Losing, Subconscious Messages, Marzipan-Stuffed Dates

After all these extremely cold dry weeks, "snow is falling snow on snow, snow on snow" (in the bleak midwinter, here and now).

Beautiful...but the forecast warns that once again, it'll warm up again and snow will turn to rain.

Snow on the ground, and the clouds that bring snow, do something to the light. There's a softening, a dimming: an invitation to stare at that candle flame peacefully, rather than run around doing the last hundred errands, driving through the snow far faster than a one-horse open sleigh could dream of.

By the time I got home, I was without the debit card to our joint bank account, and was also pretty cognizant of having misplaced or lost the go-phone that's all the cellphone I have.
How the subconscious works! I've been receiving message after message recently that I "need" to get an iPhone. Loss of a card from a disjointing account--telling in its own way also.

It should be mentioned that, although I'm great at losing other things, I almost never lose material objects in an annoying way. And so, by today I've tracked down the debit card to the first place I suspected. The physical object returns, the question and/or message remains.

We have places to go and gifts to wrap, but I wanted to show that I haven't lost my "war on the kitchen at festive season" propensity, thanks to my grandmother in Israel. She wouldn't understand making chocolate from scratch, or marzipan for that matter, let alone soaking Brazil nuts pre-dehydrating.

But she would understand the delight in creativity and the promise of purveying enjoyment to other people through the creations.

My own idea, although I'm sure it's been done before--I made marzipan, stuffed date halves with it, coated the top with my home-made (very dark) chocolate.
I'm sure it would be really good with store-bought marzipan and chocolate, but making those from scratch made it special for me, even if people couldn't tell the difference (I hope they can)!

Piles of other goodies made already--I'll try to get some more pictures up soon.
Happy Holidays!

The Day After Solstice, and All the Days to Come

Solstice was yesterday. I have less than an hour until that is no longer true here. Thus flew time since I returned to Homer yesterday--two parties, goodies-making underway, and a lot of intense and important conversation. Otherwise, I would have written sooner, and would have gone to bed already tonight!

On the road yesterday, I got to see the Solstice sun rise--this picture taken around 11am... 

 The whole of Turnagain Arm frozen with that rumor of sun.

So cold, the water was boiling off the ocean as it came into the inlet.

A long, cold drive for me. The heater had been working some, but quit completely, and the outside temps were somewhere from five to fifteen below, plus windchill. A small amount of water I'd left in a cup froze inside the car between Cooper Landing and Soldotna (less than 60 miles). The hand warmers I had on my gloves and in my shoes felt like they weren't working, but they were just up against so much opposition. Lesson learned from last time, I stopped pretty much at every opportunity and sought out warmth!

But I thought it was important to register that the world did not end yesterday, as confirmed by "The Moose is Loose" bakery in Soldotna.

The stretch before Soldotna was a problem last time, so safe arrival in Soldotna seemed a good indication that the world was still here.

As it turned out, the final 72 miles home from Soldotna were the hardest. The sun had been making its long slow descent--in the south at this time of year, directly into my eyes--and finally finished the job around 3 or 3.30. The roads in this stretch were icier than anywhere else that day. So we went from driving with a bright light directly in your eyes (so that you can't see the road, or anything, at times) to driving in the dark on ice. Which is why there isn't a photo of the sunset.
Home safe and straight to a party.

Freezing my tail off aside, I'm grateful to have been able to reinscribe that rather stressful journey as something accomplishable. It's similar to what I hope for this 2012 Solstice. Many people were sincerely expecting some grand cataclysm or epiphany or ending. Many others, probably a greater number, thought it was a load of twaddle. My hope is that all the energy toward positive change and clearer intentions generated in preparation for this moment can be used to clear the psychic air around us, allow us all to become more conscious of how what we do affects the air, the space, each other, ourselves, and from that consciousness to make our choices. "No good or bad but thinking makes it so?" Well, I do think so; and, notwithstanding, simply these words, with no "think," no "believe," no "feel" attached to them: 
Peace.     Love.     Kindness.     Attention.     Intention.   Happiness.     Awareness.      Acceptance.

Happy Solstice, and all the days to come.

In-Person Visit! Happy Solstice

As hinted at in my last post, this past week has begun a change that I would have expected to be dreadful, but has turned out to give hope that breaking down is also building up (and perhaps "Ecclesiastes" meant that all along). It's no surprise that the situation (about which I'm not yet comfortable being more specific), and its attendant message of a silver lining-and-coating, should arise around the Solstice of what's been a year of piercing upheaval, and often destruction, for most people I know. But the Solstice is also a natural bringer-together of people; an opportunity to rest in the beauty of what-is, and of the special people with whom to share both the beauty and the what-is-ness.

We love each other in my MFA program, the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. At last count, there are three(!) Facebook groups for us, and any time I go into Facebook, the majority of posts in my feed are from RWW-ers. There are several with whom I have a special connection, and we email as frequently as our schedules allow, usually in great depth and length. I am lucky enough to have two RWW alumnae right here in Homer, whom I love and admire and somewhat heroine-worship. But otherwise, the fact remains that Facebook and email contact is not the same as face-to-face sharing of air. I know. I'm telling you something really surprising.

So what a treat it was that Meagan, who now lives in Olympia but was raised in Soldotna (just 72 miles north of Homer, a third of the way to Anchorage), came home for the Holidays!

 I broke my journey in Soldotna and stayed over (thanks again to her so gracious parents); her dad took a look at the Warthog's barely functioning radiator (having noted how cold my hand was on the initial handshake!); her mom ensured I slept cozy and peaceful; I got to meet her beautiful daughter...it felt special to laugh so hard with people whom I'd never met before, the family of someone I wish I could see more often.

