Memory Lane

 I'm looking back almost 15 years to when I first started this blog and little gems are hidden at the bottom of the list, so I'm reposting some of them.

Grief

When loss jumps in, we forget to eat.
Why fuel our bodies when mortality has pushed its way into our daily lives?
What use are recipes, feather dusters, and soup when there is a huge hole where there once was a warm and loving person?
We do keep trudging though. There is chocolate, a glass of wine, and happiness far, far down the road, when the wound has healed enough that you can smile again, with your eyes as well as your mouth.

Winter Solstice 2010, Tahini Pasta

Shortest day of the year, that means the least light.
To celebrate, I made:

Tahini Pasta

In a small bowl, mix 2 crushed garlic cloves, one tablespoon extra virgin olive oil, 1/2 cup tahini, 1 teaspoon sesame oil, dash of soy sauce.
Cook 500 g. spaghetti, linguine, or other long pasta al dente. When it is ready, drain and cover with olive oil, then mix in the tahini sauce. Serve hot.

Roast Chicken and Potatoes

Place the chicken legs in a roasting pan, cover with olive oil and sprinkle dried sage liberally. Cut potatoes in quarters, with the peel, and put them in the pan with the chicken. Pour more olive oil, salt, and pepper to taste and put in a 400 degree oven for one hour and a half.

Steamed Savoy Cabbage

Cut savoy cabbage into small pieces and steam until just done. Pour olive oil, vinegar and sesame oil onto cooked cabbage and serve warm.

Trust Birth

What the fuck is that supposed to mean anyway? Trust birth, trust life, trust death. These are all reasonably meaningless utterances.

Let's unpack a little here. 

The phrase came to my attention the other day when I heard through the gossip-vine that someone didn't want me to attend her birth, because I don't "trust birth", because I gave birth in the hospital. I'll start at the bottom of this pile, and we'll move slowly upwards. First, I gave birth in the hospital. Do I feel defensive about this? Well, clearly, yes. Because it's a pedestal upon which those of us who gave birth at home can dance upon and those of us who did it in the hospital can feel ashamed about. Me? I did experience much of the hospital brutality I witnessed as a doula, and then I decided to attend women in their childbearing year so I could facilitate them feeling good about their birth experiences. And I did that, time and time again. Did I experience my own powerful and transformative birthgiving? No. My power and transformation came through small, difficult baby steps.

Does every woman who gave birth in the hospital not "trust birth"? Should she not attend the births of other women, in case she gets scared and fucks things up? Does every woman who gave birth unassisted "trust birth"? Or are things, as so often the case, much more complicated than that? 

Let's break it down even further, and start thinking about the conflict between the medical system of understanding, and the story-based knowledge base that supports out-of-system birth. First, it's looked at as a dichotomy, which isn't true. Some doctors I've had the misfortune to work with in the hospital assume that because I'm a doula and support physiologic birth, I also homeschool my kids, don't vaccinate, and eat raw food. I may or may not, and its none of your fucking business, but we've got a bad habit these days of placing people firmly in airtight boxes. If I've given birth in the hospital, on the other hand, my package is that I give my children too many unnecessary antibiotics and vaccines, send them to school, and buy my clothes at WalMart. 

These are superficial and trivializing examples of a real problem both within and outside of the world of birth. We've decided that everything is either/or, and just as when you're buying internet service, people are seen as "bundles" and not as the intricate, messy, complicated, beautiful creatures they really are.

Now, let's have a look at what giving birth in a hospital actually means. What it actually means is that many, many women go into the hospital trusting that they will be treated with kindness, respect, care. (Are they "trusting birth"?) What often happens is that the people surrounding them in the hospital are coming to birth with a mixed-up, confused, and generally dangerous vision of what actually happens during human childbirth. I won't go into the details right here (but I'm happy to share them another time!) but for various reasons, the perceived risks and dangers of birth far outweigh the actual factual reality, which is that the huge majority of mothers and babies survive childbirth if they are not interfered with. The fear-based approach, however, actually precipitates emergencies, some of which are life-threatening.

