From "precious" to "previous," and triggers to epiphany

If you're local and would like something of mine, knowing my tastes, contact me! I'll bet there's something I'd love to give you that you'd love to have.
Ah, dear Homer--raining and snowing at the same time! 

We've been spared so much of that this winter, but I think being forced to drive in deep, wet, heavy snow on slick pavement with high winds and lots of airborne slush has been great trip preparation, as well as good memory-building of quintessential Homer.

On Sunday night, I realized the time had come whereat I could either let things slide along and have a very very dramatic last forty-eight hours in Homer next week, or I could make some lists and schedule time and plot slots, and make a calm, self-assured exit. I'm pleased to say I made the latter decision--I didn't get out of bed on Monday morning until I'd made a few pages of lists. Boxes are being taped, packages consolidated, emptied, passed on, used up. There have been some lovely serendipities as I've sought new homes for things that have been precious to me (and now, through an easy typo, are previous to me) :)
If you're local and would like something of mine, knowing my tastes, contact me! I'll bet there's something I'd love to give you that you'd love to have.

An unexpected abundance: two minutes after taking this photo, I'd found another half dozen paperclips and two more rubber bands. I never have enough clips and bands--until now!

This darling garden will have to come down soon. Since I'll be driving through Canada to get to the ferry I don't think I'll be able to carry dirt, but I'm thinking of sprouting clover in a mesh bag.

 Did I even talk about my birthday in my previous blog post? That post was maybe a bit too abstract, wasn't it? ;)
My birthday, plus the need to consolidate all kinds of ingredients, was my opportunity to play with this, which is danger zone for me...

 ...and to re-verify that this is a far far far superior alternative for me.

Five photos, five triggers. In the last couple days, I've been having some massive epiphanies around my relationship with food.
The need to drive in challenging conditions, the need to pack up and clean house, the practice of making treats for others, for myself, and seeing whether/what the differences between these are, have been tremendously instrumental in these realizations, and I'm feeling so grateful for the learning opportunity.

Do you want to hear more? It's an opening up I'm considering for my writing. Big changes are happening, and simply the fact that I can verbalize any of it is exciting to me.
Big love--local folks please hit me up soon if you'd like something of mine; anyone anywhere, if you'd like a postcard from the road please send me your address and I'll send you one!

Three More Lessons From Business to Spirit, and Why I'm Not Going Away

Three more mutual lessons from entrepreneurship and spiritual/personal growth empowerment, and their story:

1. Surround yourself with people of similar interests, intentions, and consciousness. It's said we are the cross section of the five people closest to us. I have a hard time taking this on board because I'm such a loner, but I do also believe it. If you want to get better at writing, hang out with writers--on which, more in a moment.
2. Work around a "no." I'm not good at taking no for an answer. And--if the thing that's being turned down has merit and goodness in it, often the no can be turned into a yes.
3. Create your flow. "Go with the flow" is great in concept, but I've had to acknowledge that often I've gone with someone else's flow rather than use my own idea muscle or act of will. When I'm conscious and intentional of what I'm working toward, and when my actions are reflecting my intentions, the focus creates a genuine flow all of its own, and everything I do has an ease and rightness and rhythm to it.

Storytime!

Starting from number 2: our wonderful local author Miranda Weiss was scheduled to teach a nonfiction course through the college this semester. Not enough people had registered, so the class was cancelled. Some of us were quite disappointed by this, and I (and probably some others) wrote her to ask if there was any way we could make the class a go on an informal basis, maybe at her home. It turned out that the dynamic and imaginative campus director was quite open to having a short version of the course hosted by the college, as a noncredit offering. There were eight spaces. And so, yesterday, nine of us showed up for the first meeting of Miranda's class at the college!

Which illustrates numbers 1 and 2. All of us were there to write. All of us were there to learn from Miranda and also from one another; to listen, offer feedback, write both in the class and in between meetings. We all happen to be women, and we all live in Homer; but aside from that we're such a diverse bunch--all of us choosing to surround ourselves with others who want to write, to write better, to explore more, to write deeper. 