Special, also, to hike the beach at Kenai, the lunar landscape with 3pm alpenglow of sun sinking in the south, being with Meagan as she exclaimed in excitement, awe, fascination--variations of "Wow, this is so cool! This is so beautiful! Unique!" The sea ice with its various textures, its flattened snowflakes like feathers a cell thick, its texturing with pools and ponds frozen just as solid as the rest but with a translucency like an observatory, really is a poem-puller.

There is something so elemental about it. The temperatures were hovering from 3-9 degrees above zero, depending on which thermometer you were looking at (this morning, Anchorage at 16 degrees feels balmy by comparison). And yet it still seemed perfectly natural to lie down on this ice rock, to be against the earth's extra skin.

But even with two coats and many other layers on, that was still a rapid chill!
With gratitude and best intentions for this Solstice...

Briefly stated...

...When the shit hits the fan hard enough, in sufficient quantities, the energything goes very quiet and calm.

Is this feeling of limpness resignation--stunned recrimination--or is it...relief?

How to Accomplish More Than You Think Possible in a Short Time

Especially for those of us in school, whether teaching or studying, or both, at this season temporal movement seems reversed: we take tiny steps, making scant forward progress, while the Holidays hurtle toward us, leaving ever less space while our string of tasks remains just as long, starts to overstretch the space remaining.

What do you do when your list, as whittled down to essentials as you can make it, still doesn't fit in the space? 
Either: You have to find a way to fold that string of tasks in half, or coil it up, squish it down, so that you're taking care of more than one thing at a time.
Or: You have to burn through the tasks at a higher rate, so that you do things one at a time, but faster than you ever had reason to believe yourself capable of.

With the "folding the string in half" method, you could take a blog post and turn it into an essay for your "packet" that's due on Christmas Eve, so that the single thought/observation fuels two separate pieces of writing. Or make up one huge base of chocolate from which to make several different goodies. Or, if you're really pushed for time, don't make the chocolate from scratch, and make simpler goodies!

With the "burning through at a higher rate," you're essentially speeding up time from your own end. The Holidays, or whatever deadline, are speeding toward you; you speed up to meet it. You're not defeated by time!
That's exactly what I recently did to meet my Ultimatum. And not because I was smart about it--I wasn't in a condition to be smart at that point. I was fading out. I overcame time out of necessity, because I'd left what I had to do until the last minute. I had around a week, and even with some fudging with clothes and food, I needed to gain more than a pound a day (2-3pounds per week is what's considered safe). I'd lost time, thinking the race was already lost. My biggest message? 
To overcome the inevitable, you have to go against everything you normally swear by.
I could write "weight loss tips" for the rest of my life, no doubt--without even thinking, those behaviors are what I do around food. So, for that week or so, I did the opposite of my usual self every possible time. Three cups of coconut cream a day no skimping. Full-calorie almond milk as well, chocolate flavored because you like that flavor better and it has more calories. In smoothies, with all the smoothie fixings in proper serving sizes, not the usual pinches. Rice cracker instead of carrot. Dip on cracker instead of naked carrot. Some substantial starch with the veggies, not veggies alone. With some sort of heavy sauce on top. Full? Eat some more. About to lose the whole lot? Back off, wait. Think you can hold some more down? Eat it. Drinking? Drink something caloric. Green powder in juice, not water. What are you doing putting stevia in your tea? Put something caloric, like honey. Oh yes you are going to eat dessert, and you're going to eat a brownie, not half a square of 90% cocoa chocolate that keeps you going all afternoon. Yes, you never eat at night. Well then, have a snack before you head up the ladder. Yes, you don't like an early breakfast. OK so drink mango juice that you never let yourself drink and don't dilute it and drink lots and then make breakfast. 
Big time-defeater: calories per bite. Yes, apples are healthier than gluten free cookies, and yes, a big apple is substantial. And yes, I prefer apples to gluten free cookies. But I can't deny that the latter are much easier to eat, for more calories per bite, and they don't keep me chewing for minutes so if I overcome my horror, I can eat far more of them at a sitting. Calories per bite, and frequency of ingestion of calorie dense items. 
Not just counter to my usual practice, but horrifying to my sensibilities. And once I'm out of my comfort zone, I can find unlikely allies.
Potato chips! Eww?! Usually I eat them once or twice a year, and regret it ferociously. The regret stems partly from my aesthetic attitude toward the chips (recrimination, self-flagellation), and largely from the fact that they always leave me with a stomach ache. At this point, though? I have a permanent stomach ache anyway, can't even lie flat at night. Bring 'em on! Loads of calories, take up very little stomach space, easy to each. And the oil and salt were actually somewhat stomach-calming. I showed up for Phil's birthday party already reflux-stuffed, wondering how I'd eat anything, afraid people would think I still wasn't eating. Getting into the potato chips in the appetizers enabled me to eat not only a bunch of the chips themselves but a proper meal, with dessert (in a bigger serving than I could comprehend), also. Potato chips became my friend. 
And now I know, too, that salty and oily food could help an upset stomach. Avocado and nori, anyone?
One thing I didn't do was eat anything I'm actually allergic to, like gluten, or highly intolerant of (and opposed to in principle) like dairy, as that would have undermined the effort. 
Finally, I left nothing to chance. I took the scale with me when I went to my appointment. It's a four hour drive to Anchorage at least, and I know long drives are dehydrating. Thank goodness I did.

So, I turned over on its head all my ordinary behaviors and ate as much as I could, as often as I could. I left nothing to chance, and I utilized some fudging to finesse and ensure success. 

