Affair On 8th Avenue
Gordon Lightfoot

The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night
Her long flowing hair came softly undone
And it lay all around
And she brushed it down as I stood by her side
In the warmth of her love
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And she told me a riddle I'll never forget
Then left with the answer I've never found yet
How long, said she, can a moment like this
Belong to someone
What's wrong, what is right, when to live or to die
We must almost be born
So if you should ask me what secrets I hide
I'm only your lover, don't make me decide
The perfume that she wore was from some little store
On the down side of town
But it lingered on long after she'd gone
I remember it well
And she showed me her treasures of paper and tin
And then we played a game only she could win
And our fingers entwined like ribbons of light
And we came through a doorway somewhere in the night

Not Again

It's that time of year . . . again. That time of year when many single adult people everywhere cringe and run for cover repeatedly from mid-November till the first week in January. There's nothing like being single and being bombarded week after week after week for almost two months with images of family and hearth and cute children on Santa's lap. You hear constantly about family and love while no one mentions the ugly fights or the screaming children.

I celebrate Yule. Simple concept. I give it no more weight than I give every other celestially driven holiday. I don't pretend it's about some mythic demi-god who was born on this day, but as everyone knows couldn't possibly have been born on this day. It's a movement in the heavens that has held significance for centuries. That is what I celebrate: the idea that the earth still revolves around the sun. These days that simple thing is enough to astound me. I don't need some made up fairy tale to amaze me; I just have to look up in the sky at night and see the billions of stars still there.

But there's what I celebrate versus what I'm bombarded with daily. I think most people simply live through these holidays without conscious thought. That is all that I can think of to explain this fascination with the false birthday of a "savior". They put no more thought into it than they put into anything else these days. They meander down the track laid out for them by the retail Gods and mew contently while emptying their bank accounts in meaningless gestures of gift giving. It goes back to the idea that most people live partly or wholly unconscious lives.

On the one hand I wonder what it would take to change that, but then unfortunately I think I already know the only answer. It takes having your own mortality dangled in front of you like a carrot in front of a mule. "Here you go, live in a conscious manner and get to live." How does that line go? "What is wrong, what is right, when to live or to die, we must almost be born." Rebirth is what saves people. A very painful rebirth into awareness. Most people don't want to go there. Most people aren't capable of going there. If the change is real and authentic it's constant and painful and soul dredging on a daily basis.

I've chosen a life here, and it's mostly choice, that doesn't fit into that mainstream hearth and home view of the world. I live alone with animals. I have no SO and no children and virtually no family. Some of that is choice, some of that is simply what life handed me. But I choose to live as if my way of life is no more radical or different than any other. I no longer want and wish for a man or children or family. I'm not desperately searching for some mythical magical other person who will "complete me". I've accepted that this is how my life this time is to be lived. I accept that there's a point and purpose to my life, and that my path is equally as valid as that of a mother with a husband and four kids. I am not conforming to the norm, I am recreating my life daily into something far from the norm.

It took a fundamental shift in viewpoint to get here let me tell you. And there are times, like around about now, when it's hard to hang onto. It is why I can always tell the real people from the posers whenever people talk about changing their lives or their diets or whatever. On boards and in forums and in real life the real people are the ones who talk in fundamental terms rather than superficial ones. The details are useless to them, but the foundation is everything. It's the foundations they change not the details.

Anyway, people wander through this season for the most part without contemplating it's meaning. I think if they stopped to think their whole world would collapse. I mean how better to celebrate the birth of a savior than with wanton consumerism that further deteriorates the planet he was supposedly born onto? What would Jesus do? Buy a flat screen he can't afford that arrives wrapped in a small fortune of non biodegradable plastic and Styrofoam?

Bringing Determination to the Table

Odd title maybe, but I happened to catch a segment on 20/20 this evening about Jenny McCarthy and her son Evan. He was diagnosed with autism and she has put him on a casein and gluten free diet as part of his treatment. The link between Autism and gluten intolerance has been whispered about by so many, as has the link between mercury based preservatives in vaccines and autism. But main stream media doesn't really want to talk about it and the medical community surely doesn't want to talk about it. I admire her determination and her outspokenness. The passion she brought to that interview left me in tears, huge sobbing tears. So few people take charge of the health of themselves and their family and follow their instincts, choosing instead to abdicate control and healing to some supposedly all powerful doctor. It was heartening to see someone stand in the public light and talk about autism and gluten and damn the so called experts. I'm not sure she realizes how strong the opposition to her simple determination to make her sons life better may turn out to be. But you go Jenny! You'll find a whole lot of us Celiacs standing right behind you.

More and more I find it disheartening and disgusting this hold western medicine is determined to have on our lives. They want to sell you a pill or a surgery as the answer to your problems. They don't want you to seek your own answers that lie outside their reign of influence. I find it revolutionary and yet so common sense this idea that diet and how you live your life has more influence on your health and well being than all the pills in the universe. They would insist that any cure lies outside your body and mind, and couldn't possibly reside within it's very fiber; that they must control your health and well being because you don't have their expertise and knowledge. We've been so brainwashed by them that we've abdicated our bodies and souls to them, keeping very little decisions making capabilities for ourselves.

And I am guilt of falling prey to that mindset. I've been itching for ohhh, about ten months now. Some days are better than others. Some days are misery. The best guess I can come up with, because the doctor was absolutely no help, is that it's a result of nerve damage caused probably by B vitamin deficiencies or pernicious anemia and or gluten antibodies. It seems to be a somewhat common symptom among both Celiacs and people diagnosed with MS and other auto immune diseases. I was desperate for something anything that would stop the itching. I was hoping for some miracle drug and I'd searched the Internet for it repeatedly to no avail. I wanted some drug with a complicated name that had side effects I could live with as long as the damn itching stopped. I'd beg my way into a prescription or sell my soul which ever had to come first.

I found nothing, no drug, no pharmaceutical wonder, nothing. What I did find were references to everything from tea tree oil to milk baths. I was sure they'd have some miracle cure. Surely something must be out there since so many suffer from this itching? But western medicine has nothing, nada, zilch, zero to offer. Then I came across references to Capsicum as being useful in treating pain from things like arthritis and *ta da* itching. I will try anything. You don't know till you have to live with it how powerfully the itch can motivate. So I found a local pharmacy that has topical cream with Capsicum in it.

Okay, there's an upside to this story and a downside. Capsicum is basically the pepper family. The hot side of the pepper family. On the upside it's virtually orderless when applied to the skin. It does indeed do a really nifty job of numbing the nerves in the skin. And I do mean NUMB. It's a miracle. Applied to the most common areas where I itch the itching stopped. But the skin is numb, LOL. It's an odd sensation. Oh, and while the numbness set in rather quickly it was followed by a mild BURNING where I applied it too heavily. Still, as I sat there with my left forearm on fire I came to the conclusion that it was preferable to the itching. And soap and water don't really wash it off your hands. I still get a mild sting every time I get my hands anywhere near my eyes nose or mouth in spite of having washed a dozen or more times since applying the cream. I'm gonna need to buy some gloves for this stuff I can see that.

But I came to realize something curious about the itching. It's one of those self perpetuating miseries that is as much about my mindset as it is about my physical body. Now on some level I knew that before I began burning myself with capsicum. I knew that I was allowing the itching to aggravate me and take over my life, but there is something about having the power to stop it dead in it's tracks that gave my brain the ability to suddenly cope much better. I am no longer powerless to stop it, and can stop it any time I choose, and that power is liberating. The endless chasing of my tail so to speak has been stopped cold. Just in a matter of ten hours I've gone from obsessed to relaxed. So then the question is, and this is an old question, could I have gotten here without the capsicum cream? Ha. Who knows. And right at the moment I don't much care.

So there's the whole point. I allow myself to be victim to this western medicine mind set. I think I've kicked it, the dependency on pills and doctors, but I still search for the miracle cure outside myself first. I scream in desperation "Heal ME" when I should be quietly saying "I must heal myself". How many times must that happen before the first thought is not "Someone heal me", but "How do I heal myself this time?"

Holding

I've been in a holding pattern of sorts lately. That's probably why there's been no entries here. It seems I have no choice but to wait on the actions of others. I can't force things to happen that I am not in control of. It's odd, but if you called me a dynamic forceful make it happen kind of person I'd laugh, and friends who know me well would probably laugh. Yet most of the major changes in my life I've forced, I've pushed, I've pulled, I've bullied into happening. And now I find that the things that matter most to me I can't effect.