As a sweet synchronicity for me, I received two lots of feedback from my mentor yesterday too, both of them excitingly encouraging. The most beautiful thing about the past two days has been number 3: I've been having an experience of creating flow. Whereas there are times when days go by without my writing anything except a bare bones journal entry, and I question myself, "What am I so afraid of? Do I really even like writing? If I loved it like I say I do, wouldn't I write all the time?" -- the past two days, on the other hand, have been characterized by involuntary flashes of "Hey! I like writing!" and, when I write in my journal first thing in the morning and ask what I could do to make it a really good day, the answer has been something like "Write x" or "Work on y." 

Underlying all this positive energy and buy-in, there's still this niggling piece about my physical health. The "go away to treatment" chorus has gotten a little louder, and I've become a little more adamant that I'm not going. I'm the one in this body, most of the time I feel okay, I know pretty much what I'd be going to and it would really suck; and there's way too much going on right here right now, plus my next moves to figure out. I just wish there wasn't this one little apple of discord.

"...and your life is in your hands."

When I get a line of poetry going through my head, it's usually for a good reason.
Lately:    voi ch'entrate, and your life is in your hands. -- the final line of Robert Lowell's "The Exile's Return." 
"Voi ch'entrate" is elliptical for Dante's lasciate ogne speranze voi ch'entrate, better known as "abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

And the truth is, I'm staring down a precipice.

But aren't we all, always? I take my life in my hands with every breath. That part was clear. But I didn't understand why I was getting the "abandon hope" part of the quote. Maybe it was just along for the ride.

Thank goodness I've been listening to all the self-empowerment and personal development audios. I listened to Roz Savage, the English lady who left behind her corporate life to follow passion, and has rowed solo across oceans. One of her lessons from aboard boat was don't indulge in hope. My ears pricked up. In the middle of the ocean, in a storm, with a broken oar and a waterlogged radio. hope may lead to paralysis, apathy, and a feeling of disempowerment as you try to replace your initiative and responsibility with wishing and longing.
So, actually, Robert Lowell (and little miz Ela), abandoning hope and acknowledging that your life is in your hands are two arms of the same embrace--embracing personal accountability.

My life is in my hands as I stare down a precipice and as I check my hope at the door. 
I'm learning so much right now, rediscovering my urge and delight in creative writing and translating, and throwing myself down the rabbit hole of a whole new endeavor, learning and being coached to run a business. In my ripe old age, I'm finally learning about finances! I'm finally bringing myself into participation (one of the reasons I first started this blog, participation) in one of the most potent and ubiquitous means of circulation.
And it's uncanny how well what I'm learning about business fits in with many of the spiritual/personal development changes I've been working on. I'm looking forward to sharing more detail on that.
But there is also a demand for unflinching honesty. If you're going to lay out resources you don't have, you'd better be very clear about where you're borrowing it from, and on what terms. Things have to match up. 

I have a mismatch. I'm excited, optimistic, engaged. I feel really good. And/but--I feel really good despite... When I say or think x is really good despite... is usually when something's about to go awry. But really, I feel okay. And yet, it was wisdom to decide not to go to the writers' conference at the end of this month because I'm not at the top of my notch. But I'm feeling okay! But objective markers of measurement would insist I'm not okay. And there's such a mismatch, I can hardly believe it even standing on two different scales, even getting feedback from people I trust.

Now would be an extremely inconvenient time to have to go away to treatment. But I'm back at the point of being told it's go away by choice or else I'll lose the choice.
I'm finding this pretty difficult to digest. It makes going off and studying up on LLC paperwork seem relatively easy.
And my life is in my hands.

Keep Following the Curve...

