Personalized Old Mermaids Tales

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Woman, Interrupted

The sun came out today after days of storms. I had lots of work to do, but I dashed outside to enjoy the sun anyway. Plump gray clouds dotted the pale blue sky and rode along the tops of the snow spackled gorge cliffs. Gold shimmered in the air and fluttered on the branches of the alder, birch, and cottonwoods that grew along the river and popped up in groups here in there amongst the dark copses of evergreen. It's the last show of color before winter. Some of the gold and yellow has already fallen, knocked from the trees by a wind so strong it became a tornado not far from here.

I left the house and walked to the Columbia River and watched the choppy gray-green water for a time. Then I hurried up over the railroad tracks and across the state highway and walked toward the fairgrounds. I wanted to see if the salmon were running in the creek. I stood on a footbridge over the creek and looked down.

The water ran deep and fast. I couldn't see any salmon. I looked over closer to the shore where the water was a bit calmer. That was where the salmon often rested before continuing their journey. I didn't see any there either. The higher water made the trip upstream easier for the returning salmon, but it also made it more difficult: They didn't have to struggle up over the rocks but they had to push against the weight of more water.

I smiled as I looked down at the water. I had been feeling stressed out by the news lately. It sometimes seemed as if the whole world was falling apart. Even my calm reasonable husband wondered if it was all about to end. After eight years of living in the hell of the Bush administration, we thought things would get better quicker sooner. And we thought the crazies would calm down.

That has not happened.

As I watched the water, I thought about how often I just want to give up and walk away. I hear so many people saying the same thing. Nothing I did seemed to make a bit of difference in the grand scheme of things. I looked away from the creek, toward the rocky shores, and I saw crows eating something. Salmon? I crossed the footbridge, then walked along the cliffs near the creek until I found a path down to the shore.

The rocks, most of them stressed to the point of fracture--like Andy Goldsworthy art pieces--stuck out of the muddy plain that went from creek to lake. I walked carefully, trying to avoid the mud and the rocks. I watched the crows from afar. They were feasting on salmon. The red flesh of the salmon was startling against the black, brown, and gray rocks and mud.

I hoped these dead salmon had completed their mission: to spawn.

Salmon are such heroic creatures to me. I understand they are answering an instinctual biological call that they probably have no control over, yet their journey is a kind of heroic quest. They're born in fresh water, yet because of some evolutionary process scientists don't quite understand, salmon are able to adapt to salt water. And when it's time to spawn, their bodies change yet again as they return to fresh water. During this return they swim upstream, against the rush of water, up over rocks, through muddy shallows, all in the search for home, all in an effort to spawn. They don't let obstacles stop them; they jump over or around them!

I want to be like them.

The Irish thought the salmon were one of the wisest and most sacred of all creatures. Yet they fished them into extinction. The Native people of this area also hold the salmon in high esteem. Before the white settlers came, the Columbia River ran red with salmon. They used to say you could walked across this wide Columbia River on the backs of the salmon: That's how many there were. I have dreamed it is still so. I have dreamed I am a salmon.

I turned away from the crows and walked south a bit, carefully making my way through the charnel grounds. That's what it was: rocks becoming dust; salmon becoming bird feed. I wondered where the eagles were, or the bears. Did coyotes and cougars eat salmon, too?

Every year at this time I wait for the salmon. I stand on the shores of Eagle Creek and watch. By the time they arrive at their particular spawning grounds, flesh is usually falling off their bodies. Their fins are often skinless, and you can see their bones. Still, the females have enough energy to lay salmon-colored pearls; the males have energy to fertilize these treasures.

The first time I saw salmon eggs, I thought some child's necklace had broken and the beads had scattered in the water.

Some years I put on high water boots and I slowly, carefully, wade into the stream. I can feel the icy water through the boots. I can feel the sandy creek bottom give a little beneath my soles. I stand very still. It doesn't take long before the salmon swim all around me. I immediately become one of them.

The salmon have healed me in ways I cannot articulate. When I was ill and felt like I could not find my way out of the mess of my life and my body, their journey inspired me. When I felt as though I had nothing left to say, the thought of them reminded me that I can be silent. And when I am sad, I see them in my mind's eye leaping, leaping out of the water—bedraggled, red with life, bodies twisting in the air—and I feel immense joy.