The downside to having these furry children of mine is that I won't outlive them. The dog is eleven and the tom cat is fourteen now. They've both got medical problems that have been burying me in vet bills. But worst of all I can't fix them, I can't make them young and healthy again. All I can do is what little I can and wait for them to choose their time, and hope they choose it and not me.

I've spent most of the day today anguishing over them. My poor boy is mostly deaf now and he's begun to use the carpet instead of his litter box. I'll take him back to the vet next week, but I fear his various illnesses have brought on a senility of sorts. He's always been a stubborn son of a bitch to begin with, and now he wants death his way too. Figures.

The dog is so much more gentle and apologetic about her illness. She takes her pills without a fight and if she could speak would bow and scrape the floor with apologies every time I have to get up in the middle of the night to let her out. She's a dear sweet old soul of eleven with a pancreatic insufficiency that's making it hard for her to keep food down. I've ordered some pancreatic enzymes for her and I dearly hope they'll help. If they don't I'm off to find pig pancreas at the nearest slaughterhouse. I've done many a thing for the furkids, but this will be a new high or low depending on your point of view. Still, she'd do anything a dog could for me. In that way alone she outranks and outshines my own human family.

I'm still waiting on my oldest sister to figure out that she needs to move on. Why the four of us siblings all turned out so differently I cannot explain. Nor can I explain why she refuses to move from that wreck of a house who's ceilings threaten to fall in on her with every minor tremor. She and I are total opposites. I've made every change in my life happen, and she has not changed her life one inch more than circumstances have forced. I've lived in ten different houses and apartments in the last ten years and she's lived in one house, clinging it to it as if her life would end were she to leave it.

And this is what I tried to tell the dog through torrential tears this afternoon. Your leaving will hurt more than anything has in a long long time, but that is what life is, a series of leavings. It's one of the signs that you're truly alive, this depth of loss and sorrow. And from that sorrow and often because of it, more joy eventually finds it's way to you. And that is living; an ever changing existence. To change is to live. To refuse to change is to stagnate and never live. The opposite of living is not death, it is refusing to live.

ARRGGGGGGG!!!!!!

It's a good thing no one is reading this because I'd be boring the shit out of them. I can't help it. It always comes back to how bloody unfair this all is. Why not foist this disease off on someone who's a size one and lives on 800 calories a day of celery and lettuce? Why not give it to someone who wants it? Come on, there have to be millions of women out there living on lettuce and green beans who'd never even fucking notice! Give it to one of them. Giving it to someone who loved to cook bake and eat is just severely twisted cruel and so below the belt the Gods should be ashamed.

I chanced on a "dieters" thread on ROTW. The damn thing made we want to puke. The poor dears have been eating at McDonald's again and regretting it. Give me a fucking break! If you regret it so damn much STOP DOING IT. Better yet, how about we make it so you become hideously sick and physically damage your body and severely drain it of iron and B C and D vitamins every single time you stuff down a Big Mac and fries, thereby increasing your risk of intestinal cancer ten fold? Would that finally do it for you? Somehow I think not. We want what we want and society has taught us that by Gods, we should have it. I don't think any diet can succeed until someone gets past the feeling that they have a Gods given right to do the easy thing. I don't think a diet can succeed until someone finally figures out that they matter. Their health matters. Their body matters.

I know Celiacs who just can't stop themselves from eating a sandwich or a donut or a cookie. The answer to why is always without fail "I was stressed". Have they been so thoroughly indoctrinated by the whole suggestive hypnotic consumerism trance control squad that they can't think of themselves first and the great God of Consumerism second? Why are they so convinced that eating a donut is in any way shape or form going to alleviate stress? Which commercial did they memorize and internalize that sold them that one? Show me where its documented in the medical annals that eating something bad for you in anyway affects your stress level? I don't understand it. I know I've never knowingly eaten gluten since I was diagnosed. Hey, here's an idea. Stressed? Eat some ice cream! Have a potato chip. But for Goddess sake don't ingest something that will kill you! I don't know. Maybe it's like the pink elephant thing. We can't have it so that's all we think about and all we want. I truly hope there comes a time when I can get past the pink elephants and just accept this.

I'd pay money at this point just to have someone else make me dinner, even McDonalds. One dinner. That's it. One positively gluten free dinner that won't make me sick and that tastes half decent and most importantly THAT I DON'T HAVE TO COOK. Well, okay, Mcdonalds, and indeed every fast food restaurant out there can't do that. With the exception of the Sushi restaurant, there really are no safe options up here at all. Big Bear specializes in resort dining. Again, it's that "You can have whatever you want no matter how bad it is for you" mentality. That's what reigns up here. If I lived down there I'd stand a fighting chance in restaurants. L.A. is more sophisticated. Yeah, I live in a backwoods gluttony haven. It would just be nice to have someone else somehow make dinner. The idea of three meals a day prepared by me stretching out in front of me for the next thirty or forty years is depressing.

I was thinking of this very thing the other night. I was terribly sick with some stomach bug. It appears that from now on things like that are going to hit me harder than they did before. Joy. But I was laying in bed desperate for a cup of crushed ice. Two pairs of eyes stared back at me as I moaned and wished, one pair leaf green, the other pair amber brown. Neither of the owners of those eyes posses opposable thumbs. I dragged myself out of bed and crushed my own ice. There is no telling how much I would have given right at that point to have someone else there to crush the ice for me. But that's the rub isn't it? How much would I have to pay? Am I willing to put up with all the nonsense of a relationship and the grief and the pain on the off chance that someday when I'm sick that man would actually be willing to go crush me some ice? What are the odds?

Argggg. I just hope there comes a time when I just accept this. Dragging myself through all this over and over again is just too hard.

Fed Up!

I'm so damn tired of this stupid disease. I just want to be normal.

I grilled three weekends ago. It made me sick. I grilled two weekends ago. It made me sick. Last week I figured out why. Many charcoal manufacturers use wheat as binding and filler in charcoal. I was literally burning wheat, inhaling it and eating the wheat ash on my food. And of course I buy the cheap store brand match light charcoal which is more likely to use larger amounts of filler and binder. When I bought the charcoal the pure wood charcoal and kingsford were about the same price and the store brand was significantly cheaper. So not knowing any better I bought the cheapest charcoal. I'm struggling so hard right now just to keep my financial head above water, so of course I bought the cheapest brand. Between the rising cost of gas and food and the growing list of food allergies I can't just eating anything anymore. I can't buy the cheapest anything anymore because invariablly whatever it is, be it shampoo or charcoal, it will have wheat or barley or oats in it.

Then there's the question of whether or not the BBQ is now too contaminated to continue to use. I cleaned it out good this last weekend and grilled again. It made me sick again. I guess the answer is yes, it's too contaminated to continue to use. So if I ever want to grill again I'm going to have to get a brand new gas grill. Yeah. I tried pricing those. Nothing under $120. Where the hell am I gonna get $120? Guess I'm not grilling for awhile. Gee thanks. Can't go to a restaurant or order take out, now I can't grill. Guess I'm damned lucky there's still anything I can eat.

I can't afford this stupid Disease anymore!!!I am just so tired of this. I'm tired of paying more for things. I'm tired of not being able to eat in restaurants or ordering take out or delivery. I'm tired of being accidentally glutened. I'm tired of calling and emailing before I can buy or eat something because some stupid manufacturer doesn't have the good graces to spell out what "Natural Flavorings" means. I just want to be normal. I want to do what normal people do. I want to eat pizza and hamburgers like a normal human being.

But I've finally learned one important lesson. Always keep Haagen Dazs ice cream in the house. Again, yeah I'd buy a cheaper brand but they put some bizzare shit in ice cream, including of course barley and wheat. Haagan Daza, bless them has total of five normal safe ingredients listed on their ice cream. No additives, no preservatives, just cream milk coccoa sugar and eggs. If only I could live on Haagen Dazs chocolate ice cream and ruffles potato chips I'd be set. At the very least Haagen Dazs ice cream is comforting. I'll settle for that right now this minute.

Shelter

I've never been fond or romantic poetry and love songs. The whole idea of another person as the center of my universe doesn't appeal to me these days, and it's never had a big appeal. I guess because no one in my life has ever lived up to those idealized verses and prose. I've never found shelter in another person. It was never for lack of looking or wanting. Many many is the time, even now, when having just one person in my life to provide respite from the frustration and interminably hard work of being alone would have been so welcome.

