May 2015 – Frozen Grapes Are Not Dessert

The Start of Summer

Memorial Day has long been the unofficial start of summer. Denver, however, has been cool and rainy, and sometimes downright cold and rainy, for almost all of May. It’s been a psychological battle for a city that boasts 300 days of sun a year. The first few days of rain you think, well this is rejuvenating. And then it’s a little inconvenient, and then finally a little depressing. The Memorial Day forecast looked fairly grim, as well.

But! When I woke up this morning, the sun was already shining. It was the kind of morning that asked you to join it, and so I did. With coconut flour pancakes, and a little coconut milk to perk up my daily morning tea, I could have been on the Islands. Well, no… But I did take my breakfast outside to sit in the sun. The patio table was dappled with sunlight through the trees, birds were singing and several lawn mowers hummed in the background while the house was quiet with late sleepers still snuggled in beds.

The unofficial start of summer is off to a good start. Wishing everyone a season of sunny days, tempered with just enough rain to be rejuvenating.

My Month Without Sugar, Grains or Dairy

Today I was supposed to have my one-month appointment with my nutritionist after she started me on the no-grain, no-dairy, no-sugar train 4 weeks ago. In the beginning of the month, I was counting down to today with the glee of a child (or teacher) coming to the end of the school year. As today got closer, my countdown became less about just muscling through the days, and more about the accomplishment (for me, major) of going so long without sugar. And grains and dairy, sure… But I was definitely anticipating the no sugar as being the most difficult.

Today, it’s been a month. And has it been difficult? It has. The first week especially was really rough. I was nauseous and headachey and tired. Throughout the month, if I didn’t plan ahead, I ran into trouble — and hunger. Dinner leftovers were a necessity, and so were the small bag of raw almonds that I started keeping both in my purse and in my desk. Almond butter, on the eat moderately list, became my new best friend. It was the creamy indulgence that I needed to push through some days. And avocados… high five, little guys. It’s funny because in the past month I haven’t thought about fat content at all. In fact, almonds, almond butter and avocados all have high fat content (healthy fats, of course), and despite eating them liberally, I’ve lost weight. But I was looking forward to adding some variety into my diet. I miss fruit especially… a peach, banana and mango salad sounds amazing. And watermelon… I’ve been seeing so many summer cocktail recipes lately, and watermelon has been on my mind.

Yesterday, my doctor’s office called to say that my nutritionist was out sick and that they would touch base to reschedule my appointment “sometime next week.” My initial reaction was dismay. I’d worked so hard to get to THIS DATE. And rescheduling next week meant an appointment even further out.

“But Matt,” I said to the receptionist, “Lauren has me on a no grain, no sugar, no dairy diet.” I paused, but he didn’t gasp in horror, so I went on, “I was really hoping to re-introduce some things with the holiday weekend!” Matt laughed, as though we had a mutual joke, “Well, no one here is ever going to tell you to reintroduce grains.”

I hung up the phone feeling cheated and discouraged. But it also made me question the entire journey in a different way. The quest for wellness is certainly a first world luxury, and it’s a booming industry. Depending on who you talk to, you’ll get different advice. This doctor or nutrition expert (or non-expert) will swear by going gluten-free, while the next person recommends macrobiotics, or flexitarian or paleo diets. Detox diets, Atkins diets, juice cleanses and never eat anything except free-range, grass-fed meat and organic produce. Some of that makes sense to me, some of it does not. How is a regular person supposed to figure it out when the experts, and I use the term loosely, offer such different solutions?

“No one here is ever going to suggest you reintroduce grains.” Hm. Then maybe this isn’t the right place for me, because while I don’t pretend to have answers, cutting out entire parts of the food pyramid (that ancient artifact) just doesn’t ring true for me long term. I may be wrong, but that’s where my gut is coming from, and since it’s my gut I’m healing, it seems wise to listen to it.

