Written 5 days ago on the train from Minnesota to Oregon

24 hours to go, and the plains of North Dakota sail past. From my window seat in the Amtrak Empire Builder 27, scraggly clumps of yellow-tinged maples slide past, staking their claim on the seemingly endless expanse of flat brown grassland. Some cows now. Some abandoned cars here and there, rusting on the outskirts of stunted towns. Hills start to rise and fall in the distance, and the grey sky hangs over all. I stretched my legs briefly in the town of Williston, ND and was startled by how cold it was outside. Winter is coming. I am not ready.

At times I feel like my life is ruled by the irony of circumstances. Like how, in a train that is fairly empty, where the majority of people have 2 seats to themselves, I get assigned to share a row with a man who is going all 37 hours with me to all the way to portland. A man who snores - loudly. A man who, when I open my book to begin studying for the boards, points to pictures of people and imitates their poses for my benefit, seeing as with my headphones on I can't hear his comments. As if to say, "this person has their eyes closed - like this!" He was also kindly and generous and offered me sips of his orange juice and handfuls of nuts, but I am relieved to have moved. My own private solitary row. My own view of the cold yellow-brown world passing outside.

A nice long train ride is good for getting your bearings. You understand your place in the context of things, you understand how far away from home you really went when you left for college ten years ago. And that there is a lot of space between things. And how nice it feels to be anchored to a place, pulled in by the strong tide of family, of friends. It also gives time for some reflection on recent events.

My last night in St. Paul I spent sitting by a fire with my brother and good friends, watching heat lightening wip across the sky, warm storm-wind creating waves in the marsh grass around us. I saw the plane carrying my mom and stepdad fly overhead, oh precious cargo.

I think about my recent experiences in the Emergency Medicine program, many of them excellent blog content. Like how last friday I found myself spattered from head to toe with blood, my hand inside the warm body of a living sheep, my hand around its heart, squeezing rhythmically, prolonging the inevitable. Or how I stitched up the forehead of one of the members of the hospital governing board. Or how I saw a woman with a dangerously elevated potassium level resuscitated from ventricular tachycardia. Or how good it feels to poke needles in people and how surprising to find that I actually remembered that pityriasis rosea can look like ringworm. These are things I think about and hope that someday soon I will have the energy to write them all down. But staring out the window sometimes takes precedence.