This is My Body, This is My Blood

Out of Tune

In the corner of my living room, next to the $100 piano I got for J at a yard sale a few years ago, sits a lovely Fender guitar, looking all dejected with dust on its shoulders and cobwebs under its feet. M bought it for me last october when he found out I'd sold my beloved Guild 12-string last summer in order to pay the deposit on J's tuition at Midland.

It's a nice guitar, but for some reason I rarely play it. I'm not sure why, since I love to sing and playing it usually lifts my spirits. I've always had a thing for music. Never mind that I was last chair in high school band (The teacher said I had clarinet ombisure but I wanted to play coronet, damn it, even if I played it badly...which I did.)

My mouth may not be shaped for a horn, but my hands fell in love with strings when I was 12 years old. My sister's college roommate gave me her old Stella guitar after I visited for a weekend and readily learned the few chords she showed me. I brought that banged-up guitar home and promptly memorized every Joni Mitchell, Joan Boaz, and John Denver song in the books she included with her gift. Later, as I leaned into my teens, I began writing my own songs.

I still remember the first one I ever penned, titled My Daddy Was a Preacherman, a maudlin song about my father trying to convert people right up until the day he dies. Here's the last verse (get out your hankie):

now he rocks in his chair in the living room sayin, I'm goin home to Jesus soon Darlin daughter behave yourself now cuz I won't be around to tell you how then he bows his head and prays he says, thank you Lord for all my precious days when he looks up at me it hurts, through the tears that I see he says, Darlin daughter please now don't you cry Darlin, darlin, daughter Good-bye

I told you it was maudlin. All my songs are. Just look at a few of the titles: Just Had to Write You One Last Love Song, You Never Said It Would Be Like This, You're So Easy to Love and So Hard To Leave, I'm Not Her, and my personal favorite: You are the Woman He Wanted, I'm Just the Woman He Needs. Can you spell c-o-d-e-p-e-n-d-e-n-t?

My friend P always says, "Ellie, you're so good at feelin so bad." I suppose she's right. Because writing this today has reminded me of the demise of my first beautiful 12-string, an Epiphone, that burned up atop of the car I was riding in on my way from Houston to Tucson when it caught on fire with all my stuff in it. I only had time to grab the most precious cargo from the back seat--my baby--before the VW went up in flames. Standing barefoot at the side of the road holding A, who was wearing only a diaper, I watched it burn. Man, talk about your sad stories.

Maybe it's time I write a happy song. I could write one about those two brothers who picked us up in their motor home and gave us a ride the rest of the 300 miles to Tucson. Oh wait, that one ends up with us sleeping in a Salvation Army shelter because my BF abandoned me as soon as we got to Tucson. I suppose I could write about J, how he learned to play that old piano, began composing his own beautiful songs within months of his first lesson. But then I'd start thinking about how much I miss him now that he's off at boarding school. Oh! Oh! I know! I'll write a song about getting a new guitar!

Except that I almost never play it and that's kind of sad. Aw, fuck it. I'm going to write a sorry-assed song about a girl who is last chair in her high school band, who never gets to go to band camp and ends up splashing alligator tears on her blog instead of playing music or doing something worth writing about.

Another Reason to Eat Your Vegetables

I am a lucky woman. One, because we have a Trader Joes where I live, and Two, because I was right about the vagina thing. Stay with me and I'll connect these two seemingly unrelated dots.

For those of you not fortunate enough to have a Trader Joes--or TJ's as we like to call it--in your town, let me explain. This is not your mother's grocery store. Nor is it a big-box Costco-ish kind of thing. No, TJ's is the place to go when you've got a hankering for peanut butter filled pretzels and a California roll washed down with a bottle of Orangina. A store where you can buy three kinds of gnocchi, choose from scads of obscure wines/cheeses/imported chocolate, fill your cart with tubs of Greek yogurt, and grab a bundle of fresh cut flowers on your way out the door.

And it's not a snobby place, either. The prices are great and the cheerful employees don't just act friendly, they're obviously having a good time. I've never been to any other store where the workers have so much fun at their jobs. Stopping at TJ's is kind of like crashing a party. Customers walk up and down the aisles nibbling on free food samples and sipping Kona coffee from tiny cups. It's not unusual to end up having conversations with any number of people while standing between a stack of assorted olive oil soaps and a case of frozen appetizers.

