On Hurting

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." ~ Dr. Seuss

What I want to say is too personal for this public format, but suffice it to say that I'm hurting. To my core. And the source of my pain is a decision that I made, which directly results in equally hurting at least one other person.

There are no words to say to make the hurting stop, to make sleep come, or to comfort another. I know I'm not a perfect human being, but I always want to be a healer. It's so much harder...to be a hurt-er and to be hurting.

A New Year is coming. I wish for and look forward to brighter days with less heartache. For now...I cry and I wait for the hurting to stop. 

I Gotta Move

Today, a conversation with a friend prompted me to ask myself...if I had it to do all over again, would I still move to Phoenix?

I'm not sure. I'm inclined to say no, but there ARE some positive things that have come from my life here.

But since I would sincerely prefer to move sooner than later, here are a few of the places that I believe I would enjoy more than Phoenix. Alternate ideas will be considered.

 Minneapolis

 The SF Bay area

Seattle

San Diego

pretty much anywhere with lovely, varied scenery (but close to a city)

It's Time to Eat Mindfully.

I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin. The subdivision where I spent my childhood was surrounded on all sides by farm fields, mostly on a corn-soybean rotation. My best friend lived on a farm and we spent lots of time playing in the haymow. I rode on a tractor with her dad, planting long rows of corn. I learned how to bottle-feed calves. I thought I knew a thing or two about farming and where food comes from. I was wrong.  

A few years ago I began to understand that the easiest way of eating in this country is the most pervasive. We as Americans are poisoning ourselves and making ourselves obese because we as a culture don't take the time to understand or think about what we eat and where our food comes from.

These are the questions we ask of our food:
*Does it taste good?
*Is it cheap?
*Is it convenient?
*Does it require effort to prepare?

What should we be asking?  Well...to start:
*Is this food nutritious?
*Will this nourish my body or just satiate my hunger?
*What is in this food: plants, animals, or chemicals?
*Are any of the original ingredients recognizable?
*Do I understand the ingredients and what I'm putting in my body?

I was recently mortified beyond belief by this true article about the pink goo called "mechanically separated chicken" that becomes tasty delicious chicken nuggets...which I will probably never be able to eat again, but previously enjoyed (despite knowing that chicken is not naturally found in nugget form).

I'm reading the book The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan at the moment, which delves into the political and karmic ramifications of our everyday food choices. Prior to this book, I'd read several others on similar topics and also sought out some relevant documentaries (listed below), but I have to admit I'm constantly learning new things about how food makes its way onto our tables. This book is fascinating, and relevant to anyone who has ever eaten a meal that was not prepared at home.

The more I learn, the more I want to move to Minnesota and live with the founders of the band Cloud Cult on their organic farm.

For real.

Recommended reading/watching (to change your life): 

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting.  -Henry David Thoreau

I implore you to:
*Read labels. Choose to eat foods that contain only ingredients that you understand and can pronounce.
*Learn to cook simple, unprocessed meals.
*Eat more plants and less meat.
*Avoid fast food. Find restaurants that use local, fresh, real ingredients.
*DRINK LESS SODA!! That shit'll kill ya. It's all chemicals.
 
And here's a more comprehensive list from the writers of Food, Inc.:

These are simple ways to begin to change your life and your body for the better.

Educate yourself.

I Want...

 

a tree becomes a book becomes a tree

I want this.

What I WIsh My Day Looked Like:

Rest In Peace

Grandpa had been losing his memory for the last few years.  I saw him in July, but he didn't know who I was or where he was.  I'm not sure he recognized his wife of around 65 years that day. He did like the live music though; and ever a proud Marine, he wore the emblem on his shirt. It's a terrible way to lose someone, to watch them slowly slip away over a number of years.  The same happened with my maternal grandmother, and the same may very well happen to me someday, or to either of my parents.  Not a pleasant thought.

I have lost three of my four grandparents in less than two years, and after losing the previous two I felt relatively prepared for this loss, this funeral. In the days prior to his death, I sent little prayers up into the universe for a swift passing without further pain. I was granted my wish as he died in his sleep just days after being admitted into hospice care.

