Shotgun Wedding Sans Pregnancy

Last week I was wrapping a wedding present (knives, no couple just starting out ever buys themselves a decent knife set) and reminiscing about my own early marriage that, against early odds, has endured 37 years.

We had several strikes against us to start. Not just extreme youth, but two cultures and one food service job between us added to the peculiar realities of my young husband’s chronic disability had friends and family placing bets on our timeline. Even we had no intention of marrying while still in our teens, but the unexpected availability of married student housing at the University of Arizona prompted a hurry-up wedding to beat a 'be married or miss out' deadline.

Couples and families often waited for years for one of the scarce married student housing units, especially after the restriction to veterans only was lifted in the sixties. Marc and I were finishing our freshman year in 1976. Each of us lived in on-campus dorms during the week and went home to our parents’ houses on the weekends so I could work and Marc could study—he is visually impaired, and managing that disability in a college setting sucked up huge amounts of time). We were not only planning on graduate school, we were both on ‘the five year plan’ since we had both changed our majors. With such long-term plans, we figured we’d eventually want to take advantage of the ridiculously cheap but limited number of WWII era apartments, so in March Marc added our names to the long wait-list.

On the last day of his finals in June, Marc wandered into the student housing office just to see where we were on the list. The clerk said, “Well, I have a unit available unexpectedly, and I can’t reach anyone on this list. As far as I’m concerned, if you’re married, you can have it next week.  Marc called me later that night when I got from the cafeteria in a mall on Tucson’s east side where I worked on the weekends to ask, did I want to get married a little earlier than we’d planned, say on Monday?

I took a bit of persuading, not for the eventuality, but for the timeline. My parents were mightily unhappy, certain that this meant I’d never finish my degree, but the two families put a few hurried plans in place: Marc’s mother, Harriet, had been told ‘Judge Fenton did a lovely ceremony’, so she arranged a 10:00 appointment in his chambers down at the Pima Courthouse. I gave notice at the  restaurant, planning a transfer to the Speedway location, but not really following through. All that was certain was my last night at work would be that Saturday. Marc’s father took him to get the license and the rings. I hemmed a never-worn pink prom dress. After my mother saw me reading the ingredient list on the Ovaltine jar and heard me wondering aloud how simple vitamins and minerals could possibly affect ovulation, took me to my first GYN visit for a hurry-up, double-dose regimen of birth-control pills.

On Saturday night, I was ‘striking the line’, i.e. carrying the serving pans from the steam tables to the pot-boy in the kitchen. On my third trip, I backed through the swinging door with the double-decker mashed potato pots (the lower one held about a gallon of hot water insulating the upper pot with the spuds). Someone had spilled oil, gravy, I never knew what, on the tiled floor and down I went, losing my grip on the pots on the way. The mashed potatoes were at this point room temperature so their heavy warmth after they plopped onto my hair and my face, and down inside my uniform was rather pleasant; the boiling water from the steam jacket splashing all down my left side was anything but. Someone ripped off my white nylon uniform before I could stand. I remember sitting up to hook my thumbs under the waistband of my nylon slip and drag it off, along with the stockings we were required to wear. Unfortunately, that action took the blistering skin on my thigh and calf along with the clothes, so I was a starchy, sticky, oozy, half-naked mess when bundled into an ambulance and taken to St. Jo’s hospital, a half-mile away.

While I was being cared for in the emergency room, my father, still gruff and disapproving of the whole endeavor, called Marc, saying bluntly, “There’s been an accident, Lynn’s in the hospital. We’ll call you when we know more”, and hung up.  Marc told me later that he walked outside  his parents’ house and sat on the curb with his head in his hands,  imagining everything from car accident to assault, and thinking back on a short life long on disappointment and concluding, “Good lord, I just can not catch a break.”

I left St Jo’s around midnight wrapped from ankle to hip in white gauze and high on Percocet. Sunday remains a mystery to me still, but early on Monday morning, I swallowed some more painkillers and the Orvo-whatever,  washed my hair, slathered on the blue eye-shadow we all wore in the ‘70s, and struggled into that pink dress. I managed to get it up, down and mostly around all the bandages on my left side. My parents, my little sister and I met Marc, his brother and parents at the fountain in the courthouse and we all crammed into the same elevator to the third floor office. Judge Fenton bustled in the room to perform the ceremony in a rushed recess between two murder trials.

I was only hazily aware of the whole event, woozily clinging to Marc’s arm while Judge Fenton, kept emphasizing ‘this is forever, it is not easily undone, it’s a commitment’, etc, all the time looking pointedly at my dress, which with all the bandages, was very full about the middle. I wanted to say “Hey, Bud, I am so not pregnant!”, but my obvious nausea from all the meds was additionally misleading. I managed to say a simple “I do”. At that moment, the summer heat in the stuffy chamber overwhelmed my mother  and we all rushed to the cluster of overturned chairs where she'd fainted.

