It was sunny and cold on Saturday. I drove out the Berkshires, where the snow was still deep, for a morning cross-country ski. The snow was hard packed like crystallized vanilla frosting. I was soon warm from the exertion and peeled off layers of clothing. I love the rhythm of the sport; pump, pump, pump with the legs, plant pull, plant pull, plant pull with the arms. The cold air flooded my body, flushing out the dullness, pouring in the prana to every cell. I moved ever so slowly but steadily up, up, up the steep trail that wound its way through the wintering woods. Then in a flash, down the the slope, picking up speed, fretting all the way, "Will I fall?? Will I fall???"
The trail broke through the woods into a large south facing field that was flooded with sun. I carved a path through the vanilla frosting snow through a parallel stand of gnarly oaks. There was a stone wall and a depression in the earth paved with stones where a house had once stood. Thorny scrub poked up through the snow where the it was shallow. When I stopped moving, the silence was stunning. Oh to live in the old farm house by the field embraced by the lichen splashed stone wall. I pulled up my sleeves to take in more sun.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Comfort
There have been many losses for the women in my writing group this year. Usual (and unusual) losses of family, friends, jobs, houses, that pass through our lives and change us. This month, we wrote about what comforts us. There were sighs of recognition over the amazing balm of hot baths during the darkest coldest months, reading before bed, fuzzy pets, and rich stews. This is what I wrote...
One of my favorite things to do to de-stress (I look forward to it each day) is watching old tv shows at night with my 10 year old daughter. For the past year or so, we have been rotating between The Brady Bunch, Family Affair, and The Waltons. I love all of these shows for different reasons.
In the Brady Bunch, I love Alice the best. I wish Alice lived in my house. She would cheerfully clean up our messes, cook, clean, shop and love doing it. She'd be part of the family, come on vacations, pay attention to us when we hurt. Mr. and Mrs. Brady are unfailingly understanding. There isn't a fuck-up big enough to cause either of them to yell or hit, or shame the children. The children accept all punishment with mature acceptance that they deserved it. I love the groovy clothes and when they sing....WOW!!
Family Affair I love mostly due to the relationship between Mr. French and Uncle Bill. I think they are lovers (With a name like Mr. French...). Uncle Bill is so tall and muscular and handsome while Mr. French is round and soft with a stylish beard. Uncle Bill appears to be quite wealthy; the family lives in a five bedroom apartment high rise somewhere in mid-town Manhattan. Uncle Bill dates a different mod looking woman (think hair spray, fake eyelashes, and wonder bras) each episode but its clearly a ruse. Mr. French runs Uncle Bill's bath, packs and unpacks his bags (he frequently travels to third work countries to build bridges) smooths the tension out of his stiff shoulders. On the camping trip episode, Mr. French brought along the steaks that they ended up eating when Uncle Bill and Jody were unable to catch any fish for dinner. French stood by the fire pit, his fitted linen suit wrapped in a clean white apron, happily rustling up grilled steaks Au Poirve for all the hungry mosquito bitten campers. Like Alice, Mr. French is part of the family. He and Uncle Bill discuss child psychology, Sissy's boyfriend dilemmas, the twins separation anxiety with thoughtful, caring, motherly insights.
It's The Waltons I long for when I am feeling most lost. There is perfect acceptance, calm persistence, and hope in this most inauthentic circa 1930's family. Grandma and Grandpa have a respected place in the family (no old age home for them). They are loved and productive even in old age. Mamma and Grandma make just about everything from scratch; butter, cakes, breads, pies, sausages. They had spaghetti in one episone which I can't imagine really existed in rural Virginia back then. Nonetheless, like the time they let the Jewish family down the road hold a bar mitvah in their living room, it showed an enlightened and untimely spunk and cultural sensitivity . John Boy would make the perfect young lover so innocent and sensitive and eager. Everyone is tired and fulfilled at the end of a day of hard work. They go to bed early, stomachs filled with roasted chicken, mashed buttered potatoes, milk, and black berry pie.
