Special Message for a New “Friend”

Here’s a tip:  when it’s bugging you that a total stranger is writing about “you” on her public blog, don’t let her know it directly.  In most cases, it’s a sure bet that the total stranger enjoys that you’re bugged.  And now she may have found a new hobby.  Hey, thanks for that!

Lonesuckiness and the Art of Biding Time

I spent the day alone. Aloneness is something to which I’ve grown accustomed over the past few years. Sure, I’ve had so-called “romances,” which largely consisted of my doting on selfish men who lacked any interest in my wellbeing; but for the most part, I’ve spent my time alone with my furry friends, contemplating life and wishing I had a better handle on it. Most times, I was alone, but not lonely.

When today began, I was lonely. By midday, I was as lonely as I’d ever been. And that was while I still had a boyfriend.

Ghosts of Holidays Past

Today’s travels took me to the Troylet, the armpit of the Capital Region, to have lunch with an old friend. I found him largely unchanged, and going through a crisis of confidence similar to the one I experienced between Hallowe’en and New Years. Because we are similar in many ways, I know that he will pass through to the other side of his crisis, and that he will get his proverbial shit together. That knowledge doesn’t alter my level of sympathy or my worry for him. He deserves to be happy, every bit as I do.

Feeling nostalgic after our lunch was over–hours later–I decided to stop at my old Big W store for a few basic items…and to see how far removed I felt from that world.

Everything Old is New Again

Some things in life are irreplaceable. I remember when fire took (we thought) most of what Patrick and I owned, and as we finally sank into a strange bed that night, we felt nothing but grateful–that is, until I began viewing my mental picture of what had been lying loosely around the house.

I thought of the high school art projects that had stood against the wall in our guest room. Some of my best, most meaningful work had been in the open, exposed to soot and water and stink. Many hours spent, focused and feeling, creating wonderful things as I enjoyed time with my favorite teacher Elaine Walter, who was now gone as well. The tears finally flowed as I remembered my masterpiece, Winter Soul, and realized it was gone forever. These were the things that no insurance policy, no restoration effort, could salvage.

The Road Back to Happytown

As I’ve made my way back from being (famously) one exit past Happytown, I’ve learned some important lessons. I’d have to say that most of them were learned the hard way. But I can’t say I regret a minute of it.

This past autumn was one of the most difficult seasons on my personal record. Nothing was right in my life, and the one thing that seemed to be–my so-called “relationship”–was actually making me sicker than all the others. I was literally wasting away. I didn’t want to go to work, and had no affection for it at all. My dog was mysteriously ill. My finances were rapidly sinking. I had no goals, nothing to look forward to. I had lost all hope of ever finding my way back.

Good Times…Good Times

One of the joys of my life recently has been the re-entry of long-lost friends into my daily routine. My healing process has included re-examining who I was as a child. The best way to do this, it turned out, was to open a dialogue with those who knew me best back then. I have never been so grateful for “time-wasting” technology!

There is always a danger, when bringing old relationships into the present, that wounds will be reopened. Not every memory is happy. Not all reconnections are medicinal. But most are, and often I find that even those memories we thought were painful can bring us comfort when we find ourselves seeking a connection to who we were/are. Details long hidden from internal view can spring back like fresh green switches, startling us into focus.

Meenadirtqueena Soup

As part of the healing process associated with my acupuncture therapy, I’ve been advised to make and eat soup.  Lots of soup.  I have always avoided soup.  I did not know how to make soup.  I did not want to make soup.  I did not want to eat soup.   But I did want to heal.

Ironically, my learning to make soup involved The Colombian.  Growing up in Colombia, his family was not well-off, in a country even less well-off.  Soup was a staple food at nearly every meal.  It was cheap to produce, easy to load with nutrients, and easy to create many different varieties using only a few basic ingredients.  Having spent a lot of time in the kitchen with his mother, and then becoming a chef in adulthood through his European mentors, The Colombian became a master of soups.

I didn’t know who else to ask.  I realized that using the source of my pain as the co-creator of my medicine might have been foolish; but the soups I ate growing up were not apetizing to me whatsoever.  I wanted the best medicine, and the best teacher.  And he is the best I know.