We’d planned a family dinner with presents and cake at my parents’ house but first was a side trip to the GP for a check on my burns. When Dr. Grossman saw that the emergency treatment Saturday night had been….inexpert…, he said, ‘I’m so sorry, this is going to hurt’,  braced his left hand on my forehead (!!?), and with his right, ripped away the gauze stuck to the wounds in one rapid sweep.  More painkillers before leaving that office made the mini-reception a blur.  Neither of one had a driver’s license, so my new father-in-law took us to the El Dorado Hotel as planned for the three-day, no-refund honeymoon he and Mother-Harriet given us. Since I couldn’t even walk, Papa-Bob helped Marc get me to the honeymoon suite and then brought us pizza for dinner. By Thursday, I was mostly mobile and almost drug-free, so we asked our parents to take us, our books, bicycles and an upright piano to the as yet unseen ‘housing unit’ west of the U of A Medical Center we’d scooped.

In the quiet of our first summer night in our new home, I looked at the rusty steel walls and plywood floor of our new home and reflected that some women marry for money, whereas I had apparently moved heaven and earth for a 400 square foot, roach-infested Quonset hut.

Lessons in detachment... of various kinds

I’ve hesitated to post this, because… I am the other driver.  I am the vessel of the divine that offers Cas and the community opportunities to practice compassion while on the road, or more particularly, in  parking lots.  I take no pride in the role; it is my fate to be the humble instrument of instruction.

As my husband, Marc, said plaintively to his brother once while I was on the phone for yet another insurance ordeal (difficult for the rep perhaps, my repeated practice with the “recorded to serve you better” phone calls has put me quite at my ease), “She’s actually a good driver, she’s never hurt anyone.”  Trash cans, ash cans, light poles, guard posts, plants and planters, and poorly placed public artworks would all tell a different tale were they animate.

It is stationary vehicles that are the most distressed.  For years, I maintained there was a magnetic attraction between the metals used in older cars’ bumpers, perhaps caused by the energy field created by turning on the ignition, but the fact that I’ve … made contact… with as many of the newer rubber bumpers as the older steel ones suggests the ignition may be involved, but only peripherally. The newer rubber baby buggy bumpers are no help in improving my fellow drivers’ acceptance of the inevitable. Their ‘paintability’ is touted as a improvement, but the merest kiss causes deep scuffs and scars and pigment apparently costs three times as much as chrome, so fat furry false savings on that, Mr. Estimator.

The latest evidence of the insufficiency of rubber bumpers was after a recent play date with the terriers of a friend who lives in the foothills. I wasn’t there to help a puppy of my own learn doggy manners; I have no pets. I was visiting primarily to play with the dogs myself.  Drunk on puppy-loving, wishing my allergies would permit me to live with a dog rather than just occasionally dating them, I backed my Subaru out of their owner’s steep and winding driveway. I heard a scrape and felt a tug. When I got out to check the rear, I found I had backed over a low retaining wall that bordered the driveway. I saw nothing in the bright sunshine: no damage to the rubber, no black marks on my friend’s expensive brickwork, no need to go inside and say anything at all. All the way down the rolling hill to the four lane street that would take me home, I wondered what was that tugging feeling?  I pulled into a shopping center to find the wraparound bumper that had looked just fine at first had actually popped off the entire left side of the Outback, and must have been swaying back and forth as I drove. I drove home slowly, on side streets. The next day, a sympathetic male teacher at the elementary school where I worked managed to wedge the bumper back into place, with the panel hugging the body close enough so that its recent adventure wasn’t terribly obvious. He also pounded out a dent in the rubber that I still hadn’t seen. This kindness meant I was able to leave the whole incident unmentioned at home. I support honesty and truth in a relationship, but when stories like this are such oft-told tales, perhaps every telling isn’t essential.

It is my great hope that latest Subaru bumper story will be a book-end to earlier ones about my recently sold Honda Pilot, and there will be no more. I'd gotten to know the Pilot's power and size after introducing it repeatedly to our large green trash bin, and once to a friend’s front-mounted tow-hitch. Another friend Jen, had joined us for dinner and a DVD one night. While she was chatting with Marc in the living room, I was messing about in the kitchen. I realized I had forgotten the salsa for our tacos. I hollered from the kitchen door that opens into the garage, "Be back in sec!", jumped in the Pilot, backed it out of the garage and into Jen's new (of course) Toyota Corolla. I take the $600.00 for her new bumper out of savings, and am grateful that we carpool to the same school anyway. About 4 months later, Jen is again over for dinner, and this time, having forgotten butter for the brownies, I grab the keys, jump in the Pilot, back out of the garage and into Jen's car again. Another $600.00, even with DentBuster's good customer discount. This time I have to put the expense on our charge card, and there is a slight chill in the carpool over the next few days. A few months later, dinner is complete, we've had a lovely evening, and we're walking Jen out to her car.

"Jen, why is your car parked sideways in our driveway?"