Add to that our cultural and societal weirdness that assumes that women are weak (but not all women; the story goes like this: white women are weak and need protecting from themselves. Black women are understood to be very, very strong: so strong, in fact, that when they say something is wrong they are ignored). Add to this toxic soup our inability to accept the Mysteries, and the paradox that is the sexual and divine nature of childbirth and, well, you have a problem.

But not all women who give birth within the hospital system are abused! That's great, right? Oh, wait, but I don't want to hear any stories any more about a woman going in to give birth and ending up with someone else's fingers in their vagina while she is yelling "Please don't, please stop". (Notice she is saying please: we are so polite even in our worst moments). 

So as long as there is just one woman who still has to yell like that, while someone does an unnecessary vaginal exam or a brutal placenta retrieval or a killer fundal massage, I'm still convinced that hospitals are not safe for birthing women. 

And what are the options? Indeed. It is really lovely to be able to give birth in your own home, surrounded by people you love. Many women also want to have a woman present who has some birth wisdom, some experience, some skill. That woman will mostly be silent and invisible, but sometimes she'll peep in and make a suggestions or answer a question. 

Here's the role of a Birth Attendant described so beautifully by Lazarus Lake, who is race director for the Barkely Marathon, which is the most brutal endurance run in the world. The decision to simply witness and not interfere is a tough one, but can lead to so much transformation and joy!

"as a race director you have a responsibility not to let an athlete put theirself in danger.

at the barkley that can be a tough call.

the standing joke is that every barker starting lap 5

would be pulled off the course in any other event.

jasmin was damaged when she left on the third lap.

between 3 and 4 it looked like an open question if she would be able to continue.

but between 4 and 5 she initially looked like a corpse.

she perked up briefly getting her stuff together to start the last loop.

then her stomach rebelled.

watching her try and get things under control to leave i had an internal debate going on.

carl was really in charge

but he was occupied.

and i was supposed to step in and help him when needed.

i couldnt abrogate my responsibilities on a technicality.

so i needed to give the situation serious consideration.

normally it might be advisable to tell her she should get her stomach settled before leaving.

but this wasnt normally.

the clock was running

and every second had counted for a long, long time.

jasmin was not just some ordinary athlete.

she had proven herself many times over.

the weather was not life threatening...

but most of all she was on the verge of a transformative performance.

she deserved to decide the outcome of her race "out there"

so i just watched her head out into the darkness.

the rest of the story the world knows....

or knows most of it.

if you have not been "out there"

your mind cannot create an image of just how hard it is

nor of the sheer horror that is that course.

whatever superlative you went to apply to her performance,

it was better than that."

 "most of all she was on the verge of a transformative...." sometimes it is hard to watch a woman birthing her baby. Sometimes mother and baby need to work through so many challenges. Sometimes we have to step back and let the magic happen, and most of all, we have to trust the woman to decide the outcome of her journey "out there".

"Trusting birth" is another magical language trick that takes the focus away from the powerful woman who is bringing a new human earthside. I don't trust birth, I trust the woman. I trust her to do the work, to birth the baby, to put in the miles, to make her own decisions. 

Monochrome Granny and Colorful Granny

 

There's an obscure Norwegian movie called "The Bothersome Man". The film is set mostly in black and white, and it's dreary and boring, for most of the time. At a certain point, the Bothersome Man finds himself digging a tunnel up into a brightly lit, warm, colourful house, where there are flowers, children laughing, and cakes. He grabs some cake and then gets pulled back down into the monochrome reality of his life and sent to an arctic-looking wilderness.

I've been dreaming about moving back to the country. I imagine a house filled up with movement: a dog, a cat, people around, a wood stove that I can cook on, things lying around the way they tend to do in country houses. I'm staring into what I hope is a creative space and I realized I'm looking at some seashells on my window sill. I picked them up somewhere, years ago, probably four different places. The spiral shapes are compelling, inviting me to go down that windy memory lane to remember where I picked them up off the warm sand. But more than that, they're also telling me they don't belong here. Here is inside, on a window sill, in a city a thousand miles from the sea. They bring me peace, though. 

