Tuesday, December 1, 2020

A Tree

 


A Tree

a tree doesn’t die all at once

it dies every day

every minute 

after the buzz saw leaves

and the chipper

screaming trees

and the air is still

and the sawdust chokes the grass

long branches once soft

now wounds open to the air

a squirrel dashes up to his nest

only to find nothing


as the softness once gave

so does the hard scape take


every day the tree dies


I am dying

tree by tree





Postscript:


Maybe I was wrong to base my cure on beauty. But, after all, everyone does. We are all soothed by beauty - a beautiful day, a beautiful sky, ocean, dog, child, garden, trees. Softness. It's terrible when beauty is taken from us. A friend told me that she used to live next door to a pretty yellow cottage situated in a grove of trees with rabbits running all around. Softness. The homeowner decided one day to cut down all the trees - 18 of them! Then painted the house grey.


I'm so over designer grey.


The tree in the image is still standing, though severely cut back. I posted this pre-trimming photo to illustrate its softness and exquisite beauty. 


The other trees were not so lucky and indeed neither was I. By the time the screeching chipper was done, we were left with telephone poles. (What happens when your neighbors don't care.) The trees are still alive, but their nutrition and health will be compromised - less food, less strength, less softness, less joy.


I tried to tell myself, ok, it's done, they're gone, it's over - but it wasn't over! Every day I died a

little more each time I looked at the open wounds of the missing branches. Hard scape takes. Softness gives.


Again, perhaps in the current scheme of things, a minor blip. But, if you care, then you care and there's no where to go and isn't it now of all times when we need the softness, the giving breath and beauty of trees?


I came from a place where people put down tar so they won't have to work too hard. My own family buried a beautiful sparkling blue refreshing pool because they were too lazy to swim in it! 


I choose beauty. I choose beauty.





©Patricia Goodwin, 2020

(tree photo by ourcirca1650cottage)




Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and JavaLove: Poems of a Coffeehouse.


Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free. With plenty of beautiful trees.


Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Anxiety Now! Brown Rice to the Rescue!


my brown rice lunch


Brown rice has tryptophan in it. You know that stuff in turkey that makes you drowsy after Thanksgiving Dinner? I thought I’d cut to the chase. Save you some anxiety.


The image is of my lunch - brown rice sautéed with broccoli, lemon, olive oil and a bit of tuna. Served with a nice red wine. Half a glass.


Like many people, I’ve been feeling some anxiety lately: Is the WORLD ENDING? Is Trump insane? Are we ever going to have a President again who can speak in complete sentences? Are we ever going to have a President again who actually CARES about us and cares for us?


Okay, it wasn’t just mild anxiety. I had out and out panic attacks. Maybe you’ve experienced that icy hole in your stomach that doesn’t go away but eats its way to up your throat to your brain, palps your heart, races your heart, paralyzes your stomach so you can’t breathe, is irrational, you know it, but you’re powerless to stop it and it just snowballs till even going into the next room is difficult. 


Recently, a series of real life challenges brought me to this point. And I told myself - stop it, you’re not caught in the wildfires; you didn’t lose your home to a hurricane; you don’t have COVID (yet!); no one you know has died from COVID (I won’t say it) - but even that conversation didn’t make a dent in the terror I felt. 


I admit I’d stepped up my martini drinking recently. I’d gone from two a year (at the most elegant restaurant in town, now a place of the past) to two a night, in a much smaller glass, made at home but apparently too much for me. I had inverted my triangle, as I like to say. I’d gone from balancing on a firm base to trying to maneuver on point. From good solid yang to the yinnest of yin! From strong to weak.


I remember a documentary on drinking produced by Morgan Spurlock. One of the cartoon images he used to illustrate the effects of alcohol was a teeth-chattering fellow, struggling with anxiety. Something to do with dehydration (more on that subject later).


So, I stopped the martinis. Changed back to a little red wine.


