WALKING ON THIN ICE

To inhabit, comfortably

I’m a honey junky for you, baby. I’m a honey junky for you all the time. I’m a honey junky for your monkey, baby.

– – –

I am awkward, even around established friends. One of my bathtub books is a collection of stories about Zen monks, and in one of the stories a monk says that when he has visitors he acts the same as if he were going about his normal routine. One of the things I’m trying to do is just settle down inside, unclench, say the words that are on my mind (within reason), and allow silences. I’ve noticed that I’m compelled to fill gaps of a few seconds with words and it’s too often confessional stuff. (Is everything ‘true’ a confession?) On the other hand this rush to create spoken words can be stimulating as I am so often locked up inside my brain, too cautious, afraid something’s going to slip out that can be taken the wrong way, afraid of causing pain, afraid of appearing anything other than caring. I see myself bobbing my head up and down, smiling too much, being too ingratiating. Or if a point isn’t fully expressed in my head, I panic about it. If I drop the ball two ‘paragraphs’ back in a conversation, I panic about it.

Balance is what I need, I guess, and ease. To just unclench and let things unfold or not unfold as they will. To not calculate, but to just inhabit and be. To *not* try to make everyone feel comfortable (which can too often suffocate and demean, creating victims rather than beneficiaries.)

Writing a lot lately & going with it, though it all seems like tracing my fingers in the sand only to have it obliterated by waves. Writing as a dance, work as a dance, life as a dance. Steve has a line in one of his poems, “Work rolling rock returning, dirt burning.”

Lady

I WANT TO CONVEY TO YOU

I want to convey to you my magnificence but it is lost like a diamond in coal, like a vein of gold in a mountain. Somewhere in that there mountain is a vein of gold called ‘Lady’s magnificence’ and I ain’t got the gumption to extract it. I got blood veins, I got the thoughts I come acrosst, I remember the angry hubris of my youth and the long years descent into satisfaction with my inaction, like they say about water trickling down or current following the path of least resistance. Sometimes I draw a breath, a wave in my way heaves me over and a miracle falls into my hand, a stone in the palm from God. I don’t believe in God, I just talk to him, some kind of residual cultural residue. God’s what we fall back on when we gotta talk to the universe and blame someone for it. These words mean nothing but it feels good to talk. It feels good to get things done, to have a task, to know you’re checking things off the checklist. Checklist checking was a way of life for me for thirty years & it’s something to fall back on, the assumed role of being a good wife n daughter n all. The roles are there for our ease, they can be easy, they can be obstructions. If you got gumption you gotta make yr own role, and that’s hard. Having freedom’s hard. Somewhere I am free and I have tapped my vein of gold blood. Somewhere there’s a ghost of me, a projection of what I coulda been if I’d just tried a little harder and not fallen like water.

Lady

eDieting

Here I am at a poetry reading circa 2002:

Here I am circa now at a peace/poverty march/rally:

Someone recently asked me to share the ‘secret’ to my weight loss.

I first joined eDiets.com in 2000. My weight had ballooned to almost 300 pounds. I lost 80 pounds with eDiets over the span of two years, and then my eating habits were significantly changed, enabling me to continue losing weight off the plan. I finally got down to ‘normal’ weight in 2005.

I’m now 5 pounds overweight, but I’d like to be super trim for once in my adult life. My goal is to lose 25 to 35 pounds.

Deciding what to eat has become baffling lately. I can’t think past a couple meals in a grocery store, which means I have to go shopping a couple times a week. I’m prone to eating out because it’s such an ordeal to make decisions. It’s distressing and expensive.

Last Tuesday I signed up for eDiets.com again. I’m letting the online meal planner decide everything. It creates a weekly meal plan complete with recipes and shopping list. It’s customizable. If I don’t like a meal, I can select a new one from a list of a couple hundred recipes.

There are a dozen or so ‘types’ of diets on eDiets such as low carb, high fiber, glycemic diets, and more. I’m using the basic eDiets plan. It’s low fat and fills me up on vegetables.

I credit eDiets with changing my lifestyle by teaching me how to cook and eat more healthfully. I’ve lost 150 pounds, and kept it off for four years. I can’t recommend eDiets enough.

Lady