mac and muggi

White Rice

Switch to brown rice, she said.

No.

No?

White rice is cultural for me, and besides, the only difference is a gram of fiber per serving.

Not true, it is lower on the glycemic index and will go into your system slower.

No.

Well, cut your portions.

(Silence.)

Are you exercising?

Yes, I’m up to almost 8000 steps a day.

Is that at work?

Yes, I work in a warehouse now, and I walk all day.

That doesn’t really count, she said. You need to walk at a high rate and get the heart pumping. You’ll need to do more outside of work. And why don’t you just grab a couple of two-pound weights? You’d be surprised how heavy they get.

(Silence.)

(Internally:

I am screaming:

Did you know I binge eat sometimes when I am bored and I never realized that it was because I had undiagnosed ADHD and didn’t know I was stimming with food and was in a constant state of panic and stress because I never NEVER thought I was doing enough? Did you know I had half my thyroid removed because they thought it might be cancerous? Did you know I had a little chunk of my brain removed because it was cancerous? Did you know there are days when I don’t want to live and I cry and am not interested in activities anymore?

*Yes, of course, you did- it’s in my file, it’s in the depression questionnaire that starts every office visit.

Did you know that nearly every woman in my family is short with a big butt? That there are other shapes, other standards?

I am looking at you right now with your acceptable BMI and your two-line weight solutions and you are seeing me as rebellious patient that needs to occupy less space and I am seeing you, truly seeing every doctor I have ever visited, for the first time.

None of my doctors look like me. None of my doctors come from where I come from, eat what my mother’s mother has put on the table. I don’t see myself in anyone here. I didn’t even want to come here today because what you advise is as predictable as the sunrise.

Do you know I dated a feeder when I was 19? That he wanted me to be overweight to isolate me and keep anyone from looking at me? Did you know family members said “Mira, estas poniendo gordita” when I was just a kid? Do you know I barely buy clothes and when I do the stress of shopping makes me ill? That my bandmates wanted to give me our earnings to join Jenny Craig because I was a full grown 140 lbs and that was too fat to ever become a star, to ever make it? That the thought of dressing for an event sends me into a spiral? No, I guess you wouldn’t. That information is as irrelevant as the fact that a year ago I was doing 1500 steps a day, and my movement is up at a factor of 5 and I am the same weight. The SAME.

And don’t misunderstand me- I want to be healthy, and I know I am at risk- but it has to be my way, my time. You don’t listen, don’t treat the whole. I am the whole, and if you can’t see the whole, how can you possibly help me?

I will never fit the European standard of beauty. I can only fit my version of health. And you will not colonize my body by telling me that the one food that is the anchor of every plate is the one thing that I shouldn’t have. I don’t eat pasta, have minimized bread, and you still want me to leave white rice for brown? To cut the servings down so small that I measure my food in tablespoons?

I will eat rice, and yuca and pasteles, chuletas and arroz con habichuelas, and I will have chocolate and pizza, tacos and string cheese, and protein shakes along with the salads. I will eat what I can palate and damn the rest. I will move when I want to move and rest when I want to rest.

I’m going to live for the spirit of me- the important part, not this bag of meat my soul travels in while I am here, so you can take the numbers on the scale and stick them up your ass.

And I’m going to eat my white rice, even if one day I am coughing up blood in it.)

Externally:

Ok.

Laying on the floor

Sometimes I lay on my back on the scratchy red rug in my favorite place, and if I am really still, I can feel the earth moving. Moving toward…what?

At night, if I leave the shade up high, I can watch the trail of the stars. Looking for what looks back at me.

The night is so clear, and the voices I hear are like silky clarinet notes skipping across the water, tires on the distant highway like a keyboard drone. Listening for clues…

I imagine that i am running over smooth stones, pirouetting over the pine needle carpet, dancing on warm earth with its warm brown arms holding me, air so sweet it pulls me to my feet and I feel closer to the birth of forever.

I wish I could leave this daily coil, this sad toil that leads to nowhere. There are prices on the stars now.

But there is no containing the sky. And so by relation, is there no containing I?

One day I will become an elemental force, a piece of the big puzzle. I will fill a space that has been waiting for a shape like mine and then I can rise and be one with the skies and the trees, move like the leaves and pass like the moments, the beautiful moments we wish we could relive over and over.

Feeding the cycle, forever alive.

Week 2- The first thing I ever loved #2/52

What was the first thing I ever loved?

The question came into my head one day, and as is typical with my brain, the answer popped into my head in the moments before waking, just a few days after thinking of the question.

One might guess it was the face of my mother, or Morris, my first pet. But I was specifically thinking of “thing”, some thing that affected me. And I think the first thing I ever loved was a cardboard clubhouse.

