Bouncing, Committal-- => Committed?

I still have Georgia On My Mind, and backed up in my backed up mental list of posts. Back in Alaska; back in Homer, moving, and tonight, back in a certain Homer institution in which I've spent quite a bit of time this year, most probably headed back up the road to spend some more time in another. 

After the lushness of Georgia, to contemplate the excitement of first nettles is a sharp transition. The pushkis (cow parsnip) are innocuous-looking little umbellifers now--but try pulling one up and see the enormous root wad undergirding even just a little dicot; and they'll already give you a skin rash, too, as they'll be even gladder to do when they're eight feet high and legion. The moose, poor gaunt twig-browsers, on their knees tearing up mouthfuls of green grass, grazing in gratitude, praying.

That this scrubby green is so amazing, Rite of Spring, pushing, teeming, will be rife and rank and over-all and rapidly soon. Despite the fact it's another crappy spring, rainy, gray, cold, and everyone's gasping for summer to come. It snowed last weekend, for goodness sake! That said, higher up the hill, like where I'm living now, the snow lingers. Here's a shot of the property where I have a room in the owner's house.

See that little pole in the foreground? Bird houses. She feeds birds and they come. They sing and they show themselves, their bright bodies, their feathers. My room is in the downstairs part of the house, unfortunately dark, but the one window gives out to ground level, its bottom just below my eye level, and there are often small song sparrows grubbing about down there on the ground; I think I saw a boreal chickadee too.

So. Transition. And apparently I don't deal with it entirely well. So look at me getting myself committed again, and on a holiday weekend again (last time was over Christmas/New Years) although this time I wasn't even aware it was Memorial Day Weekend. I'm not feeling good physically either--out of it and dangerous. When I come around, I'll be putting serious thoughts and intentions into how to manage all this better. To live with transition as I live in transition and to find stability within that wobble.

Any advice?

While you weren't looking

Meanwhile, it became spring. Water gushes out, flows over and bites into the stalactite bearding the pipe. Snow recedes into redoubts and enclaves. We scan for hidden ice, and keep hands free so we can use our arms as wind-braced counterweights.

The green dot at 10 in my tide table says we "spring forward" this coming Sunday! Despite the signs of spring, I'm as irritated as every year that the clocks go forward as early as they do, a full two weeks ahead of the planet's cycle. 

And in our special place, I haven't forgotten the blizzard mid-March three years ago, when the whole town came to a standstill, with three or four feet of snow dumped in 24 hours. This old post has a couple photos of an emblizzarded moose down near the bottom.

Puts me in mind, too, of how special a thing it is to live in a place where what the tides are doing is important information, where tide table booklets are handed out by local businesses. How amazing it is that they can publish the tides for a whole year ahead and have them be so accurate. When the very word "fluctuate" comes from the word for "wave," amazing that the big-picture ocean is that predictable. I almost wish there were tide tables for other things in life, but that much predictability wouldn't be so good.

As this inkling-spring comes, even with temperatures getting up to 40 degrees, the big picture is frozen earth and frozen lake.
In summer the float planes take off and land here. In winter, people drive, skate, ski, and hike.

 A stunning blue sky, but I spun around 180 degrees and took a photo facing the other way... 

That's a lot of lake. You can't always tell where the lake begins, and there are patches at the edge where tussocks of grass are holding the snow up  between them quite a way above the ground. Often that suspended snow is strong enough to hold me up, but sometimes I punch through. Sometimes even the dogs punch through. Since we're so close to the lake, it's quite alarming when that happens.
I learn to fluctuate myself, a little: 
-Best time to hike is low tide: most sand, so the dogs can really run. Best part of the day to hike, before lunch: otherwise I'd get nothing done all morning with antsy dog(s). Ideal time and tide coincide only part of the time. There are some beaches, and other places (like the lake) where the tide is less critical, so we go there if there's a big morning high tide. 
-I shed some of my aversion to following in tracks. It's a false pride, since as a moderately civilized human all I ever do is some form of following in tracks, but there is something delicious about the illusion of going au randonee. Those tracks in the photo above are snow machine tracks, and they were helpful for finding ways on and off the lake as well as other ways down to it than we had used. Following vehicle trucks on the beach in sloppy gravel can be the difference between moderately impeded walking and frankly stumbling along, one step forward, three steps back.

