All full. Half empty

So, I am trying to figure out what is going on with my writing at the moment and I do have alot to say but no focus whatsoever.

And it’s frustrating as hell.

I’ve been writing poetry, over on my home page site. Please do feel free to enjoy them.

But it’s just THIS.

THIS. Blog. Is making me thirsty.

Can you dig what I am saying?

No?

That’s because my life is overrun with observations about nothing.

Gee Jerry Seinfeld did that already.

Isn’t it strange when we notice that day-to-day life isn’t just AMAZING!!!??!? Like when we are just having pasta for dinner and it’s “just” food and nothing particularly special and we eat it, and afterward we aren’t hungry any more, and the net result is that we are going to survive another day not facing death by starvation because we ate the pasta… phew!

And we didn’t have to go anywhere fancy at all.

Or talk to anyone at all.

We just cooked the pasta and put the sauce on and put it on a plate and then ate it.

With a glass of water.

And it just costs about $2.

It’s always such an underwhelming surprise to wake up to the truth again and again:

Life is beautiful.

Well, I’m back! Didja miss me?? I did it! A whole 40 days without Facebook! 

Then she posted a really great list of all the things she “got done” in that time when she wasn’t Facebooking.

A lot of things went through my head at that moment. Here they are:

1. I miss Tammy. Boy I would really like to spend some time with her in person having a conversation.

2. I didn’t miss her on Facebook. I mean, I didn’t notice she was gone. Hmmm… why is that?

3. Wow. She got a LOT of shtuff done! She painted a whole ROOM? Hey, didn’t she just have cancer?

4. I have a room I need to paint.

5. I need to update my status. And see what those notifications are. And check my pokes. And update my status. And update my status on my other page. And update my profile pic. And oops. I have to poke someone again. Sigh.

6. Why didn’t I miss her again?

7. Crap. It’s time to pick up the kids.

I guess I might not be stating the obvious when I say: I need a break from Facebook. I spend WAY too much time just trolling around there during the day. Don’t get me wrong: I love alot of what I have gotten out of Facebook, most especially getting back in touch with old friends.

I just need a break for awhile.

I’d really like to write some letters. Would you like to exchange a letter? Or would you like a postcard from me? I just bought a whole bunch of stamps, and that’s what I am feeling right now. If so, email me. Or I have a contact form here, if you don’t have my email address.

And it is true… I didn’t “miss” Tammy on Facebook while she was gone during Lent. That’s the nature of Facebook.  I didn’t see the original post when she said she was going to deactivate.  Then she deactivated and –poof! — no Tammy for 40 days. Time passed and got filled up with the everyday.

So even though my friend was missing from my timeline, I didn’t notice!

Oh well. Fortunately, Tammy is not the sort of friend to be insulted by this… the opposite in fact! That’s why we have stayed friends, even as time and distance have taken us away from each other. That kind of friendship can’t be undone by leaving Facebook, fortunately.

Will I be back? Most likely, but who knows? My plan is to break for the month of May while I am doing some writing for an e-course I am taking. We’ll see where it goes from there.

See you around.

The summer the kids and Colin and I went to Maine, we were not right in the head.

That is to say, life was a little askew for all of us. It was good for us that August to pile in the van and get out of dodge. We drove a long way… up to Ontario and then across Quebec and into Maine. The kids were thrilled at the quiet border crossing that the guard was willing to go in and find the stamps and mark their passports.

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We made it to The County, and we were ready for a little R&R. Kayaks and campfires and familiar faces.

Our friends, Ellen & Peter, their sons Morgan and Devin, and Ellen’s Ma & Pa, Clayton and Charlene, were all well ensconced in the regular summer “camp” routine. This was Ellen’s home stomping grounds, and she and her family came up to the lake to get normalized every summer.

They helped us get a little normal too that summer.

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Sometimes it takes awhile to recognize yourself.  For example, I’ve been writing since I was about 6, but only about the time I finished the first draft of my second novel in 2006, did I start to see myself as a writer. Lately, it’s been in writing  poetry that I’ve begun to feel comfortable in my writer skin.