"Oh, I got sideswiped at the grocery store by a hit'n'run, and figured since Lynn would be hitting me again anyway.. "

Well! But, the sad truth is, about nine months after that, I did indeed back into her car in our driveway a third time. Jen burst into tears, seeing that this time I had managed to crunch her front bumper, and somehow the hood was buckled as well… and the front left side panel looked a little droopy. At 1600.00, this one had to be handled by our insurance company which also provided a rental car for a stony-faced and silent Jen. Now when she visits, Jen leaves her car across the street in St Jude's church parking lot.  Most of our repeat guests do so, each being offered multiple opportunities to practice compassion.

A Thankful Feast; an incident of culinary mishap

        I think it is important to remember when we talk about the seven deadly sins that they are in fact only vices that some church decided to upgrade to sins based on their severity. That, and there used to be more than seven, when is the last time you accused someone of acedia or vainglory, or chastised anyone in despair?  I know, I know some of the seven are truly abhorrent; greed, wrath, lust, envy…bad, all bad. Pride and sloth? Well, we all have our moments of pride and honestly sloth, or the opportunity for a single moment of peace in which to practice sloth is probably my highest ambition. Which brings us to gluttony. Let’s just be completely straightforward…could we really be American, REALLY good AMERICANS, without a little gluttony? We certainly couldn’t celebrate being American at an annual feast of Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving holiday is marginally about history and patriotism and primarily about food, family, food, friends, drink, food, thankfulness and a little bit more food.

                That said, everyone cooks too much food at Thanksgiving. Especially when you have two cooks with a lot of restaurant experience. My friend Tracy and I may have actually set some sort of record for overcooking if anyone were keeping track. It was our first really grown-up Thanksgiving, you know not traveling back to our folks or someone else’s folks, but staying at our apartment and cooking for 12 people. The guests were going to be my husband Mike, myself, Tracy, her roommate Michelle, and friends Thomas, Chris, Kim, Jan, James, Buster, MaLaura and Jen. A sizable group with some big eaters Mike, Thomas, Chris and Jan (pronounced “Yon”) could probably out eat ten people all by themselves. Tracy and I felt safe planning a big menu and cooking a lot. Plus, both of our moms had recommended cooking a few extra dishes or portions in case something flopped. We were creating an entirely vegetarian meal. We had two kitchens to use. My husband Mike and I were the caretakers for our apartment building and our neighbor Patty across the hall had gone out of town for the week. We were watching her cats and plants and she had agreed to let us co-opt her kitchen during Thanksgiving. 

                The cooking went flawlessly and we had a great time cooking together. Both of us know our way around a kitchen and we had fun developing several of the recipes. The menu was glorious and included some dishes I still make 18 years later because they are amazing. Our problem was really about portioning. We mistakenly calculated an actual portion of each item for each person and then doubled it!! Let’s be clear about this…portions assume that you will have 3 to 4 items on your main course plate. Who puts less than 12 things on their plate at Thanksgiving? You see the problem? Maybe you are reading this in time to save yourself this year. Even if you create half portions of every menu item for every guest, you will STILL have leftovers. 

             The meal began with wine, a beautiful cheese plate and crudités. For the sit down, take turns saying gratitudes, hand around serving plates portion of the meal we had…wild rice stuffed squash, vegetarian stuffing with mushroom and tarragon gravy, yams baked with blueberries and mandarin oranges, mashed potatoes with carmelized onion and port gravy, green beans baked with shallots and slivered almonds, cranberry and kumquat sauce, a four cheese noodle au gratin with peas and fresh baked rolls. We intended to serve four kinds of home made pie and espressos for dessert. The pies were a (from scratch) mince with rum sauce, pumpkin, whiskey chocolate and a raspberry, loganberry and apple. Our guests were debilitatingly stuffed mid way through the main course. 

             Our dear friend Thomas invited us all into the hall to roll around and move the food in our bellies. Not for gastric comfort, but to make more room for MORE food and eventually dessert.  When we began surveying the still massive amounts of food and trying to determine storage, we realized we had to consume more to even consider storing the leftovers (in two kitchens). We made up plates to take out to the streets, we fed over twenty street dwellers. We took to the apartment building and invited neighbors, most had their own dinners, but several who were not originally from America, happily helped and were fascinated by our version of the holiday. One couple from England just could not grasp the idea of how much food was a reasonable amount to adequately “feast”.  As we loaded up their plates they kept asking in shock…"This is just ONE meal?” Eventually, we packaged up the leftovers!! After a run to the park and a vigorous snowball war, we even made room for dessert. To this day, however, I clean my entire fridge every year before Thanksgiving for the express purpose of making room for containers of leftovers.

What the Muppets Knew.

    My son and I regularly go to the library together.  He is free to pick out any books he wants and other media he can get if I approve. Several weeks ago he discovered the Muppet Show. He has seen Sesame Street, The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth and so has been exposed to pieces of Jim Henson’s legacy. To say that these things don’t compare with being exposed to the Muppet Show for the first time would be a severe understatement. Like someone saying they love chocolate because they eat M&Ms.