Hello again from London! It's evident from the lapse of time between the previous post and this one that I still haven't quite gotten my act together on the resolution to do more creative and communicative writing. There are many things I've wanted to do that I haven't done, and there are many ways I've wanted to be that I haven't been. 
Of course, there are many things that have been right, too, and I'm learning the value of acknowledging what is going well and recognizing what huge learning opportunities I'm being offered as I spend so much time in the company of beings out of whom, (in some ways at least) literally, I'm made.
As my wise and wonderful mentor reminded me, any ardent commitment requires our rededication every single day (for which this image is particularly appropriate as I've been working on a poem about driving the curve for almost a year now). 

"I write today, I write today, I write today." Every day is only "today," but the more "I write" becomes part of "today," the more "I write today" comes to imply "and tomorrow, and yesterday, and next week, and always." If writing is really what I want to do, if literature is really what I want to produce, then the process and the product must reflect that desire.
Or:
I choose not to eat what I know will not serve me--the wrong food, at the wrong time, for the wrong reason, for others, so that I end up feeling bad about myself  and in myself and having to chase every meal with charcoal...and I choose not to excuse myself that in every case it's innocuous food I'm not allergic to: if I know it won't create the "me" through whom I wish to experience the world, I should decline. 

And oh, the devil in the doubt--do I really want to write or should I just edit and translate or go work in a cafe; would I really rather feel safely and comfortably austere in my body, or do I want to be someone who gratefully humors a person offering me gluten free treats or tickling my dark chocolate buds...?

The lesson I keep returning to is that my behaviors and actions reflect my goals. Which means I need to be crystal clear about what those goals are, in a way that I've never been in my life so far. I can choose what goals my actions reflect, rather than having my actions represent goals I might not wish to claim.
After my close brushes with death this summer, this should be even more urgent--but is it? I translate words over and over again, matching meanings, but my own matching to life and self remains unwhole. Unholy? 
Every day is an opportunity, and the opportunity is an honor.
Every moment is a choice, and every choice can be a lean into the curve or a deviation from it.

Please share your thoughts, dear reader. How do you find the resolve to recommit to your desire daily, to form process into practice, to enjoy the product of the process?

Forgive me for being obtuse. I've been burning the candle at both ends. Keep following that curve. Keep learning...

Writing Residency and Body Image/Food

About the Residency and some frank talk about me, since it is my blog. Speaking of blog: You would have thought I'd have an effective comments system well worked out by now, especially considering what a desideratum it has long been for me. I apologize for the continued woes. WordPress did not offer what I was hoping for, and the plugin I installed hoping to solve the problem has made it worse if anything. I will work on it but please bear with me, because I'm at...

The Rainier Writing Workshop's 2013 Residency--a week of intense learning, sharing, co-teaching, interacting...basically a time when even if you're an introvert you can enjoy going out at night. Morning talks crystal sharp and pealing with laughter in informal atmosphere...

Surrounded by people who also think this (picture) is hysterically funny and also took a photo of it:

...and, most of the time, we're in intimate workshops and seminars in which the most acute of critiquing or seminar-ing is compounded with the loveliest congeniality.

There have been a few times I've felt critiquing hasn't been sharp enough from certain quarters. On the other hand, my work came up for workshop yesterday and one of the two faculty leaders expressed some very serious reservations about it, the vocabulary becoming stronger as the workshop went on. But there was no gall, neither given nor taken--this was objective, if passionate, discussion of work being taken seriously. Truthfully, though, I could feel that were it not for my meds I'd have been in pieces. But I could balance that faculty member's interpretations with many thoughtful readings from other faculty and students that gave me a more hopeful picture. Any one opinion is just one opinion. Even better: knowing that my own fragile ego might have exaggerated some parts of what I heard and minimized something positive, I checked in with one of my cohorts who had been in the same workshop. She reminded me of some very positive things the faculty member had also said and that I had not paid attention to. Somehow it's easy to ignore what you're good at and only focus on the points of criticism.