As water drains over the pipe's ice-beard, as ice continues to cap the lake, I wonder what form my own springing forward will take, and where I am going next. I'm hoping I can create my own path or be guided to it, because otherwise most likely I'll be treading in my same coil of tracks that take me to a seemingly blue-sky place with storm clouds at my back. 
My mom says it's time for me to stop being a vane blown with all winds; to have a base from which I can journey forth. I'm grateful for the advice, and I'm grateful in a way my awkwardness can't register for the stability and rootedness of my parents' home. But even before I left that home, I was a stranger and a sojourner in the land; no one could ever place me. Not even I.

As I type that, Jesus' words about the wind whose sound you can hear, but from whence it came and whither it goeth you cannot discern, come into my mind. And so it keeps happening when I'm trying to work on a poem or essay right now. I'm working with an image or sound, and here comes something out of the Bible, or out of ancient Greek or Latin literature. I bat them aside, fearing they'll take me "into my head." But they persist. These are my anchors, even now, living here, in a state where I might be the sole Classicist. Perhaps, vane blown with all winds, I am instead the wind itself. Perhaps these texts and canons are my base to which I can return. Perhaps, even if no one else can discern it, I-the-wind must come to know from whence I come and whither I go.

New starts and directions always involve some destruction or composting of the previous. "In the beginning" at the beginning of Genesis should actually be read "In A beginning"--that's what the Hebrew says. This is now recognized as if a theological equivalent to quantum physics theories: there are many possible universes, many possible beginnings, many modalities and conditions, many lives simultaneous and serial.
This old root wad of a dead spruce tree has given life to several new trees.

Meanwhile, another beginning.

Getting Ready to Launch

The Northern Alaskan Inuit have a tradition colloquially called "blanket toss." A taut blanket of hides is stretched on a frame, which people support on all sides to send one 'dancer' high into the air. Over the past two weeks since I had that blood drawn, I first felt like my doctors and therapist pulled the rug out from under me. Then I realized I was a blanket-dancer with supporters and framework on one side of the blanket only, the other side drooping groundward. My drs and therapist were trying to pick up the blanket. The other side kept dropping: this place didn't take insurance, that place was all full up, the other place couldn't deal with my food allergies. I didn't want to go anyway, so I was laying on my rug, with the end of it picked up by my care providers, spilling. 


Over the past two days, the blanket has become all taut and supported, and the whole team is ready to toss me into the air.  A treatment center in Arizona with a very good reputation was willing to work with me. I had a good feeling from the extensive phone assessment. After evaluating my assessment, they called me back and encouraged me to come in as soon as possible, and they've been in regular contact with me since, giving further such encouragement. Apparently if inpatient treatment was the director's recommendation, they treat it as urgent, and they're sufficiently accustomed to dealing with people with this condition to know we're likely to drag our feet!


So, Alaska Airlines will launch me to Phoenix, AZ, next Tuesday night!


The original point of the blanket toss was scouting--the person flung high in the air was thus able to see much further than from the ground. Looking ahead has never been my strong suit, so perhaps I'm being tossed in the air by all these supporters to enable me to learn to make decisions moment to moment, day to day, that do not jeopardize my life and health.


I'm scared.


They've already told me they'll put me on stronger meds. I won't have access to friends and family, nor to my blog or email initially. I won't have access to all my superfoods and herbs, or my beloved rebounder and Vitamix. I should focus on enjoying all those to the full for the next three days as well as scrambling to wrap up all my work projects and notify project managers that I'll be slowed down for a while.


My Naturopath gave me a wonderful metaphor for handling all these inconveniences. He said to think of the forest and the trees. Yes, he might not think the meds they'll put me on are optimal for me. Yes, I might have to eat some food that he nor I consider good for me. Those are the trees. The forest is that he believes I need to go there to stay alive. So we'll cope with those details, which are, of course, temporary, when I get back.

