Eat Mangoes Naked

I picked up Eat Mangoes Naked, because really, who can resist a title like that? There's this great part where the author says that she'd like to write a letter to the concept of change, and that it would go something like this:

Dear Change,

I've previously been very afraid of you. You weren't welcome in my home, and I spoke badly about you behind your back. I resisted you, avoided you and made fun of you. I want to change our relationship. I want to learn to cultivate and respect you, dance with you and take you out to dinner. Let's travel together! Will you be my everlasting friend?

Love,

Susan

I like this, even if I'm not exactly living it yet.

But I do a have a mango in the fridge...

Ah, James Brown

James Brown said, "Hair is the first thing. And teeth the second. Hair and teeth. A man got those two things, he's got it all."

Thanks to Ali and my three hours (!) last night at Astor Place, I've got good hair. I've been told I look very Joan Jett. No complaints there! (Ali knows my not-so-secret joy in looking like a badass.)

And the teeth--well, that's getting there. We're at 7 weeks now. I think about all the things that get accomplished in 7 weeks. They say it takes 6 to form a habit, so I should be used to these suckers by now. Tree shrews apparently have a 7 week gestation period. And according to Joan Matthews Larson, it only takes 7 weeks to get sober. Wrigley Field was built in 7 weeks (in 1914!) and the Yiddish musical comedy classic "Yidl Mitn Fidl" ("Yiddle With a Fiddle") starring Molly Picon was made in 7 weeks in 1935.

So James, if a man's got it all with hair and teeth, what's a woman got with hair and braces?

Making the Bionic Grin

So this is what is grinworthy on this dark and rainy day:

I think a little pink is in order, and it goes so well with gray, don't you think?

I do believe I shall try to have a pink day. Pink clothes, pink salmon for brunch and perhaps a blush wine for later on. Let me know how you'll be pink today!

Get Funky

So, I've been in a bit of a funk.

The Jewish New Year just passed and normally I find this to be an inspiring holiday. We truly get the sense of a fresh start. We wear new clothes and eat apples dipped in honey so that our mouths taste only sweetness, so that sweetness will feed the cells in our bodies and permeate our being. For this coming year, we will share sweetness with all we meet and allow it to infuse all that we do. This is a ritual that I prize at this time of year, when school is starting, and the energy of change, the energy of becoming is palpably present. You can see it as the leaves color and hue, how they blaze into beauty, and find their moment of fullest potential. I love the autumn for this very reason.

But this year, I did not feel that energy. I felt still. And this is not necessarily a bad thing, because stillness is not the same as stagnation. But stillness in NYC is a difficult state. If we indeed need to "go with the flow" being still gums up the works. Stillness stops traffic on the street. It ignores the rules of the land.

And yet, as uncomfortable as I am being still, I know I cannot be any other way right now. This is not a quick process that I am engaged in. Teeth are not text messages or microwave dinners. They adhere to the natural law, which takes its time.

Time, it seems, is reserved for those of a meditative nature. I am reminded of the term, maha-kalpa, a Sanskrit work indicating a very particular unit of time. If every hundred years a mountain is brushed with a silk scarf, the time it takes for the mountain to be eroded by the scarf is known as a maha-kalpa. (The Buddha could not speak of it in exact years, so this was the explanation he gave.) I've thought of this so often ever since I learned the phrase in college many years ago. And, as you might imagine, I've been thinking about this unit of time, since the braces went on.

I was reading Just Over My Shoulder, a dear friend's blog today, and this is what she wrote:

Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?

-Tao te Ching

I've been battling against the stillness all week, feeling defeated by it, and saddened by it. And yet, this passage from the Tao te Ching was so useful, like silverware, or a ballpoint pen. It turned my thinking on a dime, and as impatient and melancholy as I am with this process, I do know that I have to wait until the right action arises, and it cannot be forced or cajoled into being. It simply needs to sit, cross it's legs, rub its Buddha belly and take its time

Overzealous

So, I got a little overzealous.

Since the braces were tightened on Friday, I was actually able to CHEW with confidence for the first time in 5 weeks. I went out to lunch with my friend Cory. I ate a rather conservative fried rice, and even chomped a bit on salad. No issues! I took the spring rolls that came with our order in a takeout container, presumably to eat for dinner tonight.

Except that I got a little peckish at around 3pm and I tore the spring rolls into pieces and ate them. Apparently they were just too much for the braces, and I popped a bracket off. Even within just a few minutes I could feel the difference in pressure and I knew I had to get it fixed. I called the orthodontist's office, and the receptionist said I could come on down, but that my usual doctor was not there. That was fine with me. I figured it needed to be attended to right away.