Which brings me to the second part of my serendipitous story. For weeks I've been telling M about the spinach hors d'euvres that look like a certain female body part, but every time we stop at TJ's they're out of them. Trader Joes regularly rotates their stock, introducing new items and phasing out others, and I was starting to worry I'd never see the spinach thingies again. Plus, I think M was beginning to doubt my story, knowing how I sometimes get a little carried away with my imagination.

"Better to be happy than right," he said, the last time we left the store with me grumbling.

But today I finally redeemed myself. On our way from the macadamia nuts to get some purple basil, I spotted the elusive spinach hors d'euvres between a pile of spanikopita and tofu enchiladas.

"They've got the spinach vaginas!" I yelled, pointing into the freezer case.

At which point the party went silent, all manner of nibbling ceased, mothers pulled their children closer, cash registers stopped ringing.

M leaned over and looked at the box, then nodded. "You're right," he said.

One by one, customers wandered over, peeked into the case, a smile sneaking back onto their faces as they elbowed their partners, sniggered a little. Eventually the music started back up and everything returned to normal, though I'm betting they're out of these again:

You know, sometimes it's good to be happy and right.

Mistaken Identity

We've been doing a bunch of work in the yard the last several weekends. Yesterday I made a topsoil and wooden stake run. Took me almost an hour to get out of the store.

Note to Self: Never wear an orange shirt to Home Depot.

Nuff said.

Hands On

When I need a healing, I turn to massage therapy. If I'm not able to receive, I can always count on giving a massage to get the same results because like they say, what goes around comes around. As a bodyworker, I sometimes lose track of the coming and going.

There's a thing that stirs inside me when I stand at the head of the massage table and prepare for a session. My pulse slows, my breaths find a deeper home, and I feel as though I've split wide open on both ends. Slowly, my feet sink into the earth’s core, my head sets sail in an ocean far beyond its limited thoughts, and my heart steps in front of the traps of human ego. Only then, can we begin.

For the first few moments I rock the length and breadth of the body back and forth between my hands until the first thin shell of tension cracks and falls away. Stretching forward, I lean into the sacrum, letting my weight lengthen the spine. We are partners, this other body and I. Together we surrender to the pushing, pulling, kneading, stroking, holding of the dance.

It is in my massage studio that I am in my most perfect place, where I become a vessel through which some unnamable thing passes. Sometimes It trickles out of my fingertips as I cradle a head and sometimes It gushes forth as my hands glide from a foot all the way up and over the shoulder, then back down the arms where it is returned to me again, hand to hand.

Time loses its linear righteousness during massage. A minute or an hour, it's all the same. It's done when it's done. All I know is that eventually I end up at the foot of the table with my palms against soles, feeling exhausted yet energized. A sigh bolts from my lips, gratitude riding high in its saddle.

People often ask if the oil is heated. "No," I tell them. "That's us." How can I possibly take credit for the fire that builds and cycles from me to them and back in an infinite circle? I don't own it and without the Other, it doesn't exist.

This is what I do in my other life. It took 33 years of waitressing, selling houses, and making babies before I found this precious gift that had been waiting patiently in my hands all that time. Now, twelve years later, my right arm has developed tendonitis and I tire more easily than before but I continue to see clients because I can't imagine where else I would turn when I need a healing. My massage studio is my sanctuary. Flesh and spirit, they are the same. I need no other god than the one that resides in my hands, whether it is communicating with skin or paper.

This is my body, this is my blood. These are my words, shed one at a time, unbroken for you.

Take. Eat.