I've already met with my mentor for the thesis year. She is a phenomenal writer of both poetry and nonfiction and also happens to be a great teacher. Several conceptual aspects of my work for this year fell into place so naturally at our meeting that it felt very auspicious for what's to come. 

Oh, and we both have big hair.

An epiphany that came for me today: the traditional line people draw of "fact and/or/versus fiction" is vicious both for fiction writing (cannot reflect facts) and for creative nonfiction writing (can only be the facts). So, I propose we disband fact and fiction and allow other dichotomies to emerge.

Okay. Now to Ela, Food, and Body. Last night and this morning, small groups of lovely people, it felt fine (although my guts reminded me afterwards that it wasn't fine). I confess, the food and body thing is torture. One sad thing is how similar it has been each year, although this year may be the worst for various reasons. I need to look like I'm eating but I'm mortified if I look like I'm eating. I don't want to eat anything but I need to stay functional.

We're all self conscious in some way. So. My thighs look gigantic, my belly bloated, my chin doubled. How can I even appear in public?

My belly is a beast of unnatural and prodigious appetites.

I was warned I might have unusual cravings as my body seeks iron after recent massive blood loss. And so. I have no appetite, but I'm afraid of what I start when I start eating. And I'm craving salt, which I never usually eat or desire. One day, I snuck to the cafeteria and bought a small bag of chips, as self consciously as a teenager buying condoms for the first time. Back in my room, I shook them out onto a napkin and made three piles, so that each transgression would only be about 50 calories. I put one pile back in the foil pouch and one into an old oatmeal packet, clamped the crimped edges under a book. I ate a luxurious few of the third pile just as they were, and crumbled the rest into applesauce, to dilute the craved salt.

Most of my favorite foods don't taste good. I have a metallic taste in my mouth. If I eat, it gets worse. If I don't eat, it gets worse. 

For the group meals, the catering's awareness of gluten free and nondairy has improved exponentially. Which means fewer excuses for me not to eat, or to bring my safe foods to eat. Still, every time I let them feed me it's a scary act of surrender and I always don't feel well afterwards--there's always something that doesn't agree. On the other hand, I brought so much of my own food here, but even feeding myself a lot of the time, that heap is diminishing so imperceptibly...and I thought I'd calculated it fairly well. 

Calories counting in my head all the time, the bestial belly reprimanded all the time. Grapes taste so good now, but they do not satisfy the hunger urge and meanwhile they add and add to the calorie count. Which means, help my guts to be more roilsome and noisome than any in the history of humanity.

My question for you writers out there: what could I do to the above litany of complaints so that people would be laughing along? Or are you laughing already?

If I could just be a bee enjoying the late clover...

HWAMC Day 1, Let's Go!

Happy April, and welcome to a month of posts prompted by Wego Health's HAWMC --Health Activist Writer's Month Challenge.
April is a challenging month, no doubt; it always seems slammed and flooded with work. And yet, for the second year in a row, here I am.
Today's kickoff prompts:

• Why you write – tell us a little bit about why you write about your health online and what got you started.
• Why HAWMC? This is our third year of the Health Activist Writer’s Month Challenge – why did you get involved this year? Are you a newbie to #HAWMC or a veteran?

Yes, and there's the nub of it. "Why do I write about my health online" presumes I do write about it.
I have written about it with diffidence, saying I'm not sure I "should" write about it. I have not-written about it, declaring that I wished I were writing about it.
I have been urged not to write about it by friends fearing for my career prospects and the stigmas associated with my conditions.
I have been urged to write about it, to be a voice for others with the conditions, bringing my own special relationship with words to illuminate the experience and allow others to see what it is.
I have been urged to write about it for my own salvation, to save me from my prayer for oblivion.
I have been urged not to write about it because these conditions are part of the myth of the medical model and writing about them would be using my abilities to kow-tow to this model, like in Orwell's 1984, let alone taking the meds.
I have been urged not to write about it because writing about it confirms my identity under these labels when I should be moving away from all that and seeing myself a different way,

