Category Archives: love

November 17:  Elasticity Makes Me Better

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NaBloPoMo 2019

What was school like for you growing up?  Were you bored?  Confused?  Frustrated?  I had a pretty easy time, but many of my classmates did not, even the ‘smart’ ones.

In high school I was on the speech team.  One of my events was persuasive speaking.  I chose one year to advocate for teachers to broaden their teaching styles to match a wider variety of learning styles.  I used the Gregorc Mindstyle Delineator as an example of how styles can vary (mine is Abstract Random, go figure).  It was an interesting thesis and I sincerely believed what I wrote and presented in those 8 minutes each weekend.

Thirty years later, I wonder how much I walk this talk of meeting people where they need me.  Simply asking the question, raising my awareness, makes me better.

Parenting.  It doesn’t matter how many parenting books you read or how well you think your parents raised you.  General principles apply, of course.  But every kid is unique, and we parents do better when we realize that the methods we use for anything on kid #1 won’t necessarily work with kid #2, #3, an onward.  Flexibility is key to a happy and functional household, for getting out the door every morning without yelling.

Marriage:  According to the Dr. John Gottman, about two-thirds of marital problems are perpetual, meaning they will never actually resolve.  So how do couples stay together successfully?  Among other things, they learn to accept one another and work around the hard stuff.  At least partially, we have to soften our rigidities, learn to bend and sway, embrace the supple, intimate dance of commitment.

Teaching:  Not all students learn best by watching.  Not all learn best by doing.  Or by hearing, mimicking, or competing.  Luckily, medical education gives trainees multiple platforms on which to acquire the necessary knowledge and skills to care for patients.  For all its flaws, our profession actually does well here.  I’m happy that I realized this in my own experience.  When I precept students in clinic, they shadow, scribe, see patients alone or lead a joint encounter, so they can experience the work from different perspectives.  I think this mutual versatility and adaptability makes us all better.

Patient Care:  Over the years I have accumulated myriad articles and books to share with patients.  But not everybody’s a reader like me.  Not everybody wants to meditate or journal.  Some people do better with a personal trainer, others in spin class.  It’s my job to assess how each patient is most likely to succeed in health habit optimization, and present the most appropriate resources for consideration.  Primary care definitely does not work with a one size fits all approach.  So now I include audiobooks, podcasts, phone apps, and YouTube videos in my repertoire of medical information sharing.  I am blunt when it’s needed, and also gentle and diplomatic.  I can speak from the head and the heart, often both at the same time.

Speaking Engagements:  Here is where my elasticity has grown the most in recent years.  For the first decade of my career, I still used the expository presentation style I learned in high school.  Thankfully in 2014, I watched Nancy Duarte’s TED talk on transformative oral presentations, and then read her book, Resonate, in 2015.  Make the audience the hero, she says.  Tell a story, contrast what is with what could be, paint the vision of the blissful future clearly.  Engage people’s emotions and aspirations.

This is not easily done with Power Point decks full of words.  But words are my medium!  I had to add color, diagrams, cartoons, photographs.  I started making my presentations more interactive, between myself and the audience, and between audience members themselves.  Now I have people stand up and move their bodies.  I may bring raisins to my next talk and do a mindful eating exercise.  I need to learn how to embed music and videos into my slides.

What is the objective in all of these relationships?  It’s connection.  How do we best connect?  We reach out.  We extend ourselves to others—make ourselves relaxed, flexible, spring-like.  That is how we gather people closer.  It’s not formless or weak.  A strong elastic maintains its integrity even under high tension.  But it must be stretched often, or it becomes stiff, brittle, and ultimately ineffectual.

 

November 16:  Loving Subversion Makes Me Better

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NaBloPoMo 2019

Friends, do you already follow Seth Godin’s blog?  His post from Thursday stirred something a little irreverent in me.  It was about ‘allies and accomplices’:

To be an ally means that you won’t get in the way, and, if you are able to, you’ll try to help.

To become an accomplice, though, means that you’ve risked something, sacrificed something and put yourself on the hook as well.

We need more allies, in all the work we do. Allies can open doors and help us feel a lot less alone.

But finding an accomplice–that’s an extraordinary leap forward.

