Switzerland trip

     Across the ocean, there is a land where there are no mosquitoes. Where the soil is so healthy and clean there are no trash plants like poison ivy -- only wildflowers and grasses. Water melts and rushes off the mountains and along the roads and paths every few hundred yards there is a trough of spring water that you can drink from. The chocolate and cheese there are so good not because of different processes but because of what the cows eat all day -- clover, gentian, buttercups, forget-me-nots, daisies.
     The troughs at the farms have a steel vat of this morning's raw milk sitting in the icy water. You slip a franc into a wooden box and pour yourself a cup. When you drink the fresh milk you can taste both its past (all those flowers) and its future (there is the slightest suggestion of the potential for a cheese unlike cheese from anywhere else).
     Even though you're not eating bread much these days, you find you must eat this land's bread because it is so simple and fresh, with a crust that is somehow crisp but not dry. The bread allows you also to savor the fresh butter that you slather over it, followed by a layer of apricot spread that your friend has just cooked up.

     You sleep at night with windows wide open. No one has screens. Why would you need screens? 

     You walk through this land, breathing in the crisp mountain air, and you imagine the possibility of living there in your old age. You'd be like Grandfather in Heidi -- wizened yet vigorous. You hope with all your might, as you walk down the mountainside after the long hike up, that you have the privilege of living a long life.

Taylor Swift, revealed

 

   There are certain things I'm deliberately doing to try to stay young. You, too?
     Some are those brain exercises you get at sites like Lumosity, where they lead your brain to the edge of its elasticity and then let it snap back with a thwack. You can remember where 7 squares are, but 8? It's like your brain runs out of the room, hair on fire, when you get to 8. The game essentially says, kindly, "Let's go back to 7, shall we?" Then, since you got so stressed out at 8, you can no longer do 7, and it says, "How about...6? No? How about 5. Can you remember where we put 5 measly things?"
     Laura and I had one of those stark experiences of how worn our brain's elastic is when we played "The Transformation Game" with Ting and Dave last weekend. This is a board game I recently purchased, and it has what seem to Laura and me like rules based on quantum physics (that's a thing, right?). We were referring to the instruction manual every step of the way, like it was for kitchen cupboards from IKEA. But Ting and Dave were whizzing through, reciting the convoluted rules that were brand new to all of us. The difference was that the rules remained brand new to Laura and me each time it was our turn. Dave and Ting would say, "Okay, so now you take 2 awareness cards, take away one pain card from the player of your choice, and then flip the intuition coin to see if you can get an angel token or if you take another pain card." The only card I memorized was the "miracle card," where everyone could return all their pain cards to the box. It was a miracle, all right.
     So the brain thing is a real challenge. I'm also trying to keep limber with physical things: I'm determined to put on my shoes and socks while standing, for example, as long as I can. No sitting on the bed for me; no sir. And lately I've been focusing on getting up from any non-standing position -- sitting in a chair, lying on the floor or in bed, cross-legged for meditation -- without using my hands or arms. Sometimes this is mildly comical, certainly to the gods watching from afar. "Watch this. She's been in bed for 6 hours and she's going to get up without hands or elbows. I love this part."
    The socks and shoes are still easy. I'm aiming for 80 years old, still good on one foot. After that, I'll try to be okay with sitting on the bed.
    But contradictory to these habits, I'm also making some deliberate choices to stay out of the fray, to allow myself to be behind the times. It's an exercise both in keeping my brain young and letting my mind age, too. In a good way.            
     Some of this happens organically, right? Do you know the most popular singing groups these days? Heard any hit music lately? Suddenly you can't even figure out how everyone hears about these things, though I know it just...happens somehow, when you're young.
     When I blogged about thinking that a Kardashian was a kind of a rug, people thought I was joking. You overestimate my engagement in the world of current events. Once that bubble burst and I learned that a Kardashian is actually a person, maybe one that is pregnant by someone else whose name I should probably know, I needed another exercise. I tried assiduously, then, not to learn who Taylor Swift is, despite obvious social pressure to know who the heck people are talking about. It's a cognitive exercise for me; I was trying to keep track of 8 hidden things, and Taylor Swift was one of them. I was pretty sure Taylor Swift was a man, and I wanted to see how long I could go without finding out if that was right or wrong. I understood that s/he sings, but I didn't know what kind of music -- country? I pictured a cowboy hat.
     I told the kids about this project to stay out of the fray du jour, to experience that sense of being out of current loops. They promised not to tell me whether Taylor Swift was a man or a woman; they're so supportive of me and my projects.
     Then, on a long drive while listening to a playlist Yani put on my phone, I hear a nice song. I sing along; it's come up on shuffle a few times before. Oooh, I knew you were trouble when you walked innnnnn...I'm singing along, bouncing from head voice to chest voice in that fun way that makes you feel happy and yodelly. I decide to replay it so I can yodel again, driving along the Mass Pike. I look down at the phone for a second to rewind the song, and there is a picture of the singer: WTF? Taylor Swift? He sings in falsetto and in drag?! 
     That I did not see coming.

