Gift-giving

I was in town early this morning.  The shops were just opening, and I had met a friend for a brief but momentous few minutes.  She was on the island to deliver something I need but can't find on the island; she was here to find something she can't find where she lives now.  The details of the gift-giving I'll reserve and share instead the process of gift-giving that adds to life in the process of being 'freed-up.'  The island is at its autumn premium today cool and clear skies and a moon still full bright in the window at 6 AM.  Harvests of beautiful food ... yellow pears with cheeks of pinkish rouge, green apples that melt into a froth when topped over a bed of chopped red cabbage, green beans still snappy and delicious when steamed and the promise of acorn squash baked with butter and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.  Earth's gifts to the gardener and farmer who has invested time, handwork and the generous conversations that only a cultivator with heart knows how to give.

We have a home where planting, poultry-raising, laughter and the slow yet steady process of healing happens.  The small gardens here in the woods have gifted me with the affirmation:  you can do this!  In the days and nights that pass, the moon, Hina, teaches me that there are different ways to count time and through those lessons my thinking and my beliefs change.  A birthday approaches, and my personal inventory and harvest of one more Earth year lived account for the good and better feelings lighting up my life.  Trials called upon my internal resources and drew from me the strength needed to care well for myself and those I love.  Those are gifts that sometimes don't arrive unless there are no other options.  From awful, something better comes and it amazes.  Celebrate the amazing, large and small!

I prepare to give myself a gift that will require a six month to one year commitment.  It is a gift of believing I can re-train my brain, and it is a gift that I believe will lead to feeling better and better.  For these months, my blogs may be inactive.  I'm not sure what I will want to write during the next months, we'll see.  The healing journey is alive and blessed with the belief that better is good, better is possible.  I've bought my birthday present a little early but it feels like it's coming right on time.

Happy harvest-time and blessings for a time of gifts that make a difference in all the best possible ways.

Dare to dream BIG

Fall is coming.  The evening temperatures are cooling, there was moisture on the winds when I woke and stretched my sleepy body that was cold from the inside out as well as the outside in.  Season change is something I make with effort, still hoping the cold will stay far enough away to keep wearing short-sleeves and sleep with the windows open at night.  My garden is still growing and I promise the beans 'There will be plenty of time (warm weather) to lengthen yourselves into thick long fruit!"  Tending and enjoying the daily joy of abundance from seeds that we have buried into dark, rich soil is in a very real way, the tending of joy and abundance that has been waiting for me after a journey of contrast.  One full year of increasing abundance is giving me the 'dare-power' to dream and allow bigger abundance.  I know the small, slow and steady effort turns pie-in-the-sky into pie-in-my-belly, and yet there is that voice that says 'And you are encouraged to dream of more.'

So after a few hours of sitting with myself after a morning of satisfying work and good writing I felt a longing.  Not quite 'bored' I sought to distract myself.  It worked.  Here  I am back to the woods and at the keys, searching for a way to express the daring it takes to dream BIG again, dream a new, and deliberately.  What would I have in this dream that moves beyond illness as a focus, and includes the goodness of a reassembled life, with more and better as the destination.  Let's try this:

when winter parks, i cannot have enough warm, dry, socks!

this winter, a just-right-for-us washing machine will be a dream long come true!!

this shower head of hot running water will be happening for us this winter, in our own bath house in the woods!

a face to face writers group gathering(something like this, with folk of all ages)
in a setting perfect for me is part of my dream coming true!

as I heal and grow better and better,
Waimanalo Beach is where Pete and I will be swimming and playing again in my dream coming true!

Big, better, better.  As I dream, believing it is on the way, I allow space for lots of socks, a hot shower, a just right for us washer, and swims in Waimanalo Beach.  OOOOOOh, I feel the warmth of those socks, gathering face-to-face with fragrance-free folk who love to write, that shower and the vibration of the gently swishing wash of clothes as we prepare to enjoy swimming and playing in Waimanalo Beach.

Are you making space for winter and beyond dreams coming true?  