I thought immediately about my fellow Better Angels volunteers.  We have all committed time, talent, and treasure to the depolarizing of America.  We do it in public, in front of audiences and cameras, to reporters and members of our communities.  We openly challenge the prevailing culture of ad hominem, oversimplification, and overgeneralization.  We all come to it from our own internal optimism and hope.  But in the face of entrenched polarization and a culture of self-protection above all, we could never make any headway as individuals.  It is only together—as mutual accomplices—that we can truly claim and exercise our collective agency.

I feel even more buoyed by Ozan’s latest post.  He describes a series of well-known studies showing that people will organize themselves into in-groups and out-groups with remarkable loyalty, even around random and arbitrary distinctions like taste in abstract art.  This, of course, carries grave and important implications for prejudice and discrimination.  Ozan then points to two exemplars of the opposite, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama.  In their most famous orations (see links), these remarkable leaders speak directly to what unites us as the foundation for solving our problems, rather than what divides us.

MLK:  The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

Obama:  The pundits, the pundits like to slice and dice our country into red states and blue States: red states for Republicans, blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an awesome God in the blue states, and we don’t like federal agents poking around our libraries in the red states.  We coach little league in the blue states and, yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the red states.

I get goosebumps just reading the words.

It really feels like a loving subversion—of cynicism, scarcity, antagonism, and fear.

Who’s not better for that?

 

 

 

November 15: Smiling People Make Me Better

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NaBloPoMo 2019

Winter has set in here in Chicago. Oh well, this too shall pass. The kids were off from school today, so my morning exit was quiet and solitary. I drove along our alley, coming up behind on a slight female figure pushing a stroller. As I passed her, she looked up with a big smile and waved with an open, ungloved hand. She really seemed to look for eye contact with me, the unknown driver passing her. I had wished for the same, but had no expectations. In my pleasant surprise, I smiled back and nodded, one hand on the wheel, the other holding my coffee, which I raised in greeting. I had learned long ago that life in the big city is usually not this friendly.  She pretty much made my morning.

I’ve been thinking about it all day. How many times a day do we contact strangers? How often does a person on the street look at you, make eye contact, and smile? Or say hello? How often do you do this? Does it not just brighten your day, even a little? How does it feel when you pass a dozen people and nobody acknowledges your existence? The most fascinating is when someone looks at me, makes eye contact, expresses nothing whatsoever, then looks away and keeps walking.

I used to be much more judgmental of these behaviors and people. I may have even taken it personally in early adulthood. But now I’ve lightened up a little. I don’t think it’s about me. But it makes me wonder about people—what is it that closes us off from strangers? Based on people’s expressions, I tell stories that they are worried, anxious, angry, distracted, rushing, arrogant, oblivious, or just mean. I make it about them. But this is neither productive nor healthy. It just makes me resentful and less likely to smile at the next person I meet.

Every one of us is one of these things I listed at some point—I think I experience each of those states at least once every day. I apologize in advance if you meet me in one of these moments. So now I try to tell myself that everybody has a unique story of getting through life and the world. This attitude shift has done two things for me. 1) It makes me appreciate smiling people that much more. I notice the twinkle in someone’s eye, the dimples, the cheekbones, the sterling white and/or crooked teeth. I appreciate these joyful strangers and let their joy sink into me. 2) It makes me more, rather than, less, likely to look for eye contact with others. If you’re not having a good day, maybe I can make it better by seeing you and smiling. I do this especially when I see moms with little kids or babies. I remember those days (so hard!) and how reassuring it was when strangers smiled and looked at us lovingly.

That woman really did make my day.

Crossing the street on my way to the parking garage after work today, a car turned left in front of me. The driver had not seen me crossing until the last second. When we made eye contact I could tell he was apologetic. He mouthed, “Sorry,” and raised his left hand in a humble wave. I smiled that I understood, no harm done. Further down the sidewalk a couple walked quickly in the cold, coming toward me. The very tall man marched in front, apparently focused on his destination behind me. His female companion came a couple steps behind. I smiled, and she smiled back—big! She had on a puffy black faux fur coat, a stylishly coordinated black fuzzy hat, nicely coifed hair jutting out from underneath, and neat, metal-framed eyeglasses that complemented her round, friendly face. I think she even said hello. My mood was definitely better for having passed them.

I’ve been in a great mood all day, maybe because of these strangers.

I think we profoundly underestimate the impact we all have on one another, positive and negative, in our smallest interactions. A genuine smile from a stranger on the street can really make your day better. When you smile at me, it makes me smile back at you, and vice versa, obviously—but the best thing about it is that we are both better off for it. That’s how joy works, I think—it doesn’t matter who starts it. It just grows wherever it is, and expands exponentially with each person who shares it.

