Cell Intelligence

Cell Intelligence

According to my mother’s scale, I have lost maybe ½ to ¾ of a pound in a period of two weeks. This wondrous success is attributable to the book 10 Years Thinner: 6 Weeks to a Leaner, Younger-Looking You.

But then again, I tell myself, muscle weighs more than fat!

I got up this morning and sneaked off to exercise without my motivational music. The house was still filled with gentle snoring, but I could no longer stay prone. I will gently pound my body into shape using the miracle of lunges, squats, crunches and push-ups both forward and backward. My knees and ankles are not exactly happy, but they’re not screaming that loudly, and I do feel good having done them, and I am promised a leaner, younger-looking me if I do these things, so who am I to argue?

For the last 10 weeks I have given up sugar, grains – all of them, dairy, and everything else that has assisted me in building up my substantial bulk over the last five years. I am also taking vitamins, drinking a ton of water – well, not a ton – let’s not exaggerate – maybe 70-90 ounces a day, and of course, doing my exercise routine at least 4 times a week (and to be fair, I’ve only been doing those exercises for about 5 out of the 11-12 weeks).

So how come things aren’t moving more quickly? I’d be okay with the scale if the zippered opening of the pants from the past would close more easily telling me that my lean muscles are taking the place of my not so lean rolls of what I lovingly call my protective covering.

I’ve spoken to people who have wowed themselves with results from this book – but, oh yeah, they’re not 57 and 40 pounds over-weight. But I had hoped to experience more success than I have been, and frankly, I’m stymied. Why am I literally FIGHTING this battle of the bulge? I am doing everything I need to be doing, at least according to the book.

Part of me (oh those damned parts) feels like all I’ve been doing is taking a magic pill and sitting on the couch waiting for the miracle, but I haven’t; I’ve been doing the work. Or at least the outer work.

Frankly, I’m not so sure that we humans really have the weight thing figured out. It should be calories in – calories out = success or failure, but that doesn’t take into consideration our considerable inner world which has its own agenda – believe me I’ve been working with its agenda for years and you would be very surprised at what some of the inner intentions are. And those intentions are the ones that matter. Those are the ones that will sabotage and create the anti-miracle. So you think that doing X should produce Y, just ask the inner saboteur or the inner judge or the inner joker. They get their way; the laws of man are not restrictions to them. Just as they can assist in the creation of miracles – getting things to happen as they shouldn’t be able to according to the laws of man – they can seemingly work their opposite magic or I guess that would be anti-magic.

Every pound I created, I created with the help of anxiety, anger, frustration, unconsciousness, fear, judgment, hatred, self-flagellation, hiding, and I could go on. If that is true, then stored in those many new cells are all the things that built them. I built them with junk and the junk has to come out – but I don’t want to look at the junk, I just want to look at my size 12 pants and wish they would button (or the size 10s). So my next weeks will be spent in dialoging with the keepers of the pounds in order to figure out what it is they want from me now in order to let go and release their hold on my at-their-mercy-figure. I will report back with results in four weeks. Wish me luck.

Divorce

by Susan Cameron

I said, "Hell will freeze over before our love will die."
The young say stupid things like that. We don't know it's a lie.
Now I’m one successful lawyer; you’re a high-priced lawyer too,
So when our marriage fell apart we knew just what to do.

Our troops assemble in the courts when we call reveille –
The Hessians on the left are yours, the others stand for me.
Our bloody little skirmishes, our combat hand-to-hand,
Has escalated to this point. We take our final stand.

We snarl and scream our orders, and before this war is done,
Our napalm burns our daughter and our shrapnel maims our son.
But we’re blinded by the smoke and we’re deafened by the noise,
And the casualties of war are often little girls and boys.

With murder pounding in my heart I roar a battle cry
And watch the life we’d had blow up as fireworks light the sky.
You call in an air strike, and then I take my turn,
With hands on hips, triumphantly, we watch our bridges burn.

Direct hit on the ammo dump! A satisfying roar –
What we had built went up in smoke. No chance of getting more.
I call in the coordinates – before my rockets land,
Belatedly, I realize Ground Zero’s where I stand.

