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Diet

The other day I took my dog for a drive to the river. She splashed around while I sat and mused in the sun. It was perfect.
Driving home I pass this great restaurant with an outdoor cafe, a stellar view of the mountains and guacamole to die for which they make at your table. I can’t help myself! I turn in and park. It is just too summery, too dreamy of a day and I’m in it with both feet.

I have kept my diet so very clean for so very long in my quest for health. I eat mostly raw (salads, veggies, smoothees, fruit sparingly, some grains and quite a bit of protein). I thought I could just have the fabulous guacamole and forgo THE CHIPS! But it just didn’t work out that way.

Anyone challenged by living with a chronic illness knows the desire that is always scratching at the door to BE NORMAL! I hate going to restaurants and being what I call a ‘food person’ which translates to really high maintenance ordering and a curl of the lip from the waitperson. On this summer day, I threw caution to the wind and went for the unadulterated pleasure of eating without decision making or anxiety. IT WAS GREAT! I was happy.

The next day I could not walk.
The day after that I could not walk.
Today, the feeling is just barely coming back to my legs.

Specific foods are debilitating for me and I know it but hedonistic desire overtakes me occasionally and I get my lesson. AGAIN.

The corn has an allergic effect on me because of all the fungus it picks up when processed. Raisins act the same on my body for similar reasons. When dealing with a health challenge such as mine, one needs to know about chemistry, psychology, food combining, environmental issues, ad infinitum… I find it marginally interesting however there are many ways I’d prefer to use my life energy rather than what feels like such a ‘me-centric’ existence.

And so I rebel.
And then I can’t function.
And then I choose again to get up, dust myself off and begin again.

Without chips.

People

 

 

A friend told me he’d give me the shirt off his back if I needed it.   I could tell he told the truth.  I saw a woman put herself in the middle of a median with heavy traffic and hold a sign asking for help. I could tell she really needed it. But then I thought: “Cathy, who are you to decide if she looks like she really needs it or not? Isn’t the fact she has so visibly announced she is in need ENOUGH? I gave her some money just for the courage it took to ask but I would have liked it if I extended my hand just because she asked and not because I was proud of her because she did.

But why? Why are we so proud? Why is it considered better not to need? To appear independent and strong and capable? To put forward the whole theater of perfection and the satisfaction of: “I can do it myself.”?

I am bored silly with myself. I have plumbed the depths and am better for it but HONESTLY! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

What interests me now is connection. How you and I are similar. We each have frailties and strengths. Some more noticeable than others to the outside world but there just the same for each of us. As I learn to be with my own, I can better be with yours. I can’t honestly say that when I see a person more disabled than I, that I don’t recoil just a bit before I gather myself into the softhearted compassion growing in me. It has to do with this very visceral recognition of the non-existent line between us. Not:  ’But for the grace of God, there go I’,  but: ‘There go I’….. In that instant, I am in the center of the creation/destruction myth as, on some level I register the gymnast in me, the hiker, the biker, the walker, the woman gliding across the cafeteria with all eyes on her as a poised woman, AND the stumbler, the needer of help, the canceler of plans, the -not-so-sure-of-herself-like-before woman.

I attract different people now. Real people with the courage to do what it takes to get all these pesky walls down, be real, be transparent…now THAT is strength! Are we each any different, really, than that girl in the median of the road holding the sign? There might be more graceful ways of asking but, in essence, I NEED YOU… and you need ME and pride has nothing to do with it, nothing at all…

One Small Thing

 

Peace. Where do I find peace? A respite from all the ‘too much’ of the world?

I watch myself looking at the grasses by the roadside and heaving a sigh of relief. The fresh smell of my dog or how I’m having a ‘good-hair-day.’ This little bonsai tree I put in my bathroom just somehow eases everything toward slower and better when I stop to notice it. I’m bored with ‘filling’…filling every moment with SOME thing, whether it be a conversation, idea, chore, desire, ’should’, ‘if-only’ or ‘maybe when’.

Give me emptiness, a whisper, a long, redwing blackbird song. The satisfaction of the just-before-dawn ‘almost light’, or the solid sense of a fully integrated body.  These are the treasures I covet.  I am rich.

