Hope, Cherishing, Kindness, Compassion, and Love

Happy Healthy 2019 to youse!

My Monday Muse is takin' a snooze.

See you in the New Year, dears, right here!

<3,

Melinda

Up & Out Or Coffee

What is the sound of one hand putting down the cup of coffee instead of bringing it to lips?

(What is the sound of anguish?)

Coffee has crept into my life and crevices of consciousness since May, when I was asked by The Shift Network and interviewer Tonya Pinkins, to join the national #Me Too conversation. In titrating my visibility and vulnerability during the videoed interview, at first I complied with Tonya’s request to share some simple bodywork techniques for getting back into our bodies when we may be feeling overexposed after speaking aloud something that heretofore was unspeakable. Very little of my personal story came through until late into the thirty-minute conversation. When I did allow that I was molested as an infant, repeatedly so as a young child, and gang raped at eighteen, I began to feel the familiar flushing of cheeks and tremble of limbs.

I spent much of my growing up time circling the field because my body was dangerous territory to inhabit. I believe speaking the truth of my history gives me credentials also to speak about how to get back into one's body. I spent a lot of years healing to make the bod habitable again. It is important to note that it’s OK to lift up and out when need arises. It is as much a grace to dissociate from the body as it is to fight or run away from danger to protect ourselves from a predator. Only babies and young children have no escape except to go deep inside, which looks a lot like up and out.

Around July of this year, when the interview was released on the internet, my coffee consumption increased. I was suddenly selecting darker, tastier brews; buying espresso blends and adding a cup to my cooking oatmeal as well as drinking two to three cups a day.

In September, I was contacted by The Shift Network. They let me know mine was among the top three videos in terms of number of viewers and asked me to write a guest blog. I did so, and shared a bit more about my personal story. Another uptick in the caffeine intake.

I’ve shared in my safe and loving writing groups some of the nitty-gritty of my Adverse Childhood Experiences. Being visible is still a challenge. Out of habit, I cringe while waiting for the other shoe to drop. Therapy helps. Yoga and meditation help. Writing about the writing and the symptoms that sometimes replay when I am recollecting those maladaptive misadventures helps.

Thursday, while in receivership of aware kidney/adrenal listening, thanks to a friend and fellow body-worker, I recognized the kafoogeldieness of my heart-beat and hyper-adrenalized buzz in my system as I lay on the table. That's when I began to trace the recent history of the coffee addiction to the visibility piece.

Alcoholic families have a primary rule, but it’s like water to a fish: Secrecy is so pervasive we don’t see it. We only sense it viscerally as life- sustaining.

Breaking secrecy feels life-threatening.

I can cut myself some slack for being addicted to coffee which keeps me in the familiar sensation of ready. Absent was the default setting of my adolescence. Braced for fight or flight is a preferable sensation to my system than to being dissociated. It’s easier to do life speedily than not to be present for it.  

Plus, I get so much more done in a day that includes coffee!

Good news: Singing my Solstice Song at Saturday's writing group of ten folk made me shake only a little for a few minutes.  Progress!

If coffee gives me embodied presence, I'll take it. Maybe I can cut the caffeine just a little?

Start With Onions + Bone and Smile

I overheard my Jr. High School aged daughter say to a friend who'd asked her, Is your mom a good cook?"

"I dunno. Whenever I ask, what's for dinner, she always says, 'I don't know yet, but ya gotta start with onions.'"

A couple of years have passed since that carpool over-hear experience. That daughter just graduated from a 200 hour yoga and meditation teacher training event.

Tonight, in preparing a celebratory dinner, her quote of me came to mind. It's true, once the aroma of browning onions fills the kitchen, I think about what else we have on hand, then I begin to assemble ingredients - tempeh, beans, tortillas, eggs, greens, ground turkey or fish.

I think the tantalizing scents that rise from the old black cast-iron skillet tickle my gray matter and help me think about what to create.

Sometimes it's surprising. I was hungry a few nights ago and didn't want to wait the 45 minutes for Red Rice to cook, so I threw it raw into the Vita Mix to pulverize it to smaller kernels. It took only twelve minutes to cook once stirred into the sautéed onions, coconut oil, and broth I poured over to cover it. I threw in a couple hands full of raw spinach near the end of the cooking time and it turned out really tasty. Pretty too with the reddish rice laced with green  leaves.

Organic riced Cauliflower with fresh grated ginger and turmeric has become a new staple. It comes up so colorfully yellow and aromatic with garlic and ginger that kind of caramelizes  The little hand-held grater retains the ginger skin and the turmeric skin, so it's quick work to grate it in. No peeling required, by my fingers turn yellow! It's one of the dishes we had to celebrate Yoga Graduation.

Another  favorite main dish is frittata, which always gets started with sautéing onion - either red or yellow. Then a hand full of greens - either fine threads of kale or quicker wilting spinach, then the beaten eggs mixed with salt, garlic powder, onion powder, grated nutmeg, a splash of vinegar, and mustard powder are poured over. Once the eggs begin to congeal, I heat the broiler and grate some Gruyere on top (or not) and pop the cast-iron pan under the heat coils until the frittata rises up and turns golden. Delish for dinner or Weekend Brunch!

About the only time I don't sautée onions is when baking banana bread. Maybe I'll have to try it! Or not...

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Bone and Smile...

Meera Ramamoorthy is one of my heroines. 

In her thirties, Meera has accomplished incredible things in support of many children, all the while being chased, like Peter Pan by a his crocodile who swallowed a ticking clock. Meera's croc is a life-threatening disease with which she was diagnosed ten years ago during her second year of medical school. It keeps pursuing her. Yet, even when she cannot move, feed or dress herself, she is at her specially rigged computer churning out content for her newest book.

She solicits, edits and assembles camp stories from campers, counselors, and medical staff who contribute stories about their experiences at camps for medically fragile kids. Her latest tome arrived by mail Friday. My beloved husband "Pun 4 Phun" contributed six stories to the mix. 

The latest edition, "This is Serious" is second in the series of "Stars In the Sky Bring the Summer Right Back to Me," and contains over 280 short stories with custom created black and white cartoon drawings illustrating each one. It came with a box of scented colored pencils. Interactive! We ordered twenty volumes. Proceeds go directly to the Serious Fun Network of camps. Meera threw in a hooded long-sleeve shirt showing the logo of fourteen year-round cost-free Hole-In-The-Wall-Gang camps started with Paul Newman's seed money. (Keep buying Newman's Dressing!) There are now more than thirty such camps worldwide where kids get to be kids instead of first being identified by their disease.

My desire is to have Meera, who is a medical doctor, and all medically challenged kids everywhere be completely healed. I'd like to see them boot their pursuing crocodiles in the teeth. Until that day, there's camp. 

May Meera continue to triumph over adversity for a long time to come. 

Dressed in her Wonder Woman costume and radiant smile, she inspires mightily.