But, it’s not just alcohol. Anything that inverts our triangle - too much sugar; too much stress; fake food, processed food, dead food; not enough sleep! Ah! Sleep! That healthy magic! Try sleeping during a panic attack!


Now, what I did to help myself -


1. BROWN RICE


Brown rice is an easily digestible, balanced food for human kind, rich in fiber, and a very good source of selenium, a trace mineral that has been shown to substantially reduce the risk of colon cancer. Selenium has also been found to reduce the risks of breast and skin cancers. Other studies have linked selenium intake with lower incidences of depression, anxiety and fatigue.


Magnesium, another nutrient for which brown rice is a good source, has been shown in studies to be helpful for reducing the severity of asthma, lowering high blood pressure, reducing the frequency of migraine headaches, and reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke. Dr. Carolyn Dean, author of The Miracle of Magnesium, has found a direct link between anxiety in menopausal women and insufficient levels of magnesium. Insufficient magnesium can also contribute to high blood pressure, muscle spasms (including spasms of the heart muscle or the spasms of the airways symptomatic of asthma), migraine headaches, as well as muscle cramps, tension, soreness and fatigue. 


Just one cup of brown rice will provide you with 88.0% of the daily value for manganese. This trace mineral helps produce energy from protein and carbohydrates and is involved in the synthesis of fatty acids, which are important for a healthy nervous system, and in the production of cholesterol, which is used by the body to produce sex hormones. Brown rice also contains valuable Vitamins B3, B1, B6, phosphorus, and iron!


2. FAT JUICY VEGETABLES like broccoli, squash, carrots, onions can play an important role in your hydration. Leafy greens - think veggies that grow UP! Positive energy!


3. STAY HYDRATED!  (more on this below) Stimulants like alcohol and coffee are diuretics, which cause us to lose precious liquids and minerals that go out with our urine and sweat. Be careful not to drink cold water as the cold feeling in your throat and stomach mimics panic.


4. HOT FRESH COOKING! Cold sandwiches, salads, snacks are okay, but not to alleviate panic. In fact, eating helped a great deal. But, hot food helped the most!


The first two nights of stopping cold food - sushi in my case - and martinis, I still had trouble sleeping, but by the second night, I’d stopped panicking. The third night, I slept soundly in two shifts. I got up once and ate peanut butter on a rice cake. The second time I woke, I had the same, but only half a rice cake. I panicked a little as the morning was getting closer and I still needed at least an hour more of sleep. But, I was able to breathe slowly and it worked!


5. SLOW BREATHING is a helpful anti-anxiety technique. Breathe in as slowly as you can, breathe out as slowly as you can. Count each breath backwards from 100. I usually don’t get past the 90s. But, that’s because I had already made those dietary changes. Power to the people, right on!


Here’s another story. 


How My Neighbor’s Music Landed Me in the ER.


It started on a Saturday morning. She’s a decent person, but she feels she has a political right to play her music loudly. The volume is so high, it shakes the house. I have vertigo. You can imagine the effect on that condition. We’ve asked her to turn her music down so many times, it’s just mean now. That adds to the stress. The music played all day that day, the bass vibrating the floors and walls. I didn’t realize the effect it was having on me. That night my heart was racing and nothing I did could slow it down. I didn’t have the tools at that point and I still did not connect my heart rate to the music. You probably know that music regulates your heart rate. Think about the movies you have seen: soft, romantic music slows your heart rate, you anticipate romance; severe, repeated beats cause a rise in your anticipation of danger, think of the music in Jaws - ba-rump, ba-rump, ba-rump, slow beats rising in treble until the violins are screaming during the attack! 