the old way was too lonely

     Every now and then, you actually hear a voice. It's coming from within your head, I guess, but you'd swear it was outside you. I feel like this happens maybe once every few years, for me -- the experience of feeling as though someone standing close by has just spoken. It's alarming. Usually it's just been "hello," or maybe a clear as day "paula."
     Then, nothing. It's like someone has said "Marco" right into your ear, and though you try your best to say "Polo! Polo! Polo!" they're gone. They just felt like spooking you and taking off.
     A couple of months ago, I heard that kind of voice. It woke me from what felt like a solid sleep. I don't even say "deep sleep" anymore. Anyone remember deep sleep? Evolution is still trying to work out that knot; either you wake up for a quiet "Mom?" or you get deep sleep. Let's make it so they wake up to the offspring who is having a bad dream or about to ralph, Evolution says (but not right into your ear). For years I've tried explaining to Evolution that the kids are not sleeping here anymore. They've moved out! I am ready for some deep sleep, I tell it. But Evolution does not give a whit. "You on you own, missy, " it says, with a bit of an urban, kick ass tone. Evolution can be cold, and I tell it so, often. It does not care. Not a bit, after you have somewhat successfully cared for your young.
     Actually, Evolution doesn't speak at all. Evolution is mute and stealth. Still, it manages to get its point across. Give it time; it's making some kind of point. A good time to think about this is while you are lying awake at night.
     But there is something with a voice. Now and then there is a voice. One March morning, the presence standing over me as I slept said, aloud and firmly: "The old way was too lonely."
     I was up. Like a flip book missing some pages, I was up. Hullo? What old way? What was I doing wrong? Too lonely for what? Come back!
     I've done nothing differently since then. I don't know what is being asked of me, given me, what is trying to guide me, or what the objectionable part of the "old way" even was. But I have felt distinctly unlonely of late.
     It's like without knowing it, without even knowing I needed something, I had said, "Mom?" into the night. And Something had said, "Right here. Always right here." Maybe Evolution is just a lackey; it has to answer to something bigger.
   
   

squeeze me

     As long as I can remember, I've had a recurring fantasy that strikes me at odd times. My family is used to hearing me state variations on its premise:
     A group of strangers are gathered in a large room. They have to figure out the one thing they have in common before they are released.
     "What if you put everyone who was terrified as a kid of that movie with the guy with his eyelids held open by toothpicks into the same room?"
     "What if you put everyone who has in the last week bought a plunger, kale, and nectarines into the same room?"
     "What if you put everyone who lost a ring while swimming in a lake into the same room?"
     "What if you put everyone who thinks "irregardless" is correct into the same room?" Gee, that would need to be a really, really big room. Maybe we narrow it down to people who think it's correct and who happen to use it a lot, like habitually. It'd be tough to figure that one out! They'd really have to think hard to see the problem, then find the commonality. You'd need to bring in food.

