Toothy Reviews

I really do believe that the universe is listening, even to small requests.

I ran out of my toothpaste--Desert Essence, fennel flavored, and found myself not wanting to spend another dime on my teeth. Between the Waterpik, the Sonicare, the big tooth brushes, the little tooth brushes, the three kinds of dental floss, and the dental kit I take with me everywhere I go, I'm telling you, I had no idea how expensive braces were going to be AFTER I signed the contract with my orthodontist. I am tapped out. My energy and my $$ want to be elsewhere.

So I think the universe heard my plea for money mercy when I got not one, but two toothpaste samples in the mail, Colgate Maxfresh and Tom's of Maine's Wicked Fresh toothpaste. (That one got itself points for the name alone.) The Maxfresh has these tiny little dissolvable breath freshening squares which deliver a powerful, cooling punch, and I definitely like the taste, but the squares don't really dissolve so well, so I found myself trying to pick these little white things out of my teeth--another tooth task I did not need. I have enough stuff to pick out of my teeth!

The Tom's of Maine Wicked Fresh was a really different experience--I swear, it started out minty, got herby, got sweet and then had a muted mint aftertaste. I've never had the flavor of a toothpaste change so much while in use. It was kind of a neat little sensory tickle. I have to admit that I didn't find anything particularly "wicked" about it--so it was a little misleading. (Maybe I wanted some slap with that tickle?)

Fellow braces wearers, I will tell you hands down the best thing I've bought for my teeth in the last eight and a half months--and it didn't cost me much at all. (I wish I had known about this earlier!) Get yourself a So Fresh flossing toothbrush--in a CHILDREN'S size. This hands down gets out more gunk out and away from braces and caught between teeth. I am never going back to a regular toothbrush. Ever!

The Purpose Driven Thought

I've been thinking a lot about purpose lately. While at Kripalu, I read an article by life coach Tama Kieves who encourages her clients to ask themselves three questions with regard to one's path in life:

1. What do you ache to do in this moment?

2. Why would you be encoded with a desire that you didn't have the means and calling to fulfill?

3. What would you do, right now, if you trusted love more than fear?

Now that the fraught nature of this tooth process is really starting to fade into the background, I find that I'm starting to look forward and outward and think more substantively about purpose. What do I ache to do in this moment--both large and small?

I want to go to Bali and Japan (Welcome back TJ!)

I want to go to New Orleans, and back to Rocky Mountain National Park

I want to be blissfully married

I want to finish my novel and have it be a truly pleasurable writing experience

I want to win a Pulitzer Prize

I want to explore City Island

I want pancakes from Clinton Street Baking Company

I want to take up jogging

I want to learn French

I want to read the pile of books on my windowsill

Though the first two questions on Tama's list are very practical, it's the third that seems so woo-woo. And yet, it's the one that's sort of making me get defensive. It's not that I'm afraid, I'm just lazy, I'm just a procrastinator, I'm tired and want time to be still. But what for? Laziness and procrastination are really just forms of self-punishment. So what would happen if I did trust love more than fear? I just might find myself in Bali with my Pulitzer Prize.

Holy crap, what a thought.

Holy crap, what a thought!

CodeOrgan

There's this new website called CodeOrgan, which will turn any website into a piece of music. I gave them this blog and this is what they came up with. Whaddya think?

Loveliness

Something has changed.

All of the unpleasant, messy feelings associated with this tooth process are really starting to dissipate. The self-flagellation that I've been doing, now seems so strange, curious, and downright silly. I think it might have been Nick Vujicic who did this for me--seeing him speak has had a reverberating effect on my perspective, one I never could have predicted. I'm reminded of the words of Galway Kinnell: "sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness."

I've had the experience of being retaught my loveliness, and if I think about it I am most grateful for those moments in my life. The last time I was retaught my loveliness on such a grand, public scale was when I was training to be a holistic health counselor three years ago. In learning how to help others nourish themselves with food and with self-care, I really learned how to do the same for myself. I lost 15 pounds (in addition to the 45 I had lost previously). I learned how to eat healthfully, how to get on a path towards living my best life, and how find encouragement along the way. I laughed a lot. I met such dedicated, smart, caring people who I now call lifelong friends. I was happier, healthier and prettier at 34 than I was at any other time in my life. I never once yearned for my 20s.

