It began this way. I had just had my first faintly positive pregnancy test. I was liquid with excitement and edgy with nerves. I didn't yet believe that it could be true. I couldn't dare to hope. We'd been actively trying to get pregnant for a year and somewhat passively trying to get pregnant for two years before that. There were examinations and blood work and medical expenses and ovulation test kits. There was the cycle that every woman who has ever had trouble conceiving knows - the unbearable week or two of waiting until it's not too early to take a pregnancy test.
I took one too early because something just felt different about this month, but it was just barely positive. These are entries from the week following that day.
9 August 2015
11 dpo. BFP. hcg. ttc. I know now what all these things are, have absorbed the acronyms into my body of knowledge. I have felt the ache, impatience, and longing. I've gone to the web forums. I have known the obsessive feeling and the sense of banging my head against the wall. Why? Why is it so hard for two young healthy people to get pregnant?
10 August 2015
I am torn so many ways inside. I feel very isolated. It seems unfair to burden others with this knowledge. Then, if it does end, nobody will have to bear the sorrow with me. There's my sister, but she's far away and can't hug me. Something keeps stopping me when I think of telling even a close friend. That feeling of being on the brink of a decision and then backing down . . .
. . . We'll find out soon. I just have to ride out these days like the gentle waves they are and remember to thrill in the small things, in all things, in the storm that blew wildly in all around me outside with the deep-shade gray clouds darkening day to twilight and rolling out and under, like steam, at the edge of the pale-bellied sheet of rain. Rejoice! The trees shimmy and creak, their leaves whoosh and shush and the wind gusts up under my dress, my hair, my armpits, and lifts me, spirit-first, skyward to join the tempest.
Sometimes I wrote in clumsy poems because prose wouldn't always get at the heart of my heart.
11 August 2015
Medicine, M.D., may occupy
printouts of code in
marching rows of
numerical precision,
windowing in for us
neatly
the answers in a box,
prescribed or proscribed,
a post script
to a letter
with no call to respond.
We are salvaged, gratefully, by math
calculated by others, ago.
How, then, in mysteries do we grow?
Supplicants, are we, appealing
to the highest power
known. How little we know.
Revealed only in the precise increments
which time affords;
Rich though it
no doubt surely is,
dispensing aeons
one
minute
at a
time,
Like nickels to beggars
who can't do for themselves.
.........
My body, my illnesses, my mother, my preschool boy, all once were beeps from a heart rate monitor and numbers and checked boxes on a piece of paper. The entirety of the universe lives behind my child's wide eyes, and he was a measuring tape held to my navel and a photocopied handout on prenatal nutrition.
12 August 2015
This pregnancy is one week behind Ambrose's in terms of the calendar year. Really 5 or 6 days. Our second child will be born soon after Ambrose's birthday. I wonder how they'll feel about having birthdays close together. They will be almost exactly 5 years apart in age. Ambrose will go to kindergarten, I'll go back to work, our new baby will go to preschool 2 days a week - - or private care, or I will work 3 days a week for awhile, or 4 days. I'll use the extra time to study. I'll take the ARE's, get licensed.
It will be perfect.
I believe, now. I'm on board. Trotter-Dunn (Nielsen Ramsay Thompson . . . ) v.2 is the size of a poppyseed and growing even as I write.
Let all creation sing.
...................
Oh, yes, I remember this feeling about being pregnant. A sleepy, fatigued feeling like a weight inside pulling gently down, like I am more dense than usual. Swimmy. And the beginnings of that, "I'm starving. I feel like I'm going to throw up," roller coaster.
So tired. Sleep forever. Sleep for the new growing jellybean.
After that first week, my obsession died down for awhile, and I settled into the pregnancy. Then it became about waiting the long, long months to meet our new family member.
29 September 2015
Cotton ball cloth bandage,
Crimson blot no bigger
than a period.
And once were we all,
once were you,
once joined,
that small.
One period's absence
betraying presence.
And then one rainy day in September I
heard your heart.
And it beat so close and dar to mine.
And I will love you forever,
and already - - I will love you forever.
Give me vaccine serum,
weight gain nausea bloating fear,
paste and bandage my body,
dissolve me in daylight
so that you may live.
So that you may have joy.
So that you may be a princess
or a pirate with a bucket full
of candy,
So that you may fly a plane,
So that you may buy a piece of fruit on the street in Thailand,
So that you may kiss the perfect lips of your lover and feel
their skin under your fingertips.
So that you may crack pistachios
and laugh.
Dear soul.
I see you, dear soul. I am beginning
to see.
And sometimes I just grumbled a bit.
1 December 2015
I throw a sandwich
At my hunger and all my
hunger does is laugh.
A pregnancy haiku.
