WWRWP—Roid Rage in the ER! PART ONE

It started about a month ago with a cold, which eventually turned feral and ate me alive with my first sinus infection. Because I'd never had one before, I assumed the face and jaw pain must have been fibro related, or perhaps lingering effects of the cough, or that time of the month (or second time of the month in my case)... or...whatever... until one morning my face hurt so bad I could barely open my eyes.

"Jesus, Woman," David said, "go to the doctor."

I hemmed and hawed a couple more days until I finally couldn't take it anymore and went to urgent care where the doc suggested I had a bacterial sinus infection and would require antibiotics. "Do I have to?" I protested. I've been on so many in my lifetime I think I'm immune.

"Well, it could go away on it's own," she said, "but the risk of an untreated bacterial sinus infection is meningitis. I flashed on my grandmother and her quivering hand. "Will it help with the pain?"

"Within a few days you should be feeling mostly better."


A few days later came and went. I felt better. But not mostly. A few days later I felt worsely. But again, I figured I'd let it go. And go. And go... As someone accustomed to living with a fair amount of physical pain, I never know what's coming from where. Plus, wisdom from a Jewish Buddhist reminds me that not every physical sensation is a sign of terminal illness, and thus I soldier on.

After two weeks of intermittent plugged ears, head and neck pain, nausea, and crushing fatigue, I was running out of excuses. Could I be depressed? I wondered. Could that be causing all this? I Netied. I Nelimeded. I flushed with ACV and garlic. I did my alternate nostril breathing. Stood on my head. Avoided standing on my head. Cried. Avoided crying.

A round of Flonase  and a packet of  Mucanex D left me hopeful, but unhealed.


In the meantime, my doctor brother suggested I go to an ENT. By then I had diagnosed myself with Barotrauma, a common illness among divers and pilots having to do with changes in barometric pressure, much less common on land. When I insisted to my brother though, that my symptoms mimicked them exactly, Ben conceded that perhaps I could have caused barotrauma by overusing the Neti Pot.

They laughed at this one at the clinics. "You have what?" they'd say, rubbing their eyes in frustration, "what are the symptoms?"

"Unbearable pain."

"That's more like it. Sit down. We'll call you when it's your turn." To pass the time, they gave me a long blue plastic bag attached to a face mask when I told them I thought I was going to throw up; I thought it was supposed to be used to breathe into if you felt nauseous, which I tested in the lobby. I was abruptly told I was confusing it with something else and hadn't I ever heard of a barf bag?

Friday afternoon I finally gave up and headed to the ER just so I could be seen somewhere and do something about the pain. After the requisite CT scan, IV drip of Benadryl, etc, blood tests, we were released around eleven pm. The tests revealed nothing and I was given something for pain and an RX for Prednisone. In my pleasantly doped up state, I understood that the Prednisone was to reduce the swelling in my sinuses. I missed the part about how it would also reduce me to my last nerve.

I slept like a baby and woke up feeling better than I had in a while. Encouraged, we quickly filled the RX and I popped my Preds, excited to be getting back to normal. When the pain roared in around midday, I ignored it. Instead I tidied up and then went back to bed. What happened next is not good. I'd rather not even go into the details. Granted it's the kind of "not good" that will eventually, given enough time and reprieve, be funny. But not today. Let's just say I'm lucky my boyfriend is speaking to me.

"I know you don't feel well" he sighed after trying to get me to smile for 8 hours, "it doesn't mean you can be mean to me all night long." By then he was tired of my pain. Nothing he could do or say got through to me. I turned away from him on the couch. "Fine," I said and headed upstairs. It didn't matter that he took me to dinner. It didn't matter that he sat with me in the ER for ten hours. It only mattered that he refused to watch a movie with me and cuddle, even though it was going on midnight. Why didn't he know that was a federal offense?

A little later I came back down and googled "prednisone and irritability." Bingo. The next day several people, both on and offline will agree that it can make you nuts. "Roid Rage," is apparently what it's called.

"What are you doing on your computer so late?" Too-Cute-Face called over from the couch as I hunched over the dim glow, where my computer faithfully burned, an everlasting candle.

"Googling," I said and headed back up. I ignored the little voice saying come with me. I don't want to be alone.

                                                                      ...

Your Roid Rage story?
Your ER story?
What happens in Part Two? 

(PART TWO coming soon! : Rox goes to the ENT...
 Trailer: "I'll do whatever you say. But, please, no prednisone!" )

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—"I Am Squishy Yummy Love"

new agey-rockstar rox

Last week in Word Jam we wrote about our rock star selves, the lives we'd be living if we were "living the dream," as they say. One of the amazingly creative and dreamy herself members of the group suggested we explore this on the page by imagining we were making a living/thriving/living by doing (or not doing) something we were naturally good at and/or something we loved, which can be the same thing. Sitting on the beach. Yoga. Chanting. Scrapbooking. Making tea. Asking questions. Collecting seashells. Noticing all the shades of blue. Highlighting. Feeling the blood running through your veins. Shopping. Running late. Complaining about traffic. Procrastinating....

