"Late Bloomer" - A writing drill - By Pete Ophoven

Hello everyone.
I've been practicing my writing every week with a writing drill.  This is week number 9.  I hope you like it.  The Facebook post at the beginning was where the challenge originated.  Thanks Blake for the inspiration.  Hope you dig it.

Pete

Late Bloomer

Challenge # 9:  “This morning the bus:  smells like red bull breath and old cigarette clothes, sounds like tinny death metal and feels like being hit in the face with jacket zippers.  Fun!”

Due by February 20^th by Midnight.

     Sinclair sat on the couch with his knees tucked together.  He searched for meaning in Doctor McGillis’ eyes.  Sinclair believed, as his father had before him, that to truly understand something one must complain about it first, and once all the complaining is through we are free to take action to change what we don’t like.

     “You see doc, the recurring dream started again.  No wait, that was my last shrink, you haven’t heard this one.”

     “We generally don’t prefer the term shrink, but continue,” Doctor McGillis was older than his beard and Sean Connery chin confessed.  He wore a plaid shirt tucked into the ‘A’ line and smoked a pipe between clients.

     “Right, right.  Sorry no shrink.  Anyway, so, I have this dream in which I am waiting at the bus stop and there is a concession stand.  You know?  Like a kiosk.  But the tall Sudanese woman is giving it away, coffee, yogurt, pastries.  Everyone is just going along like it’s business as usual.  I’m the only one that feels weird for not paying.  I don’t take anything.  Everyone else is chatting like it’s a dinner party - as if they all know each other.  The bus finally arrives and of course the overweight bus driver - always smiling - isn’t taking anyone’s money.  We file into this double long jumbo jet sized bus and, yep you guessed it, there’s a seat for everyone.  The place is immaculate, like this is the bus you ride to heaven.”

     “Is the bus going to heaven?”  The Doctor interrupts.

     “No idea, I’ve never really asked or wondered where it was going.  I always wake up before we get anywhere.”

     “Okay, continue.”

     “Well, what’s weird about it; obviously, is that there’s no methadone zombies or skit on the seats or homeless jugend.  Or even worse the hopped up 20-something with red bull breath.  It’s just so civilized.  Hull and Oats is playing on the radio, but it is being covered by Cat Power which throws me off because, well it sounds so good.”

     “What song is it?”

     “What?”

     “You said Hull and Oats, what song?”

     “You make my dreams come true.”

     “Hmm, interesting,” Doctor McGillis writes in his notebook.  

     Sinclair continues as he watches the pen jerk quickly, “it’s nothing like my ride into work this morning  - there is no music, only electric gears and recycled plastic chirring together like tinny death metal.”

     “Yeah, that sounds disagreeable.”

     “I swear this morning I sat where someone had pissed, or they pissed themselves and then I sat where they sat.  It’s one thing to step in shit or step in a fresh warm piss puddle, but another to try and figure out which person urinated in their pants only to realize everyone’s looking at you cause you’re sitting in it.  But they don’t know that!  Instead, they think its you that soiled your bloomers.”

     “In the dream did you recognize any of the faces?  See anyone you know?”

     “Everyone looks clean shaven except for the one’s that aren’t and they look totally normal, like they belong.  No, I guess I don’t recognize anyone.”

     “You said its a recurring dream.  Do you have it often, the dream?  Is it always the same, any differences?”

     “That’s the thing, I haven’t had it for several months.”

     “Do you remember when it started, the first time?”

     “Yeah, the other shrinks asked the same thing.  We investigated it for weeks.  I really remember it starting after my pet turtle Leo died.  It’s kind of a long story, but basically to pay for the cremation I had to sell my bike.  After that I started taking the bus with the rest of them.”

     “The rest of them?  Them who?”

     “You know, everybody else.  The other people I guess.”

     Doctor McGillis jotted more notes in his book.

     “After Leo died, I started taking the bus for a couple of weeks, I remember this incident on the bus where this young kid was swinging his hoodie around, I was in the back and he lost control of it and it flew into the seat next to him, the zipper whipped this woman and then got stuck in her dread locks.  I thought she was going to eat the kids face off.”

     “Cause that’s what you would’ve done?”

     “Hell yeah, punk kid can’t just keep his shit to himself?”