The closest I guess I've ever come was my father, and my father's house. He was a good man. That's the highest praise I think I can offer him. He was a man who in ever instance I ever saw made the decent kind choice. He was also the one person who I knew would always believe in me. How he managed to instill that sense of unfailing belief I do not know, but I knew no matter what I did he would always support my choices. Being a man and from the old school there weren't many affectionate gestures, but I grew up with this rock in my life. He grew to become the voice in my head. It's his point of view, his visions, his decency that the little voice in my head speaks with. 17 years after his death it's still his voice.

Then there is my father's house. He and my mother bought it at a time and place where owning your own home was a new American glory. That was in the fifties, the post WWII optimism as work. The new dream, the new America. He was proud of that accomplishment. I lived in that house for almost two thirds of my life. I rode out two major earthquakes in that house, and a few dozen minor ones, not to mention death and fear and rage and sorrow. And it sheltered me and kept me safe. Live in one place for so long and it becomes a part of who you are. There are no other childhood memories of home and shelter but that house. It's such a gigantic part of my life. And buying it was one of my father's prouder achievements.

It's a long story, but I've heard that house calling out to me for years, wanting to be saved. I can't explain that, but that's how it's felt. And I've been frustrated by recalcitrant irrational family nonsense every inch of the way in an effort to save it. But now I wonder what it is I'm saving? And what will be left of the only real shelter I've ever known once all the dust settles. The house had a new roof put on twelve years ago. Unfortunately it was put on by idiots with no permanent business address. It leaked virtually from day one. For family reasons that I really don't have the energy or will to explain, while the house belonged to my father's trust I had no say in it's disposition. This time last year I took legal steps to change that. After abandoning the idea that any of my siblings would be helpful, a bizarre belief I've harbored most of my life, I hired a lawyer, borrowed the money and wrestled control of the house from the trustee. I wanted to save it. I wanted to give it whatever it needed and let it go on and house another family and give shelter to another child, and that was the best way to honor my memories.

I found out last night that there is very little left that can be saved. The roof, including beams and even some ceiling joists will have to come completely off. Twelve years of water damage has rotted the beams. The roof, the shelter will be gone, completely gone, the core of the house open to the sky, exposed. The kitchen and bathroom sub floors are rotted. They need to go. The kitchen and bathrooms have to be gutted. Most of the landscaping my father and mother and I planted has gone wild and will simply be stripped away and replaced with green sod. Even the stucco on the outside cannot be saved. It will have to be re stuccoed or sided. In trying to save it we will be creating something unrecognizable.

All I could do last night was walk around and around my own small home and cry and say "I'm sorry" over and over. I know I did all I could. I know there was never anything more I could have done that would have saved the poor house from being stripped to it's studs. I did everything, said everything I could think to in the last ten years and it all fell on deaf ears. But still I feel this overwhelming sense of having let my father down. It's irrational, but somehow, over the decades a house made of wood and stucco and glass becomes more than just a building. It becomes the personification of a life's goals, or many lives goals. It becomes a living creature that you can't simply cut out of your life.

On Finding Balance

I've been unconsciously and consciously seeking balance for the last ten years of my life. To say I do not come from a long line of balanced individuals would be a gross understatement of history in every possible way, LOL. So I started out at a disadvantage.

I used to work in the non-profit world where they frown on balance. They want you obsessed by the cause, devoting all your waking hours to it. They want to fix all the ills of the world and they truly believe you can do it with money alone. Well, and the slave labor of grossly underpaid brilliant college educated women. And that was what began to wake me up. I came to realize I was spending all my time and energy "out there" trying to fix the world that I had begun to suspect didn't really want to be fixed. It was some version of saving the world I guess, and I truly thought it was the most noble of professions. Then someone introduced me to a revolutionary concept: The most profound radical change you can make in the world is to change yourself. And I have been relearning that one simple idea over and over again, with deeper and newer meaning for the last ten years. I cannot change other people. People change when they are ready to change. I can change me.

I was working for a Non profit Women's Foundation in Los Angeles in the fundraising department about ten years ago when Celiac Disease first reared it's head. I had no idea what was wrong with me, only that I had this terrible sickening nausea most of the time and had hideous bouts of joint pain that even massive doses of Advil could not touch. Several doctors shrugged their shoulders after running batteries of tests. This was not, and still unfortunately is not an uncommon response by doctors. That it took ten years to get a diagnosis is also not unusual. I read somewhere that 9 years is the average now.

Still, I read between the doctors frowns and concluded, as they had, that it must all be in my head; a product of a stress filled purposeful modern dedicated life. So I went off seeking stress management training so that I could "handle" what was a pretty hideous, stress filled, difficult, unappreciated job. I went to a hypnotherapist named Michael Benner. I had listened to Michael for years on KLOS and other stations in L.A.. I signed up for his stress management course and inadvertently jump started a search for balance and peace and personal growth that continues to this day.

You could ask I suppose, which did I truly need at that point; stress management or a gluten free diet? It's irrelevant what I needed then. I realize that profoundly and deeply. What was, does not matter. All that matters is what I learned from it that brought me to here and now. Had I never met Michael I would not be where I am. He was as much a catalyst as a teacher; a spring board into a world of concepts and ideas I'd only danced around at that point. He was the one who planted the idea in my head that changing and growing me was the most radical peaceful relevant thing I could do with my life.

Still it took me another four years and yet another even more stress filled non profit job for me to finally go in search of balance. When I did, we're talking leap off into the deep end of the pool search. I do nothing the easy way. Many is the time I've wished I could. Why dip your toe in when you can plunge into the deep end without a life jacket? It's quicker and saves a lot of deliberating along the way I guess, but damn it can be cold and frightening.

I began to find myself up here in the mountains, my true self. It was a difficult search though, complicated by the symptoms of Celiac Disease; most notably depression and rage and varying degrees of physical discomfort. Which brings me to this moment. This diagnosis. The need to understand why and how and what it was all for. All the symptoms I've experienced over that last ten years were a result of Celiac Disease. But what "caused" the Celiac? No one knows what turns on the Celiac genes. Many more people have the genes than will be diagnosed with or suffer from Celiacs. Something like 80% of the population has genes for either Celiac or simple Gluten Intolerance. What turns those genes on in some and not in others?

In my case I now understand. It was stress. It was stress all along, at each point where the Celiac symptoms got worse it corresponded to the stress levels in my life. It was stress from the very start. Celiac is just an expression of that stress. An expression I will have to live with for the rest of my life. Talk about an overkill lesson. But again, I do nothing the easy way so who is surprised? So, here's the funny part, I'm back at it, trying to actively manage the stress in my life. I know now that I have to take it a lot further than I already have or I will in all likelihood suffer even more as a result of Celiac Disease.

Celiac Disease tends to cause allergies for those who have it. In simple terms it does that by altering the walls of the small intestine so that larger particles than normal pass through the intestine into the blood and into the abdominal cavity. The body sees these "abnormal" size particles and attacks them because they are out of place. In the process the body memorizes the particle make up and responds with the same immune reaction the next time they encounter a similar particle anywhere in the body. In simple terms, that is what allergies are; the body remembering. Because of the intestinal damage it is believed Celiacs are prone to multiple significant allergies. I was determined when I was diagnosed that I would not be one of those people. Yeah. Well. No. By the time I had decided that I already was.

Once I got all the gluten out of my body I could tell that there was still something wrong. So I went through several elimination diets. I know now that I am allergic to corn and vegetables/fruits in the nightshade family. So life without bread was bad huh? Try life without mashed potatoes or french fries. And corn is in everything, as I found out last night. I mean come on, how many people know that there's cornstarch in powdered sugar? I know it now.

That new knowledge sent me into a tail spin. I'd barely adjusted to being gluten free when I faced the task of cutting corn and nightshades out of my diet as well. Here's a good one. I'd started making bunless hamburgers. That's cool. Most of the taste is in the meat and condiments anyway. Okay, now try a bunless hamburger WITHOUT ketchup. I'm sure somewhere out there is someone who prefers it that way. They're just not me. So I was insufferable for about two weeks after finding out about corn and nightshades. And I am afraid. I live in fear of what might be next. Will there be something else? Will there be anything left to eat?