"So Roxy," my dreamy student offered, "you could write about how to make a living flirting."

Well. That's a backstory we needn't explore here, now, but I ran with it. (Confession: part of me dreams of being one of those cheesy Motivational Speaker types (with more truth and vulnerability and less cheese) where I soapbox about the generous heartfelt teachings that have been passed along to me through the many elders.). In a former post, I wrote about the idea of a LOVELAND. Let's just imagine the following excerpt takes place there:

"Good evening all of you lovely edible squishy delicious beings of light and love and juicy squishiness with wisdom candle-ing out every single glorious life-giving pore...Welcome all Lovelies and Loveables.. to the Beach and the Writing with Rox ongoing series entitled "I am Squishy Yummy Love." Tonight's program is about how to write an authentic simple squishy yummy single's profile for the Writing with Rox community making, lonely no more, love seeking, being website and songbook (www.writingwithroxsquishyyummylove.blogspot.com) and/or any other single's website or community building cyberplace of your choosing.  Before we begin writing, Loveables, we must first go inward by closing our eyes and envisioning ourselves in a lovable world, where we are 100% certain that we are loved. What does that look like? Feel like? To be lovable here and now just as you are. We'll begin by writing "what I  love..."  After the break, they'll be a single's writ-a-thon upstairs which will run until tomorrow morning. Thanks so much for coming. Let's write..."

Boy, writing is fun. You never know where you will end up. So that's it then: What is your make a living doing (or not doing) what you love soapbox speech? What does it look like? How does it run? Do you have employees helping you pick the herbs for the tea? Do you have question askers to ask you questions for your question-asking business? Trust that as you write it will go exactly where it needs to!

And, oh yeah, the flirting thing. My brilliant squishy dreamy student wondered if I ever help folks write single's profiles for their sweet love-wishing hearts and I said "but of course!" I meant to do a workshop on this around Valentine's Day, but well... anyway, summer's coming which means skin will be showing, flowers budding, and singers singing! Love will be in the air, where it always is, and surely, if you want to court thee some yummy squishy love via the cyber loveways, I am here to help. It's official: Writing with Rox now offering "How to Write a Squishy Yummy Authentic Single's Profile."♥ 
                                                                                                                                                                ♥
Sending love to all, Rox ♥                                                                                        ♥   ♥       ♥  ♥ ♥
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♥Writing & Yoga Retreat ♥ 2013 Classes ♥ Retreats ♥ Healing ♥ Hearts!♥

Bliss at the Beach is back!

  

 ♥YOGA & WRITING RETREAT♥              

...a day of nurturing and lovingkindness

Saturday March 23, 2013

10am-2pm        $65

"and the truth is..."

♥gentle

♥ nurturing

♥ juicy 

♥ laughing

♥restorative

♥ self-care

♥love poems to you

♥ bliss

♥ hearts

♥ 

♥ aaaaaaaaah!

Comin?




                                                             Complete 2013  Class schedule

And 2013 Retreats ♥

♥ 

WWRWP—"Nineteen Forever..."

We have a sweet ritual here at the Beach of honoring one another on our birthdays with written wishes, sometimes as many wishes as the age being turned. The wishes go out to the birthday girl (or boy) and then, as you write, the wishes naturally expand and contract, creating universal wishes for all...

           1. love and kindness for the dandelions.

Yesterday, one of the Wednesday gals, our baby, turned nineteen. Nineteen! This moves me for a couple reasons, mainly because we have been writing together since she was fourteen and she was a brilliant writer even way back then.

                     2. Unlimited minutes to talk face-to-face with your friends and family and loved ones.

                         3. Freedom to tell anyone you love that you love them. 4. Daily cake. 5. dessert always.

The other reason is... NINETEEN! Do you remember nineteen? Do you have nineteen wishes?


6. homecooked beautiful meals using every color found in the natural world. 7. a bouquet of marigolds. 8. Marigold honey. 9. Free Lunch! It's everywhere! 
10. A conversation per day with a stranger. 


     When I was nineteen I took the year off before going away to Evergreen. I stayed at home with Ma and worked at the frozen yoghurt shop and took classes at the Improv and got into Theatre Sports.


11. writing for the love of it. 12. singing as loud as you wish and feeling it massage your insides. 
13. cartwheels across the greenest grass. 14. a lindy hop beneath the bluest sky.

           Late at night I'd come home and find Ma still up watching TV in the dark, swallowed in her big bed with the layers of soft, white comforters and blankets, puffy with Ma love. I'd make her switch it to Star Trek and throw myself into the creamy softiness, merge with it.
         "You smell like cigarettes, Roc, Ish! Go brush your teeth!" I'd been at Dolores', our coffeeshop on Pico. Like most work nights, Sus and I smoked and coffeed ourselves into optimism, before coming down and heading home. After dropping Sus off in Bel Air, I'd head back down the hill toward Ma, blasting Blondie's The Tide is High over and over, fighting off the despair.
         "K," I'd say and not move. Maybe at the commercial.
We'd watch young Kirk, thin Kirk, with his globular muscles and tight space pants.
And we'd dream.
         "Roc! Honey, wake up. It's over. Go back to your room. You can't sleep in here."


