poetic poem

Poetry

 

Braided, spun, coiled in ritual

Silk, Yucca, Willow, Wool

Strand by strand

Earth-stained fingers and fibers bind

Pattern, art, story, function

Strand by strand

Vessels to carry and celebrate

Swaddled newborns, elders’ tales

Strand by strand

Shouts, tears, and laughter snagged

Woven moments

Strand by strand

 

Reflection and Projection

I have always failed miserably at celebrating the New Year’s holiday in a proper fashion. Last night was no exception; I climbed into bed at 10:30pm mountain standard time, read for a short while  and was asleep before 11:30. I justified the early to bed New Year’s eve by telling myself the ball had already dropped in Times Square – the climax of the Dick Clark New Year’s special – and that I had watched fireworks fill the sky over Sydney’s famed opera house on CNN.com hours before. What more was there to wait up for?

So here it is, 2009. I have no New Year’s resolutions to pursue, no remains from a party to clean, and no hangover to nurse. I got up this morning and tended to the pets then finished washing the stack of dishes I had given up on last night. One might say the year slipped by me unnoticed. I disagree. I am a firm believer that the human mind can settle into the past or future and miss the moment of life one is living all too easily. Therefore,  364 days out of the year I strive to be present focused; to live mindfully in the moment. Yesterday, I took a break from the present and took stock of the past and looked toward the future and today I feel a bit more reset on my path through life.

While I may not have stayed up to watch the clock pass from the last minute of 2008 to the first minute of 2009, I did commemorate the passing of time in my own way.  I took some time on Dec. 31, 2008 to reflect on the ending year – the challenges, the suprises, the happy moments – and of course, I dabbled in some day dreaming of hopes and expectations for 2009. I decided 2008 had been a calmer year than its recent predecessors- less life changes, more answers to the question marks even a solid plan in life leaves in its wake. Sadly there seemed to be fewer adventures this year than last, as money and time were tighter than usual. And yet in their place was a clearer picture of stability and serenity and more adventures in the not so distant future. I made my annual list of personal criticisms and goals for self-change. On that great scale of immaterial have and have nots, I weighed in heavily on the haves.  I marked the landmark events that I have to anticipate in 2009 in red pen on the calendar. And of course, I anxiously await the unknowns of what 2009 will hold and how it will shape my ever-changing plans in life.

For me, the New Year’s holiday is a time to examine the past and revisit goals for the future. I look at myself as a token piece on a board game. I examine the path I’m on and know this a chance to exchange the cards in my hand, to review my strategy, to pick up my piece and move to a different path if I choose. And then I acknowledge the luck of the draw and the chances that come with rolling the dice.

 

Holiday Jitters

My symptoms started shortly before Thanksgiving and have been gaining strength ever since. It started with a seemingly innocent bowl of Hershey’s kisses in our office. As the kisses began to dwindle, more sweets filled the bowl in their place. Then of course there was the fateful Thanksgiving dinner, which for my family included 4 pies and a batch of persimmon pudding distributed among eight people! Over the three weeks since Thanksgiving, my work place has been in constant supply of fresh, home-made goodies either displayed on our secretary’s desk for the taking or sitting in my box concealed in tidy little packages with notes of holiday cheer and nothing but a flimsy ribbon separating me from the treats within. Alas, it is the holiday season and I am running on sugar and trying not to crash.

A month-long sugar rush in and of itself is survivable with few side-effects. There have been years when I have experienced and truly enjoyed the holidays in a sugar-induced hypo-manic state. However, the confounding effect of the chaos of the holiday season, the end-of-the-year rush, and my propensity of anxiety makes for a jittery holiday season this year. So why don’t I stop eating the sweets you might say – and I agree it would be a wise thing to do. However, I have been roped into sugar at a biological level.

