Tea Cups

It was about that time when mommy started collecting her treasures. Every Saturday she’d come home with precious-stone plated globes or a washing tub from the civil war. Then she’d look up the prices on e-Bay to feel good about the $20 she’d just turned into $200 by bidding at the city’s hidden goldmines. But it was the tea cups she had her eye on. She could spot and sort the value of antique teacups from across the auction hall, and the house just filled up with them. Daddy said Titan would walk in the dining room and howl at all the tea cups, then walk out with a cocked head looking back at Daddy as if to say, “What in the world is she doing with all those tea cups?”
Like almost all of mommy’s successes, the cups were borne of stress. One year when work was too much to swallow the house filled up with yarn, crochet hooks and slowly a step by step chronological showcase of the mastery of crochet. Once there was simply little else accomplishable with a skein she laid low for a while before moving onto something else and something else until it was tea cup city.

Meanwhile I was on a jet over the jungle when I began making out the slithery ‘ssssss’ and the hard ‘k’s and ‘t’s – the important consonances that give structure to a whisper. It had been almost 72 hours since I’d last slept and my ears began piecing together the sounds despite efforts to simply push them away and close my eyes.

Titan would never figure it out completely. He was Daddy’s dog; he went on long quiet walks, he had never sat at the kitchen table listening to women like I had. Though he must have heard something – that’s why he kept howling back at them. Between them all, I guess the cups had centuries listening to women talk around them; hundreds of patterns having been held in the hands of mothers. They must’ve loved hearing the secrets as much as I had loved listening to mommy’s stories while she permed a girlfriend’s hair in the kitchen. Sitting at the table, I’d practice writing my name in cursive, feet not quite reaching the floor and listen to how she drank castor oil so her water would break, or how it was when this one left her husband or what it was like when that one’s father died.

All the kitchen tables they’d seen, all the women they’d heard – it’s no wonder they began to whisper too. I suppose I know now that’s why she started collecting them. She knew they’d call me home. And if she gathered enough, I’d be able to hear them across the globe.

the humanity of church and chiropractics

On the vibrations of an "OM" in yoga class, it occurred to me that I'm expecting too much from my chiropractor.

It sounded like this:
DEEP inhale
"ooooOOOOOYOUAREEXPECTINGTOOMUCHFROMTHECHIROPRACTERMMMMMmmmmmmm"
another DEEP inhale
But there were some 30 chiropractic sessions before this realization, among which were the good, the bad and the metaphorical.....

I don't know what's wrong with me but my whole life I've liked church. However, I think chiropractics has given me a glimpse of what church must be like for the people who aren't that into it; the people who feel guilty instead of enlivened, or the ones who get sick of waiting for answers and solutions from an institution that promises such, and the people who learn to shut up instead of speak up because no one's listening anyway.
For example, if I have a C appointment after a stressful day, instead of thinking the C’s office is a place for healing and recuperation, I feel guilty that I’ve been stressed all day because they always tell me the stress is really bad for my already contracted neck muscles, but the guilt just leads to more stress. Is that how you non-church-goers feel when you finally step in the doors and some robed individual tells you you’re not trying hard enough? And overall there are just a lot of questions still unanswered and a lot of healing still undone...I can see discouraged churchgoers nodding here too.

But the upside is that my chiropractic disappointment reminded me that I don’t love church because its miraculous but because its humane!! Dunt dut duhhhhh…

One of my top five miraculous humanity church experiences of all time was in a church business meeting following months of serious congregational conflict. In the heat of conflict and shaky resolution one of the grumpiest of the grumpies shuffled her way to the microphone for what I thought was another complaint. Instead she made us all stand up, hold hands in a circle; look foe and friend alike in the eye and sing “Make us one lord.” It was just like in Whoville when even no gifts on Christmas morning could not hold back love and unity (and song for that matter).
Well, amongst the guilt and disappointment of the chiropractics, I had a church/whoville experience. First, I got in a fight with the chiro (who does that?…but we do spend a lot of time together). It was emotional, slightly ridiculous and did not go well, as most fights do not. After storming out, I was told by my agent and trusted advisor to go back in and demand professional services! Which I did. But that didn’t mean I was looking forward to the next visit.