Sometimes is also takes awhile to realize: time isn’t truly linear. We all spend a lot of time in our lives running around in hopeless loops and figure-8s. I know I’ve done my fair share. It’s like living in the inside lane of a traffic circle.

Then one day you simply turn your head and notice: I can move. You change lanes.  You say “oh.” And you exit and just leave all that shit behind.

Sometimes it takes awhile to retell your story.  We all love to pick at the adjectives, but it’s work to change the plot. The genre. Most especially: the characters. The setting.

Mostly, I noticed, though: sometimes it takes awhile to really say thank you.

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We made it to The County, and out onto the pleasant lake in a wobbly canoe. We laid on rented beds and heard the common loons call. We ate a fish caught in the early morning light.

Back then, I was all but numb: corralling and humming and prodding.

Now I am awake. I can see out of my front seat and my lane and down the long beautiful avenue.

I see out here all the friends who have loved us and helped us and taught us.

And yes, it’s true. I am very busy with laundry. But not so busy.

Time to think about camp again soon.

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This is just to say: Thank you.

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During the week of April 30th, I am the guest poet on Vancouver writer Samantha Reynold’s beautiful site, bentlily. Please do come over and have a look.

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Look at me and smile.

My most beautiful thing?

You see me and I see you.

We are not just connected. We see each other.

For me, that is where the love is.

Your beautiful smile.

I see your smile, but I also see all the heartache too.
Some we shared together, and some you just carry with you, wherever you go.

In you, I see me, and you, and everyone else I’ve ever loved.

I can’t get close enough to you, though I try. Even when you are far away, you are as near as my breath.

A stranger, as myself, walking in the world.
You and I looked, and said hello. That was all we needed to know.

We are in tune together, and on cue.

Allowing all the exhaustion to fall away, until all there is left is us.

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Thank you.

I was thinking about that today, as I was pondering getting our organic garden ready to spring planting.

It’s Ok. I know I am preaching to the choir generally.  But a good argument is worth saying, just in case it’s seeps into the other side.

Here’s how I feel: eventually, if a mostly-reasonable person hears enough of it, then she can start to change their story.  Sometimes a bit. Sometimes a lot.

So here’s my logical argument for Why the Organic, Local Food Movement is Patriotic.

1. Food. Made in the U.S.A. Often in your actual state.

2. Employees are your neighbors: those hard-working folk in work boots and seed caps. You know the ones. Called farmers.

3. Requires less food shopping at Wal-Mart, where many parts of the chain of processed food are made in some god-forsaken foreign land.

4. No subsidies. Hell, local farmers are the bastard stepchildren of the USDA. Go small government!

5. Free-range animal farming means less money being poured into prisons!

6. Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus eat seedless Mexican grapes from a plastic clamshell.

7. And, the obvious. Food which defines: “Taste great. Less filling.”

So, for all my grungy, hippie-dippie organic-loving localvores out there: I am pleased to inform you that you have passed the test for first-class, red-blooded, proud-to-be-an-Amer-can patriot.

For all my more conservative friends: I regret to inform you that you will have to become a fancy-schmancy, organic buying asshole in order to solidify your rank in this fair land as “true patriot.”

Once when I lived in London, I drank a bit too much at the after-hours while working at the pub. I was walking back home around 2 a.m. and one minute I was  counting Smart Cars along the road, then next I was busted out flat on the ground. I hadn’t even tripped. As far as I knew. My legs just gave out. I giggled to myself and got up and walked on.

A couple weeks or so ago, this happened again, only I wasn’t drunk and I wasn’t alone on a dark street. I was sidetracked by a pile of life activities, and ended up inconveniencing someone by being late for an appointment. This person was royally pissed — that kind of pissed we all get when we aren’t pissed about the thing we are actually yelling about — and she poked her finger in my face and, well…

-poof-

I disappeared into the meltdown.

