March 20, 2003

I fell, headlong after a really nice stint of tight-roping, headlong into nurture deprivation.  I've been doing really well on the diet, as I've mentioned before.  I never felt punished or denied of anything.  Wasn't really having any distinct cravings or longings or even missing the food I wasn't eating.  As I'd planned, on week #3, I started integrating carbs with a high glycemic index back into my diet and starting yesterday, I felt like I could eat all day long.  I didn't fall off the wagon by any means.  I definitely went to the high end of what was OK and maybe a little past, but nowhere near what I used to eat even a month ago.  I opened my eyes to cravings this morning.  Even before I was fully awake, I could think of about 10-15 things that would really, really be good to eat.  Since that was the first thing to greet me, I immediately returned to hard core Low Carb today, figuring I could at least get my blood sugar stabilized while I figure out the next move.  I integrated gradually rather than having a huge carb influx at once, so I know that wasn't it.  I figure I need to find the threshold of having carbs in my diet without pushing me over into the cravings.  It's all a trial and error thing.  Checks and balances.    The clothes still fit loosely, but I'm not losing anything new, which should also rectify with a return to lower carb.  We plant our goals on Saturday for Spring Equinox, so I figure this is all part of clarifying what I'm supposed to be doing.

I'm sure all of this is tied together, the cravings, the upped carbs, the nurture-deprivation.  It started with a recognition of the fragility of the things that I love.  Part of this is tied to Mama dying.  I always thought she'd be around forever.  I became hyperaware of how in a matter of seconds, my life could be changed forever and Eric or one of my children could just be gone from my life.  *I* could be gone from my life.  I know everyone goes through this line of thinking at times, but I think Mom's death made it even more acute.  Here she is, two months dead almost and still passing on her little emotional time bombs.  I'm not one given to fear and panic attacks.  I didn't respond to the Y2K panic, feeling it was all a bunch of bullshit.  I did tarot readings on it, meditated on it and I just didn't feel any danger.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to give people my predictions.   : P  I lived through a time when people dug bomb shelters in their back yard, knowing at any second the Russians (who now make up a good percentage of the population of Sacramento) were going to launch a full scale nuclear attack on us.  I lived through the Vietnam war where the brothers of my friends and my neighbors were dying.  I lived through the Gulf War.  I got through 22 years of being a military wife, knowing at any minute my husband could go away and maybe not come back.  I just refuse to live my life in a state of panic, even refuse to visit there from time to time. 

This attitude also extends to the current political crisis (meaning war).  I've been pressed by a lot of people to give an opinion and honestly, I just don't have one.  Many of my Pagan friends are adamantly opposed the war and are actually disdainful and heavily critical of me that I'm not jumping on the bandwagon to end it.  I have listened to their impassioned arguments and I can see that overall, they have some very valid points and observations.  As I mentioned, I was also a military wife for 22 years and I have also  read some wonderful commentary on why we should  go to war, including this one by my son, Joe and this one that he forwarded to me.  I can see that side of it as well. 

For me, I tend to trust The Universe that we are going in the direction we are supposed to go, no matter how hard that path might be to walk.  If I'm going to be Pagan, I'm going to do it all the way and that involves an explicit trust that we are constantly moving toward our own greatest good.  If the people and country protesting the war had an impact and the US backed down, then that is what was to be.  If the war continues, then that is what is to be.  For those who feel motivated to be activists in one way or another, they are expressing themselves in what they feel is the best way for them, whether that be for or against the war.  It's all part of the process of what is to be, an intricate dance that continues to propel us toward our greatest good. 

I don't want anyone to get the idea that I don't have opinions on anything.  There are many subjects on which I have very strong feelings (childhood vaccination, circumcision, birth options, abortion, religious freedom, censorship, etc) and it is specific in this case that I'm equally open to both sides.  Please do NOT take this as a welcome to e-mail materials to me to convince me of YOUR side.  Please.  I beg you.  :- )  (please)  Since Sept 11, nearly everyone has a view on the situation, often impassioned, and I honor them all.  The only thing that really offends me is when an entire country, race or religious group are blamed for the actions of their leaders or a lunatic fringe.  I've been hearing some really racist, nasty Iraqi comments in the general public and I'm pleased that our leaders are at least acting as though there is a degree of respect for the Iraqi people.  So with that, I leave this to the hands of people who know a whole lot more about these things than I do and to the will of the Universe. 

That said, I've had to attach my feelings regarding the fragility of the things that I love to the same premise as I have addressed the war.  I have to trust that what will happen, will happen.  All I can do is keep my children safe without being an overprotective fanatic, treasure each day with them and with Eric and trust.  So that's where that lies and I'm out of my wide-eyed "what if..." phase.