I never got any in-person lessons.  I did get some offsite tutoring, and access to “phone-a-friend” in soup emergencies.  He taught me the basics, and gave me the confidence to embrace experimentation…within limits, of course.  I was advised not to “cook” my initial ingredients, but to only “sweat” them.  I had no idea what that meant, nor what would be the consequence of cooking them fully.  Apparently, the consequence is a loss of taste.  Who knew?

He walked me through the basics of varieties made with chicken versus beef stock, the delicate process of cream soups and bisques, and how to create a proper roux.  But his own favorite soups would not meet my needs.  His soups are made to satifsy the palate, and are full of indulgent ingredients.  My soup was to be aimed at health, and was required to be low on meat, and heavy on root vegetables.  Our soup-making styles were forced to part company, as were we.

My first soup was simple and somewhat tasteless.  My main ingredient was yams, which are as rooty and experimental as I get.  I knew they would taste good with ginger and brown rice.  My second soup had a beef-stock base, and a few more veggies.  I even used barley for the first time!  My third soup was a cream of sweet potato, made (as suggested) with cream cheese.  It was my finest creation yet!  By the end of the second week, I had mastered chicken (white meat, of course!) and rice.  I was on a roll.  So I decided to experiment with tomatoes and Mexican spices.

I shouldn’t give the impression that all my soups were fabulous.  They were not.  In fact, I did not enjoy any but the cream of sweet potato.  Each and every time, I went a little too far with one ingredient or another.  The thing is, I actually knew before I tasted the end result that I had done something wrong.  I would actually see myself adding the ingredient, and I would say to myself, “I shouldn’t be doing this….”  And I would regret it.

But that’s the problem with soup–or with anything, really.  Once you’ve gone a step too far, it’s not as though you can just reach in there and pull it out.  It’s in there.  It’s in the soup for good…or bad.  You just have to roll with it and hope for the best.

At my acupuncture appointment today, Marc asked how I was doing as he was filling me with needles.  I was lying on the table, toasty warm, having just described all the good things that are going on in my life.  I’m eating again.  Work is going smoothly.  I’m reconnecting with old friends.  But, for some reason, I began to cry.  My crocodile tears flowed down my temples, carrying little boats of itchiness to my ears.  I could not possibly scratch with needles sticking out of my hands.

“It’s just this thing with Dan.  I finally understand the rage, the anger, why it’s happening,” I blubbered.  “But it just doesn’t make it stop.”  I didn’t try to control my tears.  I needed to release the emotions.

“Understanding it with your mind is not important.  That is not the same as accepting it with your heart.  It’s not something you can intellectualize, it’s just something you are going through.”  I tried to look at him through tears.  He’s too freaking smart.  “So go through it.  People make the mistake of thinking that they are made up of their thoughts.  We are really made of our experiences.  Experience it.  Honor your feelings and allow them to pass.”

Somehow, soup is supposed to help me do this.  Or, I should say, it is helping me do this.  I can intellectualize the soup all I want, plan the perfect ingredients, chop everything just so… but each and every time, I make some sort of mistake.  And once the mistake is in the pot, it’s in there.  There is no changing it.  There is only acceptance, and trying to do better next time.

Cream of...a bunch of stuff

Today’s soup was a challenge.  I had stopped to see Dan after my appointment.  Dan was not ready to see me.  He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to be part of my healing process this time.  He would not come out.  He told me this over the phone. 

So I went to the grocery store and bought some new ingredients.  I chopped all my vegetables just so, and cut two different kinds of potatoes as my main ingredient.  I became distracted in the initial stages, and over-cooked my celery, carrot, and onion.  I added too much barley.  I forgot the bay leaf.  I didn’t reduce it properly.  I didn’t let my cream cheese-broth mixture thicken properly.  I had cut way too many potatoes.  As I always do with Dan, I went a little too far.

I made a lot of that soup.  More than I could possibly eat in a week.  It is awful soup, and I made too much.  All there is to do now is eat it anyway, and wait it out.  I have to go through it.  It cannot be wasted, and it cannot be ignored–though perhaps I could arrange for Katie to steal some.

Someday, I hope to get some face-to-face soup tutoring.  Someday, he will be ready, and I will be ready, and I’ll learn how to properly make soup.  But not yet.  Until then, I’ll stop regretting what I’ve already thrown in the pot.  It’s in there, and there’s no fishing it out.