That is why I started to ask myself what all of THIS is about? And the answer once I asked and shut up long enough to listen was stress. This need to control the uncontrollable. Which led me to the concept of peace and the idea that it all must begin with me. I can change nothing. I can only change myself. I cannot change what is, I can only change how I react to it. I am trying to unlearn forty something years of learning and reacting. I'm trying to find the most peaceful way to get through each day. I want to live. That is it. I want to live, and Celiacs have a whole host of illnesses waiting for them out there. The only way I know of to short circuit all of that is to learn to relax and respond with peace. I'm convinced, that and diet are all that stand between me and being six feet under.

I was sitting watching the snow fall, in April of all things, yesterday when it struck me how far I have come from ten years ago to now. But it has all of it, that parts that are worth talking about, been an inward journey. I'm not richer or thinner or prettier. Everything I've gained holds worth only to me. It also struck me that I'm somehow on a fast track here. As if I need to cram more into this life than the average person. That is the way it feels. Or I could just still be feeling sorry for myself. Gods I miss salsa and ketchup and BBQ sauce and . . . I could go . . . As I wrote once before, someone better have a damned good explanation for all this in Summerland. If this is just some twisted joke of the Gods I am not amused.

Is This How It's Going to Be?

A new book came highly recommended to me: Celiac Disease: A Hidden Epidemic by Peter Green. I'll do anything at this point to better understand my body, my mind this Disease. When I ordered this book I was determined and forcefully optimistic. I think that I thought if I learned everything I could, that would someone make it all okay and safe and painless. Hey, I'm strange. I've always found comfort in information, sheer volumes of information. After all, that's how a rational mind comes to the correct conclusions right? It's what guarantees success.

I started reading it last night. Much of it I've already learned, but it's all there in the one book. I guess it's having all the bad stuff, every negative I've read in bits and pieces on the web now staring me in the face all in one place, page after page, that turned out to be too hard today.

There's a lovely chapter about the significantly increased risk of cancer. Then there's that paragraph that caught my eye about Celiac Disease possibly bringing on early menopause. And I think what finally did it was the chapter on Depression. That's when I lost it. I haven't found it yet by the way. I'm sobbing as I type this.

Well, at least the periods in between the overwhelming fear terror anger and despair are getting longer. I'll take whatever little perk I can get. Gods, shouldn't have used the word perk. I'd kill for a cup of coffee or a spoon of ice cream right now. Anything to take my mind of it all. But coffee this late would give me indigestion and I have no ice cream in the house at the moment. Note to self: Never ever run out of ice cream again. It's days like this I wish I could drink and forget. Unfortunately drinking has never worked for me. It anything it makes it worse. So the only way out is through it and hope I get to the other side really soon. For whatever reason this is the way it's supposed to be. I don't have any other comfort in my life, with the possible exception of my very life. I've survived a shit load of crap and I'm still alive. I've lost so much and I'm still here. But some days I feel like I'm surviving by the skin of my teeth.

Perhaps I'll read a few fairy tales tonight before bed instead of another chapter. I've had enough reality for now.

The Smallest of Lives Can Teach the Biggest of Lessons

"As it had shined across him all his life, so understanding lighted that moment for Jonathan Seagull. They were right. He could fly higher, and it was time to go home.

He gave one last look across the sky, across that magnificent silverland where he had learned so much.

"I'm ready " he said at last.

And Jonathan Livingston Seagull rose with the two starbright gulls to disappear into a perfect dark sky."

Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach

It would seem that the impact of someone in your life isn't measured by their size, or even how long they're with you. Sometimes people animals and even small little wild birds can sidle up to you and begin to resonate throughout your life. You see your struggles in their struggles, you understand their challenges because you too are challenged that way. Without realizing it's happened they become a teacher and a kind companion for your sorrows and joys.

I hope you come back next life Fidge as a soaring eagle, who knows nothing but the freedom of the wind and the joy of flight.

TIME WARNER SUCKS!!!

TIME WARNER SUCKS. All I'm gonna say. They know why. In the ever constant search for more and more money they've repeatedly screwed everyone in Southern California. MERGERS SUCK. I hope Time Warner drowns in it's own puke infested rhetoric!

Deep cleansing breath . . . . . . . . .

You have to understand, I deal with a lot of cable systems and radio stations in my work. Some are better than others. Ever since the merger in Southern California between Time Warner Comcast and Adelphia it's been hell. I waited two months for a revised invoice, after making seven requests to anyone who would listen. Lets see, two months divided by 7, that's 3.5 requests a month or close to a request a week. The woman I finally talked to who managed to get the invoice redone made Elmer Fudd sound like a Rhodes Scholar. Then after two weeks of waiting she sends it to the client who calls me and says "What the hell is this and what are we supposed to do with it?" The temptation to tell them exactly what to do with it was strong, but I managed to not go there.

So hats off to Time Warner for screwing things up in so many ways and so much worse than anyone could have ever anticipated; all in the name of profits.

Winter Never Ends

So when does grief end? Does it ever end? I'm beginning to think that it doesn't end, it just evolves, transmutes ever so gently and slowly with time. I suspect that each new day, each new discovery, each moment of life transforms grief. Grief is a living breathing entity. I should probably name it since it seems it will be with me for the rest of my life.

No one can apparently escape grief. Everyone looses someone or something if they live long enough. The some things are little or big. The someones are life long companions or peripheral parts of your life. The loss brings a moment or a lifetime of grief.

My mother died twenty years ago this month. My father died seventeen years ago this month. I'd love to know which one of them gave me which of these genes of mine. I can look in the mirror and at photographs and figure out where the eyes and the nose and the other physical things came from. But the genes that determine the inner workings are a mystery. I could well have gotten the Celiac genes from both of them. That would suck. They're both candidates. Of course I'm the only one in the family diagnosed as a Celiac, but that is neither surprising nor unusual. Most people don't want to know, even given the information. My sister is in denial, I can hear it when I talk to her about it. She doesn't want to know. I can feel her backpedaling on the phone when we talk. I can't make her listen or make her do the research, or make her take a blood test. I can't make anyone change. Just another train headed down the tracks. And it leaves me that much more alone. Is it any wonder I sometimes feel like the adopted step child? They couldn't possibly have inherited the same genes for kidney or Celiac Disease that I did. Nope. I must have gotten it from someone else, that's the only explanation. If I didn't inherit them from my mother or my father what does that leave, ehhhhh?

It was ten years after my mother's death before I could look at a photograph of her. To say our relationship was difficult would be an understatement. Grief, what there was of it, was mostly on hold while I got past the anger. By then, ten years later grief was tempered with forgiveness and understanding. It was grief that she wasn't there for each milestone or achievement. It was grief that she could not have been the mother her children needed her to be, and forgiveness because she never had a role model to work from, and now forgiveness because she may well have had to live with the same gluten designed depression and rage that I have. My grief at her loss has evolved from day one to now in fits and spurts, through bouts of anger and moments of recognition.

The grief at my father's passing has changed the least. What little forgiving there was to do was more about what he didn't do than what he did. And perhaps it's been tempered by the knowledge that he is the voice in my head. It is his logic, his response, his view point that guides the choices I make. It is his voice that the conversations in my head speak with. He has never left me in so many ways. At the same time his loss was the hardest to take. Our relationship was the one that had the least amount of time to grow.

So what to name my grief? Winter I think. In mythology Pluto abducted Proserpine, and Proserpine's mother Ceres brought about winter with her grief at the loss. It somehow seems fitting. More appropriate than George or Cindy. Ceres was the goddess of growing plants and of motherly love. Appropriate, yes.

Mountain Sunsets

I'm sitting here watching the sun set. In a mountain valley it's not so much of a sunset as a long slow slide into deepening twilight. That comes from being surrounded by a ring of mountain peaks. People in the flatlands get sunsets, we get an hour of these lovely pale blues and pinks and purples. Then there are the stars. Oh the stars. I spend more and more of my time watching the sunsets now, and waiting for the billions of stars to slide into view. I seem to have more time now. My life seems more focused of late, more confined, but by the same token richer.

It's been a tough weekend. In my new quest to live a healthier life I decided to try the sweetener Stevia. I've read repeatedly about how terrible white sugar is, and how artificial sweeteners are full of chemicals. Stevia seemed a good answer. Unfortunately it didn't occur to me to wonder what family the Stevia plant was a part of. Turns out it's second cousin to both sunflower and ragweed. And I'm allergic to both. It took three days of two packets a morning in my coffee to make me sicker than I've been in a long time. Saturday was a total loss. Initially I just figured I'd somehow glutened myself, but by Saturday I figured it out when I looked up info on Stevia.