So here’s to smiling people. You make me better. May I always smile back at you and keep the pageant of joy alive and well.

November 8:  My Students Make Me Better

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NaBloPoMo 2019

Oh how I love my medical students!

Every other year I meet a new group of about 10 third year students, at the dawn of their clinical careers.  What a privilege!  I lead a monthly small group for a class called Personal Transition to the Profession.  I have written about this honor before, describing how

  1. My only job in this class is to love these students into the amazing doctors they are meant to be
  2. They help me see physician burnout from different perspectives
  3. Their experience of medical culture resonates with my own

Monthly group meetings are just enough to start to know any one person after two years, and then they disperse and I grieve the loss, just until my new group starts.  After ten years of stimulating conversations on professionalism and the humanity of medicine, I still feel anxious about my impact on these bright, insightful learners.  Did I do a good job?  Did I make a difference?  Did their time with me matter at all, or was it a monthly waste of time?

This June, I finally faced these questions head-on during a coaching call with Christine.  What are my strengths, what value do I bring?  How can I distill the central learning objective each month?  How can I connect more effectively?  We settled on some ideas for setting expectations and being more direct about goals and touchstones.  I instituted check-ins at the beginning of each meeting, something I should have started years ago.

This month’s topic was open; students were invited to write and discuss whatever was on their minds.  Blog posts and check-in comments resonated around words like exhaustion, sleep, and longing for connection.  So rather than delve into the content of their writing, I simply asked how I could help.  One student, ever honest and forthright, said, “let us go home and get to bed.”  The air felt heavy, almost forlorn… but not hopeless.  I found myself monologuing a few minutes about appreciative inquiry, and finally asked them, a little desperately, “What is the most loving thing someone has said to you this week?” and then, “or how have you felt loved this week?”

Slowly, small vignettes of connection, meaning, and hope emerged.  The student who wanted to get home to bed had received an email from a former preceptor, whose patient finally started and stayed on much needed antidepressant medication, which the doctor attributed to our student’s contact with the patient during his primary care rotation.  Another’s parents had driven into the city early in the morning to lend her their laptop after she had spilled water on hers.  Other students had connected with family members and friends, who expressed pride and encouragement.  Once again I was overcome with love for these young colleagues, and I could not help but tell them:  I have one job here, and that is to make sure you know you’re loved in your training.  I am not here to evaluate you.  You will all finish, you will all succeed.  In the time I have with you, my only objective is to hold you up in the process.  I made sure they all have my cell phone number.  I encouraged them to call me if they ever need anything.

Two students (and one’s wife) came to my house for dinner tonight.  It was supposed to be everybody, but I neglected to send a confirmation email so people weren’t quite sure if I meant my invitation last month (probably because I had planned for them to come over last month and then cancelled on them that week).  We ordered pizza and salad, I fried some potstickers, and we sat around the kitchen island with my kids, just talking.  We are all nerds.  We love to read, to learn.  S’s wife is a resident at my former hospital, and knows my friends there.  They have a book club there now, and this year’s theme is wellness.  She asked for suggestions, so I lent her my copy of My Grandfather’s Blessings.  She and S also borrowed our season one DVDs of The Big Bang Theory.

Our group will meet at a local restaurant after next month’s class.  We will plan (better) another evening meal at my house in the spring.  In the meantime, I will extend an invitation to each of them to come down if they ever need a break from school, a change of scenery, or just to feel a little extra love.  I have been where they are, and I remember how much I appreciated the empathy and compassion of my elders in the profession.  I still do.

How does this all make me better?  In medicine we talk all the time about the calling to care for patients.  But caring for one another, our colleagues and trainees, is equally important.  It keeps us and our souls whole, feeds us so we can keep doing the work.  My students recharge me, inspire me, and keep me young.  What an absolute honor to know them.

NaBloPoMo 2019:  What Makes Me Better

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My friends, it starts again woohoooooo!

National Blog Posting Month occurs every November, a 30 day daily blogging challenge apparently founded in 2006, inspired by National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.  I think this will be my fourth attempt, and it gets easier and more fun every year!

This year’s theme originates from a sense of both gratitude and anticipation.  Increasingly I feel compelled to do more, contribute more, help more.  When I look around I am consistently humbled by those who go before me, on whose broad and strong shoulders I stand.  So I dedicate this month to all of you.