Garden Party, guardians and gleanings

My Ma loved parties.  Some of my earliest memories of being with her at luau (Hawaiian parties with all the traditional food ... kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon, quid luau ...) always included Ma picking up any extra portions of coconut cake, kalua pig wrapped in napkins and tucked into her purse.  Always a generous sized purse.  I miss Ma, and yesterday it was her memory and her spirit that filled me with verve.  It was garden party day the Field-to-Table Harvest Feast at South Wihidbey Tilth.  I was so looking forward to it.  What's to worry?  Well, it's an old, old habit -- worry, and with the slow yet steady progress of healing from chemical injury, the worry warts grow unless intervention takes place.  The divine intervention of Ma's party lovin' spirit was the intervention I needed.  I'd been cautioned about the wood smoke blowing at the Feast preparations yesterday.  Prescott had called and said, "The smoke's pretty brisk and it's blowing right into the restrooms."  Pete and I clean those restrooms with our Freed-up fragrance-free routine. The obvious choice was to not come early to do the cleaning and our friend offered this, "Here's what you do.  Have Pete drive all the way back to where the forest begins.  Hold your nose to get past the smoke.  Park there!"  Okay, that sounded like a solution.  I could still make that  party.  Ma showed up before we left, her beaming party-loving face calming and reassuring. 

We arrived after most of the set-up and preparations were done, found space just where Prescott had suggested.  The smoke from the fire pit was indeed rising and blowing.  But, the grounds of South Whidbey Tilth are large enough for me to avoid the bulk of the smoke.  The tall bamboo poles with long billowing flags served as wind-and-smoke indicators making my avoidance plan easier.  One picnic table at the top of the gardens was empty and perfect for us.  I laid out our basket with plates and dinnerware, and sat myself down to watch.

The talented fairy spirit Talia Marcus was the event's entertainment.  She wandered the party with her bow and violin, a minstral playing sounds for the tiny tot who will dance and play music of her own before long; music to celebrate the crew of folk tending the lamb turning on the spit for our dinner; music for dinner; music for enjoyment.  My Ma, and Pete and I relaxed and enjoyed the festivities.  People we see every Sunday for the Farmers' Market were there and many others who are unfamiliar to me but part of the Tilth were there.  Honoring the long-time farmers was part of the purpose for this annual thank you to the community.  Speeches (short and well-directed) identified and commended each of these food providers.  Crowns of honor were bestowed:  a garland of tomato vines, another of garlic, a third made from garden gloves, a fourth a ring of wine bottle corks and the fifth, oh forgive me Molly Petersons, my memory fades.  I remember the speech on your behalf ... a thank-you for being an example of great work done as "life after social work."  Ah ... now it comes--your crown was made from seed packets.  A lively and successful raffle engaged us all after our bellies were well-filled with harvest and drink.  Winners we were, as Pete's name was called for two of the prizes making it doubly fun.

We may all be in the process of healing from any number of human ailment and many of the ailments could have been prevented, if .... If only we were perfect, omnipocent (all-seeing).  But, we are not.  I continue to be less reactive to chemicals and triggers and love having time and place to enjoy a garden party.  We had to wash and shampoo the remnants of wood smoke from ourselves after the celebration.  Fortunately I have recovered enough well-being to manage that.  The lamb, the salmon, the tables filled with food and desserts were truly a harvest feast.  To be part of it all, that was a harvest.

FREED-UP Practice: SAY 'NO' to Antibacterial Soap

Earlier in the month (July, 2011) The Canary Report posted an article about Antibacterial Soap. The month has moved along, and I pasted the article here until I had time to frame the 'evidence' and 'experience' described by guest blogger Rob Dunn.  Dunn's article "Scientists Discover That Antimicrobial Wipes and Soap May Make You (and society) Sicker" appears in Scientific America.

Susie Collins' The Canary Report is one of the Internet's go-to sites for the global community living with Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  She posted the article on antibacterial soap with this lead sentence:

"Just about nothing gets most people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity sick faster than exposure to antibacterial soaps."

