New Frontiers

You and I have spoken all these words, but as for the way
we have to go, words

are no preparation. There is no getting ready, other than
grace. My faults

have stayed hidden. One might call that a preparation!
I have one small drop

of knowing in my soul. Let it dissolve in your ocean.
There are so many threats to it.

Inside each of us, there’s continual autumn. Our leaves
fall and are blown outover the water.

A crow sits in the blackened limbs and talks
about what’s gone. Then

your generosity returns: spring, moisture, intelligence, the
scent of hyacinth and rose

and cypress. Joseph is back! And if you don’t feel in
yourself the freshness of

Joseph, be Jacob! Weep and then smile. Don’t pretend to know
something you haven’t experienced.

There’s a necessary dying, and then Jesus is breathing again.
Very little grows on jagged

rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up
where you are. You’ve been

stony for too many years. Try something different. Surrender.
-A Necessary Autumn Inside Each, by Rumi

Hi,

Welcome to the new blog. I’m sorry if you’re upset because you liked the old one. I kept the name the same so you don’t get confused, but also I couldn’t think of a better one. I might still post to the old one from time to time, but the next little while I’ll be on here. Why, you ask? Well, I got a new job at MSF aka Medecins Sans Frontieres aka Doctors Without Boarders (MSF rolls off the tongue better than DWB, no?) and so I’m not really independently traveling…at all. But I am abroad and cut off from a lot of the world a lot of the time, so a blog still seemed like a good idea. Still, things are going to be a little different this time around (Baby, I swear!). A few guidelines:

As you can see, this blog is private, you can’t view it unless I invite you. Please do not give out the password to anyone without asking me first and DO NOT under any circumstances copy and paste bits of entries in emails to friends or anywhere else. Security situations fluctuate from location to location, but overall this is the best policy. These days, everybody has internet access, and MSF operates in situations that are politically and socially delicate, so even seemingly harmless information could potentially cause a lot of trouble in the wrong hands. Security aside, as I now represent an organization whose bottom line is impartiality, any insinuation otherwise could compromise our ability to help people. So don’t take little Sanjay’s measles vaccination away, ok?

Now on to the good stuff. When I was a kid, there was a short summer camp run through my church for kids with mental and physical disabilities. I clearly remember wanting to volunteer there, I think one of my babysitters had done it and for some reason I don’t know, I really wanted to do it to. The catch is that you had to be at least 14 to be a counselor. I waited impatiently for a couple of years, but I honestly remember thinking it was one of the coolest things about turning 14, knowing that that summer I could go. And I loved it. I did it the following few summers as well, but it was in Texas, and once I’d gone to college and vowed never to return—which was silly—it seemed unfeasible. But I still wanted to do this kind of work and having been in New York a whole year, I was antsy. So I signed up to work the summer after my freshman year as a camp counselor in California for several months, working with kids and adults in the middle of the Redwood Forrest. This, of course, was awesome. Aside from loving what I was doing, I met another breed of human who’d come to work there, the traveler. Many of my co-staff were recruited from all over the world, just working there for the summer as they traversed the US and who knows where else. All ages, single people, couples, and from all over the place just…passing through. I’d traveled with my family up to then, but I don’t think it had ever really crossed my mind to travel as like, a thing. And it wasn’t until meeting people who were actively doing it that I began to understand the way it worked and more importantly, that it did work. In a big way, I was already doing it. I mean, I did manage to get myself to California, didn’t I? I started taking small trips alone, and after college, a big one. Then another. Then, just under 3 years ago, I was somewhere in India, sitting on the rocks of a cliff overlooking the ocean at sunset and thought to myself, “Wow. I am so poor.”

When you travel, you of course meet other people who are doing the same thing and for me one of the first questions is always, ‘how do you do it?’ The answer varies from person to person, but ultimately if it is your priority, you will find a way. And that’s all I can tell you. You just can. Up to then, I’d found a way, but not a sustainable one. It was in India that I decided I needed to learn a trade; one that I could work in different countries or one I could work in the US and save enough to make voyages and then come back and start all over again in an industry that doesn’t care as much about employment gaps. Furthermore, I decided auto mechanic was the trade for me because I personally felt that it offered the most in terms of what I was interested in learning, and it segued into a number of different areas I could expand upon–mechanical, electrical, design, physical theory etc. Fast forward a couple of years. I have completed school and someone hired me. It wasn’t what I had in mind: it’s a very ‘career’ type job with a 40 hour work week, a big company, benefits, the whole shabang. I thought to myself, “Man, 6 months from now I’ll have all the money and knowledge I need and I’ll be outta here.” But a big surprise awaited me: I loved the work. I wanted to be there at 6am and spend 8 hours a day getting my hands dirty. Even though I’d gone to school for the theory, I was still so green. I soaked up information like a sponge–automotive systems, diagnosis, all the bad words in Spanish you could imagine. And I loved the environment, the airport, the guys I worked with…it was just a really good place for me. It was then I realized that mechanics was not a means to an end for me, it was what I wanted to be doing. And I have to tell you, it was very hard to leave. I still feel so far from fully competent, and I lose sleep over how much I miss my co-workers.

And leaving New York was especially difficult because this was a different kind of leaving than I’ve done before, because this is a job. It is sustainable. It offers the opportunity to help people, to travel, and to spend my days as a grease monkey. It takes many of the seemingly disparate small accomplishments and passions of my life and gives them a breath of purpose. I’m not going to say it is the end of my ciruitous career hunt because as you know, I have yet to live out my dream(s) of becoming a dolphin trainer, smoke jumper, or particle physicist…but I think it is a very good thing. Although, with this unparalleled opportunity came the caveat of unparalleled sacrifice of the stable life I’ve cultivated for the last 2 years or so. And I’m still not sure how I feel about that.

The application process for MSF took forever at first, and then began to move at the speed of lightening. It took nearly 6 months to get the call, and when it finally came, they initially wanted me to leave 2 weeks later. Where did they want me to go?

India.

So here I am. For a long time I assumed they sent me here because I had previous experience in the country, but the more I talk to people, the more I realize this didn’t factor into their consideration at all. It was a fluke. India just wasn’t done with me. I’m currently in Delhi, but I fly out Thursday for my first work in Chattisgargh (I’ll let you googlemap it yourself). In theory, the nature of my work has me moving around to a number of MSF’s project sites in India, but this is where the biggest need is, and where I begin for now. Internet will be rocky, so don’t expect too much communication from me or get offended if I don’t answer your emails right away. I’m going to stop here for now because this is longer than I thought and I just realized I haven’t even really said anything about being here. I miss you all.

Love,

Blair

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