A Pink Tulip

So I’m sitting in Union Square, waiting to meet up with someone for dinner, and this young man walks up to me. He is holding a bunch of flowers. He picks out a pink tulip, hands it to me, and says “Thank you.” What? Thank you for what? “Thank you.” He walks away with a gentle smile on his face, his hands still full of flowers. I watch him walk across the square, look down at my tulip which perfectly matches my dress today, and laugh.

 Such a simple gesture. Just to brighten a stranger’s day. Just to make the world a little better place. Just a little reminder to be nice and to think beyond yourself. Just a pink tulip.  

Dancing in the Streets

I swear, I was just being me.

I went out to dinner with a few friends to celebrate Jeanette’s last night in San Francisco. Jeanette was one of my housemates and one of those souls that just clicked with me from the get go. So I went out to celebrate with her as we were walking to catch a bus home, she stopped on the sidewalk.

There were two older men playing some jazz on the street. That’s pleasant.

Me: Jeanette, what are you doing?

J: I’m asking him to play “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”.

Me: Uh, ok. [chuckle, chuckle] It doesn’t sound like he really knows that one. Ok, well, just have him play whatever then.

The moment lingers as the music gets going and my feet start moving. And my hands reach out to grab Jeanette’s. And before you know it we are spinning in circles, dancing on the street.

A small crowd forms around us. My skirt flies and my body relaxes and I just let my mind go free for a moment as I just feel the music and my friend’s hands.

And then some random stranger makes his way through the crowd and catches my hand, asking if he can dance with me. Well, sure why not? At one point, he picks me up and spins me around (is this for real?), sets me down and asks me if I have plans tomorrow night.

All I can do is laugh.

I was certainly enjoying myself before this stranger joined my dance, but there is also something quite validating in having complete stranger see the beauty of your spirit when you are just completely being yourself. I’m not trying to boast my fabulousness here, but I’ve got a small pom-pom that’s waving and a voice squeaking “go me!.”

And I can’t wait to dance again.

Cheese

Do you like cheese? Of course you do. How could you not like cheese? Well, I love cheese. But I’ve never been a “cheese person” so to speak. I like something a little fancier now and then, but most of the time, I think I’m being fancy when I go one notch up from the Kroger brand of sharp cheddar.

But then I was introduced to “Cheese Plus”, a fancy little cheese shop in SF. My brain tries to keep up with the conversation about the “grassiness” of this cheese or that before my mouth pulls my mind into a place of flavorful peace. Oh the wonders of cheese – the explosion of flavor, the creaminess, the bite, the crystallization (is she for real?), and the perfect pairing with meat, fruit, and wine. Decadent? Most definitely. Do I like it? Uh huh. Shall I do it again? I can only hope.

Haight Ashbury

The sun is shining. I’ve got a good friend on one arm. We are strolling down Haight Street, trying to imagine what this place was like back in 1969. We step into a tie-dye shop for a minute and take a look around. Back in 1969, this was a TV repair shop, run by my friend’s father. It’s gone through a few changes since then, first as a key shop, and now as a clothing store, and in twenty more years, who knows?

It’s funny how things change, flowing from one thing to the next. One person’s life walks into this place for a time, only to be replaced by another’s. The guy who currently runs the shop takes us back in time about twenty years when he first moved to the Haight. He reminisces about the families living out of their vans all along the street, people building a life centered around a purpose and with a productive energy about them. 

We make our way to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park, finding the Saturday morning drum circle in full swing. A dozen drummer, a couple dancers, a few people tossing batons, and several more just relaxing on the side of the hill. Fun, pleasant. But again, I wonder what this place was like a few decades back, with crowds of young people searching for a way to freely express themselves.

It’s different now. No more vans, no more families, just a few drunks and stoners sitting on the curb, not living for a greater ideal, not contributing to a higher purpose. Just a few drummers and a couple lonely dancers. Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy walking around Haight Ashbury, looking into all the funky shops, wondering where I would have fallen on the hippie spectrum back in the 60’s. But there is also a recognition that I am looking at the shadow of a place that once was. So what is it now? And where is the next truly revolutionary place? What is the next revolutionary idea?

