Verbal & Visual Arts
THE Fifth issue
O ctober 2023
AERIAL
carefully created, composed, and curated by OHSU students
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Editor’s
Statement W
hen we create, we put substance to the unique perspective embodied at the moment of creation. However, each individual piece an artist, writer, or musician creates captures only a season of their life. Our feelings change as do our perspectives, as we move from moment to moment, and season to season.
In a career with a long journey of training and apprenticeship, many of us know that our time as students is the first of many perspectives that we will develop over the course of a lifetime. In this issue of Aerial, we honor the momentary experiences of students from many degree programs to demonstrate the many-faceted and multidimensional view of the student experience.
We hope as you progress through this edition, you are as moved by the diversity of emotion, talent, and experiences conveyed by students in their chosen mediums as we have been.
Signed,
The Aerial Editorial Team
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Table of
Contents V
Autumn Winter Spring Summer
Mt. Reynolds in the Fall.............................Sam Clari My Crown..................................................Saron Tedl Dreams................................................Shannon Youn Donor #13..............................................Amanda Wad Anatomical Tooth..........................................Anna Bal Learning/Unlearning..........................Helen Harriso Sentimental..................................................Erica Leser Winter’s Miracle...........................................Jessica L Many Hands..............................................Sam Clari Gratitude............................................Allison Conno Reflections Meet..............................Krysta St. Michel Bereavement..........................................Jenna Daviso Postpartum Reflection............Kaaren Spanski-Dreffi Sea Spirit..............................................Jessica Renken Virtual Fatigue...................................Allison Conno Dream Pool..............................................Keaton Wei A Season of Light..................................Amalia Larse Reprieve................................................Amanda Wad Cordillera Blanca.......................................Alex Cha A Granddaughter’s Take................Alanna McCarthy
25. Blue Bird.................................................Sean Bowde To You, I Am...............................................Erica Leser Synesthesia..........................................Shannon Youn Reflections on the High Desert..............Layla Entriki Come Fly Away With Me.............Caitlin Diefendor Sunday Sunrise...............................Stephanie Bobbitt
33. Crimea Dreaming..............................Tetyana Horne Burning Through Motion.......................Bryce Walke St. John’s Sunset.......................................Bryce Walke Life As We Know It........................Lisa Marie Nelson VI
Sam Clarin
Mt. Reynolds in the Fall School of medicine
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My Crown
Saron Tedla
School of Medicine
3
Dreams
Shannon Young
School of MEdicine
D
o they dance across the face of an unborn child?
Or flutter through the window
And splatter on the floor?
Are they braided in a nest
Stitched into a tapestry
Maybe even laced into a shoe?
Do they collect in crevices and corners
Like dust
Like trust
Like love?
Do they leap and twirl
Naked in the moonlight
Or bundle up against the bitter cold?
Do they nestle against bruised spirits
Or whisper into sleeping ears
And hold us through our loneliest of nights?
Are they etched into the walls of wombs
Of tombs
Or drift away
Like smoke
Into nothing
Into everything?
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Donor #13
Amanda Wade
School of Medicine
D
id you know, in the moments before
you left how this would be for you? For me?
Did you anticipate the lights, bright,
startling in their sterility and me,
with my hand poised just so, like they
taught me?
We shared a moment
of silence for you, and the others, masked,
eyes covered. I wondered if I could stay
erect, looking, recognizing our mutual fate,
not now for me,
but eventually.
The first time WAS the hardest.
When I closed my eyes, I saw you, still.
Now the thoughts ebb and flow, waves
crashing, impossible to ignore before
receding into that far compartment
of my mind, the one that lends me reprieve
from the thought of my own mortality.
I hold onto both.
One for my sanity.
The other for you, the person
I never knew but will never
forget.
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6
Anna Ball School of Dentistry
Anatomical Tooth
Learning/Unlearning Helen V. Harrison School of Medicine 7
H
Sentimental Erica Leser School of Medicine
ow are you?
How is school?
Well
Hard
Repeat
How are you?
How is school?
I’m well
It’s hard
Repeat
How are you?
How is school?
I’m doing well.
School is hard.
Repeat
How are you?
How is school?
I’m doing alright.
School is going… well.
Repeat
How are you?
How is school?
I’m doing fine, grandma. Better than you
School is fine, grandma. You’ve asked me five times.
In the last 15 minutes.
