Hi, all--I wrote this yesterday and then thought better of putting it up, because it seemed like I could just WRITE already. But Susan put up a similar post, so I changed my mind.
About this time last year I checked out from this blog, and I've been coming back to it very fitfully. Yom Kippur to Yom Kippur, it was an intensely hard year on several fronts, one I know I'll still be trying to make sense of for years to come. Very little of it was bloggable, some because it was intensely private, and not only for me, and some of it because blogging it could realistically have put me and mine at risk of physical harm. That didn't leave me feeling very free to use this space, but I miss taking the scraps out of my head and spinning them into something to put up in front of the little bitty world. I'm not sure exactly where it's going to take me, but I'm starting November early this year. I may finish early, too--retail season and all that--but I'm hoping it'll be more like I get into a groove I can stick with.
And I hope everyone who fasted had an easy one.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The forest for the trees
The little patch of woods near my house extends about four and a half blocks into the neighborhood and is three blocks wide at its thickest point. On a map, it doesn't seem like much, just a thumb of the larger Big Creek Gorge stuck into my shtetl like the World's Largest Urban Park was looking for a lift to some other metropolis.
But when I'm walking inside it during the months that the leaves are on the trees, I can see nothing but green as I look around, and for forty or more feet above me, just a canopy of foliage.
The past few weeks, they've been cutting down the Norway maples and it turns out a LOT of the trees providing that canopy are Norways. On balance, I'm in favor of removing invasive species, and they've only included about a half-block of the park in this project, so most of my walk is unchanged. It's jarring, though, to come up from the creek and find myself in a logged-out forest, all the leaves on the ground like a dozen blow-downs all in the same place.
But when I'm walking inside it during the months that the leaves are on the trees, I can see nothing but green as I look around, and for forty or more feet above me, just a canopy of foliage.
The past few weeks, they've been cutting down the Norway maples and it turns out a LOT of the trees providing that canopy are Norways. On balance, I'm in favor of removing invasive species, and they've only included about a half-block of the park in this project, so most of my walk is unchanged. It's jarring, though, to come up from the creek and find myself in a logged-out forest, all the leaves on the ground like a dozen blow-downs all in the same place.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
Thus it begins
Today I went to a "Kindergarten Tea" with Z. No, she's not going into kindergarten yet, but she will be in pre-K next year, and we have heard mixed things about the pre-K teacher at her school, and there are a goodly number of private schools* that start at pre-K around here.
What is a "Kindergarten Tea," you ask? Well, it's exactly like a college fair, but for preschoolers. It was held in the basement of the Unitarian church, and because of various other things happening in my life today, like rain and grocery shopping and new discipline strategies and snack, by the time we got there, folks were starting to clear up. But there were name tags to fill out and stick on, and banquet tables all around the edge of the room (not a very big room), and sign-up sheets, and professionally assembled information packets, and admissions officers or PTA parents sounding very cheery. In one corner, there were baked goods, and a samovar with tea bags, and cider with clear plastic cups to pour it into. I did manage to put our name down on some mailing lists, and I took a little subversive pleasure in writing "MyFeminineFirstName and A.'sMasculineFirstName OurSharedLastName" on the line for parents...little do they know what they're getting! Yeah, yeah, I know we're far from the first lesbo family for any of these schools, but I do kind of like that we won't particularly stand out on the mailing lists, since in the end we won't wind up being affiliated with most of them. I am all about flying under the radar until I know what the territory looks like.
Anyhow, I expect we will start to get catalogs in the mail in a week or two, and there will be open houses all fall and then applications and admissions visits and oh, lots of stuff to juggle in the coming months, and possibly all of this to do all over again next year.
One thing I did learn: it was a little hard to sort out the guests from the hosts, but it seems that you are supposed to be wearing a black t-shirt and khaki pants if you're either a Quaker-school admissions officer or a Unitarian mom.
*Why private? Long story. I'll tell you sometime if you're interested.
What is a "Kindergarten Tea," you ask? Well, it's exactly like a college fair, but for preschoolers. It was held in the basement of the Unitarian church, and because of various other things happening in my life today, like rain and grocery shopping and new discipline strategies and snack, by the time we got there, folks were starting to clear up. But there were name tags to fill out and stick on, and banquet tables all around the edge of the room (not a very big room), and sign-up sheets, and professionally assembled information packets, and admissions officers or PTA parents sounding very cheery. In one corner, there were baked goods, and a samovar with tea bags, and cider with clear plastic cups to pour it into. I did manage to put our name down on some mailing lists, and I took a little subversive pleasure in writing "MyFeminineFirstName and A.'sMasculineFirstName OurSharedLastName" on the line for parents...little do they know what they're getting! Yeah, yeah, I know we're far from the first lesbo family for any of these schools, but I do kind of like that we won't particularly stand out on the mailing lists, since in the end we won't wind up being affiliated with most of them. I am all about flying under the radar until I know what the territory looks like.
