My mind after 12 hours of USMLE studying

My mind after 12 hours of USMLE studying
my words
have been exchanged for a foreign language—
not one I ever strived to learn
but the one that I
-all of a sudden-
woke up speaking

I used its syllables to build the walls of my bubble—
layered hemangiomas over clue cells and
used sed rates as mortar
without a clue of whether what I was building
would end up prison
or home

And something else
how does a person lose a person?
like a penny or perhaps even
a lost pet
for whom
signs should be posted:

I left the door slightly open…
I left the gate unlocked…
I wasn’t looking and all of a sudden…
all of a sudden…
I didn’t notice for a couple of hours…
I was out of the house and when I came back…

Here’s a picture, he’s slightly bigger now,
some more lines around the eyes,
the smile more crooked from the stress,
a birthmark on the chin,
but still…
if you see him please call,
we could even work out a reward.

If only people were microchipped too—
just in case they were having trouble
finding their way back home...

Burnt Out

Is what I am in the last stretch of 2nd year. I'm struggling to care, to be honest... And whenever I get to that point I remember how much nicer life was when all I wanted was to be a writer, and how I never write anymore. And then random words come into my head, such as:

I’ve been shedding stories like fish scales, or perhaps
hair from the back of an animal
on the right season.
Carpeting the spaces that I know are yours
and wondering
if some will surreptitiously stick
or if their gritty feel on the ground
will cause them to end up in a dust pan
piled up among dirt and scraps.
Unheard.

My blog-- now the random repository for my 12 a.m. slightly less than inspired words. I like it!

My new friend

The above picture represents:

a. an attempt to make med school a little happier

b. Xavi's sad lack of friends

c. a way to procrastinate on delving deeper into the wonders of the pancreas

d. a and b but not c

e. all of the above

Foreplay and needles

What's new in my life...

1) I've decided moving to Brazil makes far more sense than med school. I'll become a capoeira master and/or beach bum and I will stop looking so sickly pale. (It all has to do with Ceu. If you don't know who she is, look her up)
2) Next year, I'm gonna be touring the NW. Kinda exciting, kinda scary.
3) A photo, just for fun:

Mami y Abuela

4) I've been trying to think of the way to write this. What follows is a first attempt. It'll probably change quite a bit in the coming days.

The needle didn’t feel good in my arm.
It wasn’t a movie scene or my neighbor’s life
Where a sharp stab into my vein would precede
a freedom from the pain,
But instead
I was being drained
3 vials worth or maybe 2
With a small sting at the start and end of things
And this was foreplay.

Ananda the zen bunny

I've been having a recent uprising of anxiety within me. It's like a little battle-- I try to keep it subdued, and every so often it says, "You can't keep me down, woman!" and uses guerilla warfare to render me helpless. That's what happened today-- it made me fumble through my ICM interview and not be able to really connect with my patient, it did flips in my stomach as I sat in the library, and then I attacked back with my secret weapon... The anxiety has nothing against the meds...
After the long day in which this battle took place, I came home and told Ananda (Sarah's bunny), "I passed a tapas place today and they had paella mixta. And you know what it had in it? Bunny!" She wiggled her nose. "Bunny, Ananda, bunny! How do you feel about that?" She hoped over to the side to my side and smelled my fingers...
Ananda is a zen bunny. I've come to realize that. And as a zen bunny, she is my new role model for taking life one moment at a time...

But what I should really post is this week's writing:

Neruda wanted to write his verses out of wood--
smooth
dark
long-lasting his
testament to Matilde a totem
standing tall for ages
I've wanted to write barefoot verses myself
slapping against wooden floors to a bomba
or
making crackling noises of leaves breaking under feet
a prayer to my ancestors--
who knew only a bruja and
sugar cane fields

maybe
I'd add the sound of breaths
blowing up latex gloves
(with the powder on the inside)
in the backroom of an office, me and my 2 brothers as we knew medicine
once upon a time
examining beds covered in crinkly paper and glove balloons
sometimes it still seems a more perfect picture

I'd add the smell of the ocean on a sunny day for Selina
who was once a name on a birth certificate and is
now a young woman and
I had nothing to do with that

My mom
would be a pinch of pride
the good kind and the bad kind
the kind that told people about her daughter the writer in the same tone
that she spoke of her daughter the med student

my abuela... that would be a hard one...
her verses would be the curve of an orchid and the
sound of running water and the
cool feel of the bathroom counter as she washed the street grime off my bare feet
(I still wash my feet in the sink sometimes)

and for me...
I think the taste of salt would do
not NaCL or perfect crystals
not hypertension,
a contribution to action potentials,
not salt as I know it now
but salt
some years ago
the one that clung to the skin of the people I've loved the
one that coated my lips after a day of waves
in and out of my sleep
and the salt that sometimes tells me I just can't deal anymore

Just salt
for salt verses


A note on the above: Selina is the oldest of my little sisters. I got to spend some time with her over Christmas break and, well, she's pretty much amazing.

