food

This organic life

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house

I need to put the hummingbird feeder out. The birds are due any day now or perhaps they’re already here and snubbing us because I haven’t put the feeder out.

This thought arises suddenly and makes me think of the miscellany of my to-do list. It is rich and shapeless, everything wanting to be done at once.

Sitting on the porch, watching the colorful birds of spring (indigo buntings, siren-yellow finches, rose-breasted grosbeaks) and wood ducks looking for a nesting place in our woods—this is high on my spring to-do list. Alas there is no water on our property so it is not prime wood duck real estate but they come looking every year because we have great tree holes. We also have a hawk nest this year so beware, little birdies.

Wood nettle shoots are at their prime. I must go out and snip another bagful. I took a mess of nettles to a church potluck yesterday (steamed briefly, tossed with olive oil, garnished with violets). Every year I introduce more people to this spring delicacy. It takes some faith to bite down on plants that will sting like crazy if you grab them raw but immersion in a hot bath makes them sweet and safe. I don’t like the more common ditch nettles, however. See my post last year on this.

Having dreams is on my weekly agenda. The only preparation I can make for the communal dreaming class I am conducting for nine weeks at church is to have dreams myself, and I don’t have a lot of control over that. As it turns out, I often don’t even bring up my own dreams because other people’s dreams fill the hour. The dreams are rich and amazing and reveal their meanings as we talk about them. I discover again that I am quite good at helping people interpret their dreams. Some shared images appear in our dreams. Speculating about what this means.

I am praying daily for friends of a friend who are being held captive in a foreign land. This requires making time and place for the prayer to be received (that is, knowing what I should pray) and offered. It is not a prayer to be breathed at my desk although I do that, too. I usually go out with the trees, to get their help.

Helper trees

Helper trees

I am thinking through and consulting others about aspects of a partnership between my congregation and a congregation in Kinshasa that I know well from two visits there last year. Especially, how do you address or get around the vast economic differences without opening great cans of worms? I write up a proposal and send it off to a few people for vetting. This is difficult and necessary headwork in a project that is, for the most part, a work of joy and spiritual enrichment.

I am deciding what to do about biking. What would it feel like to give it up? Why did I have a sudden surge of jealousy when Vic asked how I would feel if he decided to buy a new bike (and I didn’t)? On the other hand, why am I enthusiastic about the idea of funding scholarships for Congolese students instead of buying a new bike? Sorting out my own feelings. Sorting out the state of my body as well as my spirit.

I just arranged for an energy healing session to address my recurrent UTIs, which have now become resistant to most antibiotics. This is related to the biking question because I can’t afford to keep having UTIs and biking seems to instigate them sometimes.

And it relates, in turn, to dreams, because I had a dream in which energy healing was being done on an Atlantic beach. I was to take my turn at healing and being healed before even putting a foot in the water. The ocean represents Soul waters for me. Also, the Atlantic links us to Africa, so perhaps it is a reference to my next trip to Congo.

That trip is taking shape and moving up on the to-do list. I may post about that soon.

Maybe my to-do list is not shapeless so much as organic, one thing merging into another and branching into yet others.

Celebrations, shopping, setbacks

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Last week was the 44th anniversary of my marriage to the tall, lean, shy cute guy. He is still tall and lean. He is much less shy than he was when we were 24. And he is even cuter. I really lucked out.

We celebrated in Chicago. I went with him for his weekly 3-day work stint and shopped for new clothes while he worked. The way I look at it, his anniversary present to me was the new clothes. Mine to him was looking good in them.

He’s not here right now so I can’t show you how good we both look.

In the evenings we dined out, totally busting out of our vegan gluten-free regime. I did not count Weight Watchers points last week. Consequently my weight rebounded a bit, a minor setback. The pleasure was worth it. I am happy to get back to simple high-veggie, low fat this week.

I’m not complaining but the shopping was hard work. The first day I went to Oak Brook Mall, my old favorite. It was torn up for relandscaping. It was raining. And it was a case of the usual overabundance of bad selections. I have trouble with overchoice, with finding the gem on the rack of garish. Give me a small shop filled with my kind of clothes.

