Solstice, Christmas, Remembering the Deceased

This was sunrise on solstice day. Just had to share. From inside this house's arctic entry, complete with icicles. It warmed up to 12 degrees this morning!

When I was growing up, my family celebrated Christmas in a non-religious but spiritually aware way, although "spiritual" is a scare-quotes word for my parents. I'm just using it as a quick index of the tapping into collective consciousness of the stasis and preparation for forward momentum lent by the Solstice, as well as harmonization with the celebratory mood all around us.

But one tradition I want to honor is this: we always made a toast (regardless of what was being drunk) to "absent friends." Christmas is obviously a celebration of birth and new beginnings at the darkest time--in Romance languages at least, the name of Christmas refers to birth (Noel, Natale, Navidad, etc...) But since it's the time where energy, life force, dwindles, diminishes to vanishing point, it seems right to me to remember those who left us this year as well. 
So, here I am wearing a jacket that Larry gave me as a gift some years ago.

Around my neck is a chain from my grandmother, and on it an old Iraqi gold ornament intended to be worn, several of them, in the hair. There are little leaves of beaten gold at the bottom, together with an old coin, and they would have jingled in the hair slightly as the wearer moved about. And check out the intricacy of curled gold on the main "bulb" itself.

It's a little too three-dimensional to wear all the time, I'm finding, but oh my I love it so much. Christmas, remembering my Iraqi-Jewish grandmother, my artist brother in law... I feel gratitude and warmth; gratitude also for my home away from home friends and family here, who fit me in so graciously.
Love, warmth, renewal to everyone. 

Solstice Settling and Sprouting

I returned to Alaska in the middle of the first big snow of what had thus far been a mild winter. In the week that I've been back there's already been a couple feet of snow, some extreme cold, and a thaw to rain, piles of snow melting and whooshing off the steep roofs, icing up on the roads...and it's supposed to freeze back down and snow all over again by the end of today. I've been swiftly reminded of how important weather and the weather forecast become during the winters here--more so than it would somewhere with a less maritime and so changeable climate.

Fortunately, the place I'm blessed to be house-sitting this winter is snug, comfortable, and beautiful, so I won't at all mind being snowed in for a few days should that happen.
Here's the view from a window, with Mount Augustine out in the ocean, and the full moon. 

And from another direction, sunrise...

In this season of least light, the colors forced through the spectrum at this latitude are spectacular. Reputedly the north-facing window in this house has stadium-side view of the Northern Lights when they're out, so that's something I look forward to in the next month or so when that tends to happen.

It's quiet up here, even remote-feeling, although it is also right at that pinnacle of the bluff where there are updrafts and, from the highway, you can see the ravens levitating and floating and playing in those drafts. I've heard chickadees and pheasants, seen the lift-drag of pheasant tracks close to the house. When I headed out on snowshoes after a big snowfall, I wandered off the road and crossed the tracks of a large moose.

I'm cultivating some life indoors as vibrant company for the winter also. One of the first things I did was shred up a cabbage, add a bit of raw sauerkraut juice, and set it to kraut--vibrant bacteria. And then I've been making sprouts. There's buckwheat on the left and fenugreek on the right, both of which are cheap and sprout super-readily. 

I sprouted just a little buckwheat, about a quarter cup, because I wasn't sure if I'd tolerate it and I'm not really tolerating much of anything very well right now.
Was pleased to find, as I'd expected, that it's dry enough here that I could dry the sprouted buckwheat just leaving it in a warm place in the room; no dehydrator necessary.

The quarter-cup of buckwheat blended with three large dates (two and a half would have sufficed) and some cinnamon to make six little bliss balls--with no fat, if that's your bag. Each of them just a small amount of buckwheat, and so far so good tolerance-wise, but maybe that's not enough to really be able to tell.

As for the fenugreek, which I've been sprouting and eating for years, my friend Ofek in Israel tipped me off to a special property it has, which may not be surprising given its mucilaginous character.
When you blend up sprouted fenugreek in a Vitamix or similar with a bit of water, it foams up like crazy, so that it ends up looking like irish moss...