15. Nineteen days of silence. 16. Nineteen days of silliness. 17. Nineteen days of inner-reflection. 18. loving your reflection in the mirror. 19. loving your reflection in others. AND * one for GOOD LUCK... Nineteen Forever, Baby! 

WWRWP—What do You Love?

What do you LOVE? ...
...even if it's just one thing, part of a thing, one person, part of a person, one memory, one moon, one June, one color, or the other, one time of day, shade of sunray, one time of night, a summer somewhere bright, a type of food, a wacky mood, Dr Seuss, Mother Goose...

                       eighties music, Sound of Music, Krisna Das, The Boss... dancing swing, your diamond ring, your gray cat CC, your childhood pet FIFI, a sweater you wear, the feel of your lover's hair, the smell of Paris, Bueller (that's Ferris!), sleeping in, your dad's pointy chin, the feel of fleece, laughing geese, yoga and drumming, football or running, singing and chanting, tingling and ranting... lover and lovee (which more are you?), romantic, pedantic, poetry, harmony... your child's laughter, happily ever after, being silly, getting jiggy, dressing frilly, hot diggity, eating yams, hoarding Spam, biking cross town, standing upside down, yoga, toga, taichi, tacky, under, over, sideways, wonder....

What do you LOVE? ...

WWRWP—The Time of Your Life

               A few weeks ago I was having lunch with the tall, dark, handsome young Jew companion with whom I had been spending a great deal of quality time for the past nine months. His parents had joined us and in between bites of jellyfish salad, I was asked by the father, "So, Rox, what is your happiest memory?"

Admittedly, I was taken aback. It was 11 am on a Saturday morning. I wasn't even hungry yet, let alone hungry for jellyfish or introspection. I was still too close to sleep to consider any other source of happiness.

"Hmmmm...that's a toughie," I said. "I don't think anyone has ever asked me that before." I looked at my companion. I figured by now he could answer as well as I because in some ways it felt as if we'd known each other forever. He just looked back at me with that cute face that is way too cute.

"Besides," I continued, "usually I'm the one asking these sorts of questions! Then I give people time to write out an answer in the way of a story..."

Why had I drawn a blank? Were there too many? Not enough? Or was it simply that I loved loved loved being asked this question? An invitation to revisit. To live it over again.



The easy answer would have been: "the moment my son was born." But that's a different kind of happy. A no-brainer happy. And then I could have gone on and on about the countless happy moments we've shared as mother and child, but again, that would be cheating.

 Eventually, I committed to the theme of bike riding.  How when I first moved here I rode endlessly into the warm summer nights, delighting in the quaint flatlands, the small town, wide-streeted easiness and openness of touring my new home, taking in this earnest Midwestern culture that was entirely new to me and realizing how much childlike glee it awoke in me: the fenceless backyards, grass so green I wanted to lick it, porch swings (porches!) flower beds, cicadas, street lamps, the way people pronounce car and refer to Coke as "pop"...

I was on a roll. I talked about biking with my dad in various parts of the country. I confessed that I still have Jude in a bike carrier in the back so I can keep him close as we descend into the magical greens of Minnehaha Parkway, singing our favorite songs as we fly through the curves and jungle, racing the flowing creek beside us. "I'm a bit of an adrenaline junky," I admit, "which goes well with parenting."

Then I put a hand to that cute face, the face of this man's son. "Of course laughing with this guy makes me happy."

My companion's father smiled, obviously pleased. In that moment, he looked a lot like my father—there are some touching similarities between the two. I think I may have thought for a moment I was actually talking to my dad. That made me happy, though I did not know it at the time. Now it is a happy memory.

I could have said more. A lot more. I don't know why I didn't. I don't know why I hesitate to write what that "more" would have been. Perhaps it's because on some level I suspected things weren't going to work out. That if I asserted myself too far into the fabric of this family I would inevitably mourn for it too much when it was gone, longing for another mundane, obligatory, way too early Saturday morning meal out in a dingy kitschy basement eating pickled jellyfish on Eat Street.

Or maybe it's because we were sort of in a fight and I was feeling stingy.



I volleyed the question back to the father, a man who has lived almost twice as long as I.

"Gee," he said, "I never thought about it..."

"SEE?!" I said, "it's harder than it seems."

But it wasn't long before he was off in memory bliss. A light went on, one I'd not yet seen or thought possible, but there it was, radiating from his entire being when he talked about being a young father to my companion. It was as beautiful as a rare sunset, a real rayon verte. It remained as he described a childhood memory with his sister, one of the few he recalls of actually being allowed to be a child, a rare freedom to play, which I get the feeling was so scarce that he actually had to sneak it behind the backs of overly stern parents, the same way I had to sneak pot and cigarettes, but realistically, not really.