Undone

The world is a mess. I have the sense it’s all supposed to be exactly the way it is but it’s a real challenge to negotiate these choppy waters with any modicum of grace whatsoever. Some days I am so seared by peoples’ negativity and alignment with ‘victimness’ that all I can do is retreat to my cave and just not participate. This used to have the scent of avoidance but now I feel smart. After paying close attention for so many years to my state of being; emotionally, physically and spiritually, the foundation of health and well being I enjoy is very EARNED and PRECIOUS. The life I now lead is infused with goodness on many levels. I am learning to protect myself in new (to me) and necessary ways. As we all move from chaos and ego-driven lives toward the interdependence of lives lived in balance with each other and the whole, we are asked to soften, listen and surrender to intelligence beyond what we know.

My physical body seems to be acting like a ‘canary-in-the-mine’ as I am given the opportunity to make choices that support my thriving in the world. I do this by letting go the false thrill of accumulation and numbness seemingly so seductive not too long ago. I FEEL things now; the shadowy and the light. I crave simplicity, candor and mystery. I’ve got God in my pocket and a feast for a life, AND I am known to cry heavy tears when it is all just too darn much.

My prayer today is to have the consciousness to do what it takes to reclaim my own sense of balance and well-being before I end up causing the suffering of anyone else by making them pay in some way because it all just seems much too much for one human being to hold by herself.

This or That

Our whole reality is really about our point of view. Am I whole and perfect or flawed and ‘less than’? Is the day too hot or am I grateful I live in Santa Fe and not Michigan? Is my walker a giant red flag that screams disability or is it a support which helps me stand tall and retain some sense of grace?

I remember how long I put off going to the hospital supply store to look at walking aids. I finally took a good friend with me and, as it turns out, we laughed, met some great people, made an adventure out of the whole thing and look back on that day with great memories. It really taught me that my pride, vanity, desire to ‘look good’ and not draw too much attention to myself as a ‘less-than-perfect-specimin’ were all manufactured by my culturally conditioned mind. The empty space that arrived when I dropped all that boring theater is infinitely more interesting and is jam packed with possibility. I need FUN! I need RICHNESS! I need ADVENTURE! I need CREATIVITY! I need CONNECTION! The more I yield to the river of this journey of mine instead of throwing giant boulders in the way, the more room I have for the unexpected and mysterious; territory I thrive on.

Archaeology

Yesterday I felt positively radiant.

Today? Well…Let’s say major slippage has taken place.

You know, one of THE most exhausting things about this whole MS challenge is trying to figure out the cause of an effect… Why could I walk yesterday, have a reserve of clear energy and feel great about every darn thing, while today there are tears doing their best to push forward with no let up in sight, my foot curls under itself and my muscles ache and stiffen so I walk like Frankenstein? I am so tired and then I am afraid. Afraid that it will always be this way; that all the gorgeousness of yesterday will never be again…

UNTIL! Until I remember that CHANGE is the only constant! THAT is what I can count on!

So…. I go to work:

I go down the list and ask myself:

1. Do I need to drink more water?
2. Did I eat something that affected me? Or not eat at all?
3. Is there stress I need to handle somewhere?
4. Did I take all the stuff that supports me? (supplements, medication)
5. Was I out in the sun too long?
6. Did I use more energy than I can generate right now?
7. Did I stay too long with people who are too much ‘work’?
8. Did I take time to be silent today?
9. Did Spirit get too far away?
10. Did I forget to protect myself energetically out in the mad, mad world?
11. Did I not ask for help when I had the chance?

Each time this really scary loss of ground happens to me I contract into fear until I grab myself by the scruff of the neck (gently) and ‘re-up’ into life. The time it takes to do this gets less and less as I keep proving to myself that their really ARE causes for the effects and I am smart so I can find them, do what’s needed and carry on in some kind of graceful and radiant way.

When all is said and done, the gratitude I feel in ‘the return’ always brings me to my knees because in the shadowy recesses of my mind, I know it is not a given.

Connection

 

 

Where I live in New Mexico, s-p-a-c-e is the thing… It’s big here. VERY big. Bigger than us.