And yet now I’m not sure where to go from here. I feel a lot better these days, and my clothes fit better and my complexion is better. Better is good. I don’t want to lose that, but I seem to do best when I have hard and fast rules for myself. No gluten has worked for me, but I’ve often wondered if it’s the lack of gluten that makes me feel better, or is it the natural substitutions from pretzels to veggies and humus, the ability to say no to cake for a currently-societally-acceptable reason? No sugar is non-negotiable and honestly if I can do it, it’s totally doable (at least for a month). But what if I want to just occasionally have a piece of chocolate? How do I make sure that that occasional piece doesn’t sneak back in with the Easter-basket-raiding ferocity of my life-long sugar habit? It’s been a long and stressful month at work, and I did it without grains or sugar (or dairy, but that’s almost an afterthought). That should feel empowering, but I also know that part of the reason I didn’t stress eat my worries was because I had a zero tolerance policy. But that’s the old ship in harbor metaphor. That’s not what ships are for.

Up next: trusting myself enough to loosen the reins without giving up control of my direction.

View from the Top

I was much braver when I was younger. Or perhaps I was just younger. I studied abroad without knowing a soul; I moved across the country without a job and with very little money. And those risks paid off. While in England, I met lifelong friends, traveled to places with history measured in tens of centuries rather than centennials and came home with my viewpoint forever broadened. Becoming a Coloradan a dozen years ago (though a dozen years puts me no closer to being one of those rare breeds, a native), clearly changed my life. Roads diverged, and here we are.

Somehow, though, in the last decade, I’ve taken fewer risks. You don’t like change, my husband would say with a shrug, and somehow that had become true, and hearing it said made it more true. It became a reason and an excuse all in one. I went into a period of anxiety, which I still fight in thankfully lesser ways, where routine seemed even more important. Sit down you’re rocking the boat. When getting through the day in one piece is a battle, there isn’t a lot of wiggle room for risk. My career path had always lacked ambition – I didn’t know how to marry my wish to never be management with career advancement – and anyway it seemed like my husband had enough ambition for both of us. But eventually it seemed like it wasn’t just my career path that lacked ambition, but my life. The most terrifying quote on Earth, I think, is Annie Dillard’s, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” I didn’t feel like I was leaving much of a legacy, in big ways or small ways. For a while, I just dwelled lethargically in that place until finally, the risks of stagnancy were bigger than the risks of moving forward. It was out of this place that I began making small changes and my Frozen Grapes goal to be alert, healthy and present was born.

Today, we went for a hike as a family as we try to do on a Sunday. Our hike is generally fairly local and not too arduous, but with deep-sigh-contentment scenery. Today’s hike was no exception. One town to the south of us is Castle Rock, and Castle Rock boasts a “castle rock,” a big square rock on the top of a high plateau. We’ve been meaning to hike to the top of that rock, from Rock Park, for a while. The actual path of the hike was pretty similar to most of our other family hikes. Dirt inclines with some rough steps built into the trail here and there, some rocks creating natural steps other places. When we got to the top of the trail, though, we realized that the top of the rock, our destination, was simply up the rock itself. We’d been scrambling over other rocks to explore small caves and crevices, but this was the first scale of significance. But, we’d come to see the view from the top of the castle rock.

The way up is about 80 feet high, and though not particularly perilous, it involves several places where there isn’t a clear path forward. Find three points of balance, my husband told the girls (and me), and you’ll be fine. Midway up, Eva started to cry. “I’m scared,” she said. “I don’t want to do this anymore.” This is one of those parenting moments when there are valid points on each side. If your child is scared to tears (although with Eva tears are usually pretty temporary), where’s the lesson? Trust your gut? Push through your fear? We’re right here beside you? Hopefully the right answer is a little of all three. We pushed on, heaping praise on our young scramblers, and taking photos from the top.

