where we don’t know if masks are required. Events where we have to clarify if it is in-person or virtual. I imagine your weekly planner is as messy as mine – “9:30am meeting, in-person. Wear a mask for this one”.

Smile, don’t frown, when this week’s COVID-ain’t-quite-done-yet moments smack you in the face. This is our reality for the next 6-12 months. A good sign that things are returning to normal, even if awkward or embarrassing.

Shoot, it can’t be any worse than me hearing John say, “I am in room 11 in your clinic.”

Weini's Race

The day we met Weini, we knew she was a special person.

The setting was a UNM indoor track meet.

Weini Kelati, a runner for the Lobos had just set a meet record in the mile run.

She stepped off the track, caught her breath and then proceeded to sit with our Running Medicine youth for the next 15 minutes. Topics included Jo Jo Siwa, favorite foods and the reasons why we run.

Weini continued to excel, winning national championships in track and cross country. But she never stopped coming to share her energy and time with our group.

The day the pandemic hit in March 2020, she was prepared to win a few more NCAA titles as UNM was to host the indoor national championships. Teams had already arrived in Albuquerque for the meet, but the meet never happened. Facing uncertainty this fall of whether racing would happen during her senior year, she signed with Under Armour, joining the select few who get to run professionally.

Our Native Health Initiative had a chance to pay her back somewhat this spring, hosting her for her practicum in health education as she worked toward a college degree. In exchange, we had a professional runner hanging out with us, running with our youth in the Running Medicine program. Not a bad trade.

Two weeks ago, Weini has a week like no other. The U.S. Olympic Trials were well underway in Eugene, Oregon and yet she still did not know if she would be running. Not an issue of whether she was fast enough. Not a controversy like the ones we see play out in sports. The issue was the Weini was not a U.S. Citizen and would have to gain citizenship in order to toe the line.

Her 10k race was on Saturday, June 26^th. As of Wednesday morning, she was still a citizen of Eritrea where she emigrated from at age 17. In a flurry of activity, she was allowed to sit for a citizenship test and take an oath Wednesday afternoon. But it was Friday evening before all of the other technicalities were completed and she was approved to run in the meet.

We were fortunate enough to be part of her welcoming party in Eugene, complete with signs we made for her. Yes, we wanted to see her win but we knew she had already won with U.S. Citizenship that had been such a long process for her.

We were in the front row cheering her on in a brutal 25-lap race run in brutal heat. She dropped out after staying with the first pack for the first miles.

So, she won’t be representing our country in Tokyo this summer, but Weini has a blindingly bright future ahead of her. Excited to continue to cheer her on as she cheers on others.

Pic with Weini (far right) and another former Lobo Edna Kurgat 

(also racing the 10k at U.S. Olympic Trials), Eugene, Oregon

Video of our family presenting Weini with the homemade posters in Eugene the day before the 10k race.

https://www.facebook.com/runningmedicineabq/videos/170358651734724/

Washington Post article about her journey the week of the Olympic Trials

Weini Kelati becomes a U.S. citizen just in time for a Tokyo Olympics bid - The Washington Post