Eventually my companion took a turn, then his mother. I believe I took another turn as I simply could not help it. Honestly, we could've gone around the table for hours. Well... at least me and Too Cute Face's father. It was reminding me a lot of being around the table with my parents and how much I missed that. How much we all loved those lingering times around the various dining rooms of our separate homes, restaurants, vacation places, etc, where we could always find a place of peace and neutrality, because, as in any family, we had our family history. Even though my parents were divorced and I'd been twice so, we all gathered year after year, entertaining one of my dad's many random questions (Do you prefer Washington or Lincoln?), which inevitably led us down some happy memory lane or another.


Life is really funny, isn't it? Funny ironic, I mean. Because if ever comes a time when you are really struggling to remember a single happy memory, you will likely fail to recognize that you are in the midst of making one.



What's your happiest memory? 

WWRWP—I Didn't Write it Down!

No, that's not me with the Italian Speedo Guy. Oh, wait...those are the tips of my feet.

Apologies for the delay. I have not written much since Akumal. In fact, I didn't write much of anything while in Akumal either. You can see why.


The plan was to write a lot, write together, write alone, etc, as what can be more inviting than writing beneath the velvet palms with their happy necks stretching toward the absolute most turquoise perfect sea and sky there ever was?

     ... Where words like azure, aquamarine, conch, coconut, flamenco, gecko, chuppa, liquado, mango, palapa, amigo, Maya, chacha, maraca, picante, etc were born, organically spun from the endlessly giving honey beauty making love to itself? Indeed this is a paradise for writers, I reflected daily over morning coffee (mas cafe por favor!) and juevos rancheros.


Only, I could not write.  And oh, I wanted to write. I wanted to make sure I wrote down the following at least once: This exists. This is real. Appreciate this. Be grateful for everything that has come before to make this very moment possible, that that has lead you to this very sunshine, soft, loving, peaceful moment. And remember that even missing this moment, longing for just one more walk along the warm sand when you are back in freezing MN or wherever you happen to be, to allow yourself to be sad. This is a beautiful place and time.  And...remember to take a moment to linger wherever you are because you never know when you'll long for that moment again, too.

 At least I think that's how it would have gone, but I didn't write it down, so who knows?! Perhaps I'm just trying to rewrite my thoughts so I can feel better about being in 0 degree climes again. Why didn't I write it down? Well... I didn't do much yoga either.  I couldn't do anything, frankly. I was too busy being. I could not take my eyes off of everything. I hated to close them at night. But then I got to listen. And in listening I could imagine what these late night tropical dark sounds were glowingly up to at all hours. And then, feeling...oh, the claylike sand, ground conch in all colors against bare feet. And that's just above water...the feel of cool ocean water will always feel like home to me.

 When we first arrived, we joked that we finally had time to be "one with the palm trees" for as long as we wanted. No hurry. Nothing to do but be here now. Having only traveled out of the Midwest a few times, he said he was so elated by the colors and sounds and courtyards, and brightness that he could just cry with his entire being with the bittersweet awareness of being a part of it, belonging.
           
               Likewise,  I cried over the mangoes. I discovered the sun in the middle of palm trees. I couldn't get enough of the sound of the large green, white and pink washed brain rock coral rolling all over each other, a little city of song, with the tide. I remembered the scent of Mexican laundry taking forever to dry on the line in the blazing tropics. I heard the familiar song of middle-aged Mexican men that I'd heard growing up in LA, a  part of the landscape, singing through open windows cut solidly out of pink stucco bungalows while they worked. And I saw clearly what Leonard Cohen meant in Suzanne...how naturally, simply, everything and all things of nature, including me, leans out for love in the direction of the sun.

What/when/who/how was the last thing you saw/heard/felt/experienced that was so unbelievably moving or beautiful that you just had to sit down (for a week, a day, a moment) and drink it all in? 

Escribiendo con Rox Prompt de la Semana

Hola from Akumal! What is your beach paradise story?

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Auld Lang Syne, me Dears!

young Dad

Like Harry and Sally, this song never made much sense to me other than the raw feeling it generates every time I hear it. It's one of the rare things in life I enjoy along with the masses, perhaps because my dad liked it so much and played it on the piano, along with Both Sides Now, Send in the Clowns, Holiday for Strings, and Country Roads while I did yoga and watched the boats go by.




I have a love/shame relationship with my deep love of this song. I own several covers of it and tend to sing it when doing the dishes. It works when I need a lift or when I need a good cry. I am trying to encourage my little kirtan and music community to somehow work it into a chant.... Auld Lang Syme, Krisna Krisna! Syme Lang Auld Hare Hare!    A few weeks ago my fiery, brilliant, state-the-obvious, ninja girly friend suggested that perhaps I love it sappily so because it is seen in like every movie there ever was that takes place on New Years. "You know," she said, "it's so cinematic."  





