Learning to Lose

            I refuse to use the word diet.  The term lifestyle changes suits me better.   Unfortunately, losing or gaining is always easier than maintaining.

            Gaining, of course, is the easiest course of all because it means multiple courses to each meal and sweet or savory snacks in between.   There is a certain mindlessness to gaining:  I don’t mind what I eat, just give me more.  And gaining is never fair, even though it plays by the rules (eat more calories than you burn and you’re sure to gain).  Despite what the experts say about new habits taking 21 days to learn, that never works for me.  After day 21 and after a few pounds have dropped off, I begin to feel immune to weight gain.  That cinnamon roll won’t hurt me.  One more scoop of ice cream and I’ll quit.  Though I need not mention where this supposed immunity leads, my skinny jeans are getting tighter by the second.

            Losing, of course, is not exactly easy because it involves retraining and refraining.  It’s taken about a year, but I now find that a bowl of fresh blueberries or a couple handfuls of sugar snap peas make a delicious, guilt-free snack when I get the munchies in the evening.  Often, as I prepare dinner, I munch on whatever raw vegetable I am chopping, a much better approach than sampling the casserole to make sure it’s seasoned right or hot enough or needs more cheese.  However, the refraining part, which starts in the grocery store, never gets easy.  I cannot buy anything chocolate or sweet in any quantity other than one single small serving at a time because I have zero willpower.  That, naturally, excuses my occasional lapses at Whidbey Coffee or church fellowship hour.  Learning to just say no to hunger is challenging even though it leads to fewer curves in the wrong places.  But when I am losing, there are delicious moments that make up for my growling stomach:  discovering that the smaller jeans now fit or watching the weight drop on the scales at the doctor’s office.

            The goal, I understand, is to reach an ideal weight and then maintain it.  I would settle for maintaining a less than ideal weight.  Maintenance requires mindfulness:  lots of continuing attention to detail.  It never comes naturally.  My most recent idea is to stretch instead of munch, or at least stretch first.  I could gradually extend the stretches and add in some isometrics.  Maybe eventually I could exercise.  That way, even if I am not successful at distracting myself from snacking, I’d at least be slightly more fit.   Weight maintenance reminds me of treading water—lots of effort to simply stay afloat.

            Writing this has made me feel a little better after yesterday’s lapse with a perfectly good vegetable—pumpkin.  (The bread was delicious and the custard even better.)  At least I know what I’m doing wrong.  However, I also need to remember that there is no vaccination against weight gain and that hollow, empty feeling in the pit of my stomach is my friend.  What I really want is to be a good loser.

           

           

Wildlife

Spring has sprung

The grass has riz

I wonder where the slugs now is.

            On the walk to and from the mailbox this morning, I saw four in the gravel driveway.  Slugs, that is.  Three were the pukey green ones, the other a pukey green with black blotches.  Two were humongous, like sausages ready to split their skins, and two were smaller—a mere two or three inches long.

            Yesterday’s wildlife view was way more magnificent than slugs.  On a walk at Double Bluff beach at low tide, I watched two bald eagles and wished I had binoculars.  They stood on the sand near the water for a long time.  One suddenly swooped out high above the water and then came diving down for a nice beakful of live fish.  Several times each eagle flew along the beach, perhaps a foot or two above the packed wet sand.

            Last night, Talina (John’s youngest cougar) stalked me as I deposited the trash into the bin beside her cage.  Earlier in the day, a hummingbird flitted outside the dining room window.  I’ve been faithfully disposing of big black ants that wobble across the floor, rather disoriented from the ant poison they have clambered through on their way into the house.  I even smashed a large, sluggish spider hanging out on the floor near the doorway of Mom’s old room.

            I prefer slugs and ants to spiders, and I most definitely prefer eagles to slugs.  Cougars and hummingbirds both delight me from a distance.  It’s the mosquitoes I can live without.

Cloudy, with the chance of memory

            Mom does not describe her short-term memory as cloudy but as indeterminate.  She comments that it is really strange to have only pieces and shreds of memory.  She says that conversation with the other residents at Home Place is fragmented at best and hopes she herself does not contribute too many non sequiturs.

            That’s my mother for you:  though she can’t remember what she said two minutes ago, she still has command of an impressive vocabulary.

            She had some pressing questions for me today as well:  Why do we live in Washington?  How long have I lived at Home Place?  When will I see John?  What day is it today?  How often do you come to visit?  What am I supposed to do today?

