AIM: Kickoff to the Eating Season

Leaf-changing season fills my calendar with more activities than Christmas. Fall festivals, raking, homecomings, raking, apple orchards, raking, pumpkin patches, raking, day trips on the Harley, raking…I pack my days with things that keep me outdoors before the cold comes and chases me indoors.

That makes a lot of sense…on paper. What’s really going on in my head is a little darker. Packing my days with busy distracts me from thinking, or more specifically, thinking about and acting on that which is most important to me. I’ve convinced myself that all the walking and raking excuses me from a formal workout. And, of course, with festivals, fairs, and homecomings come cheap eats on wheels:  food booth upon food booth of candied apples, caramel apples, steak sandwiches, fries smothered in cheese and bacon bits, cinnamon almonds, kettle corn, sausages, fudge, gyros, wings, pizza, deep-fried pickles, “homemade” lemonade, pierogies…did I miss anything? This does not bode well for maintenance, especially when that little voice whispers in my ear, “It’s OK…It’s only once a year.”

Splitting a Poor Man’s Caramel Apple with my daughter at Clarion’s Autumn Leaf Festival OR eating a few fries at the Indiana County Fair OR a pierogi at Homer City Days won’t break the scale. But this year, those “or”s have become “and”s, and for the first time in 8 years, I’m struggling with making good food choices in all the busyness, and am a little freaked out by the ease with which I justify the cheap eats.

I could simply say I’ve gotten lazy and vow to put on my mindful eating cape again, but there are more deep-seated reasons for my actions than simply, “Ooops! I forgot!” As I strive to find comfort and normalcy amongst some of the physical challenges I’ve been facing this year, Old Habits are always there, happy to offer me their services, and sometimes I accept their “helping hand.” I understand the immaturity of the thought, ‘If she can eat that, why can’t I?’ But lately, more often than not, that understanding comes after I’ve eaten the goat cheese crostini.

When I pulled my head out of the proverbial candy bowl in 2005 and started eating mindfully and with a plan, I found comfort in healthy habits rather than a bag of Doritos, and I placed more value on the positive effects of eating a salad than I did on a few hours in a chocolate coma. Those new behaviors and ways of thinking served me well for 8 years, but I got careless by thinking those changes were permanent just because I wanted them to be. Permanent change doesn’t work like that. It takes constant vigilance to maintain change. Old Habits know that, thus the reason they are so quick to offer us their help. They know we prefer the path of least resistance.

It was in the circuitous writing of this month’s AIM post that I discovered just how much my Old Habits have influenced my food choices recently. I started off writing a “Rah rah! Isn’t fall great!” post, and then yesterday, the Irishman and I took the Harley out for a spin and we ended up at Luigi’s in Clymer for lunch. After we ate, he said to me, “I don’t remember you eating so much white bread and pasta before.” He wasn’t judging me, but I can see how he’d be confused, especially after I went on and on last week about how the fall eating frenzy had to end and I needed to get back on my food plan. I see now that my rant was merely me blowing smoke. They were words without a plan of action. Rote, like reciting the multiplication table.

Bottom line: I don’t like that my body hurts, but feeding it crap is like lying to Santa. It knows, and it responds with negative consequences. So the Pirates will have to win the World Series (or at least today’s game) without me eating my way through a bag of Pop Chips and the leaves will have to fall without me munching on apple crisp. It’s time to show Old Habits the door. Again.

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AIM: Adventures in Maintenance is Lynn, Lori, Debby, Shelley, and Cammy, former weight-loss bloggers who now write about life in maintenance. We formed AIM to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. We publish a post on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. Let us know if there is a topic you'd like us to address!

Lori @ Finding Radiance
Debbie @ debby weighs in
Shelley @ My Journey to Fit
Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

Vulnerable Much?

I’ve been listening to the audio version of Brene Brown’s book, “Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead,” for the last few weeks. Halfway through the 7-disc book, I knew I had to have a hard copy. “Daring Greatly” is a book that screams, “Write in my margins, people! Highlight! Underline! Reread!”

Embracing vulnerability is a new concept for me. While I credit my training in mindfulness for helping me to not fall completely over my feet as I stumble my way through this new way of thinking and living, embracing what I usually ignore/avoid/run away from (fill in your own coping mechanism) is like stopping a freight train and then putting it in reverse.

When I look back at the times I’ve felt most vulnerable, many of them were appearance focused. When I was obese, I felt most vulnerable in a crowd of people who could – and sometimes probably did – judge me.

I can recall only a few times I didn’t let the vulnerability of obesity win. One was on a May day in 2001 when I gave out the Tony Fabri Memorial Scholarships at the Clarion High School auditorium in front of hundreds of teenagers – in my imagination, the worst audience of all when you’re feeling vulnerable. But Tony was a best friend to both of my daughters, and I loved him like a son. When he died, an entire community went into mourning, and my daughters’ lives changed forever.