On the way down, momentum is different, and where you could pull yourself up on the ascent, it’s dropping yourself down on the descent. At one point, Patrick, carefully balanced, lifted Eva down, but as Samantha’s spotter, I didn’t have the strength for that, and her legs weren’t quite long enough to feel the ledge below. I braced my foot on the ledge to give her another couple of inches, but going backwards, it was still a game of trust. “There’s a ledge right there, I promise. You’ll step on my foot, and then be down.” And she did, and she was.

Sometimes courage comes in smaller doses, but it’s no less valiant for that. Knowing that you can navigate in a daily way gives confidence for the bigger challenges. I think I realized today that I’ve been equating courage with the willingness to step into a new frontier without a safety net. But really, it’s not so much that I haven’t changed my life in major ways lately, but that I feel like I’m finally moving forward again, and that I like the view from here.

80/20 for the Win

Today I fell victim to a classic blunder. I got caught in the details and forgot to look at the big picture. Specifically, this was for a work thing… a project that I’ve been working on, and working on, and working on. Each time I think it’s about to move off my plate, it stays. It would be enough to drive a person to drink, except that I’ve still got 9 days left without alcohol. Ditto the chocolate, ice cream and potato chips. I tried to make coconut flour (non-grain) pancakes, but apparently pancakes really rely on high glycemic ingredients to make them happen. I knew this, instinctively, and yet it seemed like it was worth a try.

But, I digress. I know, based on experience that at work I’m going to be evaluated on the details. And, based on experience, I have a roadmap of what details to focus on, so that’s what I did. But for every needle that I found and smugly congratulated myself on removing, I made one critical mistake. I forgot to step ten feet back and look at the whole haystack. While the issue with my haystack wasn’t foundational, it was fairly glaring, if only I’d looked. It altered the impression I’d worked for. It was taking the time to put on make-up and actually blow dry your hair, and then meeting your nemesis with spinach in your teeth. In that moment, I felt like that spinach was going to overshadow all the hard work and long hours I’d put in.

You can exercise every day for six months. And I swear, if just one day you decide you’d rather watch a Good Wife marathon? Square one. It’s like your body gets amnesia. It takes weeks to lose 5 pounds, but in a 4-day all-inclusive vacation you can somehow gain twice that. And they say that if you give in to your child’s whining one in ten times, you’ve lost the war. If one out of ten times, you’re just dead tired, or just can’t form the words of the bedtime argument one more time, it’s back to the beginning. How is this fair? If I’m getting it right 80% of the time, isn’t that pretty good? Doesn’t that deserve a little recognition? Why does the 20% weigh so heavily? Or even just 10%? I’m honor roll here, people! If I’m not going to get a plaque, can we at least agree on a ribbon?

Part of the weighted impact of the 10% flop rate is evolution, of course, reminding us that our ancestors couldn’t have an 80/20, or even a 90/10 policy when dealing with saber tooth tigers. It was a good policy, then. Get it right the first time, or, literally, die trying. Luckily life isn’t, in general, as catastrophic day-to-day in the 21^st century. Yet we’re still programmed to hold onto those negatives while discounting the positives. It’s unlikely that the negatives will kill us anymore, but they still feel heavy. And so it’s easier to just hang up our running shoes and tell ourselves that our “happy” weight is our current weight, and who really wants to be counting calories, anyway? Did any child really enter therapy as an adult because bedtime slipped to 9pm now and then? Keep your ribbon. We’re doing okay.

As Mel Brooks said, ‘Life is a play. We’re unrehearsed.’ It’s never going to go smoothly, because we’re winging this life thing. And if you’re not winging it, please pretend you are. It’ll make me feel better. Maybe, when I miss either the big picture or the details, because let me assure you, both happen in pretty much equal measure for me, maybe instead of thinking of it as blowing my lines, I can think of it as improv. And with improv, a really great scene can build out of seeming chaos.

Our ancestors had to sweat the details, because their big picture was now. Our big picture is a little more forgiving, and our details less dire. We can lace up those running shoes again, even though our lungs protest and our feet drag, because we can see the big picture, but we can take a day (or a season) off because we know details tend to work themselves out when we have a solid perspective. We need both, but we also need to cut ourselves a break. And guess what? My big issue today? Totally resolved itself by close of business. For the most part. Which is good. Because now I can get a good night’s sleep before finding out tomorrow what I messed up today.