But I dutifully trudged through every department store and every possibly appropriate shop, selecting a few things here and there. The most thrilling purchase? New bras perfectly, professionally fitted! (Too much information? Stop reading, guys.)

At the very end I found the little shop that had my kind of clothes, J. Jill. I didn’t buy much because I was already shopped out. I found the essential black knit dress I’d been looking for to wear under my Congo Cloth jackets, linen crop pants, and a pink linen shirt. Now I know where to go online to look for simple, well-made clothes. Most important, I’ve tried on their sizes.

The second day was more fun. It was sunny. I spent it in my old stomping ground, Oak Park, where we’d lived for nearly 30 years, visiting old shops and new. I didn’t buy all that much–cute shoes at DSW, bargain tees at my familiar Gap. I found a new swimsuit at the Sports Authority where we’ve always shopped. I made a run to Trader Joe’s for tea and wine and to Olive & Well for black current balsamic vinegar. When it comes to shopping I like some predictability.

By the third day I was getting a UT infection from too much rich food and wine and not enough water. That, too, is predictable. This is probably way too much information but it may be of interest to other UTI-prone old ladies who bike: The UTI, which I’d begun treating, got worse after I got out on the bike a few days later for my first ride of the season.

I fought this problem two years ago when I was training for a century. Do I want to have to deal with it again? I’ve been getting ready for a new bike but now I’m having second thoughts. Giving up biking would be a real setback.

Meanwhile, the real celebration is going on in the woods. Spring is busting out all over. I just want to sit and watch.

front porch

The view from my front porch

 

 

My Next Big Thing

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The truth is, I’ve hit a snag. Flow stopped, motivation gone, I am at a loss for what to do next. I’m retired, I can do what I want, but that is easier said than done. What do I want?

On this warmer but still gray afternoon in early April, with only a hint of green and hepatica (yay, hepatica!)  in the forest leaf cover, I feel like I have started a thought and lost it, mid-sentence. What were all these plans I had as recently as January 1? I had what I thought was a year’s worth of desires lined up. All I had to do was follow through.

hepatica

Yay, hepatica!

Maybe it wasn’t a year’s worth; maybe only three months’ worth.

No, that’s not quite right. Some of those plans are accomplished, ta-da, done! Or almost. I work really fast when I put my mind to it. Others are not yet fully executed. I have done the easy parts and many of the hard parts but now there are some really hard parts left and I am running out of steam.

In the accomplished column is the publication of a book that I thought I would never finish writing and revising, let alone publish. Ta-da, done! I did this much faster than I thought possible and had fun mastering self-publishing, which has come a long way in the last few years.

In the nearly accomplished category: weight loss. I thought I couldn’t do it and then I did it. Ta-da, goal in sight!

Yet to do: get back to biking. But I have made progress by finding the guy who will help me get on the right bike. I will visit that shop outside Detroit again in the next month. Meanwhile, I will start to toughen my butt on my old bike as soon as the conditions are right. (I require temps in the 50s or above but not too hot, no rain, not too much wind. Today is a tiny bit rainy and besides I already got my exercise at the Y.)

However, what is really bothering me on this too-open afternoon, making me feel like a cowardly, unmotivated lazybones, is that I haven’t yet started my Next Big Writing Project.

But come to think of it, that’s not true. I have started the project but it is not yet at the writing stage.

  • I think I know what it is. I want to write about Mennonites in Congo and the power of music and faith in some of the toughest circumstances on the globe.
  • Since making two trips to Congo last year, I have been working on developing a special relationship between my church here and a congregation in Kinshasa.
  • I have revived the Congo Cloth Connection to create relationships and fund projects for women and children in Congo–we’ll do another big cloth market at the Mennonite Church USA convention in Phoenix in July.
  • And I am starting to think about my next trip to Congo.

I am hung up on this last point, however, the next trip. This will be a trip I do entirely on my own except my husband will go with me this time. But no sponsoring project, no special occasion like a centennial celebration, no fellow travelers. I want to go to visit churches and listen to as many choirs as possible. I want to go to write. This would be a research trip for my Next Big Writing Project.

