sos

I think it’s only fair to issue a warning to people likely to be in my path.

I’ve given up sugar. 

I mean — candy.  I’ve given up candy.

Well — not all all candy.  Just anything with the word gummy in it, or that comes in primary or tropical colors. 

I am still allowing myself an occasional piece of chocolate.  Organic dark chocolate truffles from Whole Foods and Ghiradelli dark chocolate white mint squares are permitted.

But as I said — gummy anything, Dots, Jujubes, Skittles, and — oh god, I can’t believe I’m doing this — Jelly Bellies — are out.  

This includes licorice pastels and of course, Good & Plenty — all the way g-o-n-e.  Bye-bye.  (sniff)  Mike and Ikes, too — and Good & Fruity — if they ever come back from the dead.  (oh, how I have missed them)

But thankfully I still have One Day at a Time — unless I’m mistaken and that’s a new name for a gorgeous colored shot of sugar. 

It’s been, let’s see — when did my boss receive that case of Belly Flops?  Seems like a year ago.  But yeah, probably more like six days.  Six beastly days without even a lick of a Tootsie Pop.

But I’m ok.  Really — don’t worry about me — and hey, no matter how bad you feel for me, how  much you want to help me through this —

Don’t you dare throw me a Lifesaver.

But if you did — hypothetically speaking, of course —  could you make it cherry?

Poleeeees? 

(I love you forever.)

grate*ful

Today I woke up with an old ship docked in a new place in my mind.  A new and happier slip.  In an extremely grateful harbor.

That ship initially sailed in the winter of 1965 when I came home from school complaining that my legs hurt.  I went to bed with a slight fever that burned hotter through the night. 

After talking with the doctor the next morning, my parents took me to the hospital where a series of tests were run and it was determined that I had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. 

When I was released a few days later, I couldn’t walk anymore. 

This was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Because when all the other kids all left for school, I stayed behind.  

But I wasn’t left behind. 

The first victory in my physical therapy was to bend at the ankles.  Then the knees.  Eventually I was walking.  Which was awesome — but I wanted more. 

I longed to dance.

It took years — 10 to be exact — until I was dancing competitively.   And over those 10 years I was told again and again that I would probably never catch up, never overcome my limitations, never make it. 

So I worked harder.  Practiced longer.  Kept believing.  Never gave up.

And I more than made it. 

I got a lifetime lesson in the principles of behavior change — which brings me back to this morning and why I am so very grateful.

Living a quality life is linked to maintaining your physical and mental health — which is linked directly to your behavior. 

If you want to change your “BMI” for example, you need to change your caloric intake and activity levels.  Easier said than done — as many many employers who foot the bill for health care are finding out.  And so —

If you’re lucky enough — like me — to have an experience that taught you very early that you can’t dance before you can walk and you can’t walk before you can bend the joints in your legs and it’s gonna take focus and sacrifice and guts to do it —

you’ll more easily change your behavior to reach other goals you have in life and — and what’s more, you’ll enjoy the hell out of every inch your legs carry you.

knock first

When a door is closed, you’re either one of two things — in or out.

If you’re in, you know what’s goin’ on.  If you’re out, you don’t. 

Maybe you didn’t care a bit about what was goin’ on before the door was shut, but now that it’s standing between you and the unknown, you care — you really care. 

And your imagination runs wild with the possibilities.

Meanwhile, behind the closed door, it could be business as usual.  Or not —

Someone could be — well, completely naked. 

Completely naked and not alone. 

In nakedness — that is.

And what difference would this make anyway?  You’re on the outside.  The door is closed.  And you don’t have any assumed rights to the operation of the door handle. 

Your best play now is a polite knock.  And it better come with a good excuse.

So what’s your excuse gonna be? 

toss this

While constructing my lunch at a grocery store salad bar today, I managed to equate the end of the line — where the lid gets snapped on after the sunflower seeds are sprinkled over the the blue cheese dressing — as a dangerous ledge of sorts.

I’ve always been one of those people who can’t stand next to a railing or lean out of a window without thinking —

I wonder what would happen if I just — jumped.

“C’mon, just jump,” a voice in my head says.  And then a second voice asks —

“Does this mean I’m crazy?”

What if scenarios frequently run through my head.  Perhaps that’s standard wallpaper for writers.  But lately —

I’m kinda weirded out by the volume that fit the category of, well — sanity checks.

Today it was — what if a person just came to the salad bar because she enjoyed making the salad so much, but never intended to eat it?