Today I stopped walking and sat on a log. I looked down and saw someone had carved the word "cunt" into the log. It didn't appear to have been scratched in angrily, as swear words often do. The letters flowed into one another, like caligraphy. I wondered if the writer was thinking of the great goddess Cunti or Cunina, the Roman goddess whose name meant "mother's milk." The word "cunt" has the same root as country, kin, kind. Meaning, to me, that we all come from the womb, from the cunt; therefore we are all kin. I doubted the carver knew any of this. Still, it seemed appropriate to think about our relationship to everyone and everything as I looked out at the water, the kildeer that ran back and forth across the plain, the crows eating salmon, and the cars going by on the highway in the near distance.

Just then a crow flew over to a rock near me and finished up a morsel of salmon. She fluffed her feathers and I could see she was probably a juvenile. That explained her close proximity. She ate her food and then flew back to a salmon. She stayed only a moment, then flew away. I got up and walked over to the carcass. The salmon was two and half feet long, pink, its eyes long gone. I wished it well. I thought of all of us who feel as though we are constantly swimming upstream to find home. It would be so much easier to be swept away, back to the ocean, back to when and where we could just go with the flow.

Yet this beautiful salmon did it. She continued to swim upstream.

I wished her well.

Then I walked up the path away from the creek and back to the road. I crossed another bridge on the way home and looked down at the stream. Ah. There. To the left under the cottonwoods where the creek pooled quietly, I spotted several salmon swimming just enough to remain stationary in the pool. Salmon rested in places like this before continuing their upstream journey. Without these places of respite, scientists believed, the salmon could never make it.

I watched for a while and then climbed the hill toward home. I had a lot to do when I got home. I was glad for the break.

Now I was ready to lay pearls and leap!

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Patricia Lay-Dorsey

My friend Patricia Lay-Dorsey got a write-up on the New York Times blog. So cool! I love Patricia's work. All her photographs feel so authentically lively or authentically still, depending upon the subject. Beautiful art supreme. I am so happy for her!

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Gaian Tarot

Joanna Powell Colbert's beautiful Gaian Tarot will be published by Llewellyn Worldwide in September 2011, but in the meantime, Joanna has created a special deluxe edition of her tarot deck, and she's offering it at a discount if you order by November 3. They are lovely songs of the Earth, sung in art, just waiting for you! Go here and find out all about it.

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My Old Home

We got home a few hours ago. First thing I did was go for a bath. Ahhhh. Mario began putting stuff away. I crabbed at him for doing too much. 'Learn to relax,' I said. 'You are not a human doing; you are a human being.' Said the pot to the pan. Fall has definitely come to the gorge. The leaves of my peony bush have turned light red, tinged with orange. The poppies are in bloom again, and the gorge cliffs are sighing out summer breezes one last time. The wheel turns.

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By the Old Sea

I am in an old motor inn, sitting in what was once a dining room for the restaurant. Now it looks more like a lounge: big comfy looking sofas, old leather chairs, tattered rugs partially covering the wooden floor; murals of sea shells, sea stars, sea horses, and, of course, mermaids peek out from beneath the rugs.

Everywhere I look I see signs of the ocean: lifeboats and sails hanging from the ceiling, fake (or real) stuffed fish, mermaids in various poses. I can hear the people upstairs in the workshop cheering and murmuring. For a moment I think I hear the ocean, but it is only the ringing in my ears. The pulse of silence. I've opened a side door and a dark breeze cools me.

I came here to the Oregon coast twelve days ago to support my husband during his two-week intensive writing workshop. I figured while he was writing, I would write, too. When he was in his workshop, I would wander the beach. Unfortunately, I fell about three days into the trip and hurt my left arm and hand: I couldn't type or write. I was still able to wander the beach, but I had a lot of time on my hands without a lot to do.

This left me with time to ruminate. As longtime readers know, I struggle with depression. Rumination is the enemy of anyone with chronic depression or anxiety. Oh, the mind is a terrible thing to waste, and rumination wastes it better than anything else.