Well. There's a thought.

There's a thought I never wanted to think.

There's a thought that means I have been duped by Hollywood along with everyone else even though I have written a memoir about how not to be duped by Hollywood because I was duped by Hollywood growing up there.

What's your auld lang syne story? Excuse?



Today in Friday Writers we wrote "what I don't want to forget from 2012." I emphasized "what I don't want to  forget" verses "what I want to remember" because it adds a subtle spin on the focus. They could take it anywhere it went. To a memory. A rant. A moment in time that lasted a lifetime. A lesson learned. A laugh. A midnight summer thunder light show by the pool.  The results were gorgeous.


What do you want to not forget from 2012? Follow the trail.......... And don't forget to come write with me in 2013! Raising a cup of kindness and a thousand pens to you all, ROX                                 xoxoxo

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Christmas in Hollywood

I love the holidays, always have.  Perhaps it's because we never really celebrated them growing up, which created a nostalgic mythology about the whole season, especially in LA. I tried to get Ma into it. I'd beg for a tree, to which she'd argue "We're Jewish for Christ's sake!" and besides, it would kill my grandmother if she ever found it. Did I really want to live with that guilt? 

"It's enough that our menorah is from Mexico," she huffed.

"Well, how 'bout a Channukah Bush? I think they do that in Israel, don't they?" Not that we celebrated Channukah, either. We usually just lit the menorah on the nights we got presents.

"Now that's absurd, Roxanne!"

One year I was so desperate to celebrate Christmas like all the other LA Jews that I cut a branch off one of the cypress trees in the backyard, put it in a vase, and decorated it with cheap Christmas tchotchkes I got at Newberry's. 

"You're dragging that fucking tinsel crap all over the house," Ma complained, which was true. 

"Yeah, but it's pretty, isn't it?" I was proud of my little tree.

"It's low class," she said, picking a piece out of her hair. "Get rid of it!"

"After Christmas. I promise! Can we go back to Newberry's and get some more orgaments?"

Ma frowned. How I knew she hated that "fucking store." But I reeeeely wanted a few more candy canes and lambs for the little cypress. "You can get more of that Almond Roca stuff that you like... Or, I know! I can get it for you for Christmas! I mean, Channukah!"

At some point she'd give in and we'd head down to Pico Blvd in the fat red and brown station wagon.  After a bit of browsing, she'd even get a little excited,  enjoy looking at all the cheap Christmas crap with me. "Look at thooooooooooooose," she'd say, pointing behind the counter. "Pretty." 

"See Ma?" I'd say, "isn't Christmas cool?" My body flooded with hope every time Ma played along with my holiday fantasy. Maybe this time. Maybe this year it will be just like it is on TV. Maybe the family will appear, the snow will miraculously fall upon us here in the desert, and Santa may come down our chimney the same way he does at Kenny's house.

Inevitably Ma's patience would run out and it would be back to the usual,  "this is just cheap crap shit and we don't celebrate Christmas and let's get out of this fucking store, I got work to do!" 

But by then I was coasting on the high of hope.  On the drive home,  I held tightly to my little bag of shiny ornaments and basked in the parade of Hollywood Holy-Jolly that never quite looked so beautiful as it did that December twilight. The SoCal palm trees proudly wore their tinsel high in the azure sky, leaning their exotic necks toward the ocean. Santa and his reindeer flew across Santa Monica Boulevard in the 75 degree sunshine while Sinatra crooned swingin' Christmas songs out of all the rolled down car windows, gridlocked, but beautifully happy. 

Even Ma swearing at the "idiots" ahead of us in traffic as we drove away from Newberry's couldn't touch me safe in my holiday dreamland. I knew we'd be back next year, maybe sooner. Someday, Ma might even say yes to everything.

...

Childhood holiday stories? Snapshots? Fantasies?

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—A Hug from my Son (your everyday grateful)

This morning something wonderful happened before I drove Jude to school. In the spare hurried moments before we headed down to the car, I suddenly, rather whimsically, kneeled down on the kitchen floor and gave my boy a hug. Wonderful is that he hugged back. There, in the narrow space between the sink and the stove, we hugged each other, leaning in, cheek-to-cheek, resting, being.

Moments prior, we found ourselves in the usual morning routine of  standing in the kitchen, him a good few feet below me, milling around on his kiddie plane, every bit as busy as I am a few stories up, packing up his lunch, filling my Dunkin' Donuts coffee mug, reciting aloud what I need to remember to do next, to write down, etc. Amidst that stream of morning ritual, I suddenly remembered that about eight hours ago, my boy awoke in a flurry of tears, eyes wide and aching for understanding. "Okay Mama? Okay?"

Okay, what? But sure, honey, okay...whatever you need.

