I’m on the train on the way to meet two old friends in New York. A part of me is terrified to put my foot on the platform at Grand Central.

I am a traveller. I don’t stay put. I go places.

Yet in the last 8 years I’ve mostly been with my travel companion, who has excellent sense of direction. He never once panics when he pops up out of the Tube in London, wondering which way to turn my face.

So I know I am not afraid of the city or getting lost.

I am suddenly aware that I love my husband a whole lot and depend on him. Even if I know I can get by for a day without him.

It’s a beautiful sunny day for meeting friends in the city…

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Or, The Booty is Asking for Help Here..

In the next few months, I am going to get RID of this seriously ridiculous JELLY ROLL on my gut and hopefully bring down my cholesterol number.

This is not some rinky dink New Year’s resolution. It takes time and resolve to plan the attack on bad habits. After all, what could be more fun then SNACK TIME? Or spooning in the morning until the last possible second?

But I need help! I am sending out my fitness assistance call to action in ALL directions. I already love to yoga, but I am not going to drop any weight in savasana once a week.

Colin suggested I train for a TRIATHALON with him. I feel skittish about this possibility but I haven’t said no. I have the seed planted and I am starting to look for adult swim lessons somewhere.

And I’ve asked him if we could maybe trade our usual date night out to dinner with some weekly rock climbing. Apparently this gym has a ladies night for $5 on Fridays. But I’ve got to learn to belay first.

What You Can Do to Help My Luscious Booty.

Besides getting myself motivated, I really would like some HELP!

I want you to send me fitness events, races, opportunities and CHALLENGE me to join you in them, or just tell me to do it on my own!

Give me link to a 5K and I will sign up.

Send me a bike race you know of and I will get cycling to get ready.

Hire Denise Austin to live at my house for awhile.

It’s karma, after all.

Once I had a friend, Kate Reilly, who said she ALWAYS wanted to run a marathon. She was SO ready for it and I could tell because she kept talking about it. She sat across at her desk and waxed poetic on the how SOMEDAY she was going  to run the Rock and Roll Marathon in San Diego.

This was back before marathons were cool, but after the internet was invented. So while she was gabbing on and on, I went online.

I signed her up.

“Kate, I just signed you up for the Rock and Roll Marathon,” I said.

There was a good deal of sputtering. And she was kinda pissed. After she reconnected her jaw to her face, she started training almost immediately. She trained for 6 months, running the streets in the late nights.

And she ran her dream first marathon.

Could you please help me? I should  note, however: Please don’t sign me up for a marathon. Currently can hardly walk currently. Give it a year or so.

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Walking is joy. I love walking like I love Ira Glass and peanut butter cups.

I am surprised that since I moved back to America from London, that I have given it up.

Just basically decided that even though it is one of my favorite things to do in the world, I am not even going to bother to try.

Except for now walking the kids to school, I don’t walk anywhere anymore. (Because between the house and the car does not count).

I hate that.

Day 12, #Reverb10

Prompt: Body integration. This year, when did you feel the most integrated with your body? Did you have a moment where there wasn’t mind and body, but simply a cohesive YOU, alive and present? (Thanks Patrick Reynolds!)

I do yoga, which I “count” as exercise. But the problem with “life” is that somehow me must “add” exercise into the lives we are currently living. Unlike the life I lived in London, where walking was the only viable means to transport oneself.

Which leads me to the answer of Patrick’s question. which is simple: my body sighs and disappears into the surf of ecstasy with its mind lover whenever I am OUTSIDE. Not flipping the pages of my iPhone. Not Tweeting. Not writing. Not thinking at all. My mind takes the wagon ride, laying back and watching the birds fly and the leaves shudders. Deciding nothing more than whether the sky is cerulean or cornflower.

One summer morning, I was procrastinating some work, so I decided to wander out to the backyard and have a look at how things were growing in the garden. I knew there’d be weeds, so I brought the bucket and my weed tool.

I started with the lettuces. The morning was cool, but the sun beats down ceaselessly in this veggie patch. By the time I made it to the shadier row of the tomatoes, I climbed under their arms and kept going. They hid me and cooled me.

Two hours disappeared this way. I forgot to remember to check the time or to even care to. My fingers were coated with dirt and my tongue reminded me I’d gotten thirsty a while ago. But the rhythm of the work was perfect. I moved until the momentum of my body slowed naturally.

