Merci Boca

It's a weekend of barbecues and destiny. I just encountered a self-described Rastafarian, complete with dreadlocks, gray beard, and Bob Marley T-shirt. He was flipping veggie burgers at a local get-together.

He greeted me warmly and seemed oddly familiar. "Have we met before?" I asked.

"Yes, my friend, many times."

I started, "Oh, I didn't recall --"

"But this," he explained, "is our first physical meeting. We've met many times on the spiritual plane."

"Oh..."

He went on: "You study medicine, I know this. But medicine is not your true path."

My eyes widened, and I quickly filled him in on all the career planning and decisions I made over the past week, the lingering doubts and seeming inevitablity of Emergency Medicine, the potential for research, and the launch of Lingual Nerve.

"Ay, mon, so your choices are medicine, writing, or research?"

Yes, I said, or hopefully some combination thereof, but striking that balance will be difficult.

He paused for a moment, and looked over my shoulder, up at the sky. Then he looked at me and declared, "Your burger's ready, mon."

And so it was.