Peace Is On The Rise

It has been a crazy few weeks, to say the least. On the evening of March 10th, I found out that my grandfather was in the hospital dying. The dreaded ‘c’ word– cancer– had overtaken his body, spreading from his prostate into his lymph nodes and– tragically– his brain. Mere hours after he had been admitted into the hospital, long before Marty and I were even able to get to Calgary, he was gone. A tumor– covering close to 20% of his brain like snaking, suffocating ivy– is what officially took him away from this earth.

This is a photo my grandpa took of himself for a camera course shortly before he passed away. Spooky, no?

At least it was quick. At least he was surrounded by family when it happened. At least there was no pain.

Grandpa smoking beside the first of his many children

I spent over two weeks at my grandma’s house, first helping out with the funeral plans and later watching over my grandma and aunts like a regular Florence Nightingale. I designated myself Queen of My Grandma’s Kitchen, and for weeks I prepared my extended family nurturing soups and nourishing bowls of morning oatmeal. I’ve never cooked so much food in my life! True to my Almost Vegan self, I roasted several organic chickens for a crowd and even ventured to make my grandma’s dogs raw dog food. (A word to the wise: using a food processor to blend hamburger meat and LIVER is not for the faint of heart, and especially not for the Almost Vegan Faint Of Heart.) Heh. During that two week span, I transformed from somebody who was secretly wary (and even a bit petrified) of my grandpa to an open-hearted goddess of love and understanding for that particular branch of my family tree. I am back at the lake now, safe and sound, but I am definitely a woman changed.

Newsflash: My Grandpa was good looking! Consider me shocked.

My metamorphosis started with a dream.

In the wee morning hours of March 12th, I bolted awake in bed, finding myself reciting the final words of the Lord’s Prayer. Out loud. In the dark! Only moments before, while I was still asleep, I had seen a circle of women holding hands and chanting the Our Father together. When it came time for the final verse, they summoned me over. “You have to say this part”, they said, but I was warm and cozy underneath my blankets. (Besides– godless heathen alert!– I wasn’t certain I would even remember the final words to the Lord’s Prayer. Yes, I had been raised ultra-Catholic, but it had been well over 10 years since I had recited any officially-sanctioned prayers.)

This photo pretty much sums up everything I thought I knew about my grandpa: cowboy hat, crucifix, enthusiastic fist pump, and the Lord Our Shepherd in the background.

There was no way I was going to say anything for the women in my dream. Sorry, ladies: No late night Lord’s Prayer for this sinner.

“You have to say this part!”, they demanded again, this time more urgently. “Now!” So I woke up and whispered, For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Now and forever, Amen. I scanned the bed in embarrassment to see if Marty had heard me, but luckily he was still fast asleep beside me. Then, knowing how uncommon it was to find myself roused from my slumber by a prayer, I quickly checked my alarm clock for the time. It was 2:52 am.

This photo ALSO sums up everything I thought I knew about my grandpa. His own caption for the pic is "Me reading bible". Yep. Reading the bible... on the deck... practically nekkid. Oh, Grandpa!

I found out from my mother, mere hours later, that my grandpa had passed away during the night. Do you want to hazard a guess re: the exact time of his death? Uh-huh. It was even adjusted across time zones– 3:52 am Mountain Standard Time, or 2:52 am Pacific Standard Time. Leave it to my grandpa to beckon me back onto the Catholic Path with his last earthly breath… (I called it Grandpa Shaktipat, a decidedly un-Catholic way of understanding what had happened to me and what it all meant.)

Grandma and Grandpa. My mom looks EXACTLY like my grandma in these shots!

It sounds cheesy. It seems cliche. But after that dream, my heart opened up like a flower in full bloom. I reconnected with my family members (dozens and dozens of them) and finally felt the peace associated with not judging them or trying to distance myself from them. I was awash with grace. I cared for my family members, both in the physical sense– making sure that the legendary family home was clean and that healthy food was always on the table– and in the emotional sense, too. Most of the tears I cried in Calgary boiled over not in sadness over my Grandpa’s absence, but in love and compassion for my Grandma, who had been with my Grandpa since she was only 15 years old. Her heart had been broken, and my own heart broke in empathy for her.

Only the best photo in the history of the universe! Can you believe that this is my grandma and grandpa? He was 17 in this picture; she was 15.

A year later, in Golden BC

Terrible circumstances are what brought Marty and I over to Calgary, but the tragedy of losing my Grandpa– the undisputed, often terrifying head of our family’s household; the God-fearing, Bible-loving Catholic with a big heart and a short temper; the usually-shirtless man with a permanent suntan and a generous gut– enabled us to form actual friendships with my Grandma, my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and even my own sisters and parents again. My heart still aches for my Grandma, but for the first time in my life, I am phoning her regularly and enjoying our conversations together. We’re friends now! The two weeks I spent with her have literally changed me. Yes, I’m still the pro-choice, feminist, gay-marriage-supporting black sheep in the family, but the grace of god and my Grandpa’s spirit helped me to realize that so much more connects me to my family than sets me apart.

