It really hit me this week how much we are a camp family. My husband just returned from a 50th! reunion of the camp he went to as a child, Camp Whitehall in Virginia. He had an amazing time singing “BINGO” and hanging out with his old buddies from decades ago.  I’m preparing madly for Pact Camp, now in my 5th year as Coordinator/Director. Both of our daughters have been on staff (teen staff and adult staff) for their beloved Camp Winnarainbow. And I’m keeping tabs on the camp of my childhood, Camp Deer Run, where I spent many blissed-out summers.

We love camp. We believe in camp, as a place for community, rejuvenation, of finding adults other than our parents who deeply care about us. On her day off recently, our girl sang for us the lullabies she sings to her campers each night. It gave me goosebumps.

My husband and I talked about how special and amazing it was to be part of these communities. I’m proud and glad to be doing this work. Rushing off now… it’s almost showtime!

As if my friend Masha Hamilton did not have enough to do in addition to writing amazing novels, being an inspiring teacher, supporting a mobile camel library in Africa, she has also recently started the incredible Afghan Women’s Writing Project.

The Afghan Women’s Writing Project began as an idea during novelist Masha Hamilton’s last trip to Afghanistan in November 2008. Her interest in Afghanistan was sparked in the late 1990s during the Taliban period, when she understood it was one of the worst places in the world to be a woman. Masha first visited the country in 2004, and was awed and inspired by the resolute courage of the women she met. When she returned, she saw doors were closing and life was again becoming more difficult, especially for women. She began to fear we could lose access to the voices of Afghan women if we didn’t act soon. The Afghan Women’s Writing Project is aimed at allowing Afghan women to have a direct voice in the world, not filtered through male relatives or members of the media. Many of these Afghan women have to make extreme efforts to gain computer access in order to submit their writings, in English, to the project.

I’m excited to be one of the online teachers for this project in the late fall or winter of this year, when things settle down a bit. From what I’ve heard, it has been a transformative experience for the teacher-writers who have participated so far. And the women are sharing their incredibly brave, honest, powerful stories.

“Look, my dear daughter,” my mother told me. “Our country has had lots of war and those women who are educated suffered a lot, so now if you want to be a literate woman like your mom and other Afghan women, then you should struggle a lot and not take care over these small issues. Instead, try to learn knowledge. Otherwise you will be like a blind person who can never see.”

It is so critical that these womens’ stories are shared beyond their world. It is incredibly moving to them that readers across the globe are reading their words. Please, please, read them, and COMMENT - they mean the world to them!

One of the project’s supporters has organized a fantastic raffle to purchase computers, flash drives and other items that will support these women writers.  There are great literary and other prizes – so please donate and please, spread the word! My own mother has donated a handmade quilt (pictured here) and it will go to one of the lucky raffle winners – so buy lots of tickets!!

I haven’t blogged here in like, forever, but I recently saw two movies that totally put me into “blogmind.” (ie, thinking in blog language and imagining what/how I will blog about a certain topic) I’m so easily disappointed by movies; they’re often so dumb and forgettable, that when I find one that is memorable and great I get so excited.

I thought I first heard about the documentary 51 Birch Street from Caroline Grant, who writes the fabulous Mama At the Movies column on Literary Mama. That movie has a lot in common with Must Read After My Death (which I still haven’t seen, but I must!!) – about a mother’s secrets which are revealed after her death.

My spouse and I watched 51 Birch Street on the airplane, returning home after his father’s funeral back east. It was a thoughtful and sad time, and seemed like the perfect time to watch a movie like this. This period has made us (but especially him) think about life, mortality, What We Are Doing Here and What We Want To Do In The Time We Have Left.

This film so moving and so honest and well done. It made me think, once again, that I’d love to be a documentary filmmaker in some parallel life. But it also made me think about women and journaling and writing. The mother in this film left behind cabinets and cartons FILLED with decades of extremely personal writing, which her children discovered after her death.

I used to be a huge journal-writer. But that pretty much dwindled a lot after I got married, and stopped almost altogether after I had children. This movie made me think about the why of that a lot.  Because I think, what if I were to die suddenly? I’m not sure I would want every innermost thought to be sifted through by my family. Family life is a messy, conflicted, intense affair, and filled with emotions that are not always easy. What if I said something  about the difficulties and messiness of motherhood, or something I wrote in the heat of a struggle with one of the people I love most? You can’t take that stuff back, or defend or explain it if you’re dead.

Which is why I don’t keep journals, and haven’t for a lot of years. Not those kinds of journals, anyway. The old, compulsively filled journals in the basement are all about my pre-family life, and don’t have anything to do with them.

