adventures in the flotation tank

     There are two kinds of people: those who, when they read about sensory deprivation in flotation tanks, think, "I've got to do that someday," and those that just underline sensory deprivation and study it for the test.
     Actually, no! That can't be right. Because I underline it and think "I've got to do that someday." So maybe there is only one type of person. Maybe everyone wants to be weightless and floating in complete darkness and silence in a tank. Maybe I've found the difference between humans and other species. It's not the ability to use tools: it's the desire to try a flotation tank.

     Lo and behold, in this fantabulous 21st century, flotation tanks have moved out of research labs and into spas. Psych labs have long used them to test the effects of sensory deprivation on stressed out people. It turns out that being weightless, in complete darkness and in total silence, is so relaxing you kind of lose touch with your body. It can help with addictions, with stress, pain, fatigue -- all the general effects of living in a world where sound, light, and gravity prevail.
     Oh, sure, some people report having hallucinations, and some are miffed that while floating their brains just seem not to want to do much of anything. While floating, they are too spaced out to think, and that bothers them. But having my brain lose its get-up-and-go for 60 minutes has always sounded pretty good to me, to tell you the truth. Being too relaxed to think, for me, I knew would be a very salubrious thing.

     So I book a float session. And for what feels like a long time I can hardly wait to stop hardly waiting for it or for anything else and just be floating in the silent darkness.
     David greets me at the desk. He says that no one has booked the tank after me, and asks if I would like to stay for 90 minutes. Yes, yes, yes, please! I am like the kid who is next in line for the elephant ride at the Bronx Zoo. That means excited, in case you are the second of the two kinds of people in the world: those who want to ride an elephant and those who have no desire whatsoever. David walks me to the tank room, and gives me a little orientation session.
     When he leaves, I shower off, then step into the tank and lie down in a body-temperature solution that contains 1000 pounds of epsom salts. I turn off the little blue light that helps you find your way into the water, lie back, and float in the darkness.
     How do I describe the feeling?
     Would blowtorch to the privates be too strong?
"A Bic® lighter to the loins" definitely understates the sensation. I lie there and wonder if I have perhaps accidentally gotten into one of those tubs that gradually eats away at the flesh. I have a flash of David, annoyed that I have overstayed my appointment time, finally coming to get me and finding that I've completely dissolved.
     Maybe I have died and have been sent to the Spa of Hell, I think, as I try to have that experience where your brain is too spaced out to think anything at all. I think of all the mistakes I've made, all the wrongs I've committed, and I'm just not sure the punishment fits my admittedly many crimes. This seems over the top.
 
I think it would be best to have this story take place in two blog entries. I'll leave you to float for a few days. Try to think about nothing at all.
   

   

how we know we are one

Hi, everyone. I know you're there, even though most of you never make a peep. I am feeling extra connected to the whole raggedy human family today, and I can see you and feel you.

It's not often that you walk down the street and know that most people are thinking the same thing you are thinking, but that's how it's been today. Even the cashier at Whole Foods, or the person who is backing out their car as you negotiate with your eyes which person will go first, or the person at the post office who takes your package -- everyone, in the spaces between other things, is thinking about what happened to those families yesterday.

We keep moving through our days, we the lucky ones who have days that are far enough from the tragedy not to be wholly paralyzed by it. But there is something within that you can feel in your belly, and now and then you think, "What is this I am feeling?" and then you remember. The feeling surges for a long moment, like a wail, and then you go back to putting away the groceries. You have a brief conversation with someone you love. It is mundane, soothing in its smallness. Did you give the dog his aspirin? You wrap the aspirin in some goat cheese and the dog snarfs it into his toothless mouth. As you rinse off your fingertips, there is a space again. You let the water run over your hands, and you picture those children, and the parents who loved them, the sisters and brothers and grandparents and cousins and uncles and aunts and teachers and friends and neighbors and people driving by on Route 84 and people cooking supper for their families on the other side of the world. You come back to the unimaginable scene that you must imagine, and you think of the people who searched for their children afterwards and squeezed them so hard, sobbing with relief and grief, somehow both in one agonized, joyful, excruciating embrace. And then you imagine the unimaginable experience of the parents whose children were not in the crowd of living, breathing, crying children, and you can see those parents shatter into pieces, you can hear the howl of their pain and you realize you might not be able to bear what they are having to bear.

