In High Winter, Legends of Summer
She made for me a geeky Valentine's Day adventure, celebrating our geeky first date, months before. Going so far as to tromp out through the snow the day before, just to have everything ready. <3
From Baltimore to DC and across the top of 495. Then west on infamously crowded I-66 from DC Beltway to I-66's western terminus at the foot of the Appalachians at Strausburg. Peel off the interstate, wind up and over the North Mountain ridge that separates Virginia from West Virgina. Then another fifty miles winding up and down crest and valley. There at the end of the journey lies the tiny hamlet of Petersburg, WV.
Petersburg hosts the regional hospital for the medically underserved stretch of Appalachia known as the Potomac Highlands. Serving that region was where elzkitten was being based for much of her required third year rotation. And so it was there that we celebrated our first Valentine's Day together, our first since that magical Closing Day at Faire. Both of us very much being traditional romantics, my own Valentine's surprises for her were quite traditional. *Her* Valentine's Day surprise for me, was spectacularly, wonderfully *un*-traditional, as I discovered the moment she with a mischevious smile handed me a handwritten card with GPS coordinates written within...
- ...take a ride / up the hill with me / to the place where I spend my days / here in little Petersburg, WV, the card said; for this step you will need a key - / and your knowledge will guide you.
The first GPS coordinates led to the medical education building on the Grant Memorial campus; the key to open the doors elzkitten provided. The exact coordinates led to the education library; and the next clue was hidden within a copy of Nelson's Pediatrics, the giant textbook I had spent residency poring over like a biblical scholar reads the Scriptures. Inside, carefully arranged inside a blank CD case, a series of tiny, hand-crafted notes...
We first met the previous year, in one of the last summer-like days before autumn came to the mountains. A different mountain town - the larger town of Martinsburg, WV, up in the Eastern panhandle - where she was spending the month rotation on Psychiatry.
As I had told before, I found elzkitten's profile on OkCupid by cross-searching for medical professionals and violin players. She was both, on a 99% match over 400+ mutual questions. Her profile had only recently gone back up after she completed her first national board examinations - thus how I hadn't found her in my previous rounds of OkCupid searches. We exchanged OkCupid messages, then chatted on Facebook to coordinate a first meet. She offered to drive halfway between Baltimore and Martinsburg; I was just as happy to drive the whole distance - a senior fellow has a lot more flexibility of schedule and time than a 3rd year medical student. And so on a bright Sunday morning after a Saturday fiddling at Faire, I drove west on I-70 to Martinsburg.
And the beginning of the grandest story of my life. :-)
Hee. Looking for places to meet for breakfast and get-to-know each other's, elzkitten and I googled and found The Blue White Grill, a family-run traditional diner in the heart of Martinsburg. It seemed like a safe bet, and we both (as we discovered in chatting on Facebook) were pretty traditional eaters. I parked around the corner and stood in front of the Grill a few minutes before 10 AM. And that's where I saw elzkitten for the very first time.
We shook hands and said hello, and then went into the diner, which was crowded with pre-church patrons (good sign. Crowded enough that the only seat left in the house was a table with a single bench, where we would have to sit side-by-side. I decided on the spot it would be better to take the inside seat, and let elzkitten have the outside aisle seat, as I didn't want her to feel awkward and boxed in. Apparently, she was feeling the same way. :-)
The conversation started out with med stuff (a nice safe start for two med people), then branched to our mutual pasts in Japan. It was an enjoyable breakfast, a chance for us both to get comfortable with each other. But with breakfast out of the way, we went back outside to begin the day and date's *real* activity: geocaching.
Yep, we mutually chose geocaching as our first date activity. We're geeks. :-)
(Specifically, we both knew from our mutual OkCupid profiles we were both geeks and outdoors hiking sorta folks, and so on our first Facebook chat, I had proposed geocaching as a fun thing to do, the GPS-assisted treasure hunting aelkiss and jklgoduke and clubjuggler had first introduced me to years ago. elzkitten immediately leaped on the idea with enthusiasm. Good hopeful first signs. :-)
Incidentally, this also means that aelkiss and jklgoduke and clubjuggler deserve major credit for making possible all the happiness and joy that followed. So, thank you. *hug* )
I had identified a number of Martinsburg local geocaches for us to go after using geocaching.com, and had bought an inexpensive used GPS unit off Craigslist for the day's activities. For some reason, however, the GPS unit was not working well in the mountains, but elzkitten took the glitch in stride, and downloaded a geocaching compass onto her iPhone for us to use instead. (As I would discover, we both are the sorts of folks who take glitches - or more significant disruptions - in stride.) And so we went hiking off together, to begin our day's geocaching adventures.
