Consistent Appreciation
After working so hard yesterday CK and I rewarded ourselves with a lazy, wandering day. Went downtown, got coffee and enjoyed it sitting in Pioneer Square. Then off to catch The Brothers Bloom, which was excellent, has wonderful music, and beautifully filmed. We then just ambled around downtown, making our meandering way to the Saturday Market.
We even indulged in a little bit of bargain shopping. CK found a great white dress shirt with French cuffs and a blue striped tie. She modeled them for me when we got home and she looks awesome! I found a t-shirt with a pattern on it that reminds me somewhat of collage and has beautiful butterflies and dragonflies on it.
I nearly didn't try it on -- one of those moments where I pick something up, look at it and decide it there is no way something so small could possibly fit me! CK insisted it would fit and encouraged me to at least try it on. It is meant to hug the body, but similarly to the way my yoga clothes do. I was glad she got me to try it! I found a black sweater hoodie printed with a fantastic butterfly motif - just that kind of day.
It has been so busy for so long that it was wonderful to just have a quiet day together. We talked a lot about the appreciation we have for each other. She asked me if I thought we were a good team and I said yes, without hesitation. I said what was more amazing was that I felt like there is consistency; that my "teammate" was consistently a good, supportive partner.
To end a beautiful day we came up and I made up a salad from the ideas she gave me. We got to sit out on the newly cleaned off deck in the cool breeze and enjoy dinner together. I found myself looking at her while she's unaware, something she catches me doing a lot, but at times I just like to watch her and be present to my joy & gratitude.
Party!
CK and I held our first "official" party tonight. Many people came and brought wonderful, vegan food to share. I just finished packing up all the leftovers & cleaning up while listening to dj Cheb i Sabbah's last release, Devotion
Cut time a bit close - I was grateful that the first guests arrived after I'd managed to grab a quick shower and get dressed! We spent the day in a full push against the yard, deck and house. We worked out in the yard until it was past noon and too hot, too bright to be out in it. Inside we cleared out the living & dining rooms, which now look lovely, open and spacious. I also finished up the kitchen and gave the bathroom a good cleaning.
CK made some macaroni salad, which she felt like she couldn't taste. I found myself in the kitchen half cooking, half talking to guests and cooking with one guest (who made fresh green beans stir-fried three ways), which was a lot of fun for me. I was making potato salad as guests arrived -- this means it didn't turn out quite as planned, but still tasty. I also started some baked beans this morning in the Crockpot - first attempt at them and I am pretty happy.
The deck looked beautiful with candles everywhere and a string of fairy lights. CK is going to hang more. I look forward to having dinner out there with her and with friends this summer. The yard has had so much progress made and it was fun talking about our plans.
Everyone had a lot of fun while the more pyromaniacally inclined of the party-goers light off a bunch of the fireworks we have. It seems like each year a few more are leftover! Maybe we'll throw a hungry ghosts/birthday party in September and light off a few more.
It was nice having this first night of real entertaining. We are both exhausted and aching now, but it felt good working hard together to make things look nice and make the food come together. I was really touched, if a bit overwhelmed at times, at how many people did come for us throwing the invite out there a few days ago!
The good and bad thing about a party -- all your friends show up, or at least most of them. I commented to CK when she returned from taking a friend home (he's too sick to bicycle or bus, but wanted to come) that we know some really interesting people! We're going to try to invite people over regularly, in small groups for dinner so we can focus on getting to know people better.
Spasm Storm
Frustrating day at work. Primary production tool server was having problems, kind of. Not so critical that we called for a mid-day outage, but impacting enough things to annoy my most demanding client team. I spent much of the day responding to their complaints about having to use a work around and wanting to escalate, regardless of this impacting several other teams. Then the test server for our enterprise reports environment was stuck.
I noticed after having a good sized, delicious lunch of last night's leftovers (Anasazi beans, mango salsa, rice/barley/radish seed steamed, and chard & beet greens) that I was craving sweets. In between the client irritation and the tedium of defining all the database fields & tables my brain was stuck on, "cookie, cookie, cookie.... give us a cookie..."
No cookie. I was mindful of all the emotions pushing me towards sweet gratification, offered loving-kindness, got about my day the best I could, and looked forward to zazen. My reward was to leave a little earlier and join CK. I had an iced coffee and a couple of bites of a blueberry muffin and felt pretty good.
Had a great group meeting at the Dharma center. We shared a potluck, light meal and talked about practice. I even talked briefly about being wrapped up in working with how I felt about my body, how having the photography session really triggered some painful stuff. I didn't explode...
