Monthly Archives: September 2011

Poems

Ebb Tide during Dark Moon

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Ebb Tide at the Dark of the Moon

I am sad.
Not angry
Not believing any more or less of you than that you are human
and that I am stupid
to start believing
I could ever have a home.
That remissions are any more than interludes between treatments
but mostly that any HOME could ever be for me.Tape hurts more to remove when its sticky,
And this is a Brazilian of my heart.

You asked nothing of me
Except the friendship I so willing brought
Knowing you a brother from my past
You would give me safety in this life
and I would re-aquaint you with the meanings from your last.
And when I didn’t die as expected you said it still could be my home
This room duplicated, decorated from my many decades dreamtime
sanctum.

The first nine months I waited for the punchline
For the other shoe to drop, so close to bolting so many times
Riding through your dark periods of miasma angers and broken glass
“Please don’t leave,” you begged
So I didn’t. And therein my fatal flaw, I wanted what I couldn’t have
a home

and attached.

Your friendship followed through my days
like the crow triskell plastic decal on the sidedoor window
The heat of love not measured in ties of bank account or sexual attraction
began to
melt the cold glass walls I favor
and I forgot
the lesson of high tides full swell and gentle
and I let hope deposit kinship shells on my previous desolate beach.
Don’t get me wrong,  my beach is not unique, all beaches lie desolate again each stormy tide.

Between I love my children so much that knowing my craziness and their embarrassment I keep the distance they set and store up all my mother memories in the rocky shoal caves beyond the reach of destroying tides.

And I have friends
Unimaginable wonderful magic friends
Best friends
I love and I am loved
Beyond measure and dreams.

But before this misstep, I had always remembered
I was the misfit toy

and

Everything ends
and
Everyone leaves.

In life
We don’t get what we deserve, we just get what we get
and I chose to make sand castles
and jump over the moon
but you said
land here
its safe
its home
its yours as long as you need it.

Believe in a postcard life.

I bought the straw dream
and began building, while wolfish you watched.

I have slept in the room with Damsels and Knights and a four poster bed
Kept my books in tall white shelves purchased with kindness
for eleven months
Like Frost’s Hired Man come home
Only Arizona has stayed cloudless on the orbish moons
and so against medical advice
I have also lived

Not more brave than those I kissed good-bye
Just still breathing.Only now the other shoe has not so much dropped as been thrown at me head
24 hours and a few well faked orgasms trump friendship in your game.
Only that really isn’t fair,
You have been nothing but outwardly kind.

You said you would never ask me to leave
and said that you told her she would just have to deal with it
(when did I become “it” instead of “her”?)
as you left your hat on my chair for the first time in a year
and used the breadboard you bought me for my fifty-third birthday
as a tray to bring her breakfast coffee
and cruelly laughed at my expense with her within earshot.
“Does he really care at all about me, about our friendship?” the pain body whispers, “are his kindnesses only another way to bolster ego, manage image,
another version of the hateful foster family who paraded me to their friends to show their Christian might?”
I want to believe this at first
To bury myself in the addiction of bitter anger,
retaliation would be a solvent rounding the edges of this ripping pain
allow me again to dance gleeful in the straw and sand and rain of this hurricane.But I know better
I face the leering body of her pain in mask of hate
I observe it and know better
and choose of course to leave.

I want to cry
get high
die
have someone hold me till all the echoes of all the partings and betrayals silence in my brain.

I do none of these.

I walk along the beach in the pelting, whips of rain
And Maybe tomorrow I’ll again wear my perfect  pink galoshes.

 CC

Poems

Bobcat Territory

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Bobcat Territory

The people here try to raise chickens for eggs
a money saving venture in which
they often recoup the initial cost of chicks
but not the cost of feed
or cost of warming lights
or chicken wire
or sleepless nights listening to the closer
closer   closer       prowl and howl of drifting coyote
or the guttural and eirie growl of the indigent feline families.
The bobcats prowl the farms watching for the night the headlights don’t return at dusk,
No more than three days past its new, the moon is best;  pale and friendly to the hunt.
Like gossip in a workplace they work themselves between the wires
The carnage complete before it has begun.
Too late the headlights break across the stacked hay and metal fences.