Moe, Hairy and Curly

For most of my adult life, I’ve been known by two different hair identities:  super-short and sassy Rocker Chick; and long and curly Sexpot.  The times in between the two are fraught with confusion and sadness, either waiting for my “self” to grow back in, or cooking up the nerve to chop it down to the nubs.

Today I visited my friend Bessy, the unemployed hairstylist, to inch my way toward Sexpot.  Having spent the past year growing my hair out, I was ready to say goodbye to the doldrums of plain Jane straight hair.  I needed a change.  I need a spring back in my step.  I need to be noticed, and not to be lonely.  Bessy had decided to give me a perm.  (And yes, people still do that!) 

Bessy is an interesting cat.  A twenty-five year old mother of two, she lives with her baby’s daddy, who was actually her first love…when she was thirteen.  He was 21.  After a fling with another man gave her her first child seven years ago, a stint in rehab for an opiates addiction put a fine point on the end of that relationship.  She made her way back to her sweetheart a couple years ago.  I met her when she was already pregnant with the baby.  Her life story came pouring out of her.  I immediately wanted to adopt her.

Though she is a licensed cosmetologist, she is terrified of getting a salon job.  It took years for her to complete her schooling, and even longer to finish her required apprentice hours.  I think the idea of being rejected by a potential boss is too much for her, and the idea of being rejected by potential clients is even more daunting.  So I went to the trailer park to have my hair done in her kitchen.  I didn’t want her to have to hire a sitter. 

Bessy was embarrassed by her home’s condition.  Rooms were unfinished.  Ceilings were missing.  There were no cabinets in the kitchen.  Little did she know, I would have felt exactly the same way had our roles been reversed.

The interesting thing about social classes is this:  they are entirely imaginary.  For as much as she and her partner struggle with money, worry about buying food and paying the mortgage, and wonder how they will heat their home, I fear all the same things.  My paycheck is larger, my vocabulary more sophisticated, my house a little grander; but the worry is the same.  And for all the bad luck Bessy’s had in relationships, with mental illness and addiction, I have endured my own struggles.  As much as my family and education have given me advantages over her in life, she is no less wise and no less happy than I.  As Oprah often says, “All pain is the same.”

Though I am older, and by most standards more successful, I felt free to tell Bessy about the crazy behavior I’ve exhibited of late, and the conflicted feelings I still fight in regards to The Colombian.  She felt free to give me advice.  In between crying baby, unruly seven-year-old, and not knowing where her partner was, she had the composure to advise me on the foolishness of stalking, and to school me on the toxic evil of men who use women.  As she rolled my hair, she soothed me with her knowledge of men who are dogs.

Sometimes I wonder whether there are really any differences that matter in life.  We treat one another with suspicion and coldness, using our different classes as great dividing lines to keep us separate from our neighbors.  But I wonder whether we might find that we all fight the same demons, if we faced our shields in the same direction.

When Bessy was done, my hair was a pound less heavy, and much larger.  My long-missed curls had returned, just in time for a new season of dancing and meeting new people.  But of  course I will not do those things.  My Sexpot hair will take itself to work, and will come home to pine for The Colombian.  It will earn me a compliment or two, from local businessmen and retirees who do not interest me in the least.  And Bessy will laugh at me for following none of her advice.

…And the Floodgates Opened

I’m feeling a little over-stuffed.  It’s an unusual and unusually satisfying feeling.  Over these many months of watching my waist size shrink and my ass all but disappear, I had forgotten what it felt like to sigh from fullness.   But suddenly, I eat.  I think I might have even gained a pound.

I’m not sure how it happened.  No, wait, that’s not true!  I know exactly how it happened.  After some deep soul-searching, aimed at letting go of anger and rage, I made some startling self-discoveries.   I found that I’d been lying to myself for a very long time.  I found that my anger had been somewhat misdirected, and much of it had been turned inside and directed at my own body.  It wasn’t that I hadn’t felt hunger; I had simply refused to acknowledge it.