I'm one of those people who would get sicker if I am exposed to antibacterial soap.  Sitting at the key this morning, considering what to say, I'm reminded about the conversation I had with my friend and neighbor.  She's writing a book (she's an anthropologist and a nurse).  I asked her how her book was coming, and she said, "Good."  She's writing every morning.  The hard part of it is putting in what other people have to say about the topic.  "Can't just pretend you made every thing up yourself."  There you go, I said to myself.  So, what's to say about this antibacterial soap that combines what others say, and what I have to say.

THE RESEARCH.  When I started getting sick, I had suspicions about what was happening and used the best part of my intuition and researching skill to ferret out 'causes.'  I know more, but know I know not everything.  The Internet allows access to information:  if I have Internet I can search.  But, with time and experience I search more discerningly, and direct my energy differently.

The case for NOT USING antibacterial soap is laid out well in Dunn's article, and if you've come this far, maybe you are ready to read what's in antibacterial soap, and what those ingredients actually do to your body and the 'germs' aimed at annihilation.

THE EXPERIENCE.  Pete and I are on alert for the hand wipes, sanitizers and squirt bottles of antibacterial soap.  I mask up in public spaces:  the library, food market, restrooms, bank knowing the exposure is typical. 

Our one public success regarding the use of soap and hand-washing OTHER THAN antibacterial is the 'Good News' process we began on Mothers' Day at South Whidbey Tilthe.  Pete and I have been cleaning the two restrooms for three months now, and people who have read the article I wrote in our South Whidbey Tilth Newsletter  "The Good News Koan:  Clean the Restrooms" come up to me and say, "Are you these guys?"  "Thanks for the article."  "Thank you.  That is such a good attitude."  These are the things that make choosing and doing things differently the good news. 

OUR NEWEST EXPERIENCE:  The septic guys from SEPTIC ALERT! were here last week to check out the septic tank.  I was off the land when I heard the truck pull in, unsure of what an inspection involved, best to find out later.  I was thinking I would have time and energy to render a detailed account of the inspection, but at this point it's enough to say this:

Pete found the septic guy very "knowledgable and articulate."  The guy 'really knows his stuff.'  The tank is in good shape, doing what it needs to do to maintain and break down the waste from the main house, including toilet, baths, dish washer, hand washing, and one clothes washer.  The inspection involved checking the activity of microbial breakdown ... the organic composting of all our sh*t and chemicals, supplements, prescription drugs, soaps, and product end up in the septic tank.

Here's the part that got to Pete:

• Prescription drugs like antibiotics (and others I can't remember) really create havoc in the septic tanks.  Nothing breaks down and everything in the tank sits there, clogging it up
• "What about baking soda and vinegar," Pete asked.  "Oh, that's some of the best stuff!"  The septic guy said.  I think Pete could've kissed the dude, but he only kisses me!
• Wow, don't you love it when unexpected gifts show up ... in unexpected places.

THE CHOICE:  I launched and maintain this blog because it's something I can do.  Influence?  Who can really know.  If you are reading this maybe something here will give you a nudge to move in the direction of fragrance and chemical freed-upness.  The research and the experiences are there to make informed choice. Got a septic tank?  It could have surprising tales to tell you.

Go do it.  Try Freed-up Practices and see for yourself.







TO READ The Canary Report article on antibacterial soaps link here:
 http://www.thecanaryreport.org/2011/07/07/antibacterial-soaps-toxic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheCanaryReport+%28The+Canary+Report%29

Masked

A mask is an article normally worn on the face, typically for protection, disguise, performance or entertainment. Masks have been used since antiquity for both ceremonial and practical purposes. They are usually worn on the face, although they may also be positioned for effect elsewhere on the wearer's body, so in parts of Australia giant totem masks cover the body, whilst Inuit women use finger masks during storytelling and dancing.^[1]-

-From Wikipedia

Summer in our town is either slow, or tentative.  Seated on a wooden bench under an umbrella, the sun and the breeze were great company.  The thermos of de-caf coffee had warmed my belly and my complimentary breakfast of herb-spinkled eggs sat in there as well.  Slowly, I am able to be in conversation with new folks.  My I Can Breathe Mask dangles off my ear like an appendage I slip quickly in to place if a scent triggers the put-in-place motion.  Today Pete and I had finished breakfast and a newly-made friend was quickly approaching.  She came to the bench across the table and sat.  We bantered with the don't remember your name thing for a few seconds, giggled at the social gamesmanship of it, and then had a good and neighborly chat about summer, sun, 'home', and then eventually the mask.

