Are we here yet?

Although we’ve landed here five days ago, it seems that I have yet to arrive. It’s curious. I’ve reconnected to my Hebrew, my family says I use my body to expressively communicate in ways that I don’t do in English. I’ve visited my beloved, complicated, decrepit, old, crumbly house and bomb shelter and my now-fenced-in elementary school. I’ve lived vicariously through my kids as they’ve had Shoko, the cold milk chocolate I had drunk as a kid from a plastic bag, and have devoured the mounds of the candy of my youth. I’ve seen and engaged with old friends and neighbors, whom I have not seen in 17 years, but I feel, well, not so much. I just thought that it would be more intense, that I would feel a plethora, a swelling, of emotions. After all, this is Israel, right? The land of intense and tense people, where food, words, politics, religion and driving are over the top, isn’t it?

Contrary to my popular belief, people are actually pretty mellow. Not many people are leaning on their car’s horn as if they’ve just had a heart attack. It’s pretty quiet everywhere, even in the middle of Tel Aviv. Really. People have been friendly, helpful and, dare I say, relaxed. Is it I who has changed? Have I been trying to uphold the illusion that Northern California is relaxed? I know, I’m on vacation, but still, to see that one of the most garrulous places on Planet Earth is chillaxed, as my kids would say, gives one pause, no?

One of my kids, who is decidedly un-relaxed at home, the one who didn’t even want to come here, and who anticipated the beginning of WWIII being in a car with his parents for two weeks, has been gobbling mounds of hummus with zaatar, pinenuts and tahini with fluffy, hot pita and has informed me that he is not going back. He loves it here. He wants to stay amongst the Bedouin of a tiny village called Lakiya in the Negev and hang. He is cognizant that it would be challenging to live there without basic services, living in an unrecognized, i.e. unsupported, part of Israel, but something has shifted in him. He wants to do a Gap year there! He says that it would give quite the perspective of living without the services we take for granted in the US. This is from the guy who consistently makes fun of me for my gratitude practice. He misses his friends, but now is wondering how to gather all of them and go on an extended trip together. That’s my boy, gathering communities to experience the world relationally. Whoa! It’s so funny. People here who know that he is not biologically my son, are dumbfounded at how alike we are in looks, temperament, expressions. The Universe sure does work in mysterious ways and I am rather mystified today.

Is this my country?

After the bumpiest flight to the other side of the world, where I rapidly became an ultra-orthodox Jew praying mightily to just get to the Holy Land in one piece, we arrived to a beautifully warm, lazy Saturday morning in Tel Aviv. I didn't get teary-eyed. I didn't burst into the national anthem. I didn't kiss the ground. I felt a little foreign. A stranger in a strange land. Where was the excitement, the nerves, the heart palpitations for a country I had left with so many unresolved memories? Not quite yet present, apparently. Where were the bronze, rugged soldiers with their dangling Uzis? Where were the long lines of weary travelers being questioned by stern-faced security interceptors? Apparently, those weren't here either. The Israel I knew must have dissolved into the sands or receded along with the Mediterranean. Meanwhile, the enormous date palms batted their heavy-lidded branches coyly. The signature 90-degree cranes stood, towering over half built, erections, at attention.

We dropped our luggage at the hotel and headed to the beach in an attempt to keep our teens awake and battle the time change. I saw Plumbago, the same flower that had gazed upon me with azure eyes when I was a third-grader and getting paid with fudgesicles for favors I did for sixteen year old Arab boys. We saw feral cats, who didn't look so scrawny now, begging for some love.

As we reached the beach, a familiar, visceral, awaking occurred in my nostrils, the indelible scent of fried sea - salty air mixed with falafel and chips (a.k.a french fries). I was mesmerized and seduced as other delicacies joined in a rambunctious, cacophonous tugging that had coupled with my early longings, reminding me how I had those, temporarily requited by an insatiable wolfing. My brain went into what it thought was a rational monologue about how there are many ways to sustain weight loss and surely some people could have just a plate of hummus, and garbanzo beans sure are healthy, and if I measured the portion, couldn't I just have some? As if this was about weight loss...As if hummus was a contender as my favorite food...As if the possibility of losing my community, my sponsor, my life was just a tiny, inconsequential decision.

Yikes!