The room we are staying in is right next to 101, which is the highway that runs south and north along most of the West coast. Four lanes of traffic are right outside our room. Did you know that traffic noises get worse when it rains? And it has been raining. I am extremely sensitive to sound, especially those kinds of sounds, and I kept trying to distract myself from the traffic sounds and I tried to distract myself from any rumination.

Fortunately, it only started raining a few days ago. For most of the first week, I was able to spend quite a lot of time at the beach. I also cooked three meals a day for us in the motel room. This was a challenge and an adventure. But I wanted Mario to have good nourishing meals to help fuel his creativity. This took some time in the beginning, too, until I had a system.

For the most part, I was fine during the day. I got bored at night with nothing to do. I was too antsy to read; the television reception and the cable here is awful, and the internet is spotty. Sometimes I just felt stir crazy, so I went out and bought crap I shouldn't eat.

Rumination plus sugar are ingredients for an addictive stew.

OK, let's stop here: I have an addictive personality. I've always known this. When I was eleven, I tried cigarettes. I didn't have any trouble smoking them. I didn't get sick. I knew that I could keep going and I would never stop. So I stopped.

In my twenties, I began drinking when I was lonely, and I was hiding my drinking from everyone. I realized these were not good things and if I didn't watch out, I'd become an alcoholic. So I quit drinking. In my twenties, I also realized that sugar made me crazy. It affected me exactly like alcohol, only I craved it; I got hangovers and my personality changed. If I stayed off of sugar, I was healthier, happier, and more like myself. If I ate sugar, I was a different person: depressed, sometime suicidal, and generally miserable.

Yet off and on over the last twenty years, I have had times when I will eat sugar. I know it's poison for me, but sometimes I can't seem to resist. It feels compulsive. It feels addictive. It feels out of control. It also feels stupid and embarrassing.

All the literature I read says that sugar is addictive. I don't know if this is for everyone or just people like me. Some scientists believe alcohol addiction and sugar addiction are essentially the same thing: the same drug getting into the body in different ways.

So here I was on the Oregon coast out of my safety zone (my home and my habits) and I began eating stuff with sugar in it.

I think I've been building up to this. I had a tough summer. I've had a tough time since my mother died. The last three years have been soul searing for me.

Lots of people have had worse times, of course. I'm not saying "woe is me." It's just a fact: I've had a rough time. I've tried lots of things to get better yet I often feel as though I am sinking, sinking, falling away. This sinking, this depression, is often caused—or at the very least exacerbated—by eating sugar. I know this, yet sometimes I just want that five minutes of pleasure. No matter what the logical part of my brain says.

Anyway, while I was here at this old motel, alone for the most part, in pain from my fall, stressed out from the constant noise on the street and in my mind, I felt like I couldn't stand this compulsive behavior any more. Nothing and nobody had been able to help me. I felt like I was going to go crazy or explode or curl up into a ball if I didn't do something to stop the behavior or to stop feeling so miserable.

So you'll never guess what I did.

I went to an AA meeting.

Yep.

Haven't had a drink in twenty-five years (except for a sip of beer a year or more ago), and I went to an AA meeting. First I called a friend who is an recovering alcoholic and told her how I was feeling. (I don't overeat; so it doesn't feel like an overeaters things.) After I talked with her, I drove through the storm to a church tucked up under the trees off a side street, far from the madding traffic. I couldn't believe I was doing this. They were going to throw me out. It was silly. I'd looked at the twelve steps before. I didn't believe in that stuff. I certainly didn't believe in God or turning my life over to anyone or anything.

But I walked under the Doug firs shaking in the wind and I went into the building. I sat along the wall amongst the other people. It was an open meeting, which meant I didn't have to be an alcoholic to attend. I figured I could sit there and not say a word.

I listened to what everyone had to say. (It's confidential, so I certainly won't repeat what anyone said.) When it came around to me, I said, "My name is Kim and I'll pass." Everyone said who or what they were when they spoke: an alcoholic, an addict, etc. More than once during the hour, I thought I was crazy to be there. What right did I have to hear these stories or be in this room? And yet, their stories weren't so different from my own. I thought here was one group of people who wouldn't turn me away, who might be able to understand the struggle not to be ruled by compulsion or addictive behavior. Here was a group of people who wouldn't judge me.