(Edited to add one more important thing blown out of my head with the arrival of unexpected guests:) -- During that "push to exceed the possible" period, I did not keep my eye on the goal. It would have been fatal to do so--I was trying to accomplish something I thought was impossible! I stepped on the scale a couple days in, and my weight had gone down (hypermetabolism), obliterating some of the progress. There was temptation to give up right there, or to use this as a goad to try even harder. I had to drive from my head that this was Monday and my appointment was Friday and there was still so far to go. I had to rescale my map so that Friday didn't even fit on the screen, and look no farther than the next calorie-dense bite. I knew when the appointment was; my psyche was suffused with that consciousness. No need to keep breaking focus by looking at your watch.

As a writer? Instead of going out and out and out to get more experience, I should sit down alone in the loft all afternoon and write, without stimuli everywhere. Instead of catching snippets of my life work, stuffing them in my thought-pocket and hoping I'll remember them among the dust bunnies, I should grab my pen the instant those thoughts come, and get them down, and nudge them farther. Reverse old patterns. Know that I can get something done in far less time than I think. And when I'm writing for a deadline, sit there and write, and write, and write. Zoom in so close that the deadline doesn't even appear on my thought-horizon. I know when the deadline is; my psyche is suffused with that consciousness. No need to keep breaking focus by looking at your watch.

One last thought, before I go off to ponder further the metaphor of my eating sprint-a-thon as applied to writing: It was a sprint, and it was a reversal of the normal. As a result, it was unsustainable. Very quickly, I was drawn back to my old habits. Everything has too many calories again and I have no appetite. But if I go back down, we're straight back to where I was a mere few weeks ago, except possibly worse. So while it's unsustainable, the scenario that forced the sprint is fresh enough in my mind that I remember why I had to sprint. Maybe I can be better organized in other aspects of life too.

Meanwhile, I just hand-grated a whole pound of cacao butter to inaugurate my annual goodie-making extravaganza. Some things I really prefer to make from scratch.

But I have the powdered sugar and all that stuff ready too for those who prefer that!

Candles, Chanukah, Turning the Gaze Toward

It was the first day of Chanukah when I decided to go wrestle with a poem instead of getting my blog post up. Actually, by then it was the second day, courtesy of our being so far to the left of whence time is measured. (Day teeters into day.) It's still the second day under my fingers here and now, but in Israel they're well into the third. (Day unto day uttereth...what kind of speech?)

What I loved most about Chanukah as a kid was the candle-lighting -- how the candle for each of the eight days was on the stand, even if it would remain unlit till the last day, how the candles for the earliest days burned farther down, with blacker wicks, than the pristine latecomers...best of all, though, was the shamash: the ninth candle without which none of the candles would be alight; the candle that wasn't even counted, that didn't have its day, but that you could hold alight in your hand, and pass on light to others. Shamash is server, but to me, shamash was the one who got to work all the magic. I wanted to be that one! (Day unto day, light unto light.)

from: http://socialtimes.com/

Back in England, I was familiar with Chanukah, Christmas, Diwali, Eid-ul-Fitr (that one was puzzling to me, because my Arabic-speaking Israeli grandmother calls every holiday "Eid," including those at the opposite end of the year). From my reading of novels set in Roman times, such as Rosemary Sutcliffe's Eagle of the Ninth, I knew then about the pagan Yule festival too. I loved the synergy between all these religions, that each held a festival of lights around the same time each year, although it did not yet occur to me to wonder why places like India, with far less dark, needed a festival of lights, or whether the southern hemisphere needed to have these in June. (The candle passes from faith to faith to faith.)

And yes, all these faiths, and secular non-faiths too, use candles not only as naked, direct light in darkness, but also as a drawing-in of energy and attention; the visual equivalent of a ringing bell.

I now don't know why it made me so happy, as a little kid, to feel assured that all religions were ultimately the same act of praise to the same God. I don't know why, rather than studying the matter deeply and seeking how to bring people back together, I chose instead to turn my face away when I began to learn of all the divisions among believers, among humans. So many cherished beliefs are shattered in the teens.

The tailspin from which I'm now emerging is the most malignant phase in an attitude of steadfast turning away, toward passage into a different plane of existence entirely. As I emerge, dodging shame; as I accept the various crutches of lifestyle, medication, friendships, foods, upon which I have to lean, I begin to gaze into candlelight, trataka meditation. Gazing into the light, feeling the air around me fill with sound beyond my ears' own ringing, I think of my family in Israel, where it is tomorrow; of who I was yesterday, of how candles and festivals and hand-holding across race and creed and space show those subtle connections, those ulterior harmonies, that might just win out over being separate, heads turned away.

Sunt Lacrima Rerum -- Always in Season

Three times in the past three weeks. On Monday, it was around "sixteen-one thousand" in my litany, standing on one leg in front of the cop car; my car in the ditch, eleven below zero. The day before, it was seeing Tom and Jeanie's movie for the first time since Lucas died. A couple weeks before that, it was being unable to remember a friend's phone number as I continued in the downward spiral now thankfully reversed.

Sunt lacrima rerum, says Vergil. Literally, "There are tears for things." As humans, with human experiences we have tears.

I find myself seasonal like the Nile in this. At times, I don't cry for months on end. Other times, I cry nonstop. At the treatment centers this summer it got to be embarrassing at times--I'd say my goal for the day was not to cry, and would be crying twenty minutes later. But until these past few weeks, I hadn't cried since getting out of treatment.

I accept my small bouts of weeping with gratitude, an opportunity to allow some balance in the water table. Laughter's similarly seasonal. Lately, I've found myself laughing more, where it had stopped pretty much entirely. I welcome small bouts of laughter. Why not laugh a little, weep a little, every day? Why can't the grace of being moved by life be an everyday nourishment?

As a writer, I wish to make myself laugh and cry every day as I engage with the wonder of the universe. To make others laugh and cry also. If I can't find it within myself, I can read and watch movies to educate me and make up the deficit as I laugh and cry (I am so far deficient in film education, and am grateful every time I watch a single film to fill the gap a little).