A sickly light illuminates the ghostly, smoky pall.
The windswept ash floats through the air – I watch hell's snowflakes fall.

copyright 2010 - Susan Cameron

Reprise

I'm very pleased that two of my essays are featured in a wonderful new anthology, From the Heart: A Collection of Stories and Poems from the Front Lines of Parenting, published by Write for Charity. All profits from the sale of this book will benefit children's charities, including St. Jude's Children's Research Center. To find out more about the book and how you can purchase it, please click on the Write for Charity link under our favorites below. As a sneak preview of the book, here's a reprise of Snacks, which first appeared here on Tasty Sauce in 2009. Bon appetit!

Snacks

Both pantry doors are opened wide and my son, Eric, studies the contents. He sighs. He closes the pantry, opens the refrigerator and stares inside for a while before sighing again and closing the fridge. He reopens the pantry, as if something new has miraculously appeared in the three minutes since he last looked. The question will come next.

“What do we have to eat?” Eric asks me.

“Chips?” I say.

He shakes his head

“Cheese? Crackers?”

“Nah,” he says. With a shrug he goes upstairs to his room without a snack.

Fifteen minutes later his brother, Greg, does the same thing: the pantry, the fridge, the pantry, the question. I offer suggestions that get rejected.

“There’s nothing good to eat,” he says. “I’m going over to Mark’s house.”

I never have the right snack in the house. If they want chips and salsa, I have cheese and crackers. If they want cookies, I have chips and salsa, since I stocked up from when they wanted those before. I buy potato chips and they want peanuts. I buy peanuts. They want Cheetos. I buy Cheetos. They want Wheat Thins. I buy Wheat Thins and they crave apples, but I’ve thrown out the apples that rotted in the fruit bin from the last time they asked for them.

You’d think by now the pantry and fridge would be so full of stuff they used to want, that sooner or later I’d hit the jackpot and everything they could possibly want would be ready and waiting. But no, I always come up short in the snack department.

I find myself wondering what Mark’s mom has in her pantry, and I decide to call her.

“So Kathy, “ I say, coming right out with it, “What kind of snacks do you have for the kids after school?”

“Nothing they ever want,” she says with a tone of exasperation I’m familiar with.

“Well, what are they eating right now?” I ask, desperate to know what perfect snack my son has found there.

“Oh,” she says. “The two of them stared into the pantry for ten minutes. Then they did the same thing with the fridge. Pretty soon Mark said they were going over to Jimmy’s house and off they went. I don’t think they ever ate anything.”

Still obsessed, I call Jimmy’s house and ask Mary what the kids are eating.

“Nothing,” Mary says. “I think all three of them are on their way to your house.”

I swell with pride. For once I must have the best snacks! I can’t wait to see what they’ll eat.

Meanwhile, Eric is back at the pantry, and I’m feeling more confident now. Bring on “the question”. But before he can ask it, Greg and his buddies swoop into the kitchen, grab Eric, and in a flash the four kids are outside playing street hockey. What about snacks? Don’t they want my snacks?

Deflated, I start to think about fixing dinner. I open the fridge and stare inside. I check the freezer. I open both pantry doors, searching for options.

The kids are right. There’s nothing good to eat in this house.

Copyright Liz Zuercher 2009

Storm Watch

You were born that spring

When the city oozed water

From every crack and pore

Like a soggy sponge.

Unending rain drenched the city

Dissolving its hard lines and solid shapes.

It seemed to soften and spread,

Melting into the landscape,

As if searching for a form

To fit the flooding waters.

So my body stretched and spread,

Shaping itself to your fluid form.

My swollen ankles, like sneakers soaked

With memories of splashed puddles,

Squished as I crossed the carpet

To the window to watch the street below.

Bright umbrellas bobbed like gumdrops

Caught in a rushing current.

At night, streetlamps lit the wet streets

With white shadows that flickered

Like billowing sails on a concrete ocean.

I cradled my swollen belly

Where you rocked in an inland sea,

Watching from the window,

Waiting for the storm to break,

Waiting for a signal,

Waiting for you to sail

From your watery world to mine.

Susan Matthewson

Copyright 1996