Is it possible to change so much in three weeks? Because, you know, if my heart had a mirror I don’t know if I would recognize it.

And it seems strange, because this is not new to me—this cold, this bannock, this sound of a bush plane, these BP cuffs and insulin needles.

I arrived it Slate Falls, Ontario on March 15th, with 2000km and three hours of icy logging roads behind me.

Hours after I got here the community lost power and that night I threw up all over a strangers maroon carpet. By morning my stomach had been turned inside out. The next day, lying weak under the covers, I felt very alone and knew there was no going back, and cried and then laughed.

I’m glad there was no going back, even though the chicken in me whimpered, curled up there in the chilly bedroom.

This just feels so right.

I can’t even tell you why.

Except that when I stand in the dawn light, and see the lake stretching white, white, and the wood smoke laying across the pines, held low by the icy air, I can breathe deep.

And everyone laughs—the kids when they wiggle my crooked nose and the adults when I trip over things and spill tea all over the floor and try to speak Ojibway or take their blood pressure.  And I can join them.

Working at the clinic has been like discovering a part of me I lost. Through the urban healthcare education I had begun to wonder how my earthy soul was going to survive the 0800 meds, the white walls, and the schedule, schedule, schedule of unit life.

This, this is what I wanted when I started my first semester.

 When treating patients is more than following a Doctors order and a Kardex and you chat with them about their fish nets, and your assessment skills are suddenly your lifeline.

I love treating a child for an ear infection one day, giving him a ride to school the next, and drinking tea with his grandma two days later.

 I love having a tiny gravel airstrip be the focus of planning your day. When is the plane coming? Who is on it? Who is leaving? What blood work/mail/packages do we need to send out?  I love meeting it, standing in the cold with my moose hide mitts, waiting for the red mail bag.

 Most of my friends ask about loneliness and the isolation.
 
 Yes, there are moments when I would love to talk or hang out with my friends in the south. I get horrible late hours of feeling like I dropped off the face of the earth and no one cares.

 

 But I am surrounded by people. People who make me laugh as well as want to cry.
 
 I think one of my biggest struggles is actually being able to just get away and be alone–which is why I haven’t had the time to blog or tell all my stories.
 
There has been no time for writing—because there has been too much living.
 
Even now I am holding a squirming baby, watching moose dumplings bubble, drinking Red Rose, and typing with two fingers.
 
 From where winter still is,
 
I thank you friends for caring.
 
 I need to run.