This was also the moment when my teeth started shifting which makes sense because so much of me was shifting at that time too. If I can pull back far enough I can see that these braces which have made me feel so uncomfortable and unhappy are really just another part of that process of becoming the best me--it's hasn't taken away anything that I worked so hard to gain. Rather, it's given me that bedrock solid core inside me which doesn't care if I've gained back 12 pounds, or have the face of an awkward teenager, or is unpartnered and still seeking. In fact, it is the very thing that has retaught me my loveliness, so that it can pave the proper way for something even more beautiful.

And talk about encouragement: for the past few days, it has seemed like everyone is smiling at me when I walk down the street and I couldn't figure out why. What I didn't realize was that I'M the one who is smiling at THEM and they are merely returning the gesture by smiling back at me. I honestly had no idea. Call it Part II of the Beauty Experiment: Boomerang Effect!

(Or maybe it was the red lipstick after all!)

The Beauty Experiment

I gave myself a challenge yesterday.

At the end of a long week, feeling rather, depleted and drab, I decided to board the subway train in the morning, go to work and move through my entire day viewing everyone I came in contact as beautiful. No matter who they were, how young or old, fat or thin--race, color, sex, or creed--I saw them through the lens of beautiful. I looked at their faces and say to myself, "He is beautiful, she is beautiful" and I connected the words meaningfully with each person.

I saw the grandmother with defiance on her face as beautiful

I saw the older woman turning the pages of her novel with long, elegant, bejeweled fingers as beautiful

I saw the construction worker with noble responsibility in his stride as beautiful

I saw the 350 pound man struggling to walk as beautiful.

And no joke, I saw the blond woman walking down 55th Street at 12 noon in a red ball gown and a tight black leather bolero as shocking, funny, and yes, beautiful.

Even if I couldn't immediately find each person I focused on as beautiful, I appreciated the care that each person took in choosing their clothes, the special flip or smoothness to their hair. The design of a pair of sunglasses, or a slow gait amid the frenzy of the city. I appreciated the roundness of a cheek, a mischievous smile, a bluest eye. What's wild is I started seeing everyone as whole, brilliantly hued and utterly possible, connected in a quietly divine and utterly simple way. The most important Jewish prayer, the Sh'ma (which means "hear") and expresses that "The Lord is one" popped into my head. I don't think I ever understood what this prayer really meant until I embarked on my little Beauty Experiment.

And at the end of the day, I bought red lipstick to wear on my lips--for the first time in eight months. I've been smiling ever since.

The Furrow

Apropos of my feelings about age, and all the metaphorical seeds that are quietly gestating, on my teeth and elsewhere, and since I think I have a case of Springtime-itis, I though I'd share this poem with y'all:

The Furrow

by W.S. Merwin

from "The Vixen"

Did I think it would abide as it was forever


all that time ago the turned earth in the old garden


where I stood in spring remembering spring in another place


that had ceased to exist and the dug roots kept giving

up
their black tokens their coins and bone buttons and shoe nails


made by hands and bits of plates as the thin clouds


of that season slipped past gray branches on which the early


white petals were catching their light and I thought I

knew
something of age then my own age which had conveyed me


to there and the ages of the trees and the walls and houses


from before my coming and the age of the new seeds as I


set each one in the ground to begin to remember


what to become and the order in which to return


and even the other age into which I was passing


all the time while I was thinking of something different

Crazy Eights

We have just passed month #8. Every time I go to my orthodontist's office, the whole staff appears genuinely happy to see me. No matter what time my appointment may be scheduled, they always take me as soon as I come in even if there are three people in the waiting room ahead of me. The energy changes in the office; they start smiling and there's a palpable warmth in the room. This time, the doctor's assistant took my old bands off and commented with glee, "Your teeth look great!" Shortly thereafter, my ortho came over and said, "Wow! Your teeth look great!"

I have to tell you, I felt like freakin' Miss America.

They kept commenting on how quickly my teeth are moving for an adult. My doctor put on a lot of super-strong elastics and within one day, my front four teeth are closed. I was scared to ask, but I went there: I asked him if I'll need a dental implant and he said, no, that he'll be able to close everything without it, and I almost wanted to jump for joy. The dental assistant came over to put the new bands on, and my doctor said, "No, that's okay, I'll do it," which, if I think about it, he does every month. :)

The teeth hurt, but that's all right. I am thinking again about what Nick Vujicic said, that if you are not rescued from your struggle it means that there's something greater in store for you, something more for you to learn. I've been treating this process like a delinquent, hiding in the back of the class with my head down and doodling on my desk when there has been so much available for me to learn. Now I feel the need to be present with it, to study hard, show up every day, and make the magic happen. Magic is a word that is starting to follow me, in much the same way that "alignment" and "alchemy" were following me just before I got the braces, and I'm so curious to see what that word has in store for me.