The Open Nest

I don’t remember playing with dolls much as a child. I probably did to some extent, but it doesn’t inform any major memories. I did have a red metal truck that I remember vividly. I accidentally left it in Vermont one year on an annual vacation, and it was, amazingly, still there the next year when we went back. I have no such memories of dolls. I do remember, as a pre-teen, having the perfect baby name ready: Cassidy Danielle. And yet somehow my 26-year-old self, and later my 28-year-old self, opted not to use it. I feel like in many ways, and not in ways that recommend me, I was pretty thoughtless about my slide into motherhood. I have friends who have wrestled with fertility issues and with hereditary genetic issues, who have had to lay bare their souls in front of doctors and social workers and other strangers. They were intentional about their decision to parent in ways that I never was, and ways that I realize I should have been. Of course, I didn’t intend to be a thoughtless jerk, to think that I was somehow just entitled to the next stage of my life, though looking back that’s exactly what I was. But regardless of how well prepared you are, think you are, or aren’t, there’s a point where shit gets real. Where all of a sudden, a baby appears. You’re a mother.

We all have our own story. Mine began 7 weeks earlier than expected when my oldest decided she wanted to be a July baby, not an August baby. A couple weeks later, the NICU staff unhooked her from all the beeps and wires that assured us she was breathing, and gave us 4 pounds of baby like we knew what to do. Before that hospital stay, I’d never changed a diaper, never fed a baby. It remains crazy to me that you have to get a license to own a dog, to fish in a stocked trout pond, and to have an (already) licensed contractor roof your house… but a baby? Nah, you’ve got that covered.

And, for the most part, you do have it covered. Mostly. Babies are equipped with their own communication system, a very loud communication system, to remind you that your life has changed and that there is another stomach in the house, or that they don’t feel well, or that they’re lonely, or… well, sometimes you have no idea, but they let you know something’s up. They are amazing, and you are their world. There are periods of crippling doubt, and tiredness so deep and dark that you think you may have put one foot toward the crib and fallen into a black hole. I remember cutting Samantha’s tiny, tiny fingernails and accidentally drawing a dot of blood. I was devastated. When she started crawling and pulling to stand, I found an open box of thumb tacks in an open desk drawer. I took her to the emergency room immediately. Did you see her eat a tack?, they asked. No. Did you hear her cry, or choke? Well, no. So… you just found a box of thumb tacks… out… in your house? Yes. They x-rayed her tiny stomach and sent the baby home with her crazy person. We do the best we can.

Now that my children are older – 7 and 8 – parenting is evolving. I realize that this is still the minor leagues, before dating and driving and things I don’t even want to contemplate. But it does mean being present in a different way. Pinterest makes us feel like motherhood should be about creating not just life, but elaborate and themed rainy day projects, rainbow colored waffles using 6 separately colored batter bags, and let’s not even get into birthdays. It’s a long way from when Caroline Ingalls proved her motherhood-chops by helping Pa hoist logs for a rough log cabin in the wilderness. I’m not sure I’m adept at either model. But this week when I looked around at all the parents standing in the rain at my youngest’s soccer game, I thought … This. This is parenting. It’s being there in the rain, even though you’d obviously rather be dry. And listening to The Three Billy Goats, again, because it’s the book of the week. It’s about the Instagram-worthy moments of cookie baking and soccer goals and summer sprinklers, but it’s also about that time you sat down at the kitchen table and just cried, because you couldn’t imagine going toe to toe with your toddler one more time. It’s about homemade cards made out of construction paper and paint handprints, but it’s also about enforcing time out. It’s amazing and wonderful and fulfilling, and tedious and scary and exhausting.