A little further down the windowsill are some small glass jars I've filled with herbs: coltsfoot and alcohol; coltsfoot and honey; spring herbs and alcohol. I was going to make spring bitters. I was going to make cough syrup. I'm channelling my little house at the edge of the forest: my cat, my wild herbs, my chickens and their brown eggs with orange yolks. We do own a house in the forest, but we only go there in the summertime so I can't keep chickens or grow a garden. And I don't even want to: my son and my lovely grandchildren are in Los Angeles, so am I going to live a dreamy witch life and never travel? Hide inside my wild herbs and my snail shells? I'd be that crusty old weird granny they hardly ever see: instead I'm the funny bright Granny who reads books and does squats. 

In front of the window sill is a beautiful wooden high chair that my husband crafted 34 years ago. My third son sat in that chair for hours, soaking up the sights and sounds of the medieval tower we lived in. The colours on the tablecloth; the sounds of our voices; the sounds of the people in the village below; the smell of the food we cooked and ate; the sounds of his brothers arguing and playing. Then his younger brother observed farm life from it: food being prepared; wine being poured; older brothers running around; the cat on the chair. Then the youngest brother of all sat in that same chair in a suburban house on a street that had a rural-sounding name. When he was still a toddler we bought an old abandoned shepherd's house that he learned to love, and he learned to love being in the countryside and sleeping in the quiet, and walking in the woods.

Is it the quiet I'm craving? It's partly a psychic quiet, where you're not pushed up together with so many thousands of souls. You look at the sky, or the moon, and you can actually see them. You feel the earth. But I'm not seeking quiet. I'm seeking comfort, and a certain type of joy that I feel when my feet are hitting dirt or rocks instead of cement and asphalt. I'm seeking that colorful room, there where there's a woodstove that I can cook on, and flowers from the garden, and warm cakes, and children laughing, and stars in the sky, and pancakes in the morning, and a cat, and a dog, and ducks, and cups of tea, and a necklace made of wooden beads, and petals, and snails, and I know I'm home.

50k?

50 k?

Why would anyone want to run fifty kilometres? And in the desert, no less. Well, me for one.

But why? I think there are many reasons, but the ones I can easily glean for now are these: Firstly, I am competitive. I like to do things others may not have done, or want to do. I like to prove to myself that I am better than last week’s version of myself. Secondly, I do actually love to run. I love how the world moves into focus and becomes clearer and further away at the same time. I love listening to my feet hit the ground; I love the feel of my breath, and the feeling of sweat dripping from everywhere. I love moving through space. Third, my body has disappointed me over the years. I have scars to prove that I wasn’t as strong as I could have been/ wanted to be/ should have been. So now I like to push that same body to chase limits it has never chased before.

This week, I decided I’m going to train for the Grandmaster Ultras that take place in February in Arizona. I looked at the videos of the trail and it looks reasonably terrifying: mile after mile of desert. Then why? Why wouldn’t I be content with my family, my profession (birth attendant), life in general. Does it have to be taken to extremes?

Yep.

First days of training: I’m hugely confident and excited and hugely doubtful and critical both at the same time. Not to jinx, but I really am just a kind of small 66 year old with delusions of grandeur. Small with more shapeliness than I ever had. I used to be more bony, which is good because who wants a bony Granny? And I know my grandson loves to cuddle.

The important thing for me is to stay on track, on a schedule. Today I did hill repeats, where you run up hard and down slower. This schedule idea is completely at odds with the way I lived my life for almost forty years, where my time was at the behest of babies, children, hens, and birthing women. I was on call 24/7 for about twenty years, and could never stick to a plan. But now I find that this task cries out for a plan and discipline keeping to it.

I’m doing strength training too, which is also new for me. I always kept fit carrying large bags of cement, 18 l jerry cans of water, children, bags of flour, stones (building), and all that. But I find the intensity and regularity of strength training is fun and calming.

