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I strolled through the park this morning with the dogs and was listening to a Bill Moyers’ podcast where he was interviewing Michael Pollan. First, this is a biased statement I LOVE MICHAEL POLLAN. Okay, now that I’ve informed you of my bias, I’ll point you to the open letter to the President that Pollan took out when Obama was elected. Perhaps one of the best pieces of writing the New York Times has ever printed.

Pollan and Moyers sat down to talk about the state of food and I have to say if there is something that every person in this world can do, it’s listen to this podcast, read Pollan’s books, and vote with your fork. Cook, shop green markets, grow a garden, etc. We can do it!

It’s interesting that today, I was going through my media blogs and came across this little gem, Alex Bogusky, who left his eponymous firm a few years ago because of his disgust with media in general has resurfaced as a proselytizer against Coke – the very client that he worked for in his past life. Beautiful transition.

Tatjana and I cook every day and have never eaten any meal that came prepared in a box from the freezer at the grocery. Sure it takes some time, but it’s so worth it. And our winter garden is planted and ready for action.

Tin has been really digging his bike lately as he is getting more balanced on it and fast too. He and his friend Jerrod took off zipping around Big Lake on Monday and we had to run to keep up. They only paused when they saw a bunch of kids playing on the Wayne Amedee sculpture and wanted to join them.

They say the early bird gets the worm, but today that was not true. It was day two of Tin waking up with nightmares and my lack of sleep. Everything was thrown back an hour or more. I ended up walking to City Park after 8 and I grumbled the whole way because that meant my swimming would be pushed out as well and then something happened to change my frown to a smile.

I was watching the immature white ibises chuking around the banks of the lagoon, and up in the tree sat a Black-crowned night-heron in chill out mode. But across the lagoon came gliding the steady gait of a Cooper’s Hawk with its spotted under feathers. He gave off an aura of don’t mess with me.

Rarely see those birds in the park. I passed a father and son as we circled and started back and the father said to me, “We meet again.” And I said, “Beautiful day.” And he said, “Idinit.”

We remained in birthday celebration mode and went over to celebrate Ben’s 49th with some pickin’ and grinnin’ happening on their screen porch. Pots of red beans were simmering on the stove, kids were running in and around, a fat frosted carrot cake was on the table and the musicians lined up to sing and pick and play some good old tunes such as – She’ll be coming around the mountain, Jambalaya, Bridge over Troubled Water, Leaving on a Jet Plane, and more.

Tin had been so excited about going over to Ben’s house because he knew that up there on the top of the armoire lived Ben’s trombone and he coveted it so dearly. Finally Ama let him have it and he could not have been happier.

If there is one thing I love more than most – it’s live music on a screen porch on Sunday afternoon with friends.

Apparently this period is the busiest time for birthdays and as a matter of fact Oct 5th claims to have the most people born on that date – simply because nine months prior was New Year’s Eve. And so it seems that we have been on a birthday roll, kiddies, adults, or one of our own – it is like a Libra explosion around here.

And while everyone is busy celebrating their birth, I am still in my contemplative mode. Yesterday, as we set out for a bike ride to celebrate Tatjana’s new bike and birthday, the neighborhood lawn guy – a big, burly hunk of a man – came over and asked me if I was alright. I was sitting on the front stairs putting on my shoes before going to pump air in the tires. I said, yeah, thanks.

He said, “I don’t really know what’s wrong with you, but I’ve been thinking about you.” And I explained Hashimoto’s and Alopecia and auto immune deficiencies in my basic elevator pitch. He said, “Look, you don’t know me, but I’ve been through hell, which is the best way I can describe it: my wife and I separated and nine months later I started seeing our neighbor and then we now have a one year old and she turned out to be a pathological liar and I have a six year old from my marriage and my wife is full of hatred and … .”

I think he wanted a hug but both of us were sweaty as I’d just come from Zumba and he was on his third yard.

I thought about him as we rode out to the lakefront and about many who have come to me almost in empathy for the way I look because it touches something about the way they feel. If only I could harness my auto immune to help others with their rough patches and setbacks. I’m still thinking about it, but I don’t know if I have a clear answer.

We’re headed out today to celebrate yet one more person’s birthday, and I know this for sure, life is like this: we’re born, we grow up, we fall in love, we make a mess out of our lives, and then we die. And sometimes you are the person who reaches out to help someone back up, and sometimes it’s you on the ground with your hand stretched upwards.