When Tony’s parents asked me to present the scholarship awards, I was both honored and scared to death. But I kept in perspective what they were asking me to do: honor their son. They also asked if it would be OK if someone videotaped my presentation because they couldn’t bring themselves to attend. I didn’t hesitate to consent. I have a Ph.D. in grief. I know how caring for yourself while grieving means sometimes not touching the hot spots. Wait til they cool a bit, then lay your hands on them.

Fortunately for me, my weight was pretty much the only reason I felt vulnerable that day. I really don’t mind public speaking, at least when I’m prepared. Throw me out in front of a crowd with little or no warning and ask me to say something intelligent? I’m pretty sure I’d rather pass kidney stones. But that day, I was more than prepared. I was eager to talk about Tony and the legacy of his short-lived life. Only a few times did I worry about what people thought of my size, hidden as best as it could beneath a flowing top and long skirt.

What I’m seeing as I read “Daring Greatly” is that vulnerability is there, up front or in the background, from the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep. Sometimes it visits my dreams. Last night I dreamed Eddie Vedder was sitting on my kitchen counter. I asked him if he liked sautéed mushrooms and he said he loved them. I remember feeling tense. I used all my best lines trying to be cool and then I hyperventilated when I realized I only had vegetable oil and no butter in which to sauté the mushrooms. That’s when I woke up.

What the hell did I eat before going to bed?

Anyway, after waking from the Eddie Vedder dream, my vulnerability went straight to the morning activity on my mind: going to my first-ever aqua aerobics class. Not only would I be trying something new, I would be wearing a bathing suit in front of a dozen or more people. Yikes!

As I should have predicted, but didn’t trust, was that the outcome of my first excursion into aqua aerobics was the same as when I plow through most of my other vulnerable moments. It was worth it. I had fun, and I met people who wear bathing suits in public and don’t seem to mind. I also changed my attitude about aqua aerobics being easy (my arms are talking to me this morning about this) and I walked from the pool to the locker room with a little more belief in myself and with a little more love in my heart for who I am – vulnerable and imperfect, but usually hopeful.

I’m learning that being my own best friend is about opening up and being receptive to vulnerability, rather than caving in to my nemesis self who, in the face of a challenge, yells in my ear, “Oh please, please, PLEASE can we not think about this? Can we just pop popcorn and eat Hershey Kisses and watch the first season of ‘Mad Men’ for the third time? Please!?”

Every day we’re “out there,” whether we leave our homes or not. (The Internet is a breeding ground for vulnerability!) Vulnerability is present when we start a new job, go out on a first date, break up with someone, get fired, go to the doctor…. Heck, vulnerability’s present in a restaurant! I always feel bothersome when I ask a server, “Can you please hold the capers and bacon and add a few more tomatoes instead? Oh, and can I get the dressing on the side?”

Online or in person, our faces, our bodies, our personalities, our cars, our houses, our coffee order at Starbucks, our sandwich order at Sheetz, and even the books our children and grandchildren want to check out from the library (“Ummm…OK… ‘Captain Underpants and the Preposterous Plight of the Purple Potty People’ is fine! Yes! Just fine…ugh!”) make a statement about who we are, and in those moments, we’re open to judgment by the outside and the inside. That’s right. We judge our own vulnerabilities!

I know this isn’t rocket science and that many of you have already figured this out, but wow…. Clarity is creeping up on me like the spider that walked up my calf on Saturday while I scrubbed floors. Not wanting to kill it, I let it creep while I walked outside and set it free, all the while fighting the urge to sweep him away like he wasn’t real and move on with what I was doing. Sort of like the times when I feel most vulnerable and I want to crawl in a hole and shut my eyes and hope no one wants anything from me.

My audio copy of “Daring Greatly” is due back at my library on Friday. While I now own a hard copy, I was hoping to finish the book on CD. When I tried to renew it, I was told I couldn’t because someone else has reserved it. That’s OK. It’s comforting to know I’m not the only one trying to stop the freight train and throw it in reverse. 

My new anthem: Sara Bareilles “Brave”

"Things"

When I was packing to move to my apartment three years ago, my ex-husband and I divvied up the kitchen property and discovered that we had enough pots, pans, crock pots, utensils, glasses, coffee mugs, cookie sheets, and baking dishes for two kitchens. Of course, some things you don’t need two, three, or ten of, so he got the toaster and the bread maker and I got the immersion blender and food processor, but all in all, there was little either of us had to buy for each of us to have a more-than working kitchen.