These last two urgings, ironically, may in fact be part of why I do write. Disbelief in the medical model and medications, and fear of identity-based-on-diagnosis informed my decisions for most of my life. At last, I'm here to testify that those things all have their place.
I feel a bit like an ex-vegan. I've come across a few of those on my travels, including an unbelievable number in Hawaii. All of them are eager to tell you chapter and verse on why it's so better not being vegan, even if you had never known them in their vegan days. Having abandoned a conviction they held so tenaciously, they are still justifying to themselves--and thus aloud in a high voice--the rightness of their apostacy.

I'm not an ex-vegan, and I didn't hold my disbelief in the medical model so passionately. I'm afraid I've never held passionately to any conviction, and I may be beginning to understand why. I don't speak much about my conversion, although I'm glad to tell all to anyone who wants to know. Readiness to tell anyone who wants to know, anyone afraid to accept care from this quarter, is one crucial reason I write, and should encourage me to write for a wider audience. Which may be precisely what I'm about to do with my MFA thesis. One thing I do mention here with some regularity, though, is the saving grace of a certain simple ionic salt compound. 

Rock (lithium), Earth (carbon), Air (-ate (=three oxygen molecules)). Not manufactured in a lab. 
I'll readily share how much it helps me because it truly opened my eyes. Opened my eyes to the concept that meds could help. Opened my eyes to a whole universe of human interaction I'd never been able to see before.
Final thought: the fact it helps so much suggests there is something to be helped. That can be so, whether or not one chooses to hang an identity on it.

Another Perspective on Sharing Suffering

It's been so long since I last posted--again! That outflow onto the beach that I pictured bearded with ice a week or so ago...

...is now shorn of snow and flowing freely.

As should I be, I can't help but feeling.
I don't know what's preventing me from writing more here.
It's true, I'm not settled on where "here" is right now. I've been talking about migrating this blog and changing its appearance for months now. The superficial blogger-internal face-lift I've given it recently seems only to have rendered it buggier and less user-friendly (user-unfriendlier?) so I may undo that.
And the blog displacement and stagnating migration intent are only highly convenient metaphors for what's going on in my own life at the moment.
I did just see 22:22:22 on March 22, which should have told me it's time to get ready for bed, but it made me superstitiously happy and excited to write at least "something." I do have a pretty neat photos post almost ready to go, too.
But the truth is, I had far too much work this past week. And my faculties seem to be diminished and less than equal to overburdened weeks. Apprehension of loss of my own particular brilliance on which I've always been able to rely has rammed me further into the posthole of despair, the tunnel stopped at one end.
Manic seems such a long way away, and meds only make the posthole tunnel less deep and final.
And I confess it's been so long since I've eaten or drunk anything without accompanying punishing nausea and pain, I'm starting to drive myself crazy with the frantic mental scrabblings of what I might add in or (more likely) take out of my diet. And this without "indiscretions" or castor oil punishments for well over a week.

I can't see the woods for the words, as I am saying a lot at the moment (quoting myself from a half-written poem). But I am recognizing how right my wonderful naturopath is in emphasizing that words can be my salvation. As I've been trying to think through my creative thesis for my MFA--it really is coming to that time already!--and suffering through everything I laid out above and many other life stresses, which make it harder to focus, I found a path by meditating on words. Passion is a tense of "suffering," and compassion (from Latin) or sympathy (from Greek) mean suffering together, sharing the experience. But if you choose to be a victim of your suffering, your passion, you are christ on the cross, excruciated, a grand and solo passion that can only be venerated or turned away from in pity and horror.
In other words, I need to acknowledge my sufferings as normal for someone in my circumstances rather than thinking of them as extraordinary and specific to me (even if my behaviors sometimes exacerbate the pain)--and then I can write about them in such a way that my readers will see themselves and suffer together--sympathize. Without the possibility of sympathy, what I write will be alienating; the crucified figure left alone in a desert place, the paradox of standing out when no one can bear to look. (After I came out of my worst period of anorexia seven or eight years ago, which was beyond excruciating for anyone who had to be around me, let alone for me, some friends and colleagues came up to me and shared that they had had to look away during that time; watching me die was too much to bear. The book of my life unreadable.)
I am learning to write a book for companions (sharers of sustenance) and compatients (sharers in suffering).