Well, at least I didn't explode until I stood up to put away dishes and gather up things for zazen.
The cramps started in my left hamstring and my right foot. I dropped back onto the floor in the center of the room trying to calm my legs down. Both legs were cramped and in spasm from hip to toe and my feet pulling tightly, curling up involuntarily. The right one along the front of the leg, the left along the back and side. Breath-stealing agony with an audience as more and more people arrived.
Each time I'd try to stand up to lengthen my legs the spasms and cramps would intensify. I eventually gave up and inched myself to a sofa, lay on the ground and put my legs up on the cushions. This began to help although the left upper leg remained in spasm. I felt myself crying.
"I hate my body." I said from the floor to a concerned Sangha member checking in on me.
Right in that moment I meant it. Even if for a second. I felt like my body was one giant, muscular panic attack and crying, lying helpless on the floor with people around me added a layer of emotional vulnerability that only made things worse.
Ultimately we went home. CK still isn't feeling great, even though she is improving slowly with the antibiotics, so it was good for her to come home. There was no way I could sit zazen, something that was pretty apparent to everyone. Hogen made a suggestion regarding levels of trace minerals, something he'd come started asking me about when he spotted me in distress, and had even gone to get his bag to see if he had anything to give me immediately. He saw us out and wished us well.
I'd really been looking forward to zazen and the Dharma talk tonight. CK helped me to the car as I cried and limped. I felt the hurt 4-year-old inside of me wailing at having been denied cookies earlier and now having her "normal" Thursday night taken away. I also felt tremendous fear at being "stuck" like this, with CK having to help me when she is so young and healthy.
I keep reminding myself that I haven't been shutdown with muscle spasms like that in a couple of years. There was a time when this was a weekly, daily thing. So I have improved. It is still scary though to have that happen. I feel pretty helpless when it does, overloaded by the barrage of information.
Most days I feel like I have some say in my pain, how I function with it. I had even commented earlier in the evening as we shared dinner how yoga had helped me be comfortable with the inside of my body. Even though my body experiences some level of constant, chronic pain, I'm able to feel comfortable inside it. The massive storm of muscle spasms rob me of even that small feeling of comfort.
Everything changes, especially our feelings of comfort.
I am trying not to hate my body. I am working on moving out of the shame I feel towards it, especially the outside of it. I am trying not to feel unbalanced by this overload of pain information tonight.
Some Dharma gates we must crawl through.
This Body
I was a skinny person who became obese. I was underweight at birth, throughout my early childhood, and was pretty thin until the last year of college when the combination of traumatic breakdown, plentiful rich food, a foundation of disordered eating habits, and injury combined to really add weight onto my frame. I left college at least two sizes larger than I started.
Then another injury while my brain was still fragmented from trauma, locked into silence. I broke my left ankle playing volleyball after work. Within a year I'd added a couple more sizes. Throughout my 20s that's how it went, a size creeping on nearly every year until by the time I was 30 I had gone from a size 5/7 when I started college to a size 24/26.
I never was comfortable with my thin body, especially as a teen. This is the place where body issues, PTSD, and sexual orientation meet head-on. In my thin body as a teenager I was encouraged that girls wear sexy things. I was directed away from my "tomboy" style as much as possible, especially for dressier occasions. It didn't feel right on so many levels.
Dressing up, showing off my thin body like girls were expected to brought attention that made me uncomfortable. Even at my largest I was never entirely comfortable in the various dresses, skirts, high heels and corsets. It was always a costume, I was always reserved, a bit stiff, and very self-conscious. When the attention of men lead to intimacy with men I felt incredibly awkward most of the time, sometimes I would feel entirely disconnected. It has been painful, but illuminating to figure out in my 30s that part of the problem all along is that my sexual orientation is strongly directed towards women, learning to use the words "Lesbian", "gay", and "queer" more openly.
Losing the weight has felt like this slide right back into adolescence at times especially being combined with all the sexual confusion. Yep, just like being 15 all over again, but with mortgage payments. Here I am back in a body that gets attention, especially from men. If anything I'm more hyper aware of my discomfort around my attractiveness because I'm no longer disassociated from the traumatic episodes. But I'm also not in exactly the same body and driven by the images of bodies we are surrounded with, so I'm quick to judge the way the extra skin moves very harshly and am sometimes so distracted by it I am not fully present to anything but feeling ashamed of my body.
I'm still trying to pick my way through it all. When I first lost all the weight I was entirely without all the girly clothes that had been my costume when I was obese. My back condition had already made it so I'd given away all my high heels. I swung back to being a "tomboy" with a vengeance. I even got into a fight with my Mom over it when I'd bought a really nice outfit for her wedding that was based around some green trousers.