     Certain ones would probably give just the right amount of challenge.
     "What if you put everyone in a room who, like, think it's hilarious that they always say 'squeeze me' instead of 'excuse me'?" It'd be pretty crowded, but because it was so crowded they'd all start saying 'squeeze me,' just trying to move around the room. Except...it'd be almost entirely guys, probably almost entirely straight guys, who would feel weird about saying 'squeeze me' to each other. Suddenly it's not so funny any more, is it, bud. This is actually a good one; a good challenge.
     The easiest, of course, would be to put all of us who have this fantasy into one big room. Oh, sweet. We'd be set free in no time at all, but we'd never want to leave.

things you can't blog about

     There is so much you are not supposed to blog about. The other night we were reminiscing about Bear, our beloved dog who died in January. Sometimes he was a real pain. He simply was not interested in pleasing others. It was all me, me, me to that dog. He wasn't one of those dogs who felt guilty or needy or desperate for approval. He was interested in laps, a walk, other dogs' food, and barking. Arghhh, the barking sometimes!
     "'Come?' Hold your damn horses. I'm doing something," he'd say.
     "What a jerk," I muttered, mid-reminiscence. Sometimes he really could be.
     "What a jerk!" echoed Laura. Then: "Don't blog about that, p! Diane reads your blog and she and Dan loved their dog. And they loved Bear. She'd be mortified."
     "What?! Diane knows Bear could be a jerk. You can grieve someone's absence and still remember their character flaws."
     "Still. People don't understand things like that. Once a dog is gone, you're supposed to remember him as a good dog, I think."
     "Really? Not Bear. Not yet, anyway. He could be an asshole."
     "It's true. Such an asshole."

     I figured I'd lead you gently into truly off-limits blogging territory -- by first confessing to the no-no of judging the deceased. I'm embarrassed that I have been critical of Bear's personality, if that helps. And to use such a bad word! As someone who tends to say, "Jiminy Cricket!" instead of its many alternatives, I am embarrassed to have it in plain text that I sometimes speak less delicately.
     Anyway, here's what else you can't blog about, and it's ever-so-slightly more taboo than using a bad word to judge your dead dog: your (my) remaining genitalia.
     These days, with the BRCA2 mutation, I have doctor's appointments more often than most women shave their legs. Well, most Chinese women. More often than I shave my legs, anyway. Let's just say I have a lot of appointments.
     Last year I switched to a new gynecologist. I left my previous one because I felt like I was invisible to her -- especially when I got cancer. Cancer makes you choosier in lots of ways.
     This new ob-gyn walks around in stiletto heels -- not a point in her favor when I first met her, but neither is it a meaningful point against. If stilettos help you feel better about peering into vaginas and palpating breasts all day, more power to you, say I.
     "Careful in there," I ask. "I've been downsized. I think some of the stitches didn't dissolve."
     "How can you tell?"
     Here I want you to imagine a brief silence.
     "I can feel them."
     "How?"
     Here I want you to imagine a long silence.
     "I...felt them. You want to check out the basement once it's been renovated, you know."
     She goes in. I hear her stilettos clicking around as she pushes around the light, the speculum, the furniture in the basement. Tock tock tock tock. Tock....tock.
     "Hmm. Those aren't stitches. That's scar tissue." Here she draws me a diagram; a real keeper.