            During the course of our hour together, I answered her questions simply and honestly as many times as she asked them.  Her mood, aside from the confusion she kept mentioning, was good.  She really wanted to know her recent history and was glad I was there to tell it. 

Our conversation branched out a little further as well.  She lit right up when I talked about my new responsibilities as an elder.  She remembered her own years of church involvement and asked several times if I was a lay speaker.  “No,” I answered.  “That’s okay,” she said, “you will be eventually.”

When I left, we both were smiling over her precise use of “indeterminate.”  As I entered the combination and opened the door leading to the front entrance, she said, “Oh, yes.  You go down that long hallway and then out the front.”  Grinning, she added, “See?  I remembered.”

           

In the Vicinity

            The pale green French tips of the firs are short this spring.  I did not notice them until today.  But my backyard has become a jungle of undergrowth.

            White noise provides the backdrop of the morning.  Air purifiers keep some of my sneezes away.  The propane-fueled stove runs on this mid-forties morning.  My cat watches for squirrels through the window and meows for my attention.  The refrigerator kicks on.

            At the computer keyboard I sip my strong coffee brewed with a touch of cinnamon and splashed with more than a touch of cinnamon vanilla creamer.  The small ceramic mug warms my hands.

            I sit, listening, hoping for words to spring up from “In the Vicinity,”  which first presented itself as a title yesterday.  Only now does the background buzz of tinnitus make its way into my consciousness.  I see a mosquito gracefully floating on an air current outside the window.

            Today is May 19.  I remember mid-May from my teaching years, the profound relief of finishing the semester grading, the hot sunshine greeting me as I left my basement office, the promise of unstructured days stretching ahead.  Since 2008, I have lived in a perpetual (though chillier) summer vacation, finding my way in slower rhythms of living, cherishing Nature, digging deep into solitude that only occasionally morphs into loneliness.

            I’m still listening even as I tap out these words, but “In the Vicinity” remains amorphous.

Left Hand Living

            A friend of mine recently broke her right wrist.  Suddenly the smallest things are difficult as she lives her life other-handed until her dominant hand heals.

            I was there once—with a dislocated shoulder instead of a broken wrist.  Two different injuries, same result:  all of life is thrown askew with temporary loss of one limb’s function. 

            It’s humbling to go back to preschool coordination.  Brushing one’s teeth suddenly becomes a challenge, not to speak of using utensils or signing one’s name.  What normally goes by unnoticed in the course of a day becomes the focal point of frustration.  Every action is hindered by awkwardness and every moment tinged with the background pain of healing.

            I remember getting angry at some P.T.A. (physical therapy assistant) students when I had a sprained ankle.  They were trying to navigate the college campus with assistive devices—a wonderful exercise in empathy.  But some weren’t taking it seriously or doing it right:  instead, they were walking at a normal pace holding crutches under their arms, striding along while tapping a cane on the sidewalk, experimenting with wheelchair wheelies.  At the time I was on crutches, acutely aware of every extra pound of fat and every single deconditioned muscle.  For me, walking down the hallway was its own huff-and-puff marathon in slow motion.  These students weren’t getting the point of their assignment at all!

            That leads me to ask if I am getting the point of my assignment.  Wasn’t it something Jesus said about loving God and loving my neighbor as myself?  How do I do that when I am not whole?  How can I love when old emotional wounds trip me up?  How do I offer a hand when mine is not working?

            I could spend a lifetime grumbling in the corner about the unfairness of it all.  I could excuse myself from kindness because I have suffered emotional abuse.  I could claim that a compromised arm is ample reason to never make another fumbling attempt at anything.  Or I could do my best with what I have.  Sure, life has not always been kind, but that should inspire me to empathy instead of bitterness.  No, my body does not work perfectly, but that is a perfect reminder of my dependence on God.  Instead of grumbling in a corner, I can rejoice in the Savior.

            I firmly believe that each and every one of us lives life left handed in some way.  Some of our challenges are visible, others hidden.  God wants to bring healing and wholeness to every single person in this whole wide world.  I can cooperate with his spiritual therapy by getting enough exercise and doing the stretches He proposes.  As the gospel song says, I can “show a little bit of love and kindness” to those around me.  As I yield my life to God’s purpose, He can even use my broken parts.