How are you, grandma?
Do you remember where I’m at school, grandma?
It’s okay that you don’t
I’m glad you remember to ask
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Winter 9
Winter’s Miracle Jessica Li
School of Dentistry
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Many Hands Sam Clarin School of Medicine
Calling, driving, steadying
Admitting, questioning, triaging
Poking, drawing, percussing
Palpating, auscultating, ordering
Many hands make the load light
Comforting, holding, reassuring
Covering, cleaning, adjusting
Listening, learning, diagnosing
Prescribing, repleting, monitoring
Many hands make the load light
Billing, itemizing, invoicing
Calling, negotiating, denying
appealing, rejecting, crying
Resigning, mortgaging, moving
Many hands make the load light
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Gratitude Allison Connor
School of Medicine 12
Reflections Meet
Krysta St. Michell School of Medicine
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The anger comes first.
How could she think she grasped it?
The feeling of never getting to hear him speak again.
The open circuitry of you, that you will never get to fully understand,
because he’s gone and he can’t close the circuit.
There is power running through your body, but the current will never flow.
The tough part comes last.
As you stare at a reflection that does not match,
the barbwire and C-clamps inside you that threaten to lacerate you and widen the wounds. She is an abstraction of the version you wish to be.
A medical student that is smooth and not fraying at the edges.
She prepares for the day like she did not just lose an amalgamation of heritage and piety.
As the reflection states again, “Maybe this is all you get.”
Memories of laughter, pain, and shared secrets,
Two and a half decades of a visual version of half of you.
You could point to and say proudly:
“That’s him. That’s my Dad.”
Maybe that is all you got.
jenna Davison
School of MEdicine
The pity comes next.
As you stare down at your stalwart hands,
palms up to show the callouses.
His hands.
No longer were they in existence to set beside yours - only then,
would someone understand why your distal extremities lay in contrast to the art in your tongue.
Bereavement
M
“ aybe this is all you get.”
She states it smoothly so someone like me could understand.
She breaks it down into incremental pieces,
each word a raindrop lightly coated in cyanide,
appearing to you as a bodily lifeline floating effortlessly from the clouds,
but tearing things apart as they come down.
Maybe it was enough.
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Kaaren Spanski-Dreffin School of nursing
A place for my soul to keep,
At the bottom I can barely see,
A reflection of the person I used to be,
The level fluctuates day by day,
Sometimes sunny, sometimes gray,
When I rest and take care of me,
My reflection moves closer to see,
When I am stressed, sad, or tired,
She fades back down, undesired,
One day I hope my levels stay,
Closer to the previous day,
For now, I try to fill the well,
Instead of retreating into my shell,
For soon I hope to not need,
To see the reflection to know it’s me.
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Sea Spirit
Inside there is a well so deep,
Jessica Renken School of Public Health
Postpartum Reflection
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Spring
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Virtual Fatigue
Allison Connor School of MEdicine
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19
n spring, the world awakens from its sleep
And nature begins to stir and leap
The bees buzz, the birds sing
A season of renewal, a time of spring
The trees are dressed in shades of green
The flowers bloom, a beautiful scene
The gentle breeze carries the scent
Of new beginnings, a fresh ascent
The sun shines bright, the sky is clear
A promise of warmth, a season of cheer
The earth is alive, with each passing day
A celebration of life, in every way
So let us embrace the beauty of spring
And all the joy and wonder it can bring
For in this season of rebirth and growth
We find inspiration, and the promise of hope.
Dream Pool
Amalia Larsen
School of MEdicine
In spring, hope springs eternal
As the world emerges from its hibernation
A reminder that after every winter's night
Comes a new dawn, a season of light
A Season of Light
I
Keaton Weil
school of medicine
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Cordillera Blanca
Alex Chau School of Medicine
Reprieve
Amanda Wade School of Medicine
W
e stood in a shadow
of dry cement, waiting
for the rain to pass.
The tree held
just enough space
for the two of us watching,
floods of leaves surfing
the steep hills.
I don’t remember whether it was an Oak
or a Maple or a Willow now,
just that it held us
for the moment, dry enough to see
the deluge around us.
