Clearing the WAY

So my latest thought is the following: Sometimes I need to go to something bigger than myself. If I rely on myself, or another person to find the way for me, I am still searching and hungry. I look for the right person, or the right moment, or the song that will make me feel okay, or the weather, or the flatness of my belly, or the ions in the air to line up just right.

But what I have left is still chance, fate, how the world will turn. And I am still wondering, where to find the stable place. How do I find that place in me? Sometimes I sit back, and there is this feeling of worthlessness underneath. And it sounds wonderful to say, "I am all done with that." "I worked through that." But then, there is a moment, and it shows it face. I see it and think, "Oh, THERE you are." It is like an old thing that I thought I removed, and THERE IT IS.

What do I do about this? I know that feeling bad about feeling bad--well, it makes me feel bad. Ignoring feeling bad also makes me feel bad. I could put on a tight smile, let my voice come out differently, "fake it till I make it," but it is still there.

So today, with a friend, we came up with a solution. SHE came up with the solution. She prefaced it very carefully, b/c people, at least in California, tend to get very touchy if you use the G word. You know, GOD. She started to preface, and I said, I believe in everything. You will not offend me. It will offend me MORE if you do not say exactly what you want.

She reminded me, "There is something bigger than you." She described how she saw it. I was nodding my head, interrupting, agreeing, because yes, I see it that way as well. I call it Spirit or the Universe. God works too. But we were both agreeing fervently how well this essence that is larger than both of us is calming, is nurturing and is safe. And then I realized, that my "worthless" arena is the one spot where I have not used my faith in this larger-than-me thing. I use it for which way to walk, for what to eat, for what I feel in the body, for how the words come out. I use it to ask for help, to ask for faith, to help me find gratitude. But never have I really directly used it for letting go this sense of being "wrong" or not fitting, or not measuring up. It was so funny, that everywhere else in my life, it works. If I need tank tops, as I do, I ask THAT WHICH IS LARGER THAN ME to help me find them at the Goodwill. Specifically, I need black ones. It is hilarious, b/c I never saw any, and since I "asked," I see tons and tons of them. Of course, most will not fit my breasts, or are too short, or feel like they are going to cut off my circulation under my arms, or have those stupid bra things inside NOT made for BIG GIRL breasts. But I am finding them, and always smile. I do not want to pay 25 or 30 for a tank top. Or more. I want to pay 3 dollars or 4.

But I never asked to help me find that peace that I am okay. So I tried it. And I will try it now. When I start questioning if what I am doing, the way I am doing, is enough, if it is effective, if it helps people, I will try to go to that BIG SPACE. That is what I will call it. And right now, before I can begin to worry, I feel the BIG SPACE. It wraps around me and holds me, it shields me and supports me. It gives me something I can fall into and feel released and contained at once. There is something larger than me. "Me" can just take a backseat. Something larger. I am full from lots of pot roast made in my slow cooker that I had abandoned. I had faith and picked it up and used it again. I had faith just now and called out to something larger.

And despite the food burps, I am breathing. I am breathing.

CLEARING THE WAY

Finding me

Me again. I am putting out gratitude for my being able to see what is good in front of me. I am thankful for seeing friendship when it is there, real nutrition for the body and soul. Life is about sustenance. And when you begin to clear the cobwebs, you do become brighter and begin to glow b/c you are moving in the direction of happiness. Happiness is what happens. And I am able to look at the old reels of me, in my movie, and see with compassion now and not just judgement.

I did these things because I didn't know. And I will forget and remember again. And forget and remember. This feels like life. But what feels so thrillingly gratifying, is that I am able to uncover the "me' that is there. This is not a perfect me, or a me without bumps on her skin. But it is a me, that continues to watch herself grow in ways she never considered possible. It is a me who speaks without fear, and without cowering. Or she cowers, and then sees that this is not the way.

I always loved movies like Rocky, and anything that had the protagonist working with the odds. I wanted to be that person, and this is part of why I liked exercise so much. I felt like I was working against adversity--BUT THE ADVERSITY was struggling against my own body! Now I see movement as an expression of self, of Spirit, of God. I feel so grateful to have found my way and to re-find and re-find again and again.