     “What she do?”

     “She folded it all nicely, you know after she got it untangled and then handed it back to him like nothing, you know?  Like it didn’t happen,” Sinclair watched as the Doctor wrote more notes into his book.

     “Well, what’d you think doc?”

     “Sounds like you need a new turtle…”

The End.

October 30th 2014 - Day 60 The Conclusion

It occurred to me in a flash - what got me to this exact place at this exact moment in time.

“Candice, it is unusual to me that I chose to go for a run on this evening.  I don’t do this, but tonight is a special night for me.  I realize that you decided to come out here and whatever the reason or reasons I’m here and I don’t believe it is an accident.”

“All the choices I’ve made, actions and reactions in my life could have taken me anywhere, but they all led me to you, here, now.  The shear magic of this fact is amazing to me, especially when I think that maybe, just maybe, everything that has happened was solely for the purpose of meeting you here tonight.  I feel it is a truth just as I feel all the tingling hairs on my body right now.  Do you hear what I’m saying?  How special it makes us?  How special that makes you?”

Her feet shifted back the slightest amount putting the soles of her shoes back on the ledge and not hanging over the side.  It was something, she wasn’t speaking to me, but she was listening.

“The past sixty days I’ve seen so much, and a lot that has scared me.  Everything culminated on this day and now I know why.  Every situation, every stop light, left turn, smile and cry has brought me here with you.”

She whimpered a little louder, her legs and body shuttered.  I looked behind me and noticed cars stopped driving along the bridge.  I looked down the street and the police had blocked traffic.  I hoped a boat would come through from below but there wasn’t any sign.

I had to keep her engaged, the police were coming.

“Can you tell me about your day today?”  I paused and waited.  She didn’t say anything.

“I saw two people today that I haven’t seen in years, it was the strangest thing.  Does that ever happen to you?  The universe was trying to tell me something,” a police car pulled up behind me with the flashing lights exploding the sky and reflecting from the water.  Candice saw it too and stiffened and looked down to the water.  I could see her face looking left and right, I panicked.

“Candice, I’m not going anywhere.  They are here to help.  Don’t be frightened.”  Two more police cars and then two more police cars, I looked behind me and there was a line of them.  Several officers got out and a man in a brown overcoat got out as well.  They approached me and the overcoat pulled me back.

“What’s the situation?”  He was thin and tall and reminded me of what a detective or lieutenant would look like.  I handed him her Id.

“Her name is Candice, she hasn’t said anything but she seems to be listening.”

“Okay, I’ll take it from here, I need you to give the officer a statement,” he pointed at an officer who was thick chested, stacked full of kevlar.

“Candice, I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, the police are going to talk to you now.”

Overcoat leaned over the bridge railing and spoke, “Candice, I know what you’re going through,” those were his first words, and I thought to myself, she is going to jump.  This was their special talker, their negotiator?  The big chested officer took me aside to take my statement.

“Name and address please,” he had his little book out and collected my name and the details leading up to being on the bridge.  I told him about the cab driver and just hoping speaking to her would stall her from jumping.

“Can a boat be brought in?”  I asked.

“They are working that but it doesn’t look like one will be available for an hour or so.”

I looked back at Candice and she was talking to the overcoat so that was progress.  I heard her asking for the police cars to go away.  Overcoat commanded they pull the cars out.  There was about ten or twelve police officers standing around chewing tobacco.  In a matter of minutes the ground looked like it was raining but instead it was chew stains.

“Okay, you can go, thank you for your help,” the officer told me.

“I’m not going anywhere - I told her I wasn’t leaving and I’m not going to leave her.”

“He wants to thin out the people.”

“I understand that but whatever the reason for her being here, she didn’t have anyone to go to for help.  I was here and told her I would stay, the last thing she needs is another person leaving her.”

It wasn’t a question and the officer backed off as I tried to make myself visible in case Candice turned to look for me.

“I’m still here Candice,” I stated in case she was wondering.  The police cars thinned and only a few of us remained.  I could hear her faintly talking.

“If I get down I don’t want to be arrested.”

“You aren’t in trouble, we are here to help.”