The other movie that got me going recently was Revolutionary Road. I read the book a few months ago and just… loved it. It’s intense, and some people might say “depressing” (I put quotes in because I don’t link “sad” and “depressing”) but I loved it. The language just blew me away. The craft of this novel inspired me so much. I think I described it as an exquisite telling of a tragic story. I also thought it was surprisingly political and important. I just loved it.

So I was a bit nervous to see the movie because often they don’t hold up. But we watched it last night and then talked about it for a really long time. It was so, so good. I am in awe of Kate Winslet – I could watch her forever – and Leonardo DiCaprio was impressive, the most impressive I’ve ever seen him. It was good, good, good.

It brought up the question, Is there just one chance at making a happy life, just one fork in the road and then you’re set? The characters in the movie seemed to believe that very strongly. But I argued against it, and still do. I think that one can always make or choose a path that’s different. I thought about, what if I get sick or old and I haven’t done XYZ, those things I always talked about doing? I still have never been to Europe. I would like to travel a lot more and to spend a lot more time on the East coast. I would be very sad if I never finished and published a book. I would hope it wouldn’t make me feel like my life is a failure, because it certainly has been a wonderful life in so many ways. I just know I still really want it to happen and I am going to put the kind of focus on it in the next year that I put towards my health.

You’re all witnesses.

Very excited to be participating in this year’s Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival in Los Angeles next week. It’s going to be held at the Japanese American United Museum, which I LOVE.

Not only will I be reading from an essay about mixedness, I’ll also be presenting a workshop with Lisa Marie Rollins about mixed-race adoptees and writing (could it get any more perfect than that??) and also a panel with Jason Sperber on mixed-race parent blogging.  It’s going to be very, very awesome.

And guess what: the festival is FREE. Is that not cool? It’s going to be totally amazing and cool so if you are going to be in or near LA next weekend, PLEASE come!!!!!

I bet a lot of you think I have stopped blogging. Well, no. I have actually been blogging more than ever, practically every day. Just not here. 

I started another blog, an anonymous blog, in January, when I first learned that I was pre-diabetic. I knew that I had to lose weight and begin some sort of regular exercise. But this area has been so fraught for me for SO MANY years, that I was embarrassed. And ashamed. I was pretty sure that I would fail in my efforts. I knew that I needed support, and to be honest, to have any chance of success, but I really didn’t want to talk about it with most people that I know “IRL” (in real life). So I began reaching out to other bloggers (around the world, really) who were facing the same struggles I was.

Lo and behold. It worked. I think for the first time I tried to lose weight, not in my own private little agony, but in community with other people. Hiding behind the persona of “Foodie McBody,” I felt like I could be honest and just say whatever, and I was safe. 

I can’t actually believe it, but I managed to lose almost 30 lbs (just a few ounces away!) and to train and run two 5k races in May. And I owe an ENORMOUS part of it to the online community I’ve found, blogging and on Twitter. (if you want to follow me on Twitter, my name is “foodiemcbody” and I’ll introduce you to all my health eating/fitness buddies, they’re awesome) Freakily enough, I have managed to lose this weight while still eating ample amounts of cheese (my favorite food), half and half in my daily coffee, occasional chocolate, wine, and cheesecake. It hasn’t hurt at all. I swear. Which is the most shocking part of all.

One thing about living healthy is that right now, it’s taking a heck of a lot of time. I’m reading books, reading blogs, Tweeting, exercising, tweeting about exercising, seeking out healthy things to eat, cooking healthy things to eat, and eating. So other than that blog, I haven’t been writing much. Which makes me sad.  But I do hope that as I am able to integrate more of these things into every day life, I won’t be spending so much time on them.

I miss my friends. I hope you will come and visit me at FoodFoodBodyBody, and that there you can catch up on everything I’ve been up to since January.

Read/Reading: mostly books about mindful eating/weight loss

The End of Overeating by David Kessler – illuminating, informative, useful.

The Four Day Win by Martha Beck – love, love love this book. Columnist from Oprah’s magazine, I didn’t have high expectations but it is so well written, hilariously funny, compassionate, Buddhist-ish and right on.

One Bowl: A Guide to Eating for Body and Spirit by Don Gerrard – just bought this. Fascinating concept of eating all meals from one bowl. Mindful practice.

Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food by Jan Chozen Bays – haven’t read it yet, but it looks like more good stuff..

Wrote/Writing:

didn’t I say “don’t ask” about this?

Viewed:

Not so much. Some TV: The Biggest Loser, and In Treatment, which I am kind of addicted to. Ahh, Gabriel Byrne!