The obvious metaphor: I have gone from habitually eating almost nothing to eating everything I could hold and more, for an ultimatum. One whole week later, the barren season beckons with siren song; the complications of appetite strike fear. Why can't daily nourishment be part of a full life, like tears and laughter, and the ecstatic connectedness to which they are a response?

Tears, laughter, adequate and appropriate sustenance. May they always be in season.

Approaching Connectedness; Approaching Gratitude

Of course, I left out a lot of important things from my previous post. I need to reassure everyone who leaped up and contacted me in alarm that I haven't gone back to carrots and lettuce already--that was a misleading suggestion. I also left out some of why it's all even worth it. But rather than go back and edit, here's a whole new post.

What's missing from my previous post--so much more beyond the surface tension of my illness.

There are so many things going on outside of myself. There are so many things going on inside of myself that I need to offer to other people. Even the times I've been in extremis with these health conditions, I've always been able to recognize that what I've lost has been connection to a larger reality. At this point, connection to that reality is melting in, slowly.

I had a hair-raising, horrendous drive home with the non-functioning car heater, ice, dark, anxiety...perhaps I'll tell the rest of that story next time. At home the water pipe had frozen where weasels or squirrels had damaged the insulation. Frozen and burst, so that a thousand gallons from our newly filled tank ran out, right under our cabin, eighteen feet from an erosive bluff. Phil is an incredible one-man-band, but crawling under the house when it's close to zero, popping up again to pour water into a suspected leak...you really need more than one set of eyes and hands for that.
 What about in Anchorage? I was there all weekend, at the gracious hospitality of wonderful friends who care, as a verb, and whose own lives are so rich, broad, deep, giving and receptive both. Just to notice these friends and how they are; to hear what they've been doing with their lives, what they've been observing, brings me to a broadened awareness, which contains hope.

I got to see our friend Tom at the viewing of his and Jeanie's film, a starred offering at the Anchorage International Film Festival. It's the first time I've seen their film since Lucas died, which lent some special poignancy to the experience. Tom's graciousness and poise was beautiful to see. Some people had come up from Homer specially to see the film, including people with whom I'd been acquainted but didn't yet have names for. Meeting them in Anchorage in support of beloved Tom and Jeanie, and having the "I've seen you around everywhere, we were both in such and such...but what is your name?" conversation revealed long tendrils of connectedness.

Getting to meet online acquaintances is another special delight. By a wonderful serendipity, I got to spend time with Cinthia, together with Lynn, with whose friendship I've been blessed a few years now.

 Cinthia felt like a kindred spirit right off the bat, from love of the outdoors to averseness to cold (I know, what are we doing up here?) to intensity about writing; even to food preferences (helps me to think through my return to posting recipes on here again).

Lynn, of course... what can I say? Her blend of tenderness and passion, her unmatched observantness... 
Oh, and we laughed a lot, all three of us together. Always a good sign.

Meanwhile back home...the two of us and Fido the camera on the right...

I don't feel proud to have driven him nuts over the past...year? two years? more?--to have justified the Cockney Rhyming Slang appellation of "trouble and strife" for "wife."
There's still a lot of work to figure out how to get done all my work, and write, and do things with Phil--from chores around our small but high-maintenance homestead to more recreational activities. But now at least we can have the conversations.



I've been so scared. I've been protecting myself (to death, some would say). Having propelled myself out of the tailspin--with help, ultimately, from the distasteful ultimatum--I'm less protected. I feel a lot that terrifies me into my guts. I also see a lot of joy and hope; a lot to look forward to. I begin to feel connected outside of myself, to be able to send those huge and convoluted webs inside me into the wider world.

Masochistic Gratification, and What I'm Going to Do with the Gifts

(morning on the road; likely will be edited)
The Gifts, you say? What gifts? 
Well, let's see. 

• Sandblasting of the cocoon keeping me safe from my fears of myself and other people
• Energy and Optimism, both of which push against fear
• Spatial awareness
• Lithium, two ways.--(1) continuation of the prescription, and (2) it had quit working below a certain weight (I could feel it stop) -- not enough myelin sheath to transport in the brain -- it's working again, which is awesome for the whole world of nuances it allows me to perceive (as mentioned before)
• Generally, feeling less "frail," less likely to break if I ran into something (which I'm doing less now anyway)
• Yet more experience going through this 'plunge,' coupled with strong motivations not to let things get out of hand again, aided by my careful and consistent journaling of the process. Somehow, this time, I'm seeing my way toward using those journals to recognize danger signs, guard against them...and write about it!

So many gifts--but in order to receive them,

Masochistic Gratification was necessary

(How's that for a Purgatorio-Paradiso model? I'm not sure I care for it, but that's how events occurred)

I regard every act of eating as damage limitation--the less I can get away with, the better.

And yet--I've worked as a chef and a farmer; I have a fantastic palate and enough food allergies to encourage my native flair for recipe development. I know how to taste good tastes!

Inevitably, then, there are hankerings I don't gratify. Desserts I make and feed to everyone else but barely nibble myself. Things made to my own peculiar specifications, that I love, that sit in the freezer forever. Fruit sniffed and inhaled and not eaten. Recipes or preparation techniques pored over but not made; prepared 'store-bought' items scorned.

Then suddenly these past couple weeks, all those hankerings, gratified en masse, ad nauseam (literally, to the point that I almost lost it all at my appointment!)

Not only that, I had to make recipes with the full complement of fat and sugar, whereas the first thing I usually do is sub out all or most (of the sugar in particular).

My green powder and marine phytoplankton in juice, not water.

Two persimmons at breakfast, not one, and something else like oatmeal, besides my coconut oil.