Near the end of the hour, the facilitator asked me if I wanted to say anything. I had no intention of saying a word. How could I? I didn't struggle with alcohol. I'd never done drugs. And yet, I began talking. I said, "I'm Kim and I don't know what the fuck I am." And then it all spilled out. I told these complete strangers about my struggle, told these complete strangers things I hadn't told my husband, family, or friends.

They listened. When I was finished, they thanked me.

I felt momentarily healed.

I often crave community; just as often, I can barely stand to be around people. I feel separate. Specially wounded.

Of course, I'm not. Many of us walk around with hidden wounds. They remain unhealed. Maybe, sometimes, we need to unwrap the bandages, let the air in, and allow healing to begin.

Maybe.

One day at a time.

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Gone Fishin'

As you've noticed, I haven't been posting much lately. There are so many different places on the internet that people are "supposed" to be these days. My favorite place for me was always here (or Furious Spinner as it used to be called). But, wow, how these times they are a changin'. I need to be less on the internet and do more writing and be in a slower more mellow space. I'm not sure what that means yet. It could mean that I'll stop posting all together or I'll stop posting on FB. But in the meanwhile, I'm going on a kind of writing retreat, so I think I'll be gone from this space for a time—although I could be inspired to come back here and write longer essays again.

In any case, you can always learn more about my books here.

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Robert Reich: Public Option Explained Coherently

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Van Jones

Van Jones has just resigned from the Obama administration after he was targeted by the rightwing. I am so saddened by this. Van Jones did nothing wrong. He didn't do anything even vaguely wrong. He signed a petition asking for more investigation after 9/11. I believe he's a good guy, and I hope this doesn't stop him from continuing to do good work.

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Interview & More

There's an interview with me on Teens Read Too. And I've put up a new post on the Old Mermaids Journal. I'm also writing and will get back with details soonish.

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Starting

I started two new books today, one fiction, one nonfiction. For the last six years, I have posted the first chapter of every book I've started either here or on my original blog, Furious Spinner. But not these two. I have had too many false starts lately. I need to find my own writing way again. I'm going to stay away from the social networking sites for a while. I fear all this instant everything isn't doing much for my attention span. I hope to start posting here more often. We'll see how it goes. Hope everyone is having a grand summer. Once I get further into the books, I may post part of them.

Later, gators.

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Snow Day by Emma

Rock on, Emma! Thanks, Will.

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Ready to Rumble

I'm back from vacation and I'm ready to rumble. If you're in the area, come on down for my writing workshop. It's going to be grand! Go here or here.

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Vacation

I'm going on vacation for a while. I'll be back in two to four weeks. Have a great summer!

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Winding Down

Sitting on the couch watching an old Ghost Hunters while winding down for the day. I'm attending another three day workshop, only I get to come home at night. It is less expensive then the ones at Still Meadow, but we don't get to eat any of their amazing meals or walk any of the trails. Instead we had the white noise of traffic on 242nd Street to listen to all day and no place to walk during breaks. However, I love the church where we are and I appreciate that they let us do our strange workshops there without judgement.

I didn't bring enough food to this intensive workshop, and by midmorning I was a little sick and dizzy. I've been getting these kinds of trainings for years now, and none of these workshops are fun. They are all intense. They are all a lot of work. They are all uncomfortable. And eventually, they are all exhilarating, and I learn so much that I can bring back home and use to help clients. Someday I should write a book about it, except I don't think this work lends itself to words. It's all experiential. All difficult to explain to neophytes without sounding crazy. That's why I talk in such vague generalities here.

But wait, you all know I talk to faeries and trees and rocks. And the wind. The grass. I think it's strange not to do those things.

It's hot today. My husband just drove thirty minutes to the store to get me something to take to eat to the second day of the workshop tomorrow. He is a good man. I came home to a wonderful dinner: my gingered black beans, rice, Mario's steamed vegetables, and wild salmon. Not bad.

I thought I had more words, but I don't. I'm going to close my eyes and try to sleep.