It was a wonderful and uncomfortable time. I treasured my discomfort and waited, the most difficult and beautiful time of waiting life has offered me. It was my privilege to wait, and now it was a completely different kind of waiting. Not a wait, open-ended, with a question mark, but a sure ticking of minutes and months. Your baby is the size of a pear . . . your baby is developing kidneys . . . your baby is the size of a butternut squash . . . your baby's skin is covered with a waxy substance called vernyx . . . your baby is the size of a watermelon . . .
Friday, August 19, 2016
Wednesday, August 10, 2016
Pre-birth Words, Part I: End, beginning
It was spring. My pregnancy was drawing to its inevitable end. I prepared, within and for myself, and we prepared together as a family.
1 april 2016
"This is birth month. I am not afraid to give birth. I sense that my baby is not afraid to be born. I am ready and I have confidence. I smile at my Braxton Hicks contractions and urge them on. I smile when I wake to a contraction, smile into the dark for only my baby and me. I imagine future times, picking up our baby in the dark and holding it close while it fills its belly with milk my body made. Its small thirsting sounds. The tiny half-movements as its filling tummy lulls it back to sleep.I am ready.I am patient but I am ready. Come, baby. We want you here in the world with us. We can't wait to show you. We're ready."
I knew, then, all of it. I knew how much I wanted the nights punctuated with groggy feedings, the spit-up cloth over my shoulder, the light of a screen in my face to keep my eyes open until the baby finished eating. I knew the way it would be, the whole density of it, the heft, the texture and aperture inward. The thriving long crescendo of a human being, from thin pink line to college dorm room and beyond, I knew it as if spacetime were experiential, as if I could feel my whole life at once.
Looking into the eyes of your child is like feeling your whole life at once.
3 april 2016
"There are many things swarming my mind, but I don't know what to let out in the way that I do. The weather continues to dip into low temperatures at night, and I walk to the car in the chill each morning. I fancy that spring is waiting, as I have waited my own impatient years, for this child. The season will reveal its full glory, the wind will calm and the Dogwoods will come to full flower and I will give birth to our second baby and whisper to it its name in the quiet and carry it outside into the warm season and all of creation will rise in celebration."
I know that Spring did not wait for the birth of my child. But I also know that it was very cool the morning he was born, when we entered the hospital, but when we came back out the next day it had warmed, and soft rain fell. And I know that it was a blessing for the baby, that it rained for him. I know that. And I know that it rained because of our planet's slow waltz about the sun. And I learned something else that day:
1 april 2016
"This is birth month. I am not afraid to give birth. I sense that my baby is not afraid to be born. I am ready and I have confidence. I smile at my Braxton Hicks contractions and urge them on. I smile when I wake to a contraction, smile into the dark for only my baby and me. I imagine future times, picking up our baby in the dark and holding it close while it fills its belly with milk my body made. Its small thirsting sounds. The tiny half-movements as its filling tummy lulls it back to sleep.I am ready.I am patient but I am ready. Come, baby. We want you here in the world with us. We can't wait to show you. We're ready."
I knew, then, all of it. I knew how much I wanted the nights punctuated with groggy feedings, the spit-up cloth over my shoulder, the light of a screen in my face to keep my eyes open until the baby finished eating. I knew the way it would be, the whole density of it, the heft, the texture and aperture inward. The thriving long crescendo of a human being, from thin pink line to college dorm room and beyond, I knew it as if spacetime were experiential, as if I could feel my whole life at once.
Looking into the eyes of your child is like feeling your whole life at once.
3 april 2016
"There are many things swarming my mind, but I don't know what to let out in the way that I do. The weather continues to dip into low temperatures at night, and I walk to the car in the chill each morning. I fancy that spring is waiting, as I have waited my own impatient years, for this child. The season will reveal its full glory, the wind will calm and the Dogwoods will come to full flower and I will give birth to our second baby and whisper to it its name in the quiet and carry it outside into the warm season and all of creation will rise in celebration."
I know that Spring did not wait for the birth of my child. But I also know that it was very cool the morning he was born, when we entered the hospital, but when we came back out the next day it had warmed, and soft rain fell. And I know that it was a blessing for the baby, that it rained for him. I know that. And I know that it rained because of our planet's slow waltz about the sun. And I learned something else that day:
"These are stories, but they are what matter. I am a non-being without stories. I fail in my purpose without devouring and sharing them. I believe things about my life and tell them joyfully the same way over and over, like my father does. I etch events in stone for my memory so that the story can't change. I give my stories freely so that many may hear and remember."
We all joyfully waited. Ambrose, of whose birth we had celebrated the 5th anniversary only two weeks before, waited.