...of course, though, it's not neutral flavored like irish moss; it has fenugreek's signature pungent, curry-like taste. It could be overwhelming all by itself, although obviously the added moisture cuts it. Pretty good with some sauerkraut, avocado, and green powders. The Arab Israelis and the Yemenis make a sort of salsa with it called hilbeh, which I didn't get to try while I was in Israel, but which sounds somewhat reminiscent of Moroccan harissa. It's often offered as a hot relish at falafel stands, so since I tend to go for spicy it's reasonably likely that I've tried it in the past all unaware.
Traditionally this is a time of year that I enjoy playing with food and making goodies, as this blog can amply testify! This year, between having just been gone, getting used to staying in a different place, and the fact that my own body isn't getting along that great with food, I haven't yet figured out what sort of playing I can do for holiday gifts and for fun. But this new foamy substance, with the challenge of its intense and specific flavor, is a challenge indeed. 
Dare I say "watch this space"?

Meanwhile, I got into fenugreek leaves on my trip--after we got back from Israel, ironically; they're readily and very cheaply available at the Indian and Turkish markets near where my parents live. Less pungent than the seed, a little succulent like purslane, delicious. I came home with a big sack of soil yesterday, and am preparing to grow some little greens--fenugreek, red clover.

It feels good to be quiet, alone, and still this solstice (which literally means "sun standing still"). To feel grateful to have such a comfortable and beautiful place to be. To sleep late and not berate myself for it too much. To drink lemon water and nettle tea tinged with Earl Grey. To write. To have dirt on my fingers. To go for a short walk and have dirt under my feet through the washed-out snow. To ponder the problem of my bifurcated blog and how to return to one web home. 
And, to ask the universe, where next? I'm at a still point right now, but this is transition time. I set the intention that when I have to leave this house at the beginning of April I will move smoothly into another house-sitting arrangement, but I will also have some clarity on where I'm headed next. I have no idea, except that it's coming time for me to move away from Alaska. I don't know where. And as the sun holds still, so do I, and for a little time that's okay.

Happy Solstice--I hope yours is peaceful with the stillness that precedes germination.

Last Post from the UK; Memories as Resets

...Or at least, I strongly suspect I won't post here again until I'm back either in or en route to Alaska. I've been trying to make the most of the people I'm with here for the time I still have. I'm also doing some of the Holiday goodies preparations I do every year--nice to be able to do it for my family this time. Lots of cacao butter melting, etc...

Trying to internalize some of the lessons being offered me from nearest and dearest--heaven knows there are always lessons to learn.
My dad offered me an interesting perspective on memory as a conduit to a "system restore" for the state of being. He said that if one can return to one's earliest memories, if they are true memories, then one can return to the experience of the state one was in before any of it got overlaid with all the crap that gets laid down as one moves through life. This offers the possibility of freedom--a fresh start, even--a whole new perspective or lease on life.

So many ways we think of memory. A wax tablet that records impressions and then gets overlaid with other impressions, preserving some of them faithfully, blurring others over.
Will I remember real elephants when I think of Petra years from now?

A filing cabinet in which thoughts and experiences and details get stuffed away, sometimes with an orderly retrieval system, sometimes to be buried in further mounds of paperwork.
A central processing unit with spinning drive that selects from impressions stored hither and thither associated with different parts of the body in which they were experienced.
Sometimes memories are on the tip of conscious retrieval, like a clearing at the end of a slot canyon with a prize edifice filling its vista, elusive and splendid.

Memories can be spatial. Sometimes I walk into a room and don't know what I came in for, but when I return to where I came from, the memory returns. I think that happens to everyone.

Food holds so many memories, and bodies remember food in significant ways. Teach me lessons about memory. The flavor or aroma that takes you back instantly to the first place you encountered it. Something that made you sick as a little kid that you can never stand the taste of again. (My brother still won't eat apples after such an experience when he was maybe four years old.)
Sometimes you can put something in your mouth and spit it out before it's an actual experience. Some things you put in your mouth melt before you can spit them out, and the experience has already become a part of you. The instant you put it in your mouth was a choice, and you can't take it back.

source: http://www.123rf.com/photo_11424837_bunch-of-dates-is-hanging-from-the-palm.html

Do I remember everything I put in my mouth that melted into me before I was aware of how it was creating me?

Dates...dates are always good. Memories of California, Hawaii, Israel always Israel all the way back...Even though there were a couple years I wouldn't let myself eat them, my body remembers them and is grateful.

Right now, my body remembers coconut milk and gets snotty the moment it gets any, since I guess anything you eat almost exclusively for a long period of time your body develops some intolerance for. 