The first geocache was a flat steel box carefully wedged underneath the topstone of a decorative gatepost at a local historic cemetary, well above head height and requiring a little climb to reach. The second geocache was cunningly hidden in the hollow of a fake fiberglass stone, nestled among real stones underneath a bush in a city park garden. Both required a good bit of careful searching, poking, and lifting, and we both noted with pleasure that the other person was every bit as enthusiastic about poking curiously and patiently to find the hidden treasure. It was pretty obvious that we both approached things in fairly similar manners. (Oh, we had no idea yet just *how* similar we were... ;-) )
The third geocache was a much longer hike, during which our conversation began to move to more deeply personal topics, sharing and swapping stories from our own pasts, of our families, classmates, adventures. We eventually reached the coordinates of the geocache - a lamppost in a drug store parking lot. And then we got stumped. We searched high, we searched low, we pored over every square inch of the lamppost, and found nothing. For a good fifteen minutes we scoured the site. Which is where a kindly couple coming out of the grocery store saw what we were doing, and recognized the unusual behavior as geocachers hunting for a cache.
I wish we had recorded their names. But they generously gave us a clue which I will always remember, when it comes to geocaches: think *way* outside the box, and look broadly as well as narrowly. And since none of you are likely to ever drive to Martinsburg, WV, to hunt this particular geocache down, I'll share the really, *really* clever bastard trick to this wonderful geocache...
The geocache had listed the clue that the cache was to be found under the lamp-post. We had scoured the lamppost and its hidden nooks and crannies carefully. But what the geocache had evilly failed to detail was that the cache was hidden fifteen feet under the lamp-post. In a man-height drainage tunnel that ran underneath the parking lot, from one culvert to another. Once the couple had given us those two clues - think *really* outside the box and look broadly - as soon as we elzkitten and I looked in the distance and saw the deep culverts surrounding the parking log we were in, we realized immediately just how we could potentially get "under" the lamppost. We quickly found the drainage culvert, walked into its depths, and there we found the third geocache cleverly suspended from the ceiling of the tunnel, directly *under* the lamppost. Clever bastards. ;-)
After that triumph, we both decided that some ice cream would hit the spot. (As we were rapidly discovering, we had a *lot* in common.) More googling, and a quick trip to Richie's Dairy, for hand-made ice cream shakes with real fruit. Mmmm.
And then the real magic began...
I knew elzkitten was a fiddler - that's how I had found her on OkCupid in the first place - and so I had packed my Faire/foul-weather fiddle in the trunk, just in case. elzkitten had brought her own fiddle to Martinsburg on rotation, along with the small selection of personal items she had brought for her month-long rotation, just so she'd have something to play on for fun. (A woman who packs her fiddle for a month-long rotation: good sign. :-) ) We had had a lot of fun on the date up to that point, and so we both were most definitely up for a little fiddle playing. So we packed our fiddles out to a local park, commandeered a picnic table, and began our own little celtic fiddle jam session.
That's the nice thing about celtic fiddle - there's a common repertoire of pieces most of us know, and a lyrical cadence that makes it easy to pick up pieces you don't know. A world of music I was first introduced to by Lady Simonetta and (now Sir) Duncan Erdastapa back in my Calontir days, at Music Folk in St. Louis. And so I have them to thank, too, for all the joy that came from that first outdoor celtic jam session with the Lady who would become my beloved. :-)
We had a marvelous time playing music, one jig and reel after another, as the sun began to set. And we continued to share stories of what we had done and where we had been, of how we came and chose medicine as our life's own work. As most of you reading this diary know, I made my choice long ago, beginning with a timeline I worked out one summer evening before the start of Eighth Grade, listing the milestones between junior high and medical school I would have to scale. elzkitten in contrast made her decision much later. But what we discovered we both had in common with regards to our choices, was that we each had, for different reasons, the option of choosing very comfortable lives with far easier lifestyles, far less sacrifice, and far more time for the hobbies and friends we loved. And we instead each chose medicine.
