Sound

            Silence is loud this morning.  A steady background buzz rings in both ears.  The newest tinnitus variation—short bird-like chirps—sounds off to my right.  Real-time sounds—hum of air purifier, occasional bark of dog, click of keyboard—provide the remainder of the sound of silence.

            Memory is loud, too.  Facebook news of former colleagues—a birthday, a new relationship—stir my emotions.  It’s been a long time since I’ve been homesick for Colby, Kansas.  The nineteen years there raising my children and working my job seem like scenes from somebody else’s life.  I wish I could go back to revisit the people and places that defined my days.  Maybe I will sometime soon.

            Here I live in my cabin in the woods, so far removed from those other lifetimes, and there were many:  growing up in southwestern Michigan, going to college in Iowa, working as a VISTA Volunteer in Ohio, getting married and having a family in Missouri, moving to Kansas for my job.  And within each of those states were lived many different chapters.  For instance, Kansas included the end of the first marriage, a decade of single parenting, and the beginning and end of the second marriage.  Those nineteen years also involved major theological shifts from RLDS to Wesleyan to Presbyterian, my children growing up, three houses and one apartment, and more joys and heartaches than I have time to remember.

            When nostalgia and regret visit me, I turn to words and music.  Now that I’ve written the words, I’ll enjoy the smooth, low tones of my alto flute and the pure, sweet octaves of my concert flute.  Then my wistful silence will be filled with worshipful sound.

Dietary Update

            I started with spelt.  Yesterday I had a most delicious sandwich:  Adams 100% Natural Peanut Butter on Dave’s Killer Bread (the Good Seed Spelt variety).  And nothing happened.

            Spelt, by the way, is an ancient wheat that is more nutritious than today’s hybridized dwarf wheat.  It seemed a good thing to try after a month of eating gluten-free.  (Well, as gluten-free as I could get:  it wasn’t until after I took Communion for the second time in a month that it occurred to me I had just eaten a bite of white bread.)

            So far, so good.  I’m ramping into a modified diet that features mostly raw vegetables and fruits.  Because eating entirely gluten-free/or vegan/or raw foods is so hard to maintain, I’ll allow myself occasional whole grains, some dairy, and a little meat.   

            Going gluten-free for a month made me realize how much I lived on carbohydrates.  (Even the whole grains kind--when consumed all the time--spikes one’s blood sugar.)  In the last week, it has slowly occurred to me that I am feeling less pain and fatigue overall, which provides the willpower to just say no to treats.

The other delicious sandwich I had yesterday used cucumber as the bread.  Scoop out the seeds and mix them with mashed avocado, a tad of mayonnaise, and a shake of sea salt, and you have a really yummy meal. 

However, I have no intention of giving up coffee or dark chocolate.  There:  I’ve “spelt” my new diet out for you!

What is truth?

            I need to think of something to blog.

            Oh, yes, I have been writing:  drafting a Christian education report, collaborating on the Whidbey Presbyterian church history project, developing my first ever short story . . .

            There is the topic:  nonfiction versus fiction, and I’m not talking about the church stuff.

            I was always bewildered by how writers create fiction because I believed they created something out of nothing.  God is the only one I know who can do that.

            So since my imagination provides no plots, I am reduced to writing about what I know—or at least what I experience.  Sometimes I play around with putting my childhood self into third person.  Sometimes the third-person approach allows for personal lapses of memory.  Sometimes it provides a porous protection from too much pain.  But up until now, my third-person accounts have been strictly autobiographical with a splash of fictional color or—at the very least—name changes to protect the guilty.

            I don’t really want to admit that “Grace in the Wilderness” has any autobiography about it.  But I can freely say that what is true and what is fiction is not so easy to separate as I once thought.  As I slashed a 30+ page manuscript to 12 pages, I found surprising truth in the middle of fiction and surprising fiction in the middle of truth.  I cut minor characters, ruthlessly reshaped the mommy character, let go my iron grip on memoir, and let story take over.  In the process, I discovered symbol and theme.  My prose became more spare.  I grieved for Gracie.  I found a story that is mine and not mine.

            And therein lies the problem:  I’m just not ready to blog it yet.  

The Wheat-Free, Mostly Sugar-Free Life

            Beyond delicious.  Scrumptious, soft, and sweet.  Like pumpkin pie with no crust.  Perfect for my sweet tooth.  The best bedtime snack ever:  big, soft slices of cold sweet potato, chased with a glass of one percent milk. 

            Thank you for asking.  I am 2 ½ weeks into the wheat-free, mostly sugar-free life.  Two weeks from now I will eat something wheat and see what happens.  On the basis of that experiment, I will decide whether or not to go gluten-free for good.

            At the start, I hoped for a dramatic, life-changing result from which I could write a bestselling book:  No Grain, No Pain.  Alas, that was not to be.  The blood sugar highs and lows are, for the most part, gone.  It’s nice not to fall into exhaustion every afternoon, though I do not allow that little detail to eliminate my daily naps.  Unfortunately, the body aches and pains soldier on, ignoring my resolve to break up their ranks. 

            I have found some delicious, easy recipes along the way, like vegetables roasted in olive oil with a sprinkle of coarse sea salt, and variations of fillings for flaxseed wraps, most including avocado and alfalfa sprouts.  The one notable failure was a supposedly delicious hot breakfast cereal made from ground flaxseed, unsweetened coconut, and walnuts:  the result was a thick paste.  I managed to eat some of the walnuts, but the experience ruined me on ground flaxseed for days.

            You would think that eliminating all pasta, breads, cookies, crackers, and coffee shop pastries would result in a slimmer me.  However, that is not the case.  I’ll blame it on the sweet potatoes.

The Morning After

            I have no headache, but the rest of my body makes up for it. 

            True, on New Year’s Eve, I indulged in my favorite new non-alcoholic drink:  black cherry juice concentrate in Talking Rain carbonated water.  Two glasses, in fact, in an antique crystal goblet:  one with a simple supper of turkey chili and salad with Pear Gorgonzola dressing, and one as I read Echoes by Maeve Binchy.  My cat appreciated the company.

            It was during a phone conversation with my son that my left knee was attacked with stabbing pains.  By bedtime (11:30 was late enough for me), the right knee, lower back, and shoulder blades joined in.  And when I woke this morning, all areas had intensified, so when my morning protein shake and cup of strong coffee did nothing to improve the situation, I took one Tylenol #3 and went back to bed.  After an hour, I got up again.  It’s now close to noon, and the stabs and jolts and overall intensity are finally subdued to a tolerable threshold.

            I suspect that my body is throwing a tantrum.  You see, yesterday afternoon I had my monthly massage.  At the end of that hour, I am fully relaxed and enjoy a few minutes or a few hours of absolutely no pain.  Sometimes the next day, especially if I have not been diligent in drinking lots of water, I experience a draggy body ache.  But I’ve never had this full-out assault of acute pain.  I’d like to think of it as the angry, determined thrashes of a toddler just before he gives in to sleep.  Fibromyalgia is prone to tantrums, after all.

            For now (as the shoulder blade stabs start again) I am going to ignore the brewing tantrum and fiddle around with my computer workstation to see if raising the monitor a few inches will counteract the attack on my upper back.

            And then, to celebrate the first day of 2013, I’ll settle in with my Binchy book and another goblet of Talking Rain infused with black cherry concentrate.  Everything else (except for another nap) can wait until tomorrow.