I wonder if anyone has ever done that? 

Made a salad — a really elaborate beautifully arranged concoction — and then just left it sitting at the end of the line? 

What if a person did this every day for a whole week?  Would the store put someone on the case to try to catch this obsessive salad maker?  Would she get in trouble?  Would she be taken back or put away or dismissed with a smirk?  What would a person like this be wearing?  Could you tell she was off by the way she dressed?  Talked?  Would she be dirty and rumpled?  Or appear to be an ordinary professional pursuing a healthy lunch?

This had nothing, by the way, to do with not wanting my own salad after I made it. 

Really. 

I took it with me, paid for it, and ate it, thinking —

See — I’m not crazy. 

throw ‘em

I hate white gummy bears and green dots.

But I never throw them away — at least not right away. 

They get piled up in odd places in my office, posing as interesting accessories I don’t give another thought to until — well, there’s an emergency.

In this emergency state, I am happy to have the once discarded hateful candies.  After dusting them off a bit, I cram them in my mouth with a flourish and experience initial euphoria.

Most of the time, though — truth be told — they never make it much further than my tongue. 

After playing around with them for awhile I am struck — make that bashed over the head — with the taste that turned me off in the first place and end up spitting the chewed up sticky mouthful of goo into the trash faster than you can say —

wham, bam, thank you m’am.

And so there you have it, the prize in the Cracker Jacks —

Just go ahead and throw ‘em right away — or, if it’s you that happens to be the candy on the shelf —

Get off and run. 

And never look back.

take heart

 

When my own words cannot be there for me, it’s safe to assume I am beside myself. 

 

And so I take heart today in the words of John O’Donohue who has reminded me more than once that you cannot belong to anyone or anything outside your self. 

 

Sweet Darkness

(from Anam Cara by John O’Donohue)

When your eyes are tired

the world is tired also.

When your vision has gone

no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark

where the night has eyes

to recognize its own.

There you can be sure

you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.

The night will give you a horizon

further than you can see.

You must learn one thing.

The world was made to be free in.

Give up all other worlds

except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes the darkness and the sweet

confinement of your aloneness to learn

anything or anyone that does not

bring you alive

is too small for you.

polite circumstances

When I was about to turn 30, I found myself living in the Valley of the Sun among a group of very thirsty people who insisted on calling where I came from “back east.”

Now, if I was interested in living in Scottsdale at all at that time — aside from the draw of being with the then ”love of my life” — it was the prospect of the zero humidity that promised an end to my lifelong battle with my unruly frizzy hair.

It was 1989, I was months from turning 30 and truly, smooth hair was all I lusted for — worried over — and worked for in the category of women’s grooming concerns. 

A good hair day and I felt like a goddess — a bad one — a troll. 

My simple and innocent self-image — when it came to matters of beauty at least — was about to meet the anti-aging devil for the first time.

In the desert, no less. 

After a few glasses of wine with some single 40 something women, it went something like this:

“Who are you thinking of using for your boob job?”

“What?  Why do you need to do that?”

“You don’t know what we’re up against miss perky chest.”

“C’mon, really?  You really want a guy who only gave you a second look because of something that’s not even you?  Don’t you want to be loved for who you are?”

“Easy for you to say while your face is still tight and you look good in any light —”

“But, still —”

“No, you don’t get it.  Women your age are lined up for men our age and we don’t stand a chance at even getting a first date if we can’t compete with firm and supple.”

“I don’t believe you.  If that’s true, I’d rather be alone.”

Ah, the arrogance and ignorance of youth.

With 50 on the horizon, I get it now. 

The war against the frizzies now runs a close second to any one in a growing list of borders that must be patrolled — and the time has come when being met with politeness is both yearned for and feared.

As in the polite expression “you look good for your age” — dreadful to hear.  And the way your heart leaps for joy when you enter a room with low soft lighting.

Even though I admit it’s a much tougher sell than it used to be, I am still holding out for a man who loves me naked in any kind of light. 

And yet.

I’m no fool — it’s gonna take some mighty polite circumstances to get the ball rolling.

take cover

Sometimes life comes at ya like a hail storm out of a clear blue sky.

One minute your biggest worry is a drippy ice cream cone — the next minute it’s a funnel cloud spraying bullets of ice.

The sky inks over and the sirens blast. 

You could — slam your mouth shut and take cover. 

Wait for the storm to pass and hope like hell you’re not upended by a flying house.

Or —

you could take it to the roof —

throw your arms wide open and —

just lick harder.