Right Brained

Like Jill Bolte Taylor -- aka The Singing Scientist --  I've experienced brain "trauma" that has radically changed my perspective about how to live.  Listening to, and watching Dr. Taylor give her TED talk about her "stroke of insight", I started bawling because I identified so much with her revelation and the potential it has for reshaping the reality of our world.

I suffered my first brain trauma when I was 20: a series of high grade fevers ranging from 103 to 106.7.  I emerged from the last one with expressive aphasia, a condition associated with Broca's Area of the brain, the area that governs our use of language and speech patterns.  In my case, I lost my ability to locate and select the correct words for what I wanted to say, and, also, my ability to construct sentences using "proper"syntax.  So for example, I might be sitting at a bar with a friend, and ask "How's that mascara?" when what I want to say is "How's that margarita?"  Or if asking for the time, I might say, "On your wrist, that thing, round, what time shows it?"  After maybe five years, I was able to once again feel in control of my language capacity, but the foray into the loss of control was a beautiful and life-enhancing experience for me. The second  trauma I experienced at 39 was a brain hemorrhage, specifically a subarachnoid hemorrhage.  While I emerged from this "unscathed" (unlike Bolte Taylor did), I did come out of it with an understanding of just how lucky I am to be alive, what an incredible gift it is, and how I never want to take it for granted, how I want to be grateful for my life every single day.  Compared to Bolte Taylor's insights, my understanding seems trite.  However, as trite as it sounds, the practice of this gratitude, this not-taking-my-life-for-granted is one of the hardest, most complex tasks I've ever undertaken.  The outcome of my efforts thus far, however, have shown me that miracles are constantly happening, and are only a blink away from being noticed most of the time.  When I shift my gaze, the truth -- nirvana -- really does come into view.  

If watching Bolte Taylor's TED talk is difficult from this site, then go here, to TED directly.  If you haven't been introduced to TED talks yet, I hope you might find something to appreciate.  I feel safe in saying I bet you will.

I sometimes visit a site called Daily Strength to help me cope with stress that stems from my family's dietary restrictions.  Today I was reading a doctor's recommendations for coping with Osteoarthritis.  I was compelled to comment on this doctor's blog after reading because NONE of her recommendations for alleviating pain involved dietary changes.  

Here is my comment:

Almost three years ago, I started experiencing symptoms of Osteoarthritis in my fingers, ankles and feet. I could barely walk upon rising from bed in the morning! At the same time, my 5-month-old infant started showing symptoms of eczema. Because a naturopathic doctor recommended a gluten-free/casein-free diet for my infant, suspecting his eczema was exacerbated by food allergies, and because I was breast-feeding my child at the time, I eliminated products with wheat-gluten and dairy immediately from my own diet. I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say that within two weeks, all of my joint pain DISAPPEARED, and it has not returned since. My infant son has been spared from severe eczema outbreaks as a result of our dietary habits. We have been gluten-free and casein-free since then, and I'm convinced that this diet has safe-guarded our health. I'm now regularly able to jog three miles easily. My son's eczema remains mild and confined mostly to his hands.

Melissa Diane Smith's book Going Against the Grain was an informative and enjoyable read to help me understand the negative effects of wheat gluten on the human body. 

It amazes me that most doctors, including my children's pediatrician, still roll their eyes when I share that we're gluten-free and dairy-free.   So many people in the medical profession still believe that food allergies are a myth!  Why are these intelligent people so hesitant to embrace the idea that we are what we eat?  Why are they so reluctant to admit that diet is the #1 place to let the healing begin?

Do they scorn preventative medicinal measures, such as dietary changes, because they subconsciously believe they will lose money once people are healthy again?  I hate to think it, but I cannot understand why this subject is still scoffed at in many doctor's offices.

I Am My Own Mother

In my haste to get to CVS this am for some Zicam (take at the first! sign! of! your! cold!), I didn't notice that I'd put on different shoes. You might see how I made this mistake: While they are clearly different from one another, they share one obvious trait -- both are BRONZE. According to my husband, bronze loafers should remain the province of fashionable senior citizens.  

Tonight!

Who:  Christa  Forster, Gwendolyn Zepeda, Chris Dunn, Hank Hancock, Jacsun Shah

What:  Literary Salon

When:  Tonight, Thursday, Jan. 15, 6:00 p.m.