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Shake it like Blubber

I am warning you ahead of time. I am going to talk about Lady Things. If you get squeamish at the idea of this, then don’t read. However, allow me to persuade you for a paragraph. I really don’t see what the big deal is. I am not talking about mangled hands or chopped-up heads. Just tampons. There are no explicit stories or pictures. So while I am prompting you ahead of time, I am saying you are wacked in the head -- if you do not read. Little people learn that boys have penises and girls have vaginas. If you can talk about your phlegm in your throat, or your bad ankle, what’s the difference? Just wondering. Here’s the story:

Saturday, September Something or Other. I am going to Whole Foods. I am looking for this thing called a Diva Cup that will keep me from having to use tampons. Yes, it goes “up there.” Figure it out. I am sorry if you find this embarrassing, as well, but I don’t see how a vagina is any more unmentionable than an index finger. I have one; therefore, I am going to talk about it without weirdness and feeling that I have to blush or lower my voice. I mention this because I had a pause before I wrote, and this annoying prude of a voice inside me went: “Are you SURE you want to bring this topic in here??” Uh, yes. Go away, voice. VAGINA VAGINA VAGINA. Take that, repression. I will wear The Scarlet V.

This cup is supposed to be the solution to tampons, those pesky things that women need every month. I am one of those people who gets nutty about changing tampons often. I change far more often than is necessary. I don’t like the feeling of a wet string from when I pee, I do not like the idea of something old inside me, and I don’t want Toxic Shock Syndrome, and I do not wear pads. I prefer not to feel as though I am wearing a diaper.

Back to the Toxic Shock horror story, I remember being warned about this when I came of age. The worry that I might get something bad if I left a tampon in a minute too long, stuck with me, like the scare tactic that scares boys by telling them they’ll grow hair on their palms if they masturbate. This was not my concern. Toxic Shock? Yes. I worried. I didn't know what it was, even, but I knew it would kill me. It stuck with me. The likelihood of me actually contracting this is probably very rare, but I am not taking my chances. Like the icky puddles on bathroom floors, it bothers me. That meant umpteen boxes every month. And then there is the embarrassing factor of what to do with the tampon thing when you need to get rid of it.

Last week, I had a session with someone at his house, and used the bathroom when I arrived. I removed my not-very-old tampon in order to “re-apply” and when I went to throw it out, after wrapping it obsessively with paper, so there was not even a hint of what it used to be, I looked in at the open garbage can next to the toilet. It was small and delicate. And unlike our bathroom garbage, which is a paper bag, filled with umpteen paper towels, cue tips, etc, this one had NOTHING in it. So basically, if I put the wrapped thing in there, they will KNOW it was me. It was not exactly obscure since I had wrapped it to the size of a small football. This is the kind of shit that makes my anxiety go off.

I had to tell it like it was because I couldn’t leave it in there for his wife to find or him, and for them to think, what a crass guest. (This is why I have free-floating anxiety. Too much time spent on small details.) I told him (of course, it HAD to be a man) that I had “something” to put in the trash, and did not want to put it in the trash, and could I use another COVERED trash can. He smiled, said, “I get it, I get it,” and in it went. I put it in, obviously, but all this could have been avoided. This is why I want the Diva cup.

There were lots of reasons to try it.

So I looked for this cup, which my same friend I mentioned earlier, Carolina, told me about. She knows about all sorts of things and life in general. She is very wise and tells me when I am being an ass or a martyr. Additionally, I like her because her name is close to mine, give or take an “a” instead of an “e.” I went to check the price. Almost forty bucks.

I couldn’t remember how much she said it was on Amazon. She told me all about it the other night when we were discussing periods and mentioned how she loved this Diva Cup. Sometimes she has to yell at me, because I bombard her with questions, elated comments, and explosions of silliness when she is speaking. I have a hard time shutting up at times, when I am excited. I am excited a lot.