There is a gap between the desire to do a thing–go to Congo on our own and listen to choirs–and making that happen. It is in this gap that the desire begins to doubt itself. Do I want this badly enough to do everything it takes to make it happen? All the money, logistics, contacts needed to travel in that compelling, outrageous country. Just for me. Just to write.

I need to believe in myself both as a doer and as a writer in order to move off square one. I am writing this as a statement of intention. If you wish, hold me accountable. Cheer me on.

Cooking and shopping

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I went clothes shopping yesterday even though I had vowed not to until I reached my goal weight (~ 2 pounds to go). It was a case of spring fever, stirred not by the arrival of spring but by the continued failure of spring to arrive.

I tried to ward off the shopping urge by cooking up a couple of tasty things in the morning since my freezer stash of MREs (isn’t that what the military calls them? Meals Ready to Eat) was diminishing. For dinner I made a sweet potato–kale–chickpea stew that was a little disappointing. Too many sweet potatoes. I followed a recipe that I won’t use again so I will not pass it on.

For lunch I made up my own vegetable-barley soup and that was outstanding. Let’s see if I can remember what I put in it.

soup

Practical Mystic’s Vegan Borsch

Contrary to conventional wisdom, borsch does not have to contain beets. It is just good vegetable soup. However, every borsch I have tasted in Russian and Ukrainian households is scented with dill and includes cabbage, which is why this vegetable-barley soup tastes like borsch to me.

Chop and sauté in olive oil:

1 fat leek

2 cloves garlic

1/2 small cabbage

2 stalks celery

2 huge carrots

1/3 lb mushrooms

1 t. dried basil

1/2 t. pepper flakes or to taste

When leek and cabbage are wilted and you smell the mushrooms add:

2/3 cup barley

1 can crushed tomatoes

about 6 cups vegetable broth or to desired consistency

a bouquet garni of a few sprigs of fresh parsley and dill

Salt and pepper to taste

Simmer for half an hour or until barley is tender. Remove bouquet. Stir in more chopped fresh dill and parsley. If you’re not vegan you can serve it with a dollop of sour cream but it is really fine without.

Eating this soup for lunch with my husband just seemed to fortify my shopping urge, however, so I gave in and headed toward the outlet mall.

Confession: This is not the first time I’ve broken my vows and gone clothes shopping. However, on the first excursion 10 days ago to the nearest mall I saw absolutely nothing I wanted to wear. Truly. I am no fashionista but I apparently do not dress the way women in this region do. Besides, in the local stores the plus sizes, what they now call “Women,” are right out front, crowding out the size 10 petites that I hope to fit into. Sadly, obesity is the new normal in small-town northern Indiana and southern Michigan.

My fondest hope is to wear fitted little jackets. The local stores weren’t even showing fitted little jackets.

I came back determined to wait out the weight loss, go for a true spree in April to Oak Brook Mall near Chicago, and buy me some real clothes. But then I thought of the outlet mall in Michigan City, 35 minutes in the other direction, and I decided to just go look without any expectations at all.

Although there, too, many, many ugly clothes were on display, the veil was lifted from my eyes and I began seeing things I wanted to wear. I ended up buying a pair of jeans, a pair of dress pants (10P!), a little green top (M!) and not one but two fitted little jackets (12 but that’s okay) before I ran out of shopping steam.

Such irreverent preoccupations for Holy Week. We didn’t make it to the Maundy Thursday service but it was good to see the new Pope commemorating by washing the feet of juvenile delinquents. This evening we will go to Tenebrae, I promise.

No sign of spring except me

No sign of spring except me

 

I don’t eat any of that stuff

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I should write something spiritual for Holy Week but food is on my mind.

I am in the 147s this week, two pounds to go. This morning, however, I felt like eating and eating so I ate two pieces of GF toast with honey and coconut butter along with my smoothie. It was not hunger. It was loneliness and relief and any other emotion you can name. Heightened feelings of any kind can make me want to eat. Not always, not as much as they did six months ago, but often enough to remind me of the need for continued vigilance.