Very early the next day, Sunday morning, I told my husband I think I needed to go to the ER. I couldn’t slow my heart rate. I’d already taken aspirin but it didn’t work. We decided to go. I remember saying good-bye to my kitchen as I turned to walk down the stairs. I wasn’t sure if I was coming back. We arrived at the hospital and I walked up to the desk (How was I even walking? I didn’t know, but I was.) and told the nurse, “I think I’m having a heart attack or a stroke.” She leaped up, ran around the desk, and in one motion, slipped me into a wheelchair and catapulting me forward. They tested me, X-rayed me and in no time, put me back in the wheelchair and dumped me off in the waiting room. My husband said, “You probably have no blockage or you wouldn’t be back here.” Soon, however, the nurse came back for me; she put me on a gurney. A doctor came in to examine me. He was young and healthy and that gave me courage. Doctors used to be some of the unhealthiest people on earth; one actually told me, “Diet has nothing to do with health, dear” back in the ‘70s when we started our diet and health regime. The ER doctor quickly realized I was dehydrated and he put me on an IV. He later came in and gave me advice about slow breathing which I practice now, as you know.


Like I said, I didn’t realize it had been the music until the following Tuesday evening when she did it again and I had to call her, it was so bad, my heart was pounding out of my chest. All I could think of was, “I can’t go back to the ER again!” That’s when I realized what was happening. She came downstairs and there was an altercation. We agreed to compromise. Compromise for me meant borrowing my daughter’s expensive noise-blocking ear buds, only they don’t stop the house from vibrating.


I suppose my neighbor might find this situation funny. If she knew about the ER, she might find it even funnier.


It’s a long story whose conclusion is STAY HYDRATED! Of course, I was drinking water, but not enough. I suppose the stress must have contributed to my dehydration, but I was so stressed I didn’t know it!


I hope this advice helps you on your journey to health. We have the tools to fight our anxiety. Stress will never go away. But, we can deal with it. We have the power!


Good luck and fingers crossed for November 3 when Mercury comes out of retrograde! Praise the Lord!



©Patricia Goodwin, 2020



Brown rice recipe -


Brown Rice


2 cups short grain brown rice (This is simply the best, highest quality brown rice.  Short grain is the strongest brown rice, good for strengthening our conditions.)


1 1/2 cups spring water to each cup of brown rice


pinch sea salt



Wash brown rice in a strainer.  Put into a pan with a good strong base, like a Revereware pan because it will need to simmer for 45 minutes and you don't want the bottom to burn.


Measure 3 cups spring water, pour into pan with washed rice. 


Place pan on stove, turn flame up high until water boils, then turn down flame immediately until rice is gently simmering.  Then, cover tightly and let simmer for 45 minutes.


When you remove the cover, your rice should be fluffy and separated, perhaps slightly stuck to the bottom.  This is okay.  If "bottom rice" is golden in color, toasty looking, it is very delicious.


Don't worry if your brown rice isn't perfect on your first try!  Many people have to make several pots before they get it right!  Even if it's wrong, too mushy (Next time add a little less water!) too dry (Next time add a little more water!) you can eat the rice and it tastes great!




© Patricia Goodwin, 2020


Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.


Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.


***Disclaimer: The information on this blog is not meant to substitute for medical care. Please consult your physician before beginning any new dietary guidelines. 




Sunday, October 18, 2020

The Dogs Of COVID




The dogs are sad

since March

which is usually good dog-walking weather

cool and snappy on a dog’s wet nose

rich with scent, over-full of doggie news


but the dogs quickly sensed 

that something was wrong

their barometers sagged with their tails

a sad indicator

they sense the extreme change in air pressure, like the baby elephant that rescued a little boy from the beach just before the tsunami hit, like the other elephants that bellowed and trumpeted warning tourists and citizens in vain


At first, the dogs were delirious with joy!

Bouncing off walls and sofas and floors!

Mommy’s home! Daddy’s home! This is great! Everybody’s home!