It's important, I think, to get a feel for how conversations from behind masks or conversations that start with the mask dangling to the mask in-place invite.  Rewound a few years, thick fear and defensiveness made masked conversations not only difficult but triggering experiences.  With illness bred from being safe only when avoiding, staying put to converse for any reason let alone about the illness or with a trigger (scented source) is risky business.  More often then not, I left the scene before conversation could sprout:  flee, not fight; flight then write.  Even when this masked one was able to converse, the brain chemistry and the memory needed to be calmed and refreshed before a place of ease returned.  This post is not about the science of masked conversation, though I weave in and out of the effects on a being's chemistry.  What is helpful to me, and perhaps to those who read, is the slow flowing comfort with social intercourse from behind a mask.

Picture this:  the mask I currently wear is 'decorative', black and green lace over a tan mask with carbon filter.  With my practice of living with PLAN BE, I have come to know the illness and the conditions for being in the public eye with a mask.  It has been seven years.

• Some of my hesitancy has passed:  I know I must wear it to remain comfortable.  I know what happens when I am without the mask, and know it's not necessary to tell the story of it all.  Trust must grow before a story is exchanged. 
•  The choice to buy and wear that lace mask was the Venus-in-me the love of pretty things that said, "Here's something pretty you can wear."  And, the thing that has happened for me behind that lacey mask is ... people approach the mask and say weird and wonderful new-to-me things:

'that's the coolest protective mask I've ever seen!'

'cool mask!'

'very decorative.'

I say, "Thanks, I think so too."

"I've heard about [chemical sensitities] but never knew ..."

With my mask dangling, I say, "Yes, what you say is sometimes true.  But it is unique for each of us ..."

I am more known to people at this Sunday morning setting.  There is some understanding and comfort with my ways of being, and I more comfortable with the limits I set.  People tell me about their experience with inciting episodes; an event triggers a change in a loved one and ripples out; because I clean the restroom I hear of others who might be like me, but not cleaning a public restroom.  Masks have been a source of protection, decoration, entertainment and ritual shape-shifting and in the everyday life of someone who heals from the affects of others' choices all those reasons for the mask play a part. 

Seasons of change are true for us all, tentative or late I suppose it only matters if you are counting on the change to plant your nature.  Otherwise, grow anyway.

Managing Set-backs

This blog began with a very real shift:  Plan BE made it possible for me to believe it was time to begin feeling better.  Earth Day was my point of reckoning ... from here I launched new beginnings.  I told myself new stories and re-entered my community believing I could be part of it.  I filled this new blog with examples of the new stories and success to Plan BE.  I have felt better and better for three months.

Last week-end I tried to do more than I could manage without tipping the new beliefs into territory filled with old triggers of over-load.  Freeing up myself from years of old experiences is still a process, successes build new foundations in increments, but there are no teams of elves laying in the corner-stones and fill overnight.  Walking into a department store, and staying in there (with my mask) for thirty minutes is a legion feat; riding through banks of Scotch Broom lined highways where newly sprayed Round-up edges are evidenced with the inimitable dead-brown tint; and then visiting friends in their new and wonderful for them kitchen set off the set-back.  Topping it all off, my long-additive choice to comfort myself with wheat (bread/toast/cookies) finally laid me back.

Recovery and healing from the effects of multiple chemical sensitivities is a multiple and unique journey.  My experience with the process re-introduces the methods of coping emotionally and physically with symptoms:  first, do I recognize the triggers; then, how do I respond(or react, each verb is different); do I give myself the compassionate gift of 'time' to accept what is happening.  I'm hear to put the process down so I remember that this set-back was not gracefully accepted.  I resist, and want this to be over so I can get back to the better-and-better feeling life I was having.