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A Granddaughter’s
Take
Alanna Mccarthy School of Medicine
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Yiayia’s Pastitsio:
Lamb ragu
on homemade
tagliatelle
with whipped
ricotta and
parmigiano
M
y yiayia always made her pastitsio with lamb, no matter the audience or occasion. We used to crack up about how quintessential Greek grandmother that was. She was the definition of a strong woman to me. She was valedictorian of her high school class, but as the daughter in an immigrant family, wasn’t afforded the opportunity to go to college. She made the most of her circumstance, and after raising a family, used her culinary talent to become a private chef and published cookbook author. She was so proud to earn enough to contribute to our higher education. She died before getting to see me graduate or start college, but I felt her there. I hope she’d be proud to see her granddaughter becoming a physician, something made possible by strong women like her. I feel closer to her by learning her craft, as well as my own. And I always make my version of pastitsio with lamb.
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Blue Bird
Sean bowden
School of Medicine
To You,
I Am Erica Leser
School of Medicine
I am
a tangle of the who and what and why
of me myself and I
I am flying with my wings nailed to the ground
I am watching the future with eyes from the past
I am free when I do not know it
I am trapped when the door is open
I am the highest of highs
I am far too low
I am listening to the sound of my freedom
But it sounds like merely an echo
I ask what could have been
I see the answer as better and more
I can be a mess made by this world
A piece of passion, strength, and power
Mixed with a dash of fear, darkness, and tragedy
If this is what it means to be free
Maybe you have to look deep inside
To find the me that is me
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Summer
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Synesthesia
Shannon young
School of Medicine
H
er blood was red, her voice sapphire.
Her skin was blue, her laugh gold.
In the end, the earth reclaimed her.
Or whatever god she worshiped.
Or even the belly of a thousand birds.
And maybe someday when every trace of her is absorbed
she will wash up on a beach somewhere
a piece of ocean glass soft and sifted
Or emerge from the soil in the petals of the tulips-red, sapphire, blue, and gold.
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High Desert
Reflections on the
world and two bodies that had already left. Cradle to grave medicine, they call it.
A suicide.
The first daughter.
Layla Entrikin
A motorcycle accident.
The second son.
School of medicine The babies, I was expecting. They were light;
M
they were joy. I listened to their hummingbird hearts and wished them the happiest of y first week as a medical student in
Madras, Oregon I saw two babies enter this
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birthdays. Nurses vigorously rubbed mewling, wet cries out of their lungs. You tell us all about
Come Fly Away With Me caitlin Diefendorf
School of medicine
you again so soon. I pressed on their chests looking to see if their ribs were still intact. A broken neck? A smashed nose? I did not wipe the blood off his legs. Or the dirt from her face. Her cargo pants were wet with river water. She had pink nail polish on. Matted hair. A silver toe ring. He was still wearing a helmet. A ripped red polo shirt. What was her name? What was his?
I forgot for a moment I was supposed to be practicing medicine.
“Have I traumatized you enough for one day?” the doctor asked. He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.
He had his cell phone clipped to his brown leather belt. The gray hairs at his temples wrapped towards the nape of his neck.
it, sweet pea. I oohed and aahed over their wisps of goopy hair, the peeping of new eyes. Their skin was pink and ripe. Tiny knit hats over cone shaped heads. I wiped blood off their mothers’ legs. Congratulations, Mommy, congratulations. How big is he? What is her name?
I forgot for a moment I was supposed to be practicing medicine.The bodies, I was unprepared for. They were cold; they were stiff. The funeral director leaned against the industrial mental sink; arms crossed. Sorry to see
I laughed, but I didn’t mean it.
At the end of my week, after a late hospital shift, I crawled into my unfamiliar bed. I could smell juniper and sage brush through the open window. I inhaled through my nose and out through my mouth. Dry desert air burned my throat. My scrubs lay crumpled at the foot of the bed. I stared at my popcorn ceiling.
I closed my eyes against the rising sun.
I tried to remember the last time I cried, but I couldn’t. So I slept, and I slept.
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Artist Statement
“
The rosy light coming through the laundromat reminds me of waking up at the crack of dawn as a little girl and piling into the car with my mom and three siblings and laundry for our family of six. We would spend the whole morning in the laundromat playing leap frog and begging for gumball quarters while mom sipped coffee from a thermos and watched soap operas.
”
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Sunday Sunrise
Stephanie bobbitt
School of dentistry 32
Crimea Dreaming
Tetyana Horner School of Nursing
Thoughts of Balaklava, Crimea, On a Hot
Summer Day in 2013
W
e stroll on the Promenade
in Balaklavskaya Harbor
through rows of souvenir stalls.