Anyhow, I expect we will start to get catalogs in the mail in a week or two, and there will be open houses all fall and then applications and admissions visits and oh, lots of stuff to juggle in the coming months, and possibly all of this to do all over again next year.
One thing I did learn: it was a little hard to sort out the guests from the hosts, but it seems that you are supposed to be wearing a black t-shirt and khaki pants if you're either a Quaker-school admissions officer or a Unitarian mom.
*Why private? Long story. I'll tell you sometime if you're interested.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Our spate of dead possums
Tuesday night, A. was taking out the garbage while I was finishing the dishes. She came in with trepidation in her voice.
A.: S.? I think there might be a dead animal in our yard. Like a mouse or a shrew or something.
S.: Where?
A.: Out there, on the walk. In the shadows.
(S. goes out to the patio in bare feet and peers down the darkened walk)
A.: I'll do the rest of the dishes if you take care of it.
S.: Can I wait until morning, when I can see it? (comes back inside) You don't have to do the dishes.
A.: Yes, sure, just so long as I don't have to do it.
S.: This is where my secret butch powers come into play.
A.: I don't think there's anything secret about them. You went to dead animal camp. I went to music camp.
In the morning, there was the usual September getting-ready-for-school oyster carnival, so the dead animal was still there in our path as I was finally ready to drag Z. from the house to school. A dead possum, a young one, larger than a mouse or a shrew, maybe a little smaller than a squirrel (not counting tails.) How to keep her from seeing it? I eyed it from afar. I flicked and pushed and pulled the elements that set the stroller up, and put my three-and-a-half-foot three-and-a-half-year-old into the stroller while still on the patio five stairs above the street. We rolled down the walk until I needed to lift the stroller up and over the remains.
Z.: Why ah you doing dat?
S.: Because there's something on the path. (Returns the stroller to ground)
Z.: What is it?
S.: (Opens gate) A dead baby possum. (Pushes stroller through)
Z.: Why is it dead?
S.: (Lifts 50+ pounds of kid and stroller down stairs.) Something killed it, another animal, you know how some animals eat other animals to live. (Deposits stroller on sidewalk.) It was probably an animal that wanted to eat it.
Z.: But it DIDN'T eat it. (Stroller is rolling towards school.) I thzink it prwobably smelled bad.
S.: I'm sure it does now.
Once home, I used the spade and a Whole Foods bag to deal with the problem. Trash was still on the curb, so I counted my blessing as I deposited the paper bag into the can, and when the garbage truck rumbled in place in front of my house, I had the happy thought that the possum was on its way to return to the earth, and not the earth in our yard, either.
In the bath that night, Z. told me she wanted me to have my arms around her when she died. I told her that one of the special things about mamas and their babies is that whenever the baby dies, even if she lives a long life and she's an old woman when she dies, is that she can feel her mama's arms around her then. Even if her mama has already died, she can feel like her mama is holding her. Z. told me that after we both die, she wants me to hold her.
I promised her that I would.
Epilogue:
Hunter Dog has still been taking a suspiciously long time to return to the door when we call her in, and her digestion has not been of the best. Last night she whined me up in the middle of the night to visit the outdoors and this morning I came downstairs to a note on the door from A.
"Hunter Dog has apparently been getting at the possum again. I put it under the big flowerpot in the middle of the patio so Z. wouldn't see it. :(, <3 Thanks! A."
A nest of dead possums? Either Hunter Dog is living up to her name or there's a killer cat on the loose on our block.
A.: S.? I think there might be a dead animal in our yard. Like a mouse or a shrew or something.
S.: Where?
A.: Out there, on the walk. In the shadows.
(S. goes out to the patio in bare feet and peers down the darkened walk)
A.: I'll do the rest of the dishes if you take care of it.
S.: Can I wait until morning, when I can see it? (comes back inside) You don't have to do the dishes.
A.: Yes, sure, just so long as I don't have to do it.
S.: This is where my secret butch powers come into play.
A.: I don't think there's anything secret about them. You went to dead animal camp. I went to music camp.
In the morning, there was the usual September getting-ready-for-school oyster carnival, so the dead animal was still there in our path as I was finally ready to drag Z. from the house to school. A dead possum, a young one, larger than a mouse or a shrew, maybe a little smaller than a squirrel (not counting tails.) How to keep her from seeing it? I eyed it from afar. I flicked and pushed and pulled the elements that set the stroller up, and put my three-and-a-half-foot three-and-a-half-year-old into the stroller while still on the patio five stairs above the street. We rolled down the walk until I needed to lift the stroller up and over the remains.
Z.: Why ah you doing dat?
S.: Because there's something on the path. (Returns the stroller to ground)
Z.: What is it?
S.: (Opens gate) A dead baby possum. (Pushes stroller through)
Z.: Why is it dead?