"There's no rushing the river."  Life if it is a river will flow or trickle with seasons.  All around us the forest has grown from hibernation to shoulder-high Bracken and boisterous berry bushes filled with bell-shaped blossoms and airports of bees.  I want to feel better now, but it will need to be in increments, sequentially-accessed by going through re-entry.  Count the blessings, and the goodness and use it as mortar in the foundation re-laid so far:  two days without wheat makes a difference (I go through with-drawal like an alcoholic freshly sober); Round-up doesn't clear quickly (I know that) I am weak and my nervous system quivers from head to toe; avoidance is still a necessary coping and healing strategy.

We were at MK's celebration yesterday.  Her beautiful photography was receiving the praise and attention it deserved.  Masked and present outside the home-office where the party gathered I sipped a glass of raspberry seltzer and felt part of the celebration.  How long had it been since I'd help a real glass of anything at a party?  Long enough ago that I don't remember. Two of the guests stopped to ask about the mask.  Both of them aware of chemical sensitivities they shared of other experiences with someone they know who lives with the condition.  "Until you know someone, you just think ...'ah, come on!!" one of the guests said.  A big old diesel truck drove past, but not until it had stopped at the STOP sign while I stood on the porch outside the front door chatting with a friend.  It was just minutes too long, that truck, that chat in the same place. 

Managing set-backs is a sequential access experience.  We have often described our life living in tiny spaces with multiple sensitivities using that description.  Seems it remains so still.

Are you easy with set-backs?

Standing in Line

This is amazing!

How is being in a line amazing?  Measurement is funny and we all do it.  "In this country, you always talk about things in the past based on a year.  We (in England) say "I was x-years old when ..."  Measurement by the moon or by the spoonful we all do it.  There's a spot just yards from my writing tray, a nice renewed for me TV tray that holds a renewed for us laptop.  That spot outside, just yards from this Quonset is being dug up and blocked up for a new tiny space soon to be a bath house.  Separate and small, a shower stall that might in time and opportunity morph into a Japanese style soaking tub will bring us from a pan of wash water to a shower of running, hot water.  Measurements we all do it.  I'm thinking "That will be amazing."

So, back to why is being in a line amazing.  Earlier this week I was in town, standing in a line.  I put my feet in my boots in a line with a bunch of other people aiming at ordering and purchasing something to eat.  While standing, in a public space, with people I saw someone I know.

"Hi,' I said when I saw he was done talking with the woman with things in her hands.
"Oh, hi."  We don't know each other very well, but in this small town when you know someone you become congenial ... friendly.  The man asked how things were going 'out there' familiar as he is with where and somewhat how we live. 
"Great!"  There was time enough to move the conversation into bits of detail while in line.  By the time it was my turn to order I saw that the only goodie I'd like was gone.  Something registered in me, while I experienced what I later described as a wrinkle ... Madeline L'Engle is right about the way time can do that. 

I turned to my neighbor and said, "You go ahead, that raspberry-almond scone is not there."  To my surprise he said, "Well, how about that over on the end, that looks yummy."  "Cinnamon roll.  Hmmm....  no I don't think so." 
"I'd be happy to buy you something." 
"No, thank-you."  Time measured forward.  It was but a few seconds.  I sensed something special had happened there.  I touched the friendly man on the elbow and said, "Nice seeing you," or something like it.  I walked out the door and the feeling somewhere between sadness and awesome tried to describe itself to me.

Later that day I wrote an email to my neighbor thanking him for the genuine kindness of his offer.  I described as best I could the wrinkle that happened when I turned down his offer, and said in some future time, we will be in a line and when he makes that offer again I will say, "Thank you, I'd love one of those raspberry-almond scones."  Being in a line, amazing.

Mokihana C.

Author's Note:  This post originated as a piece of writing done on the on-line creative writing group I conjured up during the months, not long ago, when I was lonely for the rooms and gatherings that were once common-place for me.  I am a writer.  I have loved the company of others, and loved being in the company of other writers.  Life changed, I needed a PLAN BE, but didn't know to call it that. 

I wrote this this weekend, and am thrilled with the fun of being able to spread a story through the many voices of blogging:  I'm absolutely sold on this write-and-publish venue.