“Okay,” she turned her body and began to step across to the railing and as she reached, two officers and the overcoat jumped up and grabbed her and pulled her violently to the bridge deck.  She started kicking and screaming as they put her in the police car.  It all happened fast.  I felt sorry for her, although she was safe, in one way that was good, but in another it felt like she was betrayed.  I waved at her as she looked out the window, tears streaked down her face.

“So, that’s it then?”  I asked the officer who took my statement.  

“Yes, we have your statement, if we need anything we’ll call.”

I waited for the car with Candice to drive off.  I started jogging across the bridge towards Saint Anthony.  Adrenaline was coursing through me.  I felt as though my body and my mind were disconnected.  I had to force myself to jog, like I’d never done it before, I pretended that this is what it looks like to jog.

I don’t remember the last part of the jog nor coming in the door to my apartment.  I remember taking off my shoes and crawling into bed.  I tucked my knees into my chest and cried.

It has been several years since this happened.  A story I have rarely told.  In a way, it seems like the kind of thing you would tell everyone.  However, I haven’t.  Whenever I have told the story, people state that I saved her.  But, as I look back, I realize that the exact thing I needed that night, on the day I received my test scores, feeling confused and torn over what I was going to do with my life; like I’d failed the test.  But the universe presented a different kind of test.  Candice was there as much for me as I was for her.  She gave me the opportunity to see inside of who I am and what I am made of.  I didn’t need a stupid test to tell me what kind of person I am.  I stared into that water and decided if she jumped I would have too.  That was my answer and that is what I carry with me to this day.

I often wonder what happened to Candice.  Hopefully, she was able to find some peace.  I am not sure if she remembers any of that night.  But, if she ever reads this, I want to say thank you Candice.

October 29th 2014 - Day 60 Part 3

The Hennepin Avenue bridge curves and peaks in the middle like the brim of a baseball hat, maybe all suspension bridges do that, I don’t know.  This young lady had picked the absolute pinnacle of the bridge.  When I approached, slowly, I could see she was standing on the outer edge several feet from the railing.  It reminded me of the movie Staying Alive.  She’d found a place that was safe, too far from anyone’s reach.

“Hello,” I stated. I remained calm spoke quietly.  She stood facing the Mississippi river below making no attempt to communicate with me.  She didn’t respond but her body language shifted - aware I was there.  Her shoes were stark white like nursing shoes with no distinct pattern but very comfortable and soft.  She wore bleached blue jeans too short for her legs and a white puffy coat.  She had black hair cut at her shoulders and her skin seemed dark but I really couldn’t see her face.

She was whimpering with occasional moans.  Her shoes were halfway over the edge barely hanging on.  I felt that she was going to leap at any minute.  I focused on the water below.  The water stared back up providing no solace, it spoke to me and said it couldn’t intervene.  It was neutral, dark, and scary.  I realized the leap wasn’t far enough to take her life.  It wasn’t a question, it was a certainty, and in that instant I knew I was going in after her. 

Saint Anthony falls was no more than a quarter mile down the river.  Nicollet Island split the river with Saint Anthony Falls toward the East shore and the main body of the river toward downtown.  The city created an artificial falls to direct flow on the West side.  She chose a location not high enough for the fall to kill her, but the current would pull her down and drag her over the man-made falls.  Unless she was an amazing swimmer it didn’t look good.  I calculated the distance between where we were standing and the Western shore; it would be difficult but a ladder leading up out of the water, about 300 feet away, was the plan that flashed in my mind.

I was not going to watch her die.

“Can I talk with you?”  I asked.  She didn’t say no, so I took it as a yes.  I didn’t analyze, formulate, categorize, or quantify my words.  I just talked and hoped she would listen rather than jump.  I was convinced she was going to leap at any instant.

“I can’t imagine what put you on this bridge tonight,” she didn’t respond, just whimpered, “what’s your name?”

She waved her left hand up in the air and for a moment I thought this was it.  And then I could see in her palm was an ID, it was the only thing she carried.  She swung her arm and threw it straight into the air.  It flipped and turned like a playing card.  It bounced off of the railing barely missing the gap to the river below.  I stared at it resting along the concrete about fifteen feet from where I was standing.  I couldn’t just go, I was tethered to her, I was connected, if I went to get it, that could be the moment she chose to end it.