Sometimes motherhood isn’t about being present at all. It’s about absence. It’s about going out with friends so that your children can see your social world doesn’t begin and end at “mom.” It’s about being away the week of PARCC testing because sometimes responsibilities compete, and we can’t be everywhere at once. These moments teach our children not to define themselves too narrowly. I’m your mother, but I’m also me. I’m a wife and friend and coworker and mother all at once, and sometimes, sweet child, if you’re not bleeding, you’re going to have to wait. As their mother, I wish for my children a life rich and diverse and happy, which makes it my job to model the same.

The bonus of motherhood is that mothers are often the nest from which their chicks can take off, test their wings and return. Recently, our family was on a hike that involved descending a fairly steep hill, walking sideways for balance, when my youngest turned around and said, “Mommy, I’m scared!” There’s nothing quite as sweet as a much smaller hand reaching, in complete faith and trust, toward yours. My husband said to me, “She’s so much tougher when you’re not around.” And you know what? I think that’s okay. She can be tough when she needs to be, but she knows that sometimes she doesn’t have to be. Because Mom’s here, and you can come back to the nest for a breather before setting out again. Because in the end it’s not so much actually returning to the nest as it is knowing you always can.

To the two passionate, creative, loving people who made me a mother, I love you. And to my own mother, thank you for leading the way.

Feeding the Habit

So, here’s an interesting thing that has happened as I tackle no grain, no dairy, no sugar. Every time I eat? It turns out it’s because I’m hungry. It’s hunger that is my cue to go in search of food, and this — I’m going to be honest — is pretty new to me. Of all the reasons I eat: I’m bored, I’m tired, I’m sad, I’m bored, I’m feeling angrily passive aggressive with no one close enough to take it out on… (because those people have decided they’d rather hang out with someone nice like Gordon Ramsey, instead…) Of all those reasons, hunger is usually farther down the list (a lot farther). I don’t want to say that the foods that are left after removing grains, dairy and sugar aren’t still good, solid, quality foods. A crisp red pepper? Grilled shrimp? Delicious stuff. My typical breakfast lately is over-easy eggs on a bed of Applegate deli turkey with a side of avocado. It’s great! But it’s also a little repetitive. Sometimes I switch it up with a lettuce wrap… with Applegate deli turkey and avocado. And if I’ve done a good job of planning, snacks of grilled chicken or a grab bag of cut celery and grape tomatoes? They certainly don’t sit tantalizingly in the work fridge, taunting me at my desk. If I haven’t done a good job of planning, my fall back spoonful of almond butter (moderate list!) also isn’t the stuff of food fantasies. InstagramCapture_708ed770-8261-4d37-8e41-c0d0ffdefce6

Habit is a great thing. It’s the foundation of civility, I think. It keeps us breaking at stop signs, even as we’re also running down the “did you do/grab/get/ask?” list during morning carpool. It means we say thank you as part of our routines and smile acknowledgment at strangers. But the other side of habit is rut. And I’ve definitely fallen into a rut of boredom and emotional eating. It’s been such a long day, I deserve this cookie, chocolate, wine, sundae… And you know what, sometimes I absolutely do. But as a treat, not as a dangling-carrot reward for staying ambulatory past 6pm and not just because it’s the first thing I blindly grab for in the dim, forgiving light of the rut. While I have 12 days in and 16 days left of this rather stringent diet (yes, I’m counting), they say that it takes 21 days to form a habit. I’ll have that and more under my belt, and I hope I take the lesson to heart and climb out of the rut.

I’m on my way. I’ve come to know what hunger feels like. And actually, it probably feels like my body regulating itself. I’m assuming. I’m new at this.

Why Girls’ Night Matters

Lately, I feel like I’ve purchased real estate in the Adult World. It has, technically, been a long time since I turned 18, a long time since my parents’ house has been my permanent address. Mortgage, kids, car payments and 401ks… somehow those things have allowed me to pass as an adult, to receive the expected invitations to the predictable adult revelries – you know, the PTA, Girl Scout leader, classroom volunteer and community wine festivals for good causes. And yet in my own head, I was like a favored in-law, not exactly part of the family, not blood related, but still invited to holidays and on the hook for fundraisers. Lately, though… Adult World. You look around at your neighbors and think, They look familiar, but when did this become permanent?