I think I knew I had been holding a bunch of stuff down inside for a while. Not too many of the people who knew me were that surprised. Even so, it’s a hell of a thing to lose it like that. There aren’t any sympathy cards for “So You Completely Lost Your Mind for 10 Minutes”  at the CVS. Friends left me alone for a week, which was understandable, but also made me feel lost and unhappy.

Though it did give me plenty (more) quiet time to think and reflect.

We don’t have space in our lives any more for the dirty grime of life. We hardly know how to grieve. Keening is out. You could punch someone and that might be mildly acceptable socially, but legally it won’t go well for you. I overheard an obviously frustrated mother yelling at her 8-year-old son at Target tonight, over the din of her other screaming kid. She was hollering, “Push the fucking cart would you?” and I wanted to hug her because no Mom shouts fuck in public at her kid and feels good about herself.

There’s a lot of pessimistic, cynical negativity being thrown at us. Constantly, every other minute. Facebook statuses, and twitter updates, diametric political conversations that look a little bit like Forrest Gump practicing ping pong against a wall. I’ve noticed it in myself these last few years. I’m hard on myself, and I’m hard on the people who gather around me.

And why not? The vibration of the human world can often sound like hopelessness.

But then:

-poof-

No, not a solution. Not an answer. Just a chance to do, as Pema Chodron says, to lean in to the feeling, and notice it, then to just allow the feeling to go. Then, suddenly you’ll look around and notice the clouds clearing. The meltdowns are always happening. It’s natural.

Ask the snowdrift what to expect.

But the breakthroughs of warmth and beauty are always there.

Ask the tulip bulb too.

Like many people (read: everyone) I know, I eat to feel “better.”

Lately, the go-to food of choice for easing emotional bumps is the Cinnamon Crunch Bagel from Panera.

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I accidentally remembered that Panera existed recently when I started going to the gym the next town over. My gym is just one stone’s throw (literally) from the place where they bake sinfully wonderful sugary goodness — paired with free Wifi and coffee.

In Connecticut, we like to sort of hide our strip malls behind trees. Also we feign heart attacks at the idea of driving to the next town over. So I’d blanked how wonderful Shelton is — with its shops, strip malls, stores, restaurants and fitness clubs, actually closer to our house than most places here in town.

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Now, I am pretty sure I am failing in the “get fit” program I organized with the trainer when I didn’t tell him my plans to depart the gym and go directly to Panera after every workout.

Sigh.

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Have you heard of Dr. Brene’ (you say Breh-NAY) Brown? I hadn’t till a friend introduced me to her.

After processing her ideas, suddenly my desire to cram sugary bagels down my throat after sad 30 minutes walking on the treadmill makes more sense to me.

Brown is a speaker and researcher from the U. of Houston … she’s got quite a few great talks available online, but here I’ll offer you the one she gave at my old stomping ground TEDx-KC at the Nelson Atkins Museum of Art. She studies vulnerability, courage and shame and asks the questions:

How do we learn to embrace our vulnerabilities and imperfections so that we can engage in our lives from a place of authenticity and worthiness? How do we cultivate the courage, compassion, and connection that we need to recognize that we are enough – that we are worthy of love, belonging, and joy?

– from Brene’ Brown’s website

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Listening to Brown talk about the deep connection between our sense of shame, our feelings of scarcity that pummel us in the media (I’m not enough), and our fear of seeing the beauty in the ordinary hit home to me.  No wonder I wanted to eat a crunchy sugary bagel. So much of my instinct wanted to hear that the bits and pieces of the day was where the beauty was. But then the waves of “higher-more-better-sooner” would hit and I’d get caught up in a spin of expectations and feel the anxiety rising.

“I am not good enough” was the chorus of the song playing on the skipping record.

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In honor of Brown and her research, I am adding a new page to my site called “Ordinary Thanks.”

I’ll be posting there as often as I can, hopefully to remind myself, as she suggests, about why practicing gratitude is important not just to our connections with others, but for getting me past that place of scarcity.

Thanks for reading. And thanks to my friend Chris for suggesting Brene to me.