What was even more alarming where the somewhat psychotropic effects it had on me. I have a rather distinct memory of thinking I was a chicken there at one point. Fortunately I had the good sense to stay in bed with the covers over my head. Yeah, weird stuff. But you know it's "100% safe all natural and there's never been one single adverse reaction to it reported." Uh, until now. So where do I go to report this? You gotta love the whole new green marketing machine out there. I now realize they're no more honest than all the other marketers out there. Everyone wants to sell you, but no one is going to be around later when you start clucking in your sleep and hunting for bugs.

But there are so many opinions out there about what is good for you and what is bad. I encounter that daily as I read more and more about gluten intolerance on the web. In the end I think you have to keep reading and figure it out for yourself: figure out what works for you and discard the rest. The Federal Government is convinced that wheat is good for me and should be the basis of a good healthy diet, whether it kills me or not. I seem to recall grains being the foundation of their silly food triangle. But I read a statistic the other day from a doctor doing research on Celiac Disease. He thinks as much as 80% of the population has one or more genes for gluten intolerance. I saw another figure, more widely accepted, that 1 in 113 people are gluten intolerant, most without knowing it. But wheat is good for you, any school girl knows that; it's just common sense.

I don't particularly enjoy listening to people prattle on about common sense these days. "Well, it's just common sense you know." Lately when I hear someone use the phrase common sense it seems to be emotional shorthand for "I don't understand" or "I'm afraid of learning that I don't already know everything." People just want to return to a time when common sense ruled, whatever that means. Things have gotten too complicated for them, and they just want to curl up in their cocoon and wrap themselves in what they've always known and eat their Wonder Bread. Gods, here's a thought - death by Wonder Bread. What a way to go.

But common sense to me has always meant something different. It's always meant listening to what my head and heart and soul are telling me. To me, in a very real way that is COMMON sense. I subscribe to the theory that we're all of one soul, all connected by this invisible thread. We can all, in theory, tap into the common knowledge, the common brain, the common sense, a common past and future. I said in theory. Actually achieving that has only been accomplished in bits and pieces in my life.

Of course my common sense theories puts me at odds with most other people's common sense. They'd tell me to shut up and eat my bread, it's good for me because the Federal government has always said so. The government knows these things and they wouldn't lie. These are the same people who think I should be married with 1.4 children and a Labrador Retriever, be Christian and living down in the flatlands in some suburban sprawl like place. Obviously I've never much listened to them or subscribed to their theories.

So I live in a mountain valley. I somehow figured when I moved here I'd encounter like souls. I'd find people here who aren't cut out of normal square cloth just by nature of the place they've chosen to settle. It hasn't worked out that way. Not at all. I'm surrounded by common sense people. They don't much like that I'm single or Pagan, or a single female Pagan. There is no community up here for single women, no way for them to fit in. We live on the fringes of their common sense view of the world. Then you throw in gluten intolerance and you rule out the one mode of socialization that exists for the single woman in these mountains; restaurants and bars.

So here I sit, watching sunsets. Watching the wind bend the trees against a darkening sky. I've always been more solitary a person than not. At one point in my life I did a lot of past life work and got glimpses, little vignettes of the past out of it. One moment I remember was unexpectedly loosing someone who was my world and the crashing agony of that. Who knows, maybe that's why I keep a distance in this life. Who knows how much hangs on from one life to another, how much of who we are is not just the sum experience of this life, but of other lives.

I used to worry that I was living this life backwards. That I was here to get past this need for solitude that seems to be hardwired into me. That somehow I was supposed to discover some magic, some point of view, some relationship that would make me a happy people person. But I don't think so anymore. Perhaps that's my karma. Yeah, I know, never second guess karma. But perhaps part of the lessons to be learned here is how to be alone, be still, be focused, be just me. How does that Eagles song go:

Though the world is torn and shaken
Even if your heart is breakin'
It's waiting for you to awaken
And someday you will-
Learn to be still
Learn to be still

Accumulating Wisdom

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to wisdom today in light of recent conversations with several people. It’s another one of those things that I thought would just come to me one day. It was right up there with self esteem and courage, a healthy diet and a whole host of other concepts that no two people define the same way. I think I used to view all of them as an end result, or some kind of achievement. I understand now, that’s not the way it works. You don’t suddenly have wisdom or courage or self esteem, you accumulate them. Some people accumulate them quicker or sooner, but they're not sudden achievements. I’ve had wisdom for decades and not even known it.

If you truly want to realize your own wisdom, try being 45 and having a conversation with a twenty something. It’s not that there’s a generation gap. It’s not that I don’t remember what it’s like to be 22. It’s not that I don’t remember how painful it was to be young and have no clue how to deal with the pain and fear I was carrying around back them. But a whole entire amazing journey has taken place since I was 22. Life. Life happens and the 22 year old you once were has sorted out a whole hell of a lot by the time you’re 45. I remember what it’s like to be 22, but they have no idea what it it will be like to be who they are when they're 45. And I have no clue what it will be like to be 60. You of course can’t tell a 22 year old any of that, just like you can’t make an addict come clean. You can’t keep someone from killing themselves if they’re bound and determined to. People change when they accumulate enough wisdom to change at whatever age. They don’t change because you want them or tell them to. Period, end of story. You can learn international trade law and cosmetology from a teacher, but you cannot learn wisdom from anyone.

Part of the problem I have shutting up and walking away from eminent train wrecks these days is that we live in a world that’s in so much pain. It’s hard to be surrounded by eminent, occurring and having occurred train wrecks with people all around you in every stage of pain and grief. I’m not even talking about global issues of war and pollution. It seems as a country the U.S. is determined to tear itself into factions based on so much deeply held pain and fear. We’ve projected that fear and loathing out onto the world like some kind of deathly dark grave robbing wandering demon. There seems to be an accumulating mass of grief and pain here that grows exponentially each day. And I can’t do a thing for them. All I can do is create my wisdom, police my little piece of the world. That’s it.

People in pain remain in pain until they find a way out by looking inside. Until the accumulated masses look inside, that fear and pain is just going to circle the globe relentlessly. We’re not taught as a people to solve our problems that way. We’re not guided towards self awareness, in part because fear is such a lovely way to control children. "Do what we say or else" works so much better than "what do you think you should do?" There’s more of a guarantee with "do what we say." We teach the children to live in fear and they teach their children. We teach them to take direction from others but not to be self directed. We were not taught that the most amazing journey, the most relevant revelations take place inside our own minds hearts and souls between us and ourselves. We’re not taught that because what goes on in there can’t be controlled by anyone. We’re taught from day one literally to look for ourselves and our answers "out there" somewhere somehow. How absurd. You don’t live "out there", you live in here, in your mind body and soul. We’re taught to compare ourselves to others, and judge our self worth by the size shape beauty wealth and abilities of other people. We’re literally taught to be anyone but ourselves from day one.

So I believe this is one more step down the road today. One more movement towards a stronger self esteem, towards more inner peace, towards accumulating more wisdom. There came a realization today that there is this place I’m waiting to get to where I completely accept myself without loathing, without comparison, without wishing to change for the sake of some societal standard. Lately the phrase "It is what it is" comes out of my mouth a lot. It is what it is, so how do you feel about it? What is in the world isn’t nearly as important as how you respond to what is. That my body is rounder and larger isn’t nearly as important as how I feel about myself. Losing or gaining a pound doesn’t matter. What matters is that I find a way to accept who I am minute by minute. The weight game is more of the "out there" bullshit. It’s like they tell actors; figure out the inner life of the character and the rest will follow; the speech the mannerisms will all spring from knowing the character. Come to know and accept yourself and everything else will spring from that. The goal is the knowing and accepting. What springs from that is icing on the cake. And ironically the icing on the cake is what most people are searching for, not the cake itself.

So I give up. You all are officially on your own from now on. It’s not why I’m here anyway. I’m here for me, and not for anyone else. I’m not here to be a teacher, I’m here to be a learner. All I can do is accumulate my own wisdom and understanding and grow with it. The purpose of living is to come to understand myself, my place in the world, and surmount the issues I’ve been handed using my accumulating wisdom. No one else can help me, and I can help no one else.

What Does it Take?

I'm trying to understand what it takes for people to get to where they get to. It seems to be important to me these days. How much of whatever grief pain joy or happiness is required for doors in the mind to open and ideas to be understood and directions altered? And is that always what it takes for lives to change and commitments to be made?