Grandma and Grandpa at their 25th wedding anniversary, unveiling the now-legendary pic of my mom and her infinite number of siblings. (My sisters and I have tried duplicating this pose in many of our own pics.)

RIP Grandpa: October 20, 1937 to March 12, 2012

Totally unrelated to this post: Apparently WP is blocking some people from commenting on this and other posts. If you have been trying to comment but find yourself facing the stone-cold wall of WP disapproval, please e-mail me at:

dana (DOT) zonapellucida (AT) gmail (DOT) com

and I’ll see what I can do. Thanks!

Sadness

Sunset at the Harbour

There is no easy or sugar-coated way to say this:

My grandpa is dying. He might even have passed away by the time this post goes live. (Who knows? I am writing this entry before rushing off to the airport to be with my family in Alberta. My grandpa isn’t expected to still ‘be there’ when we arrive.)

The sun is setting on my grandpa

After experiencing the highs of being at Race Rocks Lighthouse, Marty and I are now facing an indeterminate amount of time in Calgary, wallowing in the lows of grief. There’s no telling how long we will be away. How long will the tumours press on my grandfather’s brain? On his lungs?

Chances are extremely high that I will not be stopping by your blogs in my absence, making pithy comments or even hitting “like” buttons. Such is life. Such is death. (If I do happen to make a trip to your blog, though, let’s not think that I’m being callous towards the circumstances, OK?)

Please keep my family in your thoughts while we are away. Thank you in advance. xo

Under a blood red sky of sorrow.

The Answer is No

Back when I still worked at Ye Olde Office Job, my tiny Finance Team had an ongoing joke about the answer to any question always being no. All three of us were/are abnormally nice people who tended to be overly accommodating of the needs of others, but in secret, when we were sure nobody else was listening, we used to practice bellowing with authority: The answer is no!

Need a spreadsheet made? The answer is no!

Donation amounts need to be tallied and reported at the next staff meeting? The answer is no!

Can we please mail out the charitable tax receipts by the end of the day? The answer is no!

Is it possible to– NO! The answer is no!

(Yeah, I know it’s not very funny, but to our simple accounting department sensibilities, the idea of being Make Believe Jerks to our coworkers never got old.)

Well. It’s been a year and a half since I left my day job, but I’m finding that dirty, two-letter ‘n-o’ word creeping back into my daily existence again, especially when it comes to food. My awareness of this sneaky phenomenon peaked when I read Kathy’s recent post, 50 and Fat– or 50 and Fit? (Weighing in on Mid-Life) and again when I encountered a brief aside about “Kimberly [Snyder] disapproving of cashews” in this post from Housewifing Around. Kathy spoke of her mother basing many of their conversations on foods that she either could not or would not eat, and something about that wagging-finger, “disapproving of cashews” comment burrowed its way into the rotten core of my soul and annoyed me enough to start writing this post. Is food really the enemy? Do I need to start being a real jerk to sustenance?

I disapprove of molasses!

Most Foods: The Answer is No?

I’m sure we’ve all encountered “revolutionary” eating plans before that promise amazing results but demonize major nutrients. There are low-fat diets, low-carb crazes, no-carb devotees, detox programs that require abstinence from tropical fruits, fermented foods, flours, refined sugars, and even mushrooms– the list is truly endless. I’ll guiltily confess that my youngest sister and I once spent two weeks fearing the sweet wrath of carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes on the advice of one fad diet book, and I’ve also gone for several months before, honestly convinced that one of the worst foods I could ever eat was a banana. For real. Obviously, a diet based on cupcakes and diet sodas is going to take you nowhere fast, but I’m highly suspicious now of any so-called “healthy” program that demands its followers to deprive themselves of fruits or vegetables. Apricots are not the devil in disguise, am I right or am I right? (Unless you have a serious apricot allergy, in which case, they probably are the devil in a squishy orange disguise.)

Anyway…

I started on the Beauty Detox Solution last year-ish, very much in love with the whole concept. (This again? Yes!) For once, I didn’t have to find vegetarian substitutes for the “lean chicken breast” recipes in Food Book #1, and for once, I didn’t have to omit cheese or milk from any recipes, either. (All of Kimberly’s recipes are vegan.) I didn’t have to worry about finding an acceptable stand-in for “cashew cream” desserts or soups– because, as you just discovered, Kimberly “disapproves” of cashews due to the high possibility of them containing toxic moulds. (Have I ever told you how allergic I am to cashews?) And finally, finally, I didn’t have a dietician or nutritionist recommending pounds upon pounds of tofu or soy to satisfy the vegetarian contingent of readers. (Seriously. Soy will not save the world. A girl can only pound back so much edamame before her very bowels transform into long tofu dogs. Go on: Ask me how I know this.)