It all happens in that long moment standing by the sink. You turn off the water and don't know what else to do than to go back to what you were doing and wait for the next surge of sadness.

This is how we know that we are bits of one large thing; it is this feeling in my belly and in yours. I know you are there. I can see you and feel you.

Ayurvedic consultation

Like the rest of you, many times over the years I have tried to figure out my dosha. You know, my Ayurvedic archetype. There's vata, pitta, and kapha, and each represents a different combination of the elements, and shows up differently in each body. I've read a couple of books about Ayurvedic medicine, and taken all the available questionnaires to determine my dosha. But whenever I try to pinpoint my type, I'm left scratching my head (which, it turns out, is consistent with my body's dosha): I'm partly this, partly that. Apparently my mental dosha differs from my physical dosha, which explains something, but I will have to think about it for a long time before I understand what that something is, because that's just how my mental dosha works.

After hearing an interesting lecture on Ayurvedic medicine during my course at Kripalu, I decided to schedule a consultation with the Ayurvedic specialist on staff. I wanted to know how my furnace is doing. Essentially, we each are a furnace, and our fire is either burning efficiently (think steadily burning, warming fire), too quickly (think throwing dry paper onto that fire) or too damply (think wet leaves on the fire).

I filled out the six-page questionnaire that asked about everything from my sweat production to the rhythm of my "evacuation" to the speed of my speech. I'll spare you the details. Okay, okay: Scant to moderate; just fine, thank you; and erratic.

The specialist typed my dosha in short order by noting my general frame and assorted features, checking my Eastern medicine pulses, listening to my erratic speech. Vata, she says. Pola, you are very Vata, she says. Vata's elements are ether and air, and the energy is cold and dry. She gives me a little lecture about energy cycles of one's life, cycles of the year, cycles of each day. She and I are meeting in the cold and dry point of the day, the year, my life. It's hard to find balance in my energy when I carry my cold and dry Vata body through a cold and dry day in the cold and dry season of my life. My furnace is like that guy in the Jack London story who is trying to light a fire in the dead of winter; I can't get a good, steady flame going. I start to feel chilled just hearing about it, and zip up my vest.

She tells me I once basked in the warm fire of youth, which has more Kapha energy, but now I have entered my "wisdom years," which are all Vata.
"Wisdom years!" I chuckle. "I'll bet you learned to say that in this country."
"Yes," she confesses. "I once told a patient she was old, and she said that was offensive to Americans. So now I say 'wisdom years.'"
"Well, it's okay with me. You can say old."

So she does. She speaks frankly from that point onward: Your energy is cold and dry. Your body is drying up, pola. All right, already! Geez. You don't have to hit me over the head with it.

She gives me a long list of dos and don'ts. Among the many instructions for balancing Vata in a Vata time of life is not to eat so much cold food; she 'd like most of what I eat to be cooked. When my family has a salad for dinner, I should wilt mine, she says. Mmmmmmm, soggy salad. She's not wild about my kale chips, though, which are too dry and crisp, like me. I should eat smooth food, but not cold smoothies. She would prefer, too, that I warm up my gazpacho in the summertime. Yummmmm, warm cold soup. 

Laura is delighted with one of the Ayurvedic consultant's recommendations: that we turn up the heat in the house while I am in my wisdom years. I've conceded 4 whole degrees in the daytime, and we're now set at 66 degrees. The consultant thinks I should aim for 70-72, but she's not paying for the oil.

Speaking of which, among her strongest recommendations is that I give myself a warm (almond) oil massage twice a week. Not in the shower, where you might be able to stay warm and drip into the tub. No, you should do this some other time outside a tub -- dripping onto everything around you: your eyes, your clothing, keyboard, grocery lists, the dog--who is also in his wisdom years--as he wanders blindly by.

