Archive for June, 2011
There’s a wonderful short story many of us had to read for some English class by Tim O’Brien entitled The Things They Carried. In the story, O’Brien “uses the list of physical objects that the members of the Alpha Company carry in Vietnam as a window to the emotional burdens that these soldiers bear. One such burden is the necessity for the young soldiers to confront the tension between fantasy and reality.”
I started thinking about the things I carry in my purse and what these say about my emotional well being and the tension between fantasy and reality.
Things I carry:
- Paper. Lots of it. Stuffed in the bottom of the purse or wherever. I have a receipt from Target I need to get reimbursed but will lose or throw away before I can submit it. I have a note from my doctor about converting the hard copy of my medical record to an electronic health record. This makes sense. Thanks. A ticket stub from the movie, “Bridesmaids.” Hysterical and touching…except for the bathroom scene. I could have really done without that. Directions to University of San Diego. Scope of Work and budget from a meeting at work. Two grocery lists (Bananas, coffee filters, dark chocolate and another one with apples, Tiger Milk Bars, wine, carrots and Greek yogurt) on the backs of scraps of paper. A Target coupon for cheese. This will be another thing I’ll lose or not bring with me or forget about the next time I’m at Target buying cheese. A flier from one of my colleagues to recruit families for her study. A “Weight Watchers Weekly” focused on moving and eating only when hungry.
- Books. Lots of them. The memoir, A Romantic Education, by Patricia Hampl. I’m reading this for Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, which get ready happens in eleven days. I love Hampl’s writing but it’s dense and you have to pay attention. You need focus for this and this is definitely something I’m not carrying around. A checkbook with used checks that I’ve been meaning to shred at work but forget. Hence carrying a new one not in the checkbook because there’s no room. A Moleskin, red datebook and two notebooks, one for the new company I’m envisioning and the other for my current job. The one with the trees has my new dream in it.
- Pens and pencils. Love Pilot pens in different colors. Love mechanical pencils, use these when writing in my datebook. I don’t want anything permanent in it, plus I love the way the glide across the paper.
- Unpopped popcorn. Trident White gum so I don’t have to go to one of those Smile Brite dentists. Ha!
- Business card carrier with actual up to date business cards. In fact, one of the staff ordered me 1000 cards. You want one?
- Glasses. Lots of them. Two pairs of reading glasses…yeah, whatever…and a pair of black Dior sunglasses that I forget I have but look glamorous on me if I remembered to wear them.
- My Lifetime Weight Watchers’ weigh in book…ugh.
Toiletries. Ibuprofen. Aquafor for the tattoo I got. Makeup I never use, except for the Burt’s Bees with SPF 8 for my lips when I remember to put it on. The other stuff I should probably throw out.
These are the things I carry. What does this say about my emotional well being? What do you carry? What do these things say about you?
Kelly and me at the Crossfit Games
Last weekend Kelly and I went to the Crossfit Regional Games at California University State, Long Beach. It was our first soiree into the Crossfit Games. I’ve been accused of drinking the Crossfit Kool-Aid by my husband and friends. But us die hard Crossfitters believe in our cult. In fact, I saw a T-shirt at the Games that said, “Southbay Crossfit is a cult…but it’s a good cult.” And that’s the thing, it is. I swear. Is it so wrong loving the feel of heavy weights in your hands, working your body to exhaustion, and being in the best physical health you’ve ever been in? I don’t think so. Oh, god, I’m sounding like someone who has been brainwashed.
Yeah, that's my hot pink bra I'm rockin', and yeah Kelly is three inches taller than me. Whatever...
Will you buy this? It’s the back of the T-shirts Kelly and I wore to the games. It’s the truth. It’s my truth.
Train Hard.
Eat Clean.
Talk Dirty.
Train hard. I won’t try to convince you again about how wonderful Crossfit is for fear of y’all accusing me of being one of those street preachers. But I will say you’re never too young or too old to push your body in ways you never knew were possible. This could mean getting out today and taking a brisk walk around your neighborhood, and then getting up tomorrow and doing it again maybe further. Or picking up a sport you’ve never done before. Three years ago I started playing soccer, a sport I’d only watched my brother play. Today I went to yoga. I find yoga to be like running. I have never in my life gotten a runner’s high, endorphins coursing through my blood. Pah-leez. While I’m doing yoga, it is the least relaxing thing I’ve ever done. It could be because my hamstrings have no give. Once during a class someone laughed I couldn’t touch my toes. My fingertips didn’t make it past my knees. Today was no exception. I cried from the pain, although Julia, the instructor, had the grace to ignore my tears. It could have looked like the sweat that was rolling down the sides of my face. Okay, I know you don’t have time to get physical. I know you don’t have money. I know it’s hard. But make the time and find the money (walking, running, and many classes at your local park and rec are free). You’re worth it. And sometimes aren’t the hardest things worth it, too. Okay, I’m stepping away from the barbells and pull up bars. I’m putting away my physical activity bible.