S.: (Lifts 50+ pounds of kid and stroller down stairs.) Something killed it, another animal, you know how some animals eat other animals to live. (Deposits stroller on sidewalk.) It was probably an animal that wanted to eat it.
Z.: But it DIDN'T eat it. (Stroller is rolling towards school.) I thzink it prwobably smelled bad.
S.: I'm sure it does now.
Once home, I used the spade and a Whole Foods bag to deal with the problem. Trash was still on the curb, so I counted my blessing as I deposited the paper bag into the can, and when the garbage truck rumbled in place in front of my house, I had the happy thought that the possum was on its way to return to the earth, and not the earth in our yard, either.
In the bath that night, Z. told me she wanted me to have my arms around her when she died. I told her that one of the special things about mamas and their babies is that whenever the baby dies, even if she lives a long life and she's an old woman when she dies, is that she can feel her mama's arms around her then. Even if her mama has already died, she can feel like her mama is holding her. Z. told me that after we both die, she wants me to hold her.
I promised her that I would.
Epilogue:
Hunter Dog has still been taking a suspiciously long time to return to the door when we call her in, and her digestion has not been of the best. Last night she whined me up in the middle of the night to visit the outdoors and this morning I came downstairs to a note on the door from A.
"Hunter Dog has apparently been getting at the possum again. I put it under the big flowerpot in the middle of the patio so Z. wouldn't see it. :(, <3 Thanks! A."
A nest of dead possums? Either Hunter Dog is living up to her name or there's a killer cat on the loose on our block.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Transitions are not our friends
The beginning of the school year, yeah? Meltdown, meltdown, meltdown. Z. does not do well with transitions, like the ones between taking her pajamas off and putting her clothes for the day on. Or the one between not having a toothbrush in her mouth and having one. And going home? Well, in the time it took us to go from daycare to parking our car on the block, one of her classmates' moms had already walked her kid past our house to The Co-op on the Corner, completed her grocery shopping, and was passing us on the way back to her house. And we still had two more pauses for acting out and discipline before we made it to our gate.
Yeah. We are having some fine, hysterical times around here.
But I do think that Z. gets to the end of the day and she just needs to be hysterical for awhile.
Magpie helped us out today, by giving me the link that led me to this little piece of toddler catnip:
It's the most hilarious thing she's seen in months. She had to watch it twice, of course. And then when Mommy came home, she needed to jump up and down on the furniture for awhile.
Z: I want you to get off dat chair so I can double over wiss laughter.
As I recall, this doesn't last all school year, but it's gonna be a long September.
Yeah. We are having some fine, hysterical times around here.
But I do think that Z. gets to the end of the day and she just needs to be hysterical for awhile.
Magpie helped us out today, by giving me the link that led me to this little piece of toddler catnip:
It's the most hilarious thing she's seen in months. She had to watch it twice, of course. And then when Mommy came home, she needed to jump up and down on the furniture for awhile.
Z: I want you to get off dat chair so I can double over wiss laughter.
As I recall, this doesn't last all school year, but it's gonna be a long September.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Halfway to Four
The semi-annual tooth-cleaning of the boo was yesterday, and as it happens, it was also her half-birthday.
We are bopping along in the car on our way to the dentist, listening to a cd a friend of mine put together for me for my own birthday a bunch of months back, and Z. is singing along to the words she can decipher.
Z.: "Happy Birssday..." When I listen to diss I sink dey're singing about me!
S.: Oh yeah?
Z.: Yes, because it's going to be my birssday soon!
S.: Sweetie, your birthday is still a long time away. As long as it's been since your last birthday, that's how long it is until your next birthday. There are a lot of months between now and then, and a lot of holidays first. Your birthday isn't until around Purim.
Z.: Dzat's vewy soon.
S.: Well, it's getting closer every day.
Z.: Dat's TWUE! En den it will be my BIRSSDAY!
We are bopping along in the car on our way to the dentist, listening to a cd a friend of mine put together for me for my own birthday a bunch of months back, and Z. is singing along to the words she can decipher.
Z.: "Happy Birssday..." When I listen to diss I sink dey're singing about me!
S.: Oh yeah?
Z.: Yes, because it's going to be my birssday soon!
S.: Sweetie, your birthday is still a long time away. As long as it's been since your last birthday, that's how long it is until your next birthday. There are a lot of months between now and then, and a lot of holidays first. Your birthday isn't until around Purim.
Z.: Dzat's vewy soon.
S.: Well, it's getting closer every day.
Z.: Dat's TWUE! En den it will be my BIRSSDAY!
