I feel light, already!

Well, Iron-fans.  It's pretty much official.  I'm done.  Ironman Wisconsin came and went last weekend and not only was I not racing, I sort of did not care.  Sure, I checked the weather and results after a friend reminded me that it was Iron Sunday.  I even woke up at about three AM, relieved that I didn't have to wake up at four.  I also called a friend who somehow has managed to complete every single Ironman Wisconsin since the race began over ten years ago.  Overall, it feels pretty good. I'm interested and engaged in other things (make something every day) so there doesn't seem to be a lack of activity in my life.  I'm managing to stay in decent shape, sometimes more, sometimes less exercise, and almost always taking in healthy food.

Dropping a habit or hobby that consumes so much energy, effort and focus, allows me to try things that I always wanted to work on, but may not have had the chance.  Over the years, I've most likely invested a small fortune in Sport drinks, bars, gels, supplements, powders and the like.  You know the brands.  Probably one of the best is Hammer, but really, when you're relying on so many of your seasonal calories to come from a giant plastic vat of powder (mix with water),  it's a far cry from the sort of basic food that I gravitate towards when not pounding out hundred mile rides and three hour runs.  

So I'm not eating any of that packaged stuff, although my family and I still enjoy the occasional Kind Bar.

Kind Bars, YUM.

But at our newly opened Sugar Beet Food Co-op, we're carrying these little energy bars that bring back a lot of memories.  I think I started buying these little pouches of carob/nut/etc. bars at the infamous Berkeley Bowl in the late eighties.  Back when I first moved to California and I was living in a little apartment as an eighteen year old, I had already established a pretty hardy/cheap/mostly vegetarian eating style, but this was my first foray into living/feeding myself completely independently.  I remember how amazing the Bowl was, what with so many varieties of grown food, such  a vast selection of breads, bulk items, butcher, fish, cheese and more.  The Bowl was amazing, but it was also incredibly overwhelming.  I really had no idea what I needed/wanted and as I gazed at the intense veteran foodie/hippie folks who would pore over the produce carefully, knowledgeably, I'd sort of freak out.  I'd sometimes grab a few pippin apples, bulk pasta, nuts, peanut butter and get the heck out.  Yet I do remember that in the bulk section I found these awesome nibs, and not only was the price right, it was the sort of thing that I'd munch on for a light meal, between meal snack, on the go.  A life long relationship with food, launched.

Presentation is everything.

Fast forward to my years doing Ironman in Madison Wisconsin, and, frankly, one of my favorite things about training for this race and doing the event was the opportunity it afforded me to visit Madison, which feels in many ways so much like my hometown of Eugene, Oregon.  Madison's farm to table scene is alive and well, and there's no shortage of food co-op energy in town.  I'm a proud member of the Willie Street Co-op, and visit the store anytime I'm in town.  Used to be, that I'd stock up on a huge supply of dried goods when in town for raceday, along with items that I'd like to have along the way for my race and pre-race nutrition.  Always available, in a similar packaging at Willie Street was the little energy bar.  I'd munch on these a few days prior to race, also race morning, and stick a few in my food bags for the race. Easier to get into than the hermetically sealed cases that are cliff/power/gel whatevers.  A lot tastier, with a bit more texture, and naturally sweetened.  One of the great benefits of the little squares is that they are small.  I can eat, one, two, or more.  When I open a pre-packaged bar, I sort of have to commit to the size of the serving.  I don't know how often, in my life as an endurance athlete, I've found some sort of half eaten bar at the bottom of a sport bag or side pocket of a car or running shorts.  Then the question: do I leave this on the shelf and wait til next time to eat?  I'm frugal enough to hold onto that sandy crumpled bar, but let's face it, not appealing after a while.

So, I'm so thrilled that we've founded, built and opened a state of the art food co-op right here in Oak Park.  Seriously, I'm still pinching myself.  It's a long hard battle, and many folks aren't sure what to make of it, but every time I'm there I see people who either look as if they've been in a decent food store before, or as if they're curious about making something about the Beet work for them.  Not everyone is going to go as whole hog as me--after all, I know I'm pretty unique.  I know that not everyone wants to eat little cacao energy balls with flax seeds and pistachios crunched up inside.  But I also know that this is an amazing opportunity for those of us passionate about food climate to move forward, on so many levels.