The family of egg eaters tumble laughing into the house.
Mother looks one dirt road over where last year a man planted two palm trees that tower garishly above the grandfather cactus she loves, and ticks her tongue in annoyance
Disliking.
Unaware this imported arboreal talent provides an island ambience
to the grateful Bobcat picnic of plump hen and rangy rooster.

Their futile feathered frenzy finished before the bright light shone
The other hens discuss the coop combat in quieter, and quieter tones
Until plumped and justified in their stories of quiet clucks and bucks they roost
Contented they weren’t the chosen ones.

Innocent of all but nature the local kitties lick and clean their paws.

CC

Poems

Brief Blessed Encounter of Nomads

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Cold desert night ends
Morning and meaning its muse
Hummingbird dances

girl and chair collide
concentric coffee eddies
challenge glass boundary

seeing everything
automobile windows stare
and follow their flight.

Poems

Passive Resistance

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Passive Resistance
We strummed acoustic guitars and sang in groups
Of missing flowers, blowing winds
As they approached with billy clubs and shields
Hurling insults and orders.
We met each others eyes and held ourselves in check with our chain of stares

The biting smoke they unleashed made even my airy soprano
a bit more Janis Joplin.
Our eyes streamed tears and nose dangled mucous tributes to
American justice
And voices quavery with chemical fear
Rose again in growing tides and waves
Unison, “Give Peace a Chance.”

Until the boys in blue
roused the angry soldier in one of us
and he became at last what he had yet refused to be
And he rose up into contact with the billy club and shouted something back
and
that’s when the screaming started
and the bruises and the blood and the blame poured out
in American portions, service for one
but plenty for all to share.

I sat unmoving still keeping our three sets of eyes locked
Quietly caging our animal need to run, respond, fight back.
I had three stitches in my chin and two butterflies and my first bald patch on my head
You an armcast, and she with nothing broken
was witch green with healing bruises and a Jimmy Durante nose.
We were the lucky ones.
Who knew peace could hurt so much.

Five days later we buried the one who fought, the one who fled
Ourselves quite alive, only our belief in justice was dead.

CC

Blog, Triathlon Training

Monday, monday….

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I am chagrined to realize I do not have that song on my Ipod. In fact, I cannot even find my Mommas and the Poppas Greatest Hits in my CD’s. It has apparently joined various books, socks, articles of jewelry and clothing, CD’s and DVD’s in the Borderland or maybe the NeverNever. I am convinced that my own love of Wild Magic affects my belongings and that they animate at night and relocate themselves. Hence the inability to find my keys or a certain pair of socks, or in this case a much loved OooooLD CD.

Maybe there will be a wonderfully and reasonably priced used copy at Hoodlums this morning……

Ok, back in reality and the burning question *read in serious radio announcer voice, circa 1930 “Will this Slow Old Fat ‘Try’athlete actually achieve her preliminary goal of completing a Sprint Tri in October”

That is the burning question but on this front what’s burning this morning is my calves and feet. Yes I did swim last night. I swam two sets of 200 (4 laps), and did 150 on the board. No break between the first two laps, short break, lap, short break, length, break, length was the rhythm of it and I really worked my legs on the second and third board laps.  Didn’t get to the pool until 8ish, then not home till 10pm and tried to stay up to see the news. Fell asleep on the couch for about an hour. Into bed in the firmer guest room bed because I need to reconfigure the mattress situation in my room during my days off work this week. Slept until 6 AM, with only one bathroom trip so I give my sleep last night a five.

I give the pain I am in this morning a 9/10. Awoke to the long missing and not at all missed neuropathy in my feet.  The neuropathy is officially listed as a side effect of a long series of medications that allowed me to live long enough to complain about the side effects so I had pretty much determined it was just something with which I would have to live. This year I started going to Backfit Chiropractic for my “nurses back” and amazing bonus in the treatment box, my neuropathy disappeared.

I have done a lot of things over the years to minimize my chronic pain. It was a decision to shift paradigms and truly focus instead on maximizing my amazing and miraculous health that got me moving forward on this Triath journey and got my butt through into Backfits door.  Like a chemical catalyst, the massages and adjustments took to my organic, vegan food choices and increased exercise (which I had tried before by themselves in fits and starts always dragged back to the couch by fatigue, SOB and pain) and exploded them into a well being I couldn’t remember feeling in years.

