Home

...it’s been an exploration over the past three years of my life. I am reminded by creative efforts and music the feeling of home. I have been working on “coming home” ever since my world got rocked a few years back. A time, where as mentioned, I had to look deep to see the light. I am reminded by this piece from last night that we can be a light for one another, and if we leave that light on inside of us we eventually come home. Come to meet one another.

Home: for so long, I looked outwardly for home. I looked to mountains, fields, lakes, rivers, snow, birds, and natural surroundings to give me a sense of home. I looked to towns in states that had meaning and purpose, believing they would be home. To each meeting, I found some sense of place and sense of purpose. And still there was this piece that lay open for me, this space that was to be filled with something else. Something greater than I knew and probably greater than myself.

Searching: some people seem to be born with home inside of them, knowing and ease that is just what it is. Other people search out to find home. For years, I fought that I was searching. In time, I leaned into the truth that I searched for home. Certainly, I did; and any of my close friends would call me out on it. I may be grounded and clear, but I still searched. I have found home in many places: on the coast of Baja where I said farewell to my Cajun Mawmaw and continued to teach surfing; the day in 1997 when I drove down the Boulder River Valley outside of Big Timber and knew I’d end up in Montana for one reason or another; in the corn fields that surround my birth place; on the porch of our cabin in Iowa; in the height of the San Juan Mountains; in the waves of the Gulf; amidst the varied landscapes of Oregon; on the road to Maternal Child Health and Midwifery; in falling snow and hot, humid summers; on ultra-runs in the middle of nowhere; in falling in love and falling out of love and getting to fall in love again; and in witnessing the entrance and exit of life. In all of these places and many more, I found home. I could continue to write a list on “home” and it reminds me how all the searching and exploring is setting me up for what is up and coming in my life.

A couple weeks back, I was on a run and reminded of how I was selected to present my research at the end of a long day because it would inspire. How quickly I tossed out that piece, “You’re last because we want to be inspired.” That’s some pressure, like a baby sitting on your perineum. Okay. I guess. When I was given my 30 minutes of interrupted presentation time, I took it. I feel now how this 30 minutes is playing out into the work I am and will do in Maternal Health and Midwifery. How I thought simply being a midwife would be enough, and it is plenty let me tell you. However, these 30 minutes began the construction of paving my way home. So home it is I go. This time, and this place in my adult life, I feel home settling inside of me. Something different than I have felt on my search in the past.

“Why not be okay with what you have?” one might ask. I am okay with what I have. There is this feeling that everything I am doing is still working or leading up to something; and recently clarity has set in. For a long time, I couldn’t put my finger on it even though I was being encouraged by my teachers and mentors. I have had ideas, man like no other. And sometimes I have been stuck like a tractor in spring mud. I knew I would have to get myself unstuck this time.

Home makes me feel whole. To watch fluidity exist in my life, right now, because of my commitment and a feeling of coming home is freedom to me. It is an open door to my heart, an open door on my path.

Every home has an entrance or walkway leading up to an open door. The physical and geographical location is one aspect. I come and go from so many locations, I have friends scattered everywhere. Most doors are open when I go, some have closed. All for the right reasons. In my body, I see quadrants of my soul. Recently, I have a strong and new feeling of home in the quadrant that houses my role in Midwifery, in Maternal Child Health, in exploring rural Maternity Care, in medicine, in healing, and in culture; and another quadrant of my soul that houses the joy from ultra-running and skiing through mountains, surfing waves (although ultimately I am still a huge beginner) and playing in my body; in the next quadrant I feel peace in sitting on a front-porch swing in the south or at the lake, just watching life around, watching James grow up, and the sense of home family brings me; and, in that final quadrant is my heart. It is the holding place of all that is abundant in my life and all that is thriving. It is the place of decision and it is the place I am caring for like a newborn child. I have a new commitment to home and the feeling of home in my heart. My heart had a few years of getting repeatedly broken and somehow I was able to apply the salve of my ancestors and all the searching I had done, and man has that salve been the best applied healing this woman could take on. I don’t know why I write ya’ll my personal explorations in life. I just hope it inspires you to carry forth with that feeling in your heart.

As I settle deeper in to my “home,” I know today I will wander off to my childhood summers, the drive to the beach from Pt. Arthur to Galveston, the Live Oaks, crabbing with my dad and Jen, the tattered roads of SE Texas, and my family. But in this office on a beautiful day, I now have to write my Letter of Intent for part of my heart work that requires additional education. Yep, more education. This girl will be a “doctor” one way or another. My ancestors are bringing me home and I never expected this home. Yet the light is on and I keep on walking into it.