I picked up the phone and dialed a fellow, Israeli woman who does what I was doing with my food. Good to know this mantra was drilled into me, even menopause couldn't obfuscate it - Going it alone is never an option. She assured me that this wasn't the first time I had felt this way. It had probably happened in places like New York, the other Jewish city. It had. I had survived that. She reminded me that it will take a few days, but that I will get through it and it will dissipate. It was good to know that I had a lifeline, a preserver to hang onto anywhere in the world. OK, I could now move towards the Shuk, with my family, my innards intact.

There, amidst barrels of shiny olives, freshly-baked oval, sesame breads, pomegranates the size of inflated softballs spilling rubies, I moved into my role as a food-pusher, wanting to stuff my family with all my once-favorite things. I noticed how insistent I had become at having them savor what I could not.

I ingested the vibrant palette of bashful, engine-red tomatoes, the heady fragrance of variegated melon and soft-yellow guavas, the piles of fat, pink radishes, the snowiness of lamb-y goat-y cheeses, the erotic, spread-eagle, purple figs by clicking my shutter, gulp after gulp.

Thank goodness there are many ways to experience abundance.

My son, who never wants to leave home and who had complained about being in a foreign country where no one speaks English (wtf?) told me he was in love with this city and can he please move here? He loved the incessant movement, the crumbling, ancient-ruins-meets-Bauhaus architecture, the people out in cafes at night. I was truly shocked and pleased. This is my country. My son loves my country. There was something that resonated for him. Something that has pulled me back. Something that still, on day two, seems surreal and untethered is touching, reeling us both in ways I have yet to comprehend. I can't wait to see what happens when we actually get to my birth city, Haifa.

HOME

Following my aptly named ancestors, a wandering Jew I’ve been. My family left Israel in 1976. I was ten, full of trepidation, excitement and a belief that God was on our side. I’m 45, and the rest is pretty much, still the same, except that I now believe God is on everyone’s side and the trip is in reverse. I am returning to the sands of the Mediterranean, which still try to encroach the entrance to the hospital where I had my first peek.

It has been 17 years since I set foot on that arid, irrigated, sacred, bloodied terrain. I have been very busy crisscrossing the US, creating a tapestry of homes, seeking community, a place for my heart to belong. And it did, at times. But there was always a place, unfettered, untouched, inaccessible to assimilation, to America, to this early, foreign invasion. That spot is where I have gone at times of terror, of deep yearning, for familiarity, for belonging.

In two weeks, I am returning to my home, my people, my place of complicated relations, the one that shaped me, the one that has held me no matter how far I distanced my self from it.

I imagine that everything is different, for the both of us. I cannot fathom how Israel has grown, spread without apology, invented and rose and civilized and uncivilized. I know the roads on which I had travelled and I know them not at all in the more recent landscape. I know there are new roads splitting Arab communities like red, raw, weeping watermelons spitting families, like seeds, aside, without care. We will drive on those roads so that we all can witness how cruelty festers in mistrust, and how it is our responsibility to find a solution. Now.

And I know the tremendous changes that have occurred in me since my last trip. This time my family constellation consists of my female partner and our two man-cub thirteen year olds. They actually expect me to know how to navigate in a land where I never drove, where I now stammer in the language, rusty from a profound lack of use for nearly 35 years. Although I am no longer accustomed to guns and shoving and yelling and smoking, I know that those are integral to Israeli culture and will greet me, assaulting. I know my family has no idea what they will encounter. I dare to consider that my fears will be met with joy, beauty and unexpected connections. People, who look like me, will mirror al our beauty, harshness, kindness, passion, racism. I know that I may taste grief and heartache and that I will no longer avoid my guts by burying them in cold bags of chocolate milk, in pyramid-high falafel, in iced coffee brimming with ice cream, in succulent corn from the large steaming kettle on street corners. I don’t use food like that anymore, but that is how I survived all that I had to in Israel. And I wonder what it will be like to be surrounded with comforting delicacies and uncomfortable memories and over-stimulation of everything life in my primary core has to offer, but have it served up exponentially.

Shall I take them to my old apartment complex, the slums of my township, to watch the big, frightening and frightened cockroaches scatter like the a Passover plague, when one lifts the communal trash bin lids? What will they say when they see the scrawny, scraggly, feral felines copulating everywhere, nary a neutered one in sight? Will they cherish a fudgesicle like I did, in exchanging for sexual favors at the age of 8? It’s hard even to write that sentence in relation to my children who are five years older than I was when that happened.