Hugs and kisses and treats and snuggles!


but those walks


The news wasn’t good

the doggie news

that they read on the tree roots, on the corners and curbstones


They sniff, sniff, sniff

sniff again

and slink away sad


not elated and full of fascination like they used to be


No more hugs from passing children

No more cookies or treats or pats from greeting friends

people pull their leashes away


The pointer

doesn’t point any more

he sneaks by hiding behind his long ears

his tail wiping the sidewalk


The ugly rescue dogs

used to be ecstatic to face the world with their mixed breed

all wrong and not cute

suddenly slowed to durges

scraping the ground

with their blunt ears and bony tails


The golden doodle twins

once in training for show

once joyous twin chaos

yanked back by a firm leash


gone, just gone


For a short time in April

the tails seemed to lift like flags no longer half-staff

for no reason at all as dog do, 

for heat or cool, for rain or sun


dropped down again in June


Only one - an English cream golden -

prances in front of her healthy humans, 

masks at their throats, at the ready, just in case they might need a mask,

her head up, her tail high

her long coat flowing like a stallion’s mane


That sheep dog on TV is a clue

confused and fearful, his head jerks back

from the masked girl that cradles his face in her hands


and the dogs that bark at masks


know something is wrong


But, Lou’s got it good

Lou is my spirit dog

a big bull I would name Tony if he were mine

Lou’s got it right


Lou is sleeping through



Lou


©Patricia Goodwin, 2020

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.


Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.



Sunday, September 27, 2020

Faith: A Writer's Life

 


Charlotte Bronte Resolute


Sometimes I think a writer’s life is really many writers’ lives. One of the most moving and illustrative examples of this idea is this image of Charlotte Bronte from the BBC drama, To Walk Invisible: The Bronte Sisters. Charlotte has in her arms, safely tucked under her meager shawl, protected more than she is from the driving rain from which everyone else is running, the precious manuscript of Jane Eyre. Where would the generations of future writers be if not for the fortitude, determination, and faith of Charlotte Bronte? Faith, the thing that carries her forward along that stormy path out into the world. 


I remember Betty Smith walking her dog at midnight, mailing her manuscript and wondering if anyone would ever get excited enough about her book to publish it. They did; it was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I think of Jerome Salinger sending story after story to The New Yorker Magazine, rejected every time until Ernest Hemingway served with him in Europe and called him over to the bar, “Hey, Jerry! Jerry! Everyone, this guy’s a helluva writer!”


F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby only sold a few copies until the United States Army wanted to create small paperbacks for soldiers to carry with them; they chose Fitzgerald’s little book. The soldiers loved the story of the girl, the car and the house, The American Dream, reading it over and over, sharing the hand  sized books, causing such a demand for the story that Fitzgerald was restored as a great writer.


I am struck anew by the long road of writing. I look at my own work - Telling Time By Apples And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, for instance. It took years and years of heavy yard work and gardening - me digging, planting, raking, weeding, pruning; me creating a wheelbarrow out of a huge tree branch to haul gigantic loads of yard waste, me planting the infinitesimal seeds, nurturing the tiniest seedlings that could drown if watered if not lifted patiently by hand out of the puddles, these would grow to be cosmos taller than me that the goldfinches used to sway on, chirping deliriously. It took the subsequent illness, followed by recovery and the slow regaining of strength, the tyranny of the garden, the terror of winter, the slow recovery of Spring, the clean, new, fresh garden! When I wrote that long poem, I was sure no one would appreciate it, but I was wrong. Everyone who has ever gardened can’t help but shudder and sigh when they read it.


Besides all the living that is required, I also make my own books (with the help of my team, my daughter and husband). Perhaps every writer should have to physically make their books at least once! I decided to illustrate Telling Time By Apples. I didn’t know anything about making illustrations, which is very different from painting or drawing. These paintings or drawings are specifically made for print, which is a different matter. I could only paint on canvas, so that’s what I did, hoping the images would have a quaint, sampler look. 