Yes, these soups are homemade and vegan, but are they raw? Tsk, tsk!

The Beauty Detox Solution seemed to offer a seamless, well-researched solution to all of the questions I’ve ever had about what I eat. I didn’t need to consume 10 pounds of lentils every day after all! Low fat yogurt was not a requirement– huzzah! The BDS spokesperson was an impossibly beautiful woman with a blindingly large, genuine smile, and I gravitated easily to the idea of prioritizing whole foods and becoming the best person I could possibly be! In retrospect, this was the honeymoon phase. I was practically giddy with love!

Kimberly makes a lot of recommendations in her book. True, most of them are small and simple steps that can be incorporated over time to achieve optimal health, but if you were to make a list of everything she suggests to do in her book (which I did– don’t judge), it ends up being a pretty lengthy list. (Then you go and read her blog and find out you also need to install shower head filters, buy organic eco-mattresses for the best, most planet-friendly sleep, and possibly even stop touching money. After all, it’s disgustingly dirty and contaminated. The answer is no, my friend!)

Originally, the super geek in me (the one who loves to make spreadsheets and cross items off To Do Lists) was pumped to tackle each of these recommendations, one by one, until I emerged from the process as a Radiant Goddess of Gastro-Intestinal Perfection!

(Aside: I should try to rustle up one of my earlier fertility charts so you can see just how OCD I am about graphs. I recorded everything I possibly could about my body every day– temperature, heart rate, secretions, cervical position, dreams, bowel movements, glasses of water consumed, mood, moon phase, etc.– and then color-coded it all. A RAINBOW OF FERTILITY! The Gigantic List of Things to Do with the Beauty Detox Solution was right up my alley.)

Gradually, though, my love for the Beauty Detox Solution began to fade. I lost the spark. I no longer felt the good vibes. I just wanted to be done with food combinations and excited about eating spontaneously again. I was tired of being the person who needed to schedule 1-hour blocks of time before and after eating an apple, and don’t even get me started on eating out at restaurants. Me: Can you believe they put both pecans AND avocado on this salad? Clearly, they haven’t read The Beauty Detox Solution and don’t realize you shouldn’t put two fats together in one meal. And wait– is that extra virgin olive oil in the dressing? A third added, albeit healthy, fat? Don’t tell me that’s balsamic vinegar, too– crikey!

“NO!” was beginning to permeate every aspect of my life. Can I please have a cup of warm water with lemon juice right before breakfast (and not 30-45 minutes before)? Is it possible to put flax seeds on my oatmeal instead of on my salads? What if I feel like peanut butter on a cardboard-esque Wasa cracker? Are the omelet sandwiches I made on marble rye bread acceptable? THE ANSWER IS NO!!!!! Like a rice racist, I seriously considered tossing the (white) sushi rice in our cupboard before the thrift-conscious side of me won that particular battle. Penny pincher vs. white rice finger pointer-atter. Any food with a dates-base was suspect, and I often found myself spouting the words “But Kimberly says…” like a knee-jerk reaction to anything that contradicted her Beauty Detox bible.

Enough of that. I don’t care what the gorgeous lady says: this girl’s gotta give.

I’ve decided that, for me, simple is truly better. I need to relax! Dried figs aren’t going to kill me! After reading The China Study book, I’ve found my newest touchstone when it comes to food:

  “Eating should be an enjoyable and worry-free experience, and shouldn’t rely on deprivation… The recommendations coming from the published literature are so simple that I can state them in one sentence: eat a whole foods, plant-based diet, while minimizing the consumption of refined foods, added salt and added fats.” (p. 242, emphasis added)

So much easier, yes? Even looking at these words makes me breath a huge sigh of relief! It’s kind of painful for me to admit this (because I’m abnormally nice and don’t enjoy disappointing people), but maybe the principles of the Beauty Detox Solution aren’t as clear-cut fabulous as I first thought they were, at least for me. (Disclaimer: many/most of the principles still are great, but I’m no longer trying to combine them all into one and achieve super-humanness.) Maybe I can go on without eating meat or dairy but not feel so bad if I’m not regularly consuming raw sauerkraut, too. Maybe it’s okay for me to enjoy some non-sprouted breads every now and then or to put two types of seeds on my salads. (Such a rebel!) I should be able to enjoy hummus without hearing the words “beans are Mother Nature’s “oops!”" (because they naturally combine proteins with starches) echoing in my brain. Heck, I might even dip crackers into hummus and not fret that I’m messing up the sacrosanct food combinations even more. Whoa. Can you feel my diet rebellion picking up speed?