Three weeks ago, Ron and Red (his dog) moved into the apartment next to mine. I’d mentioned that my daughter, Carlene, was having a garage sale and Ron asked if she was selling any pots and pans. No, I told him, but I’d ask around.

Friend Debbie said she didn't have any to spare since the one and only set she owned was given to her by her mother for a wedding gift 29 years ago and they were still in perfect working order. My daughter, Cassie, didn’t have pots and pans to spare either, as her old set went to Carlene.

When I went to Carlene’s to help set up for the garage sale, she told me she’d rearranged her kitchen and showed me where she’d moved everything. While she received a lot of new kitchen items when she got married last year, she kept many of the items I’d given her over the years: loaf pans, Tupperware, a pizza stone, and dishes that I used when I was a kid living with my parents.

In my little pots-and-pans hunt, I was struck by the connections we have to our kitchen stuff, particularly how we acquired certain items. For instance, I inherited my Grandma Katinka’s lefse stick and roller when she passed. Her name is still imprinted in permanent marker on the stick. I use it every year when I make lefse, along with the ricer I bought specifically to rice boiled potatoes. I still have a smoke-colored Pyrex bowl that was once part of a set of four I received at my bridal shower when I got married 31 years ago. I don’t know what happened to the other three, but I still have the Black and Decker hand mixer I got at that shower, along with the Fannie Farmer cookbook my sister gave me. Cassie recently bought a new stand mixer and gave me back my stand mixer that had become a permanent fixture on her counter since Thanksgiving 2009 (Although she “graciously” allowed me to take it home for one day last year so I could make Christmas cookies. One day. No more.)

I won’t part with these and other things until: 1) I no longer have a kitchen or; 2) I am no longer breathing. Whichever comes first. At least…I won’t part with them intentionally.

I’m sure the folks in Colorado (and New Orleans and Mobile and New Jersey…et al) who lost their homes to flooding had lefse sticks and Fannie Farmer cookbooks and pots and pans they acquired in special, meaningful ways, too. I heard one woman from Boulder say in an interview that she’d lost “things,” and that (as she said quite graciously) she was just grateful to be alive.

Put into perspective, as this woman did, “things” are just that. Things. But losing things we love, rely on, or give us historical perspective can be painful. It’s OK to grieve the loss of the cookie molds you inherited from your great aunt because she cherished the Sundays when you’d go over to her house and make cookies with her; the cast iron pan your grandfather used to fry trout in during family camping trips; the Number Thirty Hamilton Beach malt mixer you bid on and won at your first country auction; the monogrammed apron your husband bought you when you “graduated” from a six-week Asian cooking class.

Can we live without these things? Of course. But “things” enhance our lives in many ways, and when we see people suffer their loss, it offers those of us who haven’t a chance to reflect on and appreciate our own impermanent, often ethereal things. We still have the good fortune of being able to touch, look at, and use them.

Is Grandma’s green depression-era measuring cup tucked away somewhere in a buffet collecting cobwebs…as mine was? Get it out! Use it the next time you’re measuring broth for soup. Do you save the “good dishes” for special occasions? Use them the next time you serve sloppy Joes! Dirty the fancy linens. They’ll wash up. Using them or passing them on to people who need them allows “things” to do what they were meant to do: enhance lives, and when they’re gone, to offer comfort in the memory of how they were used.

Ron found a set of pots and pans through a friend of a friend, and I know they are being used because sauteed garlic has a way of penetrating walls, and last week he gave me a jar of honey he recently pasteurized. "Things" have a way of keep giving...
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And speaking of “things,” Cassie’s Christmas give-back project is to host another “spinathon” and to seek donations and items for three Pittsburgh-area families in need of assistance due to declining health or financial issues. Last year, she and her daughter, Claire, raised over $3100 in money and donations for the Animal Rescue League. If you’re looking for a holiday “cause,” please consider reading Cassie’s blog, “Wishes,” for more information on how you can help. Thank you!

AIM: The Thinternet: Tool or Tormenter?

When I started blogging in 2005, Facebook was limited to Harvard students, Twitter was at least a year away, there were no apps or iPhones, and there was no “thinspiration.” (Although our model-thin culture was alive and well on the covers of most major magazines.)

There’s no doubt that the Internet was my number one most useful weight-loss tool this last time down the scale. The Weight Watchers online program taught me how to eat, and the community of people I met there taught me why I eat the way I do. I asked them to hold me accountable, even though I’d never met them in real life, and they did. I wandered away from that accountability over the last few years and what do you know? Twenty of those doggone lost pounds found their way back to me and so again I have sought the help of a few of the folks who helped me out the last time, only this time we’re using MyFitnessPal.

If I were just now deciding to lose weight, I wouldn't know who or what to believe. While the Internet continues to be a critical tool for my own weight loss and maintenance, as well as an excellent source for fitness and nutrition information, it often leaves me “Internetically” exhausted and downright angry.

