Soft Edges

When you reach

your edge, soften.

Soften until you

slip through the

constraints and

can create a new

rhythm, a new

route, a new

release. Water is

soft yet powerful.

Reach your edge,

and soften.

-Victoria Erickson

So yesterday I left the gym and went right to the local mechanic to drop my son’s Jeep off to get its bells and whistles checked out while he’s away. I was there by 9:00 a.m. on the dot, and I pulled into a great spot right in front. I planned to walk home from the shop after I turned in the key, so I was distracted and thinking about what I needed to grab out of his Jeep.

I walked toward the office and did one last mental check to make sure I had what I needed. Phone, earbuds, hat, extra layer. I took a quick look back at his Jeep when suddenly I stopped in the middle of the street.

I didn’t have his Jeep. I was in my Audi. It was immediately apparent to me that I was trying to drop my son’s Jeep off for servicing without the Jeep actually being in the vicinity (mechanics have told me in confidence that this is a very difficult way to service a vehicle). I backed away slowly, back towards my car, as the stupidity of what I had almost done (well, DID do) sunk in. I hoped that no one in the office had seen me pull up, and I prayed that they were not watching me drive away. I drove home and returned with his Jeep ten minutes later with no one the wiser.

Well, until now.

A couple of weeks ago I was rushing to the Cherry Hill mall to get this one specific thing that I could only get in this one specific store. I had driven over an hour in bad traffic for this one thing, so I wasn’t in the mood to fuck around. Upon arrival I moved quickly and purposefully through the parking lot, and as I stepped towards the electronic door, my brain just assumed it would open for me as quickly as it always did.

As my nose and face met unyielding glass in a rather forceful introduction, it occurred to me that perhaps it was not an electronic door. Perhaps, I thought, it was a manual door. You know, the push-pull kind. Ah, of course, I thought. The young couple behind me who witnessed the spectacle asked me if I was alright, and I thanked them and watched them try very hard to keep straight faces. I felt gratified knowing they would probably be laughing for the rest of the day.

I keep thinking it’s going to show up on Instagram at some point.

I’ve also been having problems with automatic soap dispensers, faucets, and paper towel dispensers. There are so many different rules. Touch them on top, touch them on the bottom, don’t touch them at all. Push lever, pull lever, move lever sideways. Tap it once for cold, tap it twice for hot, tap it in the inverse order. Hold your hands two inches underneath, no, make that three inches, no, closer than that, you dummy.

Then just when you think you have the hang of the automatic kind, the old-fashioned ones appear in restrooms again, the kind that you actually need to physically manipulate. You wave your hands ineffectively in front of it to coax a paper towel out only to have the person in back of you inform you that you have to push the lever. You stand drooling stupidly in front of these contraptions remembering that there was a time in your life that you probably knew how to work them, but that those days are long gone.  

Lately I have found myself standing in front of strange sinks literally frozen with indecision and knowing full well that I lack the curriculum vitae necessary to extricate soap and water from it. When facing an unfamiliar faucet or dispenser, I give myself a pep talk:

You can do this. You’re a grown woman. You’ve borne three children, you possess five post-graduate degrees, you have had a great career. You are independent and successful and capable. You is kind you is smart you is important. Go in with no fear. Never let it see you sweat. Just just just….DO IT!

I take a deep breath and go in slowly. No rush. I even try to hum a little, so that it appears I am so casual with what is about to transpire that no matter the outcome, it will not affect my day. I reach towards the edge of the faucet, and I soften. And the water flows.

Because softening has been working for me.

I definitely had a point to this post when I thought of it last week, but all I know now is I’ve been rushing around too much. Trying too hard. When things are hectic,  my brain gets overloaded. And although they are funny stories (and honestly, it’s really a normal day for me, ask anyone. And let me know if you want to hang out, you’ll never suffer a dull moment), it’s important for me to know that when I forget to soften, things go haywire.

Sometimes we try too hard. When we relax, water flows, doors open. We must take our time in the climb,

So here’s to life and soft edges.

Fit Bit

I

I’m doing well on my diet. The cravings have mostly dissipated and the hallucinations have pretty much stopped. The compliments have begun, and they are unsolicited. I’m sleeping great, my skin and hair are healthy, and I’ve become a regular at the produce store. The photo shoot went great. I mean, it went fabulously, and she hasn’t even retouched them yet. I’ll share some of those photos real soon.