For example; gluten free bread. Odd segue, but work with me. I lived 44, just shy of 45 years eating bread made with wheat flour. That is what bread is after all. In the dictionary, if it does not already say so, after the word bread should be the definition "A base of active yeast, wheat flour and water". Anything lacking wheat flour should not be called bread in my estimation. Wheat flour and yeast were put on this planet to be together. They were made for each other, and apart neither can do anything of true significance. Well, unless you like beer I guess. Their chemical dance is an awesome thing to behold, to initiate, to use to craft lovely foods.

So then we have gluten free bread which is made essentially from ANYTHING BUT wheat flour. I've seen all manner of flour from tapioca to bean flour used in gluten free breads, and they have all produced the same sorry results. Now I keep hearing other gluten intolerant people screaming the praises of this store bought gluten free bread or that new recipe. Then I try whatever it is and find myself profoundly disappointed. Which leads me to wonder; is it that they've been so long without wheat bread that they've forgotten and this stuff actually taste good to them, or do they simply have no sense of taste and discernment, or is it all a happy happy facade they throw up to let the world know how unbothered they are by never being able to eat real bread again? Or maybe they've just decided to settle for what they can get. Will I one day miss bread so badly that I'll eat a piece of tapioca bread and swoon?

I know now how inappropriate wheat barley rye and oats are in my diet. I fully understand that my body was not born to eat these things. True bread is a part of that whole culture of grain we've got going on in the western world. Isn't substitute bread as bad in it's own way somehow? If the primary offender to a GF person is bread, why on earth would you try and find a poor substitute for it? I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm just pissed because I can't have wheat bread. Will there ever be a point where I won't miss what I can't have?

And this is all kind of rhetorical really. It is what it is. I could not bring myself to knowingly eat anything with gluten in it now. I've crossed too many lines to ever go back. I know what the results will be. I don't want to be sick. My desire to be healthy and happy is way stronger than my desire to eat bread. Having never been addicted to anything I don't know if that is the way it works. Does an addict finally give up whatever it is that's killing them because the desire to be healthy is stronger than the desire to be unhealthy? Do they hear a click in their brain and suddenly they see the error of their ways? Or is it just physical, which it is with me as well. I know if I eat gluten I will be in pain for hours if not days after. Do you reach a point where whatever good you were getting out of the addiction is overwhelmed by the bad side of it?

The odd thing is that I always knew I'd make a choice at some point to live a healthier life. I have this odd ability. Call it whatever you want. But I know things sometimes. It's always been like that. I have this game I play sometimes when I'm not sure which road to take, or what the outcome of something will be. I ask myself if I can imagine things turning out a certain way. If I can't imagine it, I know that is not what is supposed to be. If I can imagine the alternative then that is what will happen. This works even for things I have no control over like other people's choices and world affairs. I knew long ago that I'd hear this click in my head some way some how and what I ate would then change. I've just been waiting for it. Well, IT'S HERE!

This is not what I had in mind though. I think I imagined I'd suddenly find the energy to eat fruits and vegetables or go on a diet or walk twenty miles a day. I didn't imagine not being able to eat things because they'd make me sick, and the subsequent chaos that would create in my life. But I also now realize that this mechanism probably fits me better than any other. I needed to make the connection between being sick and what I was eating to stop eating it, and then be led down the discovery path by that knowledge to realize how toxic so much of what I've eaten all my life was. There was never going to be a dawning light, pfftthhhhhh. I should have realized. I don't do dawning light. I need to be clubbed over the head and scared shitless. That I ever thought "enlightenment" would come any other way is pretty funny now with 20/20, eh or in my case 20/200 hindsight.

Moving On?

I need to remember for future reference just how bad bad was. I don't want to forget because I don't want to let denial or carelessness or frustration take hold in my life. I can see that happening. But this cannot be a short fling of passion. This has to be a lifetime commitment. I have to let go of the past and move into this life finally and permanently.

Uh, well, okay, commitment has never been a favorite word in my vocabulary. And no, that's not the reason I'm still and always have been single. Shut up. Anyway, I never cared for the concept of commitment; not to anyone or anything. Hell, even the animals, if you think about it, are a short term thing. The dog at the outside will live to be 16 if she's lucky. The cats, may the Gods help me, could live to be 20. I have no clue how long house finches live, but I'd say since Fidget has already survived what should have killed her that she's been on borrowed time since I met her. The point is, I've never said "Forever" to anyone or anything in my life before now, most particularly to myself. I can't even imagine how extraordinary a man would have to be for me to agree to that whole "Till death do us part" thing. Me and forever do not have a stellar track history.

But we're talking about my physical life on this earth in this incarnation. I'm here for a reason and I know I haven't finished up here yet, not even close. I'm also positive that this whole experience is part of that grand sick twisted plan the Gods have for me. I've grown to hate their sense of humor - truly. At any rate, I would prefer to die quietly in my sleep at 98 than in pain from some horrible malady at 50. So in many ways I'm up against a do it right or die enemy. I've never contemplated that before. And in truth I always figured cancer or diabetes would be the bugaboos that would eventually come along to frighten the crap out of me. I was so not prepared to face an enemy masquerading as soft chewy golden brown and warm out of the oven. The enemy is supposed to be dark and menacing. It is not supposed to arrive in the person of a loaf of crusty french bread. How do you take an enemy like that seriously?

But the lifetime complications of gluten intolerance read like a who's who of chronic disease and disorder. The complications I've already experienced are chronic diarrhea, indigestion and acid reflux, severe anemia and vitamin deficiencies, brain fog, depression, extreme exhaustion, nausea, horrible joint pain, kidney disease, chronic bronchitis and various and assorted minor auto immune issues. I'm lucky. No - really. The real nasty complications can kill you.

The depression was probably the worse side effect. I suspect that it's colored my entire life, how I've lived, the choices I've made, all of it. It leaves me to wonder when people throw around the phrase "chemical imbalance" if they even get the implications. Do they get how profound a link there is between what you put in your body and how you feel? Body and mind are not separate entities. Vitamins and minerals play a big part in how well the brain functions. Gluten intolerance destroys the small intestines ability to absorb many crucial vitamins and minerals which in turn effects the thyroid and hormone output which throws everything out of whack. It's a cascade effect. The perfect balancing of the body's mechanisms is so fragile in some ways. I wonder if some day we won't come to understand that we create the chemical imbalances, all of them by not understanding our physical bodies, our very genes?

I came across a diet concept the other day called the Paleolithic diet. It's the idea that man evolved as a hunter gathering, and his genes are programmed to a hunter gatherer's diet. Then there are my genes which specifically do not allow my body to process gluten. Genetically speaking I was never meant to eat grains. So what else is there we don't yet understand about the human body? We know it needs sunlight, some people need it more than others. What else are we as individuals genetically programmed to need that we're not giving out bodies, or what is it we're giving our bodies that they can't handle? Western medicine wants to hand us a pill, all of us, the same pill and be done with it. I don't think it's that simple.

I'm not knocking the pill. I took an anti-depressant for about a year. I remember the profound sense of relief when it kicked in. The lows were gone, there was just this calming steady plateau suddenly in my life. I began to understand for the first time what life without depression is like. It saw everything with new eyes. It was a tremendous lesson. But it came to the point where I couldn't afford it. With no insurance to pick up the cost I couldn't manage the $120 dollars a month. But just knowing that life can be like that was a revelation and later, there were many days when that knowing sustained me.

As the effects of Celiac Disease got worse and worse over the last year the depressions came one on top of the other, just piling up, incredibly dark. I could feel it coming most days, and it had started to scare me. It was all I could do to breath, to sneak a breath in between crashing blows. It was no longer just a vague grayness that colored my life, but sudden, devastating descents into pitch black holes, over and over, like riding a roller coaster that periodically got close to the light, but never really saw it. I was scared and puzzled and devastated by it, and that was on top of all the other bodily effects going on. Once I began to understand what was happening to my body I began to see the patterns in the roller coaster ride. Hell, I can now see the pattern running throughout most of the last ten years of my life.

Yeah, then a new kind of depression took hold. Once I went gluten free the sudden descents into the deep dark holes stopped, but it was replaced by a persistent anger fueled depression. I'm still trying to find my way out of that. But that's okay. It's not the bleak insane darkness, and I prefer it. I don't know exactly how to explain it. Behind the anger fueled depression is a calm backdrop. The insanity is gone. I'm not on the roller coaster anymore. Now I just have to come to terms with the anger.