It helps to have eliminated whole categories of food from my diet–we’ve gone gluten-free vegan for Lent and perhaps, with some minor modifications, forever. I am no longer tempted by real bread. Meat has no appeal whatsoever though maybe some fish. As soon as I think about taking myself out to lunch to celebrate getting through a difficult conversation I think about wading through a menu of glutinous, cheesy, meaty gunk and say no thanks.

It is funny to see a big gloppy sandwich in a TV commercial and be tempted for an instant and then imagine biting into it and thinking, no, I just want a tiny slice of that sandwich, three bites. Really. The thought of eating the whole thing or even half of it is overwhelming. But it is bread and meat and cheese so I don’t have to even think about it.

“I don’t eat any of that stuff” is my new mantra. I was repeating it and laughing when my daughter-in-law was describing the perfect mac and cheese she’d had at a restaurant. There is a great sense of freedom in having liberated myself from even having to consider foods that I know are bad for me, and, progressively, from even the hunger for them.

The rewards are considerable. I continue to lose weight steadily and my cholesterol and Vic’s blood sugar and blood pressure are back within healthy range.

It is very much like giving up cigarettes (I speak from experience; I smoked for two years when I was old enough to know better). You may wish for a cigarette or a cheeseburger now and then but you just don’t want to go down that road. The hunger goes away if you don’t indulge it.

The difference with food may be that you can usually have a few bites of a bad food, if you really want it, because depriving yourself might make you want it even more. This is what most experts say and this is the Weight Watchers philosophy: Don’t deprive yourself.

I don’t totally buy that. Here is where narrowing down what I eat helps. If I feel like indulging myself I can usually find a substitute within the categories of food I allow myself–because self indulgence is really what it’s all about. Treats. Want a cheeseburger? How about, instead, a salad loaded with goodies like avocado and nuts and dried cranberries? Want a slice of Chicago-style pizza? How about, instead, two slices of Amy’s GF-DF Spinach Pizza with a glass of red wine?

Pulling this switch on myself reminds me of how I often handled my young children: how about playing with this set of measuring cups instead of that glass vase? The hungry little kid in me wants something but it doesn’t have to be a cheeseburger. This morning’s treat was the extra toast. It was enough. I stopped wanting to eat and eat.

So. No ham and scalloped potatoes for Easter. I don’t even want them. I may break the vegan fast and serve salmon with the usual grilled asparagus and maybe a pilaf and strawberries with whipped coconut cream and have two glasses of wine. That sounds like a feast to me.

First Things first

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There are so many things I have to do first thing in the morning.

I have to have my tea.

I have to have my breakfast and take my meds.

I have to have my fire in winter and it is still winter.

I have to satisfy my curiosity about the world and my friends.

I have to meditate.

I have to journal.

I have to do my alignment exercises.

That last thing, the alignment exercises, is the newest First Thing I’ve introduced into my morning but I’ve noticed that recently it has fallen by the wayside.

There is no order to these things; it’s more like, I have to do each one of these things first. So many morning urgencies.

When I look at this list I understand why the new morning practice of exercises has gotten lost. Why do I think I have to do them first thing in the morning? Because the guy who wrote the book said I should. “Do these exercises first thing in the morning so you get the benefits all day.” Of course.

Same thing with the journaling. I subscribe to Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages theory, expounded in The Artist’s Way: that writing just after rolling out of bed gets your creative juices flowing and of course if you have had dreams that is the time to get them down.

And I also believe that the day should begin with God because (apologies to God and Coke) Things Go Better with God. So I do want to meditate for 20 minutes. First thing.

However, if I listen to my sleepy mind and spirit and my chilly body, I really want that hot tea and warm fire first. And I have to take a daily pill before I forget and it has to go with food so I make and eat breakfast while I’m at it. So that’s three First Things right there.

fire

If Hazel were here she would trump all First Things but she isn’t and Vic isn’t and so today I have only the fire.

And if I open my computer to journal, how can I avoid checking email, news headlines, and Facebook? This is just normal human curiosity. Maybe this is why Cameron was pretty adamant about Morning Pages being written by hand. But The Artist’s Way was written pre-Facebook. She just thought creativity demanded handwriting. Not for me. I’ve been journaling on the computer for 15 years. This is especially important now because if I start journaling something cool I can ease right into writing a blog post, which is what I am doing right now.