But it is a vacation, after all. And I really do want all of us to be able to relax, and soak up some sun on the Tel Aviv beach and snorkel in Eilat, and touch our lips to the Wailing Wall and know that we are very much alive, very much here, together, right now and thank for another day of feeling full and pray for another day of being present.

The Hormone Mayhem

The Universe has a twisted sense of humor, although I can't say I haven't been warned. Physically, I know I should have had kids at the bodily ripe age of sixteen. My energy was robust, my nocturnal habits meshed congruently with a newborn - sleep all day, stay awake all night! We all had an attachment to a bottle of sorts. We created some scatty messes that we needed help cleaning up. If I had children then, I would have been in my late 20's, when they began their pubescent journey. Like them, I would have slid onto snowboards stealthily, traversed with my own ripstick and text with tenacity. However, I believed that I needed years of therapy and to be more grounded within life's whims before I could navigate parenthood. An honorable, steadfast notion, if it weren't for the small print in the Parenting manual that ostensibly never made it into my hands. No one happened to mention Menopause might be a bit of a mired muck when it met with adolescent angst.

This is what it looks like these days:

My boys, both eleven, hastily speeding into teenage-hood, scrutinize the mirror for any budding follicles on their face. So do I. Our aims, opposing. They love to sleep in. I'd just like to sleep. Even once in a while would be nice. They devour pizza, double bacon cheeseburgers, vats of ice-cream, Andre-the-Giant size Foot-long subs, a calf's ration of milk per day. I watch my waist un-waste. I devour flaxseed oil for hot flashes, black cohosh for my darkened days, and Ginko for my geriatric memory. I am about to embark on slathering progesterone cream, so I don't lose my mind any further and pull a postal trip.

While my kids verge on having nocturnal emissions, I already nocturnally emit puddles of sweat onto my exhausted sheets. I'm experiencing a sort of teenage mid-life cycle, in reverse. While they amass Testosterone, my progesterone and estrogen, bid farewell. I am fully ready to pursue my writing career, but alas, my memory bank has decided to play Bernie Madoff and abscond with any semblance of language acquisition and recall.

We share mood swings, like a seesaw, I , on the irritated side, they, on the belligerent one. They begin to notice girls, work on their abs and pecs, wake up with a protruding body part pointing North; I notice that I'd rather lie on the couch, than jump in the sack, my body parts definitely point south. It seems we are gale forces blowing in opposite directions, except when we turn around and collide in midair.

But there are some exquisite everyday respites. We do love to watch the screen together. I, personally, love anything that has to do with being prone and watching other people sing, dance and experience the agony of the feet, like in the Olympics, or in "So You think You Can Dance." They just love TV. We load our dinner plates with protein and sprawl on the family room's sectional. Later, we get close vying for the fuzziest blanket, as we discuss what Simon says on American Idol. We dissect anything on the show that brings up sexism, racism, and homophobia, and all this is done before the 10:00 o'clock news. Not bad for an attempt at repairing the world.

Because beauty and order are more important when one is 40 plus than at 16, I've taught my boys about shared communal responsibility, and they get up and clear the dishes and food. They load the dishwasher, and not just their own dish. These days they actually ask, "Do you need help with anything else?".

And they offer comic relief to this peri-menopausal woman, who needs it like a daily dose of bioidentical hormones. Although, they think of me as a hippy, process-loving, and a bit out-of-it parent, they know they have license to be goofy around me. They don my bras and dresses and take up the challenge of getting me out of Grumpyland. All I can say is: "Thank you Universe for making laughter available at any age."

What have we done?

It’s not that I haven’t needed to write. I just found myself focusing on all else. My partner laid down the law today. She saw how miserable I have been. I’ve been ignoring my need to write, as well as my need to exercise, well, because it’s easier to go crazy inside my mind with errands, than to go crazy because of what has happened.

A little over a week ago, a 15 year old Richmond High School girl was raped and beaten by 7 guys, as over 20 others stood and watched. Let me try this again. I am feeling nothing.

In my community last week, for two and a half solid hours, seven boy-men took all their hostility, apathy, rage and filthy, desperate venom and inserted these, brutally, inhumanely, savagely into and onto a girl child/young woman desecrating her body, mind, heart and spirit until she lay unconscious, while a group of twenty onlookers stood by. Nobody called for help.
Nobody called the police. Nobody. No Body. Every body checked out.