Seize the day!

And here I am, after this morning's run!  Even I, after all these years, have had a rough patch or two in my fitness regime.  I've added a few pounds, slowed quite a bit, and often roll back over in bed rather than lace up the shoes and get out the door.  So, another of the benefits of our new grocery option is that I feel as if I've got my own shot at renewal.  Hard to not sound braggy, but I feel lighter, more energetic, more sexy, more alive.  I was already eating well, but the bump and passion of the Beet has brought my game to another level, as if the years and the surrender are peeling away.

The first time I did Vineman Ironman, in 1994, I went to a farm stand in Sonoma and bought some munchies to carry me through a few days.  I recall, fresh lime, pistachios in the shell, raw garlic and jalapeño pepper.  Okay, it may not be what you're going to feed your family tonight, but you get the idea.  Food that sparks the imagination, food as start point.  Food in small enough portions to not be stuck with leftovers and packages and the angst that is modern everything.  I feel light, already.  C'mon, join me.  You'll look, feel, and be amazing.

What's Really Hard…or…Why I Never Cry, Anymore.

For months, I thought the answer to this question was that I was deep in denial.  Talking about Mom, her opinions, her belongings, in the present tense, as if she were (and she sort of is) right here with me.  But now that time has passed I'm beginning to believe my shortage of tears is a sort of tribute to who my mom was to me, to other members of the family, and who I am trying to become, as I adopt the mantle of the matriarch of a family traditionally dominated by singular, strong, fair-minded women not prone to the whims of fashion, time, or circumstance.  My mother, her mother, and her mother before here were all only children, reared in upstanding Oregon homes.  College educated, craftswomen and homemakers, learned but never beyond their station in life.  The simplicity of austere, old-fashioned conservatism.  

Coupled with this strong will and ordered mind was the discretion honored by many folks my parents' age and older, plus my mom's own inclination to a very private personal life.  It wasn't until I was in my teens, (or perhaps older) that I learned that my own mother's parents were divorced when she was a young girl.  How it escaped me, as I grew up, that she and her mother were alone, together for most of her formative years and beyond is a puzzle to those of us raising children in this day and age, sharing as many secrets and life experiences as we see fit.  In a similar vein, the fact that I was adopted at birth was a hush-hush thing that even into my teenage years, we alluded to, rather than discuss directly.  Finally, when we did discuss the adoption, my parents shared with me that the lawyer who brokered my adoption assured my parents that birth parents were "tall" so I might fit in with my family.  I don't need to accent the extent to which that spirit has shifted today.  

And so, my experience of my mother is one of a woman who was fiercely loyal, proud, loved my brother and I without wavering, and offered a vision of life as an ordered path which a hard-working soul could navigate.  I have absolutely no recollection of my mother crying over the loss of her own mother, but I do remember vividly the weeks and weeks that she and my father and I spent, cleaning out that old Portland house.  It was a job that she embraced.  Certainly with love, and compassion for all of the memories and stories, but never in a maudlin fashion.  Take care of business.  My mother ran our own family with the charge of a highly intelligent, organized, purposeful being.  In her absence, as I read her dictates to my brother and I, as we prepared for her memorial service,  and as we divide our family's estate, the fact that she played her hand (as if it were bridge) perfectly.  Not a stone unturned.

I didnt even cry when Mom was getting ready to die.  It seemed like any minute she was gonna snap out of it and say something like, "what do you think, I'm dying?!"  So, I guess it's no surprise at all, that I never cry anymore.  Except, sometimes, when something sappy that would probably sort of offend Mom shows up, and for a brief respite I can cry quiet little tears, until I'm ready to get back to the project at hand, whatever it is.

"I'm Everything I am…because you loved me." 
-Celine Dion.