Then I had a minor health glitch to the tune of ~1400$ (FTR, I am pretty much uninsurable at this time unless I become disabled so everything is out of pocket and triple cost) and my dog got sick and I am still glad I spent the money even though the answers were not the ones I wanted to hear (for another ~1300$ ) all out of pocket and I blessed the universe for the writing jobs that I thought would carry me through the chiro treatments for almost covering the two unexpected expenses. Bills got late and short story long, due to money constraints, I gradually decreased my trips to Backfit and now I have gone over two weeks without a massage or adjustment. What a difference it makes. All the little quirks and idiosyncrasies of surviving are back again, not as bad as before I started any treatments, but like my own little “check engine” light definitely here with a fitness moral.

The moral of the story for me is, even with continued exercise and stretching and good diet I need at minimum one massage and adjustment per week. Other moral is that I need to increase my willpower (more won’t power) for my Kryptonite – sugar, if I want to truly optimize the life I have been gifted. The neuron damage from the treatments are like frayed wires, so when they are all crossed and jumbled the shorts occur; adjustments and massage straighten and arrange my frayed wires so they don’t cross and cause little fires. Animal products, sugar and white flour are little drops of water I sprinkle over the whole thing and fan the flame.

It’s not just the neuropathy and back ache that Backfit treatments improved, other things these adjustments have done for me besides just being the pain reducer/energy booster I have just discussed is decrease my dependence on poise pads, and decreased my embarrassing gas and “digestive disorders’.

I cannot recommend enough for someone reading this Blog and then thinking that if it wasn’t for their pain or their weight or their incontinence or *fill in blank* they would love to start an exercise program, maybe just walk, or swim or run, to start it by going to a local reputable Chiropractic office that offers massage,physical therapy and adjustments (bonus if they have a homeopathic doctor also) and start there. If you live in the Mesa/Gilbert/Chandler area I TOTALLY recommend Backfit at ValVista and Warner. http://www.facebook.com/BackfitGilbert

And no, I don’t work for them; they worked for me!

Anyway back to today’s training diary I am having a bowl of oatmeal with mixed berries for breakfast and coffee with organic honey and soy milk, 6 oz cranberry juice and multi-vitamin.

I will walk the dogs. Shower and stretch.

Write two or three stories for Thursday deadline. Have a salad lunch.

Go to the bank. Reward myself for doing my plan with a trip to Hoodlum’s and Changing Hands and Trader Joe’s.

Backfit apt.

Home to write some more for my Thursday deadline.

Run 2 miles.

Watch Ashton Kutcher in Two and a Half Men and knit and go to bed. Yes, Virginia, my life has gotten small. All I talk about these days are training and television. I am reading and meditating still but no one wants to talk about that and otherwise, my life has become very, very small…..hmmm, I think I prefer the word “focused”.

Triathlon Training

Into the home stretch

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Been rolling my sore muscles a lot with still more lower back and knee discomfort than I am happy with and sleeping a lot more but not as well.  Wet weather and high pollution counts are not an old lungs friend, those I can’t change. My diet and workout routine however are within my control, and I need to change something or I will manage to steal failure right form the jaws of success.

Up late this morning (meaning 5:30 instead of 4 AM) so no running or biking this morning but re-introducing discipline to my eating to reduce my chronic inflammation. I believe inside every excuse is an answer just waiting to get out when the goal is important enough. I fed my processed salty foods and refined sugar addiction at my birthday and haven’t really gotten back to basics since. One month of too much sugar, salt, gluten and hidden dairy CAN definitely increase my sluggishness and my pain.

Breakfast this morning

1/2 cup fresh cut cantaloupe, 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries, 1 scoop nonGMO soy protien, 12 oz water.

Coffee with honey and organic vanilla soy milk

 

Lunch Packed

2 cup frozen green beans, 2 c spinach, 1 cup each cut carrots, zucchini, apple. Have my Bragg’s to spray on for dressing and a couple Tb of dried cranberries and flaked coconut for texture.

Lots of food. But I am gone for 12 hours with dropping records and commute.