May You Sleep in Beauty!

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Old Mermaids Facebook

Yes, the Old Mermaids now have a Facebook page. We'll see how it goes. I'm excited to be able to communicate more directly with people who have read the book. I will try to make it a pleasant place to visit, like The Old Mermaids Journal.

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Chief

Once again I started a post, but I couldn't finish it. Three times today. Am I becoming wordless? Last night I dreamed I was giving up words. Someone asked me, "What do you really want to be then?"

I said, "Chef."

Last September, I dreamed I was in a restaurant kitchen while it was closed. I looked around nostalgically at the stainless steel shelves and the bags of supplies and other things in the kitchen. I fell to my knees weeping. Someone came over and said, "What? What?" I sobbed, "This is all I ever wanted to do. My whole life." I wept with the grief of dreams unfulfilled.

A perplexing dream.

I write about cooks, restaurants, food often. It is my particular leitmotif, I suppose. But I don't think I have some unfulfilled dream of becoming a cook.

Today I started reading A Platter of Fig and Other Recipes by David Tanis again. A few pages in, I started crying. This happened when I tried to read it before. He describes a life of community, nourishment, cooking, eating. A life of competence. A beautiful life.

I don't understand this grief around food and restaurants. It can't be I literally want to be a chef. I rarely have a sense of smell. I have so many food restrictions. How could I ever be a chef?

I throw some words together, stir them up, and create sumptuous stories—not incredible meals.

When I was younger, I thought cooking was "women's work," and I didn't want to do any women's work. By the time I realized that was stupid, I had lost my sense of smell and I had so many food restrictions that every trip to a restaurant became fraught with danger. People stopped inviting us over because they didn't know what to cook. My life became smaller and smaller. I was sick for a long while and saw hardly anyone, except for the birds, bees, and trees.

Now I'm back in the world again, but breaking bread with people still does not happen often.

Tonight after dinner, I made Say No Cheese Cake. It's gluten-free, dairy-free, and sugar-free, and it is delicious. (Furious Spinner readers might remember this recipe. I can't link to it. For some reason, my archives on FS don't work.)

It felt good to make the No Cheese Cake. It also felt sad because cooking is so non-sensual for me. I can't smell anything. Smelling is so vital for cooking and eating and being in the world joyfully.

But I suppose this means that for the day, my "dream" came true. I was chef. A pastry chef.

Now Mario and I will go eat my creation.

The recipe is below.

We used fresh strawberries for the sauce to go over the cake. We cooked the strawberries until they merged together into a beautiful red sauce. Mmmm. Enjoy.

Say No Cheese Cake

Filling
2 lbs tofu
1/3 c agave syrup (or to taste)
1/3 c maple syrup (or to taste)
1/2 c coconut milk
zest of one lemon
1/3 c fresh lemon juice
2 1/2 T arrowroot powder
2 T vanilla extract
1/2 tsp sea salt, or to taste

Crust: Dry
1 1/2 c millet flour (or quinoa or combo), freshly milled
1/2 c arrowroot powder
1 tsp baking power (or 1/4 tsp baking soda)
1/4 tsp fresh cardamom power
1/4 tsp salt, or to taste

Crust: Wet
1/3 cup olive oil
1/8 cup agave, or to taste
3 T maple syrup
1 egg (optional)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350. To make the crust, combine the dry ingredients. Mix well. Mix together wet ingredients separately. Add the wet ingredients to the dry. Mix well. Without the gluten flour it is very sticky. Keep your fingers wet and it's a bit easier. Press the crust into a 10' pan. Bake for 5-10 minutes. You want it to be done but not too hard.

For the filling, put everything in a large blender or cuisinart. Blend until smooth like sour cream. (Pour over the crust and bake for 45 minutes to an hour or until it's golden brown and doesn't jiggle a lot. Let it cool and then cut and serve with fruit sauce over it.

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New Goddess Rosaries

Lunaea Weatherstone has some new creations. Check out her new Goddess Rosaries. Bet you can guess which one I'm lusting after.

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Great Reviews Up

Oh my. Go here to read many nice words about Ruby's Imagine and Church of the Old Mermaids. Yeah!!!!

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