Jannat's story

Tonight we wrote on death and dying... The rest is what I wrote.

I don't want to tell your story. I don't.
I guard it close, jealously, like the passport I hang around my neck when I travel--always aware of its weight on my chest. I know it's there but no one else should.
But it all keeps coming up and pieces slip out... you keep trying to take credit for your role in my life and I keep trying not to let you...
I remember you story in images. In a class once we were told that adrenaline boosts memory-- thus we remember fight or flight moments more intensely.
I think it's true. I can almost reach out and feel the stitches on your left eyelid... they ran diagonal...
There was an OR. I was told to hold your hand. I think it was still warm, it was tiny inside mine. A bag was squeezed rhythmically and, in response, your small chest rose and fell. Mila was crying, I remember. I wasn't-- but I'm not an easy crier.
There was a woman in a sari. "Apa," she called me, a big smile on her face. Don't smile at me. "Apa, where's Jannat?"
"Jannat more giyecche."
When in my 3 months of language training did they have the foresight to teach me the verb "more jaowa", "to die", conjugated to third person, past tense: more giyecche.
There was a graveyard, close to midnight, nowhere near Halloween. An imam was roused. I still don't know the Arabic that sang you into the tiny hole where you lay, wrapped in white fabric, the diaper and the bandage taken off. And the funny little glasses too. I wonder where they ended up--I wish I had thought to take them with me.
It wasn't til a year and a half later that I learned your name means Paradise-- when I was making sure of the spelling before it became permanent on my ribs.
That was my 25th birthday. I cried for an hour that day, longer if you count the few tears that slipped out from the physical pain.
My roomate thought I was crying over a guy, but I think I was just letting go of all the tears I buried that night. I'm not like Mila, I'm not an easy crier.

I'm so still around!

Hey blog,

How are you? We haven't communicated in a while. I'm not even sure anyone looks at you yet. I wouldn't-- it's certainly not the best way to get news of me... Anyhow, in celebration of vain pursuits and procrastination, I'm going to keep writing in you. And my material will now on be from what I write for my Mind, Body, Pen class which guarantees a weekly supply of writing which may or may not make it onto the web depending on just how crap it is... The up-side to this experiment is that my writing tends to make people laugh or at least smile. I admit, that 90% of the time eliciting laughter wasn't my intention but I figure you take what you can get.
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The first week they had us write on or using medical language. Neruda writes beautiful images of his wife's body, making it into solid, tactible objects, making beauty out of her plainess, and plainess out of her beauty. For example, he says, "My ugly one, where do your breasts hide? They are minimal like two cups of wheat. I'd like to see two moons on your chest: the gigantic towers of your sovereignity." That's my own rough translation.
My writing is not nearly as good as Neruda's, but I tried to make my own body solid and tactible.

My first year of college Devon, a basketball player who lived in my dorm said, "Xavi, you have the flattest belly I ever seen!"
"Really?" I answered-- my standard response when I disagree with a compliment.
My belly and all the Soto women bellies are round. They protrude slightly, convexities that spread from between our pelvises and ribs to reach their peak just below our navels. Depending on the amount of extra weight on our bodies, they jut out more or less and we classify them in months of gestation.
When Devon commented on my belly I was 18 and weighed all of 90-something pounds. Just weeks along, I supposed, but definitely pregnant-like.
The past 8 years my belly has grown and expanded from a mound of dirt to a small hill, making thought of Pilates cross my mind. A one monther. Round and pale and aversive of public appearances.

As happy as an earthworm

Since I've exhausted my pool of resources of people I can call to say this, I'll blog it:

I met Muhammad Yunus! I met Muhammad Yunus! I met Muhammad Yunus!

(not a picture taken by me but I figured people might want to know what he looks like)

And he shook my hand and we spoke bangla and he fell in love with me (or maybe I fell in love with him, I get that part confused).



It's made my week. Forget actors and musicians, I'm a Nobel Peace Prize winner groupie.