I love to walk… but I don’t. I miss the grey and brown and brick and stone London streets, where I could be alone singing in my thoughts. But I am not doing THAT right now.

So other things are blooming. Now little children ask me if they can ride on my back. And half hours are lost being horsey and tumbling and tickling and rolling around. Mindessly and delightfully.

There’s the “monster” game too… which has no rules other than to chase and catch, and to run and to laugh. And to lose time again, to delight.

I do miss my feet– but I do skip and gallop more these days.

THE CHILD MEDITATES

The oak-tree in front of my house
Smells different every morning.
Sometimes it smells fresh and wise
Like my mother’s hair.
Sometimes it stands ashamed
Because it doesn’t own the smell
It borrowed from our flower-garden.
Sometimes it has a windy smell,
As though it had come back from a long walk.
The oak-tree in front of my house
Has different smells, like grown up people.

My doll hides behind her pink cheeks,
So that you can’t see when she moves,
But it doesn’t matter because
She always moves when no one is looking,
And that is why people think she is still.
People laugh when I say that my doll is alive,
But if she were dead, my fingers
Wouldn’t know that they were touching her.
She lives inside a little house.
And laughs because I cannot find the door.

The colours in my room
Meet each other and hesitate.
Is that what people call shape?
Nobody seems to think so,
But I believe that lines are dead shapes
Unless they fall against each other
And look surprised, like the colours in my room.

– Maxwell Bodenheim

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… Is Beauty Disguised.

This week, I launched here the inclusion of more and different writers in my blog.

I desire to propel myself into a different place with my writing, and to create a wider community of conversation around experiential writing online. “Beautiful writing” — on blogs, in books, and in print media– seems to be pushed into hidden margins as a genre mafia takes over.

You know what I mean: it’s a shuffle and two-step of compartmentalization created by an intense need to label writing and file it away onto shelves. This same kind of thing happens with blogs, only more so. In order to succeed, a blog must be as niche as possible — a shaving of a topic, narrowed in order to satisfy preconceived desires of outcomes fractured into page views and “unique visitors” (such as they are).

The writing in these places, to me, often feels so empty. It never-ended bullet-pointing solutions to our problems, and to me it just feels deeply unsatisfying. Like eating ice cream to solve the emotional eating craving, because you were all out of the Doritos.  Numbers drive the content, and what is lost is the way writing makes us more.

More human. More awake. More prepared to be a part of our moment.

My friend, Tricia, writes to me that her own production has become spotty, with energetic bursts paired with long bouts of silence. Her writing, when it happens, she says comes out as “drivel” — a word that means both “twaddle” and “saliva flowing from the mouth.” Either way, it is a beautiful and melancholy image, accidental language in the middle of an everyday email that shows her ability to sculpt metaphor into human experience. Even as she drives through a puddle of her own sadness.

We take a walk (uphill, both ways, without shoes, in the snow) into the forest of words, and we ask us ourselves to examine our choices and our beliefs: it is emotionally packed, filled with heartbreak and humor.

My writer friends, who will be visiting here from time to time, are all writers who have shown me that they are capable of this beauty. I hope we can all encourage them to write into that space of fear, frustration and mania– where the human experience and the art of writing combine to make us more .

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(… Things Which Did Not Know They Were Missing)

An old friend found his way back to me tonight. I’ve sent him a note to say hello in the old fashioned way. I’ve emailed him.

I wish I could have said that I used something a bit more archaically romantic– postcard or handwritten letter, but I haven’t got time to wait for a reply.

In the old days, when we were friends before, I always sent him long, dreadful letters in the mail. Those were the days when I knew better to expect a reply, and wouldn’t have wanted one anyway. We lost our friendship for a long time– the way people do when there is no way for resolution except time and the long bridge across it.

I’ve noticed that the distance isn’t as far as I have expected over these years. We are old friends from those sharp, tangy years…my memories of then are cut into glass. Not like the malleable teabag memories of now.

The dog went out for a long walk into the forest. She was sniffing the mushrooms and all the scents left behind by the luscious animals that live here and there. It was all so new! She forgot to remember the scent of me and she forgot to realize she was hungry. Pretty soon, she was far from me, and she was far from her dog bowl, and even though she remembered, she couldn’t think of how to make her way back. Not without help.

