Words as an Image, HAWMC #30

The final day of HAWMC! So many endings in this season of new beginnings. The final for my Linguistics course is live. Students will be taking it throughout this week, I'll turn in grades late next week. Everyone in my immediate support network is gone or going away now or soon (all coming back too, though). With some fudging (but no fudge) I've satisfied them that I'm at a safe baseline to be able to stay here, but out of the other side of my mouth, some indicators yesterday and this morning have alarmed me even in the midst of my obstinacy. When is stability ever more than an illusion?


It feels so good to do small kindnesses for others, to treat each window of connection as the only, or final, opportunity. A song of farewell.


Today's final prompt is another visually and technically oriented one: to make a word cloud around one's blog or health focus, using Wordle. I first heard of Wordle from Erin, who recommends it as a revealing tool for identifying underlying preoccupations in one's body of work, as it tends to highlight the most oft-used words. Well, I couldn't fit my whole blog in there ;) I tried, and could tell from the words that came out it was only looking at the most recent two or three posts. So, I threw in a list of words I see myself typing regularly, and did my best. There was even a color scheme called "Organic Carrot"--must have been made with me in mind!


And then the smug little java applet sat there on my screen and refused to be copy-linked to my blog. Printed to .pdf but sat there, wouldn't go up to my blog. If I right-clicked, it offered to remove the nearest word. Little Miss Tech-Nitwit put out a desperate plea on Facebook, and thankfully Gretchen suggested a screenshot, which could then be saved as a.jpeg. Thank you!! Then I had to learn how to crop the menu-bar off. Of course, when I finally figured out how to set the "crop" crosshairs, I cropped everything but the menu-bar (thank goodness for "undo"). In the process, I also noticed that the screenshot had cropped some letters off the right end of the wordle on its own account. But one of the cropped words, beginning with "man" is an embarrassing word, so maybe it was in tune with my subconscious.
Here it is, organic-carrot-colored!

Not every word I put in came out, by the way. I think that's interesting and a lot like life.

What would be in your word cloud?

Six(th) Sen(se)tence Story--Penultimate HAWMC!

After all that drenching sunshine, a band of cloud came in yesterday. You can see it wreathing the mountains across the bay. When the sun isn't out, it feels so much colder here, even if it's only a couple degrees lower.

Today's penultimate prompt is inspired by the Six Sentences blog, and asks us to write a six sentence post--tell a story, make it short and sweet.

Six sentences--is that like a sixth sense? That the overall message of the story will be something beyond the sum of the six parts? I love any kind of challenge to impose a formal structure on my words, and I have no idea what I'm going to write! To make up for the paucity of words in this post, I have some springtime pictures to share afterwards.

In Six Sentences: Centrifugal, Centripetal

Living in Alaska has made me acutely aware of a year's passage as a journey around the sun--the face of the earth, the texture of the air, are so different in different seasons, I might as well have traveled to a different place. At times (equinoxes, solstices), the rate of change seems to accelerate and I am conscious of myself as a fly, a mote of dust, on the back of a stampeding elephant. The scanty hairs on the elephant's back are too stout for me to grab on to; the sticky filaments on my own legs have little traction against the wind in my face. Will the G-forces pressing on my back push me down through pachydermic skin, vortexing like water through a plughole, into the warm center, or will the headwind rip my grip loose and send me spiraling into orbit? Connections with loved ones reticulate the slippy surface of my ride, modulate the forces. Someone folds paper, concertina-fashion, draws a figure, cuts it out; opens up a chain of dancers, holding hands, links of the chain that keeps me here.

Springtime Pictures

I ate my first fresh nettles last night! If you've been reading this blog, you'll know how much I adore nettles.  

This moose and yearling calf were eating fresh green beside our road yesterday afternoon. With the angle of the ditch, they didn't even have to go on their knees. Baby went into the woods, but mama wasn't bothered by me at all, so I got a closer shot--

After such a hard winter, she looks to be in wonderful shape. Her coat is glossy, she's not near as skinny as some of the moose we've seen. And she didn't have to abandon her baby/now-yearling, who was also looking good.

Happy Sunday!

Falling off the Pony, Getting Back On, Learning to Dismount

The prompt on this antepenultimate day of the Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge: Write a post about the first time you did something, how it was, what it was, what you learned from it.


The first time I fell off a pony was right before the end of term horsemanship test. There was something in the air--four ponies bolted with their cargo before we even got started, four ten-year-olds ended up on our butts somewhere in the mud. I was more excited than scared by the unprecedented speed, albeit a little shaky when I got straight back on the horse, having chased him down.