* * *

Of course, one other aspect of war that is inevitable and that I abhor is that there is absolutely no programming on TV now other than cable syndicated stuff.  It's "OJ Syndrome."  I understand that, dammit, there must be nonstop network coverage.  There must!  If we don't have 24 hour coverage of every inch that ever tank covers, we will miss the critical moment where Sadaam comes up to an ABC news correspondent waving a white hankie and promising an exclusive interview. 

I am completely opposed to the network being flooded with these images of the war.  Not only is it unnecessary (I'm all for newsbreaks for vital info, but if I want to know what's going on, the news really does air in the early evening and I can tune in for it then if I want), but I think it's invasive and unnecessary.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have an off button and I'm not afraid to use it, but I think it's ridiculous to air every little bump and squeak along the way.  I thought the same thing about the Sept 11th tragedy.  It was particularly sad that the networks had to be asked to not air the footage of the planes colliding into the building because the kids who were watching thought it was happening over and over again.  I think about how the mother, Aren, of a little girl named Baylee Almon, the one-year-old girl in the now famous photo from the Oklahoma City bombing with fireman, Chris Fields carrying her tiny body out of the rubble, was forced to look at that photo over and over as it became something of an icon for the tragedy.  Over and over, seeing your dead child on mugs and the news and posters... she was on the Oprah show talking about how painful it was had the difficulty of obtaining closure when faced with her dead child's visage every day.  Why does that need to happen?  Why do we need to be flooded with images that are so horrific?  I'm tired of the old song and dance about "different people need to grieve in different ways."  It's about respect for those who have lost.  It's also about Charles Porter IV polishing up the Pulitzer Prize he won for immortalizing the moment of an infant's death or rather, shortly thereafter.  How many times do the people who loved Christa McAuliffe need to watch the Challenger explode?  I am totally appalled by what tragedy mongers people are.  It's as if they gravitate toward feeling bad, the Gawking at a Car Crash as You Drive By Effect.  Watch it over and over and over so that you totally internalize the pain and trauma and anger over what has happened. 

I just saw the cover of (not sure but I think it was) Us Magazine that declared, "How much do they make??"  The cover showed people like Tom Cruise, Oprah Winfrey, etc and promised that the insides would reveal the person's net worth, yearly take, etc.  Why?  Why is any of that any of our damned business?  Why are we such voyeurs that we need to be all up into the personal finances of people?  So they make a fat ton of money and we don't... so what?  Yeah, they put themselves out there by being public figures, but is nothing sacred?  Are we really entitled to be privy to their every  private moment?  Isn't it particularly sad that when a public figure wants to marry in private or bury a dead loved one that they have to fight off the press' forcefully intruding nose?  No one who is even remotely famous is allowed to go through one of the most painful experiences ever, a divorce, without facing down the most intimate of grilling about who, what, when, why and how many times.  God, divorce sucks under the best of circumstances, much less without flashbulbs catching your every painful moment that comes of it.  There is absolutely no respect, no boundaries, no corner from which we defer our eyes out of good taste and graciousness.  There *is* no graciousness.  Princess Diana DIED because the press just *had* to know what she was doing in that Benz with Dodi Fayed and her driver was trying to outrun them for a minute of peace.  Even then, there was no regret, no pause to question whether or not this is a good thing.  Business as usual.  That's why on my website, Eye on Soaps, we don't mention anything about an actor's private life.  I don't report on what movies they're doing, marriages, divorces, births arrest.  I figure for me, news and info coverage begins and ends with the show itself. 

So now we watch.  So now we watch the war unfold.  So now we see footage of every moment, nonstop, flooding the TV.  Not me, baby.  Let me know when it's over.  Meanwhile, thank God for cable.  Thank God I don't have to watch General Hospital.  Time to download some more MP3's.  I'm still In A Village State of Mind  (scroll down to Nov 13th) and nope, I'm not going to give in to the fear, panic and dread.  It is what it is and it will be what it is to be.

OK, I'm done with that.

Time for me to be productive or what "will be" around here is I won't have a decently clean house and will continue to get further and further behind and lose the ground I gained in the past could of months.  Man, I still hate housework, but I gotta get real and get it done.  It's a small price to pay to have things looking in a way that makes me feel proud.  After a good part of the day onto no carbs, the cravings I woke up with are gone and I'm feeling much more grounded and comfortable, so best to take advantage of the moment and get to work.  Much love!