So blogging inserts itself as yet another First Thing today. Plus, I really intended to carry the laundry basket down to the basement and start a load of laundry First Thing so it could dry on the racks during the day but by the time I’d pulled my clothes on and remembered to put in my hearing aids (another First Thing) I forgot the laundry.

laundry

Just as well because yet another First Thing was calling me as I looked out the window and saw yet another lake-effect snow decorating the landscape on this First Day of Spring and I just had to get that picture on Facebook First Thing, before anyone else did.

snow

And while I was taking pictures I noticed my iPad had captured a nice view of my kilim that didn’t show the dirt.

kilim

But before posting to FB I had to check if anyone else had posted the snow and they hadn’t, but I read what they had posted including some articles. And of course I checked email.

But before that I did make the tea and my breakfast smoothie (recipe below) and the fire so I could be warm and cozy and optimistic while I held my warm Mac on my lap, surfing and writing. And I shared a tiny bit of milk with the cat (whole milk for my tea is my daily deviation from my Lenten vegan diet).

So I have been up for a couple of hours and still have a number of First Things to do, including meditate.

Fortunately I don’t have to go to work anywhere or get any kids ready for school or walk down to a river to get water or any of the other First Things my sisters around the world have to do.

African

Photo by Kongo Lisolo

But I think I need to find another slot in the day for those alignment exercises. It’s almost lunchtime.

First Thing in the Morning Smoothie Which Tastes Better Than You Think

Blend in the food processor:

1 cup raw oatmeal

2 T ground flax or whatever healthy additives you are into (I add a green veggie energy powder which makes this smoothie ugly brown)

1 orange

a handful of berries (I like frozen blueberries)

some applesauce or a banana

a splash of whatever milk you are into, or unsweetened yogurt

This serves two, or you for two days. The oatmeal gets even thicker by Day Two.

Sugar time

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snowdrops

Suddenly the snow is melting. Spring may be almost here. The snowdrops thought it was coming in late January already but they had to endure who knows how many heavy snow blankets after that. Finally, here they are in all their glory, looking down at the mud.

Lots of mud. Mud is a special treat for our two-year-old, Hazel, who came to visit over the weekend with her mommie and daddy to help make maple syrup in my brother’s woods in northern Indiana. There was enough mud to make Hazel very happy, along with piles of slushy snow to tromp through, sap to sip direct from the tree, and syrup to guzzle warm from the cooker.

chips and mud

Unlimited chips! unlimited mud!

The heat makes everybody sleepy except Hazel. Safer to send her outside

The heat makes everybody sleepy except Hazel. Safer to send her outside

hanging out

Maple sugaring gives us something to look forward to in this northern, muddy end of winter/beginning of spring. The ground has to be a mess for the sap to run well—thaw by day, light freeze at night. It happens right around spring break. Even though I am impatient for warm weather, I wouldn’t trade a day in the sap shack with my family for a week in the Florida sun.

trees

My nephew Adrian is the fourth generation of our family to make syrup from these trees

My nephew Adrian is the fourth generation of our family to make syrup from these trees

When I go to the maple woods I bring food. Traditionally it’s brats, which we cook in sap on a potbelly stove, but this year I took a vegan soup and guacamole to go with more or less healthy chips. My oldest brother pretends to turn up his nose at healthy food but he did not complain at all about this soup. The large soup pot emptied over the afternoon, along with a goodly number of beer bottles.

Here is the recipe, which is my enhanced version of a chickpea-cashew soup recipe I got from a friend.

Practical Mystic’s Vegan Chickpea–Wild Rice Soup

3/4 cup raw cashews, soaked in water overnight and drained

1 cup dry chickpeas, soaked in water overnight and drained

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 large yellow onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, minced

3 ribs celery, thin sliced

2 large carrots, cut in chunks

1/2 lb. mushrooms, coarsely chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried rosemary

3/4 teaspoon dried thyme

1 teaspoon salt

Fresh black pepper

3/4 cup brown rice

1/4 cup wild rice

6 cups vegetable broth

4-6 cups chopped kale or spinach

In a stockpot over medium-high heat sauté onion, celery, and carrots in olive oil with a pinch of salt for about 5 minutes, until onions are translucent. Add garlic, mushrooms, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper and sauté until garlic and mushrooms are fragrant.