Thank God for Moms

Sometimes life knocks you off your feet. Your world comes crashing down and you don’t know which way is up or down, right or left. You call in the troops to help clear out the rubble. But there is smoke all around and you can’t see anything in front of you. So you call in the big guns. You call in your mom. And she comes.

My mom came to visit me this weekend to help guide me while the smoke settled. And we did everything!

First Stop: Fisherman’s Warf

            It was a perfect day, so clear you could see straight across to Alcatraz and convince yourself you could see tiny prisoners rattling the bars of their prison windows, seeing freedom just across the bay. We walked for miles along the bay, counting down the piers, from one to 39. We went to Boudin, watched loaf after loaf of sourdough bread run through the steps of becoming that perfect, tangy sphere, and then we ate our own loaf, filled with creamy clam chowder.

Second Stop: The Orpheum Theater

            Les Miserables. Astounding. Not once did I drift off to sleep (come on, you know that happens at least once during a long musical). The plot was fast-paced (thank goodness my mom made us read the summary on Wikipedia beforehand), the music emotionally charged, and the night spectacular. And Happy (29^th?) Birthday to my MOM!.

Sunday: The Day of Rest

            Naturally, you can’t have a vacation with my mother and NOT go shopping. So off to Haight Street we went… straight to the best Goodwill ever! This place had style! I made off with a funky belt before my hatred of shopping kicked into high gear and I dragged my mother out of the store and towards Golden Gate Park. I finally let her rest at the Flower Conservatory for a little book time before starting the trek back towards lunch. French food anyone? Um, yes please. Scallop risotto? Pasta carbonara?  Uh huh. [Food coma sets in.]

Sunday Night: Brave

            What do two old ladies do on Sunday night? Go see a cartoon movie, of course! Now, the title and the posters conjure up images of a warrior princess, out to save the kingdom (or prince or whatever). No idea that this was a mother-daughter movie! Yuppers. All about a mom and daughter figuring out how to listen and learn from each other, and that is what saves the kingdom. Well, shucks, that was an appropriate ending to the weekend.

Thanks for coming out, Mom. I know I put you through a kind of bootcamp with all that traipsing around the city, but I’m glad you were here (and took charge of the camera!)

July 8th: A Day of Music

            Today is music day. I’ve got it all figured out… head to Hippie Hill in Golden Gate Park for a little drum circle jam, then bop over to Stern Grove for a free concert by the SF Symphony, all in a Sunday’s work.

            So throw on my hippie outfit: a brightly colored wrap skirt from Zanzibar, my knock-off Tom’s, and my thirty-five pound djembe (West African drum). Grab a bus and find my way to Hippie Hill.  Where I find no one. Well, expect those two guys down there with a guitar case and a dog. Hmmmm.

Me: ‘Um, hello. I saw your guitar and was wondering if you knew anything about the drum circle that’s happens here on the weekends? Sometimes it’s at the Flower Conservatory? Ok, let’s check it out.’

Hippie 1: “Hey, do you have marijuana on your drum bag? Yes, I’m pretty sure you do – look at the pattern of the fabric right here. That looks like weed to me. Do you smoke? What? Why not? I think you just need to get the right kind, see there is X type of weed that makes you super hungry that’s used for cancer patients, and there is R type of weed that gets you super high…”

Hippie 2: “…and I’ve got some purple weed here.”

Me: Um, ok. I had no idea the incredible variety. No thanks. Since there doesn’t seem to be a drum circle going on here today, I’m going to head over to another park pretty soon to watch the SF Symphony playing for free!

Hippie 1: “What’s the symphony?”

Hippie 2: “You know, the SF Symphony – great classical music.”

Hippie 1: “Oh. Ok, let’s go.”

            So off we head to the symphony. Of course mobilizing two hippies and a dog is not an easy task. A lighter must be found to get a good morning hit. And then some weed negotiations must be made since there isn’t enough purple stuff. But finally we get to the bus stop where I am educated on the art of taking the bus for free (ie jumping on the back and not paying). I guess I won’t mention that I have a monthly bus pass?