A stranger came along and said “Sit down, little girl. You look tired.” So she did. He carried the dog home in his truck, took her off the highway. And his wife used the internet to find me, posting virtual signs for her. Pretty soon, she was home again with me, from her long walkabout.

I am not sure why we come home– what makes our signals beep more urgently toward certain places, certain people. I only know the sound when I hear it. I know the feeling of walking in the woods and looking up, wondering, where am I now? And where is my old friend who helped me find my way?

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So Colin and I were going to do The Master Cleanse. Which is a great way to lose weight, but not the reason why one should do it. It’s a cleanse, after all, designed for clearing out toxins and getting you healthy.

Day one was yesterday and as mentioned in yesterday’s post “Hungryland”, I spent the entire day obsessing about food. Truth was, I wasn’t THAT starving most of the time– I was just OBSESSED with the idea of NOT being able to eat. Food was on my mind all day!

The Food Palace
Colin was cleansing while at UBS, but for me I am at home all week (last week before school starts). On my usual work-at-home schedule, I pass through the kitchen (usually on my way to make a cup of tea) at least a dozen or more times a day. In case you never noticed, food is EVERYWHERE in a kitchen.

Here are the following places where we keep food that I never really “noticed” before:

• On top of the fridge – We don’t have a ton of storage, so cereal and chips for there.
• Tiny bowls, everywhere – on the coffee table, on the counters, behind my desk you will find stashes of mini-food, mostly candy and nuts.
• Inside the liquor cabinet – I don’t know why, but apparently that’s a good place to store chocolate.
• In my purse – You know, in case my car breaks down and I am trapped miles from civilization and need a Clementine.
• Colin’s desk – though it usually doesn’t last long. It then becomes just a wrapper or ziploc bag of crumbs, which stays there forever and ever, until I clean his desk.
• On the back porch – which we use as a second fridge during the winter. Don’t tell the squirrels or the local  homeless, as it isn’t locked.
• Finally, on the TV – not real food, of course, but advertisements for EVERYTHING, made to look its delicious-best. Argh!

So, anyway, we decided last evening that we were doing the cleanse for the wrong reason– because we are currently fat and lazy and look for a quick way to lose weight. And then we ate pork chops and broccoli. Yum. I was so exhausted from not eating, I fell asleep at 9 p.m.

So instead of committing to starving ourselves for 10 days, we are going to start cooking more healthy foods and get moving again. Anyone up for a winter hike?

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I went hiking at Weir farm National Historic Site recently with some friends from a hiking meetup.

The site includes old farm buildings and a huge acreage of gardens and forest.

We hiked around Weir Pond and into the woods.

it was early evening in the summer and the light was very pretty coming through the trees.

The buildings on the farm have a very spooky feel in the evening. We were the only people about on a Thursday evening… that we could see!

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Three hours of my time, this weekend, was spent doing this (see photo, right).

If you had a look at my yard right now, of course, you’d have absolutely zero inkling that any form of rake had ever touch it.

As an estimate, we have 427,783 trees in our yard. Now, this might be an exaggeration, but — ow! I just tried to lift my arms off the keyboard and pulled a muscle.

I am not sure what possessed Colin and I to move from a perfectly nice little apartment in London where we had ZERO maintenance to this enormous house with this ENORMOUS yard surrounded by a forest. We were happy weren’t we? slumping down that one, single hallway back and forth from our one single bathroom (oh, yeah, that part wasn’t very good) to our one single bedroom… (oooh, not so great when our parents visited and I was ovulating. Sex on a blow up mattress is a squeaky throw-back to high school days, and not as easy to manuever when you get older.)

OH, and don’t forget the short commute from the kitchen sink to the washing machine (one mere inch), where I could handily finish washing the dishes then toss in a load of whites. What a way to save steps!

Hmmm… perhaps I can see it now. This house was a overreaction to the 650 square feet, walk-to-the-park-if-you-want-to-sit-outside life we were living.

Not that I am complaining… except isn’t that what makes it all so fun? See now, I have to walk TWELVE steps (damn stubby legs!) across our 25×20 kitchen to get from the liquor cabinet (where I keep the gin) to the fridge, where I keep the ice. This makes for a nice, martini-making workout, but is not the most efficient set-up.