Abracadabra!

Without Limb-its

I was invited to hear Nick Vujicic speak this past weekend. When I heard that he was born without arms or legs, I honestly didn't know what to expect. My sympathies were aroused, certainly, but I wasn't sure what kind of talk this was going to be. I mean, the mere fact that he gets out of bed in the morning is inspiring in and of itself, no? But I went with an open mind, to hear what he had to say.

Goodness gracious, this man is really something.

First of all, he's Australian, and he has that great Aussie irreverence and humor. He's very attractive, has a wonderful smile and a handsome face, and his honesty shines through every word he says. He said that even without arms, he's hugged over 350,000 people and I believe it. He's utterly entrepreneurial (stocks and real estate), he owns his own company, his own foundation, and travels all over the world bringing a message of hope and faith. Here, have a taste of his sense of humor:

And then he got into the meat of his story:

And even more:

(These last two videos were filmed four years ago, but the message is the same.)

I wish I could convey how moved I was by his presence, his assurance, his faith, and the fact that everything is achievable if we continue to move towards it, however slowly, however damaged our bodies may be. It is our minds, our psyches that can overcome all. I have been told this many times throughout my life, and the message has been doubled over the past seven months. But I don't think I really understood it until I heard Nick speak. It instantly made me ashamed of all the struggle I've had with my braces, and how cowed I've felt by their presence in my mouth. The shift in my view on myself was startlingly instantaneous--the braces just don't matter anymore. They're there. I'm still me. Yes it changes how I speak and look, but I'm still me. Yes, I get tired when they get tightened, and yes, I still crave the cupcakes. But punishing myself was simply a form of procrastination.

Now, things are going to start getting interesting. Buckle up folks, I have a feeling, we're in for a fantastic ride in the coming months.

I love that in this video Nick speaks about the book he wants to write. Well, it's four years later and Life Without Limits: Inspiration for a Ridiculously Good Life is coming out in October. I can't wait to read it.

Seasons Greetings

"It’s important in all practice to realize that you’re the one that’s creating the ground for it to happen. Not that you are it, or that your ego identifies with it, but that you can take responsibility for having created the fertile ground for this thing to happen. You know, the correct theatrical lights and costumes and feeding it with the right energy so that the magic happens. I think that’s important, to take credit for it. It adds confidence and strength to the practice." --Richard Gere, "Everything's About the Heart", Tricycle

I am thinking a lot lately about creative energy. Everything begins with a thought, with rumination, with a series of weights and measures before any action ever takes place. The mind vacillates between the devil it knows and the devil it don't before it can take that very tentative, or very bold leap of faith. This can take days, or many years, this process of wonder, and even though it seems like non-action, it is an important precursor to taking a first step. (It was such a comfort to understand that the four years I put off getting braces wasn't a waste of time, but simply incubation, preparing for what was to come.)

What I like about the quote above is that though it might feel that such leaps of faith are impulsive or unprotected, they are actually coming from a very powerful place. The creative seeds are planted within good soil--soil that has lain fallow and is well rested, ready for an idea, a photograph, a painting, a poem--even a baby, to take root. You created the garden, the fallow earth, as well as the gardener, the sun, the rain and the fertilizer. The weed whacker too.

Everyone I know is either pregnant, or just had a baby. Everyone I know is breaking ground into an entirely new way of creating, whether its with words, images or with their bodies. I think about the age I am and for the first time I do not feel old. I feel like I am in the prime of my expression, and I am surrounded by those who are also in their prime. This is no accident. It makes me feel connected, that we all chose each other for this very reason, and that everything is as it should be.

For so long it has deeply pained me to feel that I missed the boat and was somehow left behind on the shore of life, being unpartnered without children, and in their stead I have braces that make me feel even more like an anachronism. If I am to tell the truth, this is still a visceral pain, one that I am struggling with, even though I can clearly see so much that was beautifully birthed as a direct result of the braces. (Including this blog.)

Spring and renewal are palpably present. The air is warm. The sun beckons from every unshaded window. And I know, even if it is only in the rumination state, that is only a matter of time before the full flush of summer comes, with its sweet, ripened fruit.

Eat, Pray, Love

I'm thinking about the TV show The Biggest Loser, and how moved the contestants get when they pass the 400 pound or 300 pound mark and fine themselves in another realm of their goals. They're so proud, they cry tears of sheer joy and astonishment. (Seriously, the transformations, even at this point of the show, have been nothing short of amazing.)