 

 

On a Roll

All that nonsense about not being able to get a good night's rest I wrote about yesterday could have been avoided if only I had a second bathroom. Along with my third* wedding band I received what I thought was one of the most important secrets to marital longevity.  This Knowledge came succinctly and with great clarity on the day my husband and I moved into our new home together.  As my dear groom bellied up to the sink in the bathroom appending our bedroom our first day together, I suddenly saw the future as it might unfold:The two of us dancing around each other in the midst of our morning routines, my hair dryer cord making love to his electric shaver cord, me discreetly reaching for a tampon as my beloved perched on his throne awaiting the first movement of his morning symphony.  I pictured too, wordless battles over valuable counter space and disdainful looks if I failed to properly squeegee the shower doors or hang the toilet paper in the right direction.  It was in that moment that The Great Goddess of Marital Management whispered in my ear, “Take the other bathroom, Dear.” And I listened but good this time.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a home where nobody ever closed the bathroom door, let alone locked it, that I savor the private sanctuary that is my bathroom.  A home where you were apt to see any one of seven sets of legs dangling from the john as you wandered down the hallway past the only bathroom in the house. Our open-door policy was a custom born not out of lack of modesty, but of necessity.You never knew when someone else might need something from the medicine cabinet or have to wash up. 

Although I am by no means a prude and will squat in the woods if nature calls, I like having a place where I am free to bleed, to smell, and to make noises women aren’t supposed to make. I don’t want to be like my mother’s generation when women wrote “TP” on their grocery lists, lest anyone imagine them wiping their asses. I like to think I'm beyond that sort of silliness.  Unless of course we're talking public restrooms, in which case my bodily functions seize up as soon as anyone else walks in.  I often flush the toilet or cough to cover sounds, which is ridiculous since Ms. Penny Loafers is playing the didjeridoo in the next stall over.

The other thing about having one's own bathroom is that you don’t have to readjust things every time someone else uses it.  The toilet seat stays firmly in place, my shower head remains set for a pulsating flow and the dial at a point as hot as I can possibly stand it, a temperature that  would most certainly scald anyone else's skin. Plus I know exactly where my used towels are (and have been) when I grab for one blindly from behind the curtain.

But it’s not just the privacy that makes separate bathrooms a necessity in a shared habitat.  It's the one space I call my own that I can fill with my things.  Girl things.  Pink shavers and candles and rows of toenail polish in every shade of pink ever imagined, pictures of fairies on the wall, Laura Ashley shower curtain with matching bath mat, poetry books, and my Sun magazines--because sometimes I come in here just to read and nothing else when I crave a quiet corner of my own and where, incidentally, much of my best writing occurs. 

I would have been forever grateful to The One who shared of The Knowledge of Separate Bathrooms for it was because of her that I managed to maintain a level of the feminine mystique within my third marriage, except that she neglected to clue me in on the secret of sharing a your husband with other women. But that, my darlings, is a story for another day. I've already gone on too long and quite frankly, M is still lying next to me working the Sunday Crossword, so I'll be off to the kitchen now to, um, warm my coffee.  Yeah, that's it. Thank goodness for garbage disposals and coffee bean grinders.

*In my house we have a Five-Second Rule, meaning that if you drop food on the floor it's ok to eat it as long as you pick it up within five seconds. I believe this should also apply to marriages that last less than five years or that take place before you're out of your teens, in which case I've never been married.

Noises Off

Last night I hardly slept due to the fact that a.) The low-carb ice cream I ate after dinner contained sugar alcohols which inflated every inch of my intestines with pockets of high octane gas, and b.) M is here for the weekend so I ended up walking (running) to the kitchen every time I needed to let off a little steam.

I don't know what it is about my relationship with M that hasn't allowed it to progress to shared farts, but I simply can't let go in front of him. At our ages both of us surely cut the cheese a lot more than we used to, yet we never slice it in the same room. I hear him toot in other parts of the house just as I'm sure he hears me, but there seems to be an unspoken rule that neither will do it in the other's immediate presence. (Except for that time I thought he'd gone outside and trumpeted as soon as the door closed but it turned out he'd just opened it to check the weather, whereby we both politely stepped around that elephant until she slunk out of the room.)

I've always had problems with my guts. A few years ago I was on the receiving end of the delightful procedure they call a colonoscopy. After trying everything from Colonics to Metamucil (which I sweartogod my grandfather used to call metamusical having no idea how funny or apt it was-- given the side effects) to hypnotism, I finally gave in and saw an internist. When I asked what the difference was between a sigmoidoscopy and a colonoscopy, he grinned and said "about 17 inches."