And that's where letting go and moving on comes in. I've got to find a way to do it. I haven't watched cooking shows for awhile. I tried watching one last night. Bridget goes to Belgium or something like that. Well, in Belgium they eat a lot of gluten. Turns out waffles, well duh, are the national food. Fortunately I've never really much wanted to visit Belgium. Cross number 94 on the list of places to someday go off the list. I suppose someone not understanding reading this would think I was just a big baby. So you can't eat everything Paula makes, you can eat some of it so shut up. What's your problem? The problem is every single time I see something I can't eat, I can't cook, I can't bake I'm angry and I'm hurt. And boy, let me tell you, I'm freaking surrounded by anger and hurt. It's everywhere, on TV, on the radio, in the paper, on the Internet, on billboards, in stores, everywhere. Here it is, and you can't ever have it again, nahhhh nah na nah nahhhhhh. Yeah, there damn well better be some big meaningful all encompassing outstandingly significant cosmic lesson in this. If this is just a joke guys, I'm not amused.

So I'm still casting around, trying to find a way to be happy with what my life is. I need some way to make it all right that doesn't involve me sneering at everyone who deigns to eat a croissant with their morning coffee, or breaking down in tears during a Burger Bust commercial. I have to find a way or I'm doomed to fail.

Irony

I stumbled across a bit of irony today. I was doing the usual early Sunday morning ROTW reading when I stumbled on a thread about fast food places. I live on a mountain. Most of the communities up here are small. Big Bear is the largest at somewhere around 15,000 full-time people. Course that number varies depending on who you ask. Anyway, most of the smaller communities up here in the San Bernardino Mountain communities don't rank a Taco Ding Dong or a Burger Bust.

Used to be those conversations about what new restaurant/fast food place may or may not be going in and where mattered to me. Obviously they don't anymore. I still live in fear of any food not personally cooked by myself from whole foods with known ingredients, so I could care less what restaurants are or aren't up here. Well, with the notable exception of Starbucks. I love decaf espresso coffee. I can't drink fully caffeinated coffee anymore. The "buzz" is physically painful to me now. So I've chosen to mitigate the damage by drinking decaf. A buzz is still possible, but you have to drink one hell of a lot of it. But I love Starbucks, and I love the variety of decaf coffee's they keep in stock. For variety they beat anything the stores up here have to offer in the way of bean varieties and availability of decaf. So I love Starbucks and wish them all the good luck in the world taking over this planet.

Later as I was standing over the stove slicing and frying potatoes in olive oil and scrambling eggs for my special Sunday breakfast I got to thinking about all the things I've put in my body over the years without thought or consideration. My body had been rejecting so much of it in it's own small subtle little way and I hadn't been listening. When it couldn't take it anymore and subtle wasn't getting through that's when things got ugly. It had to get as bad as it did for me to finally hear what my own body was telling me. I just hadn't been listening.

Just then a line from a Gordon Lightfoot song came to mind: "See the ocean wild and blue, think of all that's in her, she will not surrender to the likes of us, but then she must, they tell us, wise men tell us . . ." That's from a song called "Too Late For Praying." Mankind tends to view the ocean as this wide vast place, too vast to be affected by one single man. But we have misjudged the damage millions of humans over the course of a couple hundred years have done to the oceans, from over fishing to pollution to the dredging of inland water ways and bays. She's not invincible, she can be destroyed. Just as water wears away stone over time.

Ironically, I've been doing the same thing to myself all these years. I think perhaps I've viewed my body as some marvelous adaptable creature that enables my life and will always be here. Or maybe I just never thought. Yeah, most likely I never thought. Ironically if you had asked I would have said I'd treated it fairly well. I never did drugs or smoked or consumed more than one or two vodka martinis a week - dirty vodka martinis being my weakness. But in realty I've been damaging it daily for my entire life. Celiac Disease had to win; of course it did. I've been polluting my body all my life with basically toxic substances and not knowing, not caring, probably not wanting to know. I've been as careless with my body as the human race has been with the planet it lives on. Here I was so passionately aware of what we were doing to this planet, yet oblivious to what I was doing to my body. How does this planet ever stand a chance when humans are so busy blindly polluting their very own bodies?

I suspect that most everyone has that same schism, that same disconnect from their bodies that I had. They must. Otherwise how could the Taco Ding Dongs and Burger Busts of the world survive, grow and prosper? They'll recycle bottles and cans and talk endlessly about global warming, but in the end I wonder if there is truly anything we can do about the shape this planet is in when we won't even safeguard our own bodies?

Damn . . . well just DAMN!

Life is a double edged sword. I have come to that unequivocal conclusion. There are no exceptions, period. All of life is give and take, get and give, good and bad, dark and light. All good results come with unwelcome conclusions. In theory the good outweighs the bad, though I sometimes think good gets extra points just on account. Then there's also that mischievous brain function that makes it so much easier for the body to remember good and forget bad. Bet you remember more about your last orgasm than you do your last bout of indigestion? The body is programmed to remember and want the good stuff over and over again, and jettison the bad body memories in pursuit of even more good stuff. The deck is stacked.

So here I am. A 44 year old woman trying to read labels in grocery stores who is at that age where she is not only extremely near sighted, but also now far sighted. In short, there is no acceptable workable distance at which I can hold a label with teeny tiny itsy bitsy print and actually be able to read it. I take my reading glasses to the store now, and sometimes even that isn't enough. Anyway, having to read labels is a pain in the ass, and by most accounts bad. Still it's an eye opener when you read label after label and realize you do not recognize two thirds of the things in most canned, frozen, boxed and jarred foods. The more I read labels, the more articles I read, the more amazed I am by what we put in our bodies daily. I think that's both a good thing and a bad thing. I know it frightens me.

Reading labels is one of those distance creating exercises. Having read Gods knows how many labels in the last several weeks, I now look at the food in the grocery store from a whole different place. There is me, over here standing in a vacuum with the wind whistling through my ears, trying to eat a gluten free diet and not bore myself to tears, and over there is this whole ugly, messy, dark, frightening building full of chemical preservatives, flavor enhancers, anti-caking agents, soy additives and gluten thickeners. I'm afraid of food. This is a new experience for me. I've taken to shopping around the outside of the aisles these days in the dairy and meat and veggie places. I make an occasional forage into the aisles for rice noodles and club soda, but mostly I'm buying whole foods and making from that what I need. I spent an hour last weekend cooking up a batch of salsa. It's not bad and I know exactly what's in it, plus or minus the bug spray they used on the tomatoes. So I can spend five minutes reading labels on jarred salsa trying to pick the one that I hope truly has no gluten in it, or I can spend an hour making my own salsa from whole foods and know it's gluten free. Spend five minutes reading and then toss a jar in the cart - good. Spend one hour mixing raw ingredients and cooking - bad. Or is it the other way around?

I'm amazed now at all the people who unconsciously shuffle their way through the aisles tossing things into their cart. Had you told me I was one of them three months ago I would have denied it. I learned to shop cheap several years ago when my gross personal profit went down drastically. I never much changed my habits after that no matter how much was in my bank account. I thought I was a good, aware conscious shopper. But in truth I had no idea what I'd been putting in my cart and my body. I'm by no means standing up on a soapbox here and screaming "ORGANIC OR DIE". I don't care much for people like that. They're the ones that keep insisting I should eat Carob instead of chocolate . . . Pffthhhhhhh . . . But the sheer weight of chemicals and preservatives I've consumed in my life now saddens and scares me. The thought of driving by a McDonald's makes me want to hurl. I don't want to risk breathing in the putrid air of frying chemicals ever again. Yeah, I know they sell nice salads that are probably safe, but being that close to the chemical vats would make me puke, I just know it. I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a precipice watching train after train hurtle towards each other from opposite sides of the same track. And down there in the valley people are quietly saying in between crashes "I don't understand why these trains keep running into each other." There is an almost horrified resigned acceptance about it. This is the way it works after all. Corporations make convenient products for you, sparing you hours in the kitchen, and in return you pay them vast sums of money. You don't ask and they don't spill the details about that trade you've just signed off on. Good and bad. But again, which is which.