To research this month’s AIM topic, I clicked on the “5 foods you should never eat” link you find on nearly every page that supports GoogleAds. (You know the one with the banana on it? Yeah, well, bananas aren’t one of the five foods.) I listened to a 20-minute spiel about why I should “join” the Trim Down Club (for ONLY $47! And if you’re not satisfied, you get to keep the four free gifts!) because I wanted to know what five foods I should never eat. They are: excess sugar, margarine, high-carb “comfort foods” (although on their plan, you can eat a stack of pancakes IF you combine it with the right amount of protein…), processed soy, and genetically modified corn. Pay me $47 and I’ll tell you almost the same thing, except for the part about eating pancakes with bacon.

Clearly I wasn’t frustrated enough, because I Googled “five foods never eat” and…surprise!...there was an exhaustive list of links to articles and blogs with their own five foods to never eat. According to Cosmo, they are artificial sweeteners, diet foods, frozen prepared meals, soy and margarine. The Huffington post reports you shouldn’t eat fried food, white bread, creamy salad dressing, white rice, and white sugar. Another site listed nine foods “you should never attempt to eat (or ever eat again)”: Canned tomatoes (because of BPA), processed meats, margarine, vegetable oils, microwave popcorn, non-organic fruits and vegetables, soy protein isolate, table salt, and artificial sweeteners.

And if that wasn’t enough fun, I Googled “diet cleanse” and thought I would stroke out from all the downright awful and deceptive information. Words like garcinia cambogia (thank you…NOT…Dr. Oz), adiponectin, and grehlin get thrown around like if we don’t know their "secrets" (duh!), we’re destined to be fat forever.

It’s the black and white DON’Ts and DOs that make me nuts. In the realm of weight loss, “never” is never a good approach. Truth and success are usually somewhere in the gray.

I know I’m beginning to sound like an old man who yells at children to get off his yard, but allow me a few words about the hashtag “thinspiration.” (Here’s a link to a grouping of more than 1700 pages of images tagged with “thinspiration.”)

While I’m all for motivational sayings and motivational images, an overwhelming majority of them include or are exclusively of thin (often too thin) young, scantily clad woman. I just…ugh… When will healthy at any size or shape be considered beautiful?

…sigh…

For my sanity, I limit myself to keeping up with less than 10 personal blogs and about four or five blogs written by dietary and nutrition professionals. Reading about other people’s struggles and successes keeps me connected to my own experiences of struggle and success, and the professionals I follow offer informed and sane nutritional advice. Occasionally, I will click on links to other blogs or articles that address an issue of interest to me, but I’m sure you know how easy it is to lose an hour or three of your day “clicking through.” I can only cram so much information and other people’s angst, frustration, or plain old opinion into my head at one time without wanting to poke sharp objects into my eyes.

How do YOU navigate the weight-loss and nutritional waters of the Internet? What “inspires” you? What makes you go, “What the what??”
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AIM: Adventures in Maintenance is Lynn, Lori, Debby, Shelley, and Cammy, former weight-loss bloggers who now write about life in maintenance. We formed AIM to work together to turn up the volume on the issues facing people in weight maintenance. We publish a post on the same topic on the first Monday of each month. Let us know if there is a topic you'd like us to address!

Lori @ Finding Radiance
Debbie @ debby weighs in
Shelley @ My Journey to Fit
Cammy @ The Tippy Toe Diet

Into The Forest

It's so humid you could uncork wine bottles with my hair. The sticky air is stacked in layers and feels like jelly on the skin. The breeze rolls around like a lead ball, banging into the stereo, the furniture, the dogs's fur. Nothing dries all the way. The towels hanging in the bathroom are still damp from yesterday's shower.

There's a clump of glue on my forehead where I smacked it into the corner of my desk yesterday. Stitches or glue, the doctor asked. I washed my hair carefully this morning. Dried it patiently. But in this humidity, it doesn't matter. My hair will do what it does. Curl.

This afternoon, I sat on a rock on the west bank of the Clarion River just north of Belltown, a place most tourists don't know about. I ate chèvre blue cheese, 10-grain bread, marinated artichoke hearts, and pistachios, and drank Pinot noir from the bottle because I remembered a cork screw, but forgot a cup.

I'm going to a play tonight at a theater in the middle of Cook Forest. The theater is enclosed, but the outer wooden walls open like pocket doors, and during a performance it's not uncommon for bats to fly in and eat mosquitoes above the audience.

I love this place. It's where I do my best thinking. The first time I ever saw a black bear in the wild was in these woods. The first time I went canoeing and rode a bike after losing 150 pounds was here. My daughter was married on an overlook over the river.