Memorable eats:

too much to really mention, but believe me I have been eating really clean, healthy, yummy and delicious stuff.

Happenings:

• I ran my first 5k on May 3rd!! It was very exciting. I actually came in around the middle of the pack, both in my age group and overall, so I was really pleased. This after doing the awesome Couch-to-5k running program. Unbelievable, but IT REALLY WORKS. I’m doing another 5k on May 30th – want to join me?
• Wrapped up another great season with Oakland Strokes crew team. Younger daughter’s boat took silver medal at the Southwest Regional Championships in Sacramento. GO STROKES!
• My college girl returns from Wisconsin tonight! Yipppeeeeee!! I’ve really missed her.
•  Many doctor visits. The bottom line is I’m doing great, even though I was diagnosed with diabetes in April. I’ve made great improvements in all areas including my blood lipids, glucose levels. I’ve lost 28 lbs since January!
• I’m going to be doing a reading and two panels at the Mixed Roots Literary and Film Festival in Los Angeles in June. If you’re in the area, please come on down!
• Getting very very busy in preparation for Pact Camp 2009, which is going to be awesome beyond awesome.
• Just did a 4-day silent retreat at my beloved Santa Sabina. Which I very much needed.
• Took an Intro to Meditation series of classes at the East Bay Meditation Center, which was incredibly wonderful. Will be doing an all-day class on love, this coming Saturday.  There’s never too much love!

I recently went to the second session of my meditation class. I love this class so much. I have gone to several meditation classes and retreats before, and always ended up feeling like it wasn’t for me, or I wasn’t doing it right, or something. It didn’t fully click somehow. But this class, and this teacher, clicked from the moment I walked in the door.  I love this place in downtown Oakland. The teacher fills me with a sense of calm. Her voice is just amazingly soothing, reassuring, peaceful. The sound of the bell at the end of the meditation is one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard.

Last week, when I went for the first time, it was a Monday night, the night before I went to my first diabetes class and started using my blood glucometer. I was wound up tighter than a spring. I was anxious, distraught, grieving the loss of my innocent health, and just a wreck. But I knew that I needed this. I knew that stress is one thing that has a definite affect on blood glucose levels.  It also has an effect on weight loss – if you’re stressed out, your cortisol levels rise, and that makes  you gain weight, or unable to lose it. So I felt like coming to this meditation class and learning how to de-stress was as important as taking my medication or exercising.

I loved it pretty much immediately.  Sitting there, I felt like my heart was breaking and I was just opening up in all directions. I felt like I had found an absolutely essential little sanctuary in time and place.  I needed it.

Last night the teacher opened with this poem by the poet Kabir, and that was it – I started tearing up right away.

    You know the sprout is hidden inside the seed

    We are all struggling; none of us has gone far.

    Let your arrogance go, and look around inside

    The blue sky opens out farther and farther

    The daily sense of failure goes away

    The damage I have done to myself fades

    A million suns come forward with light

    When I sit firmly in that world.

Whoo. Right? That line – the damage I have done to myself fades - just made my heart start pounding. The damage I have done. I really feel that now, the years that I overate and didn’t take care of myself.  The tendency to want to blame and punish myself for getting to the point of having diabetes.  It makes me want to howl sometimes. But then that other word – fades – is also true. It’s fading. With every thing I do to be good to myself, it fades. But wow, it is there.

The thing that I love about this meditation class is that it is all about love and compassion. Because I think truly that that is the key for me, it is the ONLY WAY out. Because when I was eating more than I needed, for so many years, it was because I was chasing love (in all the wrong places), I was hurt and rejected-feeling and all the food in the world couldn’t make that go away (although believe me I tried). And so while counting calories and points and exercising is all good and important, I don’t think there’s a shadow of a chance it can work unless I find a way to live with more love and compassion, for myself and for others.

Please don’t ask me, now or anytime in the foreseeable future:

“How’s the writing going?”

It’s not. I’m not all torn up about it, because I really can’t even think about it right now, but when someone asks, it reminds me, and it’s like a little knife wound to the gut. So please don’t ask.

Other than blogging, and writing posts on diabetes forums, it’s pretty nonexistent. It’s not on the back burner, it’s not even in the kitchen anymore. But it’s okay.

Because I’m learning it takes a heck of a lot of time to:

• test my blood 5-8x a day, figure out what the numbers mean, and what to do about them, if anything
• figure out what, and how much to eat, and when
• exercise
• read about diabetes
• go to diabetes education class
• go to work
• continue to be the mom, spouse and daughter in my family

Every night when I go to bed there are dozens of things I know I haven’t finished/started/accomplished. And writing book(s) just isn’t on the list right now.