The gratifying brownie had to be eaten after a big lunch including a cup of coconut cream in a smoothie and some sweet potato fried (!!!) in coconut oil (never had them fried, always wondered). Then another brownie mid-afternoon. As well as fixing, I had to eat some of the raw cheesecake (with persimmons) I'd made for dinner with friends, even though once again, I almost lost the whole thing. Then, when we got home lateish, another brownie.

Another evening, having bought some Daiya nondairy cheese (!!! I had this in treatment and, to my surprise, liked it quite a lot. But 'prepared from scratch snob that I am, I couldn't have imagined buying it)... I wanted it with cauliflower, but had to have it with cauliflower and gluten-free pasta. And some sort of dessert afterward.

The aim wasn't only volume, although that was essential with the amount to do in such a short time. Perhaps even more important was density. Every bite or sip I took had to have as many calories per bite as possible. So, gluten free bread with almond butter; not apples or carrots as I would ordinarily prefer. Pasta and cauliflower; not instead of. Basically, I was reversing many of the most obvious weight loss tips you'll see everywhere, all the way down to eating some packaged foods. This reversal felt very very weird for my identity.

Yes, the food tasted good, but since I was eating until it hurt too much to eat more, then eating more as soon as it would stay down, the "tasted good" part was pretty much eclipsed. A few nights, I couldn't lie flat. Of course this was better than refeeding in treatment centers, being unable to lie down but in my own bed at home at least, and being able to choose foods for which I'd hankered or had curiosity, rather than bland treatment center pabulum.

Still, after all the virtual gratification of recipe gawking, food fixing for others, making things for myself and eating them by the crumb, making myself ersatz versions minus the density, it felt absolutely masochistic to be having tasty, aesthetically satisfying foods in such an aesthetically repulsive food situation. I actually wonder whether "the tube" would have been better, to remove the association between food and discomfort. Right now, I just want to eat carrots and lettuce again: I know with vivid visceral gut knowledge how awful "those" "naughty" foods can make me feel.

But, see above, slamming them down for a short period has also enabled me to feel so much better.

Now I need to learn to maintain. Now, 'polar girl, time to find some balance!

Rock Jockey Gets to Keep Riding--Toward Where?

Yesterday was the other end of the ultimatum that's been causing me so much anxiety for the past month or so. I know I have the potential for leaving things to the last minute, but the combination of last minute-ness, physical and physiological effects of full-on masochistic foie gras action, and anxiety, was indescribable. 
Yesterday's drive to Anchorage was cold, but not freezingfreezing; the radiator was managing to put out at least a modicum of heat.
In my pocket, my most special of special rocks...

...in my cooler, wrapped in down pants, my scale: I couldn't bear the idea of losing this bid because of some
"nearly but not quite" owing to dehydration from a long, cold drive. As stupid and arbitrary and imprecise as I know scale numbers to be (especially in the afternoon with clothes on), I had to respect the "minimum" with the inflexibility of a Lubavitch rabbi or a Roman flamen (no disrespect to them).

I'm so glad I brought the scale. I was right about the dehydration: who knew you could lose three pounds driving less than three hundred miles? So, a big, hurried lunch. Anyone who knows me at all knows that "hurried" and "eating" cannot co-occur. I showed up to my appointment, head spinning; had my vitals taken...all very good. But then, let's say, my rabbit almost came out of the hat! I had to excuse myself from my appointment before it had even started. Not the start I would have hoped for. 

I was much better after that, and was able to offer my psychiatrist enough confidence that I had seen a full spectrum of reasons why it's worth it to me, even lithium aside, to stay physiologically stable, so she's willing to let me continue--but still under the same rabbinically strict stipulation.
Relief...

Rock Jockey keeps on riding!
Why "rock jockey?" -- Lithium means "made of rock." 
-- For as long as I've been taking medications to help stabilize my moods, whether naturopathic, homeopathic, or conventional, I've had a visceral perception of myself as riding the medication. Sometimes it's a better ride than others. Sometimes I'm just running alongside; sometimes the mount is bogged down and I'm running ahead. Sometimes I'm bogged down and the mount is out of sight.

This picture is as much about the rocks as it is about the persimmons.

Obviously, it would be ridiculous for me to imply that everyone who loves rocks has bipolar disorder or schizophrenia!

However, I'm working on an essay about water as an element. I'm writing a section on elements (earth, water, fire, air) as used to categorize people's natures and characters, including my own. Where I'm getting to (although I didn't know it when I started) is that I'm predominantly an "air" person, and greatly lacking in "earth." So I'm floating away on my helium (= of the sun, element #2) balloon, and am grounded by being tied to my lithium (made of rock, element #3).

Oh, and the "jockey" part reminds me not to put myself on a guilt trip for imagining anyone who doesn't have to live with me would be interested in my cliffhanger over enforced and significant weight gain, or in whether I got to stay on my meds. Jockeys have to put on or off weight all the time.

I have to go finish that essay. On Monday, I'll have written a post both about the "masochistic gratification" I keep going on about, and about what it means to have met the ultimatum--what scary places of growth it's hurled me into, what I was hiding from, how I hope to utilize and share the renewed positivity and energy. What am I riding for now?
A beautiful weekend to you!

Happy Birthday Phil; Not Much About Refeeding

It's Phil's birthday and I'm eating enough for two people living through an Arctic winter. In a tent. What was that, Phil? Distorted who???

I'm going to save feeling sorry for myself with refeeding woes for another post--although it is really uncomfortable and scary, and I've discovered a new oxymoron (as my friends are exhausted from hearing): masochistic gratification. More on that soon. For now, I quit feeling sorry for myself, and feel sorry for Phil instead--because he has to live with me? No, because he's so OLD!!! Cue music: "When I'm sixty-four!"