I flew to Wisconsin, alone, on Monday to attend my Grandpa Chasco's wake, funeral, and various military burial ceremonies, to be held on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. I put together picture boards for the wake with family members. I was asked to be a pall bearer, along with the other eight adult grandchildren. He weighed less than I do at the time of his death, so the load was much lighter in our arms that in our hearts.

After the ceremonies were over, I said goodbye to my siblings and spent the next two nights in the house where I grew up in Freedom, Wisconsin. I actually only left that house to get dinner with my parents on Friday night.  I spent the remainder of the chilly, rainy day decompressing, reading, and setting up my parents' wireless printer on their computers. I felt relaxed and refreshed by the end of my short stay in Freedom, and was ready to say goodbye to my parents and grandma and to fly home.

The flight, as it turns out, was my undoing.

Having stopped for Caribou Coffee, I made my short connection in Minneapolis with just minutes to spare. I settled in my seat, turned on my iPod, and tried to ignore the small child incessantly kicking the back of my seat and his loud, annoying parents. Somewhere over Nebraska, an older man two rows behind me stopped breathing. For about twenty heart-wrenching seconds, I thought I was going to have to administer CPR. Miraculously, a doctor was on board and sprinted back from mid-plane. The man was moved from his seat to the floor of the aisle, where the doctor worked on him and the flight attendants dug through their medical supplies, offering the doctor whatever they could find. Our plane was diverted to Denver, where the man was offloaded by emergency medical technicians, accompanied by three other adult passengers (guessing by the level of distress, one was his wife). For the hour or so in the air and hour or so on the ground in Denver, all of the emotions I'd been struggling with for the past few days found their way to the surface. All the relaxation and decompressing I'd done in Freedom was undone and I suddenly had golf ball sized knots tensing in my back and neck. I couldn't stop crying and was grateful for my window seat. As soon as we were back in the air, I ordered a drink and downed it. I looked out the window and saw a tremendous crash on the I-10 as we were landing in Phoenix and knew Jamie wouldn't be at the airport to meet me when I landed. I was right.  By the time he navigated city streets and got to me, I only possessed the energy to collapse in his arms and cry. I went to bed before 9:00 and woke up several times throughout the night from nightmares.  I didn't get out of bed until after 8:00. It's noon and I've scarcely been off the couch.

What a roller coaster, this life.

Grandpa's Obituary

The Problem with Money

I've been at One Step Beyond for just under a year.  I LOVE my job. LOVE it.  I work with adults with disabilities, teaching them job skills at volunteer and contracted/paid job sites, and I teach the occasional job skills class as well.

Last week the CEO that hired me left, and her post was once again taken up by the founder. In her reevaluation and reorganization of the small nonprofit, my job title has gotten a face lift. I was the Vocational Program Coordinator, and am now the Director of Vocational Community Relations. It means that my job has been given a new focus, working with the adults in the Vocational Program that work at community job sites, and training the job coaches that are on the sites with them.

What it doesn't mean is a pay raise. Actually, I can look forward to smaller paychecks as I've recently had to cut my hours to work part-time for no pay at a local elementary school as part of my internship for my Masters degree. So now, I'm working more hours than ever. I'm balancing my new responsibilities at work with my educational experience at the elementary school, putting in over 50 hours per week between them, and getting paid much less for my efforts. I don't want to sound like I'm complaining; I know it's all part of the process...it's just exhausting. And the problem with money is that once you've become accustomed to a certain level of income, it can be anything from a blow to the ego to a strain on a budget to lower the bar.

Lucky for me, I married a guy who understood that I believe that having a purpose is more important than earning large dollars. I took a significant pay cut to work for One Step Beyond, and will never make much money in non profits and/or public education. He understands that what I gained last year by taking a lower paying but more fulfilling job was unmeasurable. I always can count on his support, and that's amazing.