But that's not even the worst of it. No, not even. I feel wonderful these days. I'm told it will take six months to a year for all the side effects to work their way out of my body and for me to feel normal. I don't know what normal will feel like having never been normal, but it should be interesting. I no longer get bouts of extreme exhaustion. The other bodily effects have diminished. I'm more alert and have a better memory that I have had in quite some time. The huge vicious mood swings are gone. It's been such a relief. It's all good. Right?

I've been menopausal for about a year and a half. I've been told repeatedly by other women and doctors that my sex drive will diminish or disappear all together with menopause and it may or may not come back. That was the one cheery bit of news to come out of the whole surprise menopausal revelation. That was supposed to be a good thing. When you're a single woman, living on a mountain, surrounded by some of the scariest single men on earth, being horny is an exercise in terror and frustration. But it turns out menopause had the exact opposite effect on me it was supposed to have. Instead of my desire for hot sweaty dirty sex diminishing, it increased. Noticeably increased. When a 300 pound man with a gray beard down to his crotch in overalls with a stud in his ear starts to look good, well, Huston, we've got a BIG problem. Still I retained some hoped that as time when on I'd get some little relief from the ramped up sex drive. Sure enough, slowly last year, as I began to feel worse and worse the sex drive pretty much disappeared. I was thrilled. I had no idea at that point about the gluten intolerance. I just thought "Score, finally menopause is coming through for me with something I can use!"

Yeah . . . you can probably figure out the rest. DAMN! So, I feel better, healthier, stronger than I have in a long time, and now I'd willingly jump the bone of any man who can get it up and keep it there for more than 60 seconds. Yes, I cry myself to sleep most nights. The cord on my favorite vibration is starting to go too. It's just not fair! Why the hell can't I just be normal? Why can't I have a normal menopause where I spit on strange men and turn all my vibrators into foot massagers? My whole life seems so far to be an experience in being different. I used to think that was a good thing. I used to be proud of that. Now it's turned on me so abruptly and cruelly that I'd kill for the opportunity to unzip the pants of Jethro's second cousin's uncle. I feel so good I think I'm going to go cry now.

Good Bye Old Friends

Life has become a daily bargaining experience. How much am I willing to give up and what is non-negotiable?

I bought a new rolling pin and wooden spoons at the grocery store today. I accept that gluten can linger on some food utensils, particularly porous ones like wood. I'm willing to replace the wooden spoons and the rolling pin. Wooden spoons have always been a staple in my kitchen. I need them. I don't know how anyone cooks without them. Some of them were old friends I've had since the day I moved out on my own. I had them in all shapes and sizes and colors. Each was unique. The rolling pin was my first. I pretty much learned from cook books and cooking shows. The utensils and pots and pans shared in my triumphs and abysmal disasters. They were the only company I had in the kitchen as I was learning.

But okay, I can accept that they had to go. I'm willing to concede that one. And that is what it has become: how much am I willing to give up? Rather than live in fear of what might lurk in the wood grain of the spoons I agreed to toss them. But that's as far as I'll go today. I will not toss the virtually new pots. They are the first real semi-expensive matching set of good pots I have ever owned. I bought them last year. They were kind of a coming of age for me. I will not give them up.

I refuse to accept that gluten can linger on the surface of pots and pans and bowls. If it does? If I'm wrong? Too bad. I'm not willing to give them up right now. I have to draw the line somewhere don't you understand? It cannot have everything. I will not allow that. If that's not rational well so be it. I can only handle so much truth these days okay? There's what's true and rational and there's what I can handle.

I Think I Shall Never See

I think I shall never see
A more amazing snack than thee
Only three ingredients abide
and none be hidden inside.

A food the Gods surely have blessed
I have become addicted I confess
It reigns supreme in the snack aisle
And ever time I see it's brilliant facade I smile.

So hail all the mighty Frito
a creature of salt and corn
fear not the calories and sodium
for gluten free it was born.

All can consume it's goodness
that lovely golden crunchy chip.
Give praise to the mightly Frito
and bring forth the sour cream dip.

You were expecting Shakespeare?

NO - I Do NOT Have to Do What You Tell Me To Do

So this whole gluten free life that has been thrust upon me should be easy shouldn't it? I mean if I just avoid the damn stuff I'll be fine right? There are a couple classic, and fatal if not unobvious flaws to that belief.

Gluten is in so many things. Gluten gives things that have no texture texture. It gives things that need a nice rich caramel color color. Some genius out there even has the hair care gurus of the world convinced that wheat protein is good for your hair. Man, that was one hell of a sales job right there. Look up a few of your more expensive designer type shampoos and conditioners and you'll find some of them proudly proclaiming the enormous benefits of wheat protein for human hair. Never mind that it gives those of us with Gluten Intolerance hives or worse. It's good for you. Then there are the secondary ingredients on labels that mask what is truly in them; ingredients like "Natural Flavorings" or "Food Starch". I can either play Russian Roulette with Natural Flavorings or I can move on down the aisle.

I was in the one and only local organic food store yesterday. The owner and I are apparently going to become best friends whether we want to or not. I was somewhat befuddled by the number of organic and health food items that proudly proclaim on the label "Made from 100% Organic Wheat". Big whoop. I'm surrounded it seems by people who want to convince me that wheat is good for me. It's good in me, good for me and good on me. I live for the inevitable day when someone will tell me I'm UnAmerican because I don't eat wheat. How dare I not patronize the heavily subsidized wheat growers of America? Wheat and gluten have become an American way of life.

But that's the obvious stuff. The hard part is that its a lot like loosing my best friend all over again. I've known food longer than I knew Lilly. She and I met in kindergarten and she passed away in 1994. We knew each other for 27 years. For months after she passed I'd start to reach for the telephone to tell her something and then I'd remember and it would hurt all over again. In some ways this is the same.

All the stages of grief are there. And the toughest sneakiest one is denial. I've still got a big box full of gluten sitting on my dining room table. I need to get it out of the house. I know this. It needs to go to a food pantry or a starving waif or something. But it's been almost four weeks and I still can't let it out of the house. Blood tests diarrhea bloating and acid reflux be damned, maybe I'm not really gluten intolerant. So what if the last ten years of my life read like a text book for Celiac Disease? Doctors can be wrong. They're human. I also forget. I forget what it feels like twenty minutes after I ingest it. My brain has refused to retain the precise details of what gluten does to me. My mind is protecting me and damning me at the same time.

Then there's what I call the Rebel Factor. You see, ah, I have issues with authority. Well, it was inevitable really. How could I have turned out any different? I'm the youngest of four children. From the day I was born there were five people in this world who felt it was their God given right to tell me what to do, how to do it and when. Along about year five I got tired of that shit and nothing much has changed since.

So I came to be very good at circumventing authority, in a sweet passive aggressive sort of way. In my own defense, my family is big on passive aggressive. It's possible my mother invented it, but I'm not sure. If nothing else several of us have since gone on to perfect it.

These days, of course, I'm an adult and somewhat more aggressive than passive. I'm told that's a good thing. You be the judge. I've more or less come to terms with most of the necessary authority figures in my life. The boss always gets the last say because he pays the rent. I'm polite to the local Sheriff, particularly the cute one. I pay my bills on time because I like to be warm, have electricity and bath with water. Well, okay, so maybe me and the animal control lady had a little go around, but that's largely because she likes to lay the whole authority trip thing on really thick, she's anal as hell and she's an ugly BUTT.

But I digress. I'm an adult, but inside there is still this small person who doesn't like being told what to do. There is this person who would rather die than be forced to do something someone else thinks she should. This is why I've never gone on a diet. I instinctively knew how badly that would go. I cannot stomach someone else telling me what to eat and how much. I don't do precise measurements and ounces and calorie counting. I cannot deal with people who feel the need to define and measure every movement and moment in their lives. But here I am, being told what to eat and what not to eat. The rebel child in my is pretty much freaking out these days. She has so not come to terms with this. I'm my own worst enemy right now and I know it.

So it is a struggle. I can get the mechanics of this new life down. I can learn to read labels. I can learn how to cook all over again. I understand intellectually what is going on. But I just can't cope. I don't want to be one of those people who measures out and regulates their life. I see some of the people on the Celiac boards and forums and they make my skin crawl. After their name they have a list of diagnosis along with the date they were diagnosed with this malady or that one. I'm told that people with Celiac's Disease are more prone to other food intolerances and allergies and auto immune issues. Well I don't want to be told what I have to be. I refuse to be one of them! It's my body. It's mine! They can believe if they want that their lives have gotten smaller and their choices fewer, but I can't live like that. I don't know how to live like that.