Ok, I am beginning to feel something.

When my partner came home, I was cooking dinner in our homey, cozy, safe kitchen. She told me that she needed to tell me something. I had no idea the imminent bomb that was about to burst in my ears, face, uterus. I told her to hang on, since I was in the middle of cooking, but she went ahead and told me what had happened. I extinguished all the flames on the stove. An old one burst, rekindled. Inside an old flame caught fire and gathered momentum as my partner sat and wailed on the couch. My anger and desperation linked with hers.

At first I wanted to go to the old warrior ways of the scythe. A swift, fierce justice executed without mercy. I knew the pain of one attacker. I knew the pain of a series of abusers over years. I did not know how one survives a continuum of torture by more than two dozen males. I held my breath. I did not move, except for an escapee tear or two fighting me to be let out.

After my partner stopped crying it was my turn. I felt like I was going to implode. How can we let this happen? What in the world were we doing or not doing in order for that savagery to occur? How were we supposed to survive this? I knew in that instant that the young women in that school were more afraid than before. The young men knew they had just cast, willingly or not, a net of terror, lest some girl get out of line. Lest some girl do absolutely nothing. Regardless, she could be fucked at any moment. I am not just talking physically. The power dynamic just reared its ugly, hooded head lest we get too comfortable, less vigilante. I knew mothers were more keenly praying for their daughters safety and tried desperately to reign them indoors , trying to shelter them from life outside. I knew that often inside was not very different because fathers and brothers could and would do the same.
I knew that what the girls and their mothers felt was contagious. Many mother from other schools dug their nails into their daughters. Many daughters tried to integrate this tragedy into their young lives.

At first I vehemently insisted that we would not talk to our 11 year old boys about this. My partner disagreed. She was right. I knew I had to spew my own poison out before any such conversation, so as not to attack and dismember my children’s spirits. I have cried and raged and cried some more about this event with some of my co-counselors. I had a session with a 6’7” guy. He laid on top of me and I had to fight him off. It was a powerful, explosive session. I had him in a headlock within 15 seconds. The deep, profound releasing of disappointment, grief and hurt increased when he held me softly, close. I so wanted to believe there could be sweetness and safety without confusion..

I have looked for a place to gather, to grieve in community; to overcome together. Last night there was a vigil at the High School. I was getting angrier by the minute. There were no plans of action. No education for boys and girls. No calling out to understand where we have failed our children so miserable. There was a lot of talk about Jesus, almost more than about this girl. There was a speaker that said that this was not the only incident of multiple rape assailants this month. It wasn’t the only rape that week. Did we know that a woman /girl gets raped every 9 seconds. Count with me now: One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. A woman’s or a girl’s life just changed forever. So did a man’s or a boy life. We could do this again. Every nine seconds. This is so outrageous. I just can’t process this. What do we do? I can’t imagine what the mothers of the young men who stood by are feeling.
I have to figure out a way to talk to my children about this. I cannot be silent. I must teach them to never, ever stand by and do nothing. It must begin at home. In my home.

If I were a Rich man...

I just didn’t know that attempting to eat locally and trying for a carbon toe print instead of a whole footprint, would raise such uncomfortable moral dilemmas. As I forage our urban landscape and consumerist jungle for local, organic food, I have encountered quite a challenge. Some of my values get smacked around and I am not feeling very choiceful.

Our food budget is $200/week for a family of four, whose members don’t eat many grains due to allergies. So, after spending hours mulling over tomatoes that I like (Cherry, California grown and organic - $4.50/basket), or ones that I eventually bought (Fat ones, local, organic, $3.59/lb) and adding in some carrots and a few other essentials like Organic, local milk in a glass bottle (no throwaway container, thank you very much) and eggs that came from hens who may have ran around, even if it is for 5 minutes (I’ll never know, since there are no regulations for range free), I filled one bag to the tune of $50 and I hadn’t even gotten an 1/8 of this week’s groceries. I was a bit depressed and annoyed. Can only millionaires enjoy being locavores (people who are committed to eat food grown within 100 miles)?