I was afraid the screams might wake the neighbors. When I attempted to comfort him, he recoiled. He scratched at his dinosaur sleeping bag like a cat to the leg of a couch. "I want to go first HERE!" he said, pointing at his sleeping bag for emphasis.

"Jude, it's okay, honey... you're dreaming. Come back to bed..."

"You come back to bed!" he demanded, standing in the doorway.

I did.



"Do you remember last night, Jude?" I later asked him. "Probably not," I answered, grateful when his playful morning eyes revealed no recollection of the nightmare he'd been wrestling with at midnight.  His big blue wide wondering eyes, deemed once "blue headlights" by his dad, were back to normal.

Was it that I never noticed before? Never noticed how soft his young cheek skin is? Never felt his little tough boy body surrender and soften into my open embrace, into the center of my heart? Never noticed his tiny little fingers wrapping beneath my curls and twirling them around for comfort? Had I never truly seen his softly falling blue eyes fighting to stay open just to catch one more sight of me before the next blink? Had I really never recognized that the little hands reaching back for me were outstretched all along?

Like many parents, it's easy to doubt my value and competency as a mother, especially when little JJ is screaming at me, fighting me, calling me "snothole," resisting my parental discipline and affection. It's easy to take all his five-year-old moodiness, anger and confusion personally, and to berate myself, at worst, believing someone could be doing a much better job at this. This morning I realized the toxicity of that doubt and why I must never doubt my role again. I am grateful that I took myself seriously as a mother this morning. It reminded me that I have missed way too many hugs from this young, much too-rapidly growing boy, who could easily outgrow the need for hugs like this if I forget how much he needs them. How much we both do. How much we all do.



What is your everyday grateful? What have you forgotten to be grateful for?

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Raw Writing Live!

Yesterday in therapy I sat down with a foggy brain and said "I just don't know today." I just don't know. I told her I was sleep logged which happens only once in a very blue moon since i never get much sleep at all, but I said I just don't know.

"We don't have to do anything," she said.

That's funny, I said, because I was wondering if we could do some kundalini yoga together...or...

Did you hear what I said? she said, "We don't have to do anything."

Fancy that. Fancy that.

I'm just not feeling very...I'm foggy, I said. It's the perimenopause, the adrenal fatigue...

What is foggy she asked, "describe foggy."

I did.

Huh, she said. That's beautiful.

So there we sat with my fog and my content doing nothing. Not thinking. Not feeling. Just sitting. In the fog.


...

Shto etta? This, loved ones, is a sample of my raw writing from last week's Friday 
Writers. And, thanks to one of my gals in Friday Writers reminding me, I finally launched the new blog on raw writing so we can post any and all raw writings that come out of our writing together during class/groups/retreats/anyevers. 

So, what is raw writing, exactly? 

Raw Writing, which I also might sometimes call intuitive writing, spontaneous writing, flow writing, on-the-spot-writing, not being in your head writing, writing from your heart writing, etc, is a term that evolved out of my writing together in community for fifteen plus years. I must have been using this term of raw writing enough in classes, etc, that it sort of caught on as an actual thing and now, here it is, an actual thing. What it basically is, is the process and result of writing in the moment on any given topic/prompt, thought, word, name, memory, etc, that we all do together for about ten-thirty minutes, giver or take. Then we come together and share. This is usually everyone's favorite part of writing with me and why, I truly believe, they keep coming back to write together with me.

 I have been writing and sharing (reading our raw writing aloud) in groups of all ages, backgrounds, dynamics, purposes, etc and have come to realize that by sharing our raw, unedited stories in the safety of community, we are revealing our truth, our unedited imperfect truth, which is what writing should truly aim to do (if we are at all concerned with doing something honorable with our work). For the most part, this raw writing makes the best, the very best writing. That's not to say you can't fiddle with it or add to it later, but more often than not, it is just perfect on it's own.

Moreover, witnessing the Raw Writing of others is one of the greatest gifts we can ever know. A gift you will remember sooner or later, sometimes much later when you need it most. Aaaaaaaaaah, you might say, so that's what so and so was talking about in her story about getting lost at the beach. I'm so glad I have that story to guide me...


Want to try it? 

What was your latest experience with raw? Raw food? Raw beauty? Raw truth? Raw fill in the blank?  Write it out, follow the path, see where it goes...follow the raw energy! And if you'd like to share it here, or there, please do. And remember: no edits. Not even the grammar or lack thereof. Just the raw words translated on the page. Enjoy it. 

Hope to write with you soon! Raaaaaaaaawks

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Fun Dip, anyone?

Halloween candy that Ma took from my pumpkin every year the day after Halloween

Snickers
Baby Ruth
Almond Joy
Almond Roca (if I got any)
Heath
anything with nuts










Last night after Jude spilled his Halloween loot across the carpet, the same way we did as kids (is this really genetic?), I couldn't help but greedily eye the treasure. "Nice job, JJ!" I said, recognizing some old familiars I'd long forgotten: the single white Life Saver from the nearing elder man who answered the door in a gray sweatshirt, white hair atoss, the always reliable Smarties from the big FUN PAK, the plain M&M's, as well as the latest in candy fashion: bloody brain gummy, yummy earth organic lollipop (?), Halloween colored Kit Kat, laffy taffy...