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This post is part of the BIG QUESTION series for March: “What is Eating You?“

French fries—the crispy deep gold covered with a lightly scattered dusting of salt. Their warmth as they spill out of the box—all dipped in a Rorschach pool of ketchup.

Waffle shaped, tightly curled and sprinkled with a bit of pepper.

Or just like pocky sticks—straight and tall with a soft crunch as you bite into them. No matter the size, I’ll eat them. They remind me of:

Pencils crammed neatly and freshly sharpened in a pencil case. Pick one out and write as if your thoughts were the only food at this very moment.

Maybe that’s one of the very long reasons why I’m an artist and a poet. The power of ink, the power to manipulate, create, or heal with one’s hands. Words are a matter of indulging the human spirit while my French fries indulge cravings of the body.

I had been an artist since I was a child, but my medium wasn’t a pencil but more like colored pencils, crayons, and sidewalk chalk. The playground is big enough for me to experiment with color and pattern.

Everything I pay attention to in this world is a playground and a science lab—a revisit of one’s senses and the appreciation of nature and human nature interacting and rippling small moments, stumbling into events we would never imagine ourselves getting into. I find myself continuously asking questions throughout my life such as: What does it mean? What if this happened? Why? How? Why not?

morning star
between these chopsticks
the crumble
of another thought

I wonder if the types of foods we eat and like tell us who we are.  The foods that are our guilty pleasures, our vices, do not necessarily fully define who we are unless we let them take control.

Fries and ketchup—they are my comfort food and often times a treat when I’m beginning or going through my lunar cycle (but it’s not every single time though). French fries with ketchup are remarkably satisfying and give a sense of relief and wholeness with a dash of endorphins, especially when I’m down. They are gold and bright stiletto red—the colors are like lì xì (lucky money in decorated red envelopes) for Lunar New Year.

The colors that mean everything will be prosperous. The colors that bounce off the pavement and swirl in the sunlight with the trees and clouds.

It’s no wonder restaurants use red and gold to stimulate hunger even if you’re not hungry at all.

And then when I’m done with a large order of fries, I find myself sluggish and incredibly thirsty, knowing that I had digested over 500 calories’ worth of empty nutrients but a TON of salt, fat and carbs. Ugh, it sounds gross when you break it down that way, right? Gym time! But I digress. French fries will win my heart over chocolate any day.

However, if you add in ice-cream sandwiches and Vietnamese eggrolls, I’m in heaven. I will savor every bite the way I try to savor every word, every kindness received and given, every experience I encounter with others, and every glimmer of self-discovery.

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This is part of the BIG QUESTION series “What is Eating You?”  Thank you, Kathy!

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A-Lotus, also called Kathy, is a post-baccalaureate nursing student, mental health professional, yogi, a hopeful marathon runner, prolific poet, and a lover of life with too many interests to keep track of.

She is a regular contributor at “Writing Our Way Home.” She wrote this post as one of her last items of online work prior to taking a two-month, internet sabbatical. Once she returns, you can find her lovely haiku, small stones, and generous spirit via twitter at @alotus_poetry. Or come and write with her at Writing Our Way Home.

I am glad I didn’t mention to them yet the Irish-ish tradition of dying things green and eating them. Because of this:

Me (to twin 1): Charlotte’s Web was named Number 1 book for kids.

Twin 1: Oh! We just read that in school! It is GREAT!

Me: There were lots of books on the list we’ve read. Like ‘Green Eggs and Ham.”

Twin 2: Oh, boy! I don’t ever want to read that book again. It’s all “green eggs and ham” all day long every Dr. Seuss day. Bleh! <SIGH>.

So I think we’ll wait till next year to introduce them to the minty Shamrock Shake from McDonald’s and dyed green bagels.

Do you eat green food on St. Paddy’s day?

Shamrock Pancakes from Mommy 911

Halibut with Green Salsa from Delish.com

Green beer "recipe" from The Foodie's Kitchen

Stir-fried Kale (not dyed!) from Tasty Cheapskate

The Shamrock Shake, nestled in actual mint. By McDonald's

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This post is part of the BIG QUESTION series “What is Eating You?” Read more, eat more, chew the fat more. 