Maybe I’m weak, maybe I’m stubborn, maybe I’ve failed at Shimmering Goddess Lessons, or maybe I’m just cranky, but I’m sick and tired of organizing such a huge part of my life– eating– around the word ‘no’. I’d much rather say YES! to whole foods, YES! to fresh fruits and vegetables, and YES! to foods in their unrefined, minimally processed states. That’s it! No need to break things down into a million sub-rules or minor clauses. Just eat clean food. Period.

[end rant]

What do you say?

    Are there certain “diet rules” that really chap your ass?

Are you consumed by “following the rules” or “sticking to” a particular eating program?

Are you a serial wagon-falling-offer like I am, at least when it comes to food plans?

Are you one of those mystical beings who seriously only eats food for fuel and never gets caught up in emotional eating? (And if so, can you be my guru?)

PS: Lest you think that I’m just going on a rant to somehow justify a lack of weight loss or a general state of unhealthiness, the last time I checked, I was halfway back down to my pre-harbour weight. Yes: I’m ten pounds lighter than I was in December, and I’ve done this by embracing the KISS motto: Keep it simple, silly.

Out-Foxing the Cough of Death

I hardly ever get sick anymore, but I’ve been really sick for the past week or so. What started as a general, 19th century-style feeling of malaise quickly escalated to Overall Crankiness and then turned a corner to Frightening Man Voice. Days later, I mostly feel fine, but I am still plagued by the raspiest voice ever and dread the nightly visit from the Cough of Death.

Haven't you always wanted to see a blurry photo of me, ill and buried beneath an ugly plaid blanket? You're welcome!

As soon as I hit the sheets at night, I spend solid hours gasping and choking and otherwise shredding up my lung tissues– tossing around bits of bronchi like a rabid puppy who has found its way into the toilet paper cupboard and is hell-bent on leaving no trace. (Who needs lungs, after all? Trachea are for wimps!) It’s one of those dry coughs, though. Nothing is coming up. Nothing is being expelled. There is no reward or satisfaction in this cough, even though mucous coming out of your inner organs is a dubious reward if I’ve ever heard of one. The cough is just empty. The Hollow Cough of Death.

A Google search for "Dry Cough" images helpfully turned up this guy (via buzzle.com)

Not to be outdone, diy-guys.com offered the mirror image of the same actor dude with a dry cough. Thank you, Google, for offering an image to suit every design profile! (I look better coughing up a lung when photographed from my left side, too.)

After a particularly treacherous night spent suffering in bed (while Marty tossed and turned on the couch wearing earplugs to drown out my coughing fit cacophony), I finally broke down and made a doctor’s appointment. My regular doctor (aka Personal Jesus) was away, much to my dismay, so I had to settle for his lowly-but-still-medically-certified assistant. A brief consultation about my symptoms and medical history led this assistant to conclude that:

1. I’m not dying!

2. It’s not pneumonia!

3. My cough is viral-based and does not require antibiotics!

4. My cough might persist for another 4-6 weeks…. say wha’??

I was basically told to buy me some cough syrup and prepare to deal with my sleep-deprived self for another month or so. Aha. But, Mr. Smarty Pants? 1. I hate cough syrup! A lot! 2. I have a better idea! I’m going to beat this bronchitis at its own game and not sleep at all for 4-6 weeks!

My brilliant plan for beating bronchitis is to catch up on all the movies and TV shows I’ve ever wanted to watch but have missed. My head will not hit the sheets or otherwise invite the Cough of Death back in! I will win at Netflix-using/Excessive sleep deprivation, and I will finally be able to participate fully in dated pop culture references like “Hasta la vista, baby” and “No one puts Baby in a corner!” My life will be so great!

My coughing seems to start as soon as I lie down, so I will devise an elaborate system of pillows (and pulleys?) to keep myself upright, even when I feel like nodding off or otherwise resting. But I will not sleep– oh no, not me! The Cough of Death will have no more opportunities to overtake me! I’m sure princesses and geishas before me have discovered ways to stay upright, fancy hair undisturbed, overnight. (So what if my own hair is greasy and painfully neglected?) I will be like a horse! Or a pillow-surrounded, upright non-sleeper! Take that, bronchitis!

In all seriousness, I’m usually back at the gym within 3-4 days of being sick, so this bronchitis has overstayed its welcome by a factor of two already. I really do need to be better by early next week, too, because Marty and I have been invited to do something awesome and exclusive then. This Awesome Something paradoxically involves being outside, cold, and possibly wet for an extended period of time, so my immune system needs to be at full capacity. Can you keep your fingers crossed for me, dear readers? (Worst case scenario: does anybody have a spare lung I can borrow?) I’ll be back!