Plan to swim at least tonight, maybe bike. But now time to go drive for 45 then be a nurse for 10 hours! This is the home stretch and I know I can do it!

Blog, Triathlon Training

Ice, Ice Baby!

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June 1, 2011. I couldn’t run a block. I had never ridden a bicycle or had a swimming lesson. June 1st was day one of this journey I am on, my goal was to try something ego challenging, that required effort and discipline and it had to be something fun and  completely different.

Anything athletic was about as different as I could get from my bookish existence. Also, and not surprisingly,  I was and am a BIG girl. Big girls still got game, I call my style of game, ” SOFT” (Slow Old Fat Try-athlete).

This pre-amble is to put in perspective my yesterday.  I swam 100 meters; four lengths together without break. I was panting and gasping when I was done but I did it.  Then I swam another 200 meters in lengths of 25; when I was done swimming I biked about 5 miles, and walked 5K. I am also trimming down, weighed in yesterday at 217 lbs. Not that the point was to be thin, but every ten pounds I lose is ten pounds I don’t have to drag through the water or around the track.

This morning I ran 1 mile, walked 2 more. Tomorrow after work I will go bike and swim.

I am tired and sweaty a lot.

I am also currently icing my back daily and rolling, rolling, rolling my legs and butt. I have a healing blister between my cheeks, ache places that never ached before and a very funky tan line but still am sooooo excited by my progress and that I am still engaged in an activity I have been told (and for years even told myself) just wasn’t for me.

So what’s my goal, well my dream goal is an open water/trail run triath event in an exotic local, but since I am still an EXTREME novice, Athena novice at that, below is the website description of the first event that all this swimming, running and biking is about. I will be doing the MINI ADULT. Not a bad beginning length. I will be in the Athena category and have no idea how many will be in my age group. I am not as much interested in taking home a ribbon as I am in actually completing the race. My DIL is a bit more competitive and I hope to see her take first in her group.

If I continue to practice, practice, practice I know I can complete the lengths needed. Now I am all nervous about transitions and set up and what to wear and eat. Gonna reread the book by Jayne Williams and just keep swimming…

By the way, anyone who wants to come participate in the race or cheer me and Dawn on, let me know, I say for this kind of thing…the more the merrier!!!!

I know I haven’t finished it yet, but I am farther than I could ever have believed possible a year ago. I wouldn’t have come this far without Phil Veatch, my trainer from Inspire Fitness;  the massage and adjustments from Backfit Chiropractic (Anne, Dr. Vogel, and Jacquie);  bike riding lessons and poolside encouragement from my local sons Rick and Dallon and my DIL Dawn; the special contribution of Steve and Jody; and of course my friends Pat, Sara, Anne, Angela and Amie who keep encouraging, clothing and believing in me regardless of what crazy thing I try now. (Also a small thank-you to James Owen and Wil Wheaton, not that they will read this, but it is there amazing writing I listen to when running, stretching and walking. Like Oprah and Glinda the Good Witch these two men keep me motivated and believing that I have always had the power.)

 

Brief Description

Tri-Family Racing presents The City of Mesa Halloween Adult & Youth Sprint Triathlon & Duathlon. Everyone can get in on the fun; …we have Youth & Adult divisions as well as Relay Team competitions.

Event Refund Policy

No refunds provided!

Additional Information

MINI ADULT TRI: Adults: 200 yd. Swim, 8 mi Bike, 1/2 mi Run
MAXI ADULT TRI: 400 yd. swim, 12 mi Bike, 2 mi Run
YOUTH (TRI ONLY): 100 yd. Swim, 2.5 mi Bike; 1/2 mi Run
MAXI DU: Adults: 1/2 mi. Run, 12 mi. bike, 2 mi Run

WHERE: Fremont Pool, 1001 N Power Road, Mesa ,AZ 85205 (Northeast corner of East Adobe Street & North Power Road)

WHEN: Youth triathlon approx. 7 am Adult Triathlon & Duathlon starts at 7:45am. ALL TRI-ENTRANTS MUST HAVE THEIR BIKES IN THE TRANSITION AREA NO LATER THAN 6:45 AM

AWARDS: Five deep in all Age & Relay team categories. All youth also receive a participant ribbon.

