Uncomfortable Being Comfortable

For the last six months I’ve been thinking I was bored with my life, but the reality is that maybe I don’t know how to be comfortable. Growing up there was always a crisis, then came marriage, numerous moves, a child, a death, teen drama, graduate school, marriage therapy…it seemed like there was always something to work through.

Now it’s all been worked through and still I’m ill at ease.

I’m bored with myself, my partner, my dogs.  Everything feels repetitive.

I want to run away. To hide in a cheap hotel with the blinds pulled closed

and to mindlessly watch television.

Yet, the reality of this fantasy is that I would miss everything that I was running away from. I am fulfilled by my job, I adore my husband, our daughter is living out her dreams in Europe, 

and the dogs each have a piece of my heart.

So what is my problem?

Comfort…quiet, peaceful comfort…has not been a regular part of my life and I believe 

that this sweet spot that I find myself in is weirding me out. 

I don’t know how to BE.

This realization, I hope, is going to be the moment of my turning this funk around. Now I’m going to turn off the computer and curl up on the sofa with my husband and appreciate how happy football makes him and just BE.

Owning Our Femininity

     It’s Saturday morning on a holiday weekend, so when I met my friend at a local coffee shop I wasn’t surprised to see her show up in ratty jeans and a baseball cap.  What surprised me was that when she got closer I could see she had cut her hair. Think Annie Lennox with a Hispanic twist. 

My friend is owning the aging process and has decided to stop coloring the gray; 

cutting it short made the process less awkward for her.

     

I felt it a bold move to cut her hair so short. As we spoke about her decision, she said she didn’t feel feminine anymore. I get that, but it just seems messed up to me. I started thinking about our society and why I have never had the courage to cut my hair “too” short. As a society we revere lush, flowing hair. I don’t think it’s too extreme to say that there are many of us out there who directly correlate our femininity with hair. Which, quite frankly, is bullshit. Being feminine is so much more than the length of your hair. I would argue it’s not even related to one’s gender. It’s a state of mind, an internal knowing. It’s the tilt of a head and a soft smile when you spot your lover gazing at you from across the room at a party. It’s the way one’s skin smells after a luxurious soak in a bath filled with lavender sea salts. It’s getting all snazzed up in something that makes you feel pretty, 

earrings falling on a long, elegant neck.

     

All of these things and so much more make up our femininity. It’s up to each one of us to own both our masculine and feminine sides without allowing society to put parameters on us. I have always wanted to be as bold as my friend. Someday I hope to go all Buddhist monk on the world, but I’m not there yet.   

Practice and All is Coming

We have had some challenges arise this year and this summer; with little work for me, I chose to wallow a bit in my misery. What that meant was late nights drinking too much wine and eating food that I knew perfectly well didn't nourish me. Four weeks ago I went back to work, as well as began a class called the Psychology of Yoga, which was a study of the first chapter of the Yoga Sutras. With a more rigorous schedule, I told myself enough self pity, it was time to clean up my act.

I needed to immerse myself in the lectures that accompanied this class, to read the guidance of the gurus that came before me, and to once more apply these principles to my life. It has been wonderful to roll out my mat, to sit quietly in meditation, and to return to a more balanced existence. To practice my yoga as it was originally prescribed, at home, alone, in silence. How many of my yogi friends have thought about this group class phenomenon?
Before the 1950's group classes didn't exist.

We've Americanized yoga.

Don't get me wrong, I love a group class. At a group yoga class I feed off the energy of others; I am literally energized by my fellow yogis' company. It's how most of us here in America find our way to yoga.
However, it takes tapas, self-discipline, to practice at home. Alone.

This summer I found myself falling into mudha, a space of lethargy and dull mind. The longer I allowed this to go on the harder it was to get back to my practice.

Yet, when I practice, I am more balanced, my mind is easier to quiet, and I suffer less.

This morning I ignored the laundry waiting to be folded, the dogs begging for a walk, the floor that desperately needed to be vacuumed and I stepped onto my mat. I began with three Om's and then moved into a vinyasa flow to wake my body. I took my savasana and sat for a meditation afterwards. I wanted to ease my suffering this summer, I wanted to be happy again, yet I was doing nothing positive to help myself. The sutras reminded me that yoga's aim is to both discover and reduce the cause of my suffering, and to do that I must return to abhyasah, 

a persevering practice.