Where:  Space 125 (next door to Stages Repertory) on Allen Parkway

Why:  Past Recipients of the Individual Artist Awards from the Houston Arts Alliance

How:  Reading

"This Shaking Keeps Me Steady"

Theodore Roethke's poem "The Waking" contains a lot of power for me.  This morning, I repeated the above line from his famous villanelle over and over while running around Memorial Park.  I started jogging VERY slowlyin October 2008 because the Chinese Medicine doctor who was healing me, Dr. Wang, told me that in addition to doing 300 jumps a day and eating bitter, sour and spicy foods I needed to exercise more.  I told him I had been walking two miles everyday.  He smiled, chuckled and shook his head.  "That's not enough," he said, "you need to shake your body. If you're already walking two miles, why don't you jog them?"

Because jogging is hard! I thought.  

But it turns out, if I do it really, really slowly, with the only intention being to shake my body, jogging is not hard.  In fact, I'm amazed at how easy jogging is.  Granted, most of the other joggers on the trails whiz past me.  I'm just a few paces faster than the fast-walkers; however, if I'm only doing it to shake my body, speed matters not a jot. 

And it makes me feel good.  And the pain that was hurting me -- completely wracked back -- has alleviated.  I shook it out of me.  

It's been so long since I last posted that I paused when having to type in my user name and password.  

Gwendolyn Zepeda chastised me this morning for not updating my blog to let people know that I'm reading with her, Chris Dunn and Hank Hancock at Space 125 this Thursday, January 15 at 6:15 p.m. 

I met Ms. Zepeda for the first time this morning while we were being interviewed by St. John Flynn (pronounced Sinjun, which makes it rhyme with Flynn) for KUHF's "The Front Row," which will air tomorrow sometime between 12 and 1 p.m.  88.7, people. Check us out.  I'll be reading on the air my poem "Chaos Theories," which is about the meaning of life. In case you're wondering what the meaning of YOUR life is, check out mine and see if we're compatible. 

Houston Arts Alliance Literary Salon

Space 125

Thursday, January 16, 2009

6:15 p.m.

FREE

3201 Allen Parkway

(next door to Stages Repertory Theatre)

Precocious

On Mother's Day, I left the house to go write for a few hours and when I came home, Clara and Daddy were deep in the Playdoh.  My favorite object d'art of theirs is below.  According to David, Clara asked him to make "mommy's car and put Clara, Diego and Daddy in it.  Then let's  go to the Apple store and fix your computer."  Clara has been with Daddy to the Apple store more times than I can count these days, because Daddy's Powerbook has been broke broke broke.  None of the geniuses seem able to fix it for good.

I miss Thursday due to granite growing

from my right rib, cragged and grey the way

some rocks are, sharp and bearded, tres

Godly -- like I used to think God rolled.

Boulders crush my dreams consistently:

Rock v. Mouse since 1993.

Wasps and butterflies, my audience,

Float and sting and make me question Chance.

And overall it's difficult, agreed?

Strangled into life repeatedly,

Some of us grow stronger, some retract.

Baby hearts in NICU flash erractic

Measures on the monitors.  Nurses

gather close and pray to end this curse.

On Sunday, we drove to Egypt,

ate watermelon, fought sleep.

On Monday, we drug the cat out,

sat our asses on grey heaps.

On Tuesday, a headache drove home

water lilies rooting deep

through waters of my unconscious,

strategizing beyond keep.

 

Olives, Cash Flow Projections and Me

coffee cup sidled newly by, orange pen

the pharmalady gave me when I went

in for Nystatin for my son who is scratchin

like his life maybe depended on it.  

I put my arms around him and tell the itch

you can go now, he won't worry anymore,

be gone itch.  But itchin just be itchin

for a while longer, until we file our gander

under the goosedown, until we flower 

under the bride grown, until we hunger

beneath that black doom.  Bridegroom.

You motherfuckers, you

You give me back my caps.

You motherfuckers, you

You Give Me Back My Caps.

Write fast. Don't think.  Get it out before it shrinks

under the gun that shatters the windows, under 

the oven that delivers the buns, clad in diapers,

shitting milk duds, pharmaceuticals, ancestral traces,

elemental retards choking the very heir they breathe

through.  Me, too.  Me, too. Me, too.

My eye

started twitching

the day my father died.

It's been 9 months now, 

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, 

twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch, twitch.

To whom -- to which -- shall I apply

my eye? Now that he's gone

down deep inside?

To whom? What? Who? Where?

There, just there, deeper,

beyond despair.

I Is Fine, 2

I don't even understand what I'm thinking anymore.  Everything is strange.

I Is Fine

My eye!  No nefarious activity behind these lids.  Thank god.