The brain bursts things out of it. And I “flirt,” trying to keep her entertained. This is not confined just to men, but anyone I like. So I did not listen. Therefore, I decided I should wait rather than have buyer’s remorse if I found out that it was twice as much at Whole Foods. I would look it up on-line when I had internet access. After that, I walked around and stared at food I wasn’t going to eat.

Burrata caught my eye. Uh oh. The mold factory inside me does not appreciate cheese. So I am avoiding it. But just so you know, it was the one I love, in the yogurt-type container, that tastes like marshmallow fluff. “Wake up, wake up,” my little angel said. The angel I harbor is like the one in cartoons that pops up on the shoulder of the person. I have had this little creature by my side as long as I can remember. It needs to come up often, because I am often tempted to do things that are inadvisable. “You cannot have this,” said the angel. I listened to it. Often, I don’t, but it doesn’t hold grudges, luckily.

I left and walked out to my car. Only food there with sauces. No plain meat. The hot roasted chicken looked good if I could have lifted off six plastic tops and pulled off all the skin and left the meat. Somehow, I am certain this would not be welcome.

I got back in my car and got ready to go somewhere. I had a variety of plans. But I got to staring at the leaves on the trees moving like crazy, while I was sitting in my car. I love sitting in my car. It is nothing fancy, but it is self-contained and makes me feel protected. I love to write in there, too, as I am doing now.

Back to the trees. (Brief ADD break. The image of the car spun me away from the leaves.) The leaves were all blending one into the next. They were shades of green, yellow, orange, and brown. No matter how the tree shook them, they lifted up and down, and let themselves be tossed.

I started thinking about how to let oneself be moved in adversity. When I am feeling anxious or wishful, or wanting, I wonder how I act in contrast to these leaves. They are rooted to the tree. I am rooted to life. I think I often grind down, or hold back, or rush forward. What would I look like if I were a leaf on a tree? Would I rip myself from the tree?

It didn’t seem like a struggle when I looked at the leaves. In fact, it calmed me and I could see a rhythm to the movement. I could enjoy watching from inside my protected covey. It brought me away from my own struggle, and my own life, and I was able to witness.

It was so nice to be able to watch without stepping in it, but it gave me a sense of direction. How to be moved.

It felt like when I watch the sea anemones. I can look at them forever. My husband and I went to the Monterey Aquarium a year or so ago, where they are, and he had to drag me away. It was so beautiful to watch them dancing in the tank. It was a command performance.

This is what it felt like with the trees. It felt like people in action, screaming, loving, playing, and letting themselves be shaken. Sometimes I have people I work with do all these movements, with the intention that by loosening everything from the roots, the body stops doing its tug of war. Then you can let yourself go. Shake like you got tons of blubber and everything can wiggle. And then the energy MOVES.

It excites me and inspires me to move like this when I see the leaves doing it. You can always learn by watching.

My brain calmed, and I watched until I felt the urge to close my eyes. I wasn’t departing from life, but sinking in deeper. I felt filled by watching the moves and seeing that I want this, in the way they allowed themselves to be shaken without trying to hold still. Life will not stay still. So all this filled me up.

I closed my eyes and died a little. While the leaves raged and I lay still. My body sunk and relaxed and everything softened around me. This is as good as shaking blubber. This is how I calm down. This is my medicine. Leaves float and life goes on and I can fit somewhere in between. Learn to wiggle. It’s better than vodka.

Lovely GLOB of Zen Master's stick

I woke up early this morning, and lay in bed feeling this sensation of a star, lighting and exploding inside me. I could see it with my eyes closed. It was golden and kept breaking apart like fireworks, and tiny little gold flecks went everywhere. I was alert in this state of half slumber.

When I do sleep, I am "out." You can blast a TV, throw a party, or shout in my ear, and I will tune you out and continue sleeping. But when I am awake, that's that.

Being awake is the moment I "come to" from drowsing and life is standing naked in front of me wondering how I will clothe it. I often feel like a kid on Christmas morning when my body gets “up.” You would think I would have gotten used to it by now, but I am easily entertained.

There is something delicious to me about the contrast between waking and sleeping. Sleeping means you are out of the world of physical bruises, and in it, life becomes whatever your dreams make it. But your waking life brings the material to the stage. To prove that I can be what I am and that what can be, is possible. This is what makes me so full of excitement upon waking.