If I go several hours without a bit of something sweet, my blood sugar crashes and on comes the light headedness, fuzzy thinking, weakness in my limbs, and general irritability. So I eat the foil-wrapped chocolate nugget, the cookie, the slice of egg nog bread, the fudge, and I feel an instant buzz through my veins. My thoughts speed up and race ahead causing me to get lost in whatever I am trying to focus on in the moment. My heart pounds and my startle response becomes easily triggered leading me to believe I should be worried about something. And of course, there is plenty to worry over during the holidays; there’s shopping for presents, sending out cards, making food, criticizing myself for eating too much food, traveling, end of the year duties at work, making sweets for work…the list goes on.

And so here I sit – my right leg bobbing like a sewing machine needle and a cup of hot coco nearby – trying to focus on wrapping up this ramble. Of course, this jittery feeling isn’t just about worrying. As a child I remember being wound up for weeks on candy-canes and the excitement of Christmas. The sugar fueled my anticipation of a day when I got to stay in my pajamas, eat my favorite foods and get new toys then travel to my grandparents’ house for more presents and fun with my cousins. I still feel that anticipatory energy flowing through me and building as each sweet week passes between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This time of year is a time of self-indulgence and sharing with others; and sugary treats have become a tried and true means for both. Thus, my sweet holiday jitters are fueled  not just by worries but by the excited anticipation of visiting with family, exchanging gifts, welcomed time off from work, days of lounging around in my PJs, and bundling up to play in the snow.

 

painting with words

After a thorough search of all the obvious and not so obvious places I thought the cord for my camera’s battery charger might be; and several weeks of waiting in hopes that it would turn up on its own – I’ve decided to face the harsh reality that I am and will continue to be cameraless until I can afford to replace my point-and shoot camera with a DSLR set-up. (I won’t bore you with my reasons for not buying a new battery charger, but trust me, I know it’s an option and I’ve decided not to opt for it). Knowing that I cannot capture the spectacle of the Colorado Rockies in the Fall on film (or pixels as it would be) I will have to fall back on the time-honored tradition of words to tell their beauty. After all, writing is an art. For weeks, the mountainsides have been taunting me with their intricate color-blocks – daring me to blogg about them without a camera to back me up. Today, I’m taking the challenge.

The mountains always have an assortment of color on display if you know where to look for it. Aspens’ bright green leaves and long, lean trunks of off-white bark splice the dense hunter green boughs of the evergreens. An occasional blue spruce adds yet another hue. Further down, the rough reddish brown bark of pinon pines add yet another variation in color as their branches display their own hue of green needles – sparser than the evergreens further up the slope – they spread their needles in thin dangling clumps off their long branches so that patches of grey granite and the lighter greens of the mountains’ shrubs peak through. Closer to the forest floor, the flora are greatly varied from grasses to shrubs to those precious flowers that remain sparse but present until the harsh frosts set in- purple Columbines, red Indian Paint-Brush, blue and white Western Blue Flag. In all but the spring season, the color these small plants add to the mountain are a gift for those eyes who venture into the forest and walk under the trees. From mid-summer to early Fall the granite caps of these great mountains touch the sun emitting a steel-grey appearance or are lost in the white and grey of passing clouds. Iron-rich cross-cuts of rocks sliced by the glaciers of the ice-age, tower above tree line adding their own mark of color to the mountain. The rest of the year, these peaks on down to their basins are a bright white. But again, these colors are seen only when you look for them.

In the fall, the mountains put their colorful quilts on display; hanging blocks of yellow, red, orange, and green on their great slopes. It starts slowly – a patch of green turning to gold on a single Aspen branch, a scrub-oak exchanging its water conscious green leaves for the efficiency of orange and red. Then suddenly, the mountainsides catch on fire – gold, orange, and red dominate but they cannot subdue the dark green patches of the evergreens who hold their ground. A single tree or shrub stitches an array of color to make its block on the grand display. Patches of snow begin to fill-in rocky grey peaks. And slowly, the sun rises later and sets earlier, the air becomes more temperate but with a chill, and brown begins to take the place of color in all but the evergreens.

 

Wrinkles

Glance through any form of media – television, magazines, newspaper ads – and the message is clear: we must take a preemptive strike against aging by using any number of potions, peels, lasers, and surgeries.

