Redefining Healthy

I just read The Picture of Health, Kim Lute's My Turn article in Newsweek. She is a young woman who has several major health issues, requiring numerous painful procedures. Yet she considers herself "'the picture of health." She says it's time to redefine what a healthy person looks like:

Maybe a healthy person is someone who's in constant pursuit of it, someone who's lost it and fought hard to regain it, someone who appreciates that being healthy isn't merely an abstract state of being to which some are blessed and others are deprived. Under this premise I'm fit, hard fought and hard won.

I so love that. I've been jokingly calling myself "the healthiest sick person around" because of my devotion to healthy habits. I prize my health, it's true. I take excellent care of my precious little body, though it sometimes still fails me. I love making and eating good food, stretching into a Sun Salutation, jog-walking my dog on a brisk winter day. I even love the solitude and stillness that can come when I surrender to a "bad" day.

Sappy Thanksgiving Post

I spent the day in solitude, being too sick right now to travel to Ohio for Thanksgiving day. It actually didn't feel as pathetic as it sounds, even though my sweetie AND my dog were gone (guess which one I missed more). I rather enjoyed myself, in fact, once I got a bit more sleep.

When I first got up, way too early, I scribbled in my journal as usual, and here is part of my gratitude list from that bleary-eyed half hour:

Hot lemon water, soothing on my throat.
This dog curled up next to me.
A boiler that works even though it's 40-odd years old.
Down comforters.
No 9 to 5.
A new writing plan.
A newly peppy laptop. With OneNote.
J's energy feeling light and hopeful.
Our new Prez, hallelujah.
Yoga class. The fact that it was cancelled this week was timely.
Friends. Carol to commiserate writing-wise. Sara reappearing in my life. Rachel always good for a deep connection and lots of laughs.
Mom and Dad, J of course, their love and support, their interest in minute details of my life - who else would care?

Now that the day is over, I'm also grateful for Ellen, Facebook, a stocked fridge, kitty Maggie (extra snuggly and funny today in Mar's absence), sunlight, and Marley's collie friend Keelie who spent the day running him ragged so he's completely floppy now.

It also seems miraculous that there is zero strife in the extended family, with J enjoying them so much, and vice versa, that there was no question of her skipping Thanksgiving even though I couldn't go.

So, I truly have a lot to be thankful for.

What the Yoga Teacher Said (plus Lucinda Williams)

There was no yoga class tonight on account of Thanksgiving tomorrow (have I mentioned I'm thankful to have a weekly yoga class within walking distance?), but I'm remembering something my teacher said a few weeks ago about limitations.

I believe she said, as we were winding down into our meditative space after all the bending, that knowing your limits is critical. Not knowing them brings added stress and strain on yourself and others around you. She was referring to both the yoga postures and life in general.

I suppose if I were a yoga teacher I would find it stressful to have a classful of people who didn't take responsibility for knowing and honoring their own limits. Not always easy to do. I have to admit, sometimes you don't know what you can do until you try. You might just be able to get that leg up around your neck, you never know. I guess it's all about going gently as you try things out, and listening to the feedback your body gives you.

On the other hand, my usual tack is to barrel through my body's limits, like tonight when it screamed to lie down instead of standing propped against the sink to wash the dishes. I am sick again, and the world doesn't stop.

A few days after the yoga class, I heard singer/songwriter Lucinda Williams interviewed on All Things Considered. She has a husky voice that isn't made for high clear notes. She said in recent years she has learned to turn her limitations to her advantage, writing songs that show off her own unique voice. No one can sing songs like "Can't Let Go" quite like Lucinda.

I found that inspiring. I don't know if there's a way to work chronic fatigue syndrome to my advantage though.

Making Us Look Really Good

Indiana Living Green magazine has a story about sustainable neighborhoods, and they included a bit about our own Irvington Green Initiative, quoting yours truly. Have we really done all the things the article mentions? Uh, no. We sound really good, though.