Food is a lot like love in our house, really.

There are dual forces butting up against each other with a surround sound of other voices chiming in with votes no one gave them.

That would be the five children.

Giving my child PB & J sandwiches after an infancy of breastmilk and pureed fresh soups did not seem like child abuse to ME, just to my French husband.

In between my American culture of frozen pizza, Oreos and Jello, and his of the table set with wine and water glasses for each meal, and a 3-course minimum, two ideas emerge.

1. Sitting down to a meal of food you love with people you love, is a good thing. Enjoying the flavors, sensations and smells nurtures your soul the same way the food nourishes your body. It is a celebration.
2. It is also a whole lot of work.

While I began my married life with the notion that if I was on a diet, Special K would be just fine for dinner, I quickly acquiesced with the French tradition of preparing real food twice a day, most days. How did this liberated, non-domestic American woman go from one extreme to the other?

The French Pace

It was first my experiences with long, leisurely dinners where the food was exquisite, the wine great and the company exceptional that inspired me to want to offer the same in my little apartment. The outdoor market helped me want to complete the job. It’s color, smells and sounds: I never could resist buying everything that looked good.

In France, the market is filled with greens in 15 varieties, half a dozen sorts of strawberries in hot competition, (mine are bigger! yeah, but these come from our region, small but the sweetest fruit you will ever taste! the only ones worth eating are the long ones from one department north!), counters of cheese, live chickens and rabbits, fish so fresh it is still moving, barrels full of olives and tomatoes so beautiful they make your heart ache.

Special K lost all appeal.

Despite my little brother’s remark on a visit– “don’t you guys ever buy any junk food?” — I have never been perfect in that aspect. On visits home, if I arrived at the airport in an expectant state, my father had instructions to come with powdered sugar donuts. Licorice remained a staple, when I could get it, for years.

Now that we live in the U.S., the clash continues, with a whole new set of conditions. We cook, every day, for every meal. I have battled the poor opinion my husband has of anything take-out for years. I know he is right; “grabbing a bite to eat,” is expensive and replete of any nutritious value in most cases.

We did the shopping, we have the ingredients, let’s cook. Right. Except. When we need to be in four different places at the same time…a pizza looks awfully appealing.

Clash of the Food Titans

Living with someone for whom food is an artistic and sensual experience does have its perks. For one, we never eat boring. For another, he does a lot of the cooking. But just try to go on a diet with all that good food smell coming out of the kitchen! And try to convince him that dinner at five is a great idea.

My sometimes fantasy: I cook; dinner is ready as he walks in the door. We eat. We take the big kids to an activity, put the littles to bed and still have a life in the evening.

Nope: not a reality. For us, the meal is the life in the evening. And in the end, this is a good thing.

After all, what would I be sacrificing for a faster, more efficient meal?

Moroccan chicken with spices which never before warmed the likes of my kitchen? Perfectly cooked rice as a bed for a perfect shrimp stir-fry? (OK, that was my dish to begin with); a Spanish omelette with as many french-fried potatoes per bite as egg? Barbecue-smoked salsa that goes with anything? Pork roast studded with garlic and rolled in pepper, and soups that vary all winter long?

All of this being prepared with love while the adults sip a glass of wine (or whiskey, for my favorite cook) and the kids help or play somewhere else. The neighbors stop in around mealtime, confident there will be a glass of something and perhaps a sample to take home.

Our kitchen is a hub; a mini-community in and of itself. We are lovingly composing what we will eat, and who we are as a family, meal by meal, day by day.

OK. Yes. There are some sacrifices. And it can be work.

But it is worth it.

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This is another great guest post as part of the BIG QUESTION series “What is Eating You?” Thanks, Angela!

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Angela Chenus is a homeschooling mother of five and a French translator, living in Iowa. You can read her lovely blog “A Homeschool Story,” where she will convince you that life as a homeschooler is beautiful, craft projects are fun and easy, and everyone should marry a Frenchman.