Monthly Archives: July 2012

To use an old colloquialism, “I come by it honest.”  Tenacity, that is. Much to my own amazement, I never give up. This has advantages and definite disadvantages.

I could never have guessed how physically challenging blogging would be. It’s a test of will and, literally, physical strength. Too many things pull at my time: work, a band, family affairs, and a book (look, it sounds good to say it, all right?).

Sometimes, I have these doubts. But words and stories are like the vitamins and herbs that I take every day. It’s part of the fabric of who I am. I am tenacious, and those who’ve known me for years know I will not give up either herbs or words.

The past six weeks have been particularly exhausting. I met a new acquaintance. Her name is Carpal Tunnel, and I don’t like her very much. I’d rather fight with a boyfriend, have a stove that over bakes my bread, or a puppy that doesn’t make it outside on time. Physical discomfort is not something that I handle very well. But I am tenacious. I continue to work and I continue to sing. I continue to have faith.

An amazing, saving grace, like acupuncture or physical therapy, is voice activated software. This fantastic invention is my latest enjoyment. I get to tell my computer what to do and, pretty much, it does it. Oh, if only people were so accommodating…

About this carpal tunnel… I always imagine that doctors, after my visits, tell their staff “Do not accept any new patients who use complementary medicine.”

Doctors, after all, do what doctors do best. They try to make things better, and in the process may prescribe and suggest things that I see as extreme —  things that involve cutting and sewing up.  Forgive my cynicism.

I’m not a knee-jerk “throw the doctor under the bus” kind of person. Allopathic physicians are useful, and in cases of extreme pain and discomfort—like when I had my first sinusitis episode and I thought my face was exploding—I’ll fall to my knees and beg for drugs — which I did. Antibiotics did the trick, and my face didn’t explode. And sad to say, in the past year, I’ve also started blood pressure medication. Sometimes, compromise of my stubborn principles is best. But generally speaking, pharmaceuticals are my last resort.  I think it’s something about the way I was raised. I know what works for me and I stick to it. I am tenacious. I come by it honest. Like a dog on a bone, I will hang on to what I want. And what I want is to heal in ways that are natural and emotionally supporting.

A few winters ago, I started getting nosebleeds. This was a new thing for me. The dry winter weather combined with the dry heat in my apartment, and it really dried the heck out of my sinuses. Then, it was endless. I got nosebleeds during the spring allergy season. Then I seemed to get nosebleeds because my nose just wanted to frickin’ bleed. I have been using herbs, natural medicines and holistic body therapies for a long, long, long time. I don’t watch infomercials about natural medicine because I think most of those people are quacks. I’ve been fortunate to have been a patient of a couple of world-renowned natural healing practitioners. And so, I have just a little bit of an idea of how to get information. I did my research and decided to use a certain supplement that has been recommended for allergies and sinuses. It worked. The nosebleeds stopped, and I continue to take at least one tablet a day, and I have not had a nosebleed for over a month (please don’t ask for advice…it’s illegal).

I don’t recommend self-medication to most people, and truthfully the use of herbs without guidance and research can be more dangerous than an over-the-counter prescription. But having researched and used herbs and natural medicines as my first response for over 30 years, I’ve learned a thing or two.

Now, I want to use herbs and complementary medicine to send this carpal tunnel packing.

When I was a child, there were many times that my mom used herbs as a first response. She was raised on a farm without all the bells and whistles of modern medicine, and her parents used herbs with regularity. Our colds were treated with lemon, sage, and honey tea. And, on occasion — I guess ‘cause we didn’t look like little alcoholics lolling about in bed craving the taste — she would add a spoonful of whiskey to the hot beverage. It was all very safe, and no one would ever overdose on lemon, sage, and honey.

Over the years my family, like many others from the country, opted for modern medicine and the old ways were, if not forgotten, left by the wayside. But we benefited from her knowledge, and I have saved myself hundreds, no, probably thousands of dollars using herbs, acupuncture, vitamin therapies, body work therapies, juicing, and so many modalities that have become a regular part of my health regime. Now, I am beginning, with my voice activated software, a new phase. But I am tenacious. Many of my friends have said so.

And with tenacity, I’ll keep you posted!

March 2009 found me fearful of the coming spring.  On March 4th, I’d had a horrific nightmare from which I woke up shivering.  The dream had a threatening quality to it — like death.  And although I kept telling myself not to worry, worry was exactly my emotional state.  I suppose I could call it a psychic experience, that presence in the air, that disquiet that says one is about to experience a major change.  I felt that the threat was real, and as it turned out, it was.

I’d been struggling with the idea of writing about food, how I learned to cook, and the place food holds in my life’s pantry of broken romances, half-finished musical pieces, and unresolved family issues. Then I received the phone call.  My youngest brother had died.  It was March 5th.

My brother’s death was a tragedy, not because he was a great writer whose dreams were not completely fulfilled, although that was a part of it.  His death was a tragedy because of the fractured way we sometimes communicate in our family, and the way we resist change.  We have never really been strong, in my view, with folks being different, with folks choosing different paths, with others being happy outside the status quo.  In other words, in my view, I am part of a people who, on several occasions, have not embraced change gracefully, and I have to admit, this was a change I was not ready to embrace — gracefully.

Change. I’ve moved from coast to coast—twice.  I’ve traveled by bus across the country.  I’ve met folks in Appalachia, Utah, the Pacific Northwest, Chicago, the Southeast, New York, California, and more.  I’ve demonstrated against the Klan, sang at the funeral of a friend’s husband, worked with a teenager who mutilated herself, and lived with a man who did not have a clue about the woman he thought he wanted to marry.  All of this change, and still, I fight Change like a boxer.  Why?

Perhaps, it’s because I’m so resistant to change that God seems to give me so much of it.  After all, the drama, trauma, and psycho – physical manipulation of living is transformative.  And as another brother likes to say “consider the alternative.”

One thing that has not changed, and never will for me, is my belief in the common heart of every human being.  With all of the political wrangling, fear mongering, and religious battering, it’s easy to become cynical and reject the sweet flavors of life.  It’s easy to become terrorized by change.  It is easy to reject the heart, the emotion, the muscle of good love, and the tenderness of life when one is resisting change.  But then comes death, and change opens the door to a floodgate of feelings, and change will, no, must be accepted.

Change nudges me to gratitude.

Change, operating in the amorphous sphere called “out of my control,” can boot me into that cesspool of “settling for.”  Don’t move.  Don’t act. Just sit and wait, and nothing will change.  But really, things don’t work that way.

To refuse change is to refuse transformation, and to refuse transformation is to not know gratitude.

My mother once called me a gypsy. The need to see more, meet more folks, taste new foods, and walk barefoot in the freezing Pacific keeps me on the move.  The need to live fully generates lots of change.  And sometimes, I wonder if I’m doing the right thing.  But the one thing I know, and I know, and I know, and I know is that without change, there is no space for gratitude.  And to experience gratitude, I will have to live with change.

More change.

I was spellbound and moved in a way that I have rarely experienced since.  I watched as an enormous black ball of hair emerged from my sister’s body. I kept asking, “Where is the baby?”  And then, there she was.  My sister’s daughter, my niece.

The ball of hair still exists, hanging to her waist, but she’s a high-powered young professional now; doing well, living well, and flourishing.  Change.