Getting Spicy

So I decided to try following the plan laid out in my last post and indulge my inner teenager. (She should have a name. I mean, you've met my inner mafiosi Vinny, I think my inner teenager should be named something like Taylor, as in Swift...or Hanson. Or! Even better! Bionic Spice! Didn't everyone want to be some sort of Spice Girl at one point or another?) I downloaded some Kelly Clarkson. I said yes to that root beer float when it was offered by a coworker today. I looked at cute boys at an online dating website.

I was amazed at how many men are still there from when I was heavily using dating sites over two years ago. There is a section where they tell you who has checked you out, and the first person it brought up was someone I had gone on 2 dates with about three years ago. I initially had a good time but it ended very badly. (I was downright scared by his behavior, and found myself calling friends at ungodly hours to talk me down off the ledge.) Should I take this as a sign to tread lightly in this territory? Maybe the warning here is that I just need to approach this NOT as a teenager at all, but as the person I am now--someone who's got maturity and self-possession and simply knows what she wants.

I'll consult Bionic Spice and have her tell me what she wants, what she really, really wants, before I make any big decisions. I have a feeling we'll both be on the same page.

Zig-a-zig-AH!

Rebel Rebel

I told a good friend recently that the braces make me feel like an adolescent--moody, overly sensitive, cranky, surly and tired all the time. Not to mention, hyper-aware of what others think of me. She said that there's a reason for everything, and I have to figure out why I've given myself the experience of a second adolescence. I remember tossing up my head in exasperation when she asked this, because who in their right mind would choose to be in that junior high school state of mind, where everything is so...fraught?

But then I thought about it. There are a few possible reasons why I'm in this position. Teenagers rebel. That's what they do. Being a good girl my whole life, I don't think I ever rebelled. (Quite frankly, it just seemed like too much energy to fight that much against the tide.) But now, I find myself in a position where I feel like that girl who can't possibly fit in, so I'd rather fit out--don the black leather and dye my hair green to take myself away from the pressure of trying. I realize that having these braces takes me (at least for a little while) away from all the pressures that have been plaguing me day to day for the last few years. If I don't feel attractive, then I don't have to think about marriage and kids and all those things that seem to be so very heavy for me right now. In the media lately, there have been too many articles focusing on women and marriage around age 40 (Thanks Cory, for this one: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/marriage-and-women-over-40/?hp) and since I'll be 37 next week, these thoughts become more present. But the braces, seemed to stop the merry-go-round, and let me just breathe for a little bit.

However, at the trade show I was attending in California this past week, I encountered FIVE women with braces (and two who recently had them removed) and they all looked just fine to me. It wasn't their teeth but their readiness with their smiles that I noticed. There was a strange solidarity in for us WIB (Women In Braces). Quite literally an introduction would take place and the braces story would be shared once a mouth was opened. One woman told me that she met her husband while she had her full metal tooth jackets on. (The fact that they're now divorced is irrelevant!) And three women without braces told me that they looked really cute. So I think that maybe I'll try believing that and see where it takes me. (I've been looking at the online dating sites again. Haven't found anyone worth meeting yet, but at least I'm looking.)

The second way adolescence fits into this scenario is that old adage that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. I realize that I have not been having any fun whatsoever with these braces when there's so much to be had. I mean really, what do teens do for fun nowadays? Maybe I need to go to a mall, try on trendy outfits, crank call someone, eat lots of pizza and FroYo, pretend I'm on a reality show, upload some youtube videos of myself or call cute boys and tell them I think they're cute.

Whatever I do, I'm just going to enjoy the ride a whole lot more from this moment on.

Being A Person

My friend Dana sent me this lovely, lovely poem. Since I've been writing a lot lately about timing, this really hit home with me. It's called "Being A Person" by William Stafford:

Be a person here. Stand by the river. Invoke

the owls. Invoke winter, then spring.

Let any season that wants to come here make its own

call. After that sound goes away, wait.

A slow bubble rises through the earth

and begins to include sky, stars, all space,

even the outracing, expanding thought.

Come back and hear the little sound again.

Suddenly this dream you are having matches

everyone's dream, and the result is the world.

If a different call came there wouldn't be any

world, or you, or the river, or the owls calling.

How you stand here is important. How you

listen for the next things to happen. How you breathe.

Tooth Obsessed!

I was never the sort who liked to collect knickknacks. People with "collections" kind of befuddle me. Why does one need cups and keychains and and posters and t-shirts and purses and placemats with chickens on them? (Uh, sorry, Jill!)

