For the Love of the Ordinary

I dream in 3x5 frames and microscope slides.
Hey, Self.  Don’t ever forget; this is why: . I won’t say that I have an orderly explanation with which to account for myself.  I have, instead, a slow and fast unwinding of eventual and irrevocable recognition. . Somewhere in the chaos which by and large defines much of my small world, I happened upon a particular book in the science section and picked it up for no other reason than that I found the title striking.  Over the next few days, I inhaled the text, absolutely fascinated with a world which I hadn’t really before encountered.   Here there existed a sublime alchemy; I watched that indefinable, fleeting thing at the core of what it is to be human transmuted into something which is concrete, which is a tangible biology one can turn in their hands to look on from every angle. . I felt that deep and complete enthrall of a beautiful idea and something somewhere shifted.  With all the vacuum force of a recently purged space, I took in, with a hunger I had never known, the mass closest to me, the material which had drawn me to this place:  the study of humanity through the small pieces of itself. . I threw myself into this science art and months fell by, all hungered frenzy and late nights.  In the midst of all this noise, one afternoon of no particular significance I had been performing some beautifully mechanistic task alone in the red-tinted darkness of my lab, when I suddenly stumbled into a pool of deep silence, clear and still.  Coming from a history of noise, of the broken glass sounds of anger and fear, this quiet was unmistakable.  Under the small animal noises and low hum of machinery, I had found that quiet which is always present on the other side of the frenzy of research:  the quiet of things going right, of something larger being made whole.   . I went home that night, breathing the knowledge I could live forever on too little sleep if I could always wake tasting this sweetness.  In this moment of exaltation, I allowed the entirety of memory to wash over me; so many smallest of drops, all necessary for the swell which had lifted me, gave me sight of the shore to which I swam.  Then, a small whisper:  this beautiful possibility does not belong only to myself.  If I were able to find my way to this place of passion and stillness, then I wanted nothing but to bring all of my family of circumstance with me, out of the dark.  I found a quiet joy in hours spent working in a womens’ shelter, working to restore the possibility of each woman, of each child, of each fragile world there.   . Tick marks in my mind, these small found things began to add themselves :  a hunger to be always more than I am, a love for the wonder of science, the peace I found in the quiet which is order and wellness, and the desire to make lives whole by returning possibility to them.  Here, I would like to say I heard that summation and drew myself to it.  True, instead, is this:  Thoughts of medicine crept into my consciousness and I found I was afraid.  I saw that road, that life and could only think that if I could be happy doing something else, let me do that.  Later that year I moved an ocean away to pursue what had been at the core of myself before stumbling across science and my life thereafter:  photography. . For a month or maybe two, I reveled in the purity of freedom.  I threw myself into this world with all the intensity I possessed, until here, in a familiar red-tinted darkness, I learned to define the particular brand of wonder I loved.  I photographed people in a search to touch the truth of them, trying to capture this into concreteness in the same way the ephemeral ideas about the physical world are spun down into tangibility through research and science.  I saw this truth and ached to return to the grace of science, the study of things too beautiful to have been built by the small pale hands in front of me.  In this place of recognition, all bonds fell away; I hung suspended by wonder and fear and frenzy and quiet. . Here, in this place, I dream of medicine, of beautiful truths made human and breathing in front us, asking to be made whole with possibility.  I came home to medicine with all the urgent vitality of a city in April,  animated in the warmth after a winter spent imperceptible and still behind the glass of windshields and apartment windows.  The story is finally simple:  here, I finally saw that in no place but medicine do the things I love so deeply collide so thoroughly.  Most true is this:  I found my way here, to this passion, through a quiet totaling of small things, mostly insignificant on their own; I found it slowly and not without uncertainty; I have found it finally, now, irrevocably.

Hey, Self.  Don’t ever forget; this is why:

.

I won’t say that I have an orderly explanation with which to account for myself.  I have, instead, a slow and fast unwinding of eventual and irrevocable recognition.

.

 Somewhere in the chaos which by and large defines much of my small world, I happened upon a particular book in the science section and picked it up for no other reason than that I found the title striking.  Over the next few days, I inhaled the text, absolutely fascinated with a world which I hadn’t really before encountered.   Here there existed a sublime alchemy; I watched that indefinable, fleeting thing at the core of what it is to be human transmuted into something which is concrete, which is a tangible biology one can turn in their hands to look on from every angle.

.

I felt that deep and complete enthrall of a beautiful idea and something somewhere shifted.  With all the vacuum force of a recently purged space, I took in, with a hunger I had never known, the mass closest to me, the material which had drawn me to this place:  the study of humanity through the small pieces of itself.

.

I threw myself into this science art and months fell by, all hungered frenzy and late nights.  In the midst of all this noise, one afternoon of no particular significance I had been performing some beautifully mechanistic task alone in the red-tinted darkness of my lab, when I suddenly stumbled into a pool of deep silence, clear and still.  Coming from a history of noise, of the broken glass sounds of anger and fear, this quiet was unmistakable.  Under the small animal noises and low hum of machinery, I had found that quiet which is always present on the other side of the frenzy of research:  the quiet of things going right, of something larger being made whole.

  .

I went home that night, breathing the knowledge I could live forever on too little sleep if I could always wake tasting this sweetness.  In this moment of exaltation, I allowed the entirety of memory to wash over me; so many smallest of drops, all necessary for the swell which had lifted me, gave me sight of the shore to which I swam.  Then, a small whisper:  this beautiful possibility does not belong only to myself.  If I were able to find my way to this place of passion and stillness, then I wanted nothing but to bring all of my family of circumstance with me, out of the dark.  I found a quiet joy in hours spent working in a womens’ shelter, working to restore the possibility of each woman, of each child, of each fragile world there.

  .

Tick marks in my mind, these small found things began to add themselves :  a hunger to be always more than I am, a love for the wonder of science, the peace I found in the quiet which is order and wellness, and the desire to make lives whole by returning possibility to them.  Here, I would like to say I heard that summation and drew myself to it.  True, instead, is this:  Thoughts of medicine crept into my consciousness and I found I was afraid.  I saw that road, that life and could only think that if I could be happy doing something else, let me do that.  Later that year I moved an ocean away to pursue what had been at the core of myself before stumbling across science and my life thereafter:  photography.

.

For a month or maybe two, I reveled in the purity of freedom.  I threw myself into this world with all the intensity I possessed, until here, in a familiar red-tinted darkness, I learned to define the particular brand of wonder I loved.  I photographed people in a search to touch the truth of them, trying to capture this into concreteness in the same way the ephemeral ideas about the physical world are spun down into tangibility through research and science.  I saw this truth and ached to return to the grace of science, the study of things too beautiful to have been built by the small pale hands in front of me.  In this place of recognition, all bonds fell away; I hung suspended by wonder and fear and frenzy and quiet.
.

Here, in this place, I dream of medicine, of beautiful truths made human and breathing in front us, asking to be made whole with possibility.  I came home to medicine with all the urgent vitality of a city in April,  animated in the warmth after a winter spent imperceptible and still behind the glass of windshields and apartment windows.  The story is finally simple:  here, I finally saw that in no place but medicine do the things I love so deeply collide so thoroughly.  Most true is this:  I found my way here, to this passion, through a quiet totaling of small things, mostly insignificant on their own; I found it slowly and not without uncertainty; I have found it finally, now, irrevocably.