Here is my list for the day as written in pencil in my notebook:

Cancel Hollywood Video Value Pass

Dry Cleaning

Spacetaker grants

Ford

IAG Required Materials

Contact Writers for Artist Saloon

Best Fit

Call Zach Scott Theater is Austin

Do you keep daily lists?  What's yours?

Life is Heaven, Too

I am misanthropic again, this time seasoned to taste with anxiety bordering on panic and depression.  LOVELY.

Yesterday, I had a needle stuck into my eye.

My eyelid; nevertheless it's still the eye.

I had a "growth" on my left eyelid, which I found on Christmas Eve while putting makeup on using my mother's magnifying make-up mirror.  I thought the bump might be an allergic reaction to the seven year old MAC eyeshadow I'd been using, and using a lot of. I now go nearly goth when going to a party. Why not? Life is hell.  Anyway the growth was removed yesterday with a pair of scissors and now I have this small red dot that David says looks like a popped pimple.  The growth is at pathology. 

I am working on my anger issues.  

Ceremony fills the void.  

Speaking of ceremony, a lot of my old colleagues will be standing on it in NYC this coming week at AWP, the Writer's Conference of America. Some of them will be reading and presenting their work.  I wish them well.  I hope they all break legs.  

Self-Promotion

What I know about lucid dreams -- they are usually pleasurable. And if they're not, then you can will them to be that way, pleasurable to some degree.

I began analyzing my dreams in my early 20s, when I was staying up very late at night and waking up very later in the day, with nothing to do except write until 1:30, when I had to get ready to drive cross town to "workshop." On Tuesdays. I had some other classes, too, Philosophy of Modern Thought type of classes, "thinking and reading" classes. As if your life depended on it more than a little bit. And maybe it did.

I had some seriously fantastic dreams back in those days, dreams where I realized I was dreaming within them and so could "control" or will the action within them to accord to my desires. Lucid dreams are powerful dreams, potentially life-changing dreams. One has to take the time to honor them, these professors, our dreams.

Tools to become a lucid dreamer:
1) A notebook, in which you can write, upon waking up, without opening your eyes.
2) Some deep-seated/seeded conflict developing in your soul.
3) A trusty pen.
4) The discipline to record your dreams no matter how tired, how hung over, how depressed you are.
5) A Dictionary of Symbols.
6) A Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion.
7) The time to make the connections between the symbols in your dreams and the archetypes you learn about while doing research on your dreams. Figuring yourself out a little more.

That'll be $500,000,000. for that lesson in lucid dreaming. Contact me for my agent information.

Ubiquitazzi

I am sitting in a cafe called Agora in Houston.  It's across the street from the new Brasil, which is a more spacious version of the old Brasil.  There are characters sitting all around me -- writers, artists, math geeks, high school flirts and scammers, architects and contractors haranguing home builders (young couple) for wanting a water tank while having cut down a tree on their lot. The contractors are Middle Eastern.  The home builders are White: Some combination of generations of Americans.  

I pull out my computer and log onto Blogger, feeling conspicuous in this cafe in the glow of my pod area, but then I realize that the couple sitting at the table behind me is logged into Blogger as well, and the music on the jukebox is Lucinda Williams, and the French bartendress is probably a blogger, too, or at least a lover of Lucinda Williams.

Grief

We all deal with it differently. My brother, one of them, has been breaking down hysterically everyday since my father died this past June (May he rest in peace). He calls me every other day to update his insomnia log.

"Are you having trouble sleeping?" he asks me.

"No," I say. I have two toddlers, a stressful job, a loving husband (thank god), household responsibilities and existential angst. I have no trouble sleeping. I do however have a problem dreaming these days. I get up too early, startled out of sleep by a toddler crying out MOMMY! from the bedroom next door.

I'm not sad; I'm angry. And anger is one of the stages of grief, maybe 2 or 3 out of 7 or 5. I don't remember, but a woman wrote about them, the stages of grief -- On Death and Dying, by Elizabeth Kuhbler-Ross. My grief looks like a lack of focus, and in that way, perhaps it's lacked focus.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask my insomniac brother, "when you can't sleep?"

"That I can't sleep."

How boring, I think. "What a bummer," I say.

The Superior Green

We eat a lot of greens around here, specifically kale and lettuce (preferably Baby Romaine). There's a campaign on right now to regulate the pasteurization of all greens. Visit Miah and Raj's site, Green Parenting, to find out more about why it's important to take action regarding these things.

The right to eat raw food is an ironic right. Isn't it? Amazing.