1. My uncle once gave me a piece of wood from the petrified forest.
2. Never in my life have I been to Australia.
3. When I was five, I moved away from paradise.
4. High school was the first time I learned about friends leaving me behind.
5. I will never forget the feel of my daughter's head under my fingertips as she crowned.
6. Once I met an irresistible force.
7. There's this girl I know who's having a hard time, and it's twisting me up, too.
8. Once at a bar I saw a bottle fight between two women who looked like your high school gym teacher.
9. By noon I've usually found three different ways my life is a mess.
10. Last night I was asleep before 11:00.
11. If I only had a couple million dollars and a two-family house.
12. Next time I go to shul will be to pick my daughter up from preschool.
13. What worries me most is that I may crash and burn.
14. When I turn my head left I see a mess of books and papers.
15. When I turn my head right I see my fig tree, through the corner of my window.
16. You know I'm lying if I tell you things are fine at the store.
17. What I miss most about the Eighties is working theater tech. Lord help me.
18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I'd be Peter Quince.
19. By this time next year I hope to be financially and emotionally stable. Or pregnant. Right now those sentences appear to be incompatible.
20. A better name for me would be what my family calls me.
21. I have a hard time understanding how my heart works.
22. If I ever go back to school it will be to qualify to teach middle-school science.
23. You know I like you if I have a conversation with you when it's not socially necessary.
24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be my mom.
25. Take my advice: never have a baby and start a business in the same year.
26. My ideal breakfast is full of protein.
27. A song I love but do not have is "Flower."
28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest this tea shop E. and I went to on Saturday.
29. Why won’t people figure out a better way of doing capitalism?
30. If you spend a night at my house, I'll show you the bookstore in the morning.
31. I’d stop my wedding for heat prostration among the main participants. It was hot that day.
32. The world could do without corporate personhood.
33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than its head.
34. My favorite blonde gave me dinner Sunday night.
35. Paper clips are more useful than pipe cleaners.
36. If I do anything well it’s raise Z.
37. I can’t help but stay up late when I've had too much coming at me.
38. I usually cry when I feel like I can't find myself.
39. My advice to my nephew/niece is to be gentle on your mama, getting born.
40. And by the way, that girl who's having the hard time? I miss her right. now.
2. Never in my life have I been to Australia.
3. When I was five, I moved away from paradise.
4. High school was the first time I learned about friends leaving me behind.
5. I will never forget the feel of my daughter's head under my fingertips as she crowned.
6. Once I met an irresistible force.
7. There's this girl I know who's having a hard time, and it's twisting me up, too.
8. Once at a bar I saw a bottle fight between two women who looked like your high school gym teacher.
9. By noon I've usually found three different ways my life is a mess.
10. Last night I was asleep before 11:00.
11. If I only had a couple million dollars and a two-family house.
12. Next time I go to shul will be to pick my daughter up from preschool.
13. What worries me most is that I may crash and burn.
14. When I turn my head left I see a mess of books and papers.
15. When I turn my head right I see my fig tree, through the corner of my window.
16. You know I'm lying if I tell you things are fine at the store.
17. What I miss most about the Eighties is working theater tech. Lord help me.
18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I'd be Peter Quince.
19. By this time next year I hope to be financially and emotionally stable. Or pregnant. Right now those sentences appear to be incompatible.
20. A better name for me would be what my family calls me.
21. I have a hard time understanding how my heart works.
22. If I ever go back to school it will be to qualify to teach middle-school science.
23. You know I like you if I have a conversation with you when it's not socially necessary.
24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be my mom.
25. Take my advice: never have a baby and start a business in the same year.
26. My ideal breakfast is full of protein.
27. A song I love but do not have is "Flower."
28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest this tea shop E. and I went to on Saturday.
29. Why won’t people figure out a better way of doing capitalism?
30. If you spend a night at my house, I'll show you the bookstore in the morning.
31. I’d stop my wedding for heat prostration among the main participants. It was hot that day.
32. The world could do without corporate personhood.
33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than its head.
34. My favorite blonde gave me dinner Sunday night.
35. Paper clips are more useful than pipe cleaners.
36. If I do anything well it’s raise Z.
37. I can’t help but stay up late when I've had too much coming at me.
38. I usually cry when I feel like I can't find myself.
39. My advice to my nephew/niece is to be gentle on your mama, getting born.
40. And by the way, that girl who's having the hard time? I miss her right. now.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Snake
This is inspired by jo(e)'s latest post, but so loosely and tangentially that it seems silly to put it in the comments there.
At one point in my AT hike, I caught up with my friend Fishdance, who was standing in the middle of the Trail, stock still. (Mo, were you there, too?) There was a large black snake spread all the way across the path several yards ahead. I stopped next to him and we discussed the snake for a second or two. It was big, seriously thick around the middle, and looked perfectly happy to stay there all day. It looked like it had nothing planned at all except to stay there all day. What to do?
Diva Dog, who was usually a little behind me, caught up. We called to her to stop, but it was too late. She passed us in her dog backpack.
Her paw came down on the snake, the pads spreading slightly as if she were stepping on a smooth stone.
The snake's gleaming, muscular body flattened out slightly under her weight.
Her paw came off of the snake.
The snake returned, unchanged and unmoved, to its original shape.