At the Library

The books about writing, like Julia Cameron's The Right to Write, are sandwiched between extreme sports like scuba diving and rock climbing. Across the aisle: mountaineering, tales of storms over Everest. Standing at the end of the row, I scan a book called Swimming to Antarctica, written by a woman with way more bodyfat and guts than me. "The water temperature was 32 degrees, and the shore was a mile off."

The juxtaposition strikes me as peculiar until I go home and boot up the computer, and face my latest Everest. On second thought, writing is its own extreme sport.

Believing It

J and I spent election night at Jillian's downtown with a group of Obama volunteers, watching CNN and MSNBC on big screen TVs that covered every wall. We'd helped out at the township Obama office during the day, making calls, delivering sandwiches to pollworkers, and I was moved to think of these efforts being replicated precinct by precinct all over the country.

Despite an excited, happy vibe everywhere all day (including at the gas station, where an African-American woman called out a greeting after she spied my T-shirt with the future Prez's face on it), I'd been worrying about voter suppression, dirty tricks, voting machine snafus, inaccurate polling, on and on. Given the past two presidential elections, I half expected to not even know the outcome until the following morning. I almost couldn't bear to hope it was possible, after all our work. Would the American people really see through the rightwing attacks and choose, in Donna Brazile's words, the best and brightest, no matter how "different"?

Even when Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia came through (to great cheers at Jillian's), and everyone said it was a done deal, I still didn't grasp that it was really going to happen. I must have been in some creative form of self-protective denial. (I found out later that my mom had a similar thing going on: What if they projected his win in those states too soon; could we trust this? I have more than a little of my mom in me, not wanting to get my hopes up for fear of being crushed.)

At any rate, we knew the big states out west were coming in at 11 p.m., and we knew that Obama was a sure bet for those progressive voters, and also that (theoretically, in my mind) they would give him the electoral votes he needed to win, but somehow I was unprepared for the CNN projection coming on the big screens at 11:01: Barack Obama wins the election! The room erupted instantly, and I found myself on my feet with the rest, shouting and then sobbing, awash in relief and awe and jubilation.

All the hate and fear stirred up by the other side didn't stop the majority from wanting Barack Obama. My faith in my country has been restored! I feel nothing but pity for people frightened of this man who is so transparently decent that it's unbelievable they can't see it. "He's Muslim/Arab/socialist/foreign/unAmerican! And oh-my-god he's black!" The latter being the only true statement there, but the one that typically was sublimated within the other judgments. In any case, it didn't work, and that is why I've been walking around with a grin on my face ever since, and sometimes with tears in my eyes.

It feels like a whole new world. An African-American man sitting with us said, "Tomorrow a child will be born who has never known a world without the Internet, or stem cell research, or (several other things I can't now recall)... and that child will only ever know a country where anyone can be president." (And his name shall be Barack, someone else quipped.)

It was a sweet, sweet night. Made sweeter by the victory in Indiana, which was unexpected even after our hard work. I stayed up until NBC called it, and had a celebratory piece of chocolate at 2 a.m., alone on the couch.

Now I realize I've been carrying all kinds of tension in my body these past several months. I feel like I can finally relax. I know it's only the beginning, and I intend to stay engaged (already I know more about his potential cabinet than any prior Prez's actual one), but for now I'm still savoring being on the right side of history. I am beginning to believe it. We did it!

Recipe for a Happy 50th

My sweetie turns 50 tomorrow. Though we strike out for some Brown County scenery tomorrow, we celebrated in style over the weekend. Here's my recipe for a bangup birthday:

24 precious people from near and far

3 round tables at

1 great restaurant, Harry &Izzy's (serving the birthday girl 1 free dessert after a deelish dinner)

1 chicken limo ride (surprise!)

3 lanes at Atomic Duckpin Bowling in historic Fountain Square

4 old friends from out of town staying over, talking till 1:30 a.m.

1 laidback brunch the next morning

Give all ingredients to the love of your life. Savor and enjoy.

(Why the chicken limo, you ask? Seems my sweetie has a soft spot for poultry ever since she followed her dad around the hatchery and earned the name "Little Joe." She's been wanting to ride in that car for years. I guess I made her dreams come true.)