Add rice, wild rice, chickpeas, and broth. Bring to a boil, then cover and simmer until chickpeas and rice are tender, about an hour.

Meanwhile drain the cashews and place them in a blender with one cup of fresh water. Blend until completely smooth.

Add the cashew cream and greens to the soup after rice is tender and simmer until greens are wilted, 3 to 5 more minutes. You may need to add water to thin the soup if it seems too thick. Taste for salt and seasonings and let sit for 10 minutes or so to allow the flavors to marry.

It thickens as it cools, so if you are lucky enough to have leftovers, just thin with a little water when you reheat.

Lenten fast food

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“Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”

The phrase struck home when we were marked with ashes on Ash Wednesday. Vic had just received some bad numbers from his physical exam. His blood pressure and blood sugar were both elevated despite regular exercise, a healthy diet by most standards, and very little excess weight. And we’re 68. So we were thinking about mortality.

He was in the mood to try something drastic rather than go on more medication, so on Ash Wednesday he was already in the middle of a juice fast, glugging down the life-force from pounds and pounds of vegetables and a few fruits every day. Meanwhile, I’d become aware of my own sensitivity to wheat and dairy and we’d already cut back on that, though I usually kept some regular bread around for Vic. So some signs were pointing us toward vegan gluten-free.

The beginning of Lent presented an invitation to conduct a physical and spiritual experiment. Could we bring Vic’s numbers down by subtracting some foods rather than adding medication? Could this practice enhance our spirits as well as our bodies? Oh, and throw in consideration for the earth and the community, too, as well as each other.

Lent seems a time to experiment with being really, really good. It is not so much about giving up as bringing awareness and attention, preparing, making an offering. We are bringing awareness to the food we eat, consecrating it as the sacred gift that it is. We are bringing attention and respect to the sacred gift of our bodies. And we are preparing for the final stage of our life, which will end in our death.

How’s it going?

After less than a week of juicing and then vegan gluten-free, Vic’s blood sugar had dropped 22 points to near normal. No other dramatic physical changes to report–my weight loss continues at the same tortoise pace as before. But the physical experiment seems to be working.

The spiritual challenge is more interesting. Can I, the cook, produce abundance with a much more limited range of ingredients? What about hosting–that is, sharing such abstemious abundance with others?

I don’t like following recipes but I’ve had to look up a few to get started. I won’t even share them with you because I altered them hopelessly even the first time I tried and I can’t remember exactly how. My meals are like snowflakes–no two alike.  Taste until it’s good. But here is a site that got me putting together some interesting soups and stews. I tend toward one-dish things.

After 10 days neither of us is missing meat or anything else that we have “given up.” (Did I say we almost never eat soy, either? Because of the estrogens.) We are developing a new respect and gratitude for beans, grains, and veggies upon veggies. I have made a Lenten altar with my St. George icon, saint of the aggressive approach I guess. I offer some food there every day. A bowl of amaranth. The squash for the soup I made yesterday at a friend’s house.  A new hummus I figured out myself.

IMG_0846

George with weight-loss tortoises and quinoa

The other part of the Lenten offering is sharing with others. The friend, Sarah, had said last Sunday she was too busy to shop for and cook healthy meals so I offered to cook for her. Yesterday I took the ingredients for a roasted squash soup, vegan cornbread, and salad, and we cooked them up in her kitchen. It took a while. Lenten “fast” food isn’t fast.

And it wasn’t for everybody. Her husband praised the soup but he’d prepared a meat dish for himself because he couldn’t imagine a dinner without meat. I was outside my comfort zone trying unfamiliar recipes in someone else’s kitchen. I’m not sure they were up to my usual standards.

But this is less about standards than about trying, about offering and sharing and enjoying. We had a great evening. The gluten-free vegan no-soy Lenten fast is becoming the Lenten feast.