"When you get to be my age, baby, you have to pay time respect." -Ava Gardner

I've fallen into the most wonderful well of comfort and fulfillment recently.  We're marking the year anniversary of Dad's death, and there is something magical about the year-long grieving loop.  I feel that we've given the run a complete circle.  We're fast approaching Mom's eighty-fifth birthday, which is happy, spiced with a little bit of sadness.  The number eighty five seems perilously near eighty eight, which is when we lost Dad.

Although I would argue that 2013 has been a nightmarish year at times (global events, national news, and even some local drama to soften (or harden) one's heart) I seem, somehow, to have staked my claim at longevity on this planet.
Somewhere along the way, I put my umbrella in the sand and said: these are the things I like to do, these are the things that I have to do, these are the long-term projects that I'm going to sustain in an effort to stave off the cosmic loneliness of inhabiting a doomed planet (puzzles, yarn-work, Ironman, creativity, food).

I've also, naturally, found tremendous life giving strength, first, in my kids, but also in my wonderful spouse, community, near and far, of friends and family.

So...well of comfort.  I hold, in my very hand, a book that I've been anxious to read.  It's about the secret conversations of Ava Gardner and author Peter Evans.  Ava, ever iconic, beautiful, witty, ribauld, tragic, leads us through a delicious tale of her life, her loves, her Hollywood, and more.  But here I am, on my perfect day on my porch with the light just right and as I read her story my own father jumps into my head. For instance, when I read the following passage:

       

"I might have worn hand-me-down frocks, and had dirty knees, maybe I didn't always scrub them as often as polite little girls should--but we were never dirt poor. I was the goddamnedest tomboy you ever met. In the summertime, I went barefoot, that was what farm kids did. Of course, we were poor. It was the Great Depression, everybody was poor. It cost you just to create. But being hard-up didn't make us dirt poor, fahcrissake." -Ava Gardner

Any conversation about the Depression reminds me of my parents, and my Dad, in particular.  He was born only two years after Ava Gardner, in 1924.  My Mom, four years younger, was of a more middle class family, and was young enough to escape the total experience of the Depression.  Dad's stories were a bit more robust...especially his most heart-wrenching, which involved a fire at their general store when Dad and his family were on a weekend fishing trip.  This story, one of the few terrifying tales told to me during my idyllic childhood, clung to me for years and years.  Finally, I have a print of a photo of the General Store in Wimer, Oregon, which was unearthed by an old friend of Dad's not ten years ago. It hangs in our dining room here in Oak Park.

Imagine the small jolt when I read Ava's words:

"No running water, no electricity, the privy at the bottom of the backyard--yeah. I probably had a suspicion of how horse-and-buggy life was for us...But you don't care about those things when you are a small child and your Daddy's the best lemonade maker in the whole world. And daddy had plans. He always had plans. He built a tobacco barn, and he opened a little country store across the way--Grabtown was just a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, really; God knows where the customers came from, there can't have been too many of them; I hope to God they were loyal--but the buildings caught fire and burned to the ground one night and that was the end of that little enterprise. Rumor had it that my brother Melvin Jonas, everybody called him Jack, started the blaze when he slipped into the barn to roll a ciggy and dropped the match...
I remember that night--I must have been about three...I remember the flames...I remember Daddy crying. You don't forget things like that. ...We were broke, really and truly broke, not just poor, out on the sidewalk broke, honey."

And there it was, that silent inquiry.  A story that mirrors my own Dad's in remarkable fashion, yet I don't remember, ever, in all of the times that we went through different tellings of the story...I don't remember, ever, that simple question of expression of the reaction of my Nana (Dorothy) or her husband, also, Jack Steward.  What did your parents do or say when you all saw the cinders and smoke?  Did they cry?

And that's the rub, right? The rub of loss is that despite my many attempts to cherish time with Dad in the end, honor his memory by thinking of all that we shared,  reflect on the many times together, especially in the last twenty years or so...we can never have those quiet times at the dinner table, over a fresh meal or pie or coffee in the morning.  All the times that Peter and I sat with Dad and asked questions and kept it close as possible, there's no going back.  So many lost stories.  So that's another of my life-long passions.  Tell stories, listen to stories, read stories.  Our history made us.  History is our greatest gift.