Sorry, I must have lost my tongue in my cheek. Both are so engorged right now--both tongue and both cheeks--that it's hard to tell one from the other.

Let's see if I can get one thing right. Phil is universally beloved in his local and his wider community. Check.
This year, he's achieved yet more notoriety in the local press, as a wise counselor for the Library Advisory Board (that's where you advise the City to give the library more money because reading is vitally important to the liveliness of the community and new books keep us vibrant)...

Source: Homer Tribune. Notice his book!

But Phil also has a sideline, although he would probably call it his mainline; his desired time allocation for it is mainlining the clock chime, as...a mammoth hunter! Yes, mammoths trod the ground we live on, or more likely, ground that formerly occupied  the space on which we stand, slump, or slide. As Phil's hiking speed has slowed to slightly less than warp, he's learned to appreciate the fact that you see more at a slower pace. And so, every time (the mainlined time) he's out the door, he's hunting, semi-systematically, for mammoth parts. Our neighbor recently told me that after hiking with Phil a couple times, he's found himself looking at the ground in certain places in certain ways at certain tides just as Phil does. On our hikes together, we sometimes divide up the beach, and tease each other with bits of petrified wood or layered metamorphic rock that could resemble "the real thing." 

Here's his hand with a piece of molar found last December...

Source: Juneau Empire

...and here's the whole Phil with that same molar

Source: Fairbanks News Miner--this news travels!

The pictures haven't hit the press yet, but he found another piece just a couple weeks ago.
Well, record-time post here. I need to round up the gifts, food, etc, for Phil's party we need to leave for imminently. Oh, and get out of my cooking clothes. I think I might have dirtied every single utensil in the cabin and the water to the kitchen is frozen off.
Next post, if I manage it, I'll be heading out on my trip to see my psych for a very very important decision. Although my mom just told me that bipolar is just a thyroid imbalance. So maybe I just need to get my thyroid dose right and I won't need my magical lithium after all.

Turning the Corner: Two Magic Potions, No More Soft-Pedaling

I've turned the corner!
- Memory: mostly back online
- Klutziness: diminished; some good predictive/evasive actions (but one big spill tonight)
- Energy: much better
- Breath: fine now

And my pen, my flagstaff, has been busy today.
All this clarity and increased energy has been helped by more calories and some quiet space, but it's--I've--received an additional quantum push from this magic potion:

Source: The Raw Food World

I've been hearing about Marine Phytoplankton and its amazing benefits for years. Plankton, whale food, tiniest plant organisms, are the ultimate, direct, bottom-of-foodchain source of those omega fatty acids for which people eat fish oil. Omega oils are so crucial for brain function (and are strongly recommended for people with things like bipolar, schizophrenia, and any depressive or psychotic tendencies). Plus, as an oceanic entity, it's going to be full of thyroid-supporting iodine and other trace minerals So, of course, this is a very expensive product! Out of my range...until recently it was on sale. Last Tuesday, I started taking just four drops with green powder in the mornings, and noticed a sharp difference by the next day. If you've ever had green juice, or wheatgrass, or one of those potions that give you a clear, ringing, bright energy that makes you feel positive and eager to engage with life, this stuff provides that feeling with an additional sense, physically felt too, of acuity in the brain.
I'm still noticing that increase in clarity and energy. Probably also helped me to step over the hurdle of these last couple days.
Holds Unbarred
I'd been panicking about the scale these last few days, distracted from what really needs to happen with the scale. That was the last holdout. I was eating more, but still backing off from my quantity-commitment, still scared to move forward. Then this morning, my therapist brought up the very real possibility I won't make the psych's ultimatum, and that she won't give me grace, and things will change very much. Up until now, I had not let myself imagine that scenario, even as I continued unable to ensure it wouldn't happen. I've been so afraid to move from where I am/was. Now I'm afraid not to get away/there soon enough.
So today, I ate more than I thought possible. (For perspective, I should confess that Phil, while very pleased, did not think it was a phenomenal amount.) I ate close to what I ate in treatment, quantity-wise; to where I'm lightheaded and it hurts. And I'll try for a night-time snack too, like I had to there. At least I can choose my food, which makes it far less unpleasant. Have some chocolate! Eat more honey (which I love, but quit eating when I quit beekeeping)! Actually eat some of those raw energy bars you always make and then stash in the freezer! 
I've got 'til Friday. Wish me luck. A birthday in the family and a packet deadline this week too. Big week!
Friends
The other 'magic potion' mentioned in the title is made of friends. Friends right here in town. Friends with whom I'm in touch via email and Skype. Friends on Facebook. Friends off the grid and out of range but still in heart connection. 
The umbilicus of gratitude.
This past Saturday, I Skyped in to a get-together of classmates from my school years in England. Most of us have known each other since age four or five, or even younger. It was so lovely to see five beautiful women in a room on the other side of the world, all so recognizable as their much younger selves, all enjoying each other and renewing shared stories now decades old.
My friend Rachel told me that her strongest association between me and food is a date with an almond in it. Yes! I was raised on those, I told her; also a pecan in a date. That's the candy my grandparents in Israel would give me, and I've offered it to my cousins' kids there now.
I Facebook posted this picture to Rachel today:

Yes, little almonds, big medjool date. You see the heart of it, though.
I ate the pecan one (!!!! first pecan in a long time) and left the almond one for Phil--sharing even when cramming=expanding, generous bigness.

Two-fer -- Not Story Alone (The Lyric Version)

Not only gratitude for stories, but...

Lack of gratitude for my own existence combined with gratitude for the experiences I've experienced and observed, and for the existences of so many other people who are inextricably part of me, constitutes a lyric moment--lyric monument, even, as well as all the stories.

I don't have the context to know gratitude for peace. But my questioning of the heart of the nature of peace is a song all of its own.