So the diet I initially was going to do for four weeks simply to detox will continue indefinitely.  And since I’m still nowhere near where I want to be fitness-wise, I’m going to continue so as to be ready for a trip I am taking in May. This trip will be unlike any other journey I have ever been on. It will be a life-changer. No more on that for now. But it looms, only twelve weeks away.

Moving on.

Diets are not easy. They’re restrictive. I am on a restrictive 1200 calorie diet. There’s no way to sugar coat that. It’s tough. I grew up in an Italian family where Sunday dinners were four different kinds of pastas, crusty Italian bread with butter, meatballs, sausage and braciola, and Italian pastry and cheesecake. Italian mothers are all about

Food= Love,


and boy, did my mom love us.

I can cook everything my mom cooked, and I still cook it, because I love my sons the way my mom loved us. And I still eat it. Just less of it. And less often.

So what have I learned in the past four weeks?  

Well, I would say that when you’re on a diet, the most important thing to do is to do what they tell you to do. I have never followed a plan as strictly as I am following this one. I listen.

If they tell me to have plain yogurt with breakfast, I have it. If they say eat only half a cup of berries, I measure out a half a cup of berries. They want me to gorge on plain salad with lunch and veggies with dinner? I do as I’m told. Because without volumetrics, as in bolstering each meal with vegetables, your brain plays crazy tricks on you. Without the roasted brussels sprouts I just added to my dinner, the food would have fit into the palm of my hand. But with the vegetables, it was a nice-sized din din.

Another thing. Keep your larder bare. Without my boys home, there is no junk food in the house. None. No chips, no Poptarts, no ice-cream, no cookies or juice boxes or candy. And since I’m not cooking for them, I’m not tempted by their steaks and baked potatoes, penne a la vodka, grilled cheese and tomato sandwiches, thick Belgian waffles and huge, gooey, overloaded breakfast sandwiches.

And their strange ever-present leftovers aren’t sitting around in the fridge.

My oldest was home on Sunday morning for 22 minutes to pack his stuff for a trip to Vermont, and he left four takeout chicken wings in the refrigerator. Every time I opened the fridge, they taunted me. So I did the smart thing: I sprayed Windex on them, and threw them in the trash.

(Fine, I didn’t. I ate them. At 10:00 a.m. They were fucking great, and worth every calorie).

I have not been completely perfect. Sometimes I sneak a tablespoon of peanut butter with my fruit. I have one mini-peppermint patty every day. I had those wings. I’ll throw some creamer into my mid-day coffee for a treat. And don’t say anything, but (she says in a whisper) the salad dressing I use every day is NOT non-fat. It’s a beautiful homemade balsamic vinaigrette that I have to drive 45-minutes to a specialty Italian market to get. I use a tablespoon of it on my salad every day. It makes me look forward to my salad, that I am going to be able to enjoy this delicious dressing on it. If it makes me lose weight slower, so be it.

Do the best you can. That’s my next piece of advice. Although I mostly eat at home, the occasion arises when I do go out to eat. And since I refuse to haul my food to a restaurant in a plastic container like a psycho, I usually eat my food before I go, and then enjoy something as small and non-harmful as possible. An egg and fruit at breakfast. A big salad at lunch. A piece of chicken at dinner. All we can do is the best we can do. And live our lives.

I admit, I miss my glass of wine with dinner. I miss the occasional piece of artisanal pizza. I miss buttered breakfast toast so freaking much. But I’m giving this my all. Which brings us to the next point of discussion.

Losing weight is easy. Keeping it off proves to be the challenge. After Easter I will be traveling and eating on the road again. Eventually I will drink red wine again. So the challenge for all of us is to incorporate the lessons we learn and use them fruitfully and honestly in the context of our lives.

Right?

That’s all I have for now. I won’t supply any more diet updates until summer, so don’t ask. It’s all about how I look in the green bikini folks, so I’ll let you know.

Local Hauntings

Sometime home is where the music is.

People travel for different reasons. I travel because there’s always this dang music in my head. Maybe I hear forest. Mountains. City, or farm, or small town. Desert, or ocean, or jungle. Tent, cabin or spa. Art museum, or national monument, or theatrical performance. When that music calls, I have to go.

And sometimes, not often, but sometimes, the view from my front window is where the music is. Right now the view I have of my yard matches the music. The good book sitting on my couch matches the music. My gym, the driving range, spring cleaning, and Easter preparations match the music.