 Pattabhi Jois said “practice and all is coming”...I think I'm ready.  

Loving a Racist

My father was born in 1948 in a hollow near the Missouri River. To get to the set of trailers that made up my grandparents home you had to traverse a steeply rutted dirt road that cut through the trees that surrounded the hollow. In the winter and spring snow and mud made it impassable so the family would park at the top of the road and walk down. My father dropped out of high school when he and my mother became pregnant with me, not an unusual set of circumstances in their part of the world. What got me reminiscing about my father's origins is the race issue that we are (thankfully) dealing with in a more open forum right now.

You see, my father is a racist.

In the part of America that I grew up in there are plenty of people who still think the white race is superior. I grew up with words like coon and spook readily bantered around. My father had always voted Democrat until President Obama was elected, when he decided he was no longer going to vote. We have had numerous disagreements over the years about his world view, but the reality is you can't change anyone else's mind.

I got a call from my sister this week warning me that if I talk to my dad I should know that he is “freaking out”. My nephew got his girlfriend pregnant. That's not the problem. The problem is the young woman happens to be black. When my father acts like this, it's repellent to me; when he makes racist comments I want to shrink from his DNA. I was talking with my dear friend about the issue of race and my father and she said something that had not occurred to me. She said, “Wow, your dad must really be suffering right now.” That certainly had never occurred to me, but she's right.

In a world where #BlackLivesMatter, where there's a black president in office, where women are in positions of power, through my dads lens it must look like the world has gone topsy turvy.

My father's wrong thinking is creating his suffering and as a follower of the Buddha I must find compassion for his suffering. I will continue to disagree with his beliefs but hopefully I will find myself shrinking away from his DNA less.

Letting go…..

We walk up the stairs together, you are fat with hope. As you open the door my heart constricts.

There they sit in the darkened room like vipers in their den.

Nodding at their contrived greeting is all I can manage. I step into the cramped, filthy bathroom, closing             

the door, leaning into it I breathe. Long, ragged breaths as I anticipate leaving you here...alone.

My entire being weeps for you, yet it is your life to sort out not mine.

I can no longer make everything ok.

I step out into the darkened room, the constant buzz of the traffic on the freeway just outside the window lends to my sense of unease. We hug, touching your head I look into your eyes. Your strength is reflected back at me. As I close the door leaving you behind I waver a moment at the top of the stairs, a tear rolls down my cheek....then I go.  

Rustic Tuscan Soup with Sausage and Kale

I have made this soup a couple of times now and Pete loves it! You could substitute crumbled "chicken" for the sausage and use vegetable broth instead of chicken bouillon to make it vegetarian. 

I buy my sausage at Clark's here in Southern California, it's "happy" sausage from a company called Mulay's Sausage Corporation in Longmont, Colorado. They don't use gmo's, nitrates, preservatives, etc, and the pigs roam free until they have that one bad day.

Ingredients

1/2 pound Mulay's Italian mild sausage (ground, no casing)

1 potato, peeled and cubed

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 onion, chopped

1/2 bunch of Tuscan kale, shredded into bite sized pieces (you could use more if you like)

1 can of cannellini beans, drained

2 cloves of garlic

4 cups of chicken broth

2 Bay leaves, take out when soup is done 

Cook sausage in a soup pot, stirring to break it up. When cooked add potato, carrot, onion, and garlic; stir to mix. Add broth, cannellini beans, and kale. Cook for about 45 minutes. If you can make it a day ahead it taste even better the next day.

Serve with a dash of parmesan cheese grated on top with sourdough bread on the side. 

Guesstimate on calories is 350 for a cup serving with 25 grams of protein. 

Serves 5

Scallops and Veggies Over Pasta

If you throw out the bowling alley meal last night (local peeps: I would highly recommend Boomshakalaka), I've had eleven straight days of eating healthy. I'm using the myfitnesspal app on my phone to track exercise and calories so I can even show you a "paper" trail of my progress. 