What Remains, What Gets Left Behind

Hello everyone! Mornings here are becoming so light, and with some light still in the sky at 6pm, the sense of curfew, of having to hurry home, is eradicated. It's snowed us into black-and-white again this past week, but with the influx of light, the black and white are merely the poles upon which color plays.

I've been the dog-auntie for almost two weeks now, the denizen bedizening this beautiful big house--yes, I do feel gaudy and extravagant here! I've written about that before. 

More important, I've been very much by myself. Not completely alone, with writers' groups, meet-ups, appointments, chores and errands, etc. But by myself. On my own cognizance. And you know what? 
It feels so good!
Phil is still in Tucson, until the end of the month, and is likewise having a great time. I'll be up here through the end of March.
I've been writing and working and writing and pulling things buried in my notebook out like pieces of worked rock from an archaeological dig, finding that I can now move forward with the myriad blocked drafts. Well, maybe they were blocking a draft, and now the wind is in a different corner!
More on the draft and the different corner later.
For now, gratitude, with caution. It is such a joy to be writing. It is such a joy to be in what is mostly a very low-stress situation. Yes, this house's driveway, sheer and straight with a hairpin at the top, is notorious, and has been especially challenging with all the recent snow. But it got plowed and sanded this morning after I called for help--there is help at hand. And with my competent car, I got in and out over and over, my anxiety and stress about it diminishing every time. And yes, the dogs are demanding and one of them whines and sometimes yaps in the car, which drives me crazy and makes me scared for my driving...oh and my goodness, sends me back to carpools in grade school with one or another parent going ballistic over the noise we were making. Those parents' age now myself, I feel the role reversal with sickening clarity. But if you hike the dogs well in the morning, they're less demanding the rest of the day, and that even enjoins a welcome regular beach hike upon me.

But otherwise, the great majority of stressors are simply not present. Being alone most of the time feels restorative and agreeable, even if I'm not writing or working every moment.

And there's the caution (i.e. what happens when things get more stressful?), together with the observation that it's easy to ignore a problem in one area if you're feeling good in every other. Great thanks to ML for helping me with both those observations. And so, I have recommitted to a regular and adequate sleep schedule after a week or so of not sleeping much at all, in recognition that (a) I was simply getting exhausted and (b) much more of that and inevitably I'd start being crazy. And so, I am grabbing a hold of my physical self, puzzlement as that is. I haven't been "keeping it up" very well, through some sort of negligence; small differences being hard to see, they don't convince that it's necessary to do anything different. Plus, as I said, I feel so good--orders of magnitude better than other times I've left too much of myself behind. But the meds need something to ride on, and plumbing the limits of that in exploration would be a fool's errand; negligence would be criminal.

So, what remains? What gets left behind? The questions framed by a living space and situation familiar but utterly estranged from my normal home, with the possibility of moving even farther afield. And I've been talking for ages about changes to this blog. Writing, poetry, this blog remain, for sure--they might even be the foundation. Or the magic carpet. Seeking more outlets for my writing, submitting my work--those things fell by the wayside some when I got sick last year, but I've been solicited to write some book reviews (which I love to do) in a couple places, and am getting inspired to start submitting my creative work places again. 

In the bigger picture, of what my persona, my life, my living situation is going to look like, of the depth of my relationships with the people closest to me here, how they are going to be...well, bigger picture, bigger questions! I'm feeling some urgency to demonstrate that I can manage by myself, with some fey ebullience in the "Of course I can" direction.