What candy did you take from your child's pumpkin today? Which did your parent take from yours?

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Crock Pot Poetry

One of my oldest bff's since junior high stayed with me for about six weeks this summer and insisted on buying a crock pot while she was here because, like me, she doesn't know how to cook.

"What do you mean, no crock pot?" she said, stumped that first week in the kitchen.

"I've got a blender," I offered.  "Oh, and a bread machine from Saver's that sort of works......Since when do Jews do crock pots?!"*

What luxury! Our joyous reunion delivered days of  eternal sunshining, long bike rides, and lake swims which repeatedly returned us ragged and hungry back to the Beach where the heat and nutty goodness of  slow cooked vegetarian stews awaited us. Eventually, sadly, fall days gave way to her departure back to Austin. She did not take the crock pot with her.

I'm fully aware of it beneath the counter next to the rice cooker. It's calling out for use, especially since I've gone back to doing things the hard way since Paula isn't looking. I kept asking her to show me how to use it because we both knew she was going to have to leave some day. "There's nothing to show," she said, "you just turn it on."

"But what do I put in it? How much of everything?" The concept totally baffles me. I am suspicious of things that promise to make something out of nothing by putting everything into something by pushing  a single button.

"Oy, Roc..."she mused, "what are ya, living in a cave?"

Some might say.

Last night I soaked a pound of chick peas (or as Ma would call them "gaaarbanzoes," note the hard Minnesota a and o) and I haven't a clue what to do with them now. It occurred to me I just might maybe use the crock pot, but jeez-oh-dear, where to start?

...

Please send your support in the way of recipes and crock stories* at once! And for fun, turn your recipe into a poem. Play around with line breaks, add words, memories, anything, spice it up, make it up... whatever it takes to get these poor chick peas to finish living out their life's purpose!

...

5 garbanzoes
             husked
                            squeezed
picked from the gardens by  an unknown hand

3 cups
                water             A lemon

parsley
sage
not thyme
no time.....

Hope to write with you soon! Chef Roxy

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—It's Alright to Cry

I was lucky to grow up in the "express yourself" decades of the seventies and eighties. Even though being on the receiving end of everyone's free-for-all expression could be painful at times—especially when I wasn't afraid to express myself by wearing leg warmers to school in the heat of LA—I regret none of it.

It was wild wonderful times for parents and children alike. Self help, "I" statements, empowerment, CHOOSE LIFE, call-in advice radio shows (remember Dr Toni Grant?).......everyone was invested in getting better somehow, working on themselves, doing some sort of personal growth. Ma was constantly attending "workshops," "seminars", est, intrigued by crystals and shamans; even dad was driving up to Esalen to find himself, which usually meant he was finding himself in a new relationship, but I give him credit for trying. He once described an encounter group he attended up there as the scariest thing he ever did. Self help was on the rise for us kids too; at the beachfront "open school" I attended in 6-8th grades, we regularly had "feeling sessions," which was essentially group therapy. 

One of the best things to come out of this age of trendy soul searching was FREE TO BE YOU AND ME, which we would listen to over and over again and act out in front of the relatives or stuffed animals or whoever'd care to see us be part of that "land that I see where the children are free..."   

One night we were all sitting around on the big paisley pillows in the living room with the newly pulled up hardwood floors--bye bye stringy white carpeting--and doing our weeknight thing. Ben and I were likely fighting or playing soccer in the hallway or wrestling while Ma and her boyfriend Jay lounged on the gigantic pillows, smoking cigarettes, just hanging out, literally...before video games, cable, etc—a huge round heaping ashtray in the center of the pile of pillows. Then Ma goes over to the record player and turns it up real loud to a song I'd never heard before...A big cuddly football player voice booms out of the big brown speakers..."It's alright to cry... crying gets the sad out of you..." The melody swells with a rich melancholia that my body seems to recognize at once... "Raindrops from your eyes... washing all the mad out of ya..."

I'm not sure who went first, but almost immediately we were all sitting in that huge heap of huge pillows crying our eyes out. Sobbing. Gushing. At one point Ma looked over at me and said, "it's alright to cry, honey," which made me cry even harder. Even my brother was crying because... why not? It's just what you did. It got the sad out of ya. It made you feel better. It was raindrops from your eyes and that was cool.   

                 How hard or long this went on or how deeply it ran, I cannot recall. I can recall the little hills of kleenex that fortressed around us, around our pillow mountain. I can recall Ma getting up a few times to set the needle back in place so we could hear the song again and I can recall the longing and relief my body experienced to hear it sung just one more time. 

               I can recall the calm afterwards, how we drifted quietly in our own little islands, eventually downstream back into the flow of life. 