When I weighed myself on Friday morning I was so very bummed to see I had actually gained a pound, but I didn't give in and rush out to buy a Sara Lee coconut layer cake and eat it straight out the box (which I have been known to do when happy/sad/mad/etc). 

For those of you looking for a low cal meal, but still tasty and satisfying here is an easy recipe. I've been making this on and off for years using whatever veggies I have in the fridge. I prefer the onion/bell pepper combo the best though. Pete adds red pepper flakes to his to spice it up. 

Ingredients

1 Orca Bay bag of scallops (1 lb)

4 ounces of protein fortified spaghetti (or whatever pasta you like)

1 TBL olive oil

1 cup sliced onion

1 cup sliced bell pepper

1 tsp sesame oil

2 TBL Bragg's liquid amino acid (or tamari/soy sauce)

Cooking Instructions

Boil water for pasta and cook according to directions.

Place olive oil in large skillet or wok and sauté veggies. Remove when tender and set aside. 

Put scallops in wok and cook for three minutes, stirring constantly.

Add veggies to scallops and pour sesame oil and Bragg's on top, mix to coat. 

Serve the scallops and veggies over the pasta. 

Makes two servings with 350 calories per serving. 

Pain Is Not Optional

You know those people in the grocery check out line that will share intimate details of their lives with whomever is standing near and willing to listen? That's how I grew up. My mother is that person and from her I inherited this penchant for unhealthy boundaries.

When I realized I had this habit I was embarrassed.

I found it ugly, weak. Strong, healthy people don't need to share their pain with strangers.

I've worked for years on being more mindful and through self-introspection I've changed some of my habits. What I've recently learned though is that I work through my pain by sharing and there's nothing wrong with that. It's not ugly or weak, it's who I am and I'm strong. I share while teaching as a story organically unfolds that relates to where the class is in that moment, through my writing, or talking to friends. It's how I process and move through painful shit that life throws at me. My need to share too much still arises occasionally, thank God I have good friends who gently call me out (sometimes unknowingly) when I'm seeking attention inappropriately.

What do I do with my pain?

I write, I cry, I rage, and eventually I move through it.

It's what I do.

I believe we all have the ability to choose, holding with a vice-like grip to our pain or to face it and, when it's time, loosen the grip. Pain, suffering, it's going to reach each of us, it's part of our human existence, but I don't want that pain to define me. Ultimately I want love to define me and for that to happen I need to move through the darkness and into the light.   

Divine Roasted Cauliflower

When I married into the Aniello family they made the most amazing breaded and fried cauliflower. It was truly Italiany goodness, but sadly fried is not something I do often these days. I recently found this recipe and we think it's very similar in taste but roasted instead of fried. I serve it as a side in place of potatoes.

1 head of cauliflower, cut into bite sized pieces

2 Tbl of melted butter or ghee

dash of tarragon 

dash of thyme

1 large clove of garlic, pressed

shredded parmesan cheese

Pre-heat oven to 450

Put the cauliflower in a bowl large enough to mix. After melting the butter place spices and garlic in the butter and mix. Pour the butter over the cauliflower and mix. Pour onto large cookie sheet, bake for about twenty minutes, stirring every five minutes or so. Remove from oven and shred parmesan cheese over the cauliflower. 

Lentil and Chickpea Curry

This was so easy, which is just what I need now that I'm so busy, and it was surprisingly tasty. If you leave off the topping at the end it's even vegan. 

1/2 onion, chopped    1/2 celery stalk, chopped    2 cloves garlic, smashed and chopped

1 diced carrot   1 bay leaf         1 Tbs olive oil         

1/2 red bell pepper        1 1/2 Tbs curry powder, I use zanzibar curry

1 quart vegetable broth (you could also use chicken broth if not vegetarian)

1 can (15 oz) organic lentils* 

1 can (15 oz) organic chickpeas

*I used dried lentils, soak them for a few hours in water before cooking

Toppings: Plain yogurt or sour cream

                 Fresh cilantro

Saute onion, carrot, celery, garlic, and pepper in olive oil until soft. Add curry powder and stir for a minute or so. Add broth, beans, and bay leaf. Cook on low heat for 30 minutes.

Serve topped with cream/yogurt and fresh cilantro.
I'm guesstimating that it serves five and has around 30 grams of protein per serving.