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November 1:  Role Play Makes Me Better.

I was converted to the Church of the Necessity of Role Play in 2003.  I had previously belonged to Tribe of Full-Socket Eye Roll at Role Play.  That year I had the privilege of attending a Stanford Faculty Development Program series.  It was a 7 week clinical teaching program for physicians.  Every week we practiced a specific teaching skill, on camera, then had to watch ourselves and critique our own and one another’s performance.  Even though each ‘encounter’ was only a few minutes, and we were all pretending, it felt real enough to translate into concrete behavior changes in real life—for all of us.

Since then I have always employed role play when teaching motivational interviewing (MI) to medical students.  At first I played the noncompliant or resistant patient, and had students take turns trying MI skils on me.  When I noticed myself feeling defensive and belittled in that role, I realized what the students were missing, and how it could enhance their empathy.  So I started having them take turns playing both patient and physician.  That was an epiphany for us all.  When I attended the Harvard Lifestyle Medicine Conference MI session in 2015, I experienced yet another layer of important experiential learning.  In dyads, we not only took turns playing patient and physician, but we practiced both directive and MI styles of counseling.  The contrast on both sides of each of those interactions solidified in both my cognitive and limbic brains why MI is a superior counseling method for behavior change.

This week at ICCH I innocently volunteered to play the physician in yet another role play.  Little did I know what I was in for.  I should have seen it coming, as the workshop title was “Teaching Medical Students How to Deal with Challenging Patient-Physician Encounters.”  I, unknowingly, stepped into a scenario of recurrent asthma exacerbation brought on by stress, due to domestic violence.  I felt anxious with a circle of international colleagues watching, and also confident that I could enter the play encounter the same as I aspire to enter a real one—present, open, grounded, kind, loving, and smart.  The physician teacher who played my patient stayed solidly in character and immediately drew me in with her slumped posture, dejected facial expression, and barely perceptible voice.  And she, like so many victims of violence, was not giving it up easily.

I had to conduct a medical interview as well as a psychological one, at times alternating between them.  I wanted to get at what I suspected (first generalized stress, and then clearly violence at home), but we had just met, and she really wanted to get out of the hospital.  Her fear was obvious; but she held its cause close to her chest, like the rest of her, until she could trust me.  I approached with general words at first, “Anything else going on lately?”  I kept my questioning as open ended as possible, and tried to leave space for her to answer.  Nothing.  Then I confessed my own inner dissonance:  “I feel like there’s something else…”  When that didn’t work, I continued with the general history.  No other chronic medical problems, no surgeries; allergies that can trigger her asthma, but no recent exposures.  You have 4 young kids, a full time job, a house to take care of.  Are you partnered?  Yes, married, to Bob.  Pause; a breath.  Then, “How does Bob treat you?”  Pause.  Why do you ask me that?  “I’m asking about abuse.”  And then it opened.  How did you know?  “I’ve been doing this a long time…  And someone close to me was abused.”  Do I look like her?  “You remind me of her.”

She was mortified that I would tell anyone.  How could I possibly help, then?  There were longer silences as I, frantic on the inside and slow breathing on the outside, racked my brain for solutions.  The harsh reality eventually settled on us both:  Neither of us could do much about her situation in that moment, her asthma attack was resolved, and the longer I kept her away from her family the worse I might make everything for her in the near term.  We agreed that I would look for ‘stress management’ resources, and I would give her my phone number.  And I would discharge her later that day, back to her violent husband, who had promised he would never hit her again.

It was so real.  I was almost able to forget about the audience.  I was personally invested in the health and well-being of this one person in front of me.  I imagined if she were a real patient.  Would I actually give her my phone number in this moment?  Absolutely I would.  We had to start somewhere, and I was the only person who knew, who could connect her to resources for help.

After it ended, I felt pretty drained.  We had both been tearful at times.  I also felt proud to have gotten through—both the exercise and to my patient.  I connected.  And even though I had no immediate solutions, I had established a relationship that had hope for helping a person who really needed it.

I have not encountered this scenario in real life in a while—that I know of.

I hope I’m not missing something, somewhere, for somebody who needs me.  Yikes.

Role play makes me better.  It reminds me to always beware my blind spots, to keep practicing, and to remember the deep humanity of every person I meet.

Birthday Sock and Washi Love

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What’s the best birthday gift for you?  How do you feel when you get it?