But alas the Grinch did not prevail! Despite our fight, and my deep dread, the next visit my chiro brought me a cookie! A starbucks cookie! (Which is like gold in this land of rice and potatoes.) And then we hugged! Starbucks cookies are not professional in the least, but chocolate chip couldn’t be better when you’re expecting a grumpy to point fingers from the podium and you have no gifts to unwrap. Humanity to miracle's rescue.

Today is DO NOT GIVE UP day!

This is incredible...whatever you're fighting for, keep at it!


Man bites snake in epic struggle

A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.

The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya's Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.

Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.

Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.

The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening.


"We want to arrest the snake because any one of us could fall a victim,"
Peter Katam,Police superintendent

Mr Nyaumbe used his shirt to smother the snake's head and prevent it from swallowing him.

His employer arrived with police and villagers, who tied the python with a rope and pulled them both down from the tree with a thud.

Peter Katam, superintendent of police in Malindi district, told the BBC News website: "Two officers on patrol were called and they found this man was struggling with a snake on a tree.

"The snake had coiled his hands and was trying to swallow him but he struggled very hard. The officers and villagers managed to rescue him and he was freed.

"He himself was injured on the lower lip of the mouth - it was bleeding a little bit - as the tip of the snake's tail was sharp when he said he bit it."

Mr Nyaumbe told the Daily Nation newspaper how he resorted to desperate measures after the python, which had apparently been hunting livestock, encircled his upper body in its coils.

"I stepped on a spongy thing on the ground and suddenly my leg was entangled with the body of a huge python," he said.

"I had to bite it."

'Very mysterious'

Supt Katam told the BBC the officers had wanted to shoot the snake but could not do so for fearing of injuring Mr Nyaumbe.

"If it wasn't for the villagers and officers who helped him, he would have been swallowed by the snake over the Easter holiday," said Supt Katam.

He added: "It's very mysterious, this ability to lift the man onto the tree. I've never heard of this before."

The police officer said they took the snake to a sanctuary in Malindi town but it escaped overnight, probably from a gap under the door in the room where it was kept.

"We are still seriously looking for the snake," said Supt Katam. "We want to arrest the snake because any one of us could fall a victim."

The ChiropractOde

Your table is not magical and your hands are not golden.
Your character not that of a saint and your office no different than the doc's.

But still there is something magical in the possibility that all we need has been given us already.
That hands can heal as equally as cortisone injections.
That a simple table is worth a whole pharmacy.
That swimming in water could be as therapeutic as swimming in lidocaine patches.

And blessed be your chiropractic infancy in this land, that you may forever be as humble and explicative as you are in these early years when your services are still unfamiliar here.

It is evident you are not influenced by the lingering classism and oligarchy of the country. That a patient has a right to question you; unlike the doctors who think they are dioses.

And though your au naturale approach may be lengthy and unabbreviated, I so appreciate your less-side-effects effect, the way environment lovers choose washing soda over ammonia .

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is sextuple beauty
and what is good is six times good
when it is a matter of 6 vertebrae in pain.

Ode to My Socks

Among my favorite poems, odes remind me that "To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin..." Plus Neruda's odes redeem his TERRIBLE Love poems!

"Ode to My Socks" by Pablo Neruda (translated by Robert Bly)

Mara Mori brought me
a pair of socks
which she knitted herself
with her sheepherder's hands,
two socks as soft as rabbits.
I slipped my feet into them
as if they were two cases
knitted with threads of twilight and goatskin,
Violent socks,
my feet were two fish made of wool,
two long sharks
sea blue, shot through
by one golden thread,
two immense blackbirds,
two cannons,
my feet were honored in this way
by these heavenly socks.
They were so handsome for the first time
my feet seemed to me unacceptable
like two decrepit firemen,
firemen unworthy of that woven fire,
of those glowing socks.

Nevertheless, I resisted the sharp temptation
to save them somewhere as schoolboys
keep fireflies,
as learned men collect
sacred texts,
I resisted the mad impulse to put them
in a golden cage and each day give them
birdseed and pieces of pink melon.
Like explorers in the jungle
who hand over the very rare green deer
to the spit and eat it with remorse,
I stretched out my feet and pulled on
the magnificent socks and then my shoes.