Diva Dog turned and looked back at us, curious about why we were focused on her, why we were stopped, and what we were making all the fuss about. Deciding it was simply her, and delighted at all the attention, she started to move back towards us, still showing no sign at all that she was aware of the snake's presence. Anxious that she not step on the snake again, I stepped across it. We all did. The snake took no action to move out of the way.
Clearly, we had given it no reason to change its plans.
At one point in my AT hike, I caught up with my friend Fishdance, who was standing in the middle of the Trail, stock still. (Mo, were you there, too?) There was a large black snake spread all the way across the path several yards ahead. I stopped next to him and we discussed the snake for a second or two. It was big, seriously thick around the middle, and looked perfectly happy to stay there all day. It looked like it had nothing planned at all except to stay there all day. What to do?
Diva Dog, who was usually a little behind me, caught up. We called to her to stop, but it was too late. She passed us in her dog backpack.
Her paw came down on the snake, the pads spreading slightly as if she were stepping on a smooth stone.
The snake's gleaming, muscular body flattened out slightly under her weight.
Her paw came off of the snake.
The snake returned, unchanged and unmoved, to its original shape.
Diva Dog turned and looked back at us, curious about why we were focused on her, why we were stopped, and what we were making all the fuss about. Deciding it was simply her, and delighted at all the attention, she started to move back towards us, still showing no sign at all that she was aware of the snake's presence. Anxious that she not step on the snake again, I stepped across it. We all did. The snake took no action to move out of the way.
Clearly, we had given it no reason to change its plans.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Bee stories
For the past two weeks, Z. has been in a phase of wanting bee stories told to her. Bee stories are made up on the spot, and the protagonist is a bee. That's it, those are the rules of the genre in their entirety.
A. and I are getting mightily tired, not to say slap-happy, about the bee stories.
Z: Mama, will you tell me a stoawie about a bee.
S: Once there was a bee who got trapped in a car. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzzzzzz. She went all around the car, buzzing at all the windows, and the people in the car got scared the bee was going to sting them. Then a little girl in her carseat told the grownups to roll down the -- do windows even get rolled down anymore?--to put down the, to lower the windows, so the bee flew out. The end.
Z: Mommy, now it's youah teun to tell a stoawie about a bee!
A: (groans)
A. and I are getting mightily tired, not to say slap-happy, about the bee stories.
Z: Mama, will you tell me a stoawie about a bee.
S: Once there was a bee who got trapped in a car. Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz, buzzzzzz. She went all around the car, buzzing at all the windows, and the people in the car got scared the bee was going to sting them. Then a little girl in her carseat told the grownups to roll down the -- do windows even get rolled down anymore?--to put down the, to lower the windows, so the bee flew out. The end.
Z: Mommy, now it's youah teun to tell a stoawie about a bee!
A: (groans)
The benefits of a religious education
Z: Mama, I'm Pharaoh!
S: (opens mouth to speak--)
Z: But I'm not Pharaoh da man!
S: (opens mouth to speak--)
Z: I'm Pharaoh da bunny!
S: (opens mouth to speak--)
Z: But I'm not Pharaoh da man!
S: (opens mouth to speak--)
Z: I'm Pharaoh da bunny!
Friday, August 1, 2008
Don't try this at home
Putting that picture up in the last post, I realized I'm in this incredibly ambivalent place about my body. A year ago--well, actually, more than that, I know since I blogged it--Z. identified me as her Big Mama and A. as her Little Mommy.
When we met, A. was a size 10 or 12 and I was a size 12 or 14. We are built roughly the same, and in my deep denial about what had happened to my body over the years of depression, I was still imagining us as basically the same size. A. had crept up to a 12 or 14, it's true. But I was up to a size 20 at the beginning of last summer. I was more than 70 pounds over the weight that was my stable adult weight from high school until well into grad school. I was carrying more than half again the weight that I thought of as "mine," and I was sort of pretending that it wasn't really there. In a way, what the weight did was make my body so foreign to me that it wasn't really there. My body was gone, someone else's had taken its place, and it was all part of the project of my depression: erasing myself from my life, one piece at a time.
Z.'s wake-up call jolted me into realizing that her mother, the mother she loved, the maternal body she took for granted, looked like a stranger to me, and even at the depth of my depression, Z. had been the one part of my life I refused to absent myself from. I didn't want Z. loving someone I couldn't look in the eye in the mirror.
Sugar blues, sugar blues...I began writing down what I put in my mouth during the day, and what I wrote down looked like this:
Sugar
White flour
Chocolate
Sugar
White flour
Sugar
Maybe a little cheese
Sugar
Whole Wheat Flour and some vegetables
Sugar
Chocolate
I was going through my day from one sugar hit to the next. I was drugging myself with candy and pastries, basically.
I also wasn't moving my body much. I was walking Z. to school and back only when I didn't get lazy and drive (4 blocks! when I lived downtown, I parked my car five blocks away!). It was the end of May, and I knew even that little bit of walking was going to stop when the school year ended.
