L. Kris Gowen's Blog, page 5

The problem with primary care

This morning has been spent poring over data for work – interview transcripts that talk, broadly, about the primary care system in the US. It’s understaffed, broken and full of tension. To me, a lot of the tension, at least from what I can tell in my brief time studying this, comes from juggling the […]

We’re not alone

Trigger Warning: Relationship violence references. I put my rubber bracelet on, the kind designed to stand for a cause. This one is purple, and was made for a classmate of mine whom I knew, but not very well. I remember her huge mass of beautiful curly blonde hair, bright red lipstick, and thickly applied mascara. […]

A writing retreat

Trigger warning: Some acquaintance rape references in a research context. Yesterday we were fortunate to arrive before sunset. The sky wasn’t completely greyed over – an anomaly for the Oregon Coast in November. We drive to the beach and walk along the low-tide waves as the sky turns from pink to orange to red to […]

I am putty in my hands

Thanks to a recent(ish) TED Talk, I am now playing with the identity of “Multipotentialite” – a person who doesn’t really have one true calling, but is lucky enough to find success in a variety of realms. I say lucky, but also recognize the challenges of this identity. It’s hard to focus. While it’s easy to […]

Practice

This sit didn’t really work. I never went deep, skimming the surface of relaxation and the now. No monkey mind, more just thinking about things I need to do. No anxiety, but plans and deliberations. Still, I sat. My hips stiff, my jeans a little too tight. Still, I sat. My fingers and nose cold, […]

Six month review

It’s been a little over six months since I’ve returned to American soil, yet it seems like forever ago. I find myself feeling as though I never left the US – as though all I learned from being away has simply vanished into a different reality. Was it only a year ago that I went […]

Horsing around

I got off the bus several stops early to make my way back home. It was a great day for a walk; the sun was still out, the leaves changing. It smelled like fall. And in addition to the walk, I had another motive for getting off early. I wanted to gather some of the […]

A Day Late…

It’s National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo for those who embrace silly catchy phrases). My friend over at Toysmith reminded me of this, and I am going to try to play along too. One blog post a day — and I already missed one. Oops. This is going to give me a chance to get back […]

Singing New Jersey (#20)

We left the amazing bar in Pennsylvania for a two-fer; two new singing states in one nigh. But alas, The bar from my two states in one night was a total dud. We arrived at 11:30, and they hadn’t really started yet. The KJ and her posse of 20-somethings (they could have been younger, but […]

Singing Pennsylvania (#19)

Note: My “bucket list” is to karaoke in all 50 states. This is the first of what will be many posts about singing in the different places I go. I got off the airplane, landing in my home state of New Jersey, a.k.a., the Motherland. The airport was under construction, just as it was when […]