I like to believe that in that age of self-help all the tears we shed that night were begging to come out, freed at just the right time. There was a lot going on for us and given the okay to release the depth of our feelings must have been a huge relief. I have mixed feelings about them being coaxed out by Hollywood, but that was the times, our life at that time. Our tears were supported, allowed, even invited by the times. It didn't even matter if Ma had the entire thing planned and was trying it out on us to see if it worked. 

I think it did. I'm not sure if I've ever cried that hard again.

When was the last time you had a good cry?

AND...    AND...AND...AND...AND...AND...AND...AND...

If it's been a while and you're feeling a little dried out, please consider crying into my bowl of tears here at the Beach at my upcoming WRITING GRIEF RETREAT on November 3 for a day of healing, community, and letting go. It was a powerful and loving retreat last year and promises to be the same this year. I have a few spots left!

... raindrops from your eyes...    Hope to write (and maybe cry!) with you soon!

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—"Here's 50 Cents and You Two F*ckers Can Take the Bus Home!"

A few weeks ago during Word Jam, we were writing about funny childhood stories and as usual I found myself writing the story about the time Ma got so frustrated with twelve-year-old me and my best friend Lisa, manic on Fun Dip and trouble in the back of the tan Volvo Wagon, that she slammed on the brakes a few blocks from the Santa Monica Pier and started yelling. She'd had it. "Here's 50 cents and you two fuckers can take the bus home!"

This well known and beloved line stands out not only around here at the Beach, but among childhood friends and family, Ma included. It's become so well known around here that it's often recited in unison, like church or some such. I've written about and told this story so many times that the truth of it is beginning to dim...was it two quarters or fifty cents? Did we actually get out of the car and take the bus home (which was not uncommon) or did we shut up and drive on? Did we catch the quarters when she threw them? 

As I was writing this story, yet again, likely for the hundredth time (I think every one of my students or healing groups had heard this story in some version over the twenty plus years that I've been doing this), it occurred to me that I had the perfect title for my memoir: Here's 50 Cents and You Two Fuckers Can Take the Bus Home!  which more or less encapsulates the story of me and Ma. Of course if you know Ma, whether in person or on the page, you know this also encapsulates exactly what makes Ma both so lovable and unlovable. The memoir is about my utter devotion to this dichotomy.

Folks, I've been struggling with "what is this memoir about?" as long as I've been writing. Seriously. And all of us who write memoir have the same struggle: what is this really about? It's hard to know, especially when it's your story you're writing, your life you're living, for Land Sakes! Because your story is about you.."all about" you, n'est pas? 

So how do I finally know this so clearly? Raw writing. Intuitive writing. Once again the power of raw writing, especially in community, is a never ending, always giving gift. Infinite! I've written this story so many times raw that it's recurring theme and consequent recurring response among readers, etc,  finally added up. I had no choice but to listen to myself. Listen closely. Listen again.

What's the title of your memoir? Your life story? What's the first thing that comes to mind? Even if you are not writing one or never wish to, what would the title be? It's sort of like "what's the soundtrack to your life?",  a question my dad loved so much he used to ask it of callers on his outgoing answering machine message back in the mid nineties. So, what's the title? Titles? The happy version? The corny version? The comedic or the melodramatic one? 

You'll be amazed at what you can learn from a title.

Please share (you can't copyright titles, remember?)!    Hope to write with you soon! 

Writing with Rox Weekly Prompt—Ode to the Rotary Phone

A few weeks back in Friday Writers one of the gals wrote about the dark red rotary phone of her childhood. Her mother, like most of ours back in the day, clutched the horn between neck and shoulder, the thick spiraling chord stretching to follow her from kitchen to backyard threshold, allowing her to double-task phone talk and mom duty. It was a sweet image, this homemaking mom stirring a pot of steamy soup or toothpicking a baking apple pie while laughing on the afternoon phone, kids playing in the yard...

And then there was Ma.  Of course I instantly remembered her tugging along her mauve rotary by the receiver, the clanking of the bell inside ringing in short tortured burps as it bounced against walls and abrupt corners she hadn't foreseen in hurried escapes to hidden rooms. I at once heard the familiar slamming down and the resonant hissing bell of a conversation that did not end well. I remembered the thick chord twisted into and through itself and the tangled knot it became on certain days and how for some reason I needed to chew on that knot with an inexplicable hunger. And I remember how her Marlboro smoke rings and curls of smoke followed and married into that thick mauve chord, curl on curl. And I remember the sound of that phone when I tried to call it... the endlessly base toned busy signal—ah-ah-ah-ah-ah— mean and loud and unforgiving.... and then, hours later, the freefalling relief I felt in my body, blue skies smiling at me, when at last the phone would ring, ring, ring...breathe, breathe, breathe....

Back home, sick with fever,  I heard the thick labor of dialing the number nine.


Your Rotary Phone stories if you please?