     After watching several episodes my son, very seriously, asked his parents to sit down because he had some questions. He begins, “So there’s this show…and it’s filled with puppets, mostly monsters (a key point because his deep love of monsters is nearly unparalleled in his life) and in EVERY episode there is tons of music and singing and new instruments (another key point, music MIGHT be the only competitor for his monster love).” My husband and I both nod, agree, yes, yes, that’s right…did you have a question about that? He sums up, “Neither one of you ever thought it might be a good idea to show this to me? I had to discover it myself?” He asked this wryly in a tone and attitude well beyond his years that implies not only sarcasm, dismay and complete befuddlement, but also an unspoken belief that surely there was no entrance exam for this whole “parenting” gig. Touché.

     As a family we enjoyed watching the entire second and third season of the Muppet Show including all the special features. Thackery is a connoisseur of special features. In one of the features, Jim Henson and Frank Oz do a tutorial on how to create a puppet’s character using detachable interchangeable features and different gestures and voices. Pure genius. Thackery watched it again and again creating sock puppets, stick puppets and working with his own “attachable puppet” Gooey. He at one point said to me, “All t.v. should just be these guys helping kids learn things.”  

     Which got me to thinking, you know when I was a kid, that was pretty much true. Jim Henson, Frank Oz and Dr. Seuss comprised 75% of what my generation was exposed to in early childhood. So I blame them for our complete inability to function in modern selfish consumer driven times. We are all old hippies in our hearts. We know that acceptance and inclusion are good and we know racism is bad. We know the Once-ler got it wrong and the Lorax had it right. Love your neighbor, protect the environment!!! Charity is good, greed is bad. Oh how sorrily and ill equipped were all were for the corporate buy out of our democracy and the systematic replacement of our education system with consumers-in-training programs. It isn’t our fault!! We were led to believe as very small children that the older generations had it all figured out and that they were forewarning us against mistakes that previous generations had made. We grew up in a time where parents thought Alice Cooper was the closest thing to the Devil that was out there and we got to see him ON THE MUPPET SHOW!!! Kermit made a joke (referencing Faust) to mock Alice about his “contract with the Devil” and then they all laughed about it and Alice put on a monster suit to dance with some Muppets.  Message? You can be as different as you want as long as we can all laugh about our differences and pull off the big dance number at the end of the show!

     We literally grew up thinking all the Once-lers had learned their lessons, were filled with remorse and wanted to help us fix everything. We thought everyone was on the same team. The debates were over and our job was to clean up, decrease our carbon footprint, distribute the wealth more humanely and equitably, get healthcare for everyone and walk happily into sunnier times. We were going to establish America as the leader of great minds, great ideas, compassionate humanitarianism and creative genius. Right? Right? Yeah, so what happened with that?

Yoga Zen Driving

     My friend Tracy kindly gave me a periodical that she thought I would enjoy, all about environmentalism and education, right up my alley. Thank you, very kind. In it, we discovered a wonderful article about all the times during our busy hectic days that we could be recognizing ways to practice compassion, a yoga mindset…a Zen attitude. Great article, good ideas…again, thank you. Wait…what is this number four? Finding Compassion on the Road? Hold on a second…did I read this right?

5 Yoga Practices For Mind-Body Balance,  BY DAVID SIMON, M.D.,

4. Finding Compassion on the Road

Driving is an excellent laboratory for self-awareness – and an ideal place to cultivate equanimity and calm. Before you start the car, give your body a good stretch to each side and set your intention for a peaceful, safe journey. As you drive, relax your grip on the wheel. Keep your tongue at fire point (the spot on the roof of your mouth just between your two upper front teeth) to keep your jaw relaxed.

Be aware of situations that cause you to become frustrated, such as slow traffic or someone cutting you off. When these situations arise, see if you can focus your attention on your breath and put your awareness in your heart, letting go of the story you’re telling yourself about “the jerk” in the other car. Advanced yogis can practice feeling compassion for the other drivers as well. You can silently repeat, “Just like me, they want to feel happy, peaceful, and loved.”