I have passed the 500 day mark and I am officially in the 400s, (and almost in the 48os!) which doesn't seem so far from the 300s which doesn't seem so far from a year. As encouraging as this should be, I find that that I am even more frustrated with the process, whispering "Hurry up!" to myself all the time. When friends tell me how good my teeth look, I can only see what's still wrong instead of being proud of what's going right, and I feel ever-bound by this girded mortal coil.

I'm sure author Elizabeth Gilbert would be tickled to know that I use her book, Eat, Pray Love like *ahem* the Bible. Whenever I'm feeling low, or needing some kind of divine intervention, I randomly open up to a page, and invariably the words apply to whatever situation I'm in, make me breathe easier and simply feel much better.

Opening the book this morning, I flipped through the pages, but the place where my bookmark had been, came flying out at me. I had placed it there the last time I had done this and was seeking solace for a very different situation. But the words were still just as useful. When Elizabeth's friend Richard tells her to give her situation six months, and she explains that she's already given it twelve, he says to her, "Then give it six more. Just keep throwin' six months at it until it goes away. Stuff like this takes time."

Then he tells her this: "Someday you're gonna look back on this moment of your life as such a sweet time of grieving. You'll see that you were in mourning and your heart was broken, but your life was changing and you were in the best possible place in the world for it--in a beautiful place of worship surrounded by grace. Take this time, every minute of it."

I keep coming back to the idea that if teeth are attached to every organ in the body, much like they are to the feet in reflexology, then it makes sense that I feel at sixes and sevens all the time (even as I'm in the 490s). My commitment to yoga is deepening again (the first principle of Anusara yoga is "open to grace"--how appropriate considering the Gilbert quote) and I am trying to use the tools I have to help my my body find its way as the interior teeth and organs shift. I aim to be gentle, but I fall back into old patterns. Just ask my mom--she can tell you that I have never been good at transitioning throughout the course of my entire life.

I had a dream the other night that Betty White and Diana Ross were in army fatigues, standing next to versions of themselves in civilian clothes. They were hugging themselves and saying goodbye. I couldn't tell if it was the army or civilian version that was leaving in the dream, or if they were simply going their separate ways. I think this means that I have to say goodbye to the outdated pieces of myself that were big and consequential at one time, but now have a different place of importance in the galaxy. Maybe it also means that I don't have to be prepared to defend myself all the time. Maybe all is well. Maybe my orthodontist knows what he's doing. Maybe I just need to keep throwin' six months at it, and all will be made clear.

PS. In case you haven't seen the trailer, the movie looks like it's going to be pretty good:

Grinworthy Graffiti

Saw this on Crosby Street today. To paraphrase Paul Simon, the words of the prophets are indeed written on the walls.

Audrey says...

"I believe in pink. I believe that laughter is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot...I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls."--Audrey Hepburn

I adore the elegant Miss Hepburn. The fact that I have been compared to her more than once has astounded me. I don't see the similarity at all, but since it makes me so happy, I'll take the kind words. Those utterances have given me the greatest compliments of my life.

Space Is Love

While at Kripalu, I went to a lecture given by Randal Williams, a professor of yoga philosophy, and director of yoga teacher training. He was talking about the yamas and niyamas--the 10 moral precepts that make up classic yoga. He said something that really stuck with me: "Space is the prerequisite for life--once a gap opens up, life force and inspiration occur. Wherever there is space, life flows."

I suppose this stuck with me because I have so much space in my mouth, so much that quite literally needs closure. To think of all these jagged, gaping holes as a place where inspiration and life force are brewing seemed like an absurd concept. After all, being shackled by wires and brackets has felt like a jail sentence for a misunderstood crime. But I've recently begun to hear the words of Nathaniel Hawthorne: "What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart? What jailer so inexorable as one's own self?"

Every ending is also a beginning--there was much I had to say goodbye to seven months ago. I grieved. I moped. I hid. But something has begun shifting for me along with my teeth, and I think I am just beginning to get an inkling of how much life is going to flow into this new space. Truth be told, I'm starting to get excited by the prospect of the pleasant surprises that may be in store.

Elena Brower mentioned the word diksha during the course of our yoga retreat. The word means "initiation," taking from the root "di" meaning "to give" and "ksha" meaning dissolution, disintegration, or disapation. She said that diksha can be small, meaning to initiate one simply into another possibility. What choices do you give yourself? How can you initiate yourself into another thought, another idea? Another future? "What do you have to give to make your fear go away?" she asked.