"Ambrose seems more and more ready for this change. He races, dawdles, and soars through his days with rain boots in puddles and deft finger manipulating in discovery, in the way of five year olds, but he pauses and wraps his arms around me and looks up over the hump of my belly, pats it with gentle hands, purses his lips to my shirt and says, "Hullooooh, baby," all muffled and sweet, and I remind him that the baby will already know his voice when it is born, and he says, "Yeah," with pride in his voice.
...I feel blessed that I will share this child with him. That quality time will be spent, not just with me or Brian or grandparents - - but with his or her big brother, Ambrose."
...I feel blessed that I will share this child with him. That quality time will be spent, not just with me or Brian or grandparents - - but with his or her big brother, Ambrose."
There, now, that is one thing I didn't know all the way, could not have known - the utter sweetness of Ambrose's love for his baby brother. I knew of it, but I hadn't felt it yet, the wonder of my son discovering how it is to be a sibling and have a sibling, the thrill of seeing his love outlined in his hands cupped around his baby brother's face, in the glow of his smile as they coo at each other in the backseat of the car, watching as he finds a burp cloth and wipes the spit-up from Ephraim's chin. Something has come out in him that I've never seen: he is a natural care-taker, concerned and diligent.
14 march 2016
14 march 2016
"Today I'm thinking about yesterday. Brian and Ambrose and I all worked through the house together, moving and sorting and finding and mopping and wiping and vacuuming. Ambrose whined in the kitchen where a trail of dribbles led to his kneeling form as he struggled to reposition the soaking mop head on the handle. He'd realized he needed to rinse and re-wet it, but there were parts of that process he just couldn't predict or handle. I can relate.
Sun filled the house, and birdsong, and that specific feeling of 'spring cleaning' that we all know. Winter has loosed its bonds on us, and we experience and respond to the freedom.
...Our bedroom gradually emptied, and a new room grew where Ambrose's room was. We laid down a rug, set up the crib. Here is where our actual baby will sleep, I thought. Brian picked up Ambrose and laid him down in the crib and he grinned in confusion and amusement and Brian held out his hands to show Ambrose how little he was when he slept in that crib, and oh - - how my heart beat inside me, feeling the rushing of my own blood and the baby's and Ambrose's and Brian's, and the four of us were there together and it was good."
We were already a family, but now we feel like a new family - - or a more complete family. Like we were playing a beautiful song but now a new instrument finds its entrance and dances atop the melody and dives down through the chord progressions and trills and harmonizes sweetly, adds its dissonance and resonance and consonance and hesitance and the music washes over me and I am alive in it.
We were already a family, but now we feel like a new family - - or a more complete family. Like we were playing a beautiful song but now a new instrument finds its entrance and dances atop the melody and dives down through the chord progressions and trills and harmonizes sweetly, adds its dissonance and resonance and consonance and hesitance and the music washes over me and I am alive in it.
Wednesday, October 28, 2015
Healthy Habits I've Grown On
Lately it's been on my mind that I do a number of things differently than many Americans, or maybe just to a greater extent in some cases.
On a related note, when people ask me how I stay in shape or how I'm "so skinny," I generally don't know what to say other than, "Uh, I run? And ride my bike places?" and sound thoroughly unhelpful.
Take this all with a grain of salt, because it's coming from a woman currently 15 weeks into her second pregnancy and a couple of pounds heavier than I ought to be so far.
But I thought I would try to gather a list of the things I do that seem pretty distinct from the habits of many of the people around me who seem to struggle with overall health or with weight issues.
Another disclaimer: I completely get that we're all made differently, we all have our different struggles health-wise, and I can only understand health from the posture of my own body and mind. But I hope you can find something about this list inspiring.
1. I eat eggs for breakfast almost every morning. I get the sense from others' discussions that most people eat carbs for breakfast - cereal, oatmeal, bagels. There are many things with added proteins, often in the form of soy or whey, but they're still carb-heavy granola bars or sugary shakes. Two eggs and a slice of multi-grain toast pretty well fills me up, and I don't get "snacky" again for 3 hours or so. Plus, scrambled eggs or eggs made into an omelet allows me to squeeze another serving of vegetables in - usually baby spinach. Sling it in the pan before you pour in the eggs. Add sliced garlic if you're feeling adventurous.
2. I do not steer clear of fats but I try to limit sugar. I get much more of my caloric satisfaction from fats than I do from sugars. I always cook my eggs in butter. I don't skimp on the olive oil when making pasta, etc. I have whole milk yogurt - but plain so there's no added sugar. I often use the yogurt like you'd use sour cream (and usually on my eggs . . .). I don't shy away from cheese and peanut butter. And I put heavy whipping cream in my coffee - but NEVER sugar. Like even the best of us, I can't stay away from the brownies and pop-tarts, but I don't overdo it. One pop-tart, not the whole pack. And I've been gradually decreasing the size of my ice cream bowl over the years so that now, I use a tiny cup that holds maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of ice cream, and I feel finished with ice cream when it's gone.
