Good morning! Do you ever have those days when you know there’s an idea just a couple layers under the surface?
Maybe a shower, maybe a cup of coffee, or maybe a walk will pop it? Maybe it won’t.
This Monday night, around 8pm, I left the house barefoot, for a walk, on a mission to think of creative activities I could do with my son (I’m all ears btw).
Those ideas never came, so the walk lengthened and my risk of stepping in dog poop increased linearly.
Finally, I did arrive, solidly, at a totally random conclusion.
The small city I live in needs to be a little weirder.
This is not a diatribe towards my town, a place I cherish and hope to never leave.
But, we could use a ‘little weird’.
Walking clears the mind in odd ways.
What is so good about ‘weird’?
Here are the Google synonyms:
bizarre, quirky, outlandish, eccentric, unconventional, unorthodox, idiosyncratic, surreal, crazy, peculiar, odd, strange, queer, freakish, zany, madcap, outré.
These words summarize everything I’ve always wanted to be in life - except outré.
I have no idea what outré means. Didn’t bother to look it up, either.
Austin is weird . Thanks to our good friends , Austin is the satellite epicenter of WWAD. Probably not a coincidence.
Walk with a Doc, in general, has been a little weird since day 1.
92-year-olds racing 4-year-olds - for a mile.
Friends in Emporia, Kansas doing the same thing (talking, walking, making friends) at the same time as people in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria - that is a little weird.
A gastroenterologist showing up at a park, walking in her Birkenstocks and spelling out the health benefits of pumpkin before going to the hospital to do her rounds? A little weird.
I’ve checked out a couple of these old newsletters. I don’t know, or care, who wrote them, but, yeah, not really normal.
Did you ever meet Jessica, our rock climber? Little weird. We’re still refilling her essential oil diffuser and she’s been in NC for months. In my dreams, she’s chilling with this demimondaine .
We have 27-year-olds in finance that came to us from Meet Up spending an hour with tenured college professors who’ve dedicated decades of their life to a certain brand of ladybug.
Is it brand or species? Species, right?
You get the point.
wwad is the place to be yourself.
If you’re one of our thousands of docs like me, wwad is a place to chill ( not burn out ) ←see comments.
wwad is where you ask stupid questions - like why isn’t there any coffee here?
wwad is the perfect place to wear the t-shirt your wife threw out <twice> and you dug out - each time.
wwad is the place to bring your old dog with a ‘thing’ under his eye that can’t move that well because he lights up every single time someone pets him.
wwad is not necessarily a place to talk about politics, but it is a place where it’s okay to cry about politics.
wwad is the place to come sit in the covered picnic area for 3 months in a row while you build up the courage to walk a few hundred feet with all the people that have been encouraging you.
wwad is the place to finish your 12-mile predawn run, grab a banana and water, and walk a victory lap with your friends.
I guess it always boils down to ‘be yourself’.
Personally, I think most of us, self-included, have a little more weird in us.
Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

David, Rachael, Bryan (and Jessica)

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