Kalevi Korpela, an experimental psychologist at the University of Tampere in Finland has spent most of the last twenty years studying how different environments make people feel. In his studies, when he asks respondents to name their favorite places, over 60 percent describe a natural area such as a lake, beach, park, garden or woods.

Same here. But not always. As Bella Grace magazine states so eloquently, “there are pockets of magic in every city and town if you keep your eyes open.” Here are some my favorite local haunts:

  • Beaches. I’m not much of a beach sitter, but when I go, I have two favorites. One is my home beach closest to me where I plunk my chair down between the two big rocks on the right jetty. It’s private and secluded, as much as a crowded beach can be. I always check the tides first to make sure the jetty is not under water. The second is an obscure little beach where I can take a dip without lifeguard whistles. When I get hot, I can seek refuge in the cool shadows under the bridge. Absolute perfection.
  • Benches. So many benches I enjoy. The one next to the coffee shop. The one in front of the bakery. The one in that tree-lined circular glen in the historical district. The one outside the library. The one at the very south end of the boardwalk where I would sit as a little girl, waiting with a friend for our parents to take us to the rides.
  • Any corner of my gym. I love my gym. I love the energy and the space. I get my music going and my videos loaded, and I zone out.
  • My favorite study carrel at the library. This is important to me, to get this study carrel, but it’s occupied so often. Up the stairs. Straight back to non-fiction. Make a right at the computer search station. Second study carrel on the left, with a view of the parking lot and the distant ocean. I have graded papers from there, written Masters’ theses there, escaped from the chaos of home there, written articles and blogs there, celebrated and mourned there. In the summer I seek cool refuge there, and hunker down with a pile of magazines to watch the summertime visitors come and go on their bikes. In the winter I read and write and maybe even sneak in a small snack, perhaps even a hot green tea, and collapse in introvert happiness.
  • The fountain at the Tabernacle. Years ago I sat in front of the fountain and for some reason decided to unsubscribe to dozens of emails. You ever do that? Just take an hour and unsubscribe to emails you don’t want to receive anymore? Ever since that day, if I have some spare time, no matter if I’m walking or riding my bike, or even if I cut through the parking lot in my car, I will sit in front of the fountain and unsubscribe to some emails I don’t want. Don’t ask me why, it’s just my occasional thing.
  • Waiting in the sunshine for my car to get done at the car wash. I don’t know what it is about the car wash, but waiting in the early spring sunshine while the attendants buff my car brings lightness to my heart. And then isn’t it weird how it feels like your car drives better? In the colder months it’s not an easy job for the car wash attendants, so I always over tip and thank them effusively. In the warm months I wash my car myself in my driveway. I adore washing my car in my driveway. Hearkens back to the days when you had no choice.
  • The war monument across the street from the fountain. I just sit and reflect on the heroes who lost their lives at Pearl Harbor and on D-Day. There’s never anyone there, and it’s like sitting in church. Although it’s emotional, I always feel better afterward.
  • The mailbox I don’t have to get out of my car to use. Yep, no matter the weather, I can pull up to it, lean out my window and drop my mail in the slot.
  • The alley behind my church parking lot. This alley reminds me of when I was a young mother taking my baby boys on long summer walks in their stroller. Just being in this alley gives me a jolt of melancholy. I will go out of my way to use this alley even for a minute or two, just to get that rush.
  • The wine section of the liquor store. I could browse in the wine section for hours. I become transfixed reading the descriptions and looking up wines on my app. And then I always leave with a bottle of Mark West Pinot Noir. But it’s all about the experience.
  • Any bench or table or spot at Kennedy Park in any season. Such a beautiful view of the water and the causeway bridge. In the spring and summer I’ll bring a sandwich, a book and a chair, and plunk myself down in the grass under a tree for a dose of genuine bliss.
  • In my car taking a long drive just to blast my horrible iTunes playlist. Sometimes all I need is a long drive and a reason to sing out loud to the worst playlist that has ever been. It’s so bad my sons beg me to not subject them to it if they’re in my car. But as bad as it is, belting out the familiar songs with my windows rolled down is all the tonic I need.
  • My patio. For twelve years, hanging with my dog Mojo on my patio was my favorite thing to do. He would hang out under his tree and watch the squirrels and birds, and we would both be content just knowing the other was there. This will be the first spring in twelve years that he won’t be hanging with me on the patio. The first spring that his summer friends will walk past the house to greet him, and he won’t be there.

Keep your chin up, it’s March. And enjoy your favorite haunts this month!