Let me remember this and not spoil dates for myself, or whatever the next thing is.

Are food allergies themselves a form of memory? What if we could remember before we were born, and be able to rewind all the baggage with which we came into this life, start afresh?

Whichever way it is, a memory is a bridge--but between then and now, or between now and now?

So much of these past two months I've spent in the UK and Israel have flown away like water under a bridge (another bridge, or the same bridge?), so many words and movements I'll never remember. I want to make sure to take some true memories with me, godspeed toward dawning of certainty of what my next step should be.

I feel privileged to be so well loved and supported as I negotiate whether I'm passing under a bridge or crossing over it.

Or what the bridge is, or how much I need to know about where it's leading...

Remembering Larry, with Gratitude

When I learned that my brother in law Larry had passed away a couple days ago, my first response was to feel a sense of loss--on my own account, especially on Sandy's account--and what an inspiring, mutually strengthening couple they were--but also a loss to the world of a highly talented, extremely goodhearted and genuinely lovely man.

Old picture from this blog, with Sandy and Phil's Mom, 2011

But this regret was soon followed by gratitude, seasonally appropriate, and celebrating Larry's life is the happiest and most fitting reaction/

I am so grateful to have known him. And after my grandmother died this year just as I was thinking that I should seize some time with her before it was too late (and then it was too late), I am so grateful to have had some time with Larry this last August. It was a short visit as I passed through Portland, ironically just a few days before I almost died myself, but I stayed with Larry longer than I'd thought I had time for. We looked through a photograph album of the mural he was working on--still working, still making art, even as his prognosis worsened and his body weakened. We drank green tea with stevia. We talked; we shared silence. When I left, I felt awareness of the possibility that this would be the last time we met in life.

Now, I remember the words of a wise friend many years ago: our dead are always with us, sometimes as intimately and vividly so as when they were alive. I salute Larry's spirit that remains with everyone whom he loved so well and who loved him.

Here are some of the examples Larry set in his life:
--He was unwaveringly positive in his outlook. He accepted what came his way, including cancer, and loved the world just as it was, in just the configuration it offered itself.
--He supported other human beings--with generosity, kindness, helpfulness, and support of all kinds.
--He was so committed to his work, and he took pride in it. Larry's murals were physically demanding to produce because of their large scale, but they display a sense of intimate detail in the small things right down to clothing and facial features, and there are always some humorous touches also. Perhaps the largeness of his canvas helped him not to be self effacing about the work, but he shared pictures and touching personal stories (e.g. of the real-life people who ended up featuring in the murals) with enthusiasm and a sense of wonder. I always felt inspired by his deep-seated knowledge that his art, art in general, was worth talking about and sharing.
--He encouraged other artists. He encouraged Sandy to let her creative talents blossom, as they have indeed. Whenever we talked about creative writing, I went away feeling empowered to ride out the blankity blank times or the troughs of despair and self flagellation.
--He was always learning. Recently he had been taking photography classes and developing his considerable talents in that arena too. The most stunning picture of Phil I've ever seen was taken by him.

The only time Phil and I asked what his advice was for happiness and success in life and relationships, his answer was simple and frank: focus on the love first and foremost; let everything else come second to it or go by the by in its service.
I wish I could be better at taking that advice.
I knew a man who practiced what he only preached when asked, who walked his talk.

I give thanks for and celebrate Larry's life.

At Sea, Back in England, Still a Writer?

In Israel, I learned that this baby's play area is called a "university."

And this "rose red city" encountered through a slot canyon (look deep into the picture) shows the indivisibility of "human" and "natural." 

Back to work today, I got so cold upstairs that I came down to sit in front of the electric heater and sat so close I scorched my cardigan! Even the temporary flush of a big dose of niacin didn't heat me enough.

Back from Israel, at my parents' house which is still the place I've lived in for the longest continuous time in my life, although my grandmother's apartment in Israel is the place that's been there for me my whole life, I'm still not home. I saw my last warm sunshine possibly for many months before entering the airport yesterday morning (although thankfully there's been some November sun in England too)...

...and with one foot in Israel, the other in England, and most of my material and emotional center of gravity in Alaska, I feel like the arches on that baby university. And at sea, actually--neither or none of my feet are on anything solid right now.

Nausea? It's from the Greek word for "ship", their chariots of the sea. And with so many seas between my feet, perhaps it's not surprising that I've been so continuously nauseous for such a great while now. Something has to shift.