     My favorite part of this diagram is the eyes that are looking into the vagina. See them there on the bottom? No, not on the bottom; haven't you taken human biology? The bottom of the page. Those are eyes, plus eyebrows that are zigzag with keen interest. The eyes are looking in, a little close up for my liking, and they're thinking "Hmm." On the left is a potato, which is what the vagina looks like once you are standing in there, I guess. Those hatch marks are stitches, I think. Pay no attention to the canal in the middle of the page; that goes back to what I called our beloved dead dog.
     "So the scar tissue has just kind of sealed you up a bit. Sometimes that happens," she says with an affable shrug. She seems very proud of her drawing, like this is the part of being a gynecologist that she really likes. Then she says:
     "If you were still using your vagina, we could do something about it. But as it is, we can just let it go."
     Case closed, apparently -- and vagina, too. Weeks later, I still shake my head (see diagram for general location) at her cheeky assumption.
   

lucid dreaming

     Last week I got a call from the mother of a 15-year-old boy who was doing a science project and needed to interview a psychologist. As I always do, I hurried to explain* that I'm not a psychologist. Psychologists are very firm on your doing this quickly. They'd prefer if you wore a t-shirt during session that said, "I am not a psychologist and you are getting less than optimal care by seeing me." Bona fide psychologists get their fur up if anyone without a license as a psychologist calls themselves a you-know-what.
     It's all part of the pecking order, and if you are licensed as a measly clinical social worker or professional counselor, you get the beak. From psychologists who have fur. These are pecking creatures with fur, and they are the dominant species in the therapy biz. Except for psychiatrists, who prescribe medicine and whom we all think are Not Relational Enough, and aren't really doing The Work. We all use a lot of capital letters when we talk about each other.
     "Whatever," said the mom, which is usually the response (it's important that this be kept, however, from the psychologists). "Could he interview you? He needs to speak with a scientist."
     Ah. That there is no license for. Psychology, which I taught for quite a few years, is the scientific study of human behavior and mental processes. I love the science of it all; it highlights both our determination to figure people out and the limitations of our conclusions. Most studies should actually have longer "limitations" sections than "conclusions" sections. Anyway, I made an appointment for her kid to come in to talk with me because I am a scientist who works in the field of psychology. But not as a p*y*h*l*g*s*.
     The boy was doing a project on lucid dreaming, that fabulous state wherein you realize you are dreaming and then suddenly have the freedom and ability to do anything you want. Anything. Lucid dreaming happens in that place where you can kind of play with your unconscious mind, consciously; two things that don't usually blend suddenly do and you're in a different state altogether. It's like mixing blue and yellow and coming up with green. Remember learning about that as a kid? Whoa.
     "Have you ever had a lucid dream?" he reads from his script of questions.
     "Oh, yes, many times!" I answer with enthusiasm.
     I can tell by his facial expression that he himself has not. "You have?" I am to him someone who has actually seen a ghost, a unicorn, a martian. He is very excited. He scribbles something down, though he is videotaping our conversation.
     "What did you choose to do in your lucid dream?" he reads.
     I pause for a second and then say, "I usually choose to fly."
     This is durn close to the truth. Often when I become aware that I am dreaming, I choose to fly. Seize the moment, man! Up, up, and away! It's fabulous to fly in a dream, and I savor the memory for days.
     In the momentary pause, though, I was busy resisting the impulse to tell him the other truth: sometimes, lucid dreams are the perfect opportunity to have sex with a stranger. I thought better of telling that to this 15-year-old boy, right at the awakening of his own sexuality. Such a confession from a 57-year-old breastless woman might cause the tiniest shift in his mental picture of sex and sexuality, and not in a happy way. I just think it might ruin something, like inserting a glitch into a stem cell, or going flat early while singing an otherwise catchy song. I didn't want to accidentally show up in his first lucid dream, you know?
     Not long ago, I had a lucid dream in which I excitedly approached the first person I came across.
     "You're in my dream!" I nearly shouted at that person.
     "I know!" he or she answered, as tickled as I. I don't even remember if it was a man or a woman.
     ""LET'S HAVE SEX!!"" we both shouted with delight.
     Afterwards I thought, "I have the title to my book: You're in my dream! I know! Let's have sex!" 
     It turns out that I must have still been asleep when I had that thought, because in the light of day it didn't quite sound like something a publisher would go for.
     All that happened in my mind in the moment I took to muster a response to my young interviewer: "I usually choose to fly."
     Still! What fun, all around. I love being a scientist.