Adult World comes with long hours… depending who you are, long hours in beige cubes with that same Citrix phone you had at your last job, or even longer hours in an office with a view, long hours in the middle of the night with a new baby, a sick child, or midnight hours wondering if the right choice was made about this and that, things we can’t control, or things we could have, should have controlled.

But as we grow older, I think certain things become sweeter, as well. A beautiful morning or a favorite song on the radio can become a little bit of Zen, a snapshot of contentment, more valuable because so many moments rush by, not in malcontent, but just quickly. The moments we can call our own, on our own, are important but just as important is the cohesion and connection of the solid, seasoned friendships of our adult lives. We’ve become a little more selfish with our time at this point, in a judicious way, so the friends we surround ourselves with are those that know us the best, because they’ve been there with us, whether in person or across many miles doesn’t matter. They are our protective circle when the Adult World seems to be bearing down. We don’t always talk, we may go months without seeing each other, but they are our touch points who call us on our own b.s., who support us despite our own b.s., and who, as the saying goes, know us and like us anyway.

My previous blog touched upon the fact that last week was a long one. Despite taking a vow of positivism on Friday morning, it was a long day and I felt pummeled at the end. A bright spot was knowing that the following night was Girls Night In. One of my best friends is moving 1300 miles away, and while there are certainly downsides to that, she’s a miles-don’t-matter friend, which we’ve proven geographically several times before. But it was a terrific reason to have that girls’ night, and I spent some time anticipating it as wine (well, it was sparkling mint mineral water for me – three more weeks ‘til wine – but the vibe was wine) and laughter. Wine and laughter with good friends. We need that. During that Zen snapshot, who we are is always enough. It’s the affirmation of our own personhood at a basic and necessary level. Whatever failings I have, and I have plenty, are already known and accepted and forgiven because that’s what the protective circle does. We’re stronger and better for it.

Last night, because there were three women sitting around a table, because there was laughter until the point of tears, because there was commonality and cohesion, the week ahead may be good, or may be a bit of a disaster, that Citrix phone may ring itself silly, and school lunches may be forgotten on the kitchen counter, and it will be okay. Adult World may have snuck up on us, but it turns out we’ve been ready for it.

Mama Said…

Mama said there’d be days like these… My youngest daughter woke me up to tell me, Sometimes I want to roll around in my bed, but I’d fall off the edge, so I don’t. Then she turned around and went back to bed herself. My husband overslept, and then got to work to find that the email he’d edited judiciously last night had been misinterpreted by his manager, for which I felt guilty since I’d read it, in the tone I knew he was striving for, and had given it a thumbs up. I cut myself shaving, which is probably my own fault for having waited so long to do so, and I had to have a firm conversation with the cat because he was more than peeved that I didn’t want to attend to his every need until I had contacts in and my teeth brushed. And getting dressed today, I had to consider, what’s most appropriate for that meeting where you’re going to be told everything you just spent long weeks working on isn’t quite what the customer wanted? I mean, obviously I went with jeans. It’s Friday, after all.

And now that I’ve gotten all that out, full stop. I’m going to put on my workout playlist (this is just a funny insider name for the songs that make me feel upbeat… but one day… one day, I WILL WORK OUT TO THEM.) I’m going to fill my kitchen with my anthem music while I make lunches and unload the dishwasher, and I’m going to get us out of the house on time. I’m going to send my husband a thinking about you text, and I’m going to use today’s meeting as a way to get better at my job, and as a lesson in letting the tide ebb and flow.

And I’m going to have a cup of tea. Liquid stevia is somehow on the “green” list of consumables this month, and it’s like liquid gold in that Earl Grey.

Happy Friday, everyone!