But there is a debt to pay in recognition. Waking in this manner entails more than just putting on something to wear and staggering to the bathroom. When I am alert inside in this way, awareness hangs over me, like my eyelids over my eyes. It is immoveable even if I just want to spend my first few minutes picking clumps of old eye makeup out of my eyes and be left alone. It harps on me to see and feel. It nags at me, to live truthfully. I cannot shut it off for long before it blinks at me again. So we are stuck with each other, like two passengers sitting next to each other on a full plane. Me and that pain in the butt, awareness.

I don’t find this to be easy, because I often feel the urge to sidle from what challenges me. I would like to avoid but I see it in front of me, reminding me that I can do better. My friend Carolina, who reminds me of this laziness, as only a true friend does, will call me on it. “STOP BEING LAZY!” she writes in all capital letters. It is so true, that I always laugh when she says it. Usually, she chastises me via email chatting, because we live far away. But it makes me smile because she calls it like it is – I am a sucker for the shortcut.

I love doing it wrong, backwards, opposite to the directions. This is how I ruined my last batch of pemmican, which I am stubbornly eating anyway. I didn’t feel like measuring out equal amounts of fat and meat, so it has two times the amount of fat. I didn’t feel like taking so long to grind it, so I left it in huge chunks. Great if you have wolf teeth—not so good if you don’t. Laziness always has the last laugh because it brings awareness, like your mother noticing the new pimple on your face. Look at what you wrought, it says with a smirk.

I can look for other explanations for my doing things cockeyed. I remember learning something about it relating to my brain being “creative,” or maybe due to the fact that I am left-handed having something to do with it. Whatever the case, there is often the urge for me to make a mix of what might not mix.

I think it is partly the fault of my ADD brain. It is always looking for a reason to stay awake. I do not take medication, so I use all the little ins and outs I can get. Contrary to popular belief, the ADD/HD brain is sleepy. It looks for diversions to wake it up. I may look like a person who drinks Red Bull, but my being is always trying to figure out how to be here, without passing out. Hence it is very compelling to be engaged in life.

Who knows how much of this is personality and how much is funky genes. Regardless, I have a fascination with novelty and emerging occurrences. This is why I am a lover of watching and teaching how to observe sensations. They are always changing. Whenever I observe a reaction or sensation in myself or others—of emotion, or of some new movement in the body, an electric thrill runs through me. I am ALIVE, it shouts. HELLOOOO IN THERE. I feel it pumping inside me like the fireworks I felt this morning.

Awareness reminds me: YOU ARE HERE, with the arrow poking at me, jolting me to alertness. Even my latest issue, a sore heel has me busy observing and tying in the emotional link to the pain and devising new ways to move. I am more interested in exploring it than hurriedly “fixing” it. Everything is a science project.

My life revolves around sensations, because previously, most of it was spent trying solution after solution to stay awake. Now I can sit on my butt for hours and stay awake, thanks to my improved diet. But back when I studied Feldenkrais, a form of movement awareness that often required hours of laying around on the floor and moving slowly, I brought a giant exercise ball to sit on and bounce on to stay awake. Do NOT fall asleep, I heard my voice say. Stay awake.

When I went to conferences for my work with special needs children, I had food and things to drink with me at all times and brought my exercise ball to sit on, as well. DO NOT fall asleep, the voice said, again.

I ate non-stop, and the chewing worked to keep my frontal lobe engaged when I studied for various certifications. Stay awake. I bought funny pens and made humorous notes when at conferences that I went to for work. Anything to stay awake. I stayed up late or exercised madly, just minutes before I had to sit for hours. Or ate pounds of chocolate for the lift.

Back then, there was always a scheme to stay "awake." So it is not a big surprise that I was drawn to meditation. For me, meditation is not about seeming holy and ascetic. It is true, that I don’t fall asleep in these ways anymore, but I also prefer not to walk through life in a waking trance. Meditation is like swimming in cold water. It opens my eyes.