I'd heard you have to have fallen or been thrown at least eight times in order to be counted a true horse person, so I was quietly gleeful to have gotten started on the path. Yes, I was a little sore, and yes, I was more tentative going through faster paces, knowing now how I could lose control (partly craving that loss). Considering how important it was to my ten-through-fifteen-year-old self, what should I make of the fact that I can't even remember whether I fell off eight times in those years, as good as my memory is? I think I did get the baptismal eight, but it may have been just seven. 


The silliest fall was from a slipped saddle (clever pony trick, blow belly out while the saddle's being put on, let the air out once the kid's aboard and riding--you can see why they do this). I stayed astride, slipping further and further sideways with the listing saddle, appreciating the comedy of the moment even while the joke was on me; finally accepted the inevitable and unhitched, to land in the inevitable mud puddle.


Despite my desire to fall eight times, I had a strong instinct to stay on the horse too, even the wilder horses who bolted and galloped so fast, my body would protest the imposed momentum and beg to bail out from the onslaught of breeze coming to meet us. But was it an instinct to stay aboard, or was it just a love of speed? The second silliest fall, I stayed on a horse who looked very much like this one...

...for a long, erratic galloping stretch in which I'd lost all control. But when she ended up in some woods and slowed to a canter, I was scraped off her back by some low-hanging tree branches! At that point, having raced and run and run away so far from all the rest of the group, she simply stopped, and waited for me to clamber back up.


This semester has been a runaway horse. Am I going to be able to dismount gently, or will I be scraped off by jutting branches just as things finally start to calm down?

I'd love to hear some "first time I did" memories from anyone who cares to share!

Five Stumbling Blocks, Five Saving Graces; Writing Event In Town

Before I start with today's prompt, a heads-up about another writerly event here in Homer. The inimitable Andromeda Romano-Lax, one of the founding inspirations for the literary blog 49 Writers who used to work for the Homer News years ago, is back in Homer to give two free classes and a lecture and reading from her newly published novel, all tomorrow, Saturday! Here's the full scoop, in the Homer News itself. On a personal note, I was honored to be invited to join a small group of local writers for a dinner to welcome Andromeda, at Two Sisters down by Bishops Beach. I snagged a photo for the 49 Writers weekly round-up which I had to scurry home to do. I was sorry to break off from the conversation. We talked about MFA programs--low-residency, full-time, different emphases. We talked about fiction versus nonfiction. We gossiped about mutual writer friends. We talked about how to teach the novel. We heard about Andromeda's research for her next novel, which was fascinating and shocking at the same time. What an honor to be part of such a group!

Andromeda is on the left, and then we have Nancy Lord, Teresa Sundmark, Eva Saulitis, yours truly, and Miranda Weiss. Look at that sunlight--this was about 9pm. 


I think I got all the cranky out of my system yesterday! Today's prompt is examining the Top Fives--the five major challenges of my health focus and the five small victories that keep me going. Ironically enough, after how irritated I got about the gagline post, I'd say the five main difficulties all boil down to those two symmetrical sentences--"What goes up must come down," and "What goes down must come up." Let me try to unpack it a little more. Surprisingly, "five" sounds like quite a lot of detail!

Five Difficulties

1. Control--Gotta have it, gotta know when to let go. At this moment, if I don't show myself capable of turning the tide around and increasing my intake more than I've been able to thus far, my control of my own environment will be taken away from me. I can't imagine how that could possibly be a good thing long-term, except for difficulty number two...

2. Body--I need one! This is something I don't always even believe, as I know that many dead people still have much influence and power. However, it's difficult to share poetry, or hugs, or sunsets, if you don't have a body, and there are a lot of poems I still need to write. 

3. Counter-intuitions--You have to listen to your body. But what if eating actually feels bad, causes your stomach to tie in a knot? What if a soupcon of hunger shyly poking out feels good, feels life-affirming, feels far better than the chest-tightening that immediately follows ingestion of food? What if the crazed expansiveness of mania feels really good, and it's much more attractive to take a caffeine pill and float higher rather than take mood stabilizers and come back to the middle?

4. Other People--If there was no one else in my life, I could just let it all go. Wouldn't that be easy? But what would be left of my life with no other people? What would be the point of anything I wrote, created, gave, grew, if not to share with others? Where would the love be?

5. Short-term thinking--For a supposedly smart person, I'm pretty retarded when it comes to long term thinking or making projections of the consequences of my actions. Perhaps it's a perennial naive optimism that things will be different this time--I won't get depressed after a while in the maniasphere, I won't go too far if I decide I need to drop half a clothing size; if I start "that" conversation again, it won't end up in a fight...

Meanwhile, daffodils are blooming by the south-facing wall of Save-U-More, the wonderful warehouse-come-supermarket in town. Something even more marvelous was there too--I'll share the picture in a moment, but let me first balance the negatives with some positives.