However, since I got the braces, I've been kind of fascinated by the plethora of items out there with teeth on them. I'm wondering why anyone would want, or create this sort of stuff. For example:

http://www.toothartist.com/

The guy makes tiny portraits and paints them on molars and bicuspids. He calls them tooth tattoos and apparently they're some sort of "white collar ink." It ain't that pretty and it ain't cheap. Why would anyone want a portrait of David Letterman on their back molars??

And this gal makes golden charms out of children's teeth that have fallen out. Apparently she gilded her son's first lost tooth and it was so popular that it turned into a business. Um, really? I'm a little creeped out by that, and there are just too many unsettling metaphors to attach to it

However, lest I leave you with an *ahem* bad taste in your mouth, here is a really cute little tooth. I love the one with the eyes closed and the lovely feminine lashes on the left.

On that note, I bid you good night, sweet dreams, and hope that the tooth fairy leaves you a lucrative bonus under your pillow for teeth once lost long ago.

Hair Dresser Wisdom

If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll recall Ali, the guy from Morocco who cuts my hair. I sat down the the salon chair and I said to him, "Ali, do whatever you want, just make me look pretty." So he washed, conditioned and began to cut. Halfway through the cut he looks at me and says, "You ok? You look tired." This is unusual for Ali, who always tells me I'm "byuooti-ful." I made some offhand comment about being stressed because I didn't really want to engage in conversation. Ali is amazing with the scissors, but I do have a hard time understanding what the heck he's talking about most of the time. He asked, "You stressed about job? What happened to boyfriend?" I told him the boyfriend was no more.

Ali stopped cutting, got up to me real close, looked me in the eye, and said meaningfully, "You take your time. You come to me for years, you never look tired like this. You take your time and you find the right thing. You have to live only the things you like and leave behind the rest. Only what you like. You do what you like, and you're byuooti-ful." I told him that I was only beautiful because he made me look beautiful, and he got very serious and said, "No! Ugly is ugly. But byuooti-ful," he said as he beamed, "is byuooti-ful."

I don't think anyone can argue with that logic.

All in the Timing

To illustrate the concept of timing, my father used to reference the aptly titled play, All in the Timing by David Ives, first performed in the 80s. It consists of six one-act plays rolled into one. More than once, my dad described one of the plays, called Sure Thing (click the link for the whole performance--it's about 10 minutes) where a man and a woman--Bill and Betty--meet in a cafe, to an inauspicious start. As they speak to one another, a bell goes off and resets their conversation until they say the right thing, interest finally sparks and they fall in love with each other.

I don't know why this resonated for my dad, but speaking for myself, I like the idea of some cosmic bell ringing and resetting our small utterances and by extension, the circumstances surrounding us, making sure that the right conditions occur and the right decisions are ultimately made.

My teeth did not start to move until about 5 years ago. My orthodontist said that with all the space I have in my jaws, it was only a matter of clock ticks before I was going to need some sort of serious intervention. I didn't know (or want to acknowledge) the extent of the damage of these small but constant shifts, but once it was noticeable, it was going to take a lot of effort to fix.

As disappointed as I am by having to go through this process at this age and this stage of my life, I realize that it was utterly inevitable to experience this challenge at this exact time. Five years ago this was not an issue. Now, it is. For whatever reason, the cosmic bell has rung, and this is the moment to occur now. And it will ring again and again and again, until the next moment finds its rightness and bursts into being. And in that moment when the weather patterns zephyr in and the seasons rotate, a newborn smile will emerge. Perhaps it's THAT smile (could it be the once with braces still upon it?) and not the one I've always enjoyed and depended upon that will catch the eye of a certain future Bill, to whom I will say yes when he simply asks if the seat next to me is taken.

Power Tools

We have reached new territory: the power chain.

No, this is not some kind of manly electric tool that you find at Home Depot. It's the latest addition to Project Mouthway. (Though "Make it Work" is certainly appropriate here, I think some alteration to Tim Gunn's tagline is in order: "Make it Hurt!")

We are officially at the 5 month mark, and I was downright agitated as I was walking to the orthodontist's office. I was unhappy with the spaces on either side of my upper front teeth. One of my back teeth was moving behind the other and I was chewing on it when I ate. Things seemed to be getting worse, not better. I had questions and I was afraid that they wouldn't be answered because he had been so testy last month, and it made me feel really insecure. (Well, that and the inept technician that had me in tears and forced me to come back three times in a week.)