The instructions are as follows: Warm half a cup of almond oil in a pan. Pour half of it onto your head and massage it in. Rub the rest of the oil onto your body. Keep it on for an hour.

I feel like I am not deep enough into my wisdom years while I try this procedure. How one remains warm while covered with oil -- which is warm for all of a minute and then soon is body temperature, then soon after that is oh, about 66 degrees -- I cannot figure out.

But I am game, and I like that the Ayurvedic doctor promises me the oil will actually get absorbed by my skin and that some of the oil will nourish my brain. That I could use. I rub a quarter cup of warm almond oil into my scalp, tuck a towel into my collar, and try to continue my morning.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

I confess that I do not massage the oil all over my body. I am not up for being naked, cold, and slippery for an hour. Plus I'm thinking that if someone came to the door, it'd be both embarrassing and dangerous:
How'd she die? 
Doorbell rang. She slid straight into the door. 
Poor thing. Right smack in the middle of her wisdom years. Tsk.

There is a long, thoughtful pause before someone asks what they are all thinking: What's with the grease?

balloons and burgers

Die-really-hard followers may remember that a couple of years ago I inflated a small, well-meaning helium balloon called The Letter Composer, and let it fly into space. I watched it float away, and then I think I actually saw it explode when it was just the tiniest dot against the sky. I had been hoping to write letters for people who were in knotty interpersonal situations. I'd listen to their story and then help them make their point -- respectfully stating their case, bringing them closer to repair or closure, helping them feel heard. It would combine the writer bits in me with the therapist bits in me. TLC would be offering TLC. It was a lovely experiment in how quickly something can get lost on the Internet if you don't tie a very sturdy string to it -- a string with tightly fastened colorful ribbons of marketing, GroupOns, and Google Ads.

That reminds me of how last year, when Laura was trying to figure out her next professional move, she toyed for awhile with the idea of international educational consulting. "GO FOR IT!" begged a well-connected friend in Hong Kong, who assured Laura of tremendous success and a full roster of clients in very short order. "Here are the shoes you'll need to wear in Hong Kong," that friend said in an email that followed their phone conversation. She included a link to a picture of a pair of snakeskin flats with bows on them. "You'll have to leave the clogs at home." She offered to take Laura shopping for the outfits that would go with the shoes, and also suggested that Laura maybe not make much reference to her personal marital situation. I saw Laura open her hand, releasing her balloon to fly noisily around the room. It landed in a wet heap, right on top of her clogs.

Neither of us wanted to do the "marketing"  of our balloons, and those two bright, inflated things went on their way. Mine, well, we know -- it popped silently against the blue sky. When Laura's international consulting balloon throoshed around, we laughed at the funny sound and tossed that thing in the trash.

As for me, I keep wanting to marry these different parts of me to each other but maybe they are just meant to be roommates. I don't know if the nutrition evangelist in me will be able to make a go of a health coaching practice. That field is filled with young women with long, lush hair and perky breasts. I'm serious. I don't think the writer in me can -- or will-- make a go of anything even remotely lucrative. I still have ideas and still move toward them, but I am balloon-shy now. You launch enough of them and watch enough of them pop, and you just get shy.

Now and then, though, it all comes together -- just for a moment. While at Kripalu, I wrote to the executive chef to get her recipe for mushroom nut burgers. It had to be done, just as a letter must be written to the editor when the paper has done something brave and good, or mean-spirited and bad. In that chef's brain was a recipe that could solve the problems of depression and obesity in one meal, and everyone at lunch that day knew it. Defying the signs in the dining hall that said recipes are not available except for those that are in our books and the chef's monthly blog (this is purple so that you click on it, El!), so please don't ask, I asked. For one delicious moment in time, I achieved the marriage of several important parts of me: the writer, the nutrition nut, the introvert who occasionally issues an implicit invitation to connect. 

Definitely eat more kale

I was excited about the five-day "nutrition intensive" at Kripalu beforehand, but I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. I wasn't sure about all the hubbub about Kripalu, and half hoped it would be just okay so I could avoid raving about the place like everyone else does. You know. It's like I feel about the Uggs I'm wearing in this chilly kitchen as I type; they're so popular you almost don't want them to be as warm and cozy as they are. You're a little sheepish when you end up loving them. I felt that way about Kripalu.