Five Small Victories

"Small" is ok, right? Baby steps...

1. Showing up. I keep showing up for my appointments. Even if I show up unslept, unfed, unwashed, and psychotic, and having not kept my self-care agreements, I surrender that much control; I place that much trust in my care providers, I allow them to talk sense back into me. I recognize that even for an individual, control is something collaborative, give-and-take.

2. Nutrition geek! If I'm not going to eat much, at least I know how to get massive bang for my caloric buck. I choose foods and herbs so nutritious, they keep me somewhat level and fueled. I do recognize that at this point I should be looking at more caloric density, getting away from my prejudicial equation of caloric density with empty calories that isn't really true, even looking at herbs that stimulate rather than suppress appetite... And I have the knowledge.

3. Intuitions. As well as knowledge, I'm also blessed with a high degree of intuition and insight. When that gets clouded by all the counter-intuitions mentioned above, I can just think back a few years to when I was actively practicing bodywork, and how I was able to help people through problems they hadn't even told me about.

4. Other people. I have so many wonderful people in my life! Some, I have never met in person. Some live thousands of miles away. Some are in my MFA program and I only get to see them once a year. But they're all in my life and are part of what make it beautiful.

5. Living in the moment. Although learning to think long term is a basic piece of maturity, the present moment is all we have, and is the only moment in which we can effect any change. I can allow my lack of linear thinking or forward planning to lead me back to the NOW.

I was led back to the now outside Save-U-More by this beautiful butterfly, who preferred the blooming dandelions growing from a crack in the ground to the blooming daffodils pampered in the raised bed.

In Alaska! In April!


Another ultimatum at the doctor's today. I went to Save-U-More on the way home and let myself wander around, looking for something, anything I might want to eat. Even packaged gf snacks (they all had rice flour in them, which has been upsetting my stomach lately too). Even stuff not on the bargain shelf. Even coconut ice cream (has agave in it, makes me itch). I ended up with some odd energy powders in the cart, and zevia soda, and gluten free flours to bake things for other people...but I also ended up with some beautiful apples. And I did get a large tub of almond milk yogurt--not something I'll ever ordinarily buy unless it's marked down--recognizing that the texture has been soothing and appealing to me of late. This post has actually been helpful--I'll focus on the victories as I work up.

I'd love to hear your five challenges and victories too! I'd better go write this final exam--perhaps even better go eat some lunch first. Much love to all.

Gagline and Renewal #HAWMC 26 Cranky Post!

Quick Note: I was hoping this would be live in time for yesterday's 3rd person post, as it would have been perfect, but it wasn't--so here it is now--I got to be in the newspaper too!

I've never been the tallest person in a group photo before!
http://homertribune.com/2012/04/bird-poets-prepare-for-shorebird-production/

OK! HAWMC #26--create a catchy tagline for your blog or health condition! I confessed to a little crankiness about a couple prompts last week, but really, this one got my goat! And that was before I read the very patronizing and inane suggestions for making a cutesy catchy tagline/gagline. Pull out a thesaurus. Look for homophones and gag-making puns. WEGO--I love you, but please!

We already had Keep-Calm-o-Matic. We had Pinboards. We had "things we forget" sticky notes. We had iconic mascots. We've got six-sentence (sentence? Why not "six-word"?) posts coming up soon. And now, a gagline that brands us and makes people instantly think of our "product." Um. I'm not a piece of merchandise or part of a herd of cattle. I bet branding hurts, btw. Redundancy is great for slow learners (which sometimes includes me) but it can get tiresome, too! Plus, I already have a tagline--look at the top of my blog, and I explained it already in the mascot post.

In what follows, perhaps some therapists would say we've made a breakthrough: I very seldom (or never) name my diagnosed conditions, but I'm so irritated with this prompt that I think I'm going to name them as I explain why my gagline is so appropriate. But is it a breakthrough, or is it a tacky error of judgment because I'm balls-to-the-wall and my filters are off? Please check me here. (If you're allergic to diagnostic labels, or are a family member, please cover your eyes!)

Maybe this is cathartic, but let me preface it by saying--

I am not my diagnoses! They are some of the lenses through which I view life, and they are some of the challenges with which I have been gifted on my journey, some of the sources from which I offer gifts.

So, it's glaringly obvious what a person diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and with bipolar-1 should have as a tagline for her blog:

What goes up must come down.

What goes down must come up.

Calling a graphic designer to set that slogan inside an image of a squared circle.

Speaking of things going down and coming back up, I'm celebrating our persistent sunshine and daily increases in green these last few days. Here's the raised bed in front of our cabin as it looked three weeks ago...

And now look what's in it, renewed from last year, some of the clumps grown back from the roots, some from seeds shed by the original plants...