Today, all signs of that awful technician were gone, and my doctor was downright giddy when he saw the progress of the tooth movement. (How happy I am when he's happy!) As an offhand remark, I asked him if the front teeth had turned enough so that we could start to close up the spaces on the side and he said sure. So as an afterthought, he put on a very light power chain across my top four front teeth. It looks like a spider's web, an elegant filament across my teeth, but man that thing is strong. The teeth hurt at LOT, but strangely I'm happy about that. (And quite frankly, I'm finally used to this routine--get them tightened, hurt like hell, can't eat for 3-5 days, and then it normalizes.) I can already feel them moving and call me crazy but I think it looks different than it did yesterday morning when he put the chain on. I can only imagine what happens in a month!

Hmm. Coincidence that I'm going Home Depot for the first time ever today?? Maybe more fun power tools are in my future!

A Crook In the Path...

In my yoga class this week, my wonderful teacher Lisa told us that balance is a necessary and worthwhile pursuit, but it is often unsustainable. What is balanced in one moment may be out of balance in the next. Our lives are simply an exercise in trying to achieve equilibrium though we all know that once it’s achieved, the wind will blow, the rules will change and adjustments will need to be made once again.

She used the Sanskrit word "vakrokti" which essentially means crooked. Though we, in modern life, have all kinds of associations with the word crooked (think crook, a crooked businessman, and of course, crooked teeth…) Lisa mentioned that it’s in the state of vakrokti, or crookedness where our lives are lived. That if we weren’t crooked, we would not be able to strive for balance, and that is where the living takes place—the struggle for equanimity. The running to stand still.

I am looking at the kind of life that I’ve been living since my teeth have started on their journey to un-vakrokti themselves. I have been quieter, more introspective. I went to Mexico. I have begun courting myself. I have simply given myself a different sort of life than I had before. This is neither good nor bad, but it’s my way of balancing on the tightrope as I take on this challenge.

It seems appropriate then, that I am reading Let The Great World Spin, which takes place in NYC circa 1974, when Philippe Petit strung his wire across the Twin Towers and took a 45 minute hop, skip, jump across it. It weaves the stories of many characters to that one event, and I haven’t enjoyed a book this much since The History of Love by Nicole Krauss, which is my all-time favorite.

The book viscerally takes me back to my childhood, when New York was a very dirty, very angry, very dangerous place. I haven’t felt those feelings of dread and the scared retraction of my heart in a long time. I am both impressed and disturbed at how tangibly this book brings back those feelings and I am wondering if the book gives that same experience to those who didn’t grow up here. I find myself getting caught up, the way I would when I was young, at how charged and reactive everything was, how vigilant I had to be all the time to protect myself. Giuliani had his issues as Mayor, but man, it’s palpably different from how I felt as a child. The safety, security and a relative calmness moved slowly into our everyday lives, and I cannot remember now, how we lived without it.

My city experienced severe vakrokti and straightened itself into something much more humane, mature, even graceful. Certainly my teeth can do the same.

Winter Song

I am sitting here cozy in my apartment, as the day, sunny and 20 degrees moves along its trajectory. I have been so tired since returning from Mexico and usually when I'm feeling low energy and melancholy I dash out into the day, run in the park, go to the movies or simply call friends to multiply a good feeling between us. But somehow none of this is enticing me. So I'm instead listening to music, Louis Armstrong's, "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," "Sweet Disposition" by The Temper Trap and "Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson have just floated by:


They say that things just cannot grow
beneath the winter snow
Or so I have been told
They say we're buried far
Just like a distant star
I simply cannot hold

[...]

I still believe in summer days
The seasons always change
And life will find a way
I'll be your harvester of light
And send it out tonight
So we can start again...

Apparently I'm a week early for feeling blue. The actual date of the official "Blue Monday," the "worst day of the year" is January 18th. Here's the equation to prove it:

http://www.beatbluemonday.org.uk/?pagename=the-equation

It seems that there are six factors to determine this day: weather (W), debt (d), time since the holidays (T), time since failing our new year’s resolutions (Q), low motivational levels (M) and the feeling of a need to take action (Na).

At least it's a codified system of depression!

I know it's going to be in the 40s later on this week. Maybe I'll feel less like a carton of frozen peas and more like my formerly papaya self then!

The Biggest Loser

I just finished watching The Biggest Loser, a show that's been on TV for some years now, but this was my first experience with it. I had turned on the TV on for some background noise as I was making a pot of soup (New Year's resolution #1 is in effect!) and it just happened to be on. However, I was compelled to give it my full attention as I watched regular folks, good family people, loved people, getting on scales in front of their families, their entire towns and boldly face the fact that they weighed 250, 300, even 500 pounds. I was truly moved, and found that I couldn't stop the tears from running down my face empathizing so for these people who have let themselves, for various reasons, get to a morbidly unhealthy place, both physically and in truth, emotionally. Their shame was palpable.