So, just as the trees leaf and bud here, I'm heading south! I can't even begin to count what I'll be missing--the Writers' Conference here in town, which I look forward to all year. Visits from dear friends of ours. Gardening. My beloved writing groups and the wonderful people in them. 


Meanwhile, Arizona is much more the climate my body was made for...but I'm so used to wearing multiple layers all over my body, and I don't have any clothes for warm weather (not that any of my clothes fit anyway)! 


I will miss this blog and everyone with whom I connect through it. I'll try to post once more before I leave. I will update whenever I have the chance. If I have time, I'll even schedule a couple posts (like that protein powder comparison I keep promising!) to go up while I'm gone. But please, keep in touch with me! I will be slow to respond, but I will respond. I will also be able to do snail mail.
Much love.

Moving into a New Phase/Poetry Reading/Bucket List

It's getting greener every day here, and a couple mornings ago we had not one, not two, but three moose in our yard! Unfortunately I couldn't get them all in a single shot, but it was cool to see.

Poetry Performance

Since my previous post, I performed in this event: 

--last night, I shared two poems with "bird" themes as part of this event, itself a part of the annual Shorebird Festival here in town, the subject of that newspaper article a couple weeks ago. I was sorry not to have had time to memorize my poems, but another thing I did since my last post was turn in grades, so I'm now officially done teaching for the term! I did have the poems mostly from memory, and was in eye contact with the audience, as I prefer to be, for the majority of the time. It was a wonderful event, with some great music and many beloved local poets sharing.


We saw some sandhill cranes on a back road recently. They are so...arresting.

yes, still plenty of snow higher up

Plans and Writing

Since last posting, I've also finally made my bucket list--actually written down all the things I'd been hoping to get done when the semester was over! 

Lots of room to add more details!

Writing is top of the list, followed by reading, followed by outdoor things. Of course, I never stopped either writing or reading, but I'm so happy I'll have more time to attend to those drafts that are crying out to me like babies. I think it was admirable restraint that I didn't put "cleaning" and "taxes" top of the list--those are things I really haven't gotten to that have really bugged me! Soon...


I've also had a wonderful conversation with my mentor, soon-no-longer-to-be-my-mentor, about which authors I might want to be reading for the months until the MFA residency in August. It feels great to have the promise of some structure as I continue to develop as a writer.

Food

I've been enjoying nettles every day, including in puddings like this, made with the immersion blender from unsweetened almond milk, warrior protein powder, xanthan gum to make it puddingy, and stevia.

As you can see, the immersion blender doesn't completely pulverize the greens, and I like that there's still texture to chew on. I imagine it's sort of like oatmeal, but way healthier.


Since we're talking about food, a quick revisit of my talk about increasing calories last time. I appreciate the comments and responses; I even appreciate the caring puzzlement elicited. I don't have many more answers yet. except for one thing I need to give up!


Yes, it must be so old by now, but now that the pressure's off, I really have no excuse not to give up caffeine, as I should have weeks and months ago. The first thing that has to go is the chocolate, which I notice I'd posted about giving up over six weeks ago. I've been eating the odd tiny piece of very dark chocolate every few days, and putting cacao in my smoothies regularly, because it's one of the few things that's appealing to me. However, even aside from the caffeine/theobromine synergy exacerbating the negative effects of caffeine on my systems, the cacao has started to cause the uncomfortable irritation effects that it always has on me eventually--this time around, I was hoping it wouldn't happen, but it has. Not worth the pain! So, no more cacao or chocolate. Still bargaining for my autonomy, so I'd better find something to replace its calories in my intake. 


As for the caffeine pills and caffeinated tea, to be honest, I've been relying on them just to stay awake through the day this past month. They haven't even been impacting my sleep as much as they ordinarily do. But now things have mellowed, and I don't absolutely need to stay awake all day! I'm dreading the withdrawal--just six hours of sleep is leaving me with crushing headaches--so I'd love any advice on how to get through that. I'm thinking a gentle taper would be the smartest thing to do.


Excited to get out more, excited that the only work-work I have now is editing and translating, both of which I love, excited to catch up on rest and friends!