By Monday, I had realized that much of the rage unleashed on The Colombian had been pent up hurt and frustration left over from a prior relationship.  He pushed the same buttons, and brought up those buried feelings.  The more and more he did so, the more I squashed down the source of those feelings.  But I can squash no more.  They are out.  I can see them, and I can deal with them.

On Monday night, I decided to make myself some dinner–dinner that resulted in lots of leftovers.  Yesterday, I ate those leftovers for lunch.  Last night, on our walk, the smell of grilled beef wafted over Church Street and caused my stomach to grumble.  Instead of ignoring it, as has been my recent habit, I went straight to the freezer and unearthed my own beef.  I ate cheeseburgers.  And I liked it.

Of course, my new “healthy” eating habits have been considered.  Very lean meats, whole grains fortified with vitamins, and green teas are now on the menu at Ina Hall.  I am still creating wholesome soups and eating my veggies, and using food as medicine.  But now I am eating more of it.  It is not enough to feed the pain.  I feel the need now to head it off before it begins.  Anticipating the need to snack, I have even baked banana bread.

Today I have had a healthy breakfast, a late morning snack, a wholesome lunch, a late afternoon snack, and now am looking forward to a good sized dinner.  Every bit of it has been medicine for me.  Now that I’ve begun to heal my soul, my body will follow.

But I don’t want to gain all the weight back.  I enjoy healthy eating.  I didn’t think I would, but I do.  The science and art of cooking for life is fascinating and fun.  There is no associated guilt, and no need to worry after a meal is over.  The hunger goes away, the body is nourished, and I can move on to the next thing.  If only the work on the soul were this easy.

I learned a few things from The Colombian.  I learned how to make soup, for one.  He taught me the basics, and gave me direction toward a more sophisticated assortment.  While we were dating, he reminded me that I love fancy food.  On our best dinner date, we ate at a restaurant so fancy, the portions were tiny and art-like.  It wasn’t what I would call healthy; but it was so slight, so rich, that I could hardly feel badly about it.  I savored every bite, and then it was over.  That is what eating should be.

The last thing I learned from him was that I am sometimes a monster.  I had known for years that hunger made me a little crazy, and that sugar affected my mood in a less-than-attractive manner.  But with him, I took it to extremes.  And it wasn’t all about the food.  The parts that were, though, I am on the road to fixing.  I suppose in a way, I have him to thank for that.  If he hadn’t been a giant asshole, I might not have known I had a problem.

In the coming year, I plan to eat.  I will eat often, and I will eat well.  I will eat when I am hungry, and I will eat when I am not.  But I will not eat so much that I go back to who I was before. 

Please pardon me while I go heat up some spaghetti.

Digging Deep, and Shoveling Yellow Snow

It has been a long week since my last post.  Tonight I take the time to write, only because I am too sick to get up off the couch and do anything else.

One of the major occurrences in our neck of the woods has been the arrival of mounds upon mounds of snow.  It came down fast and furiously, on a couple of less-than-enjoyable days.  (Tonight, as we prepare for Santa, a warm rain is washing much of it away.)  The first one after our major ice storm occurred on my second night of Latin dancing with The Colombian.  It was a late night, and the snow had covered the ground by a couple of inches by the time we retired for what was left of that night at Ina Hall.  I knew we were in trouble as I watched him dust the piles off his car in my driveway early the next day.

The second big snow came a couple days later.  I was at work, and decided to come home to walk/get Katie at lunch time, just as it began coming down in puffy, white blankets.  As I surmounted the Big One on Hill Road, my car lost forward momentum and I began to spin my tires.  No amount of fancy German engineering could defeat what Mother Nature had in store.  I finally landed in my own driveway, after backtracking and picking a safer, longer route; and there I stayed for the rest of the day.

I was already sore by then.  Too much shoveling, too much hard work at my now-intense job at Graples.  My neck was so stiff I couldn’t sleep at night.  Now here I was, again in the driveway, again with the plastic snow shovel, again fighting nature and the Hoosick Falls plow trucks, who insist on throwing a huge mound at the end of my drive.

Afterward, my muscles were screaming.  I had already been sore and stiff for no known reason.  Daily hot baths, teas, and hot water bottles offered little relief.  So I did the only thing I could think to do next:  I looked forward to acupuncture.