elzkitten had further chosen to go to medical school at a place whose specific mission was serving the underserved of Appalacia. Mountain communities whose poverty rivaled the most disadvantaged urban areas, *without* the corresponding wealthy cores and suburbs that financially balance the books at a place like Hopkins or Wash U. And I learned that elzkitten had still even further chosen - admist all the thunderous fury of the first years of medical school - to spend time fundraising, organizing, and then setting off on medical missions trips to even *more* disadvantaged, underserved regions of the third world. In addition to serving as a medical student in some of America's most disadvantaged communities, she used her free time to go serve in even *poorer* parts of the world, to try to help medically as she could. She spoke of her experiences with passion and energy, in between music sets and as the sun set. And it was *that* - the obvious heart for others with which she spoke of the life she had chosen, the life she had chosen when far easier lives had been available to her: that's the first moment when I fell in love.
Also admist that first celtic jam session, she revealed that she was too a SCAdian and a Rennie - something which was very prominently clear on my own OkCupid profile, but which she had not mentioned at all on her own. I knew she was a celtic fiddler, but I didn't realize she was a costume-wearing, costume-making, Playford playing, Playford *dancing* fiddler. She loved Maryland Renaissance Faire - had attended the Faire many times since she was a little girl, growing up here in DC. I asked her how she'd like to *perform* at Faire. She squeed. I fell even more in love. :-)
faireraven very kindly agreed to allow me to invite elzkitten to join us at Faire for the Closing Weekend Dance Macabre. A number of SCAdian friends let me borrow garb of various sizes for elzkitten to try on. I brought these back up to Martinsburg, along with my fiddle, and we prepared Shaking in the Sheets and Maltese and all the rest for Closing Weekend. During one of those visits at lunch, the subject of roller coasters came up. I casually mentioned that the weekend after MDRF Closing Weekend was the closing weekend at Kings Dominion, and how would she like to go on a coaster trip? She squeed. I fell even *more* in love. :-)
And then came that magical day at Faire when I won the privilege of formally becoming her boyfriend.
And then came the subsequent adventures that autumn, and winter, and spring.
And along all those adventures - and among the far more common evenings and weekends we spent together doing nothing more exciting than studying/working together - we discovered in long, heartfelt conversations just how much we shared. In personality, in beliefs, in goals, in hopes. We discovered that we both were enormously, enormously serious about finding a partner to spend a lifetime with, to raise children with.
Indeed, we had discovered this as early as the trip to Kings Dominion the weekend after MDRF Closing Weekend, when on the way home a few hesitantly probing questions about the future suddenly revealed we both were far, far, *far* more ready for exploring the possibility of a long-term - permament - relationship than either of us had dared imagine. We both knew that her graduation and residency application process put a immutable timeline on major life decisions; we discovered on that drive home that we both both recognized that fact, and were ready to find out. (And got so absorbed in that conversation that I accidentally drove us completely around the wrong, long way around the DC Beltway back to her place. Hee. :-) )
From that magical first date, the even more magical Closing Weekend, the wonderful day at Kings Dominion and the profound conversation we had on the way home; our first long road trip home to Ann Arbor to meet my family and my friends in Cynnabar; to this Valentine's Day, with a series of geocaches elzkitten had prepared and carefully hidden for me in the Petersburg snow.
The caches after the one celebrating our first date were more handwritten, heartfelt notes of love, which I will leave private. The very last, at the end of the trail, was a rolled up map of all of our adventures to date, hidden in a film can carefully tucked within the hollow of a split-rail fence overlooking the mountain valley Petersburg is tucked away in:
In the midst of her own furious third year, elzkitten had taken the time to make and craft this elaborate series of geocaches, pick out hiding places, mark their coordinates, all just for me, and my very first Valentine's Day. I am a very, very lucky geek guy. <3.
A year has passed since those magical beginnings. Since that first wonderful day of adventures in Martinsburg. Since that first glorious Closing Day at Faire. The happiest year of a very happy life.
The Faire has opened again for the year, filled with music and merriment and dear friends. A Faire elzkitten and I will be revisiting again, soon.
- Here's to the stories to be written.
- Here's to the legends to come. :-)
Next: Days of Olden Notes.