3. Flavor, not calories. I LOVE all foods that pack tons of flavor but don't necessarily add tons of calories. I have at least 5 different hot sauces that I'm in love with (Sriracha and Frank's Red Hot top the list), and I put pickled jalapenos on just about anything. I'm big on curries, sauces, grainy mustards, olives, and pickles of all kinds (see #5: kimchi). I reach for vividly-flavored salad dressings that don't have lots of gunk in them. I frequently make my own vinaigrettes with mustard, balsamic, lots and lots of fresh herbs (or dried, in the winter), salt and pepper, and extra virgin olive oil. I'm never shy with the spice rack. Brussels sprouts have whole mustard seed and a glaze of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Kale or collards are braised with several cloves of garlic and red pepper flakes. Frozen veggies get a combo of spices that mingle well with whatever we're eating - roasted cumin and smoked paprika when it's burrito night, garam masala and curry powder if we're having an Indian curry, marjoram/basil/thyme if it's italian-themed.
4. I never drink my calories. Unless you count alcohol, which I drink one serving of a couple of times a week (when I'm not pregnant, of course) and the heavy cream in my coffee, I don't drink anything with calories in it. I make a point to drink three large glasses of water before lunch and 3 or 4 more in the latter part of the day, and I have coffee twice. Again, I do have calories in my coffee - I order my cortado with half and half instead of milk, and like I said, I use heavy whipping cream in brewed coffee - but I never drink it with any syrups, sugars, etc. Never soda and not even juice because it's just straight sugar. I just can't get behind "juicing" because it gives you the direct shot of sugar without the fiber to slow down digestion enough to get the full benefit of the vitamins. No point in the calories in my book.
5. Daily probiotic foods. I make my own plain, whole milk yogurt and my own kimchi and have at least a serving of each every day. I think it helps me digest everything else and keeps me healthy and keeps my bowels happy. And happy bowels make happy people. Your gut flora can even determine your mood and stress levels. Science!
6. Veggies with every meal. I eat vegetables every time I eat. I eat vegetables first. We eat processed foods like Digorno pizzas and Marie Calendar pot pies (maybe once or twice a week), but we always add whole food to them in the form of a salad or a side of veggies. I keep frozen veggies on hand to add to those one-skillet frozen pastas (you know, the Bird's Eye ones?). I often use the fiber to help me feel full before I even start on the rest of my food. Almost every lunch I pack for work starts with a big salad - and no iceberg for me. I pick colorful lettuces and baby spinach and try to add as many different colors as I can - baby bell peppers, carrots, snap peas, mushrooms, radishes, beets - whatever I have in the veggie drawer. And I pick dressings that, again, don't skimp on fat but contain very little sugar. Did you know that small amounts of sugar hidden in savory foods can trigger our cravings for sweet foods? Agh! I frequently have a similar salad before dinner, and if I don't, I've prepared two different vegetables to have with whatever protein and starch we're serving. I try to stick to a sort of formula I've read about: half the plate should be veggies (and half of that should ideally be a leafy green or a cruciferous green veggie, like collards, kale, broccoli, and brussels sprouts) and the other half should be starch and protein. And I count things like corn, black beans, and potatoes or sweet potatoes as starches - NOT VEGETABLES. And like I said before, I try to squeeze in a serving of veggies with breakfast, too.
7. Physical activity is a way of life. I go for at least two walks a day at work. I also try to run on my lunch breaks a couple of times a week. I bike as transportation; that means that instead of sitting behind the wheel, I'm burning calories (and saving gas, and protecting the planet . . . ). When my kiddo and I are playing together, we do lots of hiking, biking, trampoline jumping, going for walks, and running around. I don't shy away from carrying him around the house, rough-housing, throwing him on the couch, crawling around on the floor with him with his trucks and cars, and so on. And I've found that I truly enjoy running, so I do it. I switch up my workouts, sometimes running slow and long and sometimes running sprints up and down the block, sometimes running on the road and sometimes only on the trail, sometimes running with epic music and sometimes hearing all the things around me, sometimes running with the dog and sometimes running while Ambrose rides his bike (or, before he learned, with him in the stroller). Even more simply, I don't ask others to do physical things in my place. I don't ask my son or husband to go get things for me. I don't ask someone to carry something for me. I step up on a ladder instead of asking someone to reach something I can't. I firmly believe that my fierce need to be independent contributes to my health.