A brief story from real life: I visited a department store make-up counter before my wedding last year (note I was 26 then) to pick up the some of the basics for the big day and before I knew it I was being offered anti-aging cream along with another, specialized ointment to address the wrinkles the cosmologist had noticed forming at the corners of my eyes. She went on to warn me about other areas of my face that were gaining crease lines and would turn into wrinkles soon if I did not start on an age-defying skin care regiment. When I declined to purchase any of these magic liniments the cosmologist appeared dumbfounded.

I don’t think her reaction was due to money lost on the sale (since I had not bought make-up in over five years, I had accumulated quite the tab just sticking to foundation, blush, mascara, etc). I think it was my lack of fear that threw her for a loop. After all she had held up a magnifying mirror to point out areas of concern. Couldn’t I see the crease marks? Didn’t I know they’d get worse? 

What is frightening to me is the thought of my body not aging with me; to grow to be a stranger in my own skin. I want some one to look at me  when I am 70 – really look at me – and as I tell my story, see my words reflected by the creases on my face, the cracks and calluses on my hands, the uneven pigment of my skin, the tough soles of my feet, my sagging breasts, and the youthful yet wise gleam in my eyes. I want people to know that I have laughed in the sun many times in my life, that I have squinted, that I have cried, that I have walked barefoot on grass, dirt, and rocks, that I have raised children of my own, and that I am proud. I want people to look at me and see that I have lived a rich life. I want people to look at me when I am 70 and see me. I want people to acknowledge that I’m growing old and  to respect me as an elder.  I want to feel beautiful in my own skin. Along with that, I feel the need to mention that I am terrified of the sun damage I have done to my nose and hope that I get off the hook without skin cancer in 40 years. I’ve learned the importance of keeping my skin hydrated in the arid regions of the southwest I’ve called home and to take care to apply a good slathering of SPF to all visible skin before going outside. However, my concern for my skin as I age stops there.

Some may argue that at 27, I am too young to be writing on the topic of aging; I beg to differ. Cosmetic companies spend a great deal of money on advertisements targeting women in my age group – those women who have not yet begun to show the tell-tale signs of age but who soon will.  If you are wondering why I chose to address aging in relation to women verses men, it’s because American society has created a strong gender bias on the matter. Celebrities are a wonderful illustration of this. As men age, they are often regarded as more dignified, mature, and distinguished and can still be considered attractive, in fact some are regarded as more attractive the older they get. Aging actors still get lead roles: the sex scenes, the action (a few names to prove my point: George Clooney, Sean Connery, Paul Newman). Aging actresses go from leading seductive ladies to the the leading lady’s mothers, the executives, the politicians – ie. the roles without sex appeal; or they simply fade away, appearing in fewer and fewer films (a few more names: Meryl Streep, Susan Surrandon, Glen Close). But it is not just Hollywood that sends this message; a quick look at the marketing demographics for companies selling anti-aging products reveals that it is women, not men, who they expect as customers. And that brings me back to why I – at 27 – have a very valid reason for writing on the topic of aging.

 

The best things go first

If we make time in our busy schedules to enjoy ourselves . . .

This sentence can end one of two ways (1) rationally: If we make time in our busy schedules to enjoy ourselves we will feel more energized, relaxed, and ultimately be more productive and content. (2) the catch-22: If we make time in our busy schedules to enjoy ourselves we feel guilty for not attending to “more important things” and worry that we won’t have enough time to get things done.