I loved my friend Dawn's comment on my last post that inside-outness can often be a feature of travel. 
Who am I now? And where should my axis center? Axis center...accent...
By the time we left Israel yesterday, my accent in Hebrew was driving me nuts, and at the same time I was so tired that I was saying words with all the consonants reversed and forgetting basic words for things. I was very single minded about speaking Hebrew the whole time I was there, but since I'm not used to speaking it that was quite a workout, with so many features of language to juggle plus the intensity of communicating with real people about real things as opposed to doing exercises.
And that ferocity of linguistic focus, plus the almost-complete absence of downtime in this very social trip, begs the question of why Hebrew is so important to me (i.e. why am I practicing it instead of German or Spanish). It also left no energy or time for creative writing, with the clock ticking on my critical paper deadline and much still to do on my creative thesis. You wouldn't even know I was in an MFA program.

I am so confused. Every once in a while in the past week, I've read a poem and felt a moment of "ahhh" as a poem begins to surface from my own subconscious. Every once in a while I've eaten a date and felt a sweet spot of acceptance from my guts. But most of the time it's swirls of word sounds and grumbles of the self-contained ocean of my body. 

My mum's three brothers and their families are such awesome, admirable people. I see how direct some of their paths have been and how they have created their own success within that path through commitment, intelligence and perseverance...

...and I can't help but look at my own flounderings and fumblings and feel I don't belong/deserve/measure up. I'm too old to have so little to show for any of what I have to offer. And I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up. Or where.

Now that I'm not focused on speaking my second language, and now I'm not in that intense, fresh-tasting country to which I feel such a connection, even anxious to catch up on work and get those book reviews sent out, I hereby commit to opening up some time just to sit with pen and paper, or a clean Word file and nothing else on the computer. 
I don't believe these waters upon which and surrounding which I'm a seasick sailor contain monsters or darkness. I believe there is so much that may come to the surface, and writing is the best way I know of to midwife that surfacing.
I have a feeling it'll have to be a process of surrender and innocence, and that I'll have to let go of any presumptions about what/who/where. I'll even have to let go of any expectations of my own success or even continuation as a writer. My writing might be the end of my writing. 
I am numbed by my unknowing, and yet willing to embrace this unknowing. 

my mum and her three brothers--album cover shot. how wonderful to still be
standing around in shirtsleeves in late November!

First Postcard from Israel

Time, high time! Our first relatively quiet day since arriving here almost two weeks ago, and it's taken a little finagling and following of learning curves to get an internet connection and to transfer photos from phone to computer... We arrived in Israel promptly for my cousin's wedding...

my mom with my cousin

 ...which was beautiful, and our dance card has been full from sunrise to sunset every day we've been here.

It's been wonderful to catch up with friends and relatives, and simply to be here in this small, relatively affluent, expensive country that has so little remaining wilderness on the surface, and certainly compared to when I was a little kid (let alone when my mom was), and yet is full of wild nooks and corners everywhere. 

I visited a friend I hadn't seen for many years--from all the way back to my fruit fairy days in California--and was reminded and recalled to a very different time in my life and a very different way of living my life, on which more soon.
Also more soon on my mom's and my visit to the Babylonian museum, and our day trip to Petra.

My mom had been wanting to go to Petra forever. I'm never normally into one-day tours, but this was just perfect. A truly unforgettable experience--much more in my next post.

Short and sweet for now. The wedding was two days of festivity and gaiety (bet you haven't seen that word in type in a while!). In Israel they know how to do it in style. 

But I think the fact that the outdoor environment is so effortlessly gorgeous helps a lot! This was at a former kibbutz in Kfar Saba.
My mom is so lovely...

The second "leg" of the wedding was the Shabbat Chatan--the bridegroom's sabbath--at a hotel right on the beachfront in Tel Aviv. At the end of the Shabbat, my mom and I took a walk on the beach, full of people watching, full of boats and waves and cloudscapes...
...and these birds--geese, I think--flying south. They came in v-shaped waves, so directed, so intentional.

 The sunset speaks for itself.

