Finding Nilimo

September 7th, 2024 We all know those people -- the ones who practically support everyone and everything around them and they seem to do it gracefully, without hesitation, without expectation of anything in return -- without condition. Those that people seem drawn to -- for advice, for a strategy, for just an ear (or two) -- magnetic, charismatic. Those people who seem to have this never-ending bandwidth to absorb the challenges of everyone around them, to support them, and to make the problems of others theirs .  Much like an altruism -- or at its extreme, martyrdom?    The ones with unassuming thoughtfulness -- maybe they give you a book you told them you had been meaning to read, they remember to reach out to you on your birthday, or they find a snack in the grocery store you said you loved and bring it back for the next time they see you.  It is often you before them -- on occasion, it may seem like always . You can call them at any hour of the night -- because y...

  August 4th, 2024 The tan lines left when you forgot to remove your watch in the scorching sun,  The stamp of your seltzer can in the sand before the wave has won. The imprint of the textured chair on your legs folded under your weight,  The feeling of fullness that lasts just a brief while perhaps after the last thing you ate. Short-lived, transient, reversible. The bus ride to school, the excitement of new notebooks and pencils, the anxiety of who to sit beside this year -- elementary. The communal locker in the other wing, the half-days before the holidays, the stress of finals every summer. The mornings spent at the library cafe, the hours between classes pondering what to spend your dining points on, the community you begin to become a part of -- college. The all-nighters before every exam, the post-exam festivities of a tight-knit class, the waffling over what we felt were big Life decisions. The first Cardiology rotation, the goal to just keep your patients alive ...

March 6th, 2024 Friendships of childhood seem so fickle. Fleeting? Maybe those aren't the right words.  So easy to come by in some ways.  A biology project in common, a shared less-than-stellar teacher you felt an allied annoyance of, the struggles of running the 1.5 miles on Fridays in P.E. -- they were connections made in proximity, united by something shared, at very specific points in our lives.  It's interesting to think about how quickly some of those friendships came and went -- how quickly you moved on from one another when you realized you were hitting those pre-teen or teen milestones at different rates.  And not in a bad way by any means -- it just felt like you were experiencing different things at different times and maybe outgrew one another at just as unpredictable a pace. It's interesting to think about some of those childhood friendships that remained and wonder why that is.  I think many of us can think about those that we've stayed in touch wi...