Since my husband and I moved to town three months ago I have found many justifications for my lack of getting out to explore the plethora of surrounding mountain peaks, passes, and valleys. Namely that I’ve busied myself with as much work as the company I am a “causal worker” for could offer or when not working, I’ve been overwhelmed with self-imposed guilt for working less than part time. That is not to say that I have been wasting my work-free time.  This June my husband and I relocated from several hundred miles away, so I spent a good month making our rental property feel like home and then figuring out where I’d put various odds and ends in the fluster of unpacking. Then there were the daily tasks – such as banking, washing the dog, calling customer service lines and waiting on hold, registering vehicles, changing and washing bed linens – that usually make up a never-ending to do list; only I had time to get them them done. Which reminds me of an interesting article I came across on CNN.com about a growing trend of stay-at-home wives (not moms). After having the chance to take care of all the errands, phone calls, house maintenance, and even cooking good, complete meals without the added demands of a job, I can agree with the couples interviewed in the article that my being home took a layer stress off of the marital relationship. Evenings were a time to unwind not take care of household business. However, I happen to be one of those individuals whose productivity increases in direct proportion to the demands placed upon me. In other words, working is good for me. Staying home is not. I found that as items got crossed of my to-do list (which never ended), my wish-list of places to hike and bike grew with little accomplished. It didn’t take long before leaving the house to do anything for myself seemed unreasonable, selfish even. I mean, if I didn’t have full-time job should I really be allowed to go wondering into the mountains for a day of bliss?

I plunged into a state of tunnel vision, fixated on the stress of unsteady employment; blocking out the fact that the bills were getting paid, my husband kept saying I should get out and enjoy my time, that I’m still in grad school and will soon be working for 30 hours a week as an unpaid intern and won’t have free time to fret about. Yes, all of these sparkling details failed to enter my mind. Instead my summer explorations sunk into a pool of dismal, listless thoughts.

Why is it that people tend to give up what they enjoy most, the things they find solace in, the things they call fun, when stress strikes? Studies show time and time again that indulging in the little things that bring you joy is one of the best ways to counter stress and depression. In fact, a popular homework assignment given to clients in cognitive behavioral therapy is called “pleasant events scheduling.” There is no secret to it; this highly effective therapeutic treatment boils down to taking time to do something enjoyable which can range from taking a hot bath to allowing yourself 30 minutes of reading the newspaper while still in your pajamas on a Sunday morning. Yet people pay big-bucks to therapists for such a prescription. After all, if they have to have fun in the name of therapy it’s okay, right?

So here I am, nearing the end of my ramble with biting sarcasm and faced with a sobering question: why have I allowed my justifications, fears, and stress to take over my fun and perpetuate negativity? I’m a therapist, I should know better!

The good news: I couldn’t come up with an answer to the above question, so after staring at the screen for several minutes trying figure out how to end this post, I hit “save,” closed my laptop and picked up my hiking guide to the San Juans.

Keep a checking in, I should have pictures (and commentary of course) to post after my hike tomorrow.

P.S. Went for a lovely bike ride this evening on a trail I hadn’t been on before. 30 minutes of fun for myself.

 

A&W

A week after my husband and I took an impromptu right turn onto Route 550 S headed toward Farmington, NM in search of reasonably priced dog food, a giddy feeling still lingers along with the timeless taste of an A&W root beer float. Some people might say I lead an awfully boring life if a spontaneous trip to a Sam’s Club on the outskirts of a city of 38000 and a stop at a fast food restaurant energizes me and feels indulgent. I like to think it’s a testament to my abilities to revel in the small things and live beyond the boundaries of my day-planner (which has become my phone now that I’ve gotten the hang of the keyboard). Besides, Sam’s Club has everything including a people watching forum that can entertain me for hours.

The idea of a trip down to Farmington formulated itself on the 4 mile drive between a local pet supply store  and Walmart. I would much prefer to support a local business but the $20-a-bag price difference we were facing is half a week of groceries for this student; around this destination town, supporting local businesses requires a graduate degree. As we approached the right turn lane that snakes down to the enormous Walmart parking lot, I voiced my longing for a Petco at which we could use our rewards discount (a leftover from our city-living days in Utah just a a few months ago). That longing quickly turned into the decision to head to the Farmington Petco, which led to a sharp swerve out of the turn lane. We soon realized that the reward had not be “activated” but by that point, we had already rationalized many other reasons driving forty-five minutes out of our way made sense and off we went.

I watched in fear as the temperature displayed on my car steadily increased and the landscape around us changed from green mountainsides to dry, brown mesas. I was headed into the desert in late July wearing jeans! While that added some discomfort, it also added to my giddiness in being spontaneous, and eventually my uncharacteristic enjoyment of Sam’s Club’s air-conditioning. Without a doubt, it added to my craving for an A&W root beer float.