I still have the skirt I bought in protest, I was wearing it last weekend. As uncomfortable as I felt with my body in the black dress I bought, there's part of me that enjoyed wearing it a little bit. It is the same part of me that occasionally enjoys the way a skirt moves around my legs in a breeze. I am finding some element of compromise between the "tomboy" and the girl who never got to pick being the "princess" on her own terms.
Body
It was one of those realizations during zazen that felt like it kind of thumped into me. Why writing about, talking about the weight loss is so difficult.
I feel shame for having gained all that weight in the first place. For having abused my body so much.
Every day I'm reminded of it by the skin. I mention it sometimes, like wanting to wear something with long sleeves to cover my upper arms, the underside of which have a great deal of loose skin. People shrug and say how that happens to a lot of people, it is genetic.
Only really, this isn't like that. It is extra skin. One of my dearest friends, who has had a lap band surgery, calls them her "Bat Wings". More exercise and different body care products will not make the skin go away. There or any of the extra on my belly (upper and lower abdomen), breasts, and thighs particularly. There is quite possibly 10 extra pounds of skin. That's what happens when someone goes from 290+ to 140 +/- (I stay within a few pounds of that in either direction).
I mentioned it to Chozen and Hogen after sitting. I was reminded that instead of shame I need to honor my accomplishment by helping others. I joked with Hogen, asking if he kept a tally sheet under the sazen cushion for how many times I'm told this lesson. He laughed and said only for me. Chozen noted that I needed to go back to the piece I'm writing for her with this mindset.
And Loving-Kindness, of course.
I haven't done it yet. We were in Sacramento all weekend visiting CK's family. It was an inferno there compared to Portland, painfully bright. There was a lot of family dynamics and tension I was getting introduced to at the same time. It brought up some tough stuff in my past.
On top of that CK's step-dad, a professional photographer, took a series of photographs of me. Well over an hour of going through yoga poses again and again, turning to get different angles. It was exhausting on so many levels.
I shouldn't have looked at the images mid-way, but he was making a light adjustment for me to do standing asana, so I looked. He was complimenting my chaturunga, how great it looked to get it in series. He does yoga, so often he had a comment or suggested a couple of poses I hadn't done.
I couldn't stop looking at the way the loose skin on my upper abdomen hangs down. Gravity being what it is there's just this round line. It doesn't matter how strong or lean my core muscles are in my abdomen, nothing will make that skin hang smooth against my body again.
I continued on with the asana, working up a real sweat in the warm house in my yoga outfit with long sleeves and pants. CK expressed surprise several times, noting how I could do some poses she didn't even realize I was capable of. I wasn't able to move away from feeling shameful about my body for a while, it wasn't until I looked at other poses that I could work my way back to appreciating my alignment in the asana the way a teacher would. Moving towards looking at my body as just a students, not actually my own.
Back to the writing for Chozen. Now that I'm out of excuses and have zeroed in on at least one big reason I'm so uncomfortable with it. I suspect there's others but this appears to be a good one to start with.
Writing About the Weight Loss
I've gotten OK with writing about quite a lot of stuff. I've now even managed to write three things to be put into zine-type publications and have the work be personal, from my own experience. Writing about the weight loss is tough, weird, and it is one of the topics I think I get asked about the most.
Chozen was at the Dharma Center tonight and thanked me for writing a nice review of her book on Amazon. This prompted me to blurt out that I'd finished a draft of my assignment from her but I was still unhappy with it. I noted that CK had thought my voice seemed distant in it. She said usually reading my writing seems as though I'm there talking with her.
Off to the zendo and zazen I went with that little burst of anxious, "bad student" guilt, courtesy of my Inner Critic. It struck me in that first period why I find writing about the weight loss so difficult, why I try to distance myself from it. I feel ashamed for having abused my body with gaining that weight. Every day I see the loose skin as some kind of testimony to my guilt.
Second sitting period starts. I breath in... and Hogen's telling us to work on feeling satisfaction with ourselves, our breath, our bodies. Ugh! I feel like I've just been double-teamed by my teachers. Then I directed the madly spinning brain wheels to some Metta practice.
In chatting with both my teachers after sitting I was reminded of what I am told again and again. To take this history, the lessons I've learned from it, and use it to help others. Turn it all into potent medicine to heal the world. I sighed and laughed, feeling a bit sheepish (which is a variation on the bad-student anxiety, only with more kindness).
Chozen reminded me that she asked me for this writing because it means more for me to say that it is possible to change your life through mindful eating. She said that they might listen to hear about struggling with chocolate desires, but I truly speak the voice of someone who has successfully lost 150 pounds and kept it off. Proof that there is a way.