My lovely spearmint is graciously returning too, and seems to have spread far. Doesn't look like the peppermint made it, though, which surprises me, as peppermint is usually more cold-tolerant. This was a chocolate mint variety, though, so who knows...

And note--I could take a short break outside with no hat on, no long sleeves, and the sun on my limbs!

The same view two months ago--substituting a moose for me!

What dies back to the root must rise green again in springtime. What falls as snow must run to the sea and evaporate into the air once again. 


Thanks for bearing with my crankiness--I feel better now. 

Do you agree it's a good tagline, or do you have a better one?

Third Person Post--Bee Story HAWMC

She wakes from a dream of falling, organ failure. The correspondences between numbers and foods are warping and winding, and the "or else" doctor visit is drawing closer. "Should I stay or should I go" insistent, through her head. Poems, growing things, intimate glances, are bringing tears to her eyes far more often than wontedly. Loved ones are leaving town and she's running out of manic, even boosted by contraband caffeine. She can't crash yet!


Whoa! Wake up! It's a beautiful, sunny day! The sun is shining, the ground, tired from its long snowload, greener every day.


Today's prompt: write about a memory from the third person perspective. Don't use "I" unless you include dialogue.


Ela got back to the farm community late Sunday afternoon, after visiting with friends, helping out on their farm. The "lead woman" on the farm, with whom she had an uneasy relationship, came to meet her, somewhat friendly, and told her there had been a lot of bees around that day.


Next morning after the rain, she was out on her walk around the farm with wheelbarrow and fruit-picking equipment, harvesting fruit, seeing which trees' crops were maturing, checking up on that ripening jackfruit. When she came back to the homestead area, barrow loaded with avocados and two racks of bananas, the woman ran to meet her. Many bees were buzzing around, heading toward the office and packing shed which doubled as her bedroom.


The two women stood, looking up into the air, gradually joined by several other community members. There was a throaty hum, like voices in an auditorium before a grand entrance. The whole sky darkened briefly--an airborne life form composed of thousands of four-winged beings, one mind, one intention. The colony landed on the wall of the office, her bedroom, and milled around, quieting, gentle.

She ran over to the next-door farm, where a self-styled "bee rustler" and carpenter was staying, and invited him to join the party. A small crowd had gathered at a respectful distance from the colony on the wall. There were "wows," oohs and aahs. One skeptical voice worrying about stings and allergic reactions. One puzzled voice, obstreperous from the break in routine, "Why are they here?" A confident response, "I guess Ela called them in." Ela and the bee rustler showed the crowd how calm and docile the colony was, how you could put your hand into their midst and have their velvet legs crawl over you. Some community members hung back, others were delighted to join in. The property owner noticed scout bees checking out some cracked timbers, working their way into the building; expressed concern. Bee rustler got up on the ladder with a Sawzall--a surprisingly common beekeeping tool--and opened up the timbers so that there was no hidden spot for them to build into.


Ela brought a hive box and set it beside the colony, filled with frames redolent of old honey. After clearing a spot for the hive to rest, out by the farm pond, she spent most of the day hanging out with the colony, singing to them, playing her flute to them.

this was in AZ, but a similar image

When the sun began to set, still in shorts and flip flops, she took a soft brush and dustpan, and gently brushed the bees down toward the prepared box. She aimed for the center of the clump, where the queen would be, and when that part of the colony had dropped into the box, the rest followed, like a silk scarf. As darkness fell, she gently covered the box and, with the help of a strong man with some bee experience, carried the hive out to their new location. Next morning, she woke to the sound of some bees straggling outside on her wall. But out by the pond, the hive was full of bees, entering and exiting, getting to know their new territory.


Over the months that followed, Ela visited with her bees often, but didn't make huge efforts to increase their colony, although theirs was a small group and she had heard that despite the area being full of fruit farms, there wasn't enough nectar and pollen at any given time to sustain a large colony. She felt some guilt. Just as people suffered from deficiencies in this hugely abundant climate and didn't address them because of their dogma about eating only from the land, so she was hesitant to interfere with the bees' needs. It was "natural" to them to forage from the surrounding trees and vines, not to be fed white sugar. She never took any of their honey. Still, the guilt persisted. But were they really "her" bees? She hadn't even been home when they first scouted the place out. Yes, they came to her bedroom in swarm, but again, she was out harvesting fruit when they first started to arrive. And of course, it wasn't "her" bedroom at all--just a bed in the corner of an office where she shook down at nights, a person with very few needs or demands. Was "letting nature take its course" a form of cruelty, both to the bees and to her own body?

Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, or Words? Help Me Choose My Mascot!

Good morning! Sunshine morning today, and a meeting of poets to look forward to.