8. I don't tell myself I can't have things. I simply tell myself to have the good things first or to somehow balance out the not-so-great things. I'll eat ice cream after dinner, but I eat salad before dinner. I'll have a pop-tart in the afternoon, but I have to go for a run sometime during the day or have my espresso black instead of with a bunch of delicious steamed half and half. I can have a snack while watching a movie, but it's not a bottomless bag of chips next to me on the couch; it's a given dose of salsa, and when that's gone, the chips get put away. There are always trade-offs for my indulgence, and I can tell by how I'm feeling if I'm letting things get out of balance. Finally, I don't overdo it. I don't eat until I feel sick. I don't need two donuts because I know I'll feel crappy afterward and one tastes just as delicious. I can keep a Nature Valley high-protein chocolate peanut bar in my desk drawer because it only has 6 grams of sugar - a Snickers has 27 (TWENTY. SEVEN.). I promise, the granola bar is actually as delicious. I always try to find the granola/protein/snack bars with at least as much protein as sugar and a decent dose of fiber. I'm also a huge fan of make-your-own snack mix, and my favorite combo is pistachios, dried cherries (vitamin A and melatonin!) and bittersweet chocolate chips.
9. I don't stress-eat. When stress is really getting to me and making me grind my teeth at night and snap at my loved ones, I reach for the things I know are helpful - in my case, getting in a long run, doing 30 minutes of yoga instead of hitting the snooze for 30 minutes (thought I do that really often, too), reading a book I love, or finding a guided meditation or guided hypnosis on youtube or iTunes to listen to before bed. That being said, I DO eat when I'm bored or as a method of procrastination. I try hard to recognize when I'm doing this and insert another activity, like a walk, writing in my journal, or reading. However, this is one of my big struggles.
10. I tend to associate with people I admire and whose habits I want to absorb. I am attracted to people who I perceive to have certain kinds of power, and I perceive good health habits to be a kind of power. My husband is very physically active, and his bicycle commuting and running are two of the big things that attracted me to him in the first place. I am blessed to have many friends and family to spend time with who encourage me to be active, eat well, and keep everything in balance. I spend more time with people who make me want to be better and less time with people who seem to bring out my less healthy habits.
Those are the things that have been occurring to me lately. I have been wanting to "publish" them in case anyone else finds them helpful. I've had the great good fortune to have been brought up with many of these habits or to have learned them from the healthy people around me. My mom made us Kool-Aid when we were kids, but she used half the sugar it called for. We weren't allowed to keep super-sugary cereals in the house but instead had multi-grain cheerios and homemade granola. Dessert was only for if you ate all your dinner, and it was in modest portions. Treats were rare and were assigned an emotional gravity, like a special family trip to TCBY after dinner or ice cream after a doctor appointment. We wouldn't just sit in front of the tv with a bowl of ice cream. We often took family walks after dinner. And I grew up hiking and biking and running and playing outside with my family and friends; tv time was usually for when it was too dark to play outside.
In short, I know I learned my habits gradually over the course of my life, and now I'm lucky to have them be intrinsic. It also helps that I LOVE vegetables and feel unhappy and out of whack if I go two meals in a row without something green. But I also firmly believe that with small and intentional changes, tackled one at a time, anyone at any stage of life can form new habits. So I hope you've found something helpful or thought-provoking in these paragraphs. Be well!
On a related note, when people ask me how I stay in shape or how I'm "so skinny," I generally don't know what to say other than, "Uh, I run? And ride my bike places?" and sound thoroughly unhelpful.
Take this all with a grain of salt, because it's coming from a woman currently 15 weeks into her second pregnancy and a couple of pounds heavier than I ought to be so far.
But I thought I would try to gather a list of the things I do that seem pretty distinct from the habits of many of the people around me who seem to struggle with overall health or with weight issues.
Another disclaimer: I completely get that we're all made differently, we all have our different struggles health-wise, and I can only understand health from the posture of my own body and mind. But I hope you can find something about this list inspiring.
1. I eat eggs for breakfast almost every morning. I get the sense from others' discussions that most people eat carbs for breakfast - cereal, oatmeal, bagels. There are many things with added proteins, often in the form of soy or whey, but they're still carb-heavy granola bars or sugary shakes. Two eggs and a slice of multi-grain toast pretty well fills me up, and I don't get "snacky" again for 3 hours or so. Plus, scrambled eggs or eggs made into an omelet allows me to squeeze another serving of vegetables in - usually baby spinach. Sling it in the pan before you pour in the eggs. Add sliced garlic if you're feeling adventurous.
2. I do not steer clear of fats but I try to limit sugar. I get much more of my caloric satisfaction from fats than I do from sugars. I always cook my eggs in butter. I don't skimp on the olive oil when making pasta, etc. I have whole milk yogurt - but plain so there's no added sugar. I often use the yogurt like you'd use sour cream (and usually on my eggs . . .). I don't shy away from cheese and peanut butter. And I put heavy whipping cream in my coffee - but NEVER sugar. Like even the best of us, I can't stay away from the brownies and pop-tarts, but I don't overdo it. One pop-tart, not the whole pack. And I've been gradually decreasing the size of my ice cream bowl over the years so that now, I use a tiny cup that holds maybe 1/4 to 1/3 of a cup of ice cream, and I feel finished with ice cream when it's gone.