As I return, surprisingly rapidly, from deepened intertwining with anorexia to a clearer-headed, less klutzy, state, I wish that my haphazardly fixed scale weren't sending me crazy with implausible, potentially unhealthy, messages...but imagine if I were able to write a poem about that lyric pain!

Similarly, standing here, waving the white flag, being in an open space, not knowing what's to come next, I see a poem waving its flag, the staff of the flag being a pen, inviting.

Gratitude, Story, More on the White Flag

I'm not grateful to be alive. But:
- there are numerous people for whose existence I am boundlessly grateful
- and I am grateful for all the experiences I have embodied and absorbed through my senses
- and for the stories these represent.

I'm not grateful for the unprecedented peacefulness of our era, which is apparently the case despite endless war. I believe in it, but have no way to understand it. But:
- I am grateful for the safety of my family in the Middle East
- and for the love, grace, peace, generosity so palpable in my circles of friends
- and all the stories this brings.

I'm not grateful that my scale's battery died the very day I went to give an honest weight. I'm further not grateful for the anxiety provoked by the fact that the scale and I had been quite consistent, after wild initial fluctuation; and that now, with a new battery, it's showing wild fluctuations again. But:
- I am grateful to be shown that wild fluctuations may, astonishingly, not be all me
- and I am grateful for the reminder that technology isn't always home base
- most of all, I am grateful for the story it offers.

I'm not grateful that I have to have vital signs tracked, and to have rebelled against this, and to have been out of integrity. But:
- I'm grateful that I couldn't stay out of integrity
- and I'm grateful for having the experience of returning to integrity, that waving my white flag felt like such a relief, as it set the scene for beginning to project what might come next, rather than keeping things stuck
- and I'm grateful for the story to be told here.

I'm grateful for hearts, their hugeness, their power of connecting, like the earth with its mats of roots and mycelia.

I am grateful for the brain, with its firing and subliming, more powerful than a WiFi hub.

source: http://fearofwriting.com/brain-food-for-writers.htm

And oh yes, I am grateful for guts, seat of our instincts, absorption, seed-bed of neurotransmitters that regulate our feelings, tidal in ulterior motion like the ocean, like the hidden side of the moon.

http://www.fpnotebook.com/gi/Anatomy/SmlBwlAntmy.htm

And I'm thankful for all the ways these organs connect; all the stories for which they are lenses.

Thank you.

Integrity Again, and Surrender (but not what you think)

Phil is in Vegas whooping it up with his grandkids. Such a good thing for both sides! He is the funnest grampa imaginable, and it must be so good for him to be held in a space of such simple adoration; to be able to have straightforward fun, lots of laughter.

I'm staying home doing my best. Enjoying the quiet time, clear, deep-cold days, the sunrises and sets, visits with friends who are accepting, gracious, topplingly kind. Working on critical papers, writing, being ok with residual messiness and my fatigue-induced apathy toward it.
After my last appointment, I'm acknowledging that even after I get out of the chasm, there'll be climbing to do.
Which brings me back to integrity.
I was well short of the 'ultimatum' goal even after chugging a gallon of liquid, and since doing that makes a person pretty sick, if it doesn't get you there anyway, seems to be less point (or, point-less). Integrity is wholeness, right? So adding a gallon, or eight pounds, to myself is adding something not truly part of my integral whole, which is just as much out of integrity as if I were to take something away from my wholeness, like if I claimed not to know Latin or Greek.
Water-loading has always seemed such an easy fix, but it's only ever "worked" "partly," and there are times it's made me sick, or simply been implausible because I've miscalculated.
Now that I've (been forced to) come clean with my doctor and therapist; now that it's clear I won't be able to make the 'ultimatum' even if I drink enough to make myself sick; even if I gain for real the safe amount of weight in the time remaining, I'm in a space of surrender. I don't mean the Twelve-Step, spiritual, beatific, state-of-grace surrender, with all chakras lit up and rainbows puffing incense. Wouldn't it be nice if I did mean that; if I had finally reached the point I've been told to aim at all these years?
No, guys. I've been besieged from the outside and ambushed from within. I'm waving the white flag. There are certain limits beyond which I'm not willing to go, certain things I'm not willing to give up, but I'm hardly in a position to bargain for terms, am I? At this point, 100% adherence is mandatory until my psych appointment next Friday, at which time we will discuss my fate. Additionally, I am to go in for a weight today, augmented only by being an afternoon weight rather than first thing morning, with no extra liquid to strain (to stain) my integrity.
Ridiculous, eh, all this focus on my weight. It's all a matter of perspective. See my little pet parsley, a tree in the sunset?

A Happy Thanksgiving to all, in integrity.

"She Looks Ten Years Older" -- Consequences, and the Bind

Although what follows is about consequences of illness/addiction, I hope it will be of interest to writers as well as people interested in healing and honesty.
Every writer learns to manage a multiplicity of points of view: to think within her own head, and within the head of someone observing her, and within the head of someone she's observing. Any person could do with this same ability. Any person who's aging, or sick, or struggling with an addiction, could do with learning this, too. People in this category are precisely the people who can maintain an unrealistic perception of ourselves (yes, I include myself) and our abilities. For example, Phil's dad fell off ladders and into creeks in his later years, because his perception of himself as all-capable physically never got updated as he became eighty-something with blown-out knees and a triple bypass; which is why my grandma, formerly super-active, is beyond bitter and frustrated at her confinement to a wheelchair.

once you're in the vortex...