“Don’t go anywhere?  Okay?  I’m going to get your ID,”  She didn’t say okay.  I sprinted to the card and picked it up and ran back as fast as possible; my chest tightened as the space between us increased.  She was still there when I got back.  

I was at stake for her, there was no question, we were in it together now.  I read the ID.

“Candice, I will not leave you!”

October 28th 2014 - Day 60 Part 2

In 1997 I wanted to believe the maximum score on the MCAT was 25, but that is my memory altering reality to protect my ego.  Actually, the total possible score was 45, three sections that total 15 each and the writing sample (scored from J through T).  My score was a 17.  Not so low that it was embarrassing (pretty close though), but not high enough for a medical school to ask me for an interview; even with two doctor’s as parents (and alumni).  The writing sample was better, I scored a “P”.  Still not sure how or where a “P” fits into the rest of the score, nor how a medical school board would interpret it.  Maybe something to the effect of “well Tom and Jan, at least your son can write!”  I was fond of the 17, it’s a prime number, and the “P” is the first letter of my name, so in the end I could live with that.

My MO would be to pout, hold my head low and wait for people to ask me what’s wrong.  Very attractive huh?  But I didn’t do that. I didn’t want to talk about it.  It was a Friday night so I decided to have drinks with my friend’s.  We met at W. A. Frost’s in Saint Paul.  Dan, my good friend from the dorm days was tending bar there and we went to crash his scene.  The evening was mostly a bust because Kara brought a girlfriend of her’s that was very manic.  She was dancing all over the bar making a scene because someone had mysteriously paid off her student loan of $27,000.  She assumed it was her estranged mother that was trying to make peace on a lifetime of feuding.  Unfortunately, ‘manic’ would find out later it wasn’t her mom who paid the debt but rather it was a clerical error.  But at the time we didn’t know, so we reveled in her lottery winnings.  Eventually, Dan had to ask us to leave because we were being too loud (‘manic’ was being too loud).

I was quiet enough for Mark to notice because he asked me what was wrong.  I didn’t want to talk about it so I told him that I didn’t feel well and wanted to go home. Not exactly the grandest of Friday nights, but under the circumstances I just didn’t have it in me.

I came home and looked at the piece of paper again.  It had life that number 17 - it had longevity and meaning.  I know it sounds weird to go for a run on a Friday evening but the route I take is beautiful at night and I needed to run fast and see the city and the river.  I suited up in my tennis shoes and a jersey from my high school days.  I stepped out in front of my building as I was lacing up my kicks, a car full of guys’ drove up.  One of the guys rolled down his window and laughed and said, “hey guys it’s Richard Simmons.”

If you’re reading this and you know me, then you are aware I have big hair.  Also, I’m a big guy.  So, from a certain point of view, I could see where he was coming from.  What could I do in a moment like that?  Take offense?  No.  I laughed with them and gave them the six shooter finger-hand-gun maneuver and started on my run.

The route I would take was: across the James J. Hill Stone Arch bridge over the Mississippi; then along the West Bank of the river; back across the river via the Hennepin Avenue Bridge; and finally through Nicollet Island and Saint Anthony.  It was a big square about 3 miles.  The best part of a late evening run was the solitude along with a lit up skyline and the echoes of night life.  No one sees runners and being invisible was exactly what I needed.

As I approached the pedestrian bridge I thought to myself what my parent’s would think running at a time like this.  They would be worried I was going to throw myself over the bridge into the river.  I laughed at the prospect.  The thoughts of the test scores cleared from my mind as I looked up at the amazing skyscrapers lit up against the black clear night.

As I dropped down along the west bank I was surprised by a man on a park bench, his arms outstretched to the side.  Then I noticed the woman kneeling and her head bobbing up and down over his lap.  He was just as surprised to see me as I was him; I just did what anyone would do, I kept on running, although I did give him the universal hand gesture for ‘I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me’.

The Hennepin Avenue Bridge is a beautiful expansive structure linking the heart of downtown Minneapolis with the Northeast.  It was a suspension bridge with lights along each curve.  In the black of night it was like a spotlighted sculpture.  The path continued up to the deck of the bridge via a spiral staircase.  I liked to take those stairs like I was pretending to try out as a firefighter like William Baldwin in Backdraft; other times like Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman.