Life can be so intensely disappointing. It never really works out the way you imagined it: not the little things all the way to the big ones. I’m watching our planet burn this summer and feeling sad. I read about factory farming in gruesome detail the other day in Jonathan Safran Foer’s book “Eating Animals” and I can’t eat them any more, even though when I’m training really hard I could literally take a bite from my dog’s haunch and chow it down. I organized a camping trip for a small group of women but then realized they were all young mothers bringing their kids. I felt like an outsider, and sad, and embarrassed.

But don’t imagine it’s just me labouring under disappointment: we all are. And don’t imagine that I am not also intensely grateful, thankful, and simply joyful to be on this planet with all of you. And that’s what it is: for me, the urge to run fifty kilometres in the desert on a weekend in February opens the possibility to split disappointment down the middle and replace it with joy, victory, satisfaction, and grace.

A Fun Day in the Desert

I woke at 6:15 and got dressed. My gear was kind of organized the night before but I still had to dress, use the bathroom, eat breakfast, fill my flasks and get my act together. I filled my water bladder and attached in into my vest, got my maple syrup and salt flask ready, packed my vest with the things I thought I would need for the day: cheerios, candies, salt tabs, wipes in ziplock, pee cloth, re-suable cup, emergency blanket (I take one everywhere, traveled through Africa with it decades ago.) Sunscreen, lip balm, phone and headphones. Watch. 

I pinned on my bib, gobbled my breakfast, gulped my coffee and my son drove me to the race start. It was pretty low key over there. Everyone is over 50 who's involved in the race. There's a 50k, 50 miler, 100k, 100 miler. The oldest runner is in his 80's. We had a little pep talk, then we head out. 

I am so happy! I've studied the course. I know what I'm going to eat. I am in the desert, my favourite place on the planet. And besides, I labored for so many hours to have my five babies, I can run for 50 kilometers no problem!

The trail goes downhill and then along a sandy patch until we reach two large tunnels that go under the highway. I don't like tunnels at the best of times, but these were the only thing that I dreamed about when I was having anxiety dreams about the race. I got through the tunnel and started my race.

Wait a minute. Why do I feel water dripping down my front? Ok, so a few weeks before the race I was doing one of my long runs and the nozzle of my water bladder froze. I had a note on my list of things to do: dress rehearsal of gear. I was going to put all the gear I was going to use for my race, get it all together and just go for an hour run to final test that everything was working.

I never got to do that dress rehearsal. So in fact, the nozzle from the bladder had not only frozen but also ripped. The damn thing had a hole in it and it was spurting water. I noticed it after the big hill after the tunnel...the front of my running top was wet and water was splashing on my legs. I couldn't have worked up a crazy sweat already.... 

First I put it in my mouth and thought I would have a continual water supply. Note: you can't run with a tube in your mouth. Then I tried blowing air into it to see if that would stop the flow. It didn't. I ran up to a group of friends running together and asked if they could think of any quick fixes. They couldn't. I asked if they wanted to hear a joke: "My water broke! I'm leaking and labor hasn't started yet!". haha. Then for about a mile, I held the tube up to stop the water dripping, then I realized if I bend it, it won't drip. So I took some tape from the course markings, tied it around the bent hose, and stuffed it in my pocket.

All good, except that it meant that I only had my 500 ml of electrolyte mix readily available, and I didn't want to mess around untying tape every time I wanted to drink. Anyway, challenge accepted, and I decided to drink the electrolytes and refill with water.

The next 35 kilometers went by like a dream! I ran, I walked, I thought my thoughts. I spun around at times, just drinking in the beauty. I ate Ritz crackers with Nutella at an aid station. I filled my water flask. I didn't like my maple syrup so much. I finished my cheerios, throwing the last four remaining onto the desert ground with a small prayer of gratitude. I danced. I saw a butterfly. I met a cow. I missed a turn and went down the wrong road for a little bit until I realized there were no footprints. I turned around and saw three other runners wildly waving at me, so I turned back and got on track. I had some pumpkin pie at an aid station. I was filled with happiness. At around the 30 km mark I started eating candies and salt tablets. They were just what I needed! I decided to drink from my useless bladder, so I untied it every 20 minutes or so and took a long drink. 