Life is changing faster than you can snap your finger, and when you get this, (and this comes and goes) you know you are swimming in the world of the unknown. This is exciting. So even checking to see what my breathing is doing at the moment is thrilling to me and makes me feel that I am on that proverbial edge of life’s seat. And it makes me awake.

People have elaborate ideas about all the wonderful things meditation will do for them. Suddenly, they will be neat or nice or won’t fart. Well, I am not perfected and do not plan on becoming anything of the sort. This is not the point of my meditation. I am not going for “holy” any time soon, unless it is on a good cashmere sweater that is on sale for this very reason.

Being awake now, means feeling what I am doing. And it means feeling the love and blood coursing through my body. I don’t have a separate container for emotions and body. It is all congealed into one lovely glob for me to watch.

Waking is stumbling into the bathroom, and venturing into the unknown of today. Nothing is more enlivening to me than being awake while awake. The Zen master smacks my awareness with his stick. Whack, whack, it says to me. Come back!

Wake up! YOU ARE HERE.

True Romance: HUMPING A RUMP

The other day, I woke up tired. As usual, I headed for the stairs, since my husband was still sleeping. Legs that felt like they had been weighted with sand bags rebuked me for making them move. I compromised with my body and told it that if it moved left foot in sync with right arm (translated: walking) in order to get down the stairs without falling to my death, there would be no morning exercise, whatsoever.

Before I trotted downstairs, I glanced at the clock on my husband's phone. It was 5:40--this is sleeping late for me. It is like 10 am for regular people. I looked over at him, still wrapped in his blanket like meat stuffed-cabbage. (My writing includes a strict no-vegetarian policy, even with adjectives.)

I felt positively reprieved for all the early mornings that I make him groan. And we are not talking about an erotic groan. It is the pain in the ass of having a wife who wakes up early. Consistently.

Ever since my transition to an all-meat diet, I generally require even less sleep. I like this for two reasons: The first is obvious. I can do much more because I have an additional 5 or more hours tacked on to my day. The second reason may stretch your belief, but stay with me: It is that my early rising stimulates irritation in my husband and releases some of my innate aggression. It is a partial antidote to being civilized and yet, wanting to tear someone’s throat out. The inner turmoil is there whether you acknowledge it or not.

Robert Bly called it the Human Shadow. Jung called it the unconscious. I think of it as the inner animal. It is that part of you that rages when someone cuts you off, or that fantasizes about what folly you wish on someone who you dislike. It is that which induces you to eat with your fingers if no one is watching, and do all sorts of things with your fingers when you don’t have an audience.

Our shadow is kept under wraps in order for us to be deodorant-wearing and law-abiding citizens. But we all need outlets to absorb its reverberations. It was not that long ago that we were clubbing each other over the head, grunting, and rubbing sticks together to make fire.

I am not suggesting that the answer is to revert back to the fossil stage. I like luxuries of our century such as my new high gloss lipstick from Sephora. But I understand that my primal aspect is always lurking. And this is alleviated with habits that couples have which annoy each other. When I wake up at a different time than my husband, or he goes to bed before I do, it reminds us that the environment is not controlled. We may feel disgruntled, or put off, or maybe it is so subtle we don’t notice. But it stimulates our hostility and the disquieting sense that we are alien to comfort. It is a salute to that inner animal in each of us.

There is more to a relationship than love. It contains light and darkness and this is frightening if you see “romance” as a Disney movie. I stopped seeing it the Disney way in my late thirties. There is an unwritten agreement between my husband and I, which I am now realizing. This is what comes on pontificating about waking up early. The “contract” is that not only do I promise to love, respect, and not steal all of his socks (I do, on occasion), but also to engage and stimulate him to release some of his tension from having to be a human who doesn’t get to scratch his privates in public. He is not so annoying as me, so I get a lot of my stimulation elsewhere.

The waking is just one example of what we do for each other. We have a particular script to enact this. He plays like he does not know what is happening, and I play like I am not doing what I am doing—waking him up and initiating a response.