So I'll pick it up again over the next few days. Read it aloud, feel the words and where my discomfort rises up around them. Practice Metta and remind myself why I'm writing about this stuff (to help others, not so I won't feel guilty around Chozen... OK, maybe both).
Accomodate or Include?
Still processing the Founder's Dinner. On one hand it was wildly successful and I am so grateful. Then there's the other hand...
Yes, the chef was donating his time and ideas. Yes, we'd already asked him to prepare a vegetarian dinner. Yes, vegan meals had to be asked for towards the end of planning.
But like so many events the accommodation for a vegan was just leave dairy/eggs out of the vegetarian dishes, a couple of which had no option (I'm sure the fritters were lovely and we didn't even try the chard from the garden). Dessert? Yes, a plate with a few of the strawberries in syrup that garnished the beautiful shortcakes served to everyone else. Shortcakes that our teacher used to guide everyone in a mindful eating practice.
Why is it that dessert always seems to be the bit that really sticks out? My first weekend at Great Vow, for a Beginner's Mind retreat, I had no dessert options when it was time for tea. By the time I came for the women's retreat that Sandy Boucher and Martha Boesing teach in the winter there was a scramble to serve me dried dates at tea. During Loving-Kindness I brought a package of store-bought cookies so there would always be something. Admittedly there was more than one tea where I struggled with the hurt child's voice inside who couldn't help but notice just now nice the cookies served to everyone else were.
I've been practicing with this voice, this hurt child who is me, for a few years now. She made a deafening howl at times during the Loving-Kindness sesshin. As far as being vegan goes, I have reasoned conversations with that child about how being vegan is so critically important to our practice of Peace, the practice that heals us. That our need to be literally nourished by a diet of peace is the very foundation of our Practice.
The Founder's Dinner became another chance to practice with that voice unfortunately. I was already nervous at being all dressed up and helping as a Table Host (which meant talking to people, answering questions and asking for money). Instead of relaxing into the evening I practiced with that child's disappointment and my concern for CK, who was having a rough time with the same issue.
I guess the word "accommodate" jumps right out. It doesn't mean include. It does imply making something suitable or giving consideration to someone's needs, which is important but it isn't the same as including someone in a group. In the overall scheme of things it often a huge accomplishment to get a group, society to accommodate someone. Hell, I don't need the State of Oregon or the whole of the United States to include me or make me welcome in everything, but I'd be elated if they would merely accommodate my right to marry the person I love.
But my spiritual home? This is the community I want to include me, not merely accommodate me. This is the essence of the article I wrote for our Sangha newsletter, Wisdom's Heart Includes All. As vegans we are an extreme, although there is a precedent of a Zen teacher advocating a vegan diet (Thich Nhat Hanh), but I feel we are an important part of our Sangha. Inclusion means we gather in those extremes as well as the nice, comfortable, filled-out center.
What does this mean? I am not entirely sure yet. I know I am filled with gladness and gratitude that JQ, the tenzo at Great Vow, is using more vegan recipes, is excited by the cookbooks we sent, and I love talking to her about cooking. I am delighted to share recipes and ideas with my Sangha. I'd love to host some cooking classes! I want to hear about any special events in advance so either CK or I have the time to make something special to bring. Maybe, just maybe, the next time we have a fancy dinner planning for vegan members will be considered at the beginning, I hope that at least one dish will be entirely vegan for the whole group, and we'll actually get a real dessert.
I do know with all my heart I want to be a part of the founding of the Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple, but at times it is painful, challenging practice to feel "accommodated".
CK's open letter she wrote in response to her feelings at the Founder's Dinner is also online.
Finally a Day At Home!
So worn out today. It has felt like we have been at a run for the past two weeks. CK's brother, house guests, Atari's passing, tattoos, big shopping expedition, then days of activity around Open Source Bridge, parties, and the Heart of Wisdom Zen Temple Founder's Dinner (which I helped out at). On top of all the busyness of the past couple of weeks I've not been sleeping really well, neither has CK.
I'd woke up early and sat zazen, planning to head into the office. I felt generally exhausted, had a headache and was generally nauseous. I opted to work from home and dragged myself, with as much mindful attention as I could muster, to meetings. I was grateful to head over to an appointment with Beth for a massage.
I warned her I might fall asleep on her, but some of my muscles were so bunched up and tight that it would have been impossible to doze off. The pain in my left shoulder and back reminded me how grateful I was to have ordered a new bag on Saturday. My beat to heck bag from Vy & Elle is not good to carry around even my ultra-light laptop. I felt merely tired when she was done, some of the thick fog of exhaustion had let up a little.
