The invisibility cloak of the elderly

It turns out that I am no different than many Americans.

I have limited appreciation for the elderly.

Perhaps this is because I have little experience; I have been separated from the elders in my family since I was in my teens and my parents divorced and my mother in her shame moved us hundreds of miles away and never looked back. My own parents died young.

Perhaps it’s because connecting with the elderly brings not only their aging and mortality into focus, but mine.

Perhaps it’s because I am afraid that, if I start talking to an older person, in her loneliness, she won’t stop.

And then the other day, I found myself in the depths of the parking lot at the wonderfully popular indoor Farmer's Market in Kent. 

This is a very tight, very crowded parking lot on a Saturday morning. And if you find yourself driving through, looking for a parking space, only to find none, and so you need to get back out again, good luck. There is no back entrance, and it seems impossible to turn around, especially when the lot starts filling with other cars in the same fix. 

To the market’s credit and FYI: There is another, huge parking lot right across the street. But we learn these lessons the hard way, n’est-ce pas: One must get stuck in the small parking lots of life first. 

Indeed, this past Saturday during the jingly, lovely, magical holiday market, I lumbered all the way through the lot, looking for a space, with other cars hovering in various states of disarmament and disarray all around me. There were no spaces. But with all the other cars stuck in there, I found I couldn’t turn around. And so I drove all the way to the skinny back of the lot where I did what amounted to an 11-point turn, taking a few tumbleweeds with me. 

Finally, I was headed out in the right direction. Only there sat another car, with apparently no way out or no way in either, driven by a man who might well have been Ebenezer Scrooge or maybe Silas Marner. 

His shoulders were hunched over the steering wheel that he gripped, his face a crumple of wrinkles. The age in his skin suggested at least 90 years of living, while the look on his face suggested abject confusion, anger, frustration, fear, I don't know.

“Oh, no, I’m never going to get out of here now,” I thought.

I thought maybe I should get out and help direct him so we can all get out of this mess. And then I saw a younger woman in her car, apparently trying to vacate a parking space next to his car. 

"Hm. If she leaves first and heads straight out, he can back into her parking space and drive away. And then I can, too," I thought. 

I made eye contact with her and held up an index finger in the universal No. 1 and then pointed at her. “You go first and then he can get out after you,” I mouthed. 

She shook her head in understanding, and then proceeded to drive her car out, at which point the elderly man, with no small amount of effort an 11-point turn of his own, backed his car in. 

All the while, with the most pained look on his face. 

I thought he might cry, and then, suddenly I felt the same.

This could one day be my own son. 

One day, God willing, my son will be 90. And I will no longer be here to bolster and protect him. He will have lived a full, rich life. But now he is alone in a beat-up old car, trying to find a parking space among the whipper snappers surrounding him so he can go inside the Farmer’s Market and buy potatoes for his soup. 

As I steered my car past the man and his car, I turned my face to make eye contact with this living soul who shares the planet with me. 

I gave him a thumbs-up and the biggest smile of love and compassion that I could muster. 

What I got back was an even bigger smile. His face seemed to glow with that smile. For one shining moment on that day in December 2012, he was not invisible.

Deep-fried cereal and humanity

My head was hurting, my heart was pounding, my mind was reeling when I found this awful bad-information story on Yahoo! news about the latest food sensation showing up at county fairs across this land is  your land: deep fried cereal

OMGOMGOMG.

As I shared this story on my FB page, I couldn't quit feeling overwhelmed, duped and mistrustful of planet Earth and the entirety of humanity.

Despite everything we know about obesity, diabetes and food addiction, we are still INVENTING NEW CONCOCTIONS made of sugar, fat, flour and deep-frying, which might as well be arsenic laced with DDT. What.is.up.with.this?

I was so upset that I thought to start a new FB page entitled "What's Wrong With America Today."
I even typed in the words and sat looking at them.

And then I saw a post scroll by on the news feed: Twenty-one pictures that will restore your faith in humanity.

It was posted by a young woman named Emily who lives around the corner from me.  I see her outside sometimes. She always waves. Despite the wheelchair she is in because of cerebral palsy, I see her about town in other places, sometimes with the dog she just got who is a lead dog for people in wheelchairs: She even came to my most recent photo exhibit. She also just shaved her head in support of children's cancer research.

I switched screens to see that link she posted.

And I found myself moving from the heat and anger of that awful bad-information story to joy, compassion and utter humility at the depth of humanity. I cried four times, not in despair, but with joy, looking at these pictures that so touched my friend, Emily, a woman who has had more than her fine share of suffering.

There's a lot of icky ugly stuff in this world and this ridiculous flap with Chic-Fil-A is some of it. The whole thing -- all of it -- makes me sick to my stomach.