I emerged onto the bridge to see a man running full speed in my direction.  He was dressed in casual clothes not on a midnight run.  I realized he was panicking.  He started speaking very broken english, something about a girl on the bridge and then he pointed.  I could see his Yellow Taxi Cab and then in the dark standing on the precipice was a young woman.  I looked at him and said, “go call 911!”  He sprinted towards downtown and I sprinted towards the girl.

October 27th 2014 - Day 60 Part 1

The fall quarter had started, classes were back in session and campus was busy as ever.  It was October 15^th and a warm fall.  I started the day with a coffee from espresso 22 as I had for most of my four years.  It was difficult to focus knowing my destiny was waiting for me in my mailbox.  I felt as if I was watching my day unfold from a movie theater seat; disconnected, yet my senses were hyper aware.

The test was over and life returned to normal.  As normal as one could expect at the BCA internship.  It was like a constant episode of Law and Order - I had the luck of working another crime scene; the pedophile case (see previous entries); and further research into mother’s that murder their babies.  But time passed as I waited the sixty days for the test results.  During that time I became very introspective.  What was I waiting for?  I’d come to realize that my future was resting on the results of the MCAT exam.  If the test results were high I was going to be a doctor, if they were mediocre I wasn’t.  This didn’t feel right, something was wrong with this picture.  Shouldn’t I want it more?  My parent’s coached me to retake the exam but it was too soon.  It didn’t feel right, taking the test again, the challenge to regurgitate all of that knowledge - like throwing up a plate of spaghetti.  With the additional studying and my test anxiety, it was all way too much.

It was time to face the facts, maybe medicine wasn’t right for me.  Or, maybe it was my destiny and I was caught inside a raging river of confusion.  I didn’t know what to do and trying to analyze it wasn’t going to give me the answers I needed to be sure.   I felt like I was inside a hamster bubble racing down a hill.  I was running so fast to keep up, to keep from falling.  But there was no time to stop to check the street signs or look around at the houses or the trees.

My friend Mark was studying to enter the University of Minnesota Clinical Psychology program.  We talked for hours about becoming doctors.  I would become a psychiatrist and he was going to be a doctor of psychology.  Together we would revolutionize the industry and focus on people and eliminate the dependence on pharmaceuticals.  This dream was fading for me, but for him, he was at the crest of a great summit. .

I finished my coffee and I stepped across University Avenue towards Folwell Hall.  Little did I know there was a greater plan unfolding. It started when I ran into Nancy an ex girlfriend.  I almost didn’t recognize her for it had been three years since we stopped seeing each other.  We hadn’t spoken in all of that time.  We shared a short walk towards Northrup.  We didn’t have the smoothest breakup and seeing her allowed for closure.  She knew how important becoming a doctor was to me.  Speaking to her was a little like going back in time, to the Pete three years previous.

I knew that my day was already estranged because it was day 60, but now it started molting into another animal.  I walked past Northrup Hall and the great mall of the University of MN.  The guardians had shed most of their leaves, they had witnessed hundreds of thousand of students who shared in their shade.  They’d been there for Bob Dylan, the Viet Nam protests, the same giant’s that my parent’s sat under when they were just getting to know each other.  My Grandfather W. Parham, who lead the organic chemistry department, his legacy a bond as deep as the roots of these old protectors.  I pictured him smoking his corn pipe as I walked by Kholtoff Hall.

As I passed the library I bumped into Eric, he stood with his skateboard, looked no different than three years before.  Eric and I endured Physics together, the daily ritual for 30 weeks.  I had to laugh now at the second encounter, excited but apprehensive, something strange was happening.  We reminisced on the days we shared in physics, and how his track to become a physiologist was progressing.  I hadn’t seen him once, not even a glimpse or an echo.  He seemed happy and excited about where he was and what he was doing.  We departed, and he faded into the crowd of people.  I knew that he became a memory, someone I wouldn’t ever see again, just like Nancy.  It was okay, but strangely odd the universe was giving me the opportunity to say goodbye to people like pebbles in the same turgid river.