       “Cultivate equanimity and calm”? In my car driving in Tucson? Okay, easily enough I can “be aware of the situations that cause” me “to become frustrated”. Sure, no problem…do it everyday. It’s the part between there and practicing feeling compassion for the other drivers, where I get a little hung up. I’ve read some frightening statistics lately about how over sixty percent of the licensed drivers on the road today would not pass a driving test, not to mention all the unlicensed drivers.  Add to that the fact that a high percentage of Tucson’s driving population are transplants who learned to drive in other states with other traffic laws. States like Denial, Oblivion, Stupidity and my personal favorite the State of I’m-The-Only-Person-Who-Exists-In-The-Universe. I am as eager as the next person to start increasing my positive attitude and decreasing my stress levels. Alright, I’m game…let’s go Yoga Zen Driving in Tucson!!!
        When I moved to Tucson eighteen years ago my brother was driving me from the airport to his house and I commented, “These roads are amazing, wide and flat. The views are awesome. You must ride your motorcycle all the time!!” He replied that he paid way too much money for Medical School to end up splattered on the street and that he had sold his motorcycle. I said that he had to be kidding, why would he do such a thing? He simply said, “You’ll see.” See I did. During my first week driving in Tucson I watched a woman who was trying to make a left turn, but instead drove up onto the median and hit a sign post then backed up off the median so she could DRIVE UP ONTO THE MEDIAN AND HIT THE SIGN POST AGAIN!!! When I shared this story with others they were neither stunned nor surprised. As a driver in Tucson I have witnessed someone do a u-turn on Kolb (a divided street) to then be driving the wrong way toward the traffic that was following him a moment ago sending three lanes of vehicles up onto the medians. I have seen someone run a red light and then back up through that red light the wrong way. I watched someone slam on their brakes so hard they turned their car sideways across three lanes of traffic on Oracle and then got out of their car and left it there. So, before I even get in my car for my first day of Yoga Zen Driving, I acknowledge these memory thoughts and dismiss them from my new intentionally peaceful driving experience. Aaaahhh. Clean slate, new day, new attitude and some Kate Wolf for the CD player.
      Day One wasn’t really going to be that challenging. I had to drop my son off at school, stop by the hardware store on my way home and a few hours later, pick my son up at school. Everything inside a tidy little 2 mile radius. School drop off, flawless, my son’s school is very small, the other parent and grandparent drivers are very careful and aware of each other and the kids…so far, so good. Now to the Ace Hardware in the Campbell and Glenn shopping plaza. I’m not in a hurry and I am a Yoga Zen Driver so I take a route slightly off the busier streets and arrive in virtually the same amount of time the more hectic streets might have delivered me. I pull into one of the available angled parking spaces and am immediately screamed at by the driver in the space in front of me. He was so angry and so hostile that at first I thought he was yelling at someone on a phone device that I couldn’t see. Then he got out of his car and started pointing at me and screaming even louder. He apparently had wanted not to park, but to pull through the space I had parked in and then drive the wrong way down the aisle. Oh, and he felt this was a reasonable response to his not being able to do that. How do I feel? Compassionate? Do I think “just like me he wants to feel happy, peaceful and loved”? No. I do not. I feel threatened and pissed off. Damn it!! Day One…fail.
      Day Two I almost got hit head on taking my son to school by a driver who was driving the wrong way on a one way street AND ran a stop sign. Five cars were honking and pointing at this driver and he flipped them all off and tried to drive straight into me anyway. His final words to us all were, “Turn the F#%K around!!” At this particular adrenaline riddled moment having narrowly evaded catastrophe because my tiny car fits in the bike lane (and a little up on the curb) what I am feeling? …Thankful beyond all ability to measure that my son is safe and that no one was occupying the bike lane. Compassion? Awareness in my heart? Nope! Nope! Thankful for our wholeness is as good as I can get. That guy? I would kind of like to punch that guy. Day Two…fail.
      Day Three, third time is a charm, right? Day three is a lot like those driver’s education movies you had to watch in high school. Football bounces out into the street…I stop carefully and look…sure enough, kid runs into the street to get it. I smile and wave at him…I am a Yoga Zen Driver. Schools bus stops in front of me and puts out its stop sign and I stop a generous distance behind it to patiently wait. The car behind me honks at me and starts to pull around me and I roll down my window and put my hand out in the palm back and down stop position…it works!! He stops and gives me a little “oops, sorry” wave!! I AM a Yoga Zen Driver. A motorcyclist is signaling to get into my lane, but the car in front of me doesn’t see him and nearly cuts him off. I slow down and gesture for him to get safely in front of me. He does and gives a thank you wave. I AM A YOGA ZEN DRIVER!!! Aaah. Success. Wait, what we are being detoured? Wait, why? What happened? Traffic didn’t stop for a siren wailing ambulance and the resulting collision has closed the intersection. Who doesn’t stop for an ambulance!?! Oh, that’s right, I’m still in Tucson. Crud! So much for Yoga Zen Driving.

Being a Twenty-something and Single

                  Being a single twenty-something is simultaneously liberating and disappointing. It’s fun to go out with the girls and flirt but ultimately the guys my age are not exactly up to par. I don’t mean to knock the twenty-something generation: I’m loving it. My generation is going to be remembered. We’re technologically savvy (addicted) and when we rule the world it’s going to be be either crazy awesome, or a complete disaster. We ride the roller coaster of college and unemployment, all the while dealing with eye exam bills from staring at a computer screen all night, whether it be video games or blogging. I feel I’ve got my generation pretty much figured out, except for the daunting obstacle that I will never understand: dating. It is possibly the most uncomfortable, anxiety-inducing, nauseating, exhilarating, and ultimately disappointing venture I have ever set myself on, although high school fits that criteria as well.

                  In popular media, such as TV and movies, young women (and cougars) are always bouncing between guys, glamorously setting themselves up as sexual goddesses for one male and then tossing them aside on a whim for another they only just met. Dates are spur of the moment, and men are romantic and handsome. Men ask us for our numbers suavely, at coffee shops and in the grocery store, begging for even a lunch date.