I made a commitment to swimming. I changed my diet not by setting out to restrict calories but by considering that I had a pattern of depressive eating that I needed to break, so I broke it. I had some issues with hunger that dated back to my halfway-thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 1998, and I finally sat down and had a talk with them.
That talk went like this:
S.: I need to learn how to wait and eat when I'm hungry.
Issues: You can't let yourself get hungry! It will already be too late!
S.: No, I really need to do this.
Issues: You'll get dizzy! You'll get woozy! You might fall over and no one will find you for hours! Days! Weeks! You could DIE!
S.: Actually, I spend most of my day in the same building as a well-stocked refrigerator.
Issues: You do?
S.: Yeah.
Issues: Oh. (pause) You're sure about that?
S.: You need to trust me on this.
Issues: (crossing arms, chin on chest) Hmmph.
By the beginning of last Fall, I'd lost 20 pounds. My weight loss slowed over the past Fall and winter, when I stopped swimming altogether for four months during the bad part of my year, but even so, by Springtime I'd lost another five pounds. I recommitted to swimming at that point because without those endorphins and that time set aside for myself, to think and connect to my body's strength, my depression had bloomed again.
I have finally accepted what growing up in my family should have taught me, only I resisted learning it because it was being offered to me in the guise of lots of competitive sports: I may have the soul of a nerd, but I have the genes of an athlete and my body needs exercise, really probably a lot more exercise than other folks' bodies need. Since April, I've been swimming three times a week, 3/4 of a mile twice a week and a mile at some point on the weekend. I've found that 3/4 is about what I need to hit to reliably shift my mood. I think if I could be swimming a mile daily, I would be doing what I should be. But I'm getting close enough to what I need, now.
I've now lost nearly 35 pounds. I'm down to a size 16, and the 16's are already feeling a little loose. I am proud of that loss, but I'm also uncomfortable about it because I'm doing it against a background of deeply hating what fat has done to my body. There is a fine line between hating the bodily distortion that was part of the escalating cycle of my depression, and hating fat, period, and I fear I am not always on the correct side of it. I'm also very aware that what I'm doing is exactly not the typical weight loss story of restriction, plateau, and bounceback. I was a chubby kid, but was never fat as an adult before this escalation. I have no past history of dieting. During the period of losing weight, I have been doing what the fat acceptance movement calls for to learn to love your fat body: intuitive eating and healthy exercise. Except that I don't love my fat body and I do have a target weight, which is what I shouldn't have because it means my goal is weight loss, not loving my body at its genetic set point.
Only my target weight is (I think) the weight point my body is set for, the weight my body always used to want to be. I have been losing weight steadily for 14 months without much effort only because during the years of depression I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing to override my body's programming. Crappy food and a sedentary lifestyle. Now I'm reversing that. I'm listening to what my body needs and is comfortable with, satisfying that and then letting myself go until I'm hungry again. I'm not as good at thirst, but I've gotten pretty reliable about hunger, and feeding myself what I need, when I need it, and stopping when I'm done with hunger, before I feel uncomfortable.*
One of the greatest reliefs of where I am now is that the bones of my face are less padded, so my features are clearer than they were a year ago. When I look in the mirror, I recognize myself again. Thank god, thank god, thank god. I hated seeing a bloated stranger in the mirror. My face was the last part of me to show the fat as I put it on, and it's been the first part to re-emerge. But in some ways, that makes the strangeness of my body in pictures even stranger.
How is it that I still look like that?
________________________________
*(So's y'all understand my complicated eating history a little more: hiking the Trail, I needed so many calories that eating to the point of discomfort was necessary. I only fired up my stove twice a day--what I ate then needed to last. I was trying to maintain my weight during my hike, so on top of those two big meals, and I was eating 6 candy bars a day and chowing down in town--typical meal, a pizza, a pint of Ben and Jerry's and I would be raving with hunger again in an hour--and I still lost five pounds during those 2.5 months.)
When we met, A. was a size 10 or 12 and I was a size 12 or 14. We are built roughly the same, and in my deep denial about what had happened to my body over the years of depression, I was still imagining us as basically the same size. A. had crept up to a 12 or 14, it's true. But I was up to a size 20 at the beginning of last summer. I was more than 70 pounds over the weight that was my stable adult weight from high school until well into grad school. I was carrying more than half again the weight that I thought of as "mine," and I was sort of pretending that it wasn't really there. In a way, what the weight did was make my body so foreign to me that it wasn't really there. My body was gone, someone else's had taken its place, and it was all part of the project of my depression: erasing myself from my life, one piece at a time.
Z.'s wake-up call jolted me into realizing that her mother, the mother she loved, the maternal body she took for granted, looked like a stranger to me, and even at the depth of my depression, Z. had been the one part of my life I refused to absent myself from. I didn't want Z. loving someone I couldn't look in the eye in the mirror.