Joining Hands

A little something in the works...

My steps into healing and medicine began when I was about 6 years old and had enough awareness to see the work my grandfather did. I was fascinated by his instruments, mostly by the stool that I knew he used to slide from a desk to a patient. I was obsessed. When my grandfather passed away, I was in the seventh grade. I hung up the phone after speaking with my daddy about grandpa and I said, “I will become a doctor.” My path to midwifery wasn’t all that straightforward, however. I began the journey out of high school to be a pre-med major. However, a significant family event moved me to head down a path of self-discovery. I quit medicine and explored education, wilderness pursuits, and the world of shamanism, yoga, energy-work, and integrative healing medicines. I had silenced crucial ingredients in my life from age 10 to 19: magic, earth wisdom, integrity, and a sense of wonder. My grades began to reflect that my desire to go to medical school was waning and my desire to learn to be a leader, visionary and educator was surfacing. I rose to the occasion. After 6 years of this adventure, the yearning returned. These six years laid the foundation for a huge leap I would take in the coming years. When I asked, I listened and heard the calling to empower and transform the lives of women and families through healthcare and medicine. But wait...I thought I was going to be a healer and the kind of healer that lives out in the woods with all her spirits and woody treatments. Instead, I saw myself in both hospitals and the wilderness. I saw myself in homes and clinics. I saw myself surrounded by infants and children. I saw all these visions and I continued to shove them to the very back of my brain where they would lay dormant until I was ready to awaken. Somehow, the adventures of my life from 1996 to 2003 mashed together and created what I am becoming today. In 2003, I applied to midwifery school. Shortly before the program was to begin, my best friend died in a climbing accident. I was asked to conduct and hold the space of the memorial service. During this moment, as snakes slid into our circle and osprey flew in circles above I learned about the true meaning of the word “Midwife.”

Midwife, phonetically, means “with woman.” It was an expert in education who reminded me that we can be more than just a midwife to the parturient woman. He reminded me to be a midwife to my students, a midwife to the dying and mourning, and most important a midwife to myself. I am one of the fortunate women and men who have studied Midwifery and have become licensed as a Midwife. This work is extraordinary. It is a profession, in the United States, that has been pushed to the bottom of the totem pole even though we fly to tall heights for our patients. It is a profession that compromises relationships, social adventures, birthday parties and sometimes love-making because the phone rings and you hear your client is having contractions 2 to 3 minutes apart and feeling lots of pressure. Commonly, you then have to get your assistants and students lined up, all while brushing your teeth and getting ready for the “day.” As one friend said, “You just miss out on so many things.” I don’t see my job that way. I see it as the opportunity to leave the mundane rituals of our human existence to move along side with a woman in labor; and when the activity of labor presents I am there to make sure everything is birthed safely and as intuitively as the agreement made between mother and baby before the birth begins. And when that agreement is meant to draw in the attendant and challenge them, I am there with all my education and training to act as a health care professional and make sure both mom and baby are “born” safely.

I chose the profession of midwifery over obstetrics because it matched my beliefs in women, birth and health care. I see pregnancy and birth as an opportunity to grow and learn, rather than an illness and condition. I am trained and educated to recognize and work with complications, however the mother is not a complication to me nor is the baby inside her womb until she presents with a complication and needs medical attention. I see pregnancy as a magical time. At birth is when we become the gatekeepers, whether you wear the acronym of CPM, CNM, MD, Ob/Gyn. I still see birth as a magical event. In this country, where 1 in every 5,600 mothers giving birth unfortunately dies-we the gatekeepers are here to change that issue and see to these numbers improving. It is our job people, our job to make this number fewer and fewer each MINUTE. Each minute.

A new chapter began today, started gestating a couple months ago. As I slowly grow into this new chapter in Midwifery and Maternal/Child Health I will do my best to be a better writer. To keep you informed. However, if you are a Midwife, a Doctor, or a Momma carrying her child inside or in her arms, or a poppa loving your family-do your best today to find your strongest vision, your strongest point in which to take care of the women that surround you, the women that make community, the women that we need to hold in life. Find it, write it here, write is somewhere else. Just make sure it matters to you, to your highest self and create what is yours. Again, CREATE it with all your heart.