                  In reality, men my age are still boys, hooked on video games and eating pizza pockets for dinner every night. They have no class and their main goal in life appears to be getting laid as often as possible. The ones I’ve met don’t have a romantic bone in their body and think it’s acceptable, nay, normal even, to chew and spit tobacco throughout a movie on the first date. Because of this I find myself attracted to older men, but there I run in to another problem: I’m actually terrified to talk to them.  I find myself tongue-tied and awkward in their presence, unable to converse in a pleasant or even understandable manner.

What does pump up my confidence when I talk to men is alcohol, and I find that perhaps I am the siren of desire I so wish to be when I’ve had a couple cosmopolitans (I acknowledge this to be blatantly untrue in hindsight: I now have conclusive evidence that it may actually heighten my awkwardness). I dress up sassy, make-up covering my freckles, and totter out in my heels with a gaggle of girls who apparently do this on a regular basis. On this alcoholic high I flirt and deliver witty comebacks (probably not) and occasionally a guy will actually hang out with me for a while. Inevitably my banter turns geeky and I reveal that I am a level 12 Elven cleric who just acquired the coolest ice magic staff and looted this sweet ring possessed by a Pride demon and if I play my cards right, I might be able to use his knowledge to save the world… This is not something that goes over well in bars. The past few times I’ve been in bars I’ve come away feeling humiliated (I danced and fell down, twisting my ankle), disgusted (the guy who grabbed my ass and when confronted said “My hand slipped!”), or deeply ashamed (an almost one night stand where I apologized profusely and went to sleep by myself). Obviously I’m doing it wrong or I’m just not cut out for this. I don’t want a casual relationship built on alcohol and whether or not I’m wearing a cute outfit that night. I hear about girls thrilled over their one night stands and excitedly waiting for him to maybe text, and sometimes I want that. But only when there’s a romantic comedy in the theaters and I can’t convince my roommate to go with me or I see a happy couple holding hands.

The other day I went into a restaurant and there was this incredibly handsome man with the cutest black lab puppy. He had to be in his early thirties and I actually spoke with him in an intelligent way, and had a brief witty conversation. I made eye contact with him, smiled, and pet his dog… and then I wussed out and left without saying anything to him. I thought about him chasing after me and telling me how he loved my smile or the way I laughed and asking me to sit down and have lunch with him, but that only happens in movies, doesn’t it?  

Perhaps I’m too harsh on the men of my own age. Maybe the perfect guy is out there. Disney told me that when I grew up my Prince would come. So far… no dice. Walt Disney lied to me with Pocahontas, Belle, Ariel and Snow White as his coconspirators. I’ll carry on hoping, and trying to spot that quiet guy who might be the one, but until then I will continue to be a twenty-something and single, enjoying episodes of Dr. Who, and going into coffee shops, looking for a guy who might notice a girl with a shy smile and too many books in her purse.

What Mom is Missing

    

     My mother died almost two years ago, but the chronological time often has no relationship to my healing. Some days I am accepting, other days the agony knocks the wind out of me. As the mother of a five year old, I find that most days I am aware not so much that my mom is gone, but aware of all that she is missing. I watched her grandparent my nieces and nephews and I know what a devoted and involved grandma she was. So, I know how much joy she would be experiencing watching my son grow. I know how much laughter and comraderie we would be sharing. The hard part is it leaves me alone to reflect on the differences (good, bad and humorous) between her and me as parents and as people. It is difficult to be the only one on the inside of an inside joke meant to be shared between two people.

     The main difference is that I try to be truthful in accordance with the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism and by extension to model right intention and right action. My mom on the other hand, was not so much a stickler for the truth as she was a ready and quick wit. Which, by comparison, means that I am a bit of a stick-in-the-mud and she was a stand-up comedian. An example would be when my son asks, “Where do babies come from?” I might answer, “Mommies’ tummies.” My mother would have said (to a five year old) “God puts two people with poor decision making skills together and you get a baby.” When my son asks, “What would happen if I put my finger too close to the fire?” I say, “Your skin will get burned, hurt very badly and take a long time to heal.” My mom’s response would have been, “20,000 years of genetic encoding will have failed.”

      My first day of kindergarten was catastrophic, a tale for another day, but I came home in tears just devastated and unwilling to return. I was sobbing so hard that I could only barely get words out. I managed to tell my mom…”Th-th-th-they a-aa-all laughed at meeee!” In her infinite wisdom and insight (and a lifetime of living with our shared klutzy gene) she calmly and astutely said, “At you, with you…it’s all in your perspective. Tomorrow (when something similar will inevitably happen again) you just take a bow and then laugh with them.” Many of my mother’s comments were tasty morsels meant to be enjoyed in the moment, but this is advice that has served me my entire life. The ability to occasionally step back, laugh at myself a little and just try to enjoy the journey. 