I just checked into a motor lodge attached to a bar/restaurant. The place is encased in hemlocks. The smell of grease wafts through the walls every once in a while. But I'm sipping Chardonnay from a paper cup and I'm typing, propped up by ancient pillows that I leaned up against a wall from which I wiped away spider webs before lying down. I am thinking of my aunt, who only has a few months to live, and her daughter and her sisters whose hearts are aching. I'm thinking about the civilians in Syria, who breathed in toxic air and died. I'm thinking about my brother, who struggles to remember anything day to day. And I'm thinking about how lucky I am to be sitting on this bed with the anticipation of a night with bats and friends and stars I can't see in the lights of Pittsburgh.

My brain is taking a big breath and melting into what I know to be true in this moment:  It is humid. And my hair is curly. And the world is uncertain and cruel and beautiful beyond comprehension.

From Vegetarian to Pescetarian...

When I started eating a vegetarian diet six years ago, the hardest meat-based food for me to “give up” was Trader Joe’s Turkey Bacon. The second hardest was fish. (I’d not yet tried sushi, but I’m sure that would have been harder to give up than turkey bacon.)

Back in my pre-vegetarian days, I liked cod, sea bass, orange roughy, et al, but mostly I loved peel and eat shrimp, scallops, and grilled tuna sandwiches (any excuse to eat Miracle Whip…you know my condiment addiction!).

About a year ago, on a whim, I ate a few shrimp, fresh off the grill. They tasted like manna from heaven! A few months after that, I bought orange roughy, and again, flavor Nirvana! Now fish is what’s on my plate at least three days a week. I go easy on salmon and other steak-like fish, including sea bass, though. Very tough for my former-vegetarian stomach to digest. And I just say no to tilapia. Too much omega-6. But trout? Perch? Haddock? Mussels? I’m all over them again. And maybe…just maybe…this year Santa will send me lutefisk. A girl can dream!

This reintroduction of fish to my diet doesn’t mean other meat products are next. I don’t miss chicken or turkey or pork – including bacon – at all, and I haven’t eaten beef in 26 years, so I’ve forgotten what it tastes like. I just remember not liking it much in the first place, except for cold roast beef sandwiches smothered in ketchup! (Again...condiment addiction...)

But fish? I know it’s not emotionally healthy to find joy through food, but it’s OK – at least in my book – to find joy in food, especially when not throwing portion control to the wind. That’s what fish is to me: a mouthful of joy. It tastes good. It makes me smile. I’m happy with 4 ounces of haddock cooked in a little lemon and tarragon or four jumbo shrimp with a tablespoon of cocktail sauce or a half can of tuna on my spinach salad. Like any food, if it’s overeaten, it’s not fun anymore.

It can be confusing choosing the “right” fish. What’s over-fished? What tends to have heavy concentrations of mercury? What about farm-raised? Wild-caught? This article in Nutrition Action Healthletter answers those questions pretty well: “Save Our Seafood: What’s good for us and the oceans.”

A lot of you who belong to the Lynn’s Weigh community on Facebook have expressed your love of specific kinds of fish and its preparation. Here’s one of my favorite recipes. It was invented by my ex-husband, and if I’m ever in a position where I have to choose my last meal ever, this would be it.
 
(FOOD PORN AHEAD! Of course, if it was truly my last meal for all eternity, I’d add half-and-half and serve it with angel hair pasta, crusty bread, an artichoke with a side of creamy dip, and chocolate cake with chocolate frosting… *grin*. Doesn’t everyone have a last-meal fantasy?)

Larry’s Sea Scallops (the healthified version)
Serves 2-3

1 T light butter
1 small onion, finally chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup mushrooms, sliced
1 pound sea scallops, rinsed, dried and cut in half
¼ t black pepper
½ tarragon
2 T lemon juice
1 T lime juice
2 T dry sherry (you really need to add this for that…mmmm flavor)
2 T grated Parmesan cheese (use the brick, not the pre-grated stuff in a jar)

In a skillet, sauté the onion and garlic in the butter until onions are translucent.

Add the mushrooms, scallops, pepper, tarragon, lemon and lime juices, and sherry. Cook over low to medium heat until scallops are cooked through and half the liquid is reduced (about 30 minutes. You may need to turn up the heat at the end to reduce more liquid.)

Over low heat, sprinkle the Parmesan on top and let it melt into the dish.

(To make this my last-meal dinner, add ¾ to 1 cup of half and half just before adding the Parmesan...and add more Parmesan...just sayin'. )


What's your favorite fish? And if you'd care to share, what's your last-meal fantasy? Talking about any kind of food isn't illegal here! Go with your bad food self!