The moral of my ode is this:
beauty is twice beauty
and what is good is doubly good
when it is a matter of two socks
made of wool in winter.

non-solidarity

looking through the face hole in the table at the chiropractor’s office, i reach my arms around to see if i can hold a book under the hole and read while i lie there with the hot compress on my back - but I cant reach. next a crescendo of internal bickering begins: why isnt this table in the middle of the room where the physical therapist can walk on both sides of it, instead of against the wall thatmakesnosensedoesntherrightarmgettired?....but that fades into enrique iglesias on the radio followed by my bad translation of his lyrics. eventually i settle in for the 20 minutes of heat compress i have coming. all i can see is the carpet. it's sorta a blue blend and i start picking apart the colors in it- a typical business or school carpet at home- but here it’s a peace-giving luxury. i can feel a noticeable calm in my chest, just by seeing this carpet.

i havent written lately because like thumper in bambi I’ve had nothing good to say. i've been put through the ringer, but felt i haven't handled it with aplomb, i've been given plenty to learn from, but felt i haven’t learned a thing. and if my high school teacher's poster was true "that your whole life has been a preparation for this moment" then my goodness, what have i been doing all this time? and as for when in rome...well im just not roman and its showed.

but i'm worried about that carpet. well the carpet and the taxis really. i've gone back to taxis, in fact ive become estranged from the bus, i pass her in my taxi and look away. but i think the carpet and the bus are different. what i mean is, i think i drew a line -- though whether i drew it or i simply have it is unclear -- either way its there.

even now i struggle to write because i haven’t figured it out. i think its that i'm comfortable making some choices in "solidarity", more accurately said, some choices of intentional discomfort in order to a. learn and b. live more Simply, but having sub-par healthcare is not one of them and what that says about me i dont care. that may seem an obvious choice, but its been a trying one. the story of the carpet is that i started treatment in a clean, costly but ineffective clinic, then moved to the equivalent of a bring your own resources, dirty summer camp, that actually caused harm, and finally ended up with the carpet.

i can say that the first hand experience of second rate care exposed me to another reality, deepened my understanding of the struggles of poverty and will hopefully lead to greater compassion, but i'll tell you i wouldn't do it again. and after all that’s happened i can justify my anger and after buildings with crumbling walls i can accept my peace at seeing the luxurious carpet. that’s why the carpet is on one side of the line i've found.

but the taxis i can’t justify. not even when the bus is so bursting-at-the-seams-full that my purse gets literally stuck between two people's butts. for all my healthcare confusion, the taxis are simple: "a private railroad car is not an acquired taste, one takes to it immediately."

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Until last week, I was unaware that the sea can be farmed. To date, I'm thinking its genius and I haven't figured out the negatives yet. Difficulties to be overcome were listed for me, but otherwise it appeared completely organic and sustainable.

As usual I found myself asking, "How did I get here?" while I literally hopped from rock to rowboat and headed out to sea off the Peruvian shore in Ancash. I was there to see an economic development project, where a bunch of Peruvian fishermen figured out they could cultivate scallops. By anchoring cables across the ocean floor and hanging mesh cages with the baby seed scallops inside, they could simply wait for them to grow by feeding off the sea plankton already in the water, then redistribute them to bigger cages until they're ready to be removed and cooked up at Red Lobster. They can even capture the fertilized scallop "eggs" to make more.

My rowboat captain happened to be the "president" of his 19 person fishing association. He was the most well-spoken uneducated fisherman I've ever met in my life. Their association had converted into a business in order to compete for a grant and participate in a training program. He was so convincing, he seemed the perfect grant candidate: in need, but completely qualified, positive and dedicated.

In need because he hadn't made any money on his investment in the last two years and believed he would need to suffer just one year more to see profits.

Qualified because he'd been a fisherman for some 30 years. When he listed potential threats to the scallops, it included changes in the current which could affect the oxygen levels in the water; this could be measured by an O2 Sensor, but usually he could smell the change in the sea.

He admitted to making mistakes in the project and expressed having learned from them as eloquently as possible in yellow rubber wading pants.

But what got me, is that this whole time he was rowing. He was individually rowing a big rowboat full of people against the current. And he just kept rowing. It took forever; I am almost certain that had I been captain I would have suggested we all swim and pull in the boat with a rope. But as long as we kept our eyes on him, his even strokes, the rhythm of his movements as equally hypnotizing as the tide, I felt calm. The moment I looked at the shore, I felt we hadn't moved at all and began to doubt we'd make it in with the single man rowing system we had going.