I know of a community garden that grows food for local low-income residents in my town. I felt semi-entitled. I have been struggling with finding and securing on-going employment for over a year. We don’t buy anything new. We don’t go out to eat. We stick to free entertainment. We barter and swap and share and manage to do with what’s available, and mostly, I am grateful that we are creative and resourceful and that we get what we need.
However, I needed more food. When I got to the garden, it had a low, padlocked fence. I felt part lioness going for the hunt and part thief, stealing in broad daylight. I was a bit apprehensive and a bit ashamed. I didn’t want to sacrifice my value of eating well and nourishing my family with unsprayed bounty to the value of not stealing. But was it stealing? We have been playing phone tag with one of the members of the garden to get a time where we could come in and work in exchange for food. So, why was I feeling guilty? I picked some greens, lettuces and some zucchini. They were gorgeous, lush, and happy. I wanted to make sure I ate them in serenity and not choke on any constricting shame. It did taste delicious, but I’m still thinking about it..

The following day I found out that there is another organization that delivers veggie boxes to a central location in my community and that also offers subsidized boxes to low-income residents. I realized that my shame about getting what would be the equivalent of financial help stemmed from my Jewish, middle class upbringing. WE don’t do food stamps. We, Jews, are supposed to be doctors or lawyers or at least have enough to never, ever get a handout. As middle-class folks, we are taught to help others, but to appear as if all is fine. We are just right, the middle bowl of the three bears, not too rich, not too poor. Just right. Except that it isn’t.
So, we get stuck in more isolation when we feel we are the only ones who need a hand.
I filled out the order form anyway. I want to deal with my feeling about the Have and Have-nots. It isn’t fun. What would you do?

Peaches and other red rounds

It’s been a couple of days in the new world of eco travel and traverse and I must have missed the fine print. I am getting closer to nature daily because my butt looks like a red baboon’s. I have gotten on my bike with a vengeance, or a mission. And, it really has been great and I can finally sleep really well at night. I didn’t know how quickly it took to ride to the local farmer’s market from my home, although the hill on the way back is the one responsible for said butt, it was faster than I expected. On Monday, my girl and I rode together, I, to hunt, gather and do comparison-shopping at our local market; She to her appointment nearby.

Local goat cheese from happy, frolicking, neighboring goats-check. Shipped, not flown, organic pineapple from Costa Rica- check. Truck driven, polluting my planet, organic tomatoes from Mexico – forgettaboutit! Oy, so many choices, so much to investigate and learn. I did feel like I was getting back to the old ways because I was using my body to gather my food. In fact, I discovered local, organic and FREE produce right off the bike path. Yep, apparently, the cities of El Cerrito and Berkeley plant cherries, plums, blackberries and loquats all along the long and meandering path. I carry plastic bags wherever I go and, sure enough, my girl and I hopped like bunnies from fruit tree to fruit tree and collected their yield. Que Romantico! I am now searching for a bike for one of my boys, so we can have a family outing. My kids already think that we are hippies, (which shows you what inaccurate history they teach in school today!), this should fit right in with their confused perception.

Anyway, my cat needed food and I was petty determined to go to our local, friendly supermarket and compare items, so I did that as well. Their labels indicated that almost all of their products came from Monrovia, CA - Yogurts and beans, tortillas and pepperoni. Where in the heck is Monrovia?Apparently they have acres of farms. No, it’s just their warehouse factory, so I can’t actually tell where the food is from, so I‘m not buying it. I did however buy about 60 lbs. of mostly local, some organic food, and realized that I needed a bike rack and I needed my partner’s help, just so my back wouldn’t join my butt in an uprising. So that was trip number two up the hellacious hill towards home, but I had a blast, while working on my thighs and tan.

The next day I vowed to only walk not ride, and try to calm my radiation colored behind. But alas, my girl forgot the shirt that she changes into after her vigorous walk to work, so guess who got to ride and give it to her? Yep, it hurt a bit, but then I stopped at the farmer’s market and just handed over my last $6 of the food budget to the peach lady. Ok, these are not .89 cents a pound, but I am so sick of eating fruit that tastes like cotton fuzz. This morning, I had an orgasmic candy on my plate. A sweet, very drippy real peach that made my whole mouth break into an operetta. The hill was worth it!