But there is also so much joy in this world.

Like seeing Emily with her new dog.

And the face of Abby Greer in Kent, Oh, last night when TimeBank gave back to HER.

Like the macrobiotic dish Abby spent hours collecting ingredients for, then making for me, for last night's potluck.

And the community-- including the Mama carp herself --  that rallied around me when I had to make this really scary, really daunting macrobiotic fish stew -- head, tail, guts and all - last week to help strengthen my blood.

Like the fact that I get to go to the Farmer's Market to buy Thrive sushi this morning.

And the six-week yoga program I committed to taking under the tutelage of my friend Cheril Walker starting in a couple of weeks.

Like that stunning split by Gabby Douglas in the USA gymnast competition this past week

And the fact that Aug. 15 is the 25th wedding anniversary of one of the most heroic married couples on the face of this planet

Like the fact that all three products of that marriage are in town today.

And that the sun has risen yet again on another day in my life.

Aren't these the feelings I want to spend my time concentrating on? Aren't these the things I want to spread around in my world? Why, yes, muse, I believe they are!

Will I never rant again? Doubtful. But is finding and sharing rants really the way I want to spend my time?

Nah, nope, not.

I am looking today, Aug. 4, 2012, to see what's right with this world in which we live.

Stay tuned. Better yet, join me?

Going Macro: A very quick primer

People have been asking me about macro and how I do it, and how I manage the time it takes and what are the basics. And so here is a very short primer that I hope won't overwhelm.

The essence of macro is balance -- balance in the way you cook your foods, in the taste of the food and in the very foods themselves -- which can take a lifetime to embrace, understand and practice

Meanwhile, the physical picture of macro, if you will, is the makeup of the plate, and how we respond to it:

1. Half the plate is whole grains sprinkled with mineral-rich sesame seeds, the other half is two or three veggie dishes and half a cup of beans -- all flavored with sea vegetables, really good sea salt and soy, all three full of minerals and vitamins.

This was my husband's favorite meal, and mine, too, just last night. I think all five tastes were represented. (See No. 6 below.) This is corn chowder, so sweet and yummy, made with butternut squash, corn, onion, carrot and sweetened with a broth made by simmering the actual corn cobs, stripped of corn. You wouldn't believe the yummy broth this makes. Miso was added at the end. The grain is barley. The beans are adzuki, so full of nutrition, and cooked, again with butternut squash to sweeten and mellow. Brussells sprouts are steamed and drizzled with lemon. The other vegetable dish was so yummy, I thought I was at a gourmet restaurant. Really, this is good food, I swear. It was bok choy, leeks and green beans (from my garden!), sautéed in a half teaspoon of high=quality sesame oil and drizzled with  soy sauce. So yummy, honest, for real. I licked my plate. Not really.

2. The meal is accompanied by a soup that is flavored with fermented paste, called miso. The meal is also accompanied by a small, very small, amount of something fermented, like a small pickle or unpasteurized sauerkraut, which helps jumpstart the enzymes.

3. No sugar,  very little fat and only high-quality, very little fruit and then only seasonal, no dairy, no meat (except if you want, fish a couple of times a week), some nuts and seeds for snacks, no flour products (although high-quality is occasionally allowed), no nightshade veggies (potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, eggplants leech calcium) or tropical fruits (doesn't compute in our non-tropical bodies). No caffeine or alcohol. The idea is balance and stimulants are avoided.

4. Sounds like a lot of nos, initially, but the number of yesses far outweigh the nos, and I swear to the heavens -- honestly and for real -- you get used to it. I know i now find butternut squash and also corn on the cob to be about as sweet as anything I know.

5. Behavior around the food suggests calm. Chew slowly, partly to slow yourself around eating, but to turn the food to liquid, so that you truly are digesting the food to become part of you. Macros believe in chewing each bite 50-100 times, which means you really have to sit down, slow down, to nourish your bodies. Cook with stainless steel or cast-iron cookware. Drink spring water or filtered tap water. Macros also believe in 30 minutes outside every day, walking, moving the body, not for aerobic benefit, but because the body simply wants to move. Bring plants inside the house to get chlorophyll.  The macro diet is surely a diet, but it is also a philosophy and can be approached from a Christian or Buddhist perspective. It is also said to be very close to Tao.

6. This is very, very important to grasp, something I still can't believe is happening. I don't crave food anymore. This is because I am moving toward balance. I try to represent all five tastes on my plate: bitter, sweet, sharp, salty, sour. I also feel this balance because every single thing I put in my body, from the salt that I used to salt the food, down to the sea vegetables, is good for me. I feel like I am pouring a river of food into my body that is moving through my body, dumping all the good stuff right where it needs to be. My macrobiotic counselor told me I am in the process of recreating my blood every time I eat. It takes about four months of good macro practice to completely change all the red-blood cells in the body. Now, eventually, some people move back into eating things like ice cream here and there, or having a beer. That can be part of a macro practice, too. For now, I am avoiding.