The bike fitter

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“I hope this isn’t a wild goose chase,” I said to Vic as we drove on a gusty February afternoon toward a tiny town north of Detroit. We’d driven the SUV rather than the preferred subcompact all the way to Ann Arbor for the weekend, for the family visit, in case we decided to carry back a new bike or two from this shop in this place we’d never been before after consulting this bike-and-movement expert whom we had never met.

Clarkston was an hour father from home than Ann Arbor. My commitment to this venture was wavering as the winter blasts buffeted the car. What a day to go bike shopping, and clear across the state of Michigan, at that.

But it wasn’t exactly bike shopping I was after. It was really the consultation. I wanted a new bike but I didn’t know what I wanted except the right one. I am ready to buy the bike I will ride for the rest of my life or as long as I can stay upright.

Our daughter had told me there was this guy who was a Tai Chi friend of her husband, Joseph, and his colleague, Sang, of the Ann Arbor Dojo Kitchen who did nothing but fit people to bikes.  I wasn’t sure what that entailed but I thought that was exactly what I needed. Although I couldn’t help thinking of the mythical host Procrustes, who invited unsuspecting wayfarers to spend the night in his iron bed, which would fit them perfectly. And it did–after he chopped off the guests’ limbs or stretched them to size.

Since we had a limited window of time for this and were driving all this way, I’d called ahead a few days earlier and made an appointment to be sure the expert-owner, Jeff Nofts, would be available. We arrived at Kinetic Systems in Clarkston a little early. “We’ve come a long way to see Jeff,” I said to the lean woman in the cycling jacket behind the counter.

But Jeff was not in. He’d had a dental emergency and had just left to see the dentist. Louise thought he might have forgotten our appointment. Was this a wild-goose chase after all?

She caught Jeff on his cell phone and learned he would be back in 30 or 40 minutes. Of course we would wait. Louise showed us some bikes but the choices just confused me. To kill time we went next door to a restaurant/bar set up in a former church, stained glass windows and all. It was booming on a Monday afternoon. The Clarkston Union was evidently famous for its macaroni and cheese and other gooey specials, which the waitress reeled off enthusiastically by memory before we could stop her to tell her we’d already had lunch and were after a drink and maybe some soup.

I didn’t add that I don’t eat any of that stuff she’d described any more. I could tell Vic was tempted, but we stuck to Southwest roasted corn soup and draft root beer. The soup was too tomato-y for me. Vic finished mine while dreaming of the turkey stroganoff potpie. Another time perhaps. Louise soon appeared to tell us Jeff was back.

Jeff is an effervescent 65-year-old who talks nonstop but doesn’t waste words. One look, before I even had my coat off, and he understood why I was there. “You’re short,” he said. “You have a curve in your back. Your left leg is shorter than the right one because your hip is turned.” I didn’t even know that last part but it is true. “For some people the decision is about what type of bike they want. But for other people, like you, the most important thing is fit.”

As he probed my arms and showed me which one was sore (yes, the left one) and talked about back pain and why my left knee was bothering me, I knew I’d come to the right place. He put me on a bike on rollers. It was a cross, a breed of bike that had been born since we’d made our last bike purchases. But he wasn’t pushing me to a decision. As he watched how I pedaled (“Your left arm moves every time your left leg descends–your right one doesn’t”) and how I slouched rather than leaned, straight-backed, toward the handlebars, he talked about the possibilities he’d like to investigate, about narrowing down the options before my next visit, when I’d do some test rides.

And he recommended a book full of exercises that could help my hips, back, and posture. I recognized it because I’d seen it on Joseph and Joanna’s bookshelves: Pain Free, by Pete Egoscue.

I will work through it before I go back, maybe indeed fitting myself to my new bike as my new bike is fit to me. Though I won’t trim down either of my legs.

Weight loss and violence

/ njmyers / 1 Comment

The dream I’m going to report is not pretty. But it is instructive on a topic I’ve been thinking about for some time: my split food personality and how it relates to gaining and losing weight.

I have known that rats are in the house but I’d rather not think about them. Then I see one. It is slow and fat so Lalo-cat is able to pounce on it but I can see he isn’t going to kill it. So I stomp on it with my foot and hold it down, looking for something to kill it with. There is rubble around. I try whopping it with a stick but that isn’t going to work. Then I drop chunks of concrete on its head, my foot still holding down the fat body. That doesn’t work well either. But by the end of the dream the rat is looking sorrier and sorrier, maybe dying a slow death.