The procedure itself wasn't that bad, thanks to a nurse friend who tipped me off on how to get enough Versed (a drug that makes you madly drunk while mercifully erasing the memory of the entire event) so I wouldn't feel a thing, let alone remember it. When asked if the drug was working, I simply answered that I didn't feel any different, despite the fog creeping in on the edges of my consciousness. They gave me another shot, after which I have no memory of the camera-on-a-stick that turned my body into a recumbent popsicle other than the vague awareness of a reality TV show showing on a huge screen, starring my colon.

About a week later I returned for my follow-up visit during which I was presented with stills of my short-lived series and told that I have a Lazy Colon. "Yeah, well you're a lousy photographer!" I shot back, waving blurry photographs of unidentifiable body parts. Where did he get off telling me my intestines were too lazy to poop on schedule anyway? Maybe I had better things to do than sit around in the bathroom waiting for a peristaltic response to yesterday's dinner. Like find out where I can get more of the Versed stuff, for instance. I've got a few more memories I'd like to erase. Starting with the time I farted when I thought M was outside.

Turns out the sluggish colon (I prefer this less judgmental word) is genetic. I've talked with my sisters and every single one of them suffers from the same problem, though each has developed her own unique way of dealing with it. One uses suppositories, which she calls her Magic Silver Bullets. Another sister prefers Ducolax (she never was the patient type). And yet another sister purchases Top Care fleet enemas by the case, which is an oxymoron if you ask me. My oldest sibling eats a high fiber diet because she's been married long enough not to worry about the fallout.

Me, I've signed up for regular abdominal massage treatments. As anyone who knows me will testify, I'm a massage slut and will use any excuse available to be rubbed down. Or up. Or around, in the case of the abdominal thing. And if you didn't before, you now know me better than you likely wanted to.

Word of Mouth

My mouth gets me into trouble a lot. Always has. In the second grade, I once stood outside the school building during noon recess with wet mittens and red legs, dancing in place to keep warm as I prayed for the bell to ring and rescue me from the bitter cold. Impatient with God, I leaned into the cold steel doors to try and see the hall clock, certain it must be time to go in. As if having to suffer the indignity of snotsickles was not enough, Mother Nature played one of her cruelest cards, adhering my warm wet upper lip to the icy door just as the bell sang it's welcome refrain. Behind me hordes of chattering children closed in, yelling at me to open the door, yet there I stood staring at them out of one eye and screaming, "I'm thuck!" to which they all cheered and laughed as children will do when another is suffering embarrassment, especially when the Embarrassed One is unable to escape. Fortunately a 6th grade boy took pity on me and spit on my lip then slowly peeled me away from the door. Not quite slow enough, however, as a thin layer of visual DNA was left behind on the steel frame of the door.

My mouth has continued to create consequences I never think of before opening it. I lost count of sentences written in punishment for a "smart remark" uttered within earshot of my teachers. If it was so smart, why did I have to write "I will not be a troublemaker" 1000 times on the board? I got another thousand for asking.

You'd think I would have learned to shut up, but no. When I was 16, I a college-aged boy offered me a ride home from a party because I didn't have a car. I said sure, because he was cute, a member of the cool crowd, and I felt lucky for the privilege of being dropped off by him on his way back to town. A little ways from my house he stopped the car, reached over and locked my door, then unbuckled his belt. My mouth suffered the consequences of my naive stupidity and I was too scared to tell anyone so for once I did keep it zipped, though the memory of his steering wheel is permanently imprinted on the back of my head.

Yesterday I said something I shouldn't have said, and ended up hurting someone I didn't mean to hurt. I am seven years old all over again, with a shred of my lip hanging in the icy air. If I could write 1000 sentences to make it better I would. Like I said, I didn't mean for it to hurt, I was just making a safe decision in order to keep the peace because one thing I have learned is that I would rather walk than pay for the ride with my soul.

Take Two

More than one reader has asked why I keep two blogs and since I incestuously linked to my sister site in the previous post, I've decided this is as good a time as any to explain. The fact that I give a different answer every time I get this question is actually part of my response.

 Prose & Cons debuted on December 17, 2003 with a story about sunflower seed rituals. In keeping with my goal to creatively record daily observations, I tickled the screen with light-hearted and whimsical posts about restoring an old bicycle, a virgin earthquake experience, the writing life, and my tumultuous affair with the color pink, while gently dancing around deeper issues of depression, loss, relationships, and mortality. Almost overnight a pattern of loyal visitors developed, which came as a delightful surprise. Although for me writing is more a form of self-therapy than for the benefit of an audience, I have to admit I've loved watching the number of linked blogs at Techonorati grow along with comments left by complete strangers, many of whom have since become bloggers I regularly read.