I was almost embarrassed to tell Marc how I felt.  In truth, I had every reason to feel crappy.  In defiance of his advice, I had not yet cut out caffeine, and was not regularly taking the supplements I had been prescribed.  I was eating more; but not enough to make a change in my weight or my guts.  But worse than my lack of dedication to the program was what I was about to describe for him in gory detail:  “This is going to sound crazy…but this soreness in my neck and back…it feels less like muscle pain, and more like–how can I say this–snot, great heaps of mucus, trying to crawl out through my skin.”

He told me that wasn’t strange at all.  I have sickness in my body.  That much has been clear for some time.  And now it is trying to work its way out.  “And when it does, it is going to be very ugly.  But you have to let it go.  You have to let it out.”  This day, however, my body was not ready to let go.

Unfortunately, neither was my mind.  Each time the needles would bring me to the cusp of total relaxation, just to the point where I could view my own thoughts without being a participant, I would snap myself back from it.  I was unwilling to go where the disease wanted to take me.  The mucus seemed to be settling in for a long while.  I left the appointment disappointed and disillusioned.

I considered the homework assignment I’d been given the previous week.  I was to examine myself as a child, and remember who I was back then.  Then I was to see myself in the future, and journal about this as well, setting pictures of the life I wanted to have a year from now, five years from now, twenty or thirty years from now.  I was to see my partner, my house, and how I wanted to be living.

As I was writing the journal assignment, I suppose I had The Colombian in my head.  I haven’t yet found his purpose in my life, and I’ve always hoped there was some deeper significance to his being in it.  But now, as I drove from one appointment to the next, I considered that man about whom I’d written.  And he wasn’t The Colombian at all.

He was Married Guy.  He was the soul-shattering love that seemingly never should have occurred.  He was more than just the one who got away; he was the One.  Only of course he wasn’t the One!  He was someone else’s One.  But the point seemed to be that his was the kind of love I wanted to have:  patient, understanding, strong, true.  It was a kind of love that reached straight into that young child I once was, and pulled her out of me to be worn on the outside.  That was what I needed.

So what about The Colombian?  How did he figure into my life?

When he hurt me again today–purposefully, I might add–I realized it, as sure as the sun shines:  he is the mucus, screaming to get out.  He is the (literally) foreign object inside of me, the one that doesn’t belong.  I’ve let him fester and swell, eating away at my insides, taking little pieces of my soul with him as he walks away.  And he always walks away.  It is in his nature.

Almost the moment I realized this, the mucus began to creep up and release itself.  It filled my head, and tickled my nose.  And anger set in.  Anger I’m no longer supposed to have.  But anger is a secondary emotion, and in this case, it was secondary to hurt.  He hurt me.  Many, many times.  Now I am finally beginning to feel it, and it is working its way out of my body.  The trick now, I suppose, is to honor and process the hurt, without letting the anger take me over.

I am realizing that sometimes in life, we hit a hill that seems to be surmountable, but we may be misjudging how deep the snow goes.  It is human nature to sit suspended, listening to our wheels spin, hoping that something will give way and propel us forward.  But it may just be that the best course of action is to stop, back up, turn around, and find a longer, safer way around.  It might take longer, and it might be unfamiliar.  The important thing is to keep moving forward, no matter what occurs.

The Colombian is a pretty steep hill.  I am beginning to see that there is no reward in reaching the top, just more hills.  If I want to get to where I’m going, it might be best to find the long and winding road I was meant to travel.

One Hundred.

Each time I log on to my Wordpress dashboard, I glance at the post tally as a random afterthought. I happened to notice this morning that the number was ninety-nine.

This is my one hudredth post. It seems an appropriate time to take stock of where I’ve been, and to chart where I may be going in the next hundred.

While the general premise of Meenadirtqueena’s Million Dollar Zoo is centered around my pets and my house…and the Zoo that is my life…I do realize I’ve spent a significant number of words describing in bloody detail the ins and outs of my love life and my roller coaster emotions. I’m fine with that.

Where I’ve Never Been

The package full of bikinis and beach dresses will likely never be worn. I’ve never been to the beach, and my plans to go for the first time were canceled before we’d even settled on a country. Considering the sadness of it, led me to think of all the other things I haven’t done in life.