Here's a really, really good, basic web site and also a really, really accessible book, Modern Day Macrobiotics, with lots of beautiful illustrations, to start with that mostly embraces the food part, which is the part that gets you on the way to the balance part. In the two months since I have learned to cook, quietly and calmly, taking lots of time cutting vegetables, I have learned much about myself and the world.I am sustaining myself as I am cooking. There's something meditative and whole about taking time to nourish your body in the best way possible that brings you into harmony with everything around you.

One other thing, people also ask me all the time how I find time to do all this. It does take time, there is no doubt. But you learn when to find the time and where to cut time. You also learn to love your time, cooking, tending the very essence of yourself and your being. I get up very early in the morning, before everybody else does, and do some of my cooking. When I'm being really, really smart about this, I do a lot of the day's cooking in the morning, so that most of what I do the rest of the day is warm things up. I do indeed find chopping vegetables to be meditative, and that helps. I like chopping.

Please let me know how I can help. I am no expert by any means. Even the experts aren't experts. This is why they call this a macrobiotic "practice."

With love and hope

Bringing Up Mommy: A Summer Reunion to Remember

By Debra-Lynn B. Hook

Bringing Up Mommy

Special to McClatchy Newspapers

The split between my mother and father came like a boulder off the South Carolina mountains when I was 14, splintering the road ahead without warning.

My three sisters and I went with my mother, to New Orleans.

My father’s family, including 17 cousins, all but disappeared into the hills.

From infancy to adolescence, the cousins had helped each other forge a strong sense of self, our collective identities rooted in Aunt Margie’s beehive hairdo and Uncle Kenny’s way-too-long blessings over large Sunday gatherings. 

We had grown up side-by-side like best friends -- only, family -- hiding Easter eggs under Grandma’s porch and listening to Uncle James cackle as he taught us to ski behind his boat on Lake Greenwood.

Now suddenly all this was gone.

My mother’s smaller side of the family was still there for us.

But they only constituted half of me. 

And there were no cousins.

When I got to be in my 20s and 30s, then, I started sending Christmas cards back home, to each of my father’s seven brothers and sisters and their families. I didn’t know what I’d get in return. My father’s siblings idolized their baby brother and vilified anybody who wounded him, including, I knew, my sisters and me. My sisters and I were guilty by association with our mother, who they never forgave for instigating divorce.

That didn’t keep me from trying. Christmas after Christmas, year after year, I sent long, handwritten notes about the wonderful things I was doing with my life, and, as I began to raise my own family, photographs.  

I wanted to impress them. I wanted them back -- not just for me. I wanted my children to know the bounty of a large extended family. I wanted them to have the same sense of belonging I once did, to gain a full understanding of who they are and from whence they came.

Apparently, the pain of my father’s pain was too much for his brothers and sisters, the tales surrounding his children and his ex-wife too big for one daughter to overcome. 

During all those years, only two aunts ever responded to my cards and letters, both of them wives of my father’s siblings.

I tried to forgive and forget. I wrestled over continuing to send the Christmas greetings, especially after my father died. And then one July, two summers ago, one of the aunts who had responded to my cards, passed. I always said when Aunt Jane died, I was going back to South Carolina for the funeral, no matter what. 

And so it was there, in the 100-degree July humidity of a Southern Methodist funeral service that the tide turned on the generations. 

The aunts and uncles, many of whom had died along with both my mother and father, were no longer the story, I realized, as my sister and I walked arm-in-arm to the graveside ceremony where my aunt’s three children and our other cousins had gathered.

While the previous generation’s mythology wilted with the roses on my aunt’s mahogany casket, the eyes of the cousins lit up with recognition. 

While the grudges and half-truths, the fabrications and folk tales of  the adults became ashes to ashes, the cousins began to share a remembering of water skiing and Easter eggs, Uncle Kenny’s long blessings and Aunt Margie’s beehive -- the stories of sweet innocence and childhood. 

It’s been two years now since the funeral, and I have become best friends with Pam, the cousin I was closest to in age. From my home now in Ohio, I have rekindled relationships with several other cousins and become friends with their children via social media.

I also helped this summer organize a family reunion. The remaining two of my father’s seven siblings, all in their 80s now, came. But mostly it was cousins -- 30 of us cousins and the children of cousins and the children’s children of the cousins. 