Had told E I'd take her yoga mats back to her this evening but was enjoying making dinner with CK and just didn't feel like leaving the house. She got the marvelous artichokes we picked up at the King Farmers Market on Sunday ready and researched how to do them in the pressure cooker (cut in half, 8 minutes, yum). She also made a balsamic vinaigrette to dip them in. I sauteed the stems of the rapini we'd picked up, added all the green tops and balsamic to steam. I caramelized half a sweet onion then added a whole, heirloom tomato with some more balsamic to make a simple sauce. I tried making steamed amaranth, but it came out something between porridge and polenta, but stickier. Despite the not-what-I-was-going-for texture the amaranth was still tasty, especially paired with the onions, tomatoes, vinegar & mustard-y rapini. We are all fired up to experiment further with it, amaranth is another "super grain".
Late Nights of Geekery
Another late night tonight, haven't been home since 8:30 this morning and am currently on the top floor of the Hilton downtown in the Hacker Lounge for Open Source Bridge. CK brought the snacks from the car, which helped the low blood sugar cranky/coldness I was feeling earlier. Someone from San Francisco handed me a porter a few minutes ago and there's been a great sharing of and talking about tattoos.
Yesterday I gave my session on yoga and was totally delighted and blown away by the number of people who showed up, tried the poses I suggested, dove into the breath work and all laughed a lot. Several people told me how much better they felt afterward. Tonight someone in the lounge asked me if I'd posted up the notes from it on my website yet and another asked me where I teach!
CK and I were chatting last night on the way home and noted how my offering yoga in the midst of a developers conference, as "one of them", makes it seem more accessible, not as imposing as going into a studio filled with flexible, toned bodies in tight yoga clothes. To me it really just confirms for me once again how yoga really is for everyone.
Tonight 32 people showed up for CK's session on meditation for geeks, "Re-factor your brain". She did a great job, I felt very proud and so happy for her. I get such a kick getting to watch her talking about the things she has a passion for. I am feeling so fortunate to have someone in my life to share these things with. We have these areas were we overlap, like meditation and yoga, but there is never this feeling of competition, just a wonderful synergy that continues to fill me with gratitude.
Cooking Fool (Open Source Bridge Prep for Vegans)
What does a vegan do when they are attending a conference with no plans for vegan food, no vegan food anywhere nearby (because no, I do not count french fries), and a partner who's coordinating all volunteers who will need to eat.
Option A would be to bitch about it. Loudly and at great length. Thus perpetuating the "cranky vegan asshole" stereotype. No thank you. Option B would be to go hungry, have low blood sugar, and both CK & I cranky. Nope, pass. Option C would be to make tons of yummy stuff and bring it with us.
This evening's yoga class had no students show up again, which is a little sad. I'd rushed out of a good-bye party to teach, which was too bad. Who knows if I'll have students for real come July, hope so. It isn't that I count on the money, but it is good practice for me to be teaching.
I went to New Seasons and grabbed a couple of things for the rest of the week then went home. I got the garbanzos going in the pressure cooker while I began chopping carrot & celery sticks, washing dishes, and slicing up some sweet onion. A pasta salad thingy sounded good, but the soba I'd hoped was good was stale (whoops), so I found some gemelli to use instead. Made a dressing with white miso, fresh peanut butter, ginger and a little rice milk so it would be creamier.
I was so in process on also making tofu salad that I finally made myself dish up some of the pasta when it was done and eat! Then a big batch of the tofu salad split in two parts. CK likes extra, extra yellow mustard in hers (I probably still could have put in more). I like a lot of Bubbie's dill relish and a mix of yellow & dijon mustard in mine. Done and delicious!
CK was off at a PHP meeting while I was doing all this mad cooking. There was a part of me that questioned my pleasure at being home alone cooking while CK was out socializing with our peers. Some kind of strange gender role going on? While I finally ate I took a look at this and discarded the thoughts as silly and less than useful. I just like being at home and love cooking healthful food for us.
Little nervous about my 45 minute talk/class on yoga tomorrow evening. Part of me is sure no one will come, that everyone will be off to dinner & beer before I even go to my room. I think part of me is anxious about being at a conference. There's so much going on, so many people, so much stimulation that I feel a bit overwhelmed at times.
I'm going to drive the car down, with our lunch & snack provisions in the morning. We decided it would be good to have the car there in case any urgent errands needed attending to. I am reminding myself that if I get overwhelmed I can always go sit a little zazen in the car!