But the cycle is endless, till it’s not.

Today is Tatjana’s 46th birthday.

She was conceived on New Year’s Day in 1966. The fact her birthdate has three sixes in it should not come as a surprise.

In honor of her birthday, we will drink gin tonics.

I read an article about aging that was interesting because it pointed to the fact that aging actually charges the mind towards innovation and creativity. And many points stood out for me:

Older people have a greater capacity for empathy because empathy is learned and refined as we age.

An aging brain can better tease out patterns and see the big picture.

Maybe it’s because you realize that the future is briefer, so you tend to live more in the present. That contributes to creativity.

Nudge your neurons, Taylor suggests. Shake things up. Stay physically active. Keep doing different things. Challenge your assumptions. Become comfortable with ambiguity. Listen to differing points of view and develop the ability to accept differences. Travel. Learn different languages.

A friend of mine has finally discovered that her horrendous migraines are a result of her gluten intolerance, but on looking up gluten intolerance you see that emotions play a large role in it. Similarly, I was reading what Dr. Weill has to say about Hashimoto’s and he suggests an inflammation free diet, which means no lactose, but again Hashimoto’s and emotions are delicately balanced as well.

A lot of the natural health articles I have read accuse inflammation of basically everything you can imagine, but the truth is that alopecia is when the hair follicles are inflamed and wont allow hair growth – hence why I rub a cortisone cream on my scalp every night. But as my dermatologist said, you have to fix what is broken inside of you for that to even work.

And that my dear is emotional health, so while there is a light at the end of the tunnel, the tunnel needs to be (perhaps even extreme) a path towards emotional well being. I thought when we went away for two months this summer that it would be a de-stresser but I found Cadiz and single parenting to be more stress than I could imagine, and then a full party schedule on the beach kicked my butt and ten days in a heat wave in Croatia and coming home to a hurricane was a bit much for someone seeking a path of extreme destressing.

So my new goal is nothing to bother me. And time spent stress-free, enjoying my life and perhaps giving up meat and lactose for a period until my body can rearrange itself towards health.

It seems as if every conversation I am having with a friend goes something like this:

I feel that I want to do something in my life that has meaning, but I’m not sure what it is, and I’m not even sure I can get excited about anything right now.

It’s called, MALAISE (thank you, Jimmy Carter – although he never said the word malaise, his speech became known as the Malaise Speech) – we are here again where we were in the late 70s, in a malaise, a funk, a crisis of confidence if you will.

Look, I for one can tell you that today when I spoke to my friend who has had four deaths in four years and she said ENOUGH, or my other friend who says she’s just damn tired (OF EVERYTHING), or the friend today who said I just don’t even know what I want or if I care, that this is not something I’m experiencing because of my alopecia, Hashimoto’s, career change, etc etc, no, this is something we are all feeling.

It’s a GLOBAL MALAISE.

And so if we take a deep collective breath and say, MALAISE three times, then we can know that some, if not most, of this is cyclical and we are all feeling it and it’s not just us, it’s everything and we have had ENOUGH of everything, then we can sort of start to walk a little slower and look at butterflies, or swim a little and notice how our body breaks through the water, or watch the birds a little more, and always pay attention to the phases of the moon and the wonder each phase brings.

An aside: Tin came running out of his room last night with a nightmare and said that he dreamt the alarm had gone off and he bumped his head. This morning in trying to recall the nightmare he said he dreamt that the cow was jumping over the moon, and the moon was shining a light on him so bright but he knew the cow would protect him.

So think of it this way, today things look this way (MEH) and tomorrow they will look that way (OKAY) and sometimes they appear this way (YAY), and all of it is going to be okay – you just have to remember that even a malaise passes and things change.

Overheard by teacher:
Cadence: Babies come from vaginas.
Tin: [pause] My mommy packed me grapes in my lunch.
Cadence: My mommy is going to have a baby this weekend.
Tin: My mommy has a big dinning room. Want to play marching band?
Cadence: Okay!

Overheard by Cadence mom:
Tin: Jared is my boyfriend.
Cadence: I know. Mine too.
Tin: I am your boyfriend too.
Cadence: Yeah you are.