Cousin Gary made barbecue. Cousin Jimmy’s wife made baked beans. Uncle Kenny prayed too long and afterwards gathered us in the front parlor to tell in his baritone Southern accent the story of his “grandfathah” trudging barefoot from Mississippi to Tennessee so he could go to college.

It was as I remembered Bledsoe family gatherings from decades gone by -- covered with that same familiar sense of belonging, those same longed-for feelings of comfort and unconditional love that comes from being with the tribe that knows you.

This time, I also felt relief.

Not just for me. 

Not just for my three children, sitting side-by-side on the fireplace hearth in the parlor, their eyes turned upward to this new great uncle and a history and heritage they could only imagine before. 

But for an entire family. For the mending of a circle. For the aunt who loved my father best, who hadn’t spoken directly to me in 20 years, who stood at the door as my children and husband and I were leaving, waving and shouting “I love you” until we were well on the road back home again. 

--Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio (www.debralynnhook.com), has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. Read her blog at http://debralynn-bloopbloopotter.blogspot.com; e-mail her at dlbhook@yahoo.com or join her Facebook discussion group at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Debra-Lynn-Hook-Bringing-Up-Mommy/195642263780710

Bringing Up Mommy: The Teenager's Room: It Takes a Village

Published with McClatchy Newspapers

While our 15-year-old son was away at summer camp, his father and I managed to peaceably co-clean and de-clutter his personal storage bin, otherwise know as his bedroom. 

This is surprising, considering my husband’s idea of cleaning up means throwing away, while I like to save 89-cent Easter baskets. He fashions himself a minimalist, while I say, “Yes, Benjie still needs all six of those posters on his walls.” He has no interest in playing a game of remember-when, while I want to sit cross-legged on the floor and sing lullabies as we sift through old elementary school pictures and feng shui his underwear drawer.

But the real bone of contention has to do with the very phrasing:

“I am cleaning my child’s room.”

My husband thinks if a child is old enough to walk, he’s old enough to clean his room. Cleaning one’s room teaches responsibility and order. Cleaning one’s room is payback for rent. 

I believe today’s teen-agers have enough to figure out, what with hormones and teachers, what with soccer schedules and college applications already, what with girls and social media, hair gel and deodorant. Asking a teen-aged child to clean his room, really clean his room to Hampton Inn standards, is like asking the devil to perform random acts of kindness. 

“Dad, you have to understand,” my son said before he left for camp. “I’m a teen-ager. Cleaning my room is just not a priority.”

Such adolescent pith 50 years ago would have have earned Benjie daily military inspection for the next six months, and 500 pushups in the dirt at dawn to go along with it. But in our house, where the kids are otherwise pretty good people, my son has a point. 

As does his armchair lawyer mother. To be clear, I reminded my husband, we’re not talking about picking the towels up off the floor and throwing away the candy wrappers. We’re talking about deep-cleaning and reorganizing a very small room that we helped clutter with stuff for the last 15 years. There’s a reason the adolescent comic strip “Zits” approaches the messy teenager’s room like it’s an institution. It takes a few policy wonks to make it run efficiently.

And so, as a gift to ourselves (our bedroom is next to his) and to our son, who would soon be returning home with a mildewed footlocker that would create an even more hospitable haven for grandaddy long-legs, we put aside our differences.

Armed with brooms and dust cloths, we made a pathway through the fortress and took up stations. I found stuff for my husband to throw away. He stepped aside while I re-taped posters to the wall. He moved the bed. I swept behind it.

I also put a big bin in the hallway into which my husband put all the stuff he really wanted to throw away. 

It was only after my husband left this weekend to retrieve Benjie -- that I sat on the floor and boo-hooed over old baby pictures and Harry Potter wands.  And, with the exception of a small box of trash, I found a place for every single item in that bin. This, by the way, is one of those facts of family life Dad never needs to know. 

Meanwhile, guess what the camper exclaimed when he saw his room anew?

“I’ll never mess it up again!”

Famous last words, but it sure sounded good.

--Journalist Debra-Lynn B. Hook of Kent, Ohio (www.debralynnhook.com), has been writing about family life since 1988 when she was pregnant with the first of her three children. Read her blog at http://debralynn-bloopbloopotter.blogspot.com; e-mail her at dlbhook@yahoo.com or join her Facebook discussion group on this column: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Debra-Lynn-Hook-Bringing-Up-Mommy/195642263780710.hjyuti7867

Going Macro: Month 2. Traveling back to balance

Everybody knows you shouldn't make a major life decision when you're depressed, hungover or mad at your husband.

Same with Going Macro. You can't essentially turn your life upside down while doing something else major at the same time -- like staying in five different hotels in eight different Southern cities while visiting relatives and friends, some of whom you haven't seen in 40 years, some of whom have a history of holding you personally responsible for family dysfunctions dating back to 1972.