Eat clean. Ever since I lost weight on Weight Watchers, I’ve been introduced to fruits and vegetables. What, a dietitian who didn’t know about produce? Of course, I know what broccoli and peaches look like. I had salads every night, for the love of Pete. But until my mid-forties I didn’t practice what I preached. Instead every morning I’d have a HUGE bowl of Cream of Wheat with raisins and brown sugar, solid like a piece of bread. YUM! For lunch, I ate frozen yogurt (Come on, it was nonfat) with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup (not nonfat). And for dinner, chicken breast, rice (white), and a salad with iceberg, and then when I knew better dark leafy greens. For a snack I’d munch on pretzels, a boatload. Hey, they’re low in fat. I was a carb queen, still am to some extent, but have changed my ways, Brothers and Sisters. Today I went to the City Heights Farmers’ Market, and bought a bounty of fruits and vegetables (see photo) for less than $16. The only thing I’m bummed about is that I didn’t buy more. Jack ate two of the nectarines in about two minutes. If you’re thinking it’s a lot of money then I offer you this: If you shop at farmers’ markets you are PUMPING money into the local economy. You are preventing YOUR local produce from being shipped to some other city to be aggregated and then distributed back to the city where you live. You’re also saving the environment. Less trucks and gas on the road equals less pollution, plain and simple, Brothers and Sisters. I’m not a Paleolithic human. The Paleo diet is quite popular with the cult, Crossfit. And while I love fruits, vegetables, nuts, whole grains, and animal, I also love, love, love, Diet Coke, frozen yogurt, bread, and wine, all items not prescribed by the Paleo diet. Whole foods, my friends, ,whole foods. If you can identify a food by the look of the food, then eat it. Those processed foods with ingredients you can’t pronounce you should walk away from.
Talk dirty. When I explained to Kelly what this meant, she folded her shirt up at the Games and said, “I can only wear this at our gym.” I’m going to be honest, the most dirty talk I’ve done is say “fuck” at work. It’s been intense over the last few months, and seriously there is nothing like the “f” word, NOTHING, not working hard or eating clean, nothing like talking dirty.
Have I converted you? If so, why? If not why not?
I see the future and it looks something like this…
I know I will become one of those old women who spout off about everything. How do I know this? Because I’m already livid with my opinions and the way the world should be.
This realization began last Sunday at my indoor soccer game when my husband got kicked out of our game. The most mellow player on our bench got a red card for telling the ref to shove the card up his ass, although I think I’m being kinder than what David actually said. The point is the women on this team, who had the age collectively of me, were acting like guys.
Here’s what I believe:
- I believe girls should act like girls and boys should act like boys. This is especially true when you’re playing a team sport and you hide behind your men counterparts and then act all flirty and innocent when you knock a two hundred plus guy on his butt. That’s what happened with David. Some chick blindsided him when “going” for the ball (it had already been kicked by David) and she knocked him down. He hadn’t expected this since said ball was already kicked away. When David complained that the ref was only giving her a foul and not a card, and if the roles were reversed David would have gotten a card, the ref gave him a two minute penalty, and that’s when David told him to shove it. All I’m saying if you’re going to play like a guy, be willing to judged like a guy. Or try this…act like the skillful woman soccer player you are and stop muscling yourself around like a guy.
- This leads me to my second point. The guys on our team are gentlemen. They play skillfully. They back off when they see a “girl” is running at full speed to the ball. If there is an accident and the the woman gets knocked down, the MEN reach out their hand and pull the girl to her feet. They ask her if she’s okay. This is not true of the guys on other teams we play. Last week some guy knocked me down and walked away. Thanks to Crossfit and my tenacity I got up and told him he could shove it. When another guy pummeled one of my teammates, he didn’t bother to see how she was. Instead he walked away as I screamed at him for being an ass.
It turns out I’m much older than the kids I play against. But I don’t care. This isn’t a generational thing. This is common decency. Here’s a tip from a crotchety old woman: Go out and play. Have fun. It’s a game. It’s not the Olympics. I know you played club soccer all your life and you were the star of your high school team. Kudos for you, but that was a year ago. It’s time to grown up. It’s time to woMAN up.
What do you believe?
Jack and David
“Father’s Day is the most popular day at AA,” my dad said. “Standing room only.”
He told me this last Mother’s Day after he’d come back from an AA meeting.
“Busy today?” I asked.
“Not as busy as Father’s Day,” he said. “Everyone has father issues.”
Spoken like a man who had father issues and whose dad passed before he could resolve them.
But this conversation got me thinking. I have a friend who says, “You know the difference between a beauty pageant queen and a stripper? The queen loves her dad.”