Marrying someone who understands that point of view means that he's likely to have the same opinion and will seek fulfilling work instead of high paying work.  This is the case with us as well; Jamie is a teacher. We will be lucky if someday our combined income reaches the heights that some friends and family already find with one income. What does this mean for us? A modest house, used furniture, used cars, no cleaning or landscaping service, clothes and shoes worn well past their prime...and happiness.

I might also mention at this point that Jamie is the king of finding unimaginable deals.  We do not sacrifice life experience with our modest income; we prioritize life lived fully.  We've been to Asia, South America, Canada, and across the continental United States together...the most exciting of the trips paid in subsidized by airlines miles. Our next adventure? Hawaii.  Spring Break '11. Airfare: $20.

So I'm not complaining...in fact, I consider myself lucky.  I just need to remind myself now and then, especially on challenging days, exactly how lucky I am.

Monsoon

A few weeks ago, a monsoon storm tore through the valley leaving a crazy amount of debris in its wake.  There were flash floods, uprooted trees, broken cacti, and branches all over the streets. While there was a fully grown tree uprooted almost directly behind our house, our little cactus, Spike, opened his delicate blooms. 

 

It was the third time he's bloomed this year; the first was on Memorial Day and the second was on Independence Day.

The Third Time I Wore My Wedding Dress...

On the morning of July 17th, I was ironing my wedding dress for what would be its third exhibition. Unlike the first time, I wasn't giddy with anticipation of impending nuptials, but was dutifully preparing myself for our third and final wedding celebration. Although I love my wedding dress, handmade by my mother to look exactly like a designer dress I found online that I could certainly not afford, I admittedly didn't want to wear it again. As I ironed, I silently berated myself for not just insisting that I would wear another dress. But I hadn't, and I knew it was too late. All I could do was smooth away the wrinkles from the dress's three-state journey and slip it over my head.

I surprised myself that evening by how much I truly enjoyed the third and final party. I didn't think it was possible to be so lucky to have three separate, very different celebrations and enjoy them all, albeit in very different ways.


I will be the first to admit that after our perfect, intimate wedding celebration, I wasn't overly excited about planning two more, much larger parties that would take place nearly seven months after the fact. Luckily for me, my mother and new mother-in-law bore the brunt of the planning; Jamie and I merely had to show up and enjoy.

The first reception was in my parents' backyard in Freedom, Wisconsin on July 10th. I changed the sash on my dress to the lovely royal blue original sash that I'd had to abandon for lavender because it clashed with the navy suit Jamie wore on our wedding day.

This reception was much like I had originally imagined our wedding would be. My mother's gardens were lovely and a giant tent in the backyard combined with a freshly dry walled and painted four-car garage provided a necessary reprieve from an ill-timed rain shower. There was a beer truck out front with my favorite summer beer (Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy) on tap, live music in the garage, and excellent food in the tent. The tent was adorned with 450 origami cranes, folded by my 12-year-old cousin! The food was primarily prepared by family and friends, and was presented on a collection of glass platters and bowls. Glass carafes of water and iced tea with fresh slices of lemons were on every table, as were small, understated arrangements of fresh flowers cut from my mother's garden (as well as some Queen Anne's Lace cut from a nearby ditch!). Those who stayed until the very end know how well live music pairs with draft beer and a full bar...

It was perfect. The detail of the planning, the gathering of amazing family and friends...I couldn't help but feel overwhelmingly lucky to have such great people and so much love in my life. When it was finished, I didn't feel as though anything could come close to rivaling this exquisite gathering. I was wrong.

The (gratefully) much smaller soiree took place at the historic State Theater in Sandusky, Ohio. Yep, our name is on the marquee. Nice touch, Margaret! The catered finger food was delicious and impeccably presented, the musician was talented, my brother-in-law Michael's speech was heartfelt, and Margaret even saw fit to get a small birthday cake for my father, whose birthday was the very next day. The event was classy but felt relaxed, and everyone seemed to have a great time.

I must be the luckiest person alive to have had not one but three successful and enjoyable wedding celebrations. I can't express my thanks enough to those that made all three events so memorable.