We elbow our way along the painted
old plastered building walls
that may have witnessed too much war.
Near a black streetlight pole, I notice
Aleksandr Ivanovich Kuprin, the master
of old Russian prose,
and greet him warmly.
I ease my hand and arm around
his hot bronze elbow and ask
if we could take his picture or a selfie
but he gives me a cold shoulder
and keeps staring into the harbor,
tall and proud.
We take the picture anyway,
which instantly reveals the disharmony of looks -
Oh, snap! -
Fedora in his hand, he is in an old-fashioned suit
and I am in spaghetti straps.
Obviously, I am no lady from his books.
Oh well.
Next time, Mr. Kuprin, next time.
Next summer, next year.
I squeeze his elbow once more
We laugh and proceed to the shore
and catch a boat ride
to Golden Beach.
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As we glide along the emerald waves
of the Black Sea,
I see
the Barrel of Death
on top of a nearby mountain
and pray
it would hold there
and not roll down on us
as we pass by.
But then, secretly, I wish the mountain
would loosen its grip
and let me witness the barrel
roll down into the bottomless abyss.
I wish to see its aerial flip
and its fountain of splashes
as it disappears
in the deep waters of the Black Sea
shocking the jellyfish and small boats away,
and then it re-emerges and floats aimlessly,
like a lost buoy,
as I watch its demise from a safe distance.
Oh well. Some day.
Next time, next summer, next year.
My daughter, my sister, my friend,
and I disembark at the pier
and find a space to spread our blankets at the end of a scarce sandy patch on Golden Beach
amidst the big boulders
and deeply tanned people who still face
the Crimean sun without fear of burns.
As sailboats and yachts
We take turns
at a distance, near and far,
going into the sea to float on the waves
parade in front of us on the horizon,
as we watch more boats bringing
intermittently interrupted
more people to the already crowded
by pods of frisky dolphins
shore.
whose noses, rising from the water,
disappear again in an instant.
The waves compose their lulling tune.
Two ferries, Poseidon and Neptune,
On the Poseidon, we breeze our way
take their turns delivering
back to Balaklava. On the shore,
more sun-and-sea enthusiasts
we agree we need to come here more.
and carrying away those who’ve had
Sometime next year? Next summer?
their fair share of Vitamins ‘Black Sea’
Exhausted, happy, carefree,
and D.
we trudge through the Promenade
in Balaklavskaya Harbor.
Leisurely, we sunbathe, sea bathe.
We are imprudent to think
We watch others doing the same.
that these beautiful days will last forever.
We eat ripe fruit; we play a card game.
When Fate steals them from us in a blink,
We drink warm lemonade.
our next times, next summers, and years
We soak up this sultry summer.
become ‘NEVER’.
Burning Through Motion Bryce WAlker School of Dentistry 34
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St. John’s Sunset
Life As We Know It Lisa Marie Nelson School of Medicine
Bryce Walker School of Dentistry
S
unrises and sunsets,
Wavelets and tree breaks:
Life as we know it.
Not that long ago,
The mist settled,
Fogging the line
Between here and gone.
Weeks burned by
Drives done without knowing
Medicine taken, minutes taken
Joy mixed with grief
Holding back regret from
Swallowing months of time
And after the storm, when
The sun finally stirs,
I leave.
Borne on wings of purpose
But flown nonetheless.
Distance measured in miles not inches
More than a heartbeat away
From the comfort of you.
Will you forgive me,
Will I forgive me,
Will this distance break us,
And when
Will we get back to
Life
As we know it.
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Aerial Magazine Team
Editors-In-Chief
Keaton Weil
Communications
Lead
Secretary Sam Clarin
Leadership Team Katrina Rapp
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Sydney Weese
Design Team Keaton Weil
Sydney Weese
Rand Kaller
Helen Harrison
Social Media Yami Murillo
Selections Committee Sean Bowden
Yami Murillo
Katrina Rapp
Sam Clarin
Keaton Weil
Sydney Weese
Rand Kaller
Top Row: Sean Bowden. Middle Row (from left): Yami Murillo, Katrina Rapp, Sam Clarin, Keaton Weil. Bottom Row (from left): Sydney Weese, Rand Kaller. Not Pictured: Helen Harrison.
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