So I guess we’ll perservere, not just in keeping up the yard, but in doing all the million tiny things that make the house slowly-slowly our little, mighty kingdom.

After all, that is the American Dream isn’t it? That, and the million leaves to rake.

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… and Other Truths about A Poor and Sodden Nation

There are many good reasons that ignorant Americans give to never leave America.

Amuuuurrr-ick-cuh’s the best cunt-tree in the whole wide world. Why should I go anywhere’s else?

Well, really that boils it down doesn’t it?

The truth is, after living three years in one of the great cities of Europe I have to say, damn, America is good.

Why? Let’s start with mere logistics:

Broadband and the internet weren’t invented yesterday. They aren’t new. They’ve been around for a couple weeks.

However, in London, you have a bunch of limey wankers awaking each morning and saying “Oh, bother. The roooooo-ter doesn’t seem to working,” or “(tap tap) Bugger all, this wi-fi.” And they huff and puff a little, then go make another cup of tea.

Do they complain? Do they toss a wobbly or raise an army, or sit their socialist arses down in Trafalgar Square until Good Broadband For All?

No… they just mutter and pay the bill anyway, thinking “ah, well, one’s lot in life is hard and one must endure it” (cue evil empire broadband companies to rub hands greedily and laugh evilly).

Think I’m joking? Think I’m exaggerating???????? FINE! YOUUUU go live there a while and see how bloody fast your internet is, AFTER you’ve waited TWO AND ONE HALF MONTHS for service to be installed. Think I’m getting hysterical? Think that isn’t unusual? Well, you should see mild-mannered Colin when he starts yelling at Scottish customer service reps in his pajamas. It isn’t pretty. Don’t mess with his business.

MEANWHILE BACK IN CIVILIZATION…

Then Colin and I returned to the BIG EASY… and I am not referring to New Screwed-leans. I am referring to America, where everything is truly Easy. So easy, you have no idea that you, your girlfriend/husband and all your favorite pets are floating through life on a blissful, warm, bacon-fat-scented oil slick of joy from one 2-hour-windowed appointment with one of the actual COMPETING cable companies to another.

Yes, we have Amero-broadband. Want to know how long it took to get it? FOUR DAYS. Want to know how fast it is?

13 times faster than the shite that EasyNet was slopping into the trough and BT was pretending — with every pay phone call to customer service — to know nothing about.

What can we conclude then?

So if you are feeling unappreciative of Your American Life… or, conversely, you are just feeling down and out about being a little bit on the fat side, remember this: You are only fat and unappreciative because you have EVERYTHING you could possibly want, at the moment you want it, without a thought or a struggle, or a need to shuffle off the the kitchen to make another cup of tea.

And, remember, at least it didn’t rain almost everyday in June where you are, like it did in London.

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Colin and I went for a walk to Hyde Park last weekend. We’ve been having beautiful sunny weather here so far for most of the winter. Temperatures in the 40s and 50s . We can’t complain. It’s hit or miss, of course, as some days it pours with rain and there is even the occasional snow. But this is winter in London and it really is the best time to be here.

The city is empty of tourists and Londoners come out to walk and enjoy their city. Sure they go and escape on holiday too… it is that time of year, when the sameness of the weather can start to make you a little bonkers. But on days like this when the sun is starting to stretch itself back out long into the later afternoon, Londoners are out everywhere.

I’ve never been a huge fan of Hyde Park. It doesn’t have the soul of Central Park in New York. Parts of it are wild and unkempt, but some of it, like this area, it is just flat, open and empty, with views of the buildings and the traffic around. Guys play football here and it’s the area where they hold concerts in the summer. But it is sort of gaping to me, too empty. Green Park and St. James Park, which carry on from Hyde Park, are more modest in size, more treed, and more beautiful.

Still Hyde Park has all kinds of charms and weird beauties, like horses, a rowing lake; Speaker’s Corner; an elusive putting green — which we have never found; a lovely rose garden; and even a lagoon, for swimming in the summer. Hyde Park is the center of London, and if I were a famous celebrity, I’d come here, because it would be easy to be anonymous in all this space, on roller blades, on bicycle, or at the Saturday and Wednesday running clubs.

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