     My son’s first day of kindergarten was picture perfect. He had already visited his beautiful, inviting and stimulating classroom at a very loving and compassionate Montessori school. There was a little bit of apprehension when it was time for me to leave him at school, but he was bubbling with joy and lots of news to share when I picked him up. He knew one of his classmates from preschool and he made five new friends on his first day. He is boisterous, intelligent, charismatic and beautiful and so much like my mother that I know they would be reveling in secrets and shared treasures. I tried to incorporate her sense of style, generosity and flair for occasion by bringing some celebratory touches to commemorate his successful first day of school. I bought him a new book about a dragon at school, wrapped it up as a gift, we went on a lunch date out at a favorite restaurant together and I just gushed over his big new accomplishment. Just what I thought my mom would have done for him. I enjoyed our celebration with a melancholy heart, knowing I was a poor substitute for a grandma and knowing how much she would have really loved being here for this and for all of these cherished moments.

     Of course the other downside to being mom and acting as a stand in grandma, is that it was difficult for my child to distinguish between the special occasion that we shared together when I was standing in as grandma and his everyday life. When I picked him up after the second day of school, he asked, “Do I get a present, today?” I said, “No honey, that was just a special celebration we had for the first day of school.” He said, “Does it have to be special or could it be our choice to make everyday a celebration?” I laughed to myself and thought about how much he sounds just like my mom. 

Sweets Eaten In Secret

Marc Twain observed that too much to drink is sometimes barely enough. Substitute chocolate, and you’ve got me covered. Midway in my eight-year adventure in the restaurant on the second floor of Levy’s, a venerable department store in Tucson’s first mall, their marketing department added a bakery just a few feet from our open entryway on the second floor. Insidious fans blew a luscious caramel aroma through the kitchen in the early morning hours, sweetly trumping the odor of roasting meats and sulfite veggie soak. Even more challenging to me, a glass and steel dessert case appeared one morning between my salad station and the wait-staff’s coffee counter.  Rows of tarts, éclairs and cookies reposed at eye level across the narrowest of counters. I resisted their sweet, sticky allure since I had recently lost my teen-aged chubby chipmunk cheeks and was not looking for their return. My resolve was tested daily as I was the one to re-stock the case. I would at times surreptitiously tilt the metal rack and watch the chocolate, or jellied treats slide slickly on their paper liners to my greedy lips, but I was generally iron-willed.

On a certain December Saturday something, a glistening dark chocolate glaze or gentle swell of custard, some promise of gastronomic ecstasy seduced me. I tucked three éclairs into their column, and ate the fourth, and the next, and the next—and the next. I fell, sticky and dizzy with sugar, into utter debauchery. Every time I heard a waitress slide the front case-door open, I’d nudge the back fellow closer to her side, and eat his comrade. Surrounded by tall stainless steel cabinetry, my stealthy decimation of the baked battalion proceeded unobserved. By day’s end, the éclairs MIA were in the double digits, and these were not dainty little finger-sized treats. I could not ride my bike home after work. I had to walk beside it, and was grateful in my glucose-drunken haze to have it as a rolling support.

When I finally got home, I rested my forehead on my crossed arms at the kitchen table for a while. My husband, Marc, was there waiting for our walk across Speedway to the neighborhood pizza joint for our weekly sausage and pepperoni, hold-absolutely-nothing fast food feast. Changing our pattern could provoke inquiry that might reveal my dissipation, so I weakly agreed, passing my lethargy off as just the result of an unusually hard day in the kitchen. I choked down enough pizza to avoid comment on an unusual lack of enthusiasm and again staggered home. I was so full I could not lie down and so hot that the winter night felt like an evening in hell. I paced around our tiny bungalow in equal parts of physical pain and anxiety that my gluttony would be discovered.  My shame was revealed when Marc awoke in the early hours to find me moaning softly and pressing my burning face against the cold glass of our bedroom window. The éclair affair passed into family folklore, and forever after, the offer of a cookie, brownie or any baked treat has been tagged with, “or would you like them all?”

Cafe Cubano

Café Cubano…one of my favorite gifts of the universe.

   I am a bit of a foodie. I notice when there is a drizzle of organic honey on my side of fruit, or fresh basil in my greens (Café Passe). I notice if you make your own bechamel and offer it on the side of my crepes (Café Marcel). I notice if you use a house infused liquor in my spicy margarita (La Cocina). When I am really intrigued by something then I have to perfect it on my own. This is the case with my version of Café Cubanos. Now, there are plenty of places in town to get a great Café Cubano; Café Passe, Caffe Luce, Raging Sage, Revolutionary Grounds and I am sure there are many others. Go out and explore on your own…I would recommend sticking to places that actually have it on their menu. I haven’t had much success when I have had to explain what a Café Cubano is to the barista, but if you’re brave go for it.

   The Café Cubano did in fact originate in Cuba. Shortly after Italian espresso pots arrived in Cuba, Cubans began tweeking their version of espresso. Today the term Café Cubano can mean a variety of drink types even in Cuba. The standard interpretation is espresso shots that have a small amount of sugar mixed into the espresso grounds before pulling the espresso shots. The sugar can be raw or demerara. Most likely, the original drink was made with small hunks of the woody ends of raw sugar cane and utilized the high pressure steam of the Italian espresso pots to extract the otherwise wasted sweetness. Ingenious and tasty!!