So I’ll let y’all know when I’m “writing again.” I hope it won’t take a terrible long long time, but I just really have no idea.

It’s been a bit of a roller coaster week around here. Last Monday, I went in to the lab for a prescribed glucose tolerance test. Let’s just say I didn’t tolerate it very well. I felt like total poo afterward, and could not really function for the rest of the day. It did me in. I figured that this was because I basically have eaten very few carbs and almost no sugar since January, in my quest to stave off diabetes. So drinking a bottle of syrup did not feel very good.

On Wednesday, I went to my endocrinologist pretty much expecting good news. I had lost a bunch of weight, have been exercising very regularly and was feeling all proud of myself. I think I was expecting some congratulatory “Wow you are so amaazingly healthy!” report, but instead she sat down and told me I most definitely have diabetes.

I failed the glucose test. Which, considering how I felt, was no big surprise in retrospect. Still, it was shocking and disappointing and upsetting and I basically cried for the rest of the day, feeling all doomed and distraught. She gave me a prescription for Metformin, told me to get to a diabetes class asap, and sent me to the opthamologist to make sure I’m not going blind yet (I’m not).

It was fairly up-and-down for the rest of the weekend, until yesterday really, when I went to my first Diabetes Education Class. It was a pretty sobering experience; lots of people (most of them much older than me) who had had diabetes for a long time, ignored it or blew it off, and were now paying a high price for it.  From the sound of it, it didn’t seem like they were going to have an easy time of making necessary changes.

Anyway, the highlight of the class was receiving our blood glucose meters, which we are supposed to use to test our blood before and after meals. I was so nervous about this, and also spent all weekend kind of dreading the thought of Testing My Blood For The Rest of My Life.

But once I got the meter set up, and tested the little droplet, I was so psyched to see that my blood glucose was thrillingly, blissfully, NORMAL!!!!!!! WOOOOOOOO! Which means that the medicine is working.  Which means that I just need to keep doing what I’m doing, more or less.

This was a huge relief. Since yesterday morning, I’ve tested my blood 4-5x and each time it is wonderfully IN RANGE. I can’t even begin to say how happy this makes me.  

So yeah, it was a hard blow to get this diagnosis last week. But I am feeling a million times more optimistic and hopeful now than I did then. Rainbows and unicorns and blood glucose meters!!

Who ME? Really??? Yeah, me!

I think I’m ready to take the step. Me, the decades-long anti-runner. Yup! 

I almost started running by accident about a month ago. I was walking up in the park near my house, with my favorite iPod tunes, the ones that have a good walking beat. But at one point a song came on that was just too awkward to walk to – it would require just too many tiny little steps too quickly. So I sort of spontaneously broke into a run. For three whole minutes! (or however long the song lasted) And lo and behold, it DID NOT KILL ME!! And I actually kind of liked it! I did!!

This was truly shocking, even for three minutes, because I regularly used to do this thing on the treadmill where I would walk a minute, “jog” a minute, alternating back and forth, and those minute long jogs used to be quite… difficult. I dreaded that workout. So I thought three minutes would just about slay me. And… it didn’t!

A few weeks later I tried it again, and just told myself, whenever the beat of the song dictated, I would run or walk.  Out of a 90 minute workout, I think I walked 70 minutes and ran… TWENTY!!! They weren’t 20 consecutive, but twenty total. I started feeling more confident.

I started thinking… whoa. Maybe I could do a 5k. A 5k is 3.5 miles, and takes most people between 30-40 minutes. I figured, if I could get myself to run 35 minutes in a row, I could probably run a 5k. ME!!!!!! 

Then I heard, from various people, about this Couch-to-5k program, which is basically a very gradually increasing program that is not unlike what I’d been doing anyway on my iPod. I’m going to take it out on the road this week and see how it goes. I think I’m not exactly at Couch level anymore (yayyyyyy!) but I’m probably about halfway there. I’ll jump in where it feels like I’m at right now.

I actually signed up for a real live 5K race. I am super nervous and super excited. The idea of it brings tears to my eyes. ME, running!

Now I DID do a marathon once, but that was back in 2000 and I also walked about 80% of it. And much has transpired since then, like a decade of aging and a bunch of fat. I also once ran on my high school track team, but that was about ten eons ago. It feels like another lifetime.

I’ve lost 17 lbs since January 17th and let me tell you, that does a lot to increase one’s belief that running might be possible. No way I was going to drag my Jabba-the-Hut self around 3.5 miles. But now. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…..