I get to the office, the doctor on duty asks what the problem is and I tell him. He removes the bracket and simply bends the wire back where the bracket once was and tells me to go on my merry way. He said that it's "not their policy" to replace brackets when they break off, but that they will do it when I have other brackets that need to be put on.

I was appalled.

Are you kidding me? I'm paying this office thousands of dollars, and they won't fix what's broken? I stood my ground. I told him that this didn't make sense when I was here in his office right now when I could have it fixed now. It didn't make sense that I should go with lopsided brackets when proper tension is so important. And then I played my trump card: that as AN ADULT with teeth that move slower than children (and a mind that isn't easily trifled with) fixing a broken bracket has the potential to make it move even faster, and that was reason alone to get it attended to now.

Seeing that he was not going to win this battle, he fixed the bracket. It's tighter than it was before, but you know what, I'm happier. I like it tight. It lets me know that it's working and if I just shaved off a month more of braces time, then score one for the Bionic Grin.

I had been worried that I wouldn't know when to advocate for myself since so much of this process is beyond my control, and I have to let myself trust that I am in good hands. But this was just proof that I'll know when things aren't right, and my mouth works just fine when I need to set things straight! (No braces necessary for the words!)

Is it wrong to love my orthodontist?

I have to admit that I was full of dread, thinking about today—my very first tightening appointment. And whenever I get truly nervous about something I take pen to paper and write down all the questions I have so that my fears can be eased. “Is it terrible that I only have one point of contact in my mouth with which to chew? Is it a problem that I’m still gumming at my food after 5 weeks? Am I grinding my teeth at night?” I think of that song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado: “I Have A Little List” in which Ko-Ko, The Lord High Executioner of Titipu, rolls out this enormous scroll for his “little list.” I had a rather fashionable little notebook, but it did take up 3 pages, so Ko-Ko and I are nothing if not thorough.

Despite all of my qualms, my sweet orthodontist approaches me with a smile, patience and good answers to my questions. He is reassuring and supportive and makes me understand that he does indeed have a plan, and that I am quite literally safe in his hands. The only time I saw him stop smiling was when I told him that though I’m concerned, it’s not because anything was hurting. “Good,’ he said seriously. “It should never hurt.”

This is my kind of doctor.

The teeth are tighter, but in a solid way, not an uncomfortable way. Where this sensation made me feel unhappy over the past week, now it makes me feel secure. Funny to think that I have my own personal shepherd for my teeth—one who is making sure that my molars and incisors do not wander off into directions that might harm them. He said that the teeth want to be where they were before, and the change is strange and uncomfortable to them. But they’re moving, and they’ll find their way. And you know what? I utterly believe him. I almost skipped out of his office because I literally felt…well, loved. I don’t think I’ve ever had this kind of experience with a doctor before, but maybe that’s why our healthcare system is in such disarray. We should feel loved by those who are trying to heal us. We should feel nurturing energy, not the beaten-down ennui of bureaucracy. I feel like I’ve been given a gift today to experience a doctor who believes in the Hippacratic Oath. I find it fascinating that this is part of the modern translation of the Oath used in many medical schools today:

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

Sing it loud and sing it proud, my medical brothers and sisters!

"I'm a model, you know what I mean..."

Maybe it was all of my fashion week postings that made it happen, but I got invited to an actual fashion show at Bryant Park at the last minute by one of my friends. On Friday, I went to the Twinkle By Wenlan show, and it was delightful. Lovely clothes, and a nice low-key crowd. (Alex McCord from The Real Housewives of NYC was there, but if my friend hadn't pointed her out, I wouldn't have known who she was. I don't watch the show!) I was rather amazed by how chill it was--I had expected that there would be fashionistas with 'tude, judging my obviously un-couture duds, but I felt every bit as fashionable in my H&M outfit as the other ladies in the runway's front row. I took some photos, and I love this one:

I love seeing all the photographers in the background. I was struck by just how many people are employed by one 10 minute long fashion show. There were at least 20 models, the photographers, the editors, the security, the stylists, the makeup artists, the hair stylists, the publicists. All for a 10 minute long show!

Here are a few more shots that I liked:

Check out the model in the viewfinder!

Maybe the universe is telling me that despite the feelings expressed in the last few posts, I am pretty sassy in my city. Can I say that braces are on the forefront of fashion? (Oh, what the heck? Tin grins are in!)