“I wanted to be the kind of doctor you could throw anywhere in the world and I could take care of people. My grandmother died at 26, during her fifth pregnancy, when my mother was four years old. I didn’t learn until I was in college that I was named after her—her name was Mehri. I think she felt like her world was really small in Iran, and I always want her to know how much her life mattered. She has 22 descendants—21 of whom live in the US, and are thriving. She would have never imagined that. We are more the same than different, and when we take a minute to learn each other’s stories, we have almost everything in common. I think if we embodied that more, we’d probably make better decisions. I have washed the feet of women who have come out of ambulances, living in tents, and you can’t tell the color of their skin because they were burning fires to keep warm. And when you wash away the soot, and you get that baby out, and you greet them mother to mother, there’s very little that’s different about us. That’s my favorite part of being human: meeting people where they are. It’s never made sense to me that a pregnant woman with three kids had to make her way to my office—sometimes by bus, or walking. A 15 minute visit could take her all day. Some women can’t get away from their work for that long, some women can’t afford childcare. I have been nervous for years about restrictions to care and reproductive health for women in outlying communities. As a hospital-based obstetrician, I was meeting women when there was nothing more I could do for them than take care of their emergency situations. And sometimes those emergency situations are so extreme, it can be too late. It can be too late for a mother and a baby. As a physician, I encounter it: people’s lives get cut short. I’m creating a way to have everything we need to take care of a woman, that we can take anywhere in the country. It’s important to know how to mobilize. I’m calling it a public/ private partnership. There’s an LLC where we will generate money from billing insurance companies and there is a nonprofit side to it. Why would somebody get their care in a camper van? When you get your care with us, you’re paying it forward for somebody else in the community who might not have had access to care. I think most people want to be part of something larger than themselves. I’m calling it “sister to sister.” With trained physicians and nurses on board, we can pretty much do anything in a camper that we can do in a medical office. I try not to limit myself, because I never want to wonder what if. Just because we’re not doing it, doesn’t mean it’s not possible.”

In 2021, I drove 10,000 miles—most of it alone—across the West Coast of the U.S., taking walks while my car charged, sketching licorice ferns, buying edible cactus at open-air markets. I met extraordinary people: a Filipina filmmaker lighting candles for the ancestors on the Day of the Dead, farmers, firemen, members of tribal nations in both Oregon and California who are working to heal what history tore open. One of the questions I find myself asking is: What did my ancestors leave unfinished? I haven’t known where to begin with the stacks of notebooks I brought home from these road trips, but I can’t help feeling that listening to the joys and sorrows and worries and laughter of these splendid fellow humans would help us find the the strength and gentleness we need to not give up on each other, and not give up on loving this beloved earth that holds us in her care.