What was it that touched such a nerve? Look, I used to be close to 200 pounds. I lost 60, and have kept it off. But it wasn't the weight that made me feel for them, it was that raw shame that took me off guard--how honest they were with it, not only in front of others, in front of all of America, but with themselves.

I relate because quite honestly, this whole process with my teeth has made me feel ashamed of myself. And perhaps this is why I've had such trouble with it because shame is a new emotion for me. Even when I was heavy, I didn't feel shame. But now, even though I know I am in the process of making it better, I wince when I lisp, I want to cry when I am speaking with someone and he or she subconsciously looks at my teeth and takes a hand to cover his or her own mouth (this has happened more than a few times.) I am close to panic when I have to give presentations at work.

I know what it is to transform. I know that it doesn't happen quickly. I know that my teeth are moving and shifting every day, and I also know that things often have to get worse before they get better. It is the natural way--just look at how the body heals; it makes a scab, before new, smooth, pink skin is revealed underneath.

But I have a tendency to pick at scabs, eager to peek underneath, eager for healing to occur faster. I'm trying to remember that patience is a virtue and that all good things come to those who wait.

And I'll root with all my heart for all the contestants on The Biggest Loser.

Mexican Resolutions

Hola y feliz ano nuevo! I am back from Mexico and honestly, there's nothing like a week with no TV, radio phones or blackberry. The sounds in my ears were all natural--voices, birds, sweet chirps from the little lizards who lived in the thatch of our cabana roof, the flapping of moth wings, the high pitched whine of mosquitoes, the singsong Spanish of the waiters in the nearby restaurant, and of course, my favorite, the roar and fizz of the ocean. I would wake up each morning at 6:30 am as the tide rolled in because it was simply so loud--just 30 feet outside of the cabana. (Talk about a natural alarm clock!)

I can't believe that I haven't taken a whole week's vacation in years and the time itself felt luxurious. I didn't realize the effect that it had on me until I returned, plucked out of my 88 degree sunny cocoon into biting wind and 15 degree weather. (That sunburn I got has helped to keep me warm!) Now that I am back, I feel imbued with a sense of calm, and a grounding and centering to myself that I haven't felt in well over a year. It is amazing to feel no internal struggle, no niggling little voice telling me that I'm not good enough, no exasperation with my teeth or the fact that I'm unmarried. No anger or blame. Everything just is where it is right now. I battled against this before my vacation, and that battle just made me anxious, unhappy and feeling so unattractive. Now, a tremendous weight has been lifted to know that I just have to be where I am, sitting squarely in the center of my own possibility, but not cracking the whip.

It got me thinking about resolutions, and I make a list each year with intentionality, and it's interesting to see the list year to year, to understand what is most important to me in the height of the holiday swirl. To have been removed from all the parties and the hoopla for the first time this year has given me great perspective and for that I am most grateful. So here we go:

1. Those pesky 10 pounds are back. I ate lots of fish tacos in Tulum (fish with fresh papaya and spicy sauce! One cannot resist!) and once they started putting out buffets, I was lost. (Oh, that Pan Frances dusted with cinnamon sugar for breakfast! Yum!) I am back on the wagon today, and it feels good to do so. I have been comforting myself with cakes and cheese these past few months, but now I want to comfort myself with health.

2. I want more quiet time. I am always whizzing around the city meeting friends, getting home late, and climbing into bed well past midnight. I think I need some time to be quiet and still with myself. Maybe I'll even meditate, though the thought of it has always made me a bit nervous. If anyone knows of a good website, book or meditation that they like, let me know.

3. I am going to court myself. If I am not in a relationship right now, I want to behave as though I am, but with little ol' me. I want to make my apartment beautiful as though I am waiting for my sweetie to come home to it. I want to make lavish meals for myself, and light candles as I eat them. I want to buy myself flowers and give myself gifts of jewelry. (Which I did, in Mexico!) Maybe if I treat myself nicely, I'll be ready to let someone else treat me that way too. I'm still not feeling quite so pretty with the braces, but maybe by the time I feel completely wooed and charmed by myself, my teeth will have shifted into a place where they look good even to me, so that I'll feel confident enough to smile at someone else.

It's a process. But for now, it feels so good to be joyful and happy exactly where I am.