At Mile 24.6, I reached Overlook aid station, 15 minutes after my planned time. I was happy and tired, and my son was waiting there with my Snickers bar! I gave him the offending water bladder, filled my flask, and headed out. Then the demons hit.

It wasn't really Courtney Dauwalter's famous pain cave. It was more like I suddenly realized, at about 42 kilometers, that I was a fat idiot. I was in the middle of the desert, with mountains in the distance, and blue sky above, and  for about a kilometer I was literally adjusting my clothing and worrying that I looked fat. I stopped. I stared at the sky. I had a drink of water. I continued. Fat or not fat, I regained my spirits and ran, stumbled, and walked the last ten km.

The final ten k were the hardest in terms of terrain. Very rocky and some steep descents. I couldn't really run. I slowed down a lot, partly because of my water troubles from the beginning of the race. But my "fat crisis" was minimal, and I regained my smile. I was terrified going back through the tunnel. I kept thinking if someone comes barreling my way in an ATV, what the hell can I do? But no one did, and I survived. I knew I wasn't going to die, the universe wasn't going to play that cosmic joke on me just yet.

Bottom line? I made it to the start line! And I made it to the finish line!

The finish line was a bit of a let-down, to be honest. I thought there would be more people there, but it was very low key. I got in the car with my loyal son and race support and we drive back to the RV where we were staying. I had a burger. I recovered, slowly. 

I trained. I trained hard, and had some setbacks. Physical stuff (colds, muscle aches and the like). Emotional stuff (challenges with family, feelings of Fatness, Fakeness, and the like). Discipline was ongoing. I needed to get out there, and when I had a run or a workout scheduled, I had to do it. I had to eat a lot, and good food. I needed to reframe my idea about how much protein I need, and how my body should look and act. I had to get 8-9 hours of sleep a night.

There's a lot of bullshit out there about a lot of things. Particularly about women, as far as I can see. Particularly about what we are or can be capable of. In this instance, I had to unlearn some of society's misconceptions about older women. 

Three little BS turds right here:

• Old people don't need to eat much, especially protein. 
• Old women shouldn't exercise too much. Lighter weights, not too much running (bad on the joints).
• We need less sleep.

If you're over 60, please have a look at your diet and make sure you are getting at least one source of protein with each meal. Start lifting weights asap! Your muscles are shrinking every day. And run, jump, ski, or dance whenever you feel like it. Sleep! If you wake up at five am, have a nap later in the day.

This isn't one of those "I did it, you can too" pieces. This is: shit happens, and usually we can overcome whatever hurdles are placed in front of us to get where we want, but sometimes we can't. 

My race was February 17, 2024. I had the idea of running an ultramarathon for a few years, so this was a big deal for me that I'd been preparing for for months. On February 8, nine days before my race and three days before I was due to fly out, I got a phone call. 

I was Mika's mentor, her teacher, her colleague, and her friend. She sought refuge with me when her demons first started attacking her in the summer of 2023. I tried to keep in touch. She loved the pictures I sent her from my travels. Mountains, desert, my grandson, snow-filled paths. Cactuses. Especially desert. Mika loved the desert, and she loved the outdoors. 

I ran my first ultramarathon knowing that my lovely young friend didn't find solace in the end, not here on earth anyway. She might not ever get to enjoy the beauty of the desert, the blue sky, the solitude and purity of the desert. Saying she's in a better place is a hopeful platitude, but it's what I hope. I didn't do my final test run of all my gear because I fell into a pit of grief, guilt, and fogginess. So I had a couple of miles of water spurting in the desert. The water in the desert reminded me of the fertility and joy and redemption, second chances, life itself.

Did I bring her memory with me? Not for the whole race. Sometimes the grief jumped out at me. But mostly I drank in the happiness I was feeling. That's the thing about dying: you go somewhere we can't reach, until we go there too. So we are left over here, earthside, wondering what to do.

I think Charles Bukowski said it better than I ever could. Thank you, desert. Thank you, body. Thank you, family. Thank you, Kristina. Thank you, friends, sun, wind, clouds. 

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.