Well, I seem to have joined the ranks of SF hippies for a few hours, with my weed-covered djembe case, funky skirt, and new friends, riding on the back of the bus. And I just take it all in. A couple more hippies jump on board, there eyelids fluttering – clearly they found a lighter this morning – and start taking with us about which parks are safe to sleep in and which ones you’ll get your shoes stolen off your feet in the middle of the night by the homeless vets… talking about how the vets have a hay day on the first of the month but are trying to get a dollar off a hippie by the 5^th… talking about how to get signed up for disability.

And I’m just quietly taking it all in. Starting to wonder about my own views on our society’s safety net and how it’s being used. Oh god, I’m feeling this conservative twinge coming on… thinking “why should I work so that you can get paid to get drunk and get high, sleeping in the park and bumming free rides on buses?”…. thinking “there is no higher moral purpose to your choice to be a hippie; you aren’t defying the man, you are just abusing the system”. Oh, dear, what is happening to my liberal, socialist views?

I pull out my iPhone, losing all my hippie credibility, and check our bus route, making sure we get off at the right place and that we won’t be too late for the concert, given our detours this morning. I send and answer a few text messages, trying to figure out how I’m going to find my roommates at this big concert. Stressin’.

We get off the bus, find the main concert entrance closed, and meander around the park until I hear some music. Now it’s my turn to stop following the crowd of people trying to find another entrance… I grab my new friends and head off down a trail, following the music… and find the symphony, a melody floating up the hill. Check my phone. Take in the music. Look for a spot to sit on the hill.

And by some dumb luck, run into one of my roommates. And now all my credibility as a hippie is blown. My friend has on a smart little outfit with a fashionable purse, and pulls out a big sandwich for us to share. I feel my hippie friends’ glazed over eyes burning into me. Or maybe those are my own. Seeing that I’m not really a hippie after all. Unlike my two hippie friends, without cell phones or schedules, who just enjoyed where they were, when they were, and who they were with…. I worried about getting to the concert on time, fiddled with my cell phone to triple check the bus stop, and texted incessantly to try to meet up with my roommates. I was beholden to something other than freely enjoying the day. So those eyes burn into me and see that I’m not a hippie after all. I just dressed up and grabbed my drum today. Tomorrow I will go to work.

But for now, I will enjoy the SF Symphony, sitting on (read: slowly sliding down) a hill, peaking through the trees, and enjoying all my different friends. 

Welcome!

My name is Joelle and I am writing this blog for myself, but anyone who wishes to read about my adventures this next year is welcome aboard. This will be my free-flowing forum to write about my work, my life, and my inner musings.

I chose the title “The FACES of A Young Woman in Kenya” for a few reasons.

1.     First - My Work: I am spending the next year as a Doris Duke Fellow, working at a UCSF-partnered health facility called FACES. FACES stands for “Family AIDS Care and Education Services” and is a program located in western Kenya. I will be working through FACES on a cervical cancer screening project. Cervical cancer is the second leading cause of female cancer-related morbidity and mortality in Eastern Africa. What is crazy is that this is a highly preventable cancer with a very inexpensive screening tool! This should not be happening! So we have a lot of work to do to get this epidemic under control and prevent young women from dying unnecessarily.

2.     Second - My Life: I originally became interested in cervical cancer screening while living and working in Tanzania before starting medical school. I learned that women were not being diagnosed with this disease until the only options were palliative care at an over-crowded hospital a full day’s bus ride away from home or stay at home in pain… and die.  The regional hospital performed a maximum of ten pap smears a day. Not a single woman I talked to in the village knew what cervical cancer was or what they could do to prevent it. And honestly, neither did I; there were no viable screening options for these women in when they did know that they should get screened. The faces of these young women that I met back in 2008 and the faces of the young women in Kenya whom I hope to help get screened are what my life is currently about.

3.     Third – My Inner Musings: I hope this year to explore and learn about myself. So get prepared for some mushy blog entries (and feel free to skip over my random ramblings and get to the good stuff). So this is a blog about exploring the various FACES of myself.