A Trip to Rochester

December 2024

 I am currently seated in a Mayo Clinic waiting room, staring at what must be near hundred year old buildings. A stone eagle stares at me with unfeeling eyes. 

The Plummer Building at Mayo Clinic 

They took Calvin back almost two hours ago for an endoscopy. My stomach is hurting from the nerves. Writing has always been my crutch at times of heightened emotions.

I woke up this morning with the most excruciating migraine that was making me nauseous. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to support Calvin through his appointments this morning. 

My body has a way of telling me when I am nervous and mentally unwell. On the morning of my endowment, I threw up because I didn’t know how to relieve the buildup of nerves buzzing around my brain. On the night of our wedding, I almost pooped myself from the overstimulating reception line of people wrapped around my parents’ backyard. 

Now, I am just shifting in my seat, trying to quell the angry wasps in my stomach. 

The Waiting Room in Question

While I was waiting for Calvin to get his blood drawn this morning. I was seated in another waiting room. Like most of the buildings at the Mayo Clinic, it felt more like a museum than a hospital with bright lights, vaulted ceilings, and artwork donning the walls. In most hospitals and doctors’ offices, I try to sit as far away from people as possible. (Hi, I am a raging hypochondriac, did you know?) But this waiting room was enormous and packed with patients and their loved ones, staring anxiously at the three or four doors with rotating phlebotomists announcing over beige telephones who’s ready to get poked. While I waited for Calvin’s phlebotomist to marvel at his insanely large veins, two elderly gentlemen shuffled and sat right next to me. Instead of engaging in an internal freakout that someone broke my golden waiting room rule, I noticed the white three-ring binder clutched in one of the elderly gentleman’s hands; in black Sharpie script, the binder was labelled “Mike’s Surgery.” Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought about this friend, husband, brother, or cousin preparing this binder for his loved one, how overwhelming it must have felt to stare this surgery in its face and how he dealt with it by carving up the procedure into neat lines and descriptive instructions.

Since this morning, I have watched as loved ones and Mayo Clinic workers escort people from appointment to appointment and procedure to procedure. I have watched as sisters, parents, and spouses wring their hands in these gallery-like waiting rooms. I have watched as shuttle drivers help geriatric, white-haired men and women down the steps and into the frosted Minnesota streets. This entire morning, I have watched people care for other people. I am reminded that people like people and want other people to be well, whether mentally or physically.

Since the election, I have been morally depressed, and while I still am nervous for how Trump’s actions will injure and hurt immigrants, queer people, and the marginalized people in this country, I am hopeful that people will still care for other people. 

As I have been sitting in this waiting room, I have noticed fall leaves swirling towards the sky, lifted by the Minnesota wind towards the heavens. Instead of falling towards the earth, the golden paragliders are going up, and up, and up. The wasps buzzing in my stomach are settling, and I am hopeful that it will get better from here.