3. Flavor, not calories. I LOVE all foods that pack tons of flavor but don't necessarily add tons of calories. I have at least 5 different hot sauces that I'm in love with (Sriracha and Frank's Red Hot top the list), and I put pickled jalapenos on just about anything. I'm big on curries, sauces, grainy mustards, olives, and pickles of all kinds (see #5: kimchi). I reach for vividly-flavored salad dressings that don't have lots of gunk in them. I frequently make my own vinaigrettes with mustard, balsamic, lots and lots of fresh herbs (or dried, in the winter), salt and pepper, and extra virgin olive oil. I'm never shy with the spice rack. Brussels sprouts have whole mustard seed and a glaze of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar. Kale or collards are braised with several cloves of garlic and red pepper flakes. Frozen veggies get a combo of spices that mingle well with whatever we're eating - roasted cumin and smoked paprika when it's burrito night, garam masala and curry powder if we're having an Indian curry, marjoram/basil/thyme if it's italian-themed.
4. I never drink my calories. Unless you count alcohol, which I drink one serving of a couple of times a week (when I'm not pregnant, of course) and the heavy cream in my coffee, I don't drink anything with calories in it. I make a point to drink three large glasses of water before lunch and 3 or 4 more in the latter part of the day, and I have coffee twice. Again, I do have calories in my coffee - I order my cortado with half and half instead of milk, and like I said, I use heavy whipping cream in brewed coffee - but I never drink it with any syrups, sugars, etc. Never soda and not even juice because it's just straight sugar. I just can't get behind "juicing" because it gives you the direct shot of sugar without the fiber to slow down digestion enough to get the full benefit of the vitamins. No point in the calories in my book.
5. Daily probiotic foods. I make my own plain, whole milk yogurt and my own kimchi and have at least a serving of each every day. I think it helps me digest everything else and keeps me healthy and keeps my bowels happy. And happy bowels make happy people. Your gut flora can even determine your mood and stress levels. Science!
6. Veggies with every meal. I eat vegetables every time I eat. I eat vegetables first. We eat processed foods like Digorno pizzas and Marie Calendar pot pies (maybe once or twice a week), but we always add whole food to them in the form of a salad or a side of veggies. I keep frozen veggies on hand to add to those one-skillet frozen pastas (you know, the Bird's Eye ones?). I often use the fiber to help me feel full before I even start on the rest of my food. Almost every lunch I pack for work starts with a big salad - and no iceberg for me. I pick colorful lettuces and baby spinach and try to add as many different colors as I can - baby bell peppers, carrots, snap peas, mushrooms, radishes, beets - whatever I have in the veggie drawer. And I pick dressings that, again, don't skimp on fat but contain very little sugar. Did you know that small amounts of sugar hidden in savory foods can trigger our cravings for sweet foods? Agh! I frequently have a similar salad before dinner, and if I don't, I've prepared two different vegetables to have with whatever protein and starch we're serving. I try to stick to a sort of formula I've read about: half the plate should be veggies (and half of that should ideally be a leafy green or a cruciferous green veggie, like collards, kale, broccoli, and brussels sprouts) and the other half should be starch and protein. And I count things like corn, black beans, and potatoes or sweet potatoes as starches - NOT VEGETABLES. And like I said before, I try to squeeze in a serving of veggies with breakfast, too.
7. Physical activity is a way of life. I go for at least two walks a day at work. I also try to run on my lunch breaks a couple of times a week. I bike as transportation; that means that instead of sitting behind the wheel, I'm burning calories (and saving gas, and protecting the planet . . . ). When my kiddo and I are playing together, we do lots of hiking, biking, trampoline jumping, going for walks, and running around. I don't shy away from carrying him around the house, rough-housing, throwing him on the couch, crawling around on the floor with him with his trucks and cars, and so on. And I've found that I truly enjoy running, so I do it. I switch up my workouts, sometimes running slow and long and sometimes running sprints up and down the block, sometimes running on the road and sometimes only on the trail, sometimes running with epic music and sometimes hearing all the things around me, sometimes running with the dog and sometimes running while Ambrose rides his bike (or, before he learned, with him in the stroller). Even more simply, I don't ask others to do physical things in my place. I don't ask my son or husband to go get things for me. I don't ask someone to carry something for me. I step up on a ladder instead of asking someone to reach something I can't. I firmly believe that my fierce need to be independent contributes to my health.