Early 70’s, New York City. A small apartment near Broadway, and my little bedroom, with windows facing the street off the avenue. My mom had cut out a few proofs-of-purchase barcodes from my Flintstones vitamins and sent them away, and one day a box arrived. She secretly assembled the contents in my room, and when I came home from wherever it is tiny children go during the day, I was stunned to find a playhouse. Constructed of cardboard, with lines on the outside that I could color in, and space inside that felt much larger than it did from the outside.

Space.

I had my own space. A four by four foot castle, a cave, a tent, a real log cabin.

Mom had even put a small lamp inside. I crept in, and then little by little I gathered all of my dolls – Cher, Holly Hobby, some Honey Hill Bunch dolls, and I surrounded myself with this audience of friends, who hung on my every word. I could sit in there and daydream, and practice curse words with my pretend imaginary friend (I knew imaginary friends weren’t real, but I wanted one anyway, if only to insult with complicated randomly syntaxed profanity) and be boss of my own little dominion. I read, napped, sang songs to myself, and was truly content.

That little clubhouse was the first thing I ever loved. It was my space, my sanctuary before I even knew the meaning of the word.

My memories won’t access how long I had that little house. It can’t have been long. After all, cardboard is cardboard, and I am not exactly the most graceful or gentle person. I was no different as a child.

I think that little cardboard house is the reason I treasure my grown up home so much. It fills me with that feeling of sanctuary, a place to be me. It’s a real life clubhouse, full of lamps and light. My little family shares the space with me. Together we paint the walls the color of love, and I don’t have to curse alone.

The 52/52/52 project

It’s 2022, and I really felt like I wanted to accomplish something, but I am one of the worst people when it comes to follow through.

Week 1

I’ve always really felt like I wanted to accomplish something kinda big, a grand project, but I am one of the worst people when it comes to follow through. I like to do so many things that I am constantly on a pivot, a person very comfortable riding the lazy susan and spinning until I’m dizzy and in great need of checking my compass for direction.

And then I turned 52 at the end of last year, and said with great indignation, “Dang it!” Yes, I really said that. It’s my cry of frustration and irritation, and it has a nice ring to it. “Dang it, I am going to get a thing done this coming year, and I am going to tell people so that they hold me to it.”

And so, I had to think to myself, what is going to keep my interest when I usually change hobbies six times before my morning shower? It has to be something that has layers, isn’t the same from week to week, but is the same enough to make it easy to do. So I decided on this:

A 52 year old woman (me of course, my blog, my project) will paint a postcard to send to a friend or a stranger, that is based on one of 52 questions I’ll write that must be answered in an essay or poem, and I will do this for 52 weeks. And at the end the year I’ll celebrate by looking back at all of my work. Then I’ll print it all up in a binder to look at any time my mental passenger starts telling me I never finish anything. I will hold this binder of future days over my head like Lloyd in Say Anything, and sing “In your FACE” and know that I am capable of doing all the things.

And so, I started week one on January 7th, 2021, completed my first postcard a day late, mailed it 3 days late, and am writing this 3 days late, but it’s ok. Crazy ideas never get a smooth start, but like a kid driving their first 5 speed, the gear shifts will smooth with time and practice. So here’s Week 1- thanks for reading.

Week 1: Who were you before you were you?

Somewhere in the soup or maybe just a splice of energy in the solar winds,
No form, no thought, just me, meaning the universe, slowly pulling in on itself
But force will pull me into a heavy shape one moment soon or past
And I’ll be expected to choose, decide, which of these random atoms I’m going to bag my magic in.
No, I don’t know that yet. I am on the cosmic breeze
Breathing the breath that has no breath,
And just being

I will forget how to do that soon
I’m not even I
And that is the ultimate peace

Then come moments like flashing light and first pain
And breath that is not like no breath

Easy like unwrapping candy, this first part

When the toys chose themselves and the crayons chose the places to fill
Thought without thought, boxes filled with promise

Now I am here and the toy-box just holds the pin to my bank account and the softener sheets and the spare keys for just-in-case

And i have forgotten how to play, dance on the solar flares

Shadows earthbound long and low
But reflections in the rain puddles shine bright, I remember that light

See yourself
Remember
Remember how to play

Don’t wait to create

Creativity is a fickle friend. Trying to really find the creative spark on a daily basis is much like inviting your introvert friend out for coffee. They yes (and before you say I am picking on introverts, that is me cancelling the coffee date) but you totally know they aren’t coming.

The thing is though, you want to be creative. You want to make, sing, paint, write. Wishing or waiting for inspiration won’t help you get any closer.