So, to forestall any backsliding from me based on claims that there's nothing wrong, that everyone's making much ado about nothing, that bmi guides are arbitrary and silly and what are you talking about 'dangerous,' I'm going to lay it out there. There are consequences to the 'mandatory intervention range' prize, and I'm going to share them here--the ones I can remember (see below)--as part of holding myself accountable. 
These are things I am not willing to admit to anyone out loud. I'm admitting them not out of narcissism but a desire for clarity and completeness, and to help.
There's also a major bind, which I'll also mention.

Consequences
- Physical strength is a prime area of mistaken self-perception. I can do all my regular bodyweight exercises fairly well, so I'm just as strong as ever, right? But stepping out of my own borders, I'm having trouble opening heavy doors, or lifting 15lbs above my head, carrying big grocery bags, etc.
- Soreness, fatigue. Yes, my muscles get and stay more sore. Yes, I get really tired. And I'm not abusing stimulants as I was in the spring, so no getting around it.

- Memory loss--I'm famous for my memory, and have always been glad to rely upon it. Lately, though, I've felt like an Alzheimer's patient, between finding myself somewhere and wondering what I'm doing there, and losing a word, and not remembering what comes next in a process. All short-term memory stuff. But yesterday I cried when I couldn't remember a friend's phone number and had to look it up. OK, it's just one digit I couldn't remember, but really, phone numbers are a package deal...
- Logical awareness and balance--as in my body, so in my head. A level of meta-awareness remains, where I can hear that what I'm saying makes no sense; but my logic, usually impeccable, isn't straight at times. I stare down the depths of a conversation and see a whirlpool in a drinking straw, and am helpless to squeeze things back up. That's a good part of why I'm writing this post, as I can logic myself out of doing all kinds of things I should be doing.
- Spatial awareness and balance--my goodness, I have become the most laughable klutz. If I pick something up, it's almost a given that I'll drop it. If it's anywhere near me, I'll run into it or tip it, or bruise myself on it. Sometimes I lose my ability to touch-type, or even type the semblance of the right order of letters.
I often get lightheaded when I stand up, or bend over. When doing my signature kitchen dance (no, not "chicken dance," even though I'm mixing up my words too these days ;) ) -- normally, I'll whirl from one area to another, picking up, setting down...I've actually put my butt down more than once.

- I'm in ketosis, holy grail of Low-Carb dieters; not on purpose. Some consequences of ketosis:
  - horrible breath. Can you imagine how mortifying that is?
  - worsened hallucinations. Yes, I have them normally anyway, but more frequent, more scary; consistently in several senses (visual, auditory, tactile at least). There's actually a bit of research recommending ketogenic diets for folks with bipolar 2 but the psychotic piece is a specifically cited reason why it's not for bipolar 1's.
  - stress on the kidneys (who have already been extremely and repeatedly stressed)
  - some heart-stress-type stuff--see, I never normally go away from my doctor without chapter and verse clarity!

- Hair loss. This wasn't happening earlier this year; grounds for my claims that nothing was wrong. It's falling out like crazy now, and I have pretty long hair.

It gets into everything!
- Hypothyroid--I have this already, as a long-term consequence of this illness/addiction. I hadn't noticed until I saw a picture of myself, though, that my eyebrows are disappearing: a pretty sure sign that I'm not taking enough thyroid med for how hypo my thyroid is.
- Amenorrhea--a given, pretty much my whole life even if you don't count childhood. Pretty convenient, except that it causes estrogen dominance, and the lack of progesterone affects smooth muscle contractions (think: peristalsis) and adrenals (think: containment and resilience) and many other hormonal functions.
- Gut stuff--food allergies and sensitivities worsen; digestion and absorption less effective with impaired peristalsis; irregularity.
- Absorption issues--both of food and of necessary medications, since both brain and gut are missing what they need.
- Adrenals--shot. Jump a foot in the air at anything sudden or loud; find it hard to make on the spot decisions.
- Aging--what a painful irony after all the fruit-and-vegetable eating, all the attention to good herbs and sunshine; hey, and all the calorie restriction. That's supposed to conduce to longevity, isn't it? I've always looked young for my age. Now, I'm being told I look ten years older. I really don't know what to do with that. I've never wanted to be vain about my appearance, but my youthfulness is something I've taken for granted.
- Honorable mentions: intermittent chest pain, impaired judgment in decision making (e.g. drinking a gallon of water preparatory to weigh-in, to make things look better vis-a-vis the ultimatum. Things look very bad. People were fooled as to the quantity but not the act. Three days later, I'm finally not feeling sick from this. Or, going on a long hike without having had lunch. Or, driving while hallucinating to be somewhere I needed not to be hallucinating). Having a hard time seeing the funny side of things, which doesn't help with the extreme relationship difficulty. And more...

The Bind
"Some" of these issues will be helped by gaining "some" weight--less than they say, in my experience. Improving nutritional status is more the key However, some of the physiological issues won't be changed, although they will respond better to medication.
Even more of a bind: weight restoration doesn't deal with the underlying issues. At all. I was barely close to 'fully restored' when I left treatment this time, and I was just uncomfortable. Last time I was in treatment, I left 'fully restored,' which just led to losing a shocking amount of weight in a very short amount of time, together with other 'behaviors,' and running away from any kind of treatment for many years. When I've been at relatively 'normal' weights, my pain and discomfort with that clouded anything else that was going on to the point that it was hard to access underlying issues. I've known friends undergo exactly the same thing, so I'm not just speaking for myself here.
Based on my experience, there has to be a compromise--especially with those of us who are older. A weight range that's lower than 'standard' but still healthy. That will allow us some physiological ease, while removing enough of the 'mind panic' for therapy to actually reach. I think this would be a far more effective strategy than putting people on Zyprexa or Seroquil so that they gain weight behind their own backs and then feel betrayed in the ultimate manner.

Full disclosure and my own bind: when I left treatment, I was just at the top of the 'compromise range' I had proposed to them. Even more reason for me to walk my talk now.