As we drove across the New Mexico state-line and through Aztec, I noticed a lot of mom-and-pop restaurants lining the road. A particularly disturbing restaurant sign showed a pig holding a knife and fork with a napkin tied around its neck. You can make you’re own interpretation of the sign but the way I see it either they were suggesting their patrons eat like pigs or that they serve delicious pork chops. I’ve been told a bit further down the road there is a great milkshake joint; it will certainly warrant a stop on our next trip through Aztec. Last Monday however, I was captivated by a fast food restaurant: an old fashion A&W drive-thru complete with window trays for your curb-side dining convenience.  

classic A&W in Aztec, NM

It was clear the facade of the restaurant had not been changed in decades. My mind got to wondering: When was it built? How many generations of Ford pick-ups has it served? Did the waitresses serve you on roller-skates when it first opened? I chuckled as I handed my debit card out the car window to our waitress – how long had it been since I stopped carrying cash?

As I developed stories about the old A&W and it’s former patrons and employees in my head, I couldn’t help but think the rest of Aztec probably hadn’t changed much in appearance or character over the last fifty years either. As with any place in the American Southwest, I’m sure it’s a bit denser in population and buildings but life still seems to move at a slightly slower pace than on the country’s coasts or in any city. Dust is an excepted part of life. Hard labor still earns a living for many but more money is always needed to pay the bills. I doubt it would take too long before you came upon a person whose family had lived in the town further back than records were kept; a person who could tell you who wasn’t at church on Sunday (and why) and the best place for a cup of coffee or a good burrito and what stool to park yourself on to overhear the latest town gossip.

I speculate these things based on the small town where I grew up in West Virginia. There, you went to someones home for a cup of coffee (there were no restaurants or cafes) and no-one ate burritos but you could – and still can – get fresh cut or ground meat for dinner or a great deli sandwich and all the town gossip at Chamber’s General store.

 

A measure of nerves and nails

About a month ago I broke a nail for the first time in years. And I’ll have you know that when that bit of nail ripped off it exposed a very sensitive patch of skin just beneath my fingertip and I suddenly understood why breaking a nail is such a big deal. After I finished nursing my finger, I stared at my hands and realized the nine remaining nails were quite long and inexplicably smooth. It didn’t seem quite right, so I gave my hands a second scan and sure enough, white tips extended over the rounded skin capping my fingers. I stared for a while longer pondering how this had come to be and further lamenting my broken nail because if not for it, I would having started digging through my archaic selection of nail polish for the perfect color with which to celebrate. Now I would have to wait at least a week and hope I didn’t break another nail.

This morning I gave my fingernails a quick trim and filed down some rough edges. I’m thinking I might go with a shimmering torquise but also like the idea of keeping it plain and versitle with a warm brown that will also hide the dirt that keeps getting caught under my nails. I’m still a bit clumsy if my nails get too long; opening a can of soda can be tricky, as can typing. How do secretaries with half-inch nails do it? That remains as mysterious to me as women who can walk in silettoes for hours and get up and put on another pair the next day. For my own sake, I stick to flip-flops and try to keep my nails trimmed even with the tips of my fingers; but the nail upkeep is all so new. Taking the time to trim and file still feels like a strange weekly addition to my hygiene routine but  I just don’t have the nerves to bite them anymore.

After over a decade of nail biting and futile attempts break the habit, it simply disappeared without any thought or effort. So what changed?  Most notably changes in where I live and what I do, which have slowed down daily life to a pace of living I find more comfortable.