Today's prompt: Give yourself, your condition, or your health focus a mascot. WEGO represents the concept of a mascot as part of our "branding," to make ourselves more recognizable and visually appealing. That's all well and good; but to me, even more important in the concept of a mascot is the idea of something that transmutes the focuses of my writing into a symbol, that encapsulates my best self, that offers protection.


So, I have several candidates for a mascot, some of which you've seen already. I'd love your thoughts as to which one should be "the mascot"--please let me know!

Animal 

My fluffy "security duster" is an obvious candidate for blog mascot. It's my favorite green, symbolizing growth, nature, renewal. Its tactile appeal takes me out of my head; also takes me out of the moment of emotional torment.

I put it in the "animal" category because that's where humans originally come across soft fleecy fluffiness. I'm not much of an animal lover/pet person, but I recognize the value of pet therapy and how animals can take us out of our heads.


Turtle totem--a couple years ago, I had a vision in which I was "given" the turtle as a totem and protective animal. This worked all kinds of ways. At the time, I was undergoing chelation for heavy metal toxicity: the word "chelation" comes from the Greek word for "turtle." The Latin for turtle, testudo, is also the word for a military formation in which a unit of infantry close ranks and make a wall and roof with their shields. Thorough protection. And it was explained to me in the vision that, per the Aesop fable, I was constantly being "the hare," rushing rushing striving pushing, and needed to allow more "tortoise" into my modus operandi.


Phil had given me these bone turtles from China--I wore one around my neck for a while, but couldn't find an aesthetically pleasing way to use it as a pendant.

 Vegetable

Continuing the green theme of my security duster, an aloe plant seems like a pretty obvious potential mascot.

It grows expansively with little soil, needs little fuel--just like me! It has healing properties and wisdom within its leaves. There is so much more happening under the surface (more on that in the "Words" category). It is patient and enduring, and its bitterness and astringency are bracing and medicinal.

Mineral

Two candidates for the "mineral" category also.

First, my "three-ring circus" ring.

That was my engagement ring--it cost $1 at a thrift store but we love it, so don't tell anyone! I'm wearing it as my wedding ring right now, because my actual wedding ring, which was always too big, kept falling off, and I didn't want to lose it.


This is a candidate for a mascot because of the three intertwined rings--different realities intersecting with one another, touching one another, circles completing themselves but impinging on others--all good reflections for me in terms of thinking about how my presence in the world affects other people, how my actions affect others, how different facets of my own complex self are mutually influencing.


The other "mineral" candidate--I mentioned in my Ten Essentials post how much I love collecting rocks, and my particular penchant for rocks with holes in them. One of the "holey' rocks Phil and Terry found for me on their hikes two weekends ago was smaller than any I've found yet--here it is with my pinkie for scale (and my pinkies are tiny!)--

Like the turtles above, I've wondered about making this into a pendant and wearing it, but don't have the talent to know how to make it look nicer than a rock on a string around my neck! I love how round this one is, how it looks almost like a face in repose. The juxtaposition of the solidity of rock with a space of "nothing" bored right through it is a call to meditation similar to the interlooped circles of my ring.

Words

Finally, since I'm a "words" person first and foremost, my initial reaction to this prompt was that I already had a mascot: it's the tagline at the top of this page! "The unapparent harmony is more powerful than the apparent one," Heraclitus' fragment 36. Not only does this explain the (possibly not catchy or sexy) name of my blog; it also offers an explanation for the quest for balance that inspires all of my conscious actions--and yes, I perpetrate all too many unconscious actions!

What do you think? Please tell me which of these would be the best mascot! Any advice from you jewelry-makers out there on how to make the rock into a pendant would be welcome also. And shares of what your mascot would be. Much love.

Prompt Housekeeping! And Cosying Up to Fat HAWMC #23

^ Another fun ambiguous title! If you could see the mess that is my house, though, you'd know what a big joke "prompt housekeeping" is around here too!


But on this "anything goes" HAWMC day, I want to share some updates on how the prompts and my responses to them have helped me in my life.


First, though, can I get a "YAY"?! Last night, I sent in my eighth and final "packet" of my first year MFA to my mentor! This was an ambitious packet, including a Sonnet Crown and an intense 24-page personal essay (covering some of the health-related stuff we're talking about this month, amongst other things), and my critical papers each compassed not one but two collections by the authors in question. When I went to bed having sent it all off, my saying "I write with my ears" came back to me, as I lay awake listening to various phrases and stanzas from the essays and poems I'd just sent off playing back in my head. That's one big obligation accomplished--and I'm so looking forward to writing and reading more, addressing those piles of needy poem drafts.


