Creativity

I spend a lot of time using the analytical side of my brain. Reconciling medication lists. Keeping track of orders. Looking up algorithms and applying them to my patients. Keeping task lists and grocery lists. Staying up on my email.

I sneak opportunities to apply my creative side at work -- leading team-building activities, designing recruitment materials, developing interactive community outreach booths. But it is in my free time that I get to really let it out, and this is an amazing place to create and appreciate art.

I recently picked up oil painting, in addition to pastel painting. It has been challenging but fun to add this new medium.

my first oil painting

photo reference -- my housing complex in the winter time

This was my second oil painting, and actually one of my favorites, mostly because the subject matter was so beautiful. Like many of my favorite photos and paintings, it was taken from my backyard...

photo reference - rain clouds over first mesa from my backyard

my second oil painting

my oil painting setup

yes this is a real photo and I have no idea what made the blue searchlights appear in the sky, but they were amazing

and so fun to paint a reverse sunset with searchlights over a cornfield

I have my mother to thank for getting me back into art 3 years ago and for sharing an amazing art retreat with me each summer at The Clearing!

red ribbon run

I had one of those beautiful days today at Hopi and just wanted to share it.

It started with an early rise at 7am with my father and stepmother who were visiting to get ready to help out at the Red Ribbon Run -- a community event that I've been involved with for the last 2 years to raise awareness for Substance Abuse Prevention.

From 8am-9am I helped out with one of the Health Center booths for education about opioids along with two really amazing students who are rotating with us right now at Hopi. We talked to dozens of people about opioids and played a game sorting pain medications as opioids vs non-opioids and talked about safe use, storage, and disposal of opioids and all the non-opioid ways to treat pain to reduce the risk of addiction and overdose.

This is part of a larger, very successful community initiative for opioid abuse prevention. The students were so fantastic at running the booth that I got to do a fair amount of mingling and visiting the other booths and socializing with friends, colleagues, and acquaintances and nourishing connections. The atmosphere was light despite the heavy topic as it was also a Halloween Fun-Run and everyone was in some pretty amazing Halloween costumes!

After the runners took off, I went in to the hospital for a few hours and took care of our hospitalized patients for the day -- all wonderful people with caring, supportive families. I got to flex my brain on some interesting medical issues, do some teaching, and then made it home for lunch with my father and stepmother.

The afternoon was spent in the desert with my parents and overly energetic dog Talus, who finally got to burn off his energy playing fetch with my dad on the dirt road.

 I mistakenly left the house without water, and thought we'd be ok with it being a cool fall day, but 75 degrees in the sun got to be rather hot and we all got rather thirsty by the end. I showed off the wash and its crispy crunchy dried mud flakes, and we journeyed back in the heat with Talus soaking up all the shade he could find.

photo not from today -- but an example of the crispy crunchy dried mud surface of the wash

Walking back through the neighborhood, we weren't the only ones enjoying the beautiful Saturday and stopped and chatted with friends and neighbors a few different times before making it back and chugging some serious water together.

I went back into the hospital for a bit to catch up on charting and exchange some friendly banter with nurses and providers, and now am enjoying a quiet evening at home with Talus passed out on the couch (finally!).

One of those days that makes you stop and appreciate every facet of life and work here -- community, medicine, teaching, colleagues, the desert, the sun, and the stars.

reflections and a new year

In the Hopi traditional calendar, December or Kyaamuya, is a time of quiet, reflections and stories. It is a time to reflect on the past year and what you want to improve upon in the coming year.

I like this idea of a reflective, peaceful time. A time to slow down and do less and think more.

What has 2018 meant to me? It was a good year with much to be thankful for. A job that is invigorating, challenging, ever changing, and meaningful. Smart, fun, kind, supportive colleagues. Time with family and to explore the Southwest. And an incredible partner in life, love, and outdoor adventure.

In December, Wade and I took a quick 2-night backpacking trip in our 'backyard park' of the Grand Canyon. We hiked down South Canyon to the Colorado River and spent two nights on the beach. Such are the short winter days at the bottom of the canyon that sunlight only hit the beach for around 4 hours that day, which Wade spent fishing and I spent writing. It was a bit chilly but such a beautiful route down and pleasant area to explore -- including a waterfall, a cave, and ruins.

The view from 'Stanton Cave', one of the many places we explored from our beach camp at the mouth of South Canyon

Mid-day sun lighting up the Canyon

December also brought some of the biggest snowfalls I've seen here at Hopi. Yes, it does snow in Arizona. How much depends entirely on the elevation. In Flagstaff at around 7,000 feet, it snows quite frequently, and even more in the mountains, enough to operate a ski resort. At Hopi around 6,000 feet we usually just get dustings that melt within a day or two at the most. But in December we got a few snowfalls that accumulated and stayed and it was beautiful.

My neighborhood of adobe homes after a winter snowstorm

Hiking through the desert snow

Sunset colors peak and sparkle on the snow

And then January came, a new year with new beginnings, and a new outdoor destination. Wade and I venture often to the Grand Canyon as it is close enough to be our 'backyard park' and offers a lifetime of new places to explore. When we had a little longer stretch of time off together in January, we decided to take the plunge and do something different and instead ventured to a National Park in our neighboring state of California -- Death Valley. I imagined Death Valley as an big, flat, hot desert -- but discovered that couldn't be farther from the truth. It does indeed have valleys below sea level which are exceedingly hot in the summertime, but these same valleys are actually quite cool in the winter. It is also the largest National Park in the lower 48 states and includes multiple mountain ranges with some mountains over 10,000 feet tall, dozens of canyons, Joshua tree forests, and moving rocks! We spent a week there and saw all of these and more in a tiny fraction of the park.

We spent most of our trip in the vicinity of Racetrack Valley, an expansive mudflat with a few rocks scattered on its surface, some of which have tracks stretching into the distance, a record of their movement across the mudflat over time. For a longtime the mechanism of their movement was a mystery -- wind? water? aliens? The, in the winter of 2013-2014, scientists set up an experiment and observed how rocks move rocks move when sheets of ice form over a shallow water pond and are blown by the wind and push the rocks and the mystery was solved. 

an example of a few of the rocks with their tracks extending hundreds of feet towards the horizon

The view from a saddle on our approach to Racetrack Valley on our backpacking trip

fun with shadow pictures in Racetrack Valley

 The other highlight of the trip was soaking in the natural Saline Valley hot springs. It is a true desert oasis with palm trees, outdoor showers, and many soaking tubs with views of the surrounding mountains during the day and stars at night. The place is truly remote, gorgeous, free, and exquisitely maintained by the communal efforts of volunteers. We made our way there at the beginning of our trip, and had to make time to go back again after our backpacking trip before leaving the park.

 And lastly, both Wade and I got to see Joshua trees for the first time. The Joshua tree forests appear almost like something from a Dr. Seuss book, they are so different from other trees and each one is so unique in shape.

January and since come and gone, and now February is here, bringing me to Phoenix for an acupuncture training, another new beginning for me for this year. I've always been interested in traditional medicine modalities of all sorts, and this form of Traditional Chinese Medicine has started to get more mainstream recognition, especially in its role for pain treatment in the era of realization of the risks and harms of opioids for chronic pain. I'm now midway through a 6-month course for medical providers to learn acupuncture therapy and it has been quite thought-provoking for me around concepts of health, medicine, healing, evidence, and patient-provider relationships.  More on that to come...