When the course began, we wrote down our "intentions" (you're not allowed to take a course or workshop any more without writing down your intentions), and, in addition to learning all I could about holistic nutrition, all I wanted to do was to be fully present and to feel more relaxed each day. And when you write down your intention, well. You might as well check it off your list, because that's what you get.

So I had a wonderful time, felt more relaxed each day, and learned a crazy amount about nutrition from some teachers who know so much that that in itself was amazing. Most of my fellow students were either doctors or nurses, and I hoped no one was noticing the wisps of smoke coming out of my ears during a couple of the lectures. My brain was working so hard. My little nutrition flashcards I mentioned in the last post are like kiddie cards: "5+3" on one side, and "8" on the other. The lecturers are talking about glucagon, glycinate, glycation, gliadin, glutamine, glucosamine, and glycolosis, which to me is just gratuitously complicated, like George Forman giving all of his sons the same name. I followed along as best as I could, but sometimes I felt like that Will & Grace episode where Will, faking that he knows what he's talking about with a guy he wants to impress, rubs his chin and says, "Mmm, Mombasa."

Mmm, zinc glycinate, chelated.

True confession: When I'm in classes that really grab me, taught by someone who is extremely knowledgable, there is a little part of me that splinters off and starts to think, "Gee, I wish I knew all the stuff this person knows." It's a silly, self-defeating tussle. If that part of me would shush I would actually be a step closer to knowing what I want to know, and I could simply enjoy being in the presence of someone with a wealth of knowledge.

But Kripalu was great, and I was fully present. I felt more and more comfortable each day. For the first time in my adult life, I wasn't counting down to when I could go home. Because no one was home, and I wouldn't see Laura until the weekend anyway. That made it possible for me to just be where I was. This was new, and I liked it.

More soon, likely after the (happy) Thanksgiving onslaught. In the meantime, remember: if you eat animal products, you are what they ate. Try to find milk from Jersey cows. It is cleaner and tends to come from smaller farms. Most tree nuts don't have to be organic, but peanuts do. And if you have any smoked animal product, have some Vitamin C afterwards. It neutralizes the, um, it neutralizes something.

I'm thinking maybe I should try some Vitamin C for the smoke coming out of my ears.

Anyway, definitely eat more kale.

cod liver oil

Erp. Pardon me. I've begun to take cod liver oil. This is how focused I've become on health and nutrition. When Yani opened the refrigerator the other day and saw the cod liver oil, she shut the door firmly, looked me in the eye, and said, "Ma. What. Are. You. Doing." She's been a trooper with my nutrition whatnot, but I lost her at the cod liver oil.

While Yani lived here in September and October, I got her to love butternut squash (research shows it takes 3 times to develop a taste for something you've been iffy about -- don't you just wish you could take part in that study? -- and you will recall that we have enough to supply Farmington with 3 servings of butternut squash per resident). She was open to cooking with coconut oil, she gave in to not having bread around, and we had kale as an appetizer most nights. When I made my first batch of almond milk, she congratulated me without even a hint of an eye roll. But the cod liver oil? I probably should have waited until she moved out before getting that.

After the cancer diagnosis, I started taking an increasing interest in the physical health of my counseling clients. Before that, when physical issues would come up in session, I would empathize like a good therapist does, and then begin looking for the emotional root of their ailment. Yes, yes, any emotional disturbance is somehow experienced in the body, but the point is that I felt like my job was to explore their emotional lives, not their refrigerator. After cancer, I started to feel less sure about that. Instead of focusing on the psychodynamic flora of someone's depression or anxiety, I wanted to hear about their intestinal flora. How they were sleeping. When they move away from blue light in the course of their day. How often they let the sun shine on their face. How much sugar they eat. How often they eat fish, or fish crammed into capsules. I found myself wanting not just to talk about their relationship with their mom, but their relationship with kale.