Garden Planning and Other Looking Ahead

I'm back home, Phil is back, and here I am! I missed blogging the last two days. In some ways, the daily post, the accountability, was helping me do better.

The last couple days have been backsliding, stressful, intense. Per my last post, I don't yet have full clarity on how much I should share here. So, per my strategy at other times like this, I'll focus on something else until I do have space and clarity. Coming up, I'll have a post on protein powders, as I've been promising for ages. I'll also talk about how to increase calories. All my kuntzim are specially directed toward reducing calories, so it might be interesting to apply some smarts to the reverse process. Just as a mirror never gives an exact image, so increasing is never the exact reverse of decreasing; so it's not a no-brainer by any means.

Garden Planning

Around this time every year, when the snow has gone away and green shoots forth thicker every day, we look around our place, take stock, start to think about our garden. Every year, Phil ponders the cost-benefit and wonders whether it's even worthwhile to do a garden, and every year we decide to do at least something. We have serious weed problems. For all the hundreds of thousands of hemp nettles we pulled last year, they are sprouting up everywhere in even greater profusion; ditto the cow parsnip (donor of blistering rashes). The paleocene horsetails are stubbornly ubiquitous--cut them out in one place and they'll spread thirty feet underground over the course of a year to pop up there. The snowshoe hare population still hasn't crashed, and they will gladly eat whatever we put out there. Later in the summer, the slugs clean up. Last year, redback voles ate all our peas from the ground up.

When there was still snow on the ground, Phil planted some carrots and spinach under an old skylight right on the edge of the bluff where it's warmest.

Under the skylight, it's a lush growth. There are some spinach and carrot greens visible in there, but mostly weeds are thriving in the steam room!


Here's a clump of horsetails, with hemp nettles coming up around them.

I took this picture of the view from one of our big garden plots last year up to the bunker as a snapshot of a rather unique time when you can walk clear up to the bunker unimpeded. Within a month, the nettles, fireweed, cow parsnip and other growth will be waist-high.

Here's some dock (with my boot beside it) coming up small but true.

While we were walking around, mama moose went on by, not very impressed that we were so close to her route, but unruffled.

It struck me that this two-acre piece we were walking, lamenting the depredations of bunnies, slugs, noxious weeds, was just a tiny puzzle-piece of the moose's beat, and is only a separate place with its peculiar weed problems in our own minds.

This is yet another push-and-pull point. After all our efforts hand-weeding for several years, Phil has decided to Round-up the worst weeds. I've vetoed that idea the last several years in a row; this time, he hasn't offered me the veto. Phil and I have such different philosophies around so many aspects of interacting with the earth. Phil also was raised on a farm and is much more actively engaged with the dirt on a daily basis than I am. Especially in the winter, I get stuck indoors with work projects and feel disconnected. Sometimes I fear my stipulations against herbicides and other interferences are just a kind of ignorance, and that I don't earn the right to a strong opinion because I don't put in as much work on the place. However, I've read recent literature suggesting that Round-up does not degrade/turn into water as quickly as it was originally claimed to and as Phil believes it does. At least I'm not raising bees this year.

I'm looking forward to raising herbs, but we have some pretty good ones that volunteer. This is wormwood (artemisia)--not the kind used for making absinthe, but a good cleanser, and so pretty! Nettles are in my future today as well.

That rainbow hat I got in Anchorage? Here's a picture of it on my head. It really could have been made for me.

My friend Lynn gave me an avocado pie recipe to rawify--I'm going to go see if I can do that, and will share the results. Another friend also gave grist to my mill for considering incorporating avocados into my diet again--I've been avoiding them for several months or more for a whole raft of reasons that mostly boil down to calorie avoidance and expenditure avoidance.

At least I'm thinking about doing something different! 

I'll have that to share soon. Would love your favorite avocado suggestions too!

Happy Cinco de Mayo and have a great weekend!

Springtime in Anchorage; Levels of Sharing

While I was taking this photograph, I heard rapid, scuffling footsteps coming up behind me.