I finished my classes for the day and headed for home to my cat and my mailbox.  It all felt comical, I wanted to write it down, no one would believe me, the day I received my test scores.  I pulled the mail from the silver secured box in the lobby of the apartment complex.  There it was thin like a debit card pin number.  I sat down on the couch with my cat Nike procrastinating.  I held the thin envelope in my hand and even tried to see my score through the envelope without opening it.

The truth was I was more afraid that the score was going to be good.

October 26th 2014 - The Test

August 16^th arrived and with it the MCAT exam.  I was almost paralyzed with fear as I drove to the Saint Paul University Campus testing site.  It was a Saturday at 7:15am when I arrived.  The line was already out the door as I queued up.  The other student’s were chatting in line discussing their nervosa and the prospect of filling in the ‘do not accept’ at the back of the test.  The MCAT is an exam that you can take more than once but your scores have to be averaged each time you take it.  If it isn’t going well, you can opt to drop the test - eject.  It was comforting on one hand to know there was a failsafe, but at the same time absurdly delusional to think of going through this again.  

As I waited in line to be registered I noticed a trophy case with photos of students from years before.  They were mostly black and white photos, mostly men with their whole life in front of them.  They looked so old.  They were probably younger than me, they didn’t look like kids, nor did they look like I felt, staring at my own reflection in the glass.

The test was given on the same day to every student in the United States.  Twice a year you could take the test, the spring and the summer.  This was before testing centers, computer terminals like they have now as if it was a scene from Enders’ Game.  This was the day of analog, number 2 pencils and filling in the bubbles.

Registration was rather painless, the auditorium was filled to the maximum capacity, each of us sitting every other seat.  It was salient to realize the sheer number of students; the perverse amount of people competing with each other to be healers, researchers, or surgeons.  Every one of the kids was out for the same goal and only a limited number of spots to fill.  It was hard not to imagine every other student in all the other 50 states embarking on the same journey.

The test proctors read the instructions and handed out the test books.  After the last warning about the failsafe at the back of the book the six hours of testing begun.

It was brutal.  Honestly, I really figured the difficulty of the MCAT was fear mongering, but the test would actually be easier.  That was not the case; even today, as I write this 17 years after the fact I still remember the questions, the organic chemistry synthesis reactions, the calculus, lambda and wavelength physics, chemistry equations, valency, cell biology, and paragraphs of reading comprehension all in a very tight period of time.  They were difficult and it wasn’t about figuring out the correct answer, it was about doing it in time to finish the section, I was lucky to even read all of the questions.  They didn’t want sensitive, soft, emotional heroes, they were trying to create an army of programmable, high aptitude, genetically elite doctors that could be put under pressure and not crack.

When it came to the essay, I felt this was my greatest weakness, yet it was a relief from the barrage of final exam questions from the last four years of science.  My essay question was ‘privacy in the media, do you give out sources?  When is it okay to divulge your source’.  I kicked its ass - wished the rest of the test was philosophical, written or even oral in which we could around talking about everything we had stored up in our heads, then I might have impressed the shit out of the testing regime.

When the test completed they explained the results would be released on exactly the same day for everyone, everywhere 60 days from today.  I admit I hovered over that escape hatch, almost decided to ditch my test.  But in the end, I didn’t leap, I let my score stand.

By the time I was taking the exam I was deep into the internship with the BCA.  I had already registered for the fall term of my 5^th and final year of college.  I was ambivalent about being a doctor, but this is what the last four years were about, right?  Where was I?  Who was I?  I seriously didn’t know and couldn’t answer.  What I’d seen since the summer began had rocked my world.  

All I could do was go through the motions.  I was a kid with a plan that was handed to me, it was a roadmap and I was following it.  I went to the morgue and absorbed every bit I could from Senior Special Agent Kohout, Senior Special Agent Good, Doctor Susan Roe and the rest.  I was living day-by-day and trying to answer the ultimate question everyone was asking - what are you going to do?

The only thing I knew for sure was that didn’t know.