I wasn’t a stripper but god knows I had daddy issues. A childhood spent not knowing my dad. Because I didn’t have much of a relationship with my dad growing up, I had no insight into men. I found it very difficult to navigate relationships with them.
In the last ten years a lot has changed between my dad and me, and my relationships with the men in my life.
One day I was lamenting over the fact my dad and I weren’t close when I was a child.
“I get it,” David said. “But you have him now.”
This is true. Both my dad’s grandfather and dad died at fifty-seven of a heart attack. Fifteen years ago while my parents were traveling in New York, my dad suffered a heart attack. He was fifty-six. This stopped me in my tracks. I think it stopped my dad, too. We became softer toward each other. He now calls me to tell me he’s proud of me. There is awe in his voice, something that either wasn’t there before or I wasn’t willing to hear. He’s a hell of a hugger, not allowing me to pat him on the back but showing me how to hug like I mean it.
David and Jack are my teacher’s too. They have opened themselves up and let me in. Because I’ve let go of a lot of the daddy baggage, I’m more willing to open myself up to the men in my life, too.
Yesterday I went out to dinner with my father-in-law, Herb, (He’s my first father-in-law; he’ll never be my ex), and it was as if time hadn’t passed, as if it hadn’t been fifteen years since I sat across a table from him, as if his son, Bill, and I hadn’t divorced, as if his wife, my second mom, hadn’t passed away.
Today I honor all the fathers in my life: Dad, David, Herb, Bill, and Mike (David’s dad), and to my son, Jack, who is going to make a great father one day way, way, way down the road.
Is Father’s Day a celebration or not for you?
“I should have trusted my gut,” Sarah, my friend, said.
I bit my lip. I’d been encouraging her for the last ten years before she got married to Kevin, before they had two daughters, before he became a full blown meth addict to do the very same thing. But now was not the time, or probably ever, to tell her, “I told you so.”
Isn’t it amazing when looking at someone’s life we can think (or say), “This is what I would do.” And yet when it comes to our own we can’t see things so clearly.
I give myself, sometimes, admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it (Lady Mary Wortley Montagu).
Children live by intuition. Watch a toddler and they graze on small portions of food (and it’s healthy) until they are satisfied. It’s not until us parents encourage our children to finish their food on the plate and promise of dessert that our babies’ intuition is forever warped. I’m not judging parents. We come from a long line of parents pushing food on children. Historically, food was about survival and you were lucky to have a Brontosaurus burger to finish. Once food became abundant for most of us, it became about love.
“If you love me, you’ll finish the food I made especially for you.”
And there you are eating, eating, eating despite feeling full, right?
This isn’t just about food. How about telling our girls to “be nice and polite” to strangers despite the achy feeling they have in their gut that something isn’t quite right. “Don’t be rude. Go talk to your Uncle Charlie.” I don’t think I’m oversimplifying when I say this kind of guidance can lead to situations like Sarah’s. Girls who grow up to be women who ignore what their gut is telling them.
I feel there are two people inside of me-me and my intuition. If I go against her, she’ll screw me every time, and if I follow her, we get along quite nicely (Kim Basinger).
The good news is we are intuitive, but as adults we need to hone the skill we were born with. Take this quiz and see how intuitive you are.
Ingrid Bergman said, You must train your intuition – you must trust the small voice inside you which tells you exactly what to say, what to decide
Here are tips to hone your intuition:
- Be quiet. Close the door, turn off the phone, breathe deeply and just sit. Very rarely do these feelings come to us in the chaos of life, instead be still and wait.
- Recognize intuition. There are four basic ways: through dreams, emotions (something doesn’t feel right), inner voices, and physical sensations such as a heaviness in your gut when things seem bad or lightness when things seem good, goose pimples, or the hair standing up on the back of your neck.
- Lynn A. Robinson, a professional intuitive, suggests finding out which of these statements your body responds to:
“I know what’s best for me.”
“Things are falling into place.”
“What do I need right now?”
“Everything is working out.”
“The wisdom I need will come to me as I need it.”
“What outcome feels best right now?”
“What is the best outcome in this situation?”
“What is the most (loving, spirit-filled, forgiving, wise) decision right now?”
Okay, if this sounds too new age-y for y’all, I suggest you think of the last time you said, “Boy, I wish I would have followed [insert friends', family's, acquaintances', co-workers'] advice? I should have trusted their words.” Successful people, while they surround themselves with smart, educated people, always rely on their gut. The next time you see President Obama (Clinton, Carter, Bush, etc.) or their wives, go ahead and ask he/she how they became so successful. Ask Oprah, wait you don’t need to, she said she’s always had visions and feelings of creating a dynasty.
Essentially, you need to ask, trust, be receptive to thoughts, images, feelings, words, and knowings, and finally act on this wisdom.
Are you intuitive? When was the last time you listened to your intuition?