Before I could whip around, a gentle voice said, "Would you like a photo with you in it?" I said "Oh, no, thanks" with a big smile before even really considering the question; before registering the lanky man about my age pushing his stroller full of sleeping baby. Friendly place, kind people everywhere.  
But this picture's probably better without me in it. I wish the picture could capture the salty, boggy stink of the mudflats. A slight change of angle, and you can see downtown Anchorage, breast to breast with the wilderness.

I knew that if I drove due west from the internet cafe I'd parked myself at, I'd find a park and a branch of the Coastal Trail, to take a late lunch (carrot, lettuce, spirulina shake) and to look at spring springing, enjoy the sunshine.


The willows are lasciviously pussied out--

 The dogwoods are putting out, although I couldn't get a non-blurry picture.

Hungry moose had eaten much of the life out of many trees, but the scars are like artwork. 

Patches of snow amid the sunshine, birches still sleepy, the moss underneath them almost greener than the budding angiosperms. 

I spent yesterday evening with my wonderful friend Lynn. The air in her light, spacious home was resinous-resonant with balm of Gilead--she'd harvested a bunch of cottonwood branches over the weekend, and they had leafed out and budded on her table, were shedding their sticky buds with that wonderful, mystical, healing balm. 

Lynn had been reading my blog, and had some concerns and questions, both about my situation and about her own process as a writer and figuring out how to become more comfortable with putting "personal stuff" out there. Obviously, I don't have the answers to that question, but as I discussed yesterday, there are issues I'm feeling compelled to write about. It's a mutually reinforcing process, I'm finding: as a writer, everything in life is potentially material for my writing, so writing about intense personal experience might help me to write my best. On the other hand, writing my best about my personal life might actually give me insights that help me to live my life the best I can. Even better, they might strike chords, inspire, or otherwise be helpful to other people. 


The fact that so much of what I've been sharing here had been a surprise to Lynn, whom I've known for three years, also brought home to me a discrepancy between how I present myself in different social groups. Since Phil was the draw that brought me to Alaska, many of my friends are originally friends of his. Lynn had been friends with Phil for at least a decade before I ever came on the scene. Phil is the most expansive, generous, out-there guy you could meet, but he's also very private, and doesn't gossip, or talk about personal struggles much. I've always been someone people entrust with secrets, and have always proven that trust, but I've also always been willing to converse about just about any subject in my experience or imagination, which is probably why people often describe me as "innocent". But around friends who were originally Phil's friends, and even beyond to some degree, I've been very quiet--"mysterious," Lynn said--about what's going on with me, why I'm always going to Anchorage for appointments, etc--I've tried to be more like Phil in terms of my level of disclosure. I wear baggy clothes.


So that's another issue opened up by the last month of frank posts! I'm still processing--so grateful to Lynn for the conversation opening all that up. I'd love any of your thoughts on that too.


Another springtime thing: I went into an ethnic clothing/images/incense store like I just adore, and looked at more hats! So many beautiful hats, and the guy said he invented the fleece lining so many of those hats feature, which I love so much.

I've wanted a "rainbow" hat for years, but have never found one that both fit my small head and was actually warm enough. The rainbow hat pictured above could have been made specially for me, and I think I might have bought it even if it hadn't been on sale.


I also adored this idea--a Ganesh made of leaves. Might have to go back and buy some as gifts.

First time in a month I don't have a logo at the bottom of the post!
Tomorrow, Phil is coming home. I may take a day off posting--I want it to be "his" day. But sending love nonetheless.

HAWMC Reflections--and What's Next?

Yes, I did!

It's been a month of transformations... 

...and, as I mentioned yesterday, of many endings. At the beginning of April, here's how it looked outside our front door... 

...and by a couple days ago, there was green on the ground and I was picking nettles for my green smoothie, sometimes able to go outside unbundled. 

There are still patches of snow in the shade even on our place though, and higher up and farther from the ocean, it's still deep.


I finished up and sent in my eight and final packet of the MFA year. The final for my course is live. Many people I know moved house; several got married. 
Turn and turn and turn.
And through every day of it, I wrote a blog post, faithfully but not always cheerfully following the prompts.