October 25th 2014 - Looking For My Voice

My Freshman year of college was a difficult transition from high school.  I lived in the dorms my Freshman year and made several friends, mostly acquaintances.  My grades suffered after the first two quarters.  I had expectations that college would be this amazing place where people come together like a think tank to solve the world’s problems.  I was hoping it was the collaborative environment of learning science and creative expression that high school was not.  It did have those qualities at times, but it was sparse, in the end it seemed to be an extension of high school but without the coral that parent’s provide, for better or for worse.  It was rather daunting being at a school with thousands and thousands of students.  My id number was 1659831, it was common to meet someone, connect with them and never see them again.  I felt like a number, tagged like a fish in the sea for a computer to track my actions.  I started the habit of routines: walking the same path to class; early in the morning getting coffee, same potion from the same Espresso 22; sitting in the same seat in the auditorium, hoping to see the same face near me in the hall full of 200-300 people.

I took risks, put myself out there, made myself vulnerable.  It worked some of the time, but mostly it faded.  I met people and they meant something, but it was fleeting.  I was looking for deeper connections, lasting relationships, people I could learn from and they could also learn from me in return.

Then it happened.  My friend from the dorm Ben introduced me to a group of guys that were in the process of leaving ATO - the fraternity.  They’d lived in the frat house but found a place of their own - The Ontario House.  Erik and Mike were the home plate on the baseball diamond.  They were open to people, anyone could stop by, join in on the festivities, the TV, the music, the debate.  But most importantly, it was the freedom to create and express myself, all of ourselves, it felt like a home away from home.

Often they would turn off the TV and we would do writing drills.  Poetry, prose, lyrics, stream of consciousness, it was great.  We would share and debate, less critique and more articulated validation.  These sessions would also lead to music - drumming, guitar, singing, there wasn’t anything that was out of bounds or off limits.

Then Ben gave me a harmonica, his traveling C blues harp.  I was shy at first, what did I know of keys, chords, rhythm, melody, or harmony?  All I could do was listen.  Robert entered the mix and he would play lots of music - mostly guitar, while the rest of us drummed a bongo, beat the table, or blew on the harmonica.

I was expanded by an open mike night every night at the Ontario House.  From writing, to music, to conversation and people, I felt right at home.  We read Walt Whitman, Charles Bukowski, Ernest Hemingway, and Edgar Allen Poe.  During this time, my grades improved.  My sense of humor and my outlook generally shifted.  I was happy and thriving.  As weeks passed I began to notice some things.  Mike was a natural writer and creative genius.  He shared with me once that his English Professor told him that a writer or poet needed to create 25 works from beginning to end, before considering something for submission.  “The process of creating and producing work changes a person,” Mike would say, and “this is the growth an artists needs to enter before taking his work seriously.”  Erik was a poet, he produced collections of his own poetry and shared them with us, Ben and Robert were talented musicians, and Ben especially had grace with the ladies - he could smooth talk his way through barbed wire.  Mike also wrote poems and prose that he put together, and he decided to make a literary zine.  Mike was the brains and we helped in any way that we could.  One of the best hacks that we did was to produce ‘Grume’ by sneaking into the Administrative Building on campus where the dean’s office was located.  This was a huge operation of lookouts and planning to pull of the heist.  To have the University supply the copy for our literary magazine seemed all too perfect.  We used their copy machine to print at least thirty or forty magazines.

One day it was just Mike and I at the Ontario House.  We were reading and quietly chilling when Mike could see something was on my mind.  He started talking and he something I won’t forget. 

“You have to find your voice Pete,” he could see I didn’t know what he was talking about.  “Everyone has something, everyone.  Maybe its not what you think it would be, being a doctor, or whatever.  But your voice is everything.  Once you get your voice, well…” he trailed off and never finished the sentence.

I thought for a while about what he said, never really forgot it.  I asked myself the question, what is my voice?  Later, Mike approached me and said, “your voice could be your conversation?”  He continued, “You are a great listener and maybe that’s your voice.”  I told him I like to listen to people’s stories, God knows I’d had enough therapy to know what it is like from just on the job training.

“People like to tell you their stories, and you open them up, you don’t judge them, maybe that is your voice.”  I still think about those words he shared and how meaningful it was for him to say them.

As I write this, today October 25^th 2014, I couldn’t tell you what my voice is, nor whether I have figured it out.  Maybe it isn’t something we ever really know.  But today, as I sit in my shoes, I wouldn’t be the man I am without those guys helping to pave the way for who I would become and what I would accomplish.  Thank you Ontario House and all that passed through those doors.