My counselor tried to tell me: Being on the road while eating macro, especially while trying to get used to macro, is downright antithetical to the philosophy. Macro means harmony, balance, miso and stainless steel cookware within reach. Macro means having access to a variety of beans, grains and vegetables in your own kitchen, not burgers and fries on the turnpike.  Macro means chewing your food 100 times in your back yard while birds trill around your calm self.

Where I usually eat my macro meals

Clearly, I knew this might  be hard to pull off while we were traveling 800 miles to a family reunion in the South where the operatives are barbecue, potato salad, sweet tea and cousin Gary.

But this trip, which has been in the works for about 10 years, just happened to butt up against my decision to go macro on May 22.

And, well, being the can-do person that I am, I thought I could do it.

I tried really hard. I packed up all the right stuff -- miso, unpasteurized sauerkraut, umeboshi plums, brown rice vinegar, several different kinds of seaweed.  I made up a couple of Pyrex containers of brown rice, beans and veggies and put them on ice in a cooler.

And for the first five days, I did really well. I ate what I had on hand, as my superbly helpful family never once complained about having to replenish the ice in the cooler we dragged from hotel to hotel. I cooked up oats at my goddaughter's house in Columbia. I made halibut, brown rice, miso soup and sautéed collards at our rented condo on the beach. I found macro restaurants and cafes in Asheville, where I got dishes to go.

Tempeh salad from the Laughing Seed in Asheville, N.C.

The Green Sage Cafe in Asheville has brown rice, miso
and steamed kale to go

But right around Myrtle Beach, right about the time I saw a sign for "Boiled peanuts," this is where macro turned micro. It didn't take long before I was eating store-bought hummus straight out of the plastic, BPA-leaching container and watermelon by the handsful. One day I ate so many sunflower seeds that I didn't have a bowel movement for three days. And I drank beer. Twice. OK, so  this may not be a teenager's idea of rebellion. I didn't consume barbecue or six margaritas with Morton's table salt. But, still, the way I was eating was not macro. And I knew it. What's more, I felt it.

Today, finally, I'm back.

With the help of a new compassionate counselor,  Francois Roland in Cleveland, I am back to eating the foods that truly feed not only my cells, tissues and blood, but my heart, soul and nature. I am back to remembering how I felt those first 17 days of Going Macro -- lighter, cleaner, more alert. I am back to believing this is the way of life and eating I've been looking for all my life.

This is what we have to do -- what we CAN do -- when we find ourselves out of balance.

Not beat ourselves up.

Just gently move ourselves back.

I am back, not just back home in Ohio, but back, with gratitude, to balance.

Lunch today: Miso soup with soybean miso paste, green onion, burdock root, rutabaga and wakame sea flakes. Grain dish with rye berries and brown rice sprinkled with fresh lemon and toasted sesame seeds and sea salt. Sauteed veggies (in a cast-iron pan brushed with olive oil) are daikon radish, famous for removing fat and mucus; dandelion greens; and green onion, sprinkled with umeboshi plum vinegar. 

Judging people on the beaches of South Carolina

I am going to eventually blog about going home to South Carolina, where my family and I valiantly marched from the mountains to the sea and where I: consumed radical vegetarian fare in Asheville with the priest who married me and my husband 25 years ago; took my kids to see the Girl Scout camp where I got homesick 45 years ago; introduced my family to relatives in Boiling Springs I haven't seen in 40 years; watched my uncle who is 85

tell a whole new crop of cousins about his grandfather who is my great grandfather and my children's great-great grandfather; surprised my old newspaper buddies from The State Newspaper in Columbia; enjoyed brunch with my soulmate, lifelong amazing first babysitter of my children, while watching her now with her own babies,

 and watched my children hold her babies,

and felt the circle of life in the estuaries along the coast.

But first I'm going to write about a ping moment I had on the beach.

This post is brought to you by me, prompted by my moment, but forced into words this morning, this first morning back in Ohio, by the writing of my friend Colleen in her hilariously brilliant and tender The Family Pants.

I, like you, Colleen, work hard at not judging people.

I had a mean-as-a-snake grandmother who was orphaned in the back hills of SC who talked about everybody like she was perfect and they were not. There was something wrong and bad about everybody she knew.

I have been determined not to be like that.

Meanwhile, there are categories of people I do not like -- namely, rednecks and very wealthy people.

So there I was in the land of the Confederacy this past week. We stayed at a high-rise in Garden City

at the edge of Myrtle Beach and if you've never stayed at Myrtle Beach or close to it, you will never know how many people there are to judge.