The Challenge, Response

There was more emphasis on the visual and pictorial in the prompts than I ordinarily go for, and I think that was a good challenge for me, pushing beyond my comfort zone. The whole thirty days was an invitation to exceed my comfort zone in a more general way, to write about "health" on this blog not just through sharing allergy-friendly recipes, but also through talking frankly about my own "issues." 
I've feared judgment, feared triggering loved ones or worrying other loved ones, feared that self revelation might be taken against me on a professional level, feared being perceived as courting the wrong kind of attention. I've been accused or warned of several of those things. But this challenge introduced me to bloggers whose whole focus is to write about the experience of having a stigmatized health condition from the inside. Some of my most powerful creative writing recently has come from that same place--writing that I haven't been able not to write. 
These posts have helped me gain some perspective on those more private, intense pieces of writing. And while I've shared those intense pieces of writing with a very few trusted friends, mentors and writing group colleagues, the blog posts are out there for anyone who chooses to read them. The responses to my writing, both private and public, writing, both private and public responses, consistently humble me. I've received frank, personal feedback, constructive criticism, some essential leavening of praise, and, best gift of all, the news that I've moved people or struck chords of resonance and recognition within them.


I've strengthened connections with a couple bloggers I followed before this challenge, and connected strongly with a couple new-to-me voices. A small regret I have is not having spent more time reading other challenge participants and getting to know everyone better--but then I didn't write a poem a day in April either, and consoled myself with the reflection that all the wonderful prompts flying around the blogosphere would still be there in May--as will the treasure trove of posts written in response to this challenge. Which brings me to...

What Next?

Well, as you can see, there's a band of fog on the horizon. "What's next" is not entirely clear to me.

It's hasn't been my regular habit to write a post every day: I've generally been on a four posts per week schedule. Although I enjoyed the daily blog posting, I suspect I'll step back to four per week once again.
With all the changing and falling and ending, it's hard not to see this as a more cosmic end. Right now, I'd feel quite content to ring down my curtain, call it quits--it's been a great show. But after I've caught up on some sleep, perhaps the desire to shape more words and share more experiences and sensations, will surpass the fascination with disintegration, with separating into my several elements and floating, washing, sinking away.
I owe you guys some recipe posts too. I hope it's not off-putting to the foodie readers that other topics are here to stay in addition.


What would YOU like to see more of on here in May and beyond?

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?

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.

HAWMC #1: The Time Capsule

Welcome to April--the only fools around here are the March (snowshoe) hares still sporting their winter coats as the snow rapidly recedes.


Welcome to day one of 30 Days of Posts as part of the Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge. Each day, a new prompt. I'll respond to it, and I'd love to hear your responses in the comments too.

Day 1: What represents health and consciousness of wellbeing to you? If you were to prepare a time capsule epitomizing the answer, to be opened in a hundred years from now, what would you put in it?


#1 A bag of seeds and roots of medicinal plants. The seeds would most likely still be viable a century from now, and would bring abundance to whatever will be there. I would include nettles, mint, holy basil, rhodiola, turmeric, aloe vera, parsley, goldenseal, echinacea...
I love our little indoor garden--aloe, mint, and that magical turmeric root still going great guns...and I would want to share that potential with whomever opened my time capsule

#2 Books! Of course, books. I would include poetry that's uplifting to the soul, by poets like Rumi, Hafiz, Tagore, William Blake, Naomi Shihab Nye, Jane Hirshfield, William Stafford.
I would also include both the DSM-IV and the Merck Manual, and the Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine. Why? Because my recent experience has been that accurate diagnosis can be a very important step in understanding how to manage oneself, and because I believe that the kinds of diseases exhibited in each time period, and the ways that we talk about them, are very telling of the values and conditions of the broader culture.
I'd also put in a good book on Permaculture, and several books on identifying edible or medicinal plants and seaweeds.


#3 Exercise and exploration--If I could fit my beloved rebounder in a time capsule, I'd put it in--a wonderful friend for anyone. But failing that, I'd put in a jump rope--hey, rope is always useful! And a compass and a magnifying glass, and perhaps some maps--incitements to hit the trail. It's not just that exercise is beneficial; it's also a way of getting grounded. As our snow recedes, we're getting ever-closer to the ground--look how our bluff-edge raised bed got revealed just in the past day or so that had a foot of snow on it last week!