At the beginning of last week, I was a mess. I was afraid to go to my writers groups on Monday and Tuesday--afraid that something ugly would spill out of me. Well, thanks to a couple of the prompts on here, I came home from the Monday night group feeling much better. On the thirty-minute walk to that meeting, I realized I was singing rembetika songs by Vasilis Tzitzannis. I love that music, but it has a strong association with a very dark time in my life. I changed channel--to my theme song! I was sorry not to have made up my own song, but love that I reconnected with this happy Hebrew children's song that could be construed as a metaphor for my own crazy whirlings. So yes, I walked on down to town singing "Uga uga uuga" to myself--lucky it's a small town and no one else was on the street! And I felt lighter-spirited when I arrived at the meeting than if I'd been singing "periplanomenos, distichismenos..." (wandering far from home, out of luck...) all the way there.


I also took my fluffy duster with me to the meeting and clutched it the whole time. That helped, too.

Cosying up to Fat

Although I'm sorry it worried a few people, my "crisis" post was an opportunity to be frank and open about a difficult subject that I've been very tempted to dodge and soft-pedal. It's harder to do that when people you care about are affected by concern--but I still seem capable of dodging! That said, let's be glad for small successes. I haven't doubled my food intake yet, but I am eating significantly more.

I've also chosen to think of this situation as an opportunity to figure out my ideal macronutrient ratios, since I'm working pretty much from the ground up. For whatever it's worth, whenever I do "body-typing" tests, whether they be ayurvedic, adrenal, slow/fast oxidizer, or whatever else, I always test out as someone who would do better with more fat in the diet, protein too. The first time my Naturopath laid eyes on me two years ago (when I'd lost too much weight, but in reference to my bloodwork rather than my appearance), he said "you need to eat more fat--protein too, but fat. Fat." I know from my brutal low-carb stint that this does not mean don't eat carbs at all... On the other hand, what do I always end up eating? CARBS--mostly non-starchy veggies, making up the difference with fruit and starchy veggies; dried fruit for a quick fix. What am I phobic of? FAT! And what do I have trouble digesting, except for spirulina/chlorella? Protein...

So, I've invited myself to cosy up to fat, bearing in mind its greater caloric density. As hard as I'm finding it to increase caloric intake, if I can add in some fat, thereby adding calories with little volume, that might work well. The trouble with this is that the only fats I'm comfortable eating are coconut and flax/chia/hemp. And last time around, when I first started with my Naturopath, I ate a lot of coconut oil, not as much as he wanted me to, but way lots for my body, mostly in recipes like this mint chocolate bark, which also included nuts and seeds. I wasn't eating a lot of calories overall, but eating these kinds of thing every day, I gained much more weight than was comfortable for me, which ultimately led me back to where I am now. Amber was talking about coconut on her blog recently, and I expressed my frustration at having gained so much weight eating it a couple years ago when everyone always says it's impossible to gain weight on. We agreed that it was possibly due to the lack of fiber in the straight oil (plus my serpentine metabolism). So this time around, I'm going for more fibrous versions of coconut!

Yesterday's breakfast was carrot 'slaw with the addition of a couple grams of shredded coconut--chewy, coconutty, add cardamom--yummy!

 Today's breakfast was shredded jicama with a little nut milk (1/4 cup unsweetened almond breeze, which really doesn't have many almonds in it!), with a couple grams shredded coconut, a teaspoon of maca, and a few cacao nibs. Since I think maca and coconut are such a delicious combination, I added a couple drops of medicine flower coconut flavor extract also. Also yummy!

Coconut butter, aka creamed coconut, aka coconut spread, also has all the fiber intact! I mentioned that this is one way you can get it...

You can also simply make it yourself in the food processor or vitamix from shredded coconut, just like making any other nut butter! But yesterday, I opened my jar of Wilderness Family's version, and measured out a careful teaspoonful to add to my spirulina smoothie!

After my train wreck day last week, I also pulled out my algae oil DHA/EPA supplement. I recognize that a good omega-3 profile is positively correlated with good brain function--good mental health and mood balance too, for that matter. I haven't been eating much flax/chia/hemp at all lately, so it seemed a good idea to start on that supplement again. It tastes disgusting, but I think I've been functioning better since then.

Are YOU cosy with fat?

Remembering--on the Shirt and Under the Shirt

To forget is human. Nowadays, we're bombarded with information, we're overworked, we geek out on the minutiae of chemical processes in our brains and guts never even imagined a century ago. We forget to eat, to sleep, to take medications, to bathe--to take care of ourselves. Formerly, every community had a "remembrancer," whose job was to be the repository of collective knowledge and information, history, explanations. And people remembered to take care of their own basic needs. Nowadays, we all try to remember everything about everything, and forget routine maintenance. Or, I guess some people use their iPhones as remembrancers! Around here, I'm the phone directory--no iPhones in sight!