I turned 46 last week; I am now officially in my late 40s, YAY!  It feels pretty awesome—what a great age!  I am a seasoned clinician, at a point in my career where I have earned some respect and status, and still have plenty yet to accomplish.  My kids are maturing, getting wise; we have fun and deep conversations.  I am, finally, understanding how to do this complex thing called marriage.  I know what I will tolerate from others and what I will not, and I stand up for myself better than ever.  I know who I am.

Apparently others know, too, and they showed me this week in the most loving celebrations.

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I used to wear the most boring socks.  I worried whether they matched my outfit or my shoes.  Then one day my manager gleefully wore the loudest, brightest striped socks to work.  Suddenly hosiery became the easiest mode of self-expression that I could exercise daily, with abandon!  Soon I discovered mismatched sock trios, launching my sock loving life to the next level.  Thereafter my socks did not match; they coordinated (but I did it less expensively by just mixing regular pairs).  These days I wear compression socks, but even they come in fun styles (I have no financial interests in any of the businesses linked here)!  It just brings me that little bit of joy each morning pulling them on, and then seeing them all day—a splash of color, a flourish of design.  On Thursday, in honor of my birthday, colleagues came to work sporting fun socks of their own.  We gathered briefly and bonded with exuberance, took a picture, hugged, and went, a little more joyfully, back to work.

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The next day, at the other office, I was greeted with a big printed sign, shiny streamers, and a delicate, hand-decorated, washi tape banner.  My newest colleague brought a huge box of assorted donuts.  Hugs abounded from all over.  And one friend wrote me a lovely birthday note—on one of a stack of washi tape cards I had made and left in the office for folks to use on each other.

I have a friend who always feeds me when I go to her house—whatever she has around, often that she has made—and she always has something awesome…  It’s usually sweet.  This day she went to special trouble to make a perfect dessert, which we enjoyed with coconut green tea while catching up on work, relationships, life.  We sat in her beautiful front room, afternoon sun streaming in, surrounded by books, leather, and special papers—all of my favorite things.

 

It was the best birthday yet, I must say.

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I wrote recently that we have 5 fundamental needs:  To feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved.  Over these two days and in the past week, so many people in my life have not only met these needs for me, but fulfilled them in the deepest, most touching and poignant ways.  Simple gestures.  Heartfelt words.  Slow, quality time.  They may seem small.  But make no mistake, their impact and resonance cannot be adequately measured.  I felt absolutely lifted, and my heart was—is still—warmed, through and through.  “Gratitude”, even rendered by the eloquent and wise David Whyte,  just doesn’t quite capture the whole experience.

Gifts like these—conceived from an intimate knowing, presented joyfully, and shared in generosity and love—make birthdays, both mine and my friends’, some of my favorite days of the year.

Out and Back: Coming Home

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Meadow Creek Trail, Lily Pad Lake toward Frisco, Colorado

When you hike, do you like loop trails or out-and-back trails better?

What metaphors for life can you make from hiking?

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Ptarmigan Trail, outbound, Silverthorne, Colorado

Out and Back

I used to think out and back trails would be boring.  What’s so great about getting to the end of a path and then going back the way you came?  Wouldn’t it be tedious and redundant?

But the more hikes I take, the more I realize how valuable it is to retrace my steps, especially on the trails with big elevation gain and diverse landscape.  The same path, going uphill and then downhill, heading north at daybreak then south at mid-day, is a vastly divergent experience.  It is a concrete, tangible exercise in perspective, if ever there were one.

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Ptarmigan Trail, looking toward trailhead from same point as above

Looping

On a loop trail, you get to decide at the outset the way you will go.  If you choose clockwise, you miss out on the counterclockwise experience—until next time, perhaps, when you get to choose it.  Or maybe you always go the same way?  That feels safe—you know what’s coming, perhaps?  But on any trail, especially in the high country, you just never know what you’ll encounter.  Time of day, time of year, recent events (wildfire, thunderstorm) all alter the path—you could actually never walk the same trail twice—whether it’s out and back (hereafter abbreviated “OAB”) or a loop.

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Meadow Creek Trail again

In life, do/can we ever really go back?  I’m reminded of the quote attributed to Heraclitus:

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”

Whether you choose OAB or a loop, when you arrive at the trailhead again, is it the same as when you started?  Are you?  And regardless, why hike in the first place?  What does it do for you, what do you gain?  Why step out from where you live every day, all the time?