Sugar blues, sugar blues...I began writing down what I put in my mouth during the day, and what I wrote down looked like this:
Sugar
White flour
Chocolate
Sugar
White flour
Sugar
Maybe a little cheese
Sugar
Whole Wheat Flour and some vegetables
Sugar
Chocolate
I was going through my day from one sugar hit to the next. I was drugging myself with candy and pastries, basically.
I also wasn't moving my body much. I was walking Z. to school and back only when I didn't get lazy and drive (4 blocks! when I lived downtown, I parked my car five blocks away!). It was the end of May, and I knew even that little bit of walking was going to stop when the school year ended.
I made a commitment to swimming. I changed my diet not by setting out to restrict calories but by considering that I had a pattern of depressive eating that I needed to break, so I broke it. I had some issues with hunger that dated back to my halfway-thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 1998, and I finally sat down and had a talk with them.
That talk went like this:
S.: I need to learn how to wait and eat when I'm hungry.
Issues: You can't let yourself get hungry! It will already be too late!
S.: No, I really need to do this.
Issues: You'll get dizzy! You'll get woozy! You might fall over and no one will find you for hours! Days! Weeks! You could DIE!
S.: Actually, I spend most of my day in the same building as a well-stocked refrigerator.
Issues: You do?
S.: Yeah.
Issues: Oh. (pause) You're sure about that?
S.: You need to trust me on this.
Issues: (crossing arms, chin on chest) Hmmph.
By the beginning of last Fall, I'd lost 20 pounds. My weight loss slowed over the past Fall and winter, when I stopped swimming altogether for four months during the bad part of my year, but even so, by Springtime I'd lost another five pounds. I recommitted to swimming at that point because without those endorphins and that time set aside for myself, to think and connect to my body's strength, my depression had bloomed again.
I have finally accepted what growing up in my family should have taught me, only I resisted learning it because it was being offered to me in the guise of lots of competitive sports: I may have the soul of a nerd, but I have the genes of an athlete and my body needs exercise, really probably a lot more exercise than other folks' bodies need. Since April, I've been swimming three times a week, 3/4 of a mile twice a week and a mile at some point on the weekend. I've found that 3/4 is about what I need to hit to reliably shift my mood. I think if I could be swimming a mile daily, I would be doing what I should be. But I'm getting close enough to what I need, now.
I've now lost nearly 35 pounds. I'm down to a size 16, and the 16's are already feeling a little loose. I am proud of that loss, but I'm also uncomfortable about it because I'm doing it against a background of deeply hating what fat has done to my body. There is a fine line between hating the bodily distortion that was part of the escalating cycle of my depression, and hating fat, period, and I fear I am not always on the correct side of it. I'm also very aware that what I'm doing is exactly not the typical weight loss story of restriction, plateau, and bounceback. I was a chubby kid, but was never fat as an adult before this escalation. I have no past history of dieting. During the period of losing weight, I have been doing what the fat acceptance movement calls for to learn to love your fat body: intuitive eating and healthy exercise. Except that I don't love my fat body and I do have a target weight, which is what I shouldn't have because it means my goal is weight loss, not loving my body at its genetic set point.
Only my target weight is (I think) the weight point my body is set for, the weight my body always used to want to be. I have been losing weight steadily for 14 months without much effort only because during the years of depression I was doing exactly what I needed to be doing to override my body's programming. Crappy food and a sedentary lifestyle. Now I'm reversing that. I'm listening to what my body needs and is comfortable with, satisfying that and then letting myself go until I'm hungry again. I'm not as good at thirst, but I've gotten pretty reliable about hunger, and feeding myself what I need, when I need it, and stopping when I'm done with hunger, before I feel uncomfortable.*
One of the greatest reliefs of where I am now is that the bones of my face are less padded, so my features are clearer than they were a year ago. When I look in the mirror, I recognize myself again. Thank god, thank god, thank god. I hated seeing a bloated stranger in the mirror. My face was the last part of me to show the fat as I put it on, and it's been the first part to re-emerge. But in some ways, that makes the strangeness of my body in pictures even stranger.
How is it that I still look like that?
________________________________
*(So's y'all understand my complicated eating history a little more: hiking the Trail, I needed so many calories that eating to the point of discomfort was necessary. I only fired up my stove twice a day--what I ate then needed to last. I was trying to maintain my weight during my hike, so on top of those two big meals, and I was eating 6 candy bars a day and chowing down in town--typical meal, a pizza, a pint of Ben and Jerry's and I would be raving with hunger again in an hour--and I still lost five pounds during those 2.5 months.)
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Learning about erosion
After I threw a little sulk about how I have become invisible in our family pictures since Z. became independently mobile and left my arms (hard to take a picture of the baby without her mother when her mother's carrying her), A. has started taking more pictures of me.
In the local woods, looking at the erosion-containment efforts of the park commission. I'm the one with the grey taking over her hair, almost halfway to her weight goal.