REGISTRATION: Registration Packet pick-up on Saturday October 29th is HIGHLY recommended, Registration packets and late registration will be available at Iron Gear Sports, 6655 E. McDowell road, Mesa, AZ 85215 (480) 396-4766 from 1pm to 5pm. (Suite 103, southwest corner of Power and McDowell)

FEES:
MINI ADULT TRI: $67 postmarked before October 15th $77 thereafter.
MAXI ADULT TRI or MAXI DU: $72 post marked before October 15th, $82 thereafter.
TRI RELAY TEAMS: $140 postmarked before October 15th $150 thereafter.
Youth Race TRI ONLY: $47 postmarked before October 15th $52 thereafter

RACE DAY ENTRIES ADD ADDITIONAL $5 TO LATE FEE! REG. IS LIMITED TO 500 ENTRANTS!

DIVISIONS:
Children’s Race Age divisions: 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 13-14 yrs old (TRI ONLY)
Individual Male and Female: 15-19, 20-24; 25-29; 30-34; 35-39; 40-44; 45-49; 50-54; 55-59; 60-64; 65-69; 70+, Athena – Females 150+ lbs — Clydesdale – Males – 200+ lbs,
Relay divisions: Coed, All Female, All Male.

SPONSORS: Iron Gear Sports, Landis Cyclery, Adobe Images, Carlos O’Brien’s, M & J Trophies, Triple Sports., Hammer Gel, Adobe Graphics, Coffee’s of Hawaii, Tri-Family Racing,: Over $750.00 in merchandise, WOW !!!!!

Sanctioning

USA Triathlon is the national governing body for the sports of triathlon, duathlon, winter triathlon and aquathlon in the United States. Participation in a USAT sanctioned event means the event director has the proper permits in place, liability and athlete excess medical insurance coverage and the event plan has met the standard of organization required. USA Triathlon provides rules, guidance and governance to set the standard for safe and fair multi-sport races. For more information on USA Triathlon and fueling the multi-sport lifestyle, visit our website at http://www.usatriathlon.org.

Blog

Getting my gratitude on again..

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Gratitude is to personal growth what proper stretching is to triathlon training. When I am having chronic pain, or financial issues or just a personal “why”ning self pity day, the one thing I can control is my choices.

With that, here are the top ten things I am grateful for this morning,

10. My safety; my government may not be what I would like it to be but there is currently no civil war going on and the odds are pretty good I will get to work today without a stray bullet or bomb taking a limb or my life.

9. Available groceries.   Lots of quantity, quality and choice.

8. Running water at the turn of a faucet and as close as the bathroom and kitchen.

7. A home to live in with roof and beds and also luxuries like TV and internet.

6. Working parts, whatever the wear and tear on them, I am thinking these lines as I type them with my ten fingers while holding myself upright and will walk away from this on my own legs.

5. A job to go to that is more than an income it is my vocation.

4. A serendipitous chance to write professionally again in a manner that doesn’t interfere with my vocation.

3. Books, books and well books, while listening to music, music  and music.

2. Amazing and wonderful friends who stick it out and cheer me up and hang out and basically are the salt on the food of life.

AND NUMBER ONE……is my close family. I am incredibly lucky to still have (listed in order of appearance) Diane, Will, Rick, Dallon, Kevin, Dawn and Jeremiah alive, relatively healthy, and in my life on an ongoing, regular basis.

Namaste friends, now off to work I go.

Blog, Triathlon Training

Eight weeks and counting…..

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Eight weeks from my first event and there are so many things i find myself wondering about like how to set up for transitions and what the protocals are for race day.

I also find myself wondering if I will set a new record for longest time evar!

However I am less likely to worry these days if I will even finish. Not that I don’t have a loooooong way to go.

My longest bike ride to date was last Tuesday to the pool and back, this Sprint is 8 miles.  Also, although I am making laps in the pool instead of lengths these days, I need to do that four times CONSECUTIVELY, without breaks!

Definitely in the part of training where it is more about discipline for me than motivation.  With that said I need to go to sleep now because I have to get in my morning run before work tomorrow and then go swim again tomorrow night.

Slow and steady wins the race…and by that I mean finishes the race….