Here’s what insightful writers I’m reading lately have to say about it:

John Gardner, in Self-Renewal:  “As the years go by we view our familiar surroundings with less and less freshness of perception.  We no longer look with a wakeful, perceiving eye at the face of people we see every day, nor at any other features of our everyday world…  That is why travel is a vivid experience for most of us.  At home we have lost the capacity to see what is before us.  Travel shakes us out of our apathy, and we regain an attentiveness that heightens every experience.”

John O’Donohue, in Anam Cara:  “Hegel said, ‘Das Bekannte überhaupt ist darum, weil es bekannt ist, nicht erkannt’–that is, ‘Generally, the familiar, precisely because it is familiar, is not known.’ This is a powerful sentence. Behind the facade of the familiar, strange things await us. This is true of our homes, the place where we live, and, indeed, of those with whom we live. Friendships and relationships suffer immense numbing through the mechanism of familiarization. We reduce the wildness and mystery of person and landscape to the external, familiar image. Yet the familiar is merely a facade. Familiarity enables us to tame, control, and ultimately forget the mystery. We make our peace with the surface as image and we stay away from the Otherness and fecund turbulence of the unknown that it masks. Familiarity is one of the most subtle and pervasive forms of human alienation.”

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West Overlook, Ridge Trail, Dillon, Colorado

When patients see me for their annual exams, I imagine it can feel tedious and redundant.  But it’s always fresh and interesting for me, because I haven’t seen or heard from them in a year.  And I’m continuously learning, so I often have new questions and queries to apply.  They may not think much of the past year, it goes by so fast; I get to be their fresh eyes, and lend them new lenses.  What’s the most interesting thing that happened to you since we last met?  What do you want to focus on this day we are together?  When you look back at your life a year from now, what do you want to see and say about it?  I feel like a ranger at the common trailhead of inifinite paths, checking in with my hikers as they loop and retrace their ways back to me, stopping to debrief before getting back on the road of living and growth, of evolution and development.

Mei lakeside July

Chicago, IL

Homecoming

I was born in Evanston, Illinois, when my dad was doing his PhD at Northwestern University.  We moved to Colorado when I was six, and for as long as I can remember, I have considered that state to be my true home.  I go back every chance I get; I savor it, relish it, drink it in with fervor.  When I return to Chicago, where I have lived for all but those 12 formative years before I came (back) to NU for college, it’s always with a gnawing reluctance, even a little resentment.  I never call it ‘coming home.’  Last night when I arrived at my house after a week in the Colorado Rockies, I did feel myself relax, ready to settle into life as usual.  But I still longed to be home for good—back in Colorado—my only real home.

That perspective changed today.

These last days I have thought deeply about my life path.  I’ve really only lived in these two places, these vastly different places.  Until this morning I thought of my OAB trailhead unequivocally as Littleton, Colorado, where I grew up.  My plan is still to go back for good someday.  But this morning on the way to church, as I crossed the intersection onto the NU campus, I felt at home.  We left our house late and drove through a thunderstorm to get there, and like a flash of lightning, I recalled when I came for my campus visit in the fall of my senior year of high school.  It had also rained cats and dogs that whole weekend.  But I’m pretty sure I wrote to friends at the time that it felt like coming home.  I was born here after all.  It is my dad’s and my alma mater.  I met my husband here during New Student Week my freshman year.  I’ve brought my kids here since they were born.  Our church here is my spiritual home, no question.

We were late today, arriving toward the end of the homily, in the chapel across the street, as ours is being renovated.  From the back, I first saw the silhouette.  Then I heard the voice.  Then I listened to the words—always words of connection, truth, service, and love.  I was overcome with emotion when I realized: It was Father Ken, director of our church from my sophomore year until I first became a mom.  He led my RCIA class for confirmation.  He nurtured my early adult development as only a pastor could, and has known me through inspiration as well as struggle.  I have only seen him rarely since he left, and missed his calming, comforting presence. Seeing him and hearing his homily today made it suddenly crystal clear to me: This, Chicago and my life here, are also my home, wholly and without question.

I can claim and love both—the places, the people, the cultures, the memories.  The mountains and also the lake; where my parents made their life and also where my kids are growing up.  Colorado is not the same now as when I left in 1991.  Chicago is not the same today as it will be when I finally return to Colorado.  Which is the Out and which is the Back?  Doesn’t matter.  Finally, after all this time feeling conflicted and divided, I really am home.

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Dillon Reservoir, Dillon, Colorado