In the local woods, looking at the erosion-containment efforts of the park commission. I'm the one with the grey taking over her hair, almost halfway to her weight goal.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Missed opportunity
Tossed over the phone line that stretches across the last block I drive before I park for therapy: womens' knee-high, white, vinyl, platform, lace-up boots.
Gone now.
Gone now.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
What was up in NJ yesterday?
Driving home on the turnpike last night, a little more tired than was wise, with the music up loud to keep my senses going. At about exit 10 fireworks appeared above the tree strip off to the right, sparks tumbling in every sloppy direction, untidy but festive. Hunh, I thought. Somebody's having a fair, maybe.
Four or five songs later--let's say 20 miles--another rocket lifted into the sky far ahead of me, fizzling, a dud, but by the time I reached that spot on the highway, another went off, proud, high, a red sphere inside a yellow circle, and then I was past, aiming for exit 6 and the bridge across the Delaware, sleepy and puzzled, no one to ask.
Just passing through.
Four or five songs later--let's say 20 miles--another rocket lifted into the sky far ahead of me, fizzling, a dud, but by the time I reached that spot on the highway, another went off, proud, high, a red sphere inside a yellow circle, and then I was past, aiming for exit 6 and the bridge across the Delaware, sleepy and puzzled, no one to ask.
Just passing through.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Through the eyes of the young
Four comments! That's four more than I deserved, after neglecting this blog so long. I'm so glad you're all still reading...I've turned into a serious lurker out there in Greater Metropolitan Blogland, but I am still reading along.
This was the scene Sunday night: A. and I were in DC, driving home not too late after going out to eat for our anniversary. We were at a light on a street well known for being home to lobbyists, windows partway down because it was a pleasant night for a change.
A car full of college students--well, young men, but they struck me as college students--pulled up in the lane next to us, loud music rolling out of every open window like every stereotype you have of black men in their twenties, except somehow more scholarly. I'm not that good on car types, but I guess it was the kind of car that made me think, "studious kids." Still, I turned my eyes back into my car when theirs came to a stop, but eye contact happened first. Briefly, but it was enough.
The young man in the passenger seat proceeded to make a big bid for my attention. I kept my eyes on the light.
Finally he resorted to hollering this out into the K Street night:
"Slightly overweight white woman! I know you aren't going to look at me! But I'm smart, and I'm Nigerian, and I am very drunk!"
This was the scene Sunday night: A. and I were in DC, driving home not too late after going out to eat for our anniversary. We were at a light on a street well known for being home to lobbyists, windows partway down because it was a pleasant night for a change.
A car full of college students--well, young men, but they struck me as college students--pulled up in the lane next to us, loud music rolling out of every open window like every stereotype you have of black men in their twenties, except somehow more scholarly. I'm not that good on car types, but I guess it was the kind of car that made me think, "studious kids." Still, I turned my eyes back into my car when theirs came to a stop, but eye contact happened first. Briefly, but it was enough.
The young man in the passenger seat proceeded to make a big bid for my attention. I kept my eyes on the light.
Finally he resorted to hollering this out into the K Street night:
"Slightly overweight white woman! I know you aren't going to look at me! But I'm smart, and I'm Nigerian, and I am very drunk!"
Monday, July 7, 2008
This blog ain't dead yet
...though I admit it's in a lingering state of suspended animation.
We went on vacation to a rural place a good deal farther south than we live, and far, far more tied to the military in its culture.
Best fireworks I've ever seen in my life, and I grew up in Washington, DC, a mile from the Capitol.
We went on vacation to a rural place a good deal farther south than we live, and far, far more tied to the military in its culture.
Best fireworks I've ever seen in my life, and I grew up in Washington, DC, a mile from the Capitol.
Friday, June 6, 2008
Allegheny Tuscarora Kittatinny Blue
...and I have been home now for a week without Annoying Dog. I'm not yet recovered from the drive (20 hours of interstates in two days) but I'm getting there. I no longer wake up to barking. I no longer enter the room to barking. I no longer live through an hour of barking before dinnertime. I don't need to do canine hierarchy management when I walk down stairs or through halls.
It has been like the story where the rabbi tells Joseph to bring the cow, the goats, and the chickens into his tiny, tiny house, and then finally tells him to kick them all out. It is so quiet in my house I feel like I'm floating. It feels like we've added several feet to every dimension of every room.
There are only two more days of the Daycare Relocation Carpool to get through, too. I'm hoping that the end of the commute will have a similar effect on time in my life, but somehow I'm not as hopeful.
It has been like the story where the rabbi tells Joseph to bring the cow, the goats, and the chickens into his tiny, tiny house, and then finally tells him to kick them all out. It is so quiet in my house I feel like I'm floating. It feels like we've added several feet to every dimension of every room.
There are only two more days of the Daycare Relocation Carpool to get through, too. I'm hoping that the end of the commute will have a similar effect on time in my life, but somehow I'm not as hopeful.
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