However, the more I wrote in the light, the stronger the desire to crack open the box of shadows that lingers beneath the unmade bed of my human experience became. Not wanting to confuse a readership who had come to know me as a pink-loving California free spirit with rings on her toes and flowers in her hair, I decided to open a second blog, one that is more reflective, darker, braver. I wanted to be able to write about my turbulent relationship with my body and how I grew into it without scaring you away. I wanted to write about depression without having to decorate it with colored streamers and a bell. I wanted to let you peer into the box with me, knowing the contents often aren't pretty, yet beauty resides within every story, even the painful ones. Especially the painful ones. Thus was born, This Is My Body, This is My Blood: An Unholy Communion with One Woman's Temple, which incidentally gets four times as many hits as this blog, though a good quarter of them admittedly come from disappointed googlers looking for p*rn, thanks to references to seks, p*berty, a brazilian w@x job, and one crazy n1pple ring adventure.

As for remaining anonymous--the second most faq--I keep my name and face (except for childhood photos) private because A.)  being anonymous frees me to write things I wouldn't be comfortable sharing if my name was attached to it,  B.) due to the provocative nature of my writing and photography, I don't want to attract any potential stalkers, and C.) I choose to protect my children's right to privacy and any embarrassment their weird mother might cause them.

So there you have it. In order to keep my muse happy, I needed different venues so that my dual persona had equal opportunity to express herself. Truth is, I'd keep one for every personality living inside my head but these two are the only ones currently up to date on the rent. Think of the two blogs as ying and yang. Light and dark. Sun and moon. Typewriter and banana. (Just checking to see if you're paying attention.)

This also seems like a good time to thank the 166 average daily visitors who read, comment and link to either or both of my blogs. (Stats are from Sitemeter, which is much more accurate than Typepad because they don't count reloads).  You have no idea how many smiles all of you have given me in these first three months of blogging. I am honored every single time you stop by to read or say hello. A special note of appreciation goes out to those who have reviewed my sites via the Blogarama link at the top of the main page of either blog and the anonymous person who recently nominated me at Blorgy (I'm listed as pinkadelic if you want to cast a vote, hint hint).

Thank you, dear readers, for your encouragement and for giving me the incentive to keep writing. And to all of you who dare to write, may the muse bless your suckling minds with a creamy current of endless ideas.

Illegally Blond

As I mentioned yesterday on my Other Blog, I've been having a problem with tendonitis, so I decided to give my arm a rest by hanging out at the beach. Unfortunately, Avila was so crowded yesterday afternoon that I lost  fifteen minutes of prime sand and wave time trolling for a parking spot.  I finally "created" one a few blocks from the beach, in front of a rental cottage where there weren't any white parking outlines, but there wasn't a No Parking sign either, so I figured it was safe. Truthfully I was more concerned about my van being vandalized due to the pro-choice bumper sticker than getting a lil' ol' ticket.

So there I was with my "work" spread out on the blanket, a pile of typewritten pages and a red pen. First I needed to coat myself with sunscreen, a necessity now that I'm more aware of the exponential progress of skin damage. As I slathered SPF 30 on my Casper-white thighs, I became painfully aware of further proof of this aging thing in the form of flesh that feels more like silly putty than modeling clay these days. While in the vicinity, I checked to make sure I hadn't put my bikini bottoms on inside out-- something that happened last summer without my noticing until I made a trip to the public john and realized the white crotch fabric had been facing outward for at least an hour before nature called.

I'm known for doing stupid things like that.  Remember body-shirts--the 70's leotardish tops that snapped in the crotch? I once stood in line at Wendy's once during lunch hour thinking I was lookin' pretty snazzy in my pink nylon body shirt until the woman behind me leaned forward and whispered that I had a three-snap tail hanging outside my jeans. And back in my Realtor days I actually reached into my purse and handed an extremelygoodlooking client a tampon to sign a purchase agreement for the house he wanted to buy.

