I'd just flown in for my second grad school interview, this time at the
University of Oregon.  Sliding into a schoolroom desk chair in Straub Hall, I
directed a compliment towards a girl with a mowhawk.  Her reasons for the
mowhawk were revealed to be of the "hippy gender protest" type.  When she in
turn inquired after my handlebar mustache, I responded with a seeming
non-sequitor: "I ran into Patch Adams in the airport on the way over here."
Doubts were expressed all around, but it's true; I did.

I found Patch's Gesundheit! Institute during my second year of college, in 1996.
Feeling an incredible affinity for his message, I called him on the phone, and
asked his advice for what I should do with the University of Maryland Juggling
Club (which I had recently founded) and if there were ways that I could
contribute to his cause.  After asking me a few questions, he concluded that I
should continue what I was doing and then wished me well.  He may have suggested
that I visit the Institute, though I honestly can't remember.  In any case, I
organized a trip, and 5 of us from the club took the trip out to West Virginia
for a week of service and relaxation.

The trip was pretty spectacular.  I was introduced to the ideas of Permaculture,
Intentional Communities, on-demand hot-water heaters and Macrobiotics.  The
people there were dyed-in-the-wool hippies, and I'd never experienced anything
like that.  In addition to the main crew, who were responsible for maintaining
the land and buildings and performing improvements, there was a man Patch had
invited to stay on the land while he built him a robotic skeleton.  This man was
also training to be a Feldenkrais Practitioner somewhere in Europe.

One day, my fellow juggler, Ryan, sprained his ankle while working out in the
field.  The Feldy Roboticist was eager to try and help.  We were all entirely
mystified by how this guy expected to help Ryan by moving his knees and hips
around.  A sprain hurts when you walk on it.  They heal with time, and faster if
you leave them alone.  But Ryan was open to the idea.  It probably couldn't hurt
anyway.

After all was said and done, we asked Ryan if his ankle felt better.  I think
his answer was something like, "maybe."  We remained unconvinced.  And with so
much else going on, the Feldenkrais Method didn't come up again on that trip.  Much more memorable for me was the folk tune "Old Joe Clark," which remains one of my favorites to this day.  We sang it to people who were old, and would perhaps never again see the outside of a hospital.  For me, the take home message was that medicine should be about making people feel better.  This meant that anyone could practice medicine, because anyone can help someone else feel better (though I hasten to add that laparoscopic surgery is best left to the experts).

Patch advocates in particular the use of clowning, and I suspect that this
suggestion has found a place among my most deeply held values.  Certainly, the
seeds were there, but Patch and the folks at Gesundheit! spread some extra
organic compost around on those seeds.  But while I've certainly endeavored to
use things like face-paint and general silliness to improve a number of
situations, the rationale for all of that had faded over time.  I'd gotten more
serious, which is an easy thing to do.

And it happened that when I came back to the Feldenkrais Method, almost 10 years
later, I didn't know where I'd heard about it.  It was as if it were a genetic
memory or something learned by osmosis from the strange company I kept as a
graduate student.  But happily, all the pieces seem to be clicking into place
recently.  I've found a way to satisfy all of my values which is
remarkably like the path I was on at MIT.  The main difference being that my life at MIT completely failed to satisfy many of my
values.  Part of what will make this time different, I suspect, will be a
handlebar mustache.  Or maybe clown pants.  Or something like that.