One morning, I forced myself out of bed go to down to the beach at 6 a.m. to take sunrise pictures with my big honking Nikon equipment. I am patient. I am kind. I am sitting in the wet sand and lying in the surf. My PJ pants are soaked. I'm shooting and adjusting settings and working the OM of the sea as I  wait for the sun.

Just as the timeless ball of life comes dripping up from the horizon, this elderly, Walmart couple walks right into my field of vision. T

The woman has her hands in her pockets casually and is trailing her toes in the water while her husband is behind her snapping pictures with a pocket camera.

You can see the woman skirting the edge of this photo below, while I try desperately to compose the sun with the sea without getting a single one of her hot pinkie toes in the frame.

I keep attempting pictures, while feeling dumbfounded that these people have waltzed into my picture on the only day I will wake for the sunrise.

I think to myself I should just go up to this intruder and ask her politely to move.

Instead, I march 50 yards to the left of her, so I can clear my path to the sun.

I am empathetic enough, even though I'm also pissed - and judging of their obvious lack of education -- not to get right in THEIR line of vision.

Meanwhile, they can't help but see me.

I shoot a few more, then turn my camera back toward them to get shots of the pier.

And then I see that they are suspended in action. They are staring at me without moving. I turn my camera back to the sun.

Next thing I know the man is standing beside me.

I have no idea how this is going to go.

But the man is smiling.

"That one of them cameras you can see right away in?" he asks.

"Well, yes," then, "Do you want to see?"

We stand there quietly for a few seconds looking together at my photos.

"My wife and I were watching you and we thought, 'Boy, she's got some kinda lens there. I bet she's getting some nice pictures. These are real nice."

I thanked him, and then, offhandedly thought to be conversational, to tell him that I had an even bigger lens in my camera bag on my shoulder, but that I was afraid I'd miss the sun if I took the  time to change lenses.

"Well, it's supposed to be a clear day tomorrow, too," the man reassured me, smiling. "You can always try again with your other lens."

What a good thought from this man I pronounced as having no educated thoughts in his head.

I saw his wife, standing off in the distance.

She waved and smiled and it occurred to me, right then and there, that some people are, yes, less school-educated than others.

Some people are filthy rich.

But everybody is part of the human condition. Everybody has a soul and a life that precedes my chance encounter with them. Everybody has thoughts and feelings, a mother and a father and a story.

I walked along the beach the rest of that morning after my encounter, looking differently at the other human souls who -- just like me, though perhaps for different reasons --  had intentionally risen before dawn.

 I took pictures of a woman collecting shells with a little girl with an orange bucket.

I took pictures of two doughnut-eating men fishing in the sea.

And then I thought, what would it be for me to not just take their pictures, but listen to their stories?

And so I went up to the shell-collecting woman. She had very few teeth in her mouth, even though she was maybe about 40.
The woman told me the little girl was 11, they were from Baltimore and this was their first trip to South Carolina.  The little girl was so excited, she roused her aunt at 5:30 to get up and get out into the day.

"We're going to make a collage," she said

I went up to the fishermen on the beach, who told me he was fishing for perch and whiting. He showed me the shrimp he uses for bait and told me the worst thing about fishing with shrimp is that it gets pulled off the hook in the surf.

I asked if he and other man were brothers.

"He's my son. Forty years old," he said.

"Wow, you don't look old enough to have a son that old," I told him.

He didn't. He was a handsome man with the prettiest blue eyes over his tank top and big belly.

He got to chatting then, asked me if I heard about the crazy guy in the car flying through the parking deck last night. I asked him if he heard about the golf cart wreck down at the state park. We told our stories and then we both said to the other "Have a nice day."

I went on up to my room after that, holding hopes that this would last,  that I would be a better person, a richer person, a more learned person for more than just those moments on the beach.

I went out to the balcony overlooking the ocean. The man was down there, looking up at me. I waved. He waved back.

Going Macro. Week 3. Day 1.

Fruit does not figure prominently in the macrobiotic diet. I can have it 2-3 times a week, though, and when I do, you'd think I was having crumpets and cream for breakfast. Every bite is a gift. These berries, in particular, were picked straight out of my garden, fresh this morning. The polenta is from Breakneck Acres Farm in Ravenna, Ohio, fresh-milled, organic, with a pinch of sea salt. The vegetables include organic, local-grown baby bok choy from Kent Natural Foods Co-op, organic daikon radish and organic turnips from Krieger's Health Food Market and brussells sprouts. Refreshing, life-giving. What a great way to start the day.

I try to consume outside in the fresh air as many meals as possible.

Going Macro.