Albert Einstein said, "We cannot solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." I love this quote because it means that you have to shift your position to get a different view in order to solve all that is unsolved in your heart. It doesn't mean that you have to be better, stronger or braver. The great vista always is before us, it just depends on how high we're willing to climb in order to see it.

Tadasana

One of the places that makes me happiest is Kripalu in the Berkshires. I spent a blissful few days on a yoga retreat lead by the lovely Elena Brower called "The Art of Attention." You may remember that I blogged about the program I did last July with Elena at Kripalu, and how much the words "alchemy" and "alignment" were on my mind at that time. I hadn't gotten braces yet, but it was as though the universe was preparing me for what was to come simply by whispering those words in my ears everywhere I went. Back in July, these words were so tiny, so elementary, and as you now know, changed me on a fundamental level.

And just as I did in July, after this past weekend, I feel so different.

One of the most basic yoga poses is Tadasana, or Mountain Pose. Anyone can do Mountain Pose--yes even you! Just stand with your feet rooted to the ground and put your hands at your sides, stand tall and breathe. Breathe again. Breathe some more.

We stood in Mountain Pose and felt our breath, strong and clear, and I was aware of how strange it felt to take deep breaths, how liberating it was to be still and to feel the depth of my own chest, rooted within me like a tree's roots.

(It's funny, I keep attempting to write Mountain Pose and I keep mistyping it as Mountain Power. Talk about Freudian slips!)

We began to get into other poses which were more difficult and needed more and more effort to hold. Each time we were in those poses--Plank Pose, Triangle Pose, even headstands, Elena said, "Now, go into Tadasana, while in your headstand!" I swear, I could forget the struggle and strain of those more difficult poses and feel my body respond as though I was calmly standing tall, with my hands at my sides, feeling the depth of my own chest, rooted like a tree; the quality of my breath easy, unfettered and clear. She challenged us to "match the intensity of any boundary with your softness to create elegance," I did feel elegant, and what's even more amazing is that I continue to feel it, days later.

This concept of softening towards any boundary, by moving into Tadasana was so surprisingly accessible to me. In the past, I worried that all of the insight given to me in moments of vacation and retreat belonged to the place and not to me, and they would be lost the second I returned home. So the universe made sure that I knew how to keep it straight. Upon my return to NYC, it gave me a crisis at work. In fact a few. And a difficult co-worker to boot. I had a choice to match her intensity of negativity and blame, or I could meet her with my softness, and my Tadasana. And you know what? It TOTALLY worked. It wasn't even a struggle to keep my calm as it usually is, and I subconsciously invited my co-worker on to my mountain. She retracted that finger she was pointing at me, and began to laugh. I was pretty damn impressed.

I think there's a reason they call it Tadasana, because "Tada!" like magic, all the negativity disappears!

Elena introduced me to the idea of saying thank you to difficult situations and difficult people for they hold up a mirror to who we are, and who we want to be. It was possible for me to have such gratitude for my difficult coworker, because she showed me that I always have a choice. I can be what I have been in the past--swept away by the emotion and intensity of others and their dramas, or I can choose to be rooted in my own Tadasana and let the elegance of the mountain infuse me, calming not only me, but those around me.

More and more I realize how much I chose my bionic state. I could not admit that this was my choice a few months ago--I would have said it was a genetic fault, a neglectful dentist, capricious circumstance that did this to me, and all of that would have been true. But from another place, I realize that I chose this situation. I am learning now to stop battling against it, to say thank you, and be grateful for everything that it has made possible. I am still gazing in its mirror to see what else it has in store.

Elena shared this quote:

"What you still need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we've learned as we've moved toward that dream. That's the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon. Every search begins with beginner's luck. And every search ends with the victor's being severely tested."

--Paulo Coelho, from The Alchemist

I have another favorite quote from The Alchemist, which is, "Tell your heart that your fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself." I realize now that my feelings of smallness over the last few months have had less to do with actual suffering than my fear of some larger pain or rejection. Since this weekend, it seems as though I've taken the protective wrapper off of my heart and let it air out in the sunshine. I'm letting it speak first rather than my head. I am so grateful to all the things that made this happen--even the things that made me feel so yucky, so sad, and somewhat self destructive over the last seven months. Without choosing them, I would not be where I am now, cuddling my happiness project, and feeling the joy of simply breathing deeply.