This morning after my nails were trimmed, I went out front to water my flower bed and struggling tomato, pepper, and squash plants. When finished, I watched three humming birds chase each other around the feeder and through the tree. I was so close to them that I could see the multiple shades of green on their heads, the 3 cm wide fuchsia band on the male’s throat, even their feet. I didn’t know humming birds had feet. On the other side of the yard, I watched as my golden retriever toss himself from left to right, belly-up with a stick in his mouth getting in a good back scratch in the sun. “This is my life,” I thought, and felt a smile spread across my face.  Back inside, I sat with my coffee and a magazine and let my mind wander over tentative plans to run the river and go for a bike ride today. Plenty of time and little pressure to do both.  Being able to take time to have fun and not feel like I should be doing something else – that has helped my nails grow.

I also like to think that I’m doing a better job of managing the stress that is still around, mostly by practicing mindfulness but also acceptance and an assortment of strategies that I often suggest my clients try but have only recently tried myself.  Every day I working on taking deep breathes, acknowledging and accepting that I can only do one thing at a time, not thinking too far beyond the present, looking for the little things that calm me, letting go of what I can’t control, and most importantly finding quiet moments to sit and be still.

Thus I’ve reach the real point of this ramble – my nails are one measure of many that show that I have started to shed stress and anxiety that I have carried with me for many years. And that I have done so and noticed it through the simple things that so often get forgotten in the rush of daily life.

 

Mosquitoes

Unsolved Mystery: What is the function of mosquitoes? Why do they exist?

The biological/evolutionary/ecological value of mosquitoes escapes me. They may play role in pollination and certainly provide many animals with a source of food; but many other species accomplish both of these tasks. In the case of animals who eat mosquitoes, it is estimated that the mosquitoes only make up 1% of their food source.  What then is so special about mosquitoes? Surely they must have some redeeming factor that has left them in the evolutionary pool. What that factor is, I can’t tell you.

When it comes to an encounter with a mosquito, I view it as a battle of fittest; self-preservation if you will. I swat, clap my hands in an attempt to kill them in midair, and if need be I will engage in bizarre dancing, hopping, and running behaviors. I even go to such extremes as to use Deet to keep these beasts at bay despite the fact that this chemical substance once melted part of my shoe and a leather knife sheath when it spilled in my bag. I would rather put a plastic-eating chemical on my skin than have a mosquito land on it. After a battle with mosquitoes, I retreat to the great indoors, survey my wounds and reach for the Benadryl. As I drift into an antihistamine-induced slumber, I can’t help but wonder, “why do mosquitoes exist?”

 

Technicalities

For the first time in my Generation X life, I picked up one of the many manuals that came with my new cell phone and started reading. Maybe it is a right of passage. Perhaps it is a sign that I am ready for parenthood; for kids to walk into the kitchen, grab whatever new gadget has arrived and have it programmed and upgraded within minutes while I sit back, exasperated from trying to pry the gadget out of layers of adult-proof packaging. Sign or no, what this incident has confirmed is that technology has rounded a bend that surpasses my technological intuition.

 By no means did I ever describe myself as a techie, or even believe that I was technologically savvy. There are many aspects of blogging that are still out of my league; yet I got a blog up and running. For the most part, if a new computer, printer, dvd player, cell phone etc came into my life, I had it up and running with basic features without having to read a page.

That all changed yesterday when I had to open the “quick start guide” to figure out how to turn on my new cell phone. It reminded of the Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie, in the recent Sex and the City movie, when she is handed an I-phone and responds, “I need something with buttons.”  I was desperately searching for a way to make familiar buttons appear on the gigantic, blank screen as I talked to a very patient – and no doubt amused – Verizon Wireless customer support operator.

Stack of manuals and box of software and accessories for new phone. Picture take with new phone!

Once I found the on/off button and figured out how to display the number pad and navigate the menu on my phone I was off and running. As of this morning, I have downloaded all of my contacts from my old phone to the new one, set my ringtone back Earl Scrugg’s Foggy Bottom Breakdown, checked my e-mail, sent two text messages, and made and received phone calls. Yet I am certain there is more bewilderment to come. I have only read the Quick Start Guide and a few pages into the thinner of the two thick manuals. A USB cord and a CD-Rom that apparently have some significant relationship to my phone still lay in the box, swaddled in packaging. I think I will save those for another day when I have to time to wade through more technical writings. Today I will savor my successes.