I was totally baffled by this dream until my spiritual director read it back to me and asked me to think about the rat as myself. Oh yeah. “Slow and fat.” “Fat body.” That’s the Fatty in me, the one I have been calling “Stuffer.” I had really been hoping to do away with Stuffer once and for all. This dream is about my latest effort to lose weight.

Over the years I have learned to know Stuffer quite well. Stuffer lives in my mouth, not in my stomach. Stuffer gets hungry but not the way the stomach gets hungry. She is tuned into my emotions, not my body. She gets hungry for stimulation when she is bored, company when she is lonely, consolation when she is upset, celebration when she is happy, calm when she is stressed, energy when she is tired. Stuffer tends to address all these needs with food (and drink), although most have nothing to do with food.

Certain foods are especially pleasing to Stuffer-in-the-Mouth. Although she enjoys a hit of carrot cake with cream cheese frosting now and then, she is basically a salty-fatty girl, not a sweets craver. Cheese and crackers, chips and dips, KFC—oh my.

Because Stuffer lives in my mouth she tends to ignore the signals of the stomach until too late. Stuffer has a lot of problems with heartburn.

Stuffer is not only hungry in all these ways; she is also afraid of being hungry. She fears not getting enough to eat so she hesitates to share a restaurant meal. At home she always has seconds, on principle. She fears going to bed hungry. She snacks all evening.

After many months or years of this, Stuffer gets slow and fat, like that rat.

And I get fed up, literally.

I put my foot down (ouch).

And I switch into Healthy Eater mode: Calorie- or point-counting. Portion control. Lots of fruit and veggies. Yada yada. We all know the drill.

After a few weeks in full-time Healthy Eater mode I have all but forgotten about Stuffer. Gone are the cravings, gone the evening snacking, gone the heartburn. Healthy Eater is tuned into the whole digestive tract, not just the mouth. Healthy Eater is more afraid of feeling too full than of going to bed hungry. She looks with horror on large plates of foods glopped with cheesy fat. Because of body awareness, Healthy Eater does a pretty good job of separating emotional ups and downs from eating. She eats when she is hungry and is grateful to be satisfied and no more.

And thus, the Stuffer pounds begin to drop away.

What happens, of course, is a shift in body chemistry as well as body awareness. When you wean yourself off of carby-fatty excess you influence that complex set of hormone signals that suggests what you want to eat, how much, and when. Willpower is involved at the beginning but the need for willpower tapers off as the hormones do their thing. And sometimes the shift is sudden, like flipping a switch. That is very cool. This happened for me on that 3-day juice fast that launched this latest weight-loss campaign, which is progressing nicely and gradually as I continue in Healthy Eater mode, with the Weight Watcher point system keeping me honest.

But my dream was showing me something else that I hadn’t realized before. Which is that all of this involves quite a lot of self-loathing. And that includes both personalities.

While I like being Healthy Eater, I don’t much like her. She is a bit of a weenie, self-righteous and judgmental; a foodie know-it-all who can’t understand why anyone would want to eat those plates piled with cheesy fried stuff; a thinning person who feels superior to all the fatties she sees around her.

And I really don’t like Stuffer. I find her disgusting and pathetic. I want to get rid of her. I, in Healthy Eater mode, would like to hold her down and drop things on her head. Like that poor chubby rat.

Whew. The violent aspect of weight loss?

I resolved to try to make Healthy Eater a little kinder. Try a little tenderness with Stuffer, who is, after all, an emotional gal.

This week at a local restaurant Healthy Eater allowed Stuffer a piece of raspberry cream pie after choosing the chicken noodle soup for herself (both agreed that neither was that good). We have stocked up on treats: Hummus to glop on thin crackers. Dove Promises (dark chocolate, 1 point apiece). Mixed nuts (good protein with the salt and fat). Weight Watchers big latte bars. And Stuffer’s favorite, popcorn—nutrient-free but harmless.

Tonight, while the husband is still out of town, dinner will be a judicious, point-controlled assortment of snacks.