    Those of you who could not care less about food science can skip this paragraph and head down to the next paragraph about personalizing the finished product with local touches. I, however, am fascinated by food science. It’s all about the pot with Café Cubanos. You can use a big fancy espresso machine if such a device is readily available, I prefer my stovetop Moka Pot.  Any macchinetta will work. The key factor is that the high pressure steam will hydrolyze some of the sucrose, literally infusing your espresso with the fragrance and flavor of the sugar. The aroma of sweetness satisfies very deeply, you use very little sugar only a small sprinkling, but you get maximum performance from it.

   Here is my procedure for, in my opinion, the perfect Café Cubano. Start with freshly ground organic espresso roast beans. I like Raging Sage, Coffee Cartel or Caffe Luce for local sources, but there are also great organic roasters at the farmer’s markets. Fill the grounds basket of your stovetop espresso maker halfway with ground espresso. Sprinkle a little raw sugar and a dash of cinnamon onto those grounds. Then fill the basket the rest of the way with more espresso grounds. Reassemble your stovetop espresso maker, put it on the stove and turn on the fire. When all of the espresso is in the carafe, turn off the heat and pour your Café Cubano into a cup. Top it off with a dollop of freshly whipped cream and a sprinkle of cocoa. I use Desert Tortoise Botanicals Southwestern Cocoa, it has roasted acorn and a hint of mild chile. When I told you in an earlier blog entry that “Some days a giant plate of super spicy Huevos Rancheros with a Café Cubano is all you need to know about the gifts of the universe.” This is the Café Cubano I was referring to…I highly recommend you try it!!
http://www.cafepasse.com/
http://lacocinatucson.com/
http://www.ragingsage.com/

   

    

Josephine Heals

My Shaman, Josephine.

    My grandmother who lived to be 99 used to tell me that anger caused cancer and that grief would make your body older than your years.  She meant these things literally, that the body suffers and holds onto emotions you refuse or are unable to process and that by doing so your body becomes damaged and susceptible to disease.  Despite her sage advice I still developed some unhealthy habits.  Like any habit good or bad, it was mostly through negligence or convenience that I quit taking time to deal with my emotions.  It is true that I suffered through some traumatic experiences and that when I even considered trying to process all of it; I imagined digging myself out of an avalanche.  As a mother, and thankful beyond words to be one, I also felt that it would be selfish to take time away from my family just so I could grieve.  There are probably a multitude of rationalizations to insert here, but the reality is a habit is a habit, and I made a habit of shoving my pain down as far as it would go.  Until I couldn’t breathe.  I spent months visiting allopathic professionals for a host of ailments; pneumonia, pleurisy, bronchitis, injured and bleeding bronchia.  Each diagnosis brought more medications, but little relief.  I was on steroids and using inhalers to breathe at all. I started suffering panic attacks, waking in the middle of the night scared and unable to breathe.  In order to breathe at all while I slept, I had to sleep sitting up propped by pillows. Meanwhile, my immunity completely dissolved. As an early childhood educator, I was suffering from every sickness that came through my classroom; pink eye, strep throat, sinus colds and infections.

    Josephine offered to help me.  Josephine heals with therapeutic massage.  That however, is only one of the many paths to healing that she offers.  Josephine began my process of healing by connecting with my energy to interpret how to balance me with the support of essences; at a microbial level and at an energetic level.  She also worked to open my chakras. I have had people work on my chakras in the past, but I have never had an experience like this. Josephine used a combination of touch and vocalization. Her voice is hypnotic, like the sounds of ancient tribes wailing to your soul. As she worked, I was able to see huge, multi-faceted jewels before me. They seemed more made of light than of beryl. As Josephine worked through the chakras the jeweled lights changed colors, but remained huge and spinning before my eyes whether my eyes were opened or closed. Her vocalizations carried me through many healing spaces. I felt as if I was moving through time and space, long gone caves and hogans and huts, but I always felt safe and nurtured. When Josephine found one of the biggest pockets of stored up grief she stopped and we discussed several approaches to healing me. She gave me descriptions of how each approach might feel and how I might feel. This mass of unresolved emotions was literally crushing my lungs. I could not breathe. I chose one of the more intense paths that Josephine offered me. Rather than peeling away pieces slowly like layers of an onion, I asked if we could, metaphorically, take a railroad spike and crack it open like a coconut.

   After my first treatment with Josephine we made a plan for my continued healing. It’s been several months since that  first session. My lungs are healed and I no longer use inhalers or steroids to breathe. My body is stronger and I sleep peacefully, lying down on only one pillow. I have made some other changes in my life, my lifestyle and my health habits.  The main thing I notice is that the overwhelming sense of dread and fear that accompanied all of the health problems, is gone as well. I start my days optimistically and feel peaceful often.  I know I still have some repair work to do for this broken body and broken soul, but I have found a Shaman who is going to help me with that.

www.rememberingharmony.com