Eventually he said the perfect grant line. After enthusing the grantmaker with all his qualifications and potential he said, "I hope we get the grant, but with or without it we'll get there."

For a second I wasn't sure if "there" referred to "profitable scallop farming" or the "shore". And since I'm writing this from the rowboat, please send funds to the address below:

One Well Spoken Fisherman
Just Kidding, Peru

Disorienting Ducks

Lima disorients me. Cardinal directions, seasons of the year, conversion rates and world order crash around in my head as unruly as the nighttime waves on the city’s beaches. When I think the Pacific Ocean is to the West of the Continent, Limeños say its South of the city; just as the exchange rate reaches 3 Soles to the dollar, I discover I don’t divide well by 3 in my head; and each time I devour a savory Papas a la Huancaina or a delicious Ceviche, I forget that I am consuming these culinary treats in a nation not so different from Bolivia and not so far from a 40% poverty rate as they would like to believe.

Sometimes I have “Lima disorientations”. Those ones come from a general sense of Lima’s strange place in the world and even within her country: such a developed city for such an impoverished nation. Recent weeks saw Bolivia-style protests in five Peruvian provinces, but with virtually no affect on the disconnected capital. The only action I’ve seen was on the bus when my driver almost hit a motorcycle. (After exchanging profanities, the motorist got off his bike and walked to my driver’s window where a fistfight broke out and I had to move from my seat behind the driver.)

And sometimes my disorientation comes from taking in a new lifestyle, job, and country. I spend a few minutes every few days deciding if I need to scream at all the Peruvians that don’t know how to wait in a line, or just accept, what in the moment, feels like a tremendous injustice. – That’s a “cultural disorientation”.

But those aren’t the only ones I’m having of late. Sometimes I have the life ones. The “life disorientations” have to do with bank accounts, and bottom lines. The life ones happen when there are clashes between what I say and what I do; between what I want to be and who I want to be. They happen when I can’t tell if humility was kidnapped, pride was beat up, or if reality just stole the show. And the life disorientations mix into all the other disorientations like Bacardi Dark back when Mark Wahlberg was Marky Mark, and they spin around, something fierce until all I can do is pray the same crappy prayers about them over and over and hope for an answer.

And I found my answer at my least favorite place in Lima: the US Embassy. I love America. I took American History three times in school and I taught it to GED Students. I cried watching delegates from each state proudly stand up in the convention to say crazy things like, “Aloha from the Pineapple state, the Dems from Hawaii cast x votes for her native son…” -as if it was proof that democracy works and everyone gets a say! But I do not like going to the embassy. It's larger than the state department in Washington and has more security than the Green Zone. I mean what are they doing in there? They always confiscate my iPod and my Gatorade bottle and they call me “Seeen-yore-ah” until they realize I’m American – its just awful. And I don’t even have to wait in the long line. I get to go in the short line. The long line is for Peruvians who want a visa. And they look nervous…even the wealthy businessmen who’ve been to the US before look nervous. The long line has a special embassy guy come over and shuffle them along and measure their passport pictures. And being in the long line, means you better have worn comfy shoes, because needing to impress or not, you’re gonna be there all morning.

I knew about the two lines, but I didn’t know that across the street from the embassy is the “waiting room”. Almost all those nervous people in the long line have someone who loves them, crossing their fingers across the street on the curb. There are no benches or grass, just a dirty ole corner with a lot of hopes and well wishes. And on this last embassy visit, instead of standing in the short line I stood with the hopefuls on the corner and I waited. At first I observed the others, then I got tired and sat down, then I got excited because I realized my bus goes right by there (embassy, home and beach – what a route!), and then I tried to read, and then I put on my glasses and squinted to see if I could see who was coming out the revolving turnstiles. But with all that waiting, eventually the spinning started and I gave in to the disorientations…the Lima ones, the culture ones and of course the life ones and when it got to be too much, I started the crappy prayers. And that’s when God slapped me and as my head swung back, I almost shouted aloud: “I don’t care about those crappy prayers today. Today I care about the same thing that everyone else on this dirty ole curb cares about." And it was the best answer ever to realize that in the disoriented spinning of my priorities, the circling ducks really are in a row and the really brave hope-duck is head of the line.