* Please ignore all the other asterisks in the word p*y*h*l*g*s*. They do not relate to footnotes. But when I think of "hurrying to explain" I think of the moose joke where the guy is heading to a costume party in a moose suit and is spotted by a hunter. "I'm not a moose! I'm not a moose!" he hurries to explain, waving his arms in alarm. The hunter looks confused and tilts his head to take this in. "I'm not a moose! I'm not a moose!" the guy in the costume shouts again. BANG. The hunter comes over to the guy whom, let's say, he has shot in the leg. "I am not a moooooose," the wounded guy whines. "Oh! Sorry, man," the hunter says. "I thought you were saying that you are a moose."
   

squatty potty, advanced

     Once you've started to study holistic health in earnest, it's only a matter of time before you feel like you are missing out on something by not owning a Squatty Potty. You've been just sitting on a regular toilet? All this time? How...primitive.
     It's kind of like what happens when I think about the position I was in for the births of T'ai, Ting, and Yani. What? I now think. I was lying down? Why didn't they suggest I squat? Why didn't I think of delivering babies under water, in one of those pop-up pools you can set up in your living room? It really did not cross my mind, and now I feel like it all could have been done more sensibly. It's like I was trying to get the swing going without knowing you could pump your legs. Here I am talking about an actual swing.
     I guess none of this applies to Yani's birth -- she came out her own door, one created with impromptu carpentry. It probably made sense to be lying down for that, I'm thinking. Though she was my third perfect little baby, I have always resented that the obstetrician elected to bring Yani into the world by C-section. I wasn't in distress; the baby wasn't in distress. Yani seemed to be perfectly content being bottom first, and now that we know how much she moves around when she sleeps (whomever she selects as life partner will have to sleep like a rock), we should have just waited for her to grab all the covers and roll over.
     But the doctor was in distress; I was to her like a kid who was just learning to tie my shoelaces and taking a very long time getting my Keds on. She had those Velcro sneakers, maybe even with wheels on the back. Which is to say that, though those are extremely cool, and I feel envious whenever I see kids sliding through the grocery store in their wheely sneakers, I felt rushed by my doctor 23 years ago.
     The next morning she came to check on me. "I wish I could give this woman upstairs a C-section and hurry things up like we did with you," she sighed with understandable fatigue. I imagine that if she hadn't been so tired she might not have shown that card, but there it was. The truth sprayed itself out in a sorry mess, scatological analogies to which I have written and deleted several times. I will spare you that much.
     I am ever the trendsetter -- cutting edge, you might say -- and C-sections are unfortunately almost routine these days. Now I know about and so regret all the biological consequences of Yani's not having been exposed to my, ah, vaginal flora, which is just such an unfortunate thing to be blogging about when I started out wanting to talk about pooping.
     Squatty Potty. I was telling you about the squatty potty. Suddenly I had to have one, to honor my ancestors who squatted so that I might one day live and prosper in Farmington, Connecticut, despite having spit into evolution's wind by birthing my progeny while lying down.
     I make my way to the Squatty Potty website. Once you've chosen your Squatty Potty style, you choose the height. They try to guide you a bit: "Order the 7" if you are new to squatting. If you are advanced or limber, get the 9". Our 5" works great for grannies." This gives rise to serious rumination, and I take days to decide: am I new to squatting? I do it all the time in the garden. Am I advanced? Along what scale? Are we talking spiritually, or what. I sure as heck was not going to order the one for grannies. Not yet, baby.
   The Squatty Potty website will make you feel as though you have long been a fool, tempting death and disease, really, not to "elevate your feet in order to eliminate." And it does help. Oh, I don't actually notice much difference in pooping. But when I put my feet on the Squatty Potty I get a little ego boost -- because I got the advanced.
     Then, when I realize that this type of thinking is not in the least bit advanced, I go back to feeling like my same old foolish self. I chuckle at myself -- and as I sit there, I feel like my ancestors are chuckling at me, too.