I don't know how to speak for myself here, except to say that I can't help feeling at home here, despite all the mismatches and despite my frustration with my far-from-perfect Hebrew. Even if I don't talk a lot, being able to talk and to talk well is so important to me.
On the other hand, I was careless and got glutened at some point during the wedding, and am having the familiar experience here that while everything is so much more delicious, my digestion sucks even more than usual. It's taking a long time to recover from the gluten, most likely, but many times before I've had this physical inside-outness here.
Maybe it's an overturn I need to embrace...
So much more to think and talk about.
More soon--off to visit another great aunt.
Much love!

Gut Feelings--No More Eating To Please

Just at the four week mark in England, heading to Israel tomorrow; I finished translating Alpha this morning! And sent in the final portion of my second packet of this year's MFA work (i.e. thesis and critical paper work). Doesn't it always feel good to have some closure before a trip?
For a little more closure, since I'm burning the candle hard at both ends anyway, the promised post on some food stuff that isn't going away (yet?)
You'd think--I keep thinking--that a light bulb will go off and I'll have it all figured out and have created a sustainable, simple, failsafe way to fuel my physical existence in this world and perhaps even understand that this is necessary as a prerequisite to other things.

But just as I failed to find one single "bottom", the light bulb moment is elusive too, and I keep bobbing around the same old gyre. That said, my current problem is a result of having tried something "new" but finding it led back to "same old." Since getting out of the hospital--two months now, yay!--I'd been trying to eat a variety of foods rather than living mostly on coconut milk. This meant experimenting with legumes and gluten free grains, and even, via an ill-advised purchase of a marked-down-gluten-free boxed brownie mix, with some refined flour and sugar in the dynamite medium of chocolate. Oh, my proclivity for marked down goods! Always gets me in trouble. And then I allowed my mum to get me similar gluten free packaged goods to sample over here. I learned that my body, like most bodies, is susceptible to addiction to the chocolate/sugar combination, and suffered much guilt and painful cravings even while being able to taste the essential emptiness of that food.. 
I continued with the illusion that my body could cope with these foods...
And even relaxed my ban on sucralose so I could have good old English ginger beer in the zero calorie version.

This ginger beer is from Sainsbury's; the "diet" versions from two other supermarkets I looked at had barley malt in the ingredients! Diet soda that isn't gluten free?! Aside from the sucralose, the above picture has two other issues. The enormous amount of liquid recalls a flagging of massive liquid consumption as ominous in a post of about 18 months ago. And, well, the diet product. Um, of course it's reasonable for me to try the products over here and see what they're like, right? It's quite good, incidentally.
I got sick. Not from the sucralose--so far that seems okay. From the food, from expanding my palette and kidding myself that I could handle a broader range of foods. There were two days in the past week that I basically couldn't do anything, except some translating, and was just in abject pain all through the inside of my body. I've had to scale the variety way back and to accept that I have to be super careful. Even relying heavily on charcoal and silica gel and enzymes, if I have one bite too many I am in agony. I already mentioned using tons of charcoal a little while back, but I wasn't yet ready then to face that the things I was choosing to eat were simply making me sick.
So, no I can't just eat anything gluten free and be okay. And I can't just go out to eat and trust I won't get sick if I order something I know will work. And no I can't just eat more of something because it tastes good. I was doing quite a bit of "eating to please" also, and can't do that anymore. Whether my gut issues are a result of having celiac or are created/exacerbated by the history of self starvation is a moot point at this stage, and saying a person can go gung ho on all kinds of foods in the interests of "recovery" or of fitting in with other people is misguided if there are genuine problems, even if getting sick doesn't happen immediately.
If you have gut permeability issues, they can preclude good digestion even if you're not getting symptoms of indigestion. Inflammation will build up, until you're confronted with it harshly as I was last week, and as I could have avoided being by laying off grains, legumes, and refined sugar also. Since sucralose is sucrose with the hydrogen bonds replaced with chlorine, it's pretty likely it could penetrate a leaky gut in a not-so-nice way, so I should probably reconsider the ginger beer and (unpictured) energy drinks.
Duh, right?! A light bulb turning off and on like a fireworks display--can't I just keep it on and act on the realization?
The best part is that my mum has undertaken to remind me not to eat "too much", which will be a welcome contrast from her expressing concern over whether I've eaten "enough".
Ugh, I don't love talking about food! Do you hate me talking about food? It's good to have this under awareness before we go to Israel, since the food is so fantastic and tempting there. I'm relieved to be back on the straight and narrow, and to have overridden the "eat to please" imperative, to have headed back to more bearable ways to deal with the problem that generally, eating tends to beget eating.