I can't learn enough about nutrition. It's asking a lot of a 57-year-old brain, to take all this in, but I am so hungry to learn all I can. I have a pile of flashcards: "Fat Soluble Vitamins" this one says on one side. "D, A, K, E," I say to myself before flipping over the card. On the fridge: little notes about soluble vs. insoluble fiber, insulin resistance, grams of sugar to a teaspoon. I'm taking a year-long course on holistic nutrition, and beyond that I take all the webinars and go to all the seminars I can find about nutrition, dietary theories, varsity-level smoothie making. I am workshopping my way to nutritional Nirvana. If there is such a place, it's overflowing with kale, I can tell you that much. People there sleep on beds of it.

I've added a branch of health coaching to my practice so that I can work with people who want to make dietary and lifestyle changes but don't know how. I'm looking for clients who are recalibrating after a cancer diagnosis, or recovering from chemotherapy. Or people who may finally be concerned about gradually creeping up toward “diabesity.” They may just know they're off track. I'm finding that I feel pretty passionately about this new mission -- I feel like I need to do my part to keep us all from going to hell in a bread basket. In terms of our collective health, the sky really is falling, like in that book "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs." 

Along with the new branch of my practice, I've made remaining healthy (and happy) the organizing principle in my life. Followers who have been with this blog from the start will recall that mid-chemo I wondered if I was supposed to be making a sea change in my life. I didn't want to. I liked where my little boat was going. I don't know if I am embracing holistic nutrition as a way of staving off early death, or as a way of living a long, energized life. Sometimes I can't tease those apart. 

This is a sea change for me. It's not the answer to everything, but I now have a set of (erp) oars.

free-falling, mouth open

I did not want to be that person who thinks that getting cancer made colors seem brighter, that life is now more precious and fleeting and all that. I dunno; I guess I like to think that colors have always seemed pretty bright to me. I feel like I've done a durn good job of savoring life, feeling grateful, crying and laughing easily and genuinely at hellos, goodbyes, and here-we-are-all-together moments. I've been really, really good at that, so much more often than not, and I want to give my earlier self props for being so good and grateful. I secretly would like an existential badge, if they give those out.

I especially don't want to give "cancer" credit for making me enjoy life more. I feel stubborn about that. It's like when you lose a great tree from a tremendous windstorm that tears through your yard, and then afterwards you hate to admit that the extra light on the garden is kind of nice. You want to be upset about the tree.

No, that's not quite right.

It's more like getting cancer peels off a layer of something -- maybe it metaphorically takes your clothes off. I think that's it. So hot feels hotter (think metal bench in August) and cold feels colder, and everything is more pointedly itself. Maybe this is what people at nudist colonies are after -- that sense of "I'm awake now!" you must get when you walk naked into a room full of people.

Whatever it is like, I have ended up acutely, intensely, naked-on-a-hot-bench aware of the passing of time. Time seems absurdly fast and life almost comically short. I feel like that guy at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, where he is just getting more and more wide-eyed as he careens through space and time, wrinkling before our eyes. Whether I die at 60 or at 90, I cannot imagine thinking this was any other than a ridiculously fast free-fall -- like that other guy, the one who stepped away from his balloon, 24 miles up, and fell toward Earth at 800 miles an hour. Except in emotional time you don't have a spacesuit, and your cheeks are flapping against the air and you are leaving a trail of saliva as you fall.

Which actually happened to me once on the Hellevator ride at Six Flags, where they lift you straight up and then drop you down suddenly. I came off that thing with a line of saliva UP the entire length of my face, and all I had done was open my mouth as we dropped three stories.

Anyway. I am having more free fall, saliva-up-the-face moments as time goes by. It's good and it's hot and it's sometimes freezing cold. It's all over the place, like this post. I am not complaining; just trying to report out.

An example of this merging of the sublime and the ridiculous I am experiencing: Laura bought me a new pair of knee socks when she was out the other day. I hadn't known I'd needed knee socks, but it turns out they were JUST the thing.

Note that I still can't resist the temptation to pick up a little piece of schmootz on the floor in the midst of dancing. Dang! I am so far from enlightenment, and there is so little time.