#4 Reflection and connection--If our focus is on health and healing, we need to be able to see ourselves. In order to see ourselves, we need reflection from others too. So, I'd include a mirror, but on the back of the mirror would be a reminder that no self is separate from others. As well as a mirror, I'd include several crystals or rocks that encourage deeper reflection as you look into their semi-opaque surfaces. I'd also include a candle and some matches, and a reminder to look at the sun through lidded eyes, or stare at the candle flame. I would brainstorm other ways to emphasize the point that none of us are separate too--more quotes, perhaps a two-person saw or other piece of equipment requiring collaboration.


#5 Recipes and preparations--I'd include many recipes, both for foods and for medicinal preparations, that I've found to be healing or tonic. I'd also cram my Vita-Mix in there, and a couple good sharp knives and a sharpener. And a starter bundle of my favorites spices and superfoods, including spirulina, maca, turmeric powder.

#6 Writing--I'd include several blank journals and pens, as well as a carefully produced book of prompts to get whomever opens the capsule started.


Well, that's my time capsule, although there's no guarantee I won't come back and add more!

What would YOU put in a health-oriented time capsule?

Coming up in April--30 Days of Posts! Health Activist and Poet?

Look what I saw on our path today--green clover!

That'll bring the moose to their knees, for sure! After such an unrelenting winter, Spring is here of a sudden. Rivers of meltwater running everywhere, and more and more ground exposed, sometimes a big step down from residual snow. Well, it is almost April!

The Library in town this morning

Coming Up in April

Speaking of April, this will be my last post in March, and I have undertaken to post every single day in April! To be honest, part of me doesn't know what I'm playing at, as April promises to be maximally busy already, with my final MFA packet of the school year due, the last few units of my Linguistics course to prepare, then review, final and term grades by the first week of May. And editing and translating. And taxes! 

But when I was invited to take part in WEGO's Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge, I had to say "yes." Although first and foremost I am always a poet, I consider myself many kinds of "writer." I further believe that the more topics I'm able to write clearly about in a way that invites connection and empathy, the better a poet I may become. Am I a "Health Activist?" Yes, in the sense that I take action on a daily basis (sometimes for better, sometimes for worse) to manage my own health conditions. More importantly, outside of my own vortex, I always do the best I can to educate and support the people in my life in their health and healing decisions, whether that takes the form of nutritional education, providing food friendly to their newly diagnosed allergies, or researching an appropriate supplement for them.


One additional thought: given how busy I'll be in April, I'll need to be a "Health Activist" just to keep my own more self-destructive instincts in check as I negotiate the stress, so this daily check-in may be a lifesaver.

April is also National Poetry Month. Last year, I tried NaPoWriMo--writing a poem every day of April. I just looked at those a few days ago, and there are many drafts in there that are itching to be worked into something to see the light of day. More to add to the pile for when the crunch ends (if it ends?!) in mid-May. I'll be writing many poems this April too, in between all the rest.

What to Expect?

WEGO have provided a prompt for each day of April, and I will probably utilize at least many of those. Since I am going to be so busy, I will also aim to keep my posts brief.

What else to expect? I've been going back and forth about whether to be more open on this blog about my personal health struggles, diagnoses, etc--whether to write more posts along the lines of Monday's post this week, for example. I've asked the advice of some trusted friends and received a mixture of suggestions, from encouragement because posts like this can be very helpful to others in similar positions to caution about the danger of people holding these revelations against me later in certain contexts. Any more thoughts or suggestions on this will be much appreciated.

Of course, I'll continue to post recipes, although it's probably pretty obvious that I'm not much into food of late. I may post some "for other people" recipes, as I make those no matter whether I'm eating or not and they're guaranteed mainstream-tasty. I'll also get up that protein powders review/comparison I've been promising for some time.

Because of the prompts, there'll probably be something of a shake-up on here if only in terms of format of posts. It'll be fun! Please join me--and if you wish to participate in the 30 days of posts, it's not too late to sign up!

Have a lovely weekend, and be free with your advice!

much love.