We always make it seem new. It begins when he asks me "what time it is." I act as if I am trying to leave the room quickly, but my shadow will take just a bit more time than necessary. He will pretend not to know that it is early so he can be disgruntled when he hears the “too early” time.

Until this morning, I didn’t realize I was prolonging my exit from the room. He never complained and it was not simply because it didn’t bother him. It’s in the “contract.”

If you do not understand why anyone would need this kind of relief, then perhaps you are one of those individuals with a perpetually sunny disposition. Maybe you get special massages. Or you drink lots of caffeine and pop pills while your liver screams. Life involves degrees of suffering and it is sheer suffering NOT to acknowledge this. Part of this suffering is being forced to quiet your urges and stilling the desire to fly off the handle, so to speak.

There is a story that once when Julia Child mentioned that she had vegetarians coming over for dinner, she had to clarify with, “Not for eating.”

You cannot escape your true nature.

Even the rich have lots of problems. People are often baffled by this, but life pops up regardless of your bank account level. Control all your irritants and then you may resort to slamming phones into people’s heads when the inner animal in the cage begins to rumble.

Bothersome things act as a sort of multi-vitamin against forgetting our animal-nature. People need their aggravation because the wild animal is not welcome in our society and it must creep out covertly. Everyone has their own "hot spot" that makes their blood boil. Maybe for you it's pedophiles, murderers, SUV's, or people who prune their flowers too low. Try being oblivious at a green light when I am driving behind you and you will see my animal emerge.

That is why I write. Otherwise, people start to look very tasty to me. This is where the people close to us have an unacknowledged purpose, in addition to bearing our children, and sharing romantic sunsets with candlelit macaroni and cheese in a bowl. I am not being facetious. Except for the part about the mac and cheese, because you will not catch me eating that shit no matter what.

Lots of people are with others so they have an outlet for their aggression. But they prefer to cover the “smell” with the idea that their love is all rainbows and roses. They will only consider all their wonderful qualities that bind them to their mate. But their union is also cemented by unacknowledged “bad” traits: slobbiness, thoughtlessness, recklessness...lots of "less."

Less is actually more. It gives us space to breathe and stimulates our bloodthirstiness. There is so much lurking around in us, that is pushed away because it is considered ugly, negative, unattractive. There are people who completely deny the existence of their “bad” shadows. What they repress will express itself like a tsunami.

My husband and I work hard to provoke each other with the perfect balance. Like Goldilocks: not too hot, not too cold. Just right. Not very romantic way of looking at things, you say? I think it is. Understanding this motivation means I do not have to act this out unconsciously by waking up my husband. Or doing something worse. My unforced act of waking early is not done to annoy him. But recognizing that part of my delay in leaving the room is intended, and is something I can change.

I don’t need to worry about taking away a habit and his chance for relief. Stress will pop up elsewhere and it is like weight-lifting for the soul if you don’t resist. If the abused and often maligned “stress” vanished, I contend that you would begin to chew at your own fingers and start to crave blood as a means to express the inner turmoil that already exists.

That innate turmoil is why I will feel hostility from a simple act of hearing a spoon clack on someone’s teeth. Let me hear THAT NOISE and my animal wants to let loose and break into pandemonium.

I knew a woman who did not allow her shadow to exist and believed there was only love. She barely ate because she did not believe in food, she bowed every time she saw a person and mumbled yogic sayings to appear holy. She felt guilty about driving a car, she didn’t wear makeup because she did not believe it was dignified to try and “pretty” her outside, and she spared herself the most basic comforts. She did not express her needs because she believed that there was only love. But she ground her pelvis into you every time she would greet you. She was distressed if you took an extra napkin, but she didn’t mind dry-humping this same you when she said hello.

This is what denying the shadow looks like.

Without your stress from your life, you will not go quietly. As the poet Dylan Thomas said, you will rage into the night. You will rage at the person who stops short, or parks long, or smells a little.

It is precious little things that bother us that appease the animal underneath. The insufferable “habit” of another, allows you to more easily endure being a wolf in people’s clothing. It allows you to feel less frustrated that you cannot just hop on the first rump in the distance without inquiring about birth signs.