8. I don't tell myself I can't have things. I simply tell myself to have the good things first or to somehow balance out the not-so-great things. I'll eat ice cream after dinner, but I eat salad before dinner. I'll have a pop-tart in the afternoon, but I have to go for a run sometime during the day or have my espresso black instead of with a bunch of delicious steamed half and half. I can have a snack while watching a movie, but it's not a bottomless bag of chips next to me on the couch; it's a given dose of salsa, and when that's gone, the chips get put away. There are always trade-offs for my indulgence, and I can tell by how I'm feeling if I'm letting things get out of balance. Finally, I don't overdo it. I don't eat until I feel sick. I don't need two donuts because I know I'll feel crappy afterward and one tastes just as delicious. I can keep a Nature Valley high-protein chocolate peanut bar in my desk drawer because it only has 6 grams of sugar - a Snickers has 27 (TWENTY. SEVEN.). I promise, the granola bar is actually as delicious. I always try to find the granola/protein/snack bars with at least as much protein as sugar and a decent dose of fiber. I'm also a huge fan of make-your-own snack mix, and my favorite combo is pistachios, dried cherries (vitamin A and melatonin!) and bittersweet chocolate chips.
9. I don't stress-eat. When stress is really getting to me and making me grind my teeth at night and snap at my loved ones, I reach for the things I know are helpful - in my case, getting in a long run, doing 30 minutes of yoga instead of hitting the snooze for 30 minutes (thought I do that really often, too), reading a book I love, or finding a guided meditation or guided hypnosis on youtube or iTunes to listen to before bed. That being said, I DO eat when I'm bored or as a method of procrastination. I try hard to recognize when I'm doing this and insert another activity, like a walk, writing in my journal, or reading. However, this is one of my big struggles.
10. I tend to associate with people I admire and whose habits I want to absorb. I am attracted to people who I perceive to have certain kinds of power, and I perceive good health habits to be a kind of power. My husband is very physically active, and his bicycle commuting and running are two of the big things that attracted me to him in the first place. I am blessed to have many friends and family to spend time with who encourage me to be active, eat well, and keep everything in balance. I spend more time with people who make me want to be better and less time with people who seem to bring out my less healthy habits.
Those are the things that have been occurring to me lately. I have been wanting to "publish" them in case anyone else finds them helpful. I've had the great good fortune to have been brought up with many of these habits or to have learned them from the healthy people around me. My mom made us Kool-Aid when we were kids, but she used half the sugar it called for. We weren't allowed to keep super-sugary cereals in the house but instead had multi-grain cheerios and homemade granola. Dessert was only for if you ate all your dinner, and it was in modest portions. Treats were rare and were assigned an emotional gravity, like a special family trip to TCBY after dinner or ice cream after a doctor appointment. We wouldn't just sit in front of the tv with a bowl of ice cream. We often took family walks after dinner. And I grew up hiking and biking and running and playing outside with my family and friends; tv time was usually for when it was too dark to play outside.
In short, I know I learned my habits gradually over the course of my life, and now I'm lucky to have them be intrinsic. It also helps that I LOVE vegetables and feel unhappy and out of whack if I go two meals in a row without something green. But I also firmly believe that with small and intentional changes, tackled one at a time, anyone at any stage of life can form new habits. So I hope you've found something helpful or thought-provoking in these paragraphs. Be well!
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Design + Coffee = Happy Geek-Out
What follows are photos of our new coffee maker, the manual and deliming device (a simple coiled metal wire), and a box of filters. The art for the manual and filter box is some of the best product graphic design I've seen, and the coffee maker itself is so simple and effective it's been in use in diners and now homes for 50 years. This is largely why I am a designer. How I feel right now is how I want to make other people feel: communicated with in as clear a language as a handshake, by someone who cares enough to shake your hand with intention and humanity.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Wednesday, February 26, 2014
Joy and Graduate Design Research
What I talk about when I talk about
this research is joy. What joy is, is times of feeling intimately connected to
the world around you and the people in it. I know the solemn, intentional joy
of being alone and feeling that connection with clouds and sunlight and plants
and pavement, being part of all of that. But what this experience has been so
full of is the distracted, unselfconscious joy of feeling connected with other
people. What has happened is, I have made friends. These people who don't have houses or apartments, who I used to feel estranged from, even afraid of - I think of them when the weather
is bad, and I visit to see if I can help. I dream about some of them at night.