“School’s” Back In Session

Because this is true:

This must go:

To quote N’Sync, “Bye Bye Bye.” See you later, Popcorners! Welcome back, Greek yogurt! (BTW, did you see N’Sync on the VMAs? Not that I listened to a lot of N’Sync back in the day, but my kids did. It was fun to see them together again.)

As other people’s children go back to school (grandbaby Claire on her first day of Kindergarten…*sniff*), I’ve declared my summer food and exercise vacation over. Sporadic and once-in-awhile planning and implementation is out. Accountability is in.

It felt “fun” at the time – eating off plan a day or two a week, staying in bed rather than going to the gym – but fun has a price tag, both physical and emotional. You can’t maintain your weight eating your way through a box of pasta, even if it is whole wheat, or noshing on Popcorners and birthday cake, and you can’t stay sane telling yourself it’s worth it, because it’s not.

Of course, maybe that’s just me.

This summer wasn’t a complete exercise and eating disaster. Damage control is readily implemented with a few swift kicks to my arse and a purging of the Brie in the cheese drawer. Not that I’m damning Brie, but right now, it’s not a welcome guest in my fridge.

I’m not reinventing the wheel. It’s more like a chiropractic adjustment, tweaking (NOT twerking!) the  lifelong learning process of weight. Getting back in sync. Back to one small dark chocolate a day and all the other things that worked before. Salad…it’s what’s on the menu every day. Kale, chard, raspberries. Baked squash and lentil dishes. Homemade soup and cheesy quinoa. I’m even going to give wheat berries a look-see.

The mind is willing. The flesh is willing. Bring on the new “semester.”

Pray Help

One middle of the night a few months ago, I was half awake, tossing and turning, trying to run away from the incoherent thoughts racing through my mind. After an hour, no closer to sleep, I did something I haven’t done in years. I folded my hands and I prayed. I talked out the fuzzy thoughts and feelings with the one I know now as little G god, and the next thing I knew, the sun was up and I woke with a light heart and a calmed mind.

I stopped big G God praying several years ago and began a mediation practice, which is like prayer, only not a conversation with a deity. I find staying mindful and staying present for all feelings – good and bad – has brought me a greater sense of peace and understanding of who I am. But always in the back of my mind, I missed the deity. I missed the comfort of the one thing that got me and my brand of crazy.

After some thought about how I might reconnect with that deity, I realized how talking to big G God had often made me feel small and afraid to speak my truth. This wasn’t big G God’s fault. It was a simple matter of spelling. Stripping big G God of that big G did not diminish its greatness, but it brought it eye level with me, to a place where I would be heard and I could listen, even if both of us whispered.

I’m reading Anne Lamott’s book, “Help, Thanks, Wow,” a gift from a friend who I’m convinced is in cahoots with little G god because she is as close to understanding me without running away as anyone I know. She offers me shelter without judgment and honesty without making me feel wrong or ruined.

Praying Help, writes Lamott, is like saying, “Here. You deal with it,” and then waiting to hear back.

“The willingness to do such a childish thing comes from the pain of not being able to let go of something. The willingness comes from finding yourself half mad with obsession. We learn though pain that some of the things that we thought were castles turn out to be prison, and we desperately want out, but even though we built them, we can’t find the door. Yet maybe if you ask God for help in knowing which direction to face, you’ll have a moment of intuition. Maybe you’ll see at least one next right step you can take.”

Too often in my cries for help, I have already devised a solution. And so my intention now when praying Help is to sit in the quiet – of meditation, perhaps – and allow clarity to find me and work with the answer provided.

I have been praying Help all morning after learning that my Aunt Ethel is dying. Help that she be free from suffering, Help that her daughter, my mother, and Ethel’s family and friends find strength. Ethel dictated a note to her daughter that I wanted to share here because, to me, it exemplifies what it means to pray Help.

To my wonderful friends and relatives -

This is the most difficult letter I've ever had to write because it is my final one. I have been informed that I have 1 to 6 months to live. All of the medical issues I have been having are related to the metastatic lung cancer recently discovered.

Your wonderful cards and prayers have helped me through this difficult time. Now, however, rather than focusing on my getting well, I ask you to focus on a peaceful transition to my dwelling in the house of the Lord forever.

I'm sure I will be allowed to take my memories with me - and I have many with all of you.

I will love you forever, Ethel

I, too, will love Ethel forever, and I will honor her wishes and pray Help that she has a peaceful passing. A difficult thing to do, to be sure, because we prefer so much to pray for healing.

Pray Help. Breathe. Crying is OK, too.  And may you find your way out of those prisons you thought were castles, and calm the obsessions that became your new normal.

My aunts and mother, circa 1936. Clockwise from top left: Mavis, Ethel, Doris, Ardith (my mom), and Helen

How Cool Is 50?

