Upping the Down

20 months.

My ortho, for the third month in a row has placed yet an even stronger wire on my top teeth and made it his mission to turn my back right molar a full 90 degrees. Yes, it hurts as much as it sounds like it does.

You may have noticed that the countdown clock on the right side of the blog has gone from 116 to 177 days left. That's because, when I pressed him, my doctor said that it would look more like 6 more months than 4 to complete what we need to do. (I told him I needed to mentally prepare for how much longer this will really take.) To me, 2 months more won't do much and the work that needs to be done will probably take me to the end of the year. I would love to be proven wrong, but I'm trying to be realistic. The disappointment I felt when I convinced myself that this would all be done in 18 months is something too crushing to revisit.

I just finished reading A Visit From The Goon Squad and in that very well done book (which just won the Pulitzer!) it is time that is the eponymous goon. After my appointment today, I can attest that time is indeed a goon.

But if we're going to break it down, "Goon" could also be read as "Go On." So go on is what I'll do.

Toothmares

I had a nightmare the other night, which I rarely have. My company is in the midst of consolidating its office space, and in my dream, all the cubicles were the size of milk crates, in neat, perfect, white rows. These clean rows, in the name of progress and efficiency and all that is streamlined, were too small and compressed. Somehow I realized the office was in my mouth, and all these rows of offices were really my teeth, and they were all too close and constricted even though they were perfectly aligned. I woke up, with my teeth hurting. (I must have been clenching them in my sleep.)

I looked up symbolism of teeth in dreams, and this is what I found online:

"Teeth" in the dream world are most often an archetypal image of the dreamer's sense of confidence and competence in the waking world. Dreaming that there is something amiss with my teeth usually points to insecurities about my ability to "get my teeth into it," or maybe I've "bitten off more than I can chew." Ironically, the very fact that you remember such a dream is a reliable indicator that the you, the dreamer, can deal creatively and transformatively with the problems that life presents. If this were not the case, you would not even have remembered the dream. All dreams (even nightmares!) come in the service of health and wholeness, and no dream ever came to anyone to say, "Nyah, nyah--you've got these problems and you can't do anything about them!" The more emotionally charged, or urgent the dream, the more likely that it points to a creative possibility previously hidden from the conscious mind, in response to a pressing waking life problem.

I feel that with these braces I experience on a daily basis the feelings of not being able to sink my teeth into the things I would like, as well as feeling like the whole process with these damn braces was biting off more than I can chew. (Ah, chewing! I can't wait until that no longer feels like a triumph.) I'm getting nervous, as I usually do, in the days before my next tightening (which will be Tuesday), and I want to be comforted and petted. I want salvation and deliverance. I want corned beef on rye.

Depending on where you get it, corned beef qualifies as a transformative way to deal with braces. Who's down with trying Mile End with me?

The Compass of Pleasure

I am always tickled when a new pattern starts to occur in my daily life. A though or a concept seems to get underlined in everyday conversation, and I start to pay attention like a star student in a classroom. I went to my friend Diana's housewarming party on Saturday night and met lovely people amid bubbly glasses of champagne, homemade meatballs and ziti, a fantastic 20 pound turkey from Prime Meats, and more cakes, cookies, tarts and pastries than you can shake a stick at. I got into a wonderfully intense conversation with one of the party goers who said to me, "It is our obligation to follow our pleasure. That is where the answer to all questions can be found."

I loved this idea. I was so struck by it that I was tossing it over in my mind as I lay in bed long after the party ended.

At the Rubin Museum of Art tonight, I attended a curated discussion between chocolatier Jacques Torres (who could not have been more charming and entertaining!) and David Linden, the author of The Compass of Pleasure which explored the ways that pleasure is processed in the brain. Linden said that the pleasure response in the mind causes the same reaction to our vices (eating fatty foods, drugs, alcohol) as it does to our virtues (exercising, giving to charity.) The mere anticipation of pleasurable experience is enough to set off our pleasure response as well. (To illustrate the point, we were given two pieces of chocolate from Jacques Torres to see what our response was to different blends. I can assure you that as the plates of sweet yummies were being passed, the anticipatory energy was downright palpable.)

Linden also said, which I found fascinating, that the pleasure response can also be activated by our denial of pleasure or our abstinence of pleasurable activities. He said that this may be how some of the ancient Buddhists found their path to enlightenment. I think of Siddhartha who had every sort of earthly pleasure imaginable, but it was only until he cast it all aside that he could find his true rapture, and his true nature.

The last question of the evening was "Why is the title of the lecture 'The Compass of Pleasure?'" Is it truly our pleasure that should be the measure of our direction? Will pleasure show us our true north?"

I loved this question, mostly because I would like to think that our innate pleasures constitute the deepest expression of the soul, and that if one follows one's bliss, then one can never be led astray. The only way everything can be all right, is if we answer yes to the questions our souls ask.

This weekend was filled with pleasures. Parties, friends, challenging yoga, overindulged eating, and the sweet anticipation of my trip to Morocco. And to top it off, I came across this quote to boot: Johann Wolfgang Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."

I get it Universe. I'm listening. I'm underlining pleasure in red Sharpie.