Just thinking about some of the stupid things I've done makes me shudder. Fortunately I'm not the only one to embarrass myself. It helps to remember that one of my coolest classmates once laughed while flirting with a girl in Algebra, only to have a booger shoot out of his nose and land on her open book. Or that my beautiful girlfriend, D, went on a nervous first date at a fancy restaurant and picked up her dinner roll instead of her napkin, then wiped her mouth with it, smearing butter across her face. Which reminds me of A's story, who will not forgive me if I tell about the time she farted in her boyfriend's face during oral sex so I won't.

There.  I don't feel so stupid anymore.  In fact, I was feeling rather pious as I walked back to my car after a couple hours in the sun. Kind of godlike in a way, knowing I had the power to bestow my precious parking space on any of the three vehicles circling the block, watching me, smiling. I decided to time it so the cute teenage guys with boogie boards were right behind me when I reached my car. They smiled and waved. I waved back, all way-cool like. Then as I leaned over to put my beach bag in the van, I felt a breeze where I shouldn't be feeling one. Reaching behind me I nonchalantly pulled my sundress out from where it was tucked into the back of my bathing suit bottoms and climbed in the car with as much dignity as I could muster before pulling away.

Note: Photo courtesy of Clean Laughs.

 

Poking Fun

Yesterday I had my first session with an acupuncturist. The tendonitis in my right arm has gotten worse and I don't like the idea of starting and ending each day with a meal of Ibuprofen so I finally broke down and made an appointment with C, whose name I remembered from bodyworker circles I've long since fallen out of. I would have posted a photo of the event except when I tried to take a picture of the needles in my arm the camera wouldn't work due to the fact that I'd snarked the batteries for my, um, personal pleasure paraphernalia the night before and forgot to put them back. (Yeah, like you've never done that.)

I've never been afraid of needles, though I have good reason to. When I was five, my older sister took me to see Dr. Johnson, the only physician in our small town. Doc was a regular at our house because my mother was sick a lot. He was an odd little man who he never looked you in the eye when he talked, kind of rolled them upwards and blinked steadily as if he was reading from a script beneath his eyelids. When I contracted the measles and my temperature rose to 106 on a Sunday morning, he popped over and mashed penicillin with water in a spoon--which I promptly threw up all over him as soon as he'd fed it to me, though he didn't see it coming because he was talking.

So when my sister took me to see the good doctor before I started kindergarten, he had good reason to trick me the way he did. Give your sister a big hug, he said, smiling. Ok, I thought, I can do that. As soon as my little arms were wrapped around L's neck, he jabbed a needle in my patootie. I didn't know any words stronger than poopie or doo-doo when I was five but if I had, he would have gotten a tongue-lashing instead of the lollypop he gave me for being brave. It took a while to trust my sister after that. Even longer to trust Doc Johnson. The last time I saw him was between my legs at the Planned Parenthood clinic, when he announced to the ceiling that I was pregnant.

Aw jeez, I got way off the subject. Sorry. So C says she wants to treat me "globally," meaning that as long as I'm lying there with needles stuck in my arm, she may as well stick a few in my stiff neck and over my adrenal points to help with the constipation and lethargy I've been having lately. The needles don't hurt much at all--in fact I don't even feel most of them go in. Afterwards, she puts on some New Age music and leaves me there to relax.

Unfortunately I am not in a relaxed mood because I drank an espresso right before leaving the house. Thanks to my battery boo-boo taking pictures isn't an option, so I look around for a magazine but there aren't any. I suppose I could download email from my cell phone except that my purse is out of reach. With my head in the face cradle, I try to meditate--something I've never succeeded at because my busy mind always takes over. As usual, the clouds I'm visualizing morph into countries and I end up spending the next thirty minutes imagining my global body, wondering what continent the lower needles are in, the one right above my right kidney-- which I'm pretty sure is the Indian Ocean at high tide.

Half an hour later C returns. You seem restless, she says. You're supposed to relax, let your body do the work it needs to do.

Yeah, I get bored easily, I tell her.

Would you believe some people actually ask me for something to read, she exclaims, as she's pulling out the needles.

The dickens, you say!

I have another appointment on Monday. Next time I'm going to bring my own CD player with headphones in which I may have accidentally left a book on tape. Assuming it has batteries in it when I get there.