I designed the cover, which was meant to have an apple flaming with autumn leaves. It was my husband who added the robin. Together, we chose the paper color to match the parchment look of the cover. We chose the typeface and the spacing of the lines and the margins. Then, I was propped up in a program called InDesign where I set the type and images. 




Thanks to Amazon’s publishing program, we are able to publish and sell books. This is pretty much the process of making our books: First, years of real life agony or joy, then writing, then the physical book. My daughter often created the covers, using my design joined with her art work or photography. She took the photos of the marble on the cover of my poetry book Atlantis and the deep blue water on the cover of Dreamwater. She painted the airplane on Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse, a cover designed around her original painting and the idea of daydreaming over coffee, plus the fact that the owner of the café had been a pilot. She designed the striking, glossy black cover for When Two Women Die. And, together, we bravely created the muted grey cover of Holy Days using a vintage photo of me at three-years-old. 






I am reminded of Virginia Woolf who, at Hogarth Press, set the type manually, letter by letter, with her husband, Leonard. Or, similarly, D.H. Lawrence having his banned books printed in Italy, letter by letter, by a printer who could not read English.


Woody Allen once said that he didn’t know where the words came from, no one really does, but they come and he’s grateful for them. I remember being extremely nervous at one of my first readings, in a little shop called Ironic, run by two women, one who made wrought iron furniture and objects, another who painted furniture. She had painted a lovely Italian countryside mural on the shop wall by which I was sitting. I loved being in such a charming, work-rich environment. I looked down at the book in my lap and saw my daughter’s graphic and exciting artwork on the cover of my poetry book, Marblehead Moon - a wild rendition of the  moon, the stars, and the ocean that she had made when she was quite young - and I thought, “What am I nervous about? The words are right here!” I still remember the warm rush of faith that enveloped me.




You see I believe the words come from God, or, if you will, the Universe. That is my faith. One’s talent and one’s work, they are a trust handed to the writer. The writer must then carry and carry and carry that work out into the world. I am grateful for my readers, the ones whose faces beam, who proudly tell me in the supermarket, “Patricia! I read your book!” chin jutted out in pride. I remember the woman at a reading who reached out and touched my arm as I passed her after reading, on my way back to my chair. Thank you, dear heart, I feel your touch every time I despair. I remember the gasps from the crowd. Gasps! Can I really be so lucky? Hey, I also remember the potato chip bag and the crunching of chips in the audience - infinitely more compelling than poetry at times!


Lately, we have just finished publishing Low Flying, a stunning dark green book with type that truly glimmers like gold though it is only gold in color. Though Low Flying is fictionalized, it came out of many painful conversations I had over the years with women telling me horror stories about their marriages; also plenty of lurid town gossip, as well as my own experiences with an abusive boss that I wished I could - well, the imagination can be very therapeutic. In Low Flying two women who suffer psychologically abusive marriages, gain strength from the simple act of working together in the nurturing environment of a beautiful old greenhouse. So, you see, years of suffering, years of writing, months of grunt work at the computer. In writing the book, I was especially proud of the “garden quotes” at the top of each chapter which I found over years of reading, some tidbit from the garden or from poetry, literature, even movies that enlightens the thought and action to follow.




Low Flying was finished in the late ‘90s. I’ve kept it close all that time, hoping one day to get it from manuscript to actual book form. My husband, who began in the book business, is very proud of this book. Right now, we have my author’s copy on the dining room table. He admires it every time he walks by, “You got yourself a beautiful book there!” Or “Look at that shine! You’d think it was gold leaf!” Or he’ll pick it up and say, “It even has a nice hand.” That’s the way a book feels if it feels good in your hand.


Faith.




©PatriciaGoodwin, 2020


Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her latest novel is Low Flying, about two women suffering psychologically abusive marriages who find and nurture each other. Her newest poetry books are Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse.


Within this blog, Patricia writes often about non-fiction subjects that inspire or disturb her, hopefully informing and inspiring people to be happy, healthy and free.