"Macrobiotics is not just a diet," writes Loulie Gillen of Vanderbilt University, "but a holistic approach to living that takes into account all aspects of human life, including the inter-relationship between body, mind and spirit. Macrobiotics stresses the importance of a balanced diet because one's diet creates the foundation for a happy, healthy and harmonious life. Macrobiotic philosophy teaches practitioners to lead a balanced lifestyle based on the Chinese yin-yang principles. The actual macrobiotic diet closely resembles a vegan-like food pattern with virtually no animal food consumed. Practitioners also avoid "nonorganic" or "processed" foods."

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I had been seeking a better way of life my whole life. Coming from the family that I did, one with poor lifestyle habits, including eating disorders, I have for decades been on the search for the right way to live. I have studied with psychologists, theologians, vegetarians, poets and God, through writings and teachings and into the depths of my soul in my quest for harmony, balance and authenticity in living.

I first learned about a healthier way of eating when I was in my early 30s, living with a macrobiotic roommate.  Holly ate brown rice with gomasio (toasted sesame seeds and salt), a Jello-like substance called kanten, beans, sea vegetables, leafy green vegetables and beans. I'd eat along with her when we were home together. But I didn't think much about the diet, or of it. A few years later, I learned about vegetarianism from a friend, and read "Diet for a New America" about the problems with meat consumption. A few years after that, as a newspaper reporter working on the status of the American family farm, I spent some nights at a hog farm. I was horrified by the sights -- and the breakfast platter put before me the next morning, which smelled like the hog slop I'd stepped through earlier that day. Soon after that experience, I quit meat altogether. For one year, even, I was vegan.

But I was always confused. Why do we have incisors? Maybe humans are supposed to eat meat? What about dairy? Isn't dairy the best source of calcium? I was confused about the way we approach our bodies in general in this country, particularly regarding medicine. When I would go to a doctor with an ache, all I would want to know was if there was something life-threateningly wrong with me. All the doctor wanted to do was medicate me. I began to find other ways to heal myself -- hot baths for sore muscles instead of Ibupropen. Miso soup when I had a cold or a stomach ache. Dietary changes for irritable bowel syndrome. I began to rethink food, not as a fun thing to focus on all the time, but as nourishment, as the very lifeblood of our bodies and souls. My intake continued to evolve and devolve meanwhile. Although a pure vegan for a year with no processed foods, no sugar, no dairy, no meat (which bought my cholesterol down 60 points), at some point, after 15 years of vegetarianism, I became concerned I wasn't getting enough protein or calcium. Confused again, not sure what I was doing, I added salmon, tuna and the occasional chicken. I also consumed yogurt, chocolate, wine, ice cream and way too much cheese, and I chewed copious amounts of gum, sometimes sugar free, sometimes sugar -- all the while feeling concerned and absolutely confused.

When, 2.5 years ago, I was diagnosed with a blood condition, I had no choice but to step up my quest for the right way to live, and eat. At first I was more overwhelmed than ever. People told me to  take chlorophyll. Drink wheat grass juice. Eat shark cartilage. Drink raw milk. Don't drink milk at all. Go homeopathic. Eat mushrooms. I steered clear; none of these spoke to me. They seemed extreme, faddish.

I kept coming back to the idea of food as medicine. But what food? What was going to help me? What was going to bring me harmony, balance and truth? All I knew was that water figured prominently in my understanding of life, that I hated the idea of chemicals in food, and that I felt better, psychologically, when I was not weighed down by meat or cheese or the after-effects of too much wine or caffeine.

A year and a half ago, I began asking my friend, Sheila, who is a macrobiotic counselor in Kent, Ohio, about sea vegetables. Sheila suggested I contact Larch Hanson"the seaweed guy" in Maine. I emailed him. He sent me a long, impassioned email back, saying if he were me, he would, among other things, contact Warren Kramer a macrobiotic counselor in Boston. That was January 2011. I immediately emailed Warren. Yes, he said, he does consultations in different cities throughout the U.S., but nowhere near me. He told me he would do a Skype appointment with me. But I wanted to experience him in person. We tried a couple more times to hook up, once in Boston, but it didn't pan out. 

I struggled anew, and next went to a naturopath, looking for what I thought would be a nutritional approach. She instead wanted me to take supplements, and to charge me twice the online price if I bought them from her. A shrewd businesswoman hiding behind a "naturopath" sign, she told me from her snarky little office in downtown Chagrin Falls: "No wonder you have a blood condition. Look at the way you've lived." It took me weeks to get over what she said and to come back to what was emerging even stronger: Food, nutrition. Simple. Basic.