And when you see as I have, that you stimulate your mate and others, you can choose not to do it. I will still do it in spite of myself. I still wake up early. And my habits that annoy abound. But now I remember to watch my tendencies to drag everything out just a bit longer.

I did not wake my husband this morning when I got up at three. He will have to find another way to feed his animal.

We have to find a way to feed the animal.

Carbs are fine-BUT NOT BY ME

I have a dream...It was that one day I would be able to spend my life doing things without thoughts of food racing through my head. It was that one day, my words that were screaming and leaping inside me, would come without resistance. That they would not be suffocated under layers of confusion.

I noticed back in college that it was hard for me to speak coherently. I couldn't get the words out. It was like being trapped inside a container, and knocking on the container to get out. And then losing this moment of what was happening and venturing into a space where things happened without much recollection. This is what it looks like now from my new perch outside the walls of carb chaos. I am still a champion rambler, and I don't know that this will disappear, but that is okay. It is one of the things that make me annoying.

I am a zealot about what removing poison did for me. It may not be poison for you, but it was hemlock for me. I don't know what it is about my constitution that cannot handle a "regular" diet. But I don't care. I am happy I have found my way of living. I feel like I have my life back.

It was very frustrating being me. I always needed to ask people to help me with directions, with assignments, with how to do things. Even if I listened, I couldn't make sense of it. The words didn't go in and process. This is probably why I have always been a natural working with autistic and special needs children. I understand what it is like to have things seem like a jumble, while people look at you puzzled. Why don't you get it? You don't listen!

I wasn't put in a special class, or told I had low intelligence. Instead, I was considered dizzy, spacey, "doesn't listen." And I believed it. I thought I was lazy, and didn't try hard enough. I wished I could be an accountant, and be able to do all these things.

I remember when I tried to express these things, and the frustration of having learning disabilities, I would get the responses of well-meaning people, parents included, saying things like: That's not true. YOU ARE JUST FINE.

REALLY? Then why did I walk around lost in college simply trying to make up a schedule for classes? How did I get lost going to the same classes and not being able to figure out where they were? Why did I get lost every time I drove, and why was I unable to read a map before last year? Why did I fall asleep after sitting still for more than ten minutes unless I was eating, exercising, moving? Why was every procedure painstaking and impossible?

I had accepted things like this, as just being the way it was. That I had to hope the world would take pity on me me. That people would always need to take care of me because I was not capable of doing it myself. My parents used to say, "Caroline does not live in the real world." This did not feel nice to me. It doesn't feel good not to rely on yourself. First, and this was a long first, I thought I was a dumbshit. I'm sorry. There's no nice way to put it. And my choices reflected this. You are what you eat. Eat shit and that is what you will get.

One day I was walking down to North Beach, on one of the long walks I would do across the city. Exercise was my only haven throughout all of this. That and food. I can't remember what spurred on the thought, while I was walking, but I thought, "You are a piece of shit." In fact, I think I muttered it out loud. I was disgusted with myself. And not 30 seconds later, I stepped in some. It was not kind to my white Converse shoe. I think it was the left one.

I laughed immediately. It hit home that you will get what you think. I was already on my journey of a carbless existence, although I would slide back into sugar again, several times. Addiction is a jealous bitch, and it held on tight to me for a while. But it dawned on me, how cruel I had been to myself.

Now, looking at a vantage point, free of sugar, I find I am not stupid. I had tried to accept that I was "special" in some areas, and confused in others. Now I don't think I am the most conventional individual just because I eat all meat. I am impatient, reckless, impulsive, prone to getting easily excited, but I HAVE A PULSE. I am thinking and writing, and trying and teaching and doing what I always wanted to do.

I have stopped looking at school simply to prove that I can do it. I have my own methods of teaching and learning. But I have the brainpower to back me up. Look, I am sure, and I have seen that there are lots of people out there who can eat cereal, eat a cupcake, have regular food and function just fine. They are brilliant, composed, balanced people. But this is not me. Give me carbs and my brain goes dead and scattered.

I am so happy to have my life back. It is the life I never knew was possible. This is what happens when the lights go on.