Maybe you’ll just do it when you can do it perfectly? Ok, I’ll just wait over here until you’re ready. Just kidding, I have no patience to wait.

I know this sounds like I am talking to you about your creativity, but I am really talking about my past self. I was terrified to ART, That was for the pros with degrees and credentials. It was intimidating.

I took a class. Encaustics. Lots of older women, completely non-competitive and full of laughter. I was hooked. I was making things for joy, and completely forgot about other people’s art- I was wrapped up in making my own things. It was therapeutic, and this was really what I needed most. A therapy that took me out of the day and out of my head and onto whatever media I could draw or work on.

After doing something artistic daily for the last two years, I came to realize that creativity had nothing to do with my artwork. It was about showing up every day even when I didn’t feel like it. Getting emotions out. Moving my hands. That was where the art really was for me.

If you’re blocked in your creativity, try just getting anything down without any judgement. Play a song you already know, draw the worst picture you’ve ever drawn. And then forget about it, Then do it again tomorrow, and the next day. DO it for the hell of it, Do it for the joy.

If you’re blogging about your creativity or feeling blocked, comment so that I can read about your struggles and successes, and look at your blog. I would really love to know where you are in your journey.

With all my art.

Sewing Machine

When I was 4, I remember sitting on the floor of my parents’ room staring up at my mom, while she pushed her foot down on the huge black metal pedal of her industrial Singer sewing machine.

She would toss threads and scraps down on the floor, and I would make little piles on my dolls, as if the scraps were now magically clothes. Cher doll would never have been caught dead in any of my creations, but she tolerated my creative fashions.

Later, when I could reach the pedal, she taught me simple stitches. In my teen years I took in the sides of my jeans so tight I would have to jump up and down to get in them.

Of late, it has been an unfulfilled obsession to get a sewing machine and get into mending and repair, some simple alterations.

So, just this last week, I went out and got a machine. It’s not a Singer. But my mom insisted on setting it up for me, and she really approves.

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Direction! Finally!

So many days spent thinking, considering, pondering…no, actually sweating, crying and freaking out trying to figure out what I want to do when I “grow up”. I have really tried to figure out what I want to do for a living that will make me feel good about my life. I have been in the same line of work for 30 years now, and am in desperate need of a second lifetime!

Fortunately I had a wonderful epiphany last night. It was a combination of environmental science, art, design, recycling, and a sewing machine. I’m going to use this page now as a journal of my learning, and my experiences.

Meet Mac

Meet Mr. Mac.

This dog was the love of my life. He came into my life not long before a surgery. He was a huge deaf Boxer pup with great energy and an awesome bucking bronco spin. He terrified me when I saw how he interacted with my other boxer Stella Luna until I realized how Boxers interact. What I thought was wholesale murder was merely play. Everything about having these dogs was pure energy and love.

Later I went through a separation, brain surgery, and divorce. During the separation, Stella passed away, gracefully as she lived. And she left me and Mac to fend for ourselves and make our own partnership. He no longer had his hearing dog, and I no longer had my sensitive girl. He and I cleaved to each other for dear life.

When you have a deaf dog, there is a very special, almost magical kind of relationship. It’s about eye contact and body language. It’s sticking together while doing chores, sleeping close enough to feel when the other moves. We needed each other so much. With so few to trust around us, we became best friends and in a way, soul mates.

Last year, Mac, totally expectedly, started slowing down. After all, he was 11 and not as crazy as he once was . Pain in his joints had us visiting the vet more frequently. Pills, shorter walks, more naps and resting.

And then there it was.

Blood in his urine. Cancer in his kidneys. Nothing to do but give him all the love I could until he was ready to go.

And now till my time comes he will watch over me, my white ghost. He has given me the gift of patience and a heart filled with compassion. I will be forever grateful to my 125 pound baby boy.

I still talk to him very day. I still dream of him. I send him dream messages and he sends them back And in my dreams he can hear me and he hears me tell him I love him over and over and over and over…..

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love

(bark bark)

Mom I hear you crying

Mom the days have no number

love is greater than death

I can see eternity

Peace

Home

Come to the bridge in time

The days have no number

love you

Through the lens

I love my microscope at work, but it’s a bugger to keep the dust off!

Years back I took some photography classes at my local community college and fell in love with taking pictures and working in the darkroom. I really enjoyed the process of taking pictures, the “in the moment” mind that you need to get a nice shot. I tried recapture that feeling at work by stealing an old microscope from another lab so that I could look at color samples during the day just for the joy of it.

Maybe I can convince the boss to get me an actual digital set up so that I can photograph some slides. Some of the samples look amazing through the lens, abstract and full of stories in miniature. It would be interesting to tell those stories.