Today, I am 50. I was born in Minneapolis on a hot summer day, just before dinner time, and exactly 10 years after my brother, Marty.

The other day I read an article called “50 Cool ThingsAbout Johnny Depp at Age 50.” 

He’s 50? I thought. Hunh…he makes it look really goooood!

In a quick search for “famous people born in 1963,” I found several other famous types who share my birth year, many of whom I thought were way younger than me, like Tori Amos, John Stamos, Mike Meyers, Brad Pitt, Coolio, Quentin Tarantino, and Seal. There were a few I thought were older, too, like Larry the Cable Guy and Charles Barkley.

I may not be as cool as Johnny Depp, or even as cool as my friend, Shelley, who bought herself a drum set for her 50^thbirthday (see “And So This Is Fifty”), but I’m pretty happy with the cool I’ve got going on at 50: great kids, great friends, good cholesterol numbers....

I went through one of my baby books this week and found a few photos that tell some of the story of how I got to be who I am today…kind of. Clearly I didn’t grow up to be Ginger the Movie Star (see #7). But my grandkids think I’m pretty neat and that’s what matters.  

1.       I’m a middle child, but there were 2½ years when I was the youngest. Don’t let Marty’s face fool you. He might look all, “Ohhhh…isn’t she cute? Another sister! Just what I always wanted!”, but he wasn’t enamored with my presence. My sister Debbie wasn’t real thrilled, either, since she’d held the title of “youngest and only daughter” for seven years. At least she had the courtesy to fake how she felt and smile for the photo.

My brother tolerated me for the seven years we lived under the same roof. He let me sit in his room sometimes when he played records (when my mom asked me once to tell Marty it was dinner time, I told her we were listening to his “Yeah yeah” music), and he let me feed his hamsters and salamanders. He went to college in ’71 and we moved 200 miles away, so I didn’t see Marty very often. But as we’ve aged, we’ve gotten closer, particularly in the last 25 years. He made me power-of-attorney three years before his seizure, which I had no idea he’d done until I flew out to Minnesota in 2011 when he got home from the hospital and I went through his legal documents to determine how in the world I was going to help him. While I hate that he suffers as he does, that he trusted me to make decisions for him is very humbling and speaks volumes to our relationship.

My sister and I get along famously…always have. Unless, of course, you count the time I stole her crutches after she banged up her leg in a bike-riding accident and I taunted her, “You can’t get me, you can’t get me!” and my mother gave her permission to hit me with them when she got them back. She didn’t, thank goodness, but that was the beginning of my short-lived brat phase, so maybe she should have!

2.     I have a very handsome dad, don’t I? He’s my favorite man in the whole world. BTW, I still have that lamp behind us, sans the shade :)

3.     I was born with a pigeon-toed right foot and the treatment back in the day was to put a baby in a cast for several months. It straightened my foot about 45 degrees, but because it was still pigeon-toed, I walked slightly abnormally. Nothing you’d notice, but it threw off my skeletal structure and my surgeon is convinced it contributed to my toe, ankle, and knee injuries over the years.

This photo is of the first time my right foot felt grass. Either I was skeptical about the grass or it was the moment I decided golf would never be my game.

4.      I started stylin’ young. I put a couple of my mom’s curlers in my hair and secured them with a pair of my brother’s plastic pants. I’ve since learned how to use a hair dryer and flat iron.

5.     How many people can say they’ve met Miss Bloomington 1965?

6.     My love for wheels began early, but what I love most about this photo - along with the rockin' streamers - is the scarf I’m wearing. My mother always put a scarf on my head when it was windy because I developed ear infections easily. I can still remember the feel of her tying the knot tightly under my chin and how I had to open my mouth wide a few times to get it to loosen a bit. I remember the echoes of the wind bouncing off my scarf and I wonder if the doo rag my friend, Debbie, bought me for my birthday will offer that same sound. I really hope it does.

7.     My mom and dad were never treated to much affection when they were children, and my mother never heard her father say he loved her. But you’d never know it by the way they raised us. The grooviest part of this photo, though, is my dress. I called it my Movie Star Dress and I wore it as often as my mother would let me. I especially liked to wear it when I watched “Gilligan’s Island.” You could have Mary Ann and her pies and Mrs. Howell and her furs. I wanted to be Ginger and her slinky tight dress when I grew up.

8.     I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love books. My dad read to me long before I could comprehend anything other than pictures. When I was 2, I had memorized a few books and my dad showed off my “reading” skills to the neighbors. I had no idea how to read, of course, but the neighbors were impressed and Dad was amused.  