One of my favorite things to do to de-stress (I look forward to it each day) is watching old tv shows at night with my 10 year old daughter. For the past year or so, we have been rotating between The Brady Bunch, Family Affair, and The Waltons. I love all of these shows for different reasons.
In the Brady Bunch, I love Alice the best. I wish Alice lived in my house. She would cheerfully clean up our messes, cook, clean, shop and love doing it. She'd be part of the family, come on vacations, pay attention to us when we hurt. Mr. and Mrs. Brady are unfailingly understanding. There isn't a fuck-up big enough to cause either of them to yell or hit, or shame the children. The children accept all punishment with mature acceptance that they deserved it. I love the groovy clothes and when they sing....WOW!!
Family Affair I love mostly due to the relationship between Mr. French and Uncle Bill. I think they are lovers (With a name like Mr. French...). Uncle Bill is so tall and muscular and handsome while Mr. French is round and soft with a stylish beard. Uncle Bill appears to be quite wealthy; the family lives in a five bedroom apartment high rise somewhere in mid-town Manhattan. Uncle Bill dates a different mod looking woman (think hair spray, fake eyelashes, and wonder bras) each episode but its clearly a ruse. Mr. French runs Uncle Bill's bath, packs and unpacks his bags (he frequently travels to third work countries to build bridges) smooths the tension out of his stiff shoulders. On the camping trip episode, Mr. French brought along the steaks that they ended up eating when Uncle Bill and Jody were unable to catch any fish for dinner. French stood by the fire pit, his fitted linen suit wrapped in a clean white apron, happily rustling up grilled steaks Au Poirve for all the hungry mosquito bitten campers. Like Alice, Mr. French is part of the family. He and Uncle Bill discuss child psychology, Sissy's boyfriend dilemmas, the twins separation anxiety with thoughtful, caring, motherly insights.
It's The Waltons I long for when I am feeling most lost. There is perfect acceptance, calm persistence, and hope in this most inauthentic circa 1930's family. Grandma and Grandpa have a respected place in the family (no old age home for them). They are loved and productive even in old age. Mamma and Grandma make just about everything from scratch; butter, cakes, breads, pies, sausages. They had spaghetti in one episone which I can't imagine really existed in rural Virginia back then. Nonetheless, like the time they let the Jewish family down the road hold a bar mitvah in their living room, it showed an enlightened and untimely spunk and cultural sensitivity . John Boy would make the perfect young lover so innocent and sensitive and eager. Everyone is tired and fulfilled at the end of a day of hard work. They go to bed early, stomachs filled with roasted chicken, mashed buttered potatoes, milk, and black berry pie.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Special -K
Special K cereals has a new ad campaign out. The ads feature "regular" looking woman doing everyday types of things. There is no mention of the cereal just a message about how you can "be more yourself" or something along those lines. in the past Special-K has used young emaciated women to sell their cereal. The women are so happy to be sliding into their super slim jeans and all as a result of eating Special K cereal for two meals a day. The ad, perhaps, has fallen flat so they are moving to this new strategy of using more rounded older women to sell their product. The move to get women to eat more cereal (two times a day instead of just one!) was rather brilliant. The market for cereal is pretty saturated - close to 100% of us already eat the stuff. How to get us to eat more? Tie it to weight loss, beauty, hopes for incredible sex!
I'm so tired of being manipulated, shamed, embarrassed, harassed by corporate America/Madison Avenue, made to feel inadequate, dried-up, witchy/bitchy, used up but fixable by a cream, lotion, potion, hair spray, tonic, food processor, or breakfast cereal. Isn't there a better us of our collective creative power. Instead of spreading fear and self-loathing, why not harness our creative energies for better nutrition, well-being, spiritual connection for us all, old and young alike? Just for today, by pass the "beauty" aisles; try seeing the elegance in the wrinkled, bulging, broken, and bent parts of our bodies and lives.