They have winked into being in the constellations of people in my life. I’ve
experienced devastation with them, watching them stare around, lost, at the
waste of the meager structure they had to their days. I’ve seen their ability
to be human even in that situation, to be so angry and scared yet to be able to
step back and say, “I don’t hold it against them; they’re just doing their
job.” I don’t care who else they are, or what else they are, or whether they
could find work if they tried harder, or whether they could get housing if
they’d just go to a case worker. I suspend judgment during my time with them,
the same way I do for other friends. I don’t listen because I have to; I want to listen. Laughing at a story they
tell me, or shaking my head in disgust at the injustice they are facing, or
watching the creases at the corners of their eyes as they smile, reflecting my
smile. The gradual process of being accepted as someone they can talk to,
someone they can trust, has thrilled me more and more and more deeply in each
instance of contact. I want to be part of their meetings, their informal
gatherings. I am hurt if I think I have hurt them. I don’t romanticize our
relationship or think that I mean the world to them, but I do not take for
granted the glory of their recognition. Taking the time to cultivate a
relationship so that when you see someone, you smile at each other and greet
each other happily, is the most joyous thing we can do with our time. It is not
the most productive thing; productivity is also part of this but belongs to
another realm. It is not the most economical thing or the most helpful thing
(though some may argue that it is). But connecting and being joyful in the bond
is the most important thing for a healthy human being to have, of this I am
sure. What they have given me over the course of these months of work is not
something I can talk about academically. I hope
for them. I trust them. They have
changed me so. The feeling I have now approaching a campsite is as night is to day with the feeling I had approaching the first time. Hesitation is now
confidence. Fear is now excitement. Uncertainty is now command. I know what to
say, how to look them in the face and not be so aware of our relative positions
in life. If I drive up in my car and they sit on a railroad tie with all their
belongings in a backpack beside them, it doesn’t matter because our relative
positions are pretend, formed by stories we tell about the value of money and
of objects. We are adjacent and joined by the only position that is real
between two humans: two simultaneously beating hearts, a whole history of
experiences that we begin sharing the moment our brains look out through our
eyes, meeting. I read once that you know everything you need to know about a
person the first moment you look into their eyes, if you are paying attention.
It’s true, because all you need to know about them is that they are a person
and all they need to know about you is that you are one. We know exactly how to
acknowledge the light, the soul, whatever you would like to call it, that
shines back at us. We pretend not to know in our fear and doubt. Once we have
practiced and learned to let the fear and doubt go, all that is left is the
joyfulness of transfer, of empathy. I can see your emotions in your eyes. I
care about the state of your mind. Once that is in place, everything else falls
easily into a natural rhythm and formation. Then if your friend says, “Can I have
$1.50?” and you say, “Yes,” and hand them two dollars because you don’t have
coins and they say, “Make it three,” and you say, “No,” and they say, “Okay,”
neither of you have lost anything in the exchange. You have both been honest
about what you need and what you are willing. It is as simple as meeting at a
coffee shop with an old friend. You might both offer to pay. One of you might
offer first and insist. One of you might find yourself short and ask for a
favor. We take these small moments in stride because we trust ourselves and we
trust our friends. You can understand and use the trust you have in people who
don’t have a house in the same ways. You are unafraid to say things like, “You
need to leave me alone now,” or “I have to leave.” You are unafraid to admit
that you have no cash, and you are unafraid to admit that you do but you need
it for something later. You are unafraid to say, “I can’t help you with that,”
or “I think I know someone who could help you out.” You’re unafraid to hug them
or cry or apologize or turn away or do any of the other things people do with
one another, because you have become unafraid of your own vulnerability around
them – which is really what we’re all afraid of. The precariousness of our own
position. That their homelessness will negate the legitimacy of our own
standing. It doesn’t have to. You can have your own life and love it and not
give it all away. They understand. They really do. And that is magic.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
The best thing we can do for each other is cry together
On Monday, midmorning, in a cold wind, I visited the camping grounds under I40 as I frequently do, to say hello to the people living there. This day I was investigating who was camping and whether they had a need for firewood. A friend had offered some extra she had from a felled tree in her backyard. I approached a group of five who stood and sat around a green metal barrel with a fire in it. I hadn't met any of them, so we introduced ourselves with smiles. After confirming they yes, please, definitely needed firewood, the man closest to me offered some labor and then volunteered some personal information about his recent experience. He was speaking of extremely difficult things - loss of a loved one, violence, prison - but he spoke with an uplifted chin and the unmistakable air of a person with hope and a plan. As he talked and I listened, the cold wind blowing into my face began to make my eyes water. I felt one tear then another trickle from the corners of my eyes, and, embarrassed, I tried to wipe them away without his notice - but after a few more moments his eyes began to water too. Amazement bloomed in my chest as more tears flowed down my face and then two spilled from his eyes. Neither of us acknowledged it with our words, but as he talked, we stared into each other's faces and cried with stillness and silence. Then my tears were no longer from cold but with a concentration of raw empathy, the kind of thing we don't have to force or be taught. We see each other's real-ness and acknowledge it in each other. Nobody said, "I'm sorry." Nobody said, "I feel pain." But there was pain, and there was sorrow, and there was the knowing that all of that was going to be fine. We smiled at each other with the saline drying on our cheeks. I said goodbye and walked to my car, new.
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