Dolls that Swear, Dolls that Sweat, Dolls that don't always make everybody happy.

We took these photos a few weeks back.  I was awful proud of my kid for creating this outfit, and I began to teach her some basic sewing skills that I am sort of aghast that she doesn't already know, considering my sewing/needlework filled childhood.

So...Did you hear what they said about the prez?

This gem is a Gotz doll, a brand which I've admired for years.  When my older child was about this age (nine) we fell into the dreaded "you-know-what-doll" trap.  My response, of course, was to hunt down the cutest doll that I could find, not created by the Pleasant Company.  At this time, some five to seven years ago, I quickly discovered that American Gotz, along with just about any other maker of girl-child-dolls, had folded....hmmm....wonder why?  A particularly brutal and savage competitor on the horizon, perhaps?  One which lures children (usually girls) and their parents (usually mothers) into a ginormous shopping store in Chicago in order to buy and clothe doll (usually girl) and provide all matter of accouterment at tremendous expense, with saccharine story already in place and lacking any irony or true power (as in, when exercising power, one must do the hard thing and be unpopular, sometimes).  OK, so the cat's outta the bag. I. Don't. Like. A. G..

Yeah, well, I heard that all those r-cans are a bunch of stupid idiots, and they wouldn't have their jobs without those gerrymandered districts.

In fact, the topic came up in conversation recently, and I proceeded to spend an entire weekend scanning New Yorker archives for the article that I read, quite a few years ago, about Pleasant Rowland and the Company she built.  Where has it disappeared to?  I have no idea.  I think, actually, that the Pleasant Company article has been spirited away with all the other unmentionable attacks on major business interests including but not exclusively natural gas companies and major agriculture firms.  And, for me, what's the point, really?  As a parent, here in Suburbia, my chances of making any traction with my rant on Pleasant Company will fall on deaf, even hostile ears.  It's been said, Often, that she at least, "is not Barbie".  Well, this may be true, but since Mattel bought Pleasant in the late nineties....AG sorta IS Barbie, at least, she's her younger, totally un-hip, totally un-ironic, cousin who worries all the time about being nice and everybody liking and going to the right schools and doing all the right things in life and not hurting anything...like animals or kids (hmmm....why do middle class parents live AG so much?)....

as far as I can tell, we're all going straight to hell if they get their way, so you might as well come in and we can have a chat.

But if she grows up and moves to Suburbia and has kids of her own and she needs to turn up the heat, or crank the AC, or buy all that crap at Target (or AG), then it's OK, since she's not really, like, personally, hurting the world, because, after all, her hands never got dirty.

Those f*&-ers think they can do whatever they want, but this is my planet too, and I'll die  trying.

Not like her cousin, Barbie, always going out with guys and wearing hot clothes, and making out with all the other Barbies, and Ken, and anyone else who wanted to try some stuff out.   Sheesh...everyone knows....(whisper whisper) that Barbie had it real rough and she had that weird boyfriend, and then she spent all that time with that other Barbie (you know, the brown one) and then, finally, she settled down in that resort town and she was doing something pretty cool (what was it?).  OK, so, LF, you might get my point.

 I'm proud of our Julia, of Gotz Dolls.  She's not a far cry from AG and she can wear her clothes and all that, but I've avoided that place and all it stands for in the modern family pantheon.  And look, there's still a touch of that charm, that desire to glam things up, since, of course, we've got almost three generations of Barbie in this house (if we include nieces Barbie clothes, born in 1983)....Julia has a beauty mark, installed by lovely daughter, and she's got a swag haircut and the ensemble today, thrills me to the core.  Photo-shoot enhanced by the slightly wistful look of a girl, a girl who knows she's gonna catch shit for already wearing lipstick, nails, cut her own hair and painted on eye makeup, but she's worth it, baby, and life is her oyster...