I credit my mother for teaching me proper grammar. We were never allowed to say “ain’t,” and she corrected me if I said something like, “Her and me…” She also wrote the most eloquent excuses from school. “Please excuse Lynn from school yesterday, as she was ill. Thank you. Most sincerely yours….” When she says she has no idea where I got my gift of writing, I remind her of the school notes and the way she talked so proper. She just laughs and tells me I’m full of it, but I know it’s true, and I can’t image my life without stories, either those I read or those I write.

Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt, Mike Meyers, Lynn Haraldson…we were born in the age of Mad Men, JFK, civil rights, Duck and Cover, and the space race. But who I am today is a result of the safety, love, and guidance of my parents, siblings, and teachers, and the many dear friends I’ve made over the years. I welcome this new decade with a renewed commitment to health and personal growth, and sharing the things I’ve learned these last 50 years with my grandchildren, hopefully contributing to their safety, love, and guidance as well.

But mostly, I’m going to have a LOT of fun! Bring it ON!

Swinging the Bat (a guest post by my brother)

Marty and me in 2011

It’s hard to believe it’s been two years since my brother, Marty, suffered a 12-hour seizure that left him with permanent brain damage and short-term memory loss. He’s endured frustration and great sadness, but what’s gotten him through it all and helps him continue to accept and adjust to his new reality is his optimism and glass-half-full spirit, an unwaivering commitment to helping others, and his unyielding faith in the god he’s trusted all his life.

Marty began writing essays years ago and self-published a collection of 100 of them prior to his seizure. It took him awhile to “pick up his pen” again after that fateful day in June 2011, but he’s been honing his skills, and I felt the one I’m posting below is his most thoughtful to-date. His words really kicked me in the pants since I feel lately some of my “at-bats” have been wasted. Read on and see if anything he says resonates with you, too.

Swinging The Bat

Like many fans of professional baseball, I enjoy sitting on my patio on a nice summer evening listening to my favorite team on the radio. I also enjoy watching my favorite team on television, too. Whether my team wins or loses really doesn’t matter. Where they are in the standings doesn’t matter either. I still turn on the radio or the TV to catch the game when it is on. I guess you can say, “Hope springs eternal” among true baseball fans.

There is one thing I cannot tolerate in baseball. That one thing is lackluster effort. It annoys me to no end when a player goes up to bat and then strikes out without even swinging the bat. They simply stand there with a zombie…like stare and watch the pitches go by until the umpire calls them out. These are not wildly thrown pitches out of the strike zone, but perfectly hittable balls. Then they simply turn and head back to the dugout. What a wasted at-bat.

I’ve always felt that you go to the plate with a bat in your hands to swing at pitches to try to get a hit. Standing there and watching as the ball goes by is unacceptable. You only get three or four chances to hit during a ball game. Why waste those opportunities with the bat resting on your shoulder without at least giving it a go? You can’t get a hit or a home run without swinging the bat. I have no time for people who do not try.

Now, I don’t mind it when a hitter goes down swinging at the plate. There are times when a particular pitcher is good and he is “on his game,” so to speak. That pitcher is throwing good stuff that is tough to hit. It happens. He may be throwing some nasty curveballs or sinkerballs that would test even the best of hitters. But as long as you are trying your best to hit his best pitches and you still strike out, there is nothing to be ashamed of. You gave it your best. Who knows? You may get the best of the situation next time you meet him again. The point is you tried.

I find this to be like life. We are faced with challenges all the time. Life has a way of throwing fastballs, curveballs, and screwballs at us. What we do about these pitches determines what kind of people we are or will be. Do we just give up as we approach the batter’s box and determine beforehand to not even swing our bats, to not even try our best, as we watch those pitches go by? Or, do we resolve to try our best to grip the bat a bit differently or stand in the box a bit differently and take a hack at the tough pitches?   

   

Ever since going on disability two years ago after losing much of my memory capabilities, I found it easy to get discouraged and even angry because of what I lost. It was also easy to just stand there at the plate and watch as those pitches went by. But, there are people and organizations that will not allow me to fall into that trap. They know that people like myself still have much to contribute and they are very good at helping people like myself to realize that and to…well…contribute.

Thanks to these people, I am swinging the bat. I volunteer twice a week at a local food shelf warehouse where I am very much needed and very much appreciated. I participate in a golf league and a bowling league for disabled people. I am not languishing around thinking about what I cannot do. I may strike out occasionally, but that’s OK. I may not be quite the person I once was, but that, too, is okay. As long as I am swinging the bat, my chances are much better that I’ll hit a double or a single.

What kind of person are you? Are you content to watch pitches go by as the umpire calls you out? Are you satisfied with lackluster and mediocre effort? Do you want to swing the bat and give it your best shot? We don’t have many opportunities or much time in life to turn things around. We need to start swinging our bats now! We need to give our best to life now! Tomorrow may be too late. We never know what might happen tomorrow. Ask me. I know about that.