With the end of semester dash, I've been confining my posts to the prompts and not talking about much else--tomorrow is a "free day," so I'll share some more personal or recipe stuff then. But today's prompt is about forgetting and remembering, inspired by the Singapore-based blog Things We Forget, which features sticky notes placed in public places, conveying positive messages.


I do have sticky notes around the place--one from my Naturopath reminding me to take my meds--I'm not quite brave enough to post that one here...Goal-setting notes, writerly advice, notes from other writers... But yesterday, Phil was walking around with a wonderful positive message on his own person:

I'll give the close-up of the message in a moment, but let me just dwell on the messenger for a moment. Our friend David sent Phil this shirt, saying that it was obviously meant for Phil. Phil is so giving, so upbeat, so focused on the positive and how to turn any situation, however tangentially he's involved in it, toward the positive.

I know my current trajectory has not been joyous for Phil. I've been able to spend less time with him. I've been under a lot of stress, and have had more psychotic moments than anyone would choose. Since we live together, he's most likely to end up in the firing line at those times. He doesn't believe I have the superpowers I believe I have, so we're inhabiting different universes in that respect. He thinks my current situation is more worrisome than I do--I think it's just some local difficulty. Have I been forgetting about Phil? Is this note on his shirt not just a reminder about joy and its passage, but also a reminder to value, cherish, treasure the wonderful human being underneath?


And it all goes back to the 'sticky note' I've featured on here several times before--

This note is right in my space, pinned to the frame between two windows. Of course, I often look through the windows rather than at that in-between space. Sometimes I look straight through the note too, with a feeling of hopelessness.  But it's always worth asking.


One other message worth reiterating,

THIS TOO

                                          SHALL PASS

Sorry I can't do any better with the graphic/background! But whatever we're enmeshed in, no matter how stuck we feel, motion and change are the constants. A question worth asking is whether we're willing to drive the change or prefer to be driven by the inexorable current.

What would YOUR best reminder be?

Poetic Mad-Libs! HAWMC

Day 21! "April is the cruellest month," beautiful though it has been in Homer. Grueling as it's been, it's one of those time periods that simultaneously feels endless, if you look all the way back to April 1st, and yet on another level, seems to have flown by. I was a little skeptical of today's prompt--to go to a website called "language is a virus," of all things, plug in some words, and generate a "mad lib" poem. But then I allowed myself to recall that poets play all kinds of word-generation games to strike sparks. I even posted a picture a few months ago (which I can't find becaus the internet's too slow) of a poem of mine cut up into strips as I tested better juxtapositions.

So, I ended up doing two mad lib poems! I didn't really know what "mad libs" were before I started, but I infer that it's a process of taking a template and plugging in more or less random words to create a different series of associations with the same structure as the original. Both poems I did were generated as being by "Ela and e.e. cummings," so I was able to track down the original poem off which my "mad libs" were based--for both poems, it was cumming' "all in green." I know Meredith's mad lib came from Sylvia Plath, so there are several possible templates.

Of course I revised the computer-generated mad libs--there was odd morphological splitting and splicing--random orphan "-ing's" and "en-'s" peppered the verses. I changed the word order a bit but tried to preserve most of the repetitive structure of the original poem. Since I'm sharing two poems, I'll spare you the original computer-generated version and just give you the "fair copy."

The first poem is more tame, on the theme of springtime. The second is more directly related to health challenges. What do you think?

1. Melting into a hopeful meeting

All moving went my ground, melting

a new spruce wistful
into the hopefulness of meeting .


wild mythical storage substantial rooting
the proud bed before.


freer be they than listening sleepers rooting
the static sound bed
the sound proud bed .

wild sound growth against a boundless rock
the emphatic quiet before.


earth from snow went my ground melting
melting the rain down
into the hopefulness of meeting .

wild mythical storage substantial rooting
the listing woman before.

more restful be they than hastening sound man
the mythical boundless bed
the green substantial bed .


wild green grass and wistful chives
the young birds before.


sunset's return went my ground melting
melting from the south down
into the hopefulness of meeting .

wild mythical storage substantial rooting
the young north before.


greener be they than rooting water
the shifting drifting bed
the young hesitant bed .


young heart melt at the moving south
the hesitant awakening before.


All moving went my ground, melting
a new spruce wistful
into the hopefulness of meeting .


wild mythical storage substantial rooting
my light turn sunset before.




By a total serendipity, I even had an updated photo of the grass growing "against a boundless rock" in our yard, but I'll have to upload that when I get home.