A couple of months ago, I checked on Warren's schedule again. He was going to be in Washington, D.C., where my son lives, in May. And so I did it. It took some finagling of my schedule and my son's. But I made arrangements to drive six hours to meet him. Warren was no-frills, down to basics. He spent 90 minutes listening to me, studying me and then talking to me about my specific condition, and teaching. He reminded me that we get calcium from greens. Everything has protein it. One cup of brown rice, the staple of the macro diet, has five grams of protein, a cup of Azuki beans, 20 grams. Everything he said made perfect sense. It fit for me, and that is the perhaps single-most important part of any approach to life. It has to fit.

I've been 10 days now on macro. While I already was in the habit of eating a lot of the foods on the macro diet, I have added a tremendous amount of veggies, sea vegetables, miso and brown rice to my diet: The basic macro diet is  50 percent whole grains: brown rice, wheat, barley, oats, corn, etc.;
25 percent seasonal vegetables like brocolli, cabbage, cauliflower, collards, mustard greens, onion, kale, radishes, turnip greens; 10 percent protein foods - soy products, fish, legumes, etc.; and 5 percent fruits, nuts, seeds, and drinks, Also, miso, sea vegetables and mild green teas such as bancha.

I have also cut out all meat, all dairy, all sugar, alcohol, raw oil and caffeine I do a twice-daily full body rub to stimulate the lymph and get rid of toxins. I spend lots more time outside with plants (chlorophyll and oxygen produce strong blood) and have brought more plants inside the house, as well. I walk more (the recommendation is 30 minutes per day, but not for exercise, just because our bodies want to move.) I find ways to exercise my body as part of daily living. As important as anything, I chew my food to liquified form (I try to do 50 per mouthful) and sit while I eat. This is half the philosophy: Sitting without distraction while eating. I feel this so profoundly in my soul when I practice this. I am also working on developing regular eating times, which is another important part of the philosophy. If indeed it is food that nourishes our bodies more than anything else, and if we sit still and quiet while we are doing this thing to ourselves, well, that is sacred and pure and honoring and whole. Not only that, but the very preparation of so many vegetables and fresh food every day slows me down, brings me into life with the food I put in my body.

Ten days later, I feel the best I've ever  consciously felt for any sustained period in my life. Part of it is psychological, I know. I feel I have found the answer for my life. I feel lighter, healthier and at peace with my choice.  Part of it is unmistakably physical. I've lost a couple of pounds. My skin looks clearer, my eyes brighter. An acquaintance who doesn't know I went macro came up to me after yoga class yesterday and said "I looked over at you today and I said, 'Wow, Debra-Lynn looks kick-ass.' Your skin. Your body.You look radiant."

There are some who would say this diet is no different than any other vegan way of life. No sugar, no dairy, no meat, no processed foods. Duh. That may be true, except that the macro way of life is not just about what you cut out. It is also about the riches that you add, like sea vegetables, which are full of an inordinate amount of vitamins and minerals, and miso, which is a natural probiotic that keeps the gut making good disease-fighting bacteria. It is very much about balance, balancing different kinds of cooking energies, balancing root vegetables with leafy green and round vegetables, just for starters. Just as important as the food itself, there is, too, a philosophy that makes absolute sense to me: harmony, balance, calm. I make no promises that I will completely heal myself from everything that ails now and forever. Although this could very well happen, the best that I can promise myself is a better life today.

What I ate today:

Breakfast: broccoli soup (vegetables with every meal), which is pureed, cooked broccoli, mixed with a teaspoon of miso and a lot of millet. (Grain is 50 percent of every meal.)

Lunch: Azuki beans cooked with miso and carrots. Rye berries (YUMMMM for real) cooked with a piece of kelp seaweed. Kale sautéed with a tiny bit of sesame oil and onion.

Dinner: Miso soup made with seaweed, onion, cauliflower, quinoa pasta. More rye berries. More azuki beans. Fresh green salad with a salad dressing of miso and lemon.

Here is a link to a lot of resources from my friend Sheila, who is a macro counselor.

Prayer versus meditation

Prayer and Meditation

Reprint from Daily Om

Meditation and prayer can offer us different experiences and both can be powerful tools.

Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they also differ from one another in significant ways. Put simply, prayer is when we ask the universe for something, and meditation is when we listen. When we pray, we use language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power. Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer. At other times, we pray words that were written by someone else but that express what we want to say. Prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, pleas for help, gratitude, and praise.

Meditation, on the other hand, has a silent quality that honors the art of receptivity. When we meditate, we cease movement and allow the activity of our minds and hearts to go on without us in a sense. Eventually, we fall into a deep silence, a place that underlies all the noise and fray of daily human existence. In this place, it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions, or sits with us in its silent way.

Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and with ourselves. They are also natural complements to one another, and one makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow. If we tend to do only one or the other, prayer or meditation, we may find that we are out of balance, and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication. There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our insides, and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving. When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.