I've left so much between the lines in this post because I don't even know how to talk about a lot of this right now. Hopefully what I've left out won't be left behind. Feel free to ask me if you have questions--you know how willing I am to be frank one to one.

Meanwhile, of course I'm going to be fine, when I am sleeping in the master bedroom with this pile of pups...(and let it be noted--I've watched dogs (these and others) many times before, but this happens to be the first time they've decided to sleep with me, and I've been ok with it).

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!

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.

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.

Choices, Priorities, Holding Myself Accountable

What happened to my priorities, and how can attention to them dig me out now?
There are many ways to sabotage, lose oneself. Like allowing oneself to get sicker.

"You are where you focus."
"You must have a clearly defined goal and a burning desire to let nothing in your way until you achieve that goal."
"You just have to get your priorities in order."
"You must walk your talk"/"Do as I say, not as I do."
We've all heard some version of these, whether in unsolicited advice from parents or in any success-oriented self-help book.

Always, making choices--Would you rather have this, or would you rather have that?

On a 'small' level, this just has to do with knowing what you love, and cultivating that.
I love persimmons, and when I lived in CA I harvested them from October well into December, eating them freely, reveling in their ripe translucence against the slanted fall sunshine. 

 Now that I live in Alaska, and buy them at the store imported from far away and quite expensive, my relationship with them is different, mediated by dollar and calorie amounts I was able to forget back there and then. Nonetheless, I buy as many as I can afford, and Phil and I enjoy every last one, first as festive decoration, then as sustenance that nourishes on more than one level. I choose the persimmons over the extra dollars in the wallet.

What have I been choosing instead of being a writer and being stabilized by lithium??
I love writing; I have a burning desire to be a writer. In order to walk that talk:
I should always choose to be writing, or reading for writing, ahead of any other thing. Which means putting it before my paid work, and charging much more what I'm worth for what I do. I should make sure I write down on paper all the writing I do in my head.
But also:
In order to walk the talk of being a writer, or any other activity for that matter: I should have been doing more than I have been doing--everything in my power--to avoid falling farther down the spiral of not-eating--losing appetite--not-being-able-to-eat--losing-more-weight.
Even if my burning desire had simply been to be able to hold a conversation, or to be able to remember what I did two minutes ago, or to take a hike without seizing up or getting dizzy, or to be able to travel, or to be left by myself, I should have been doing this.
I have wondered what sort of writing would result from not being able to remember what one did two minutes earlier. I guess you could look back and see what you had there, but that might just perpetuate the muddle. Pretty sure my blog post before last was virtually unintelligible.
Even for the sake of something small.  So much more, then, for the sake of something big? Like one's life purpose, and being able to continue taking the medication that made so many things possible and sanified?
In my small defense, it's not as thought I was continually consciously choosing not to feed myself: rather, it was a stream of small-picture excuses and avoidances that built a majorly deficient big picture.
 So. I'm in the hole. I'm not traveling over Thanksgiving and we're trying to work it out so that Phil doesn't have to cancel as well (which would leave me feeling terrible, but my ND doesn't want me to stay by myself). 
I know what they'll make me do if I go back to treatment. I have to prove to everyone that I can do those things myself, here, at home. But who is going to have any confidence that I can do that, based on the past six weeks? 
We're not even talking the "what if I don't do it," the "or else" at this point--they're talking about my survival, and I still can't internalize that as something seriously genuine (or genuinely serious).
With so many things in jeopardy now; with the aversive knowledge of what it would be like in treatment; with the injunction not to leave me alone (when I'm so craving some quiet time at home), I feel pretty motivated to show I can do it. I picture a huge chasm with a railroad bridge collapsed into it. The mess of ties and girders is mending back together in the shape of a spiral. I'm the train-wreck at the bottom, getting the wheels back on, limping over to the tracks, gradually following the spiral up toward a winter sunrise.
I'm writing about something this personal partly because it pertains to and impinges on the life of a writer, but also to hold myself accountable. I'm letting it be known that I want to climb out of the hole. I'm putting the three cups of coconut cream per day out there as something that can be mentioned.