If you are smart, you have a healthy respect and curiosity about it. New Mexicans have been building walls around their homes for aeons to carve out a little bit of safety, intimacy, shade, ‘meness’. We know that Mother Nature rules because we’ve tested her once or heard about someone who did, and lost the bet.

It’s very seductive to build a wall. The separateness feels good initially. We can talk ourselves into believing we need ours for survival or perhaps comfort, but do we really? If I live in a suburb, do I need the giant lawn with the chain link around it? What do I lose while I’m basking in my independence? My neighbors’ name? What else?

I’m asking myself all these questions lately because I am changing. Instead of the protected space being the main event, the ’space between’ interests me most.

I am editing my life in many ways and when all the STUFF is gone, there is room; room to feel myself, to feel you, to feel God, to feel my community, the people and ideas that call me and those which don’t. The ‘call’ actually becomes an audible cry, an electric current BETWEEN. The form of things loses it’s elan and the vibration excited by connection of some sort calls me- or repels me- but I can FEEL IT- where before I was too far removed.

I trust this new intelligence in me. Not intellectual, not manufactured in any way. It has an ease and rightness to it and the byproduct seems to be that the walls come tumbling down and the protection and armoring make no sense in the brightness of it all.

The Dinner Party

 

I am going to give an imaginary dinner party because I don’t have the energy to give a real one.

This is WAY outside the box here but life is short…

This is who I’m inviting:

1. Jacques Cousteau

2. Katherine Hepburn

3. Ramana Maharshi

4. Lance Armstrong

5. Joseph Campbell

6. Queen Latifah

This is purely an intuitive list;  an ‘in the moment’ thing.
Hmm…Why these chosen ones?  What do I think I’d gain by sitting at their table?   What’s the draw?   What would they say to me?  What would they say to ME?  One thing each.. (this is fun).

                               *                *                *

Jacques:   “Always be curious but careful when you think you know.”
Katherine:   “Keep your own counsel. You’ll have more fun.”
Ramana:     “………………………………..” (silence)
Lance:    ”Never say die, but you can cry.”
Joseph:    ”Yield to the river.”
Queen Latifah:   “Make a big, elegant noise.”

Adventure

 

There is a road I know deep in Georgia O’keeffe country. It runs 13 miles of dirt along the Chama river. I go there when I need to find God fast. When my prayer is cast too quickly or the content dulled by impatience, I drive. The motion slows me somehow. An hour outside of town I start to feel clean. The sage signals the approach of the river around the bend and there she is; rushing and sparkling and alive and free. It’s the freedom thing that always gets me. She is confined to her path, seldom fighting the bank, Most days she gleams contentedly or maybe bucking with the slight under pressure of who knows what. She seems content to murmur on the straightaway or thrash and yield to the bothersome boulders in her way. It doesn’t seem the destination is of interest but I could be wrong. The longer I sit, the less dense I become. My blood somehow moves to match her. A huge quiet lifts my weary humanness and floats me, destination unknown.

 

Having

Today I did an experiment. I wanted to see if I could stay centered all day in the feeling of ‘havingness’. This is different than ‘everything’s OK’. It’s more like the slow drip of nectar into the body, muscles, nerves, organs, heart and mind from a small straw at the top of the head. I wanted to see if I could somehow reverse this feeling I’ve had of losing ground.

I have so many stellar guides and wayshowers along this path; physical therapists, pilates instructor, apitherapist (bee venom therapy), nutritionist, doctors, chiropracter and therapists among them. All this energy moving outside myself to keep afloat and heal. I want someone to FIX ME! I want that other me who had enough energy to get a pedicure or give beautiful dinner parties for my friends. What if the answer is not ‘out there?’

Yesterday I visited a fellow artist at his studio. My balance has been so poor lately. I stumbled and grabbed his outstretched arm. We walked together slowly and comfortably over the gravel and through his door. It was natural, strong, compassionate, and easy to reach for and receive his support. I felt strangely whole. We were both enriched by those few intimate moments though we didn’t speak of it. Sometimes I thing independence is highly overrated. It scares me to write this sentence but it often seems the more I lose, the more I have. This pesky ego just doesn’t want to lie down.

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