I'm so tired of being manipulated, shamed, embarrassed, harassed by corporate America/Madison Avenue, made to feel inadequate, dried-up, witchy/bitchy, used up but fixable by a cream, lotion, potion, hair spray, tonic, food processor, or breakfast cereal. Isn't there a better us of our collective creative power. Instead of spreading fear and self-loathing, why not harness our creative energies for better nutrition, well-being, spiritual connection for us all, old and young alike? Just for today, by pass the "beauty" aisles; try seeing the elegance in the wrinkled, bulging, broken, and bent parts of our bodies and lives.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Precious
I saw the movie Precious last night and can't stop thinking about it. If you don't know, its a story about a young African American girl who through grace, strength, hope, keeps putting one foot in front of the other in the face of terrible abuse and violence. She is very obese, only 16 and pregnant with her second child from her father. She lives in a small apartment in Harlem with her mother who hits and yells at her, tells her she is stupid and dumb, an animal that shouldn't have been allowed to live. Her three year old daughter has down syndrome and lives with her grandmother. She is teased at school, can barely read, and has just about nothing to keep her going in life.
Sounds like a fun movie to see, right?
But, Precious (the girl) has such strength, humility, hope that incredibly we are uplifted by her ability to love, the courage to learn, to trust. She is perfectly beautiful in her largeness and blackness. She keeps going to the alternative school, learns to read and write, reads to her new baby son every day. She tells her son that he is very much loved. She finds love to give him even though she didn't receive anything close to such love from her mother or father. She walks away from the mother that hated her, trusting in the graciousness of strangers (a teacher, a social worker, a nurse assistant) that she has a right to a good life for her and her children.
Her story is a testament to how much we have inside, our birthright, God, to fill all the holes and heal the wounds, share the love we didn't know we had to give.
Sounds like a fun movie to see, right?
But, Precious (the girl) has such strength, humility, hope that incredibly we are uplifted by her ability to love, the courage to learn, to trust. She is perfectly beautiful in her largeness and blackness. She keeps going to the alternative school, learns to read and write, reads to her new baby son every day. She tells her son that he is very much loved. She finds love to give him even though she didn't receive anything close to such love from her mother or father. She walks away from the mother that hated her, trusting in the graciousness of strangers (a teacher, a social worker, a nurse assistant) that she has a right to a good life for her and her children.
Her story is a testament to how much we have inside, our birthright, God, to fill all the holes and heal the wounds, share the love we didn't know we had to give.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Other Winters
Now that we have gotten through the holidays, I feel up to blogging again. I found it to be a very sad time not having my dad with us for Christmas Eve, Christmas, and New Years for the first time. I keep wanting to know where he is, is he okay, to know I haven't forgotten him.
When we were younger, we would spend the entire week between Christmas and New Years up in Northern New Hampshire skiing (as well as every winter weekend!) My dad (and mom) learned to ski when they were in their thirties which is much harder to do than when you are young. I hated skiing when I first tried learning, the cold fingers and toes, falling down and not being able to get up, the damn rope toe kept slipping through my fingers. Through the tears, my dad grabbed onto my poles and pulled me up the little hill over and over and over until I managed to make it down without falling. Once I got stronger, skiing got really fun. How did we manage to spend entire winter days falling through snow storms, ice clinging to eyelashes, crashing down slippery icy slopes? I made skiing friends, grew bold, hungered for more wintry mountain adventures. Skiing was a good antidote to manufactured girl helplessness, Seventeen Magazine, voicelessness.
When we were younger, we would spend the entire week between Christmas and New Years up in Northern New Hampshire skiing (as well as every winter weekend!) My dad (and mom) learned to ski when they were in their thirties which is much harder to do than when you are young. I hated skiing when I first tried learning, the cold fingers and toes, falling down and not being able to get up, the damn rope toe kept slipping through my fingers. Through the tears, my dad grabbed onto my poles and pulled me up the little hill over and over and over until I managed to make it down without falling. Once I got stronger, skiing got really fun. How did we manage to spend entire winter days falling through snow storms, ice clinging to eyelashes, crashing down slippery icy slopes? I made skiing friends, grew bold, hungered for more wintry mountain adventures. Skiing was a good antidote to manufactured girl helplessness, Seventeen Magazine, voicelessness.
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