Continuing with Words; Resuming Habits; Picture Questions

My words are being judged and condemned--words I did say, words I did not say and might/should have said, words I did not say inferred from words I did say.

This, after all the progress I felt I'd made in the months away specifically on communication, hurts.

My hand keeps seeking the heart chakra area at the center of my chest, as if looking for a talisman to clutch; but perhaps I need to accept that my bones are my only talismans, my own thorax my only armor.

I find myself thinking I need to take a vow of silence: a thought that occurred many times during the hard work away from here, whether reacting to my perception that I talked too much in group therapy or recoiling from my horror at having said something inappropriate. Stop talking except to answer questions; delete the blog; write poetry only about the weather or the beautiful changing tidescapes of our beach and seasons.

But then again, I am a writer! In so being, I lay myself open a willing victim for judgment and condemnation of my words, and so must it always be! The fact that it's happening in a more domestic sphere simply gives me a very high-stake opportunity to evaluate what I say and how I say it (although there's less I can do about what I don't say that, in someone else's view, I should have said, or about inferences drawn from what I say).

So, I'll continue this writing habit and hold that little frisson of anxiety as to how it may be judged for a spiky, reminding talisman at my heart.

Meanwhile, I'm continuing to look at those habits last-mentioned, to attempt to sanify some elements of their resumption at least. I had grated carrot for breakfast yesterday, but I did at least have a decent amount of coconut cream, chia meal and fruit with it. I used my Vitamix finally-finally yesterday, and it contained more than just ice and spirulina ;) although how its contents would map onto the 'exchanges' of my supposed meal plan would have to remain a mystery.

Two days ago, the dehydrator came out. I made my own granola--not even something I ever ate before I left. Very simple--gf oats, coconut, dried mulberries and cherries, some cacao nibs, a little maple syrup, a little coconut oil, a little salt. As I would like it, but without all the calories stripped out! The presenting cause for the dehydrator was to make kale chips, as a friend who I knew loved them was coming through town. Perhaps this was easier because they were for someone else, but I put a lot more oil than when I made them last year (salt, pepper, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil). Since both last year and this, my oil-adding was by eye, that's an interesting by-eye measurement of how much less minimalist I've become. Even Phil thought these chips tasted good, and he loathes kale!

Before any of those things, since really I'm not obsessed with food, boys and girls, I had resumed daily beach hikes with Phil. This is a habit that was always good for us, and that had pretty much faded out to 2-3 times per week in the nadir of my overwork/health trouble vortex last winter/spring. So its resumption seems like an unqualified goodness. And my beloved rebounder (I always call it that, don't I?) came back out almost as soon as we were home. Hey, I'd forgotten how much that exercise uses your core muscles! I was super-sore right in the middle there for about two days. Impressed too by how fast the soreness went away.

Another sunny day today--we actually slept outside last night, in sleeping bags right on the edge of the bluff. Both of us slept better than for days. Almost time to head out for our hike in the sun and wind today. Speaking of which, as could be seen in my previous post, I do have the camera out and in hand again, but I've become somewhat loathe to post yet another picture of our raised beds, let alone of a green smoothie. There are often posts I write that don't have an obvious visual that isn't either redundant or hard to do. And yet, I like to have at least one picture in my posts. I've seen a lot of bloggers post several photos in a single post that clearly aren't their own--cartoons, fluffy kittens, and the like. And I never knew how to find such pics and feel a clear conscience that they weren't copyrighted. I have used a few pics in the past few months that fall into that category, but perhaps my poor sleep owes some of itself to that.

But here's a website I found, whose url handily declares its function. I think it'll help me a lot, so I wanted to share: http://www.stickyreaders.com/where-to-get-public-domain-or-free-images.html

Any thoughts or stories on your words and their consequences in a more intimate sphere?

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.