And here's the more health-related poem:

Swinging Mercurial Mind

All mysterious went my mind swinging

through visionary sounds, powered
thoughtless into lessons .


mad listening lessening elusive winging
the helpless growth before.


more tremulous than deceptive shrinkage
the raging shameful growth
the shameful helpless growth .


mad shameful seduction, addictive reduction
the dramatic interruption before.


body and love went my mind swinging,
swinging the heart down
thoughtless into lessons .


mad listening lessening elusive winging
the divine showing before.

more lunatic than shameful fear inspired
the listening addicted growth
the insomniac elusive growth .

mad insomniac lies, fear-powered insistence
the night-long presence before.

meditation for nourishment went my mind swinging
swinging help down
thoughtless into lessons .

mad listening lessening elusive winging
the night-long power before.

more blasphemous than abusive machination
the mercurial spent growth
the nonlinear diminishing growth .

mad nonlinear let-down, mysterious help,
the diminishing trial before.

All mysterious went my mind swinging
through visionary sounds, powered
thoughtless into lessons .

mad listening lessening elusive winging
medication persistent meditation before.

Oh, and if you're curious, here's the e.e.cummings original:

All in green

All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.


Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the merry deer ran before.


Fleeter be they than dappled dreams
the swift red deer
the red rare deer.


Four red roebuck at a white water
the cruel bugle sang before.

Horn at hip went my love riding
riding the echo down
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the level meadows ran before.

Softer be they than slippered sleep
the lean lithe deer
the fleet flown deer.

Four fleet does at a gold valley
the famished arrow sang before.


Bow at belt went my love riding
riding the mountain down
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
the sheer peaks ran before.


Paler be they than daunting death
the sleek slim deer
the tall tense deer.

Four tall stags at the green mountain
the lucky hunter sang before.


All in green went my love riding
on a great horse of gold
into the silver dawn.

Four lean hounds crouched low and smiling
my heart fell dead before.

ee cummings
So, two very different takes off from one poem! Which one do you prefer? What does yours look like?

Newsflash: Cloning for the Cure (or not); Elamonster Loves Her Labyrinth

All body image issues eliminated!

Beginning in 2012, all humans who wish to will be given the opportunity to upgrade their physical operating system. It is hope that most humans will choose the upgrade at earliest convenience. By 2020, it is projected that all humans will be on the new system, and the old format will be phased out by that time.


Here is an artist's impression of the appearance of the new human: 

Everyone will look alike, and everyone will be effortlessly skinny. There will be no invidious comparisons of self with other. Since the skin on the new physical operating system is sensitive to environmental conditions, and automatically adjusts to keep the person comfortable in heat, cold, oxygen-deprived conditions, in the presence of airborne toxins, and even underwater, there will be no need for clothing. Thus, judgment and derision based on fashion sense will become obsolete. The new human will be able to synthesize nourishment from any organic material in zhis immediate environment, and will have a natural preference for green foods. Creativity in food preparation will thus be retained, without harm to animals or disruption of the alimentary canal.

Note the pronoun "zhis" above: the nominative form is "zhe" and the accusative is "zhim." There will be no more gender distinctions between humans. Sexual intimacy will be a pleasure fraught neither with the risk of disease nor of conception, and no one will be discriminated against by the use of language.

Disclaimer: How long do you think that would last? If we're still humans, how soon would it be before we found ways to differentiate from one another? If everyone looked like the above picture, would all anorexics be cured overnight? I don't think so!

Today's prompt was maybe the hardest for me so far--to write an article announcing the miracle cure for one of our health conditions. As is probably clear, I'm not yet entirely comfortable even saying the names for my "conditions" out loud on here, as I swing back and forth between recognizing them as useful tools and heuristics for learning to do my best on the one hand and resisting the labels on the other (and a dose of denial on the third hand).

So, I tried to have a little fun with the whole body image craziness notion, but of course making everyone look alike would not solve the underlying issue! 

For the other "condition," I had a couple ideas too:

(1) Everyone with manic-depressive illness to be issued with a special synesthetic kaleidoscope, through which they can perceive the world with a breadth beyond their current "pole."

(2) A special space has been set aside (online, with a physical location in every human community) where manic people are given their choice of world-saving tasks to accomplish with their superhuman energy, including poetry writing, art, scientific discoveries, architectural design... And when they pass into depression, a special space has been saved where they are constantly reminded of all the ways they have made contributions, where they can look into their special kaleidoscopes and see that they are the same person as that crazed, world-saving person.

I lay awake last night thinking about this prompt and every miracle cure I could dream up left me cold. There are elements of disease that make us who we are, and imagining myself with all my "issues" lifted away leaves someone I do not recognize. My conclusion, with Charles Simic, would have to be "Elamonster Loves her Labyrinth."

What miracle cure would YOU love to see in the headlines? Or is there any such thing?