Eco-Warriors or Eco-Terrorists, you decide

Maybe it's just a phase… Even if that were true, it can only help. After visiting the Academy of Sciences exhibit on Climate change and attempting to calculate my own carbon footprint on planet Earth, (did you know that the energy used and pollution caused by industrial farming is responsible for more global warming emissions than the entire transportation industry?) and getting small, but outrageous tidbits from Michael Pollan's, "The Omnivore's Dilemma", I decided to rally my family around the "Summer of Sustainability."

Well, all right, we have done a bunch of things already to go Greener, like changing our bulbs to CFL's, turning down our thermostat, using canvass bags while shopping and washing our clothes only in cold water. But there's a deeper level of commitment and a more profound area of knowledge in which I wanted to delve.

With the checklist "Sustainability Made Simple", from the Academy of Sciences, I urged my family to sign up for an experiential challenge of reducing our impact and making choices to protect our Planet's future. Everybody needs a hero. We could be the Lesbian household version of "The Incredibles."

Now the challenge begins. How do I navigate through a maze of buses, trains, but no planes or automobiles? How do I let my two eleven years old boys gain some independence by taking the bus while not turning completely gray from worrying whether they knew where to get off, how to be safe in the world? Should I buy local or organic, shipped from New Zealand or driven from Mexico?

Apparently according to Pollan, USers are basically "Tortillas with arms and legs", because we ingest so much corn in various forms. But can I afford not only grass fed meat, but grass-finished as well? Do you want to know what that is? Stick around, I'll tell you about our adventures in this strange, new world of living like the old world: eating seasonally, bartering for goods, heading to a market that doesn't package everything in plastic.

So it begins. Today, I got on my bike to do a shopping comparison between four stores that carry all the stuff my family eats. I have felt in the past that my hunting and gathering in these stores has been very primal. Now, I am taking it to another level, by actually walking or riding my bike to get to my kill. I am trying to assess whether I need to go to several stores to buy food. I can't do my shopping all in one place in one day. That's over for now. But I don't have to create time to exercise (and often I never did get to that task), so as of today, I ride or walk and integrate that into my normal daily routine. So, I wonder what changes my body will go through this summer? No need for gym memberships, though I do need to equip my bike with a rack or trailer. cha-ching. Oh yes, and there's that small matter that we all have in abundance in a hectic, urban environment, time. I guess I should be grateful that I am only semi-employed, but lest this challenge deter you. I will report on how the pros and cons of all these factors and then you decide.

Oh, yes. My back yard looks a little like a homeless encampment because we've decided that our non-energy efficient dryer is for the birds. Our laundry is now swaying in the California breeze, though I did notice that our towels, once dried, are course. I'll live. I am curious to see what our energy bills will be compared to what they were last summer.

You may laugh. You might think you don't have the time, money. You like the convenience. I do too. However, I can't live like an ostrich, with my ass up in the air, for all future generations to kiss. There may not be much of future generations, if I don't start with the only place I can, my own home. I’m off to fold the hanged laundry and to get the kill for my cat's supper. If you see a blur riding by, wave. It's me minus my cape.

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What happens when alone is what all you've got?

If you've been following this blog, you know where I go for comfort. You also know where I had gone for comfort before I figured out that God is not in the refrigerator.

Yesterday I went up the mountain to look for my God. Whether my invention, coping mechanism, crutch or that which is in the eye of the beholder, I choose to believe. Some people need Xena, Xanax or X-box to get through the day, I need something that is often found between some dancing blades of grass.

It was tumultuous on that beastly hump. The winds of change, I call them. It felt like a cataclysmic hurricane. It was foggy and cold and dark, just like my mind. I tried to dig my boot against the rutted etches and the wind insisted I place it on a mound of dung instead. So I climbed, against the wind, against the mounting anxiety and desperation of my heart and mind. Searching between the sweeping sweet peas and the chagrined chamomile, I called for God, for the Divine, for hope, for help.

I heard nothing but the myriah whooshing, whizzing, discombobulating everything that wasn't rooted and I, most absolutely, was not rooted. I kept gripping the ascends, my head bowed to the ground. I wouldn't look up at the grade and degree of the difficulty ahead. I just kept on going. alone. alone. alone. On more lucid days, I know it's just a feeling. But today, no burning bush erupted in miraculous supplication. No sea of grass parted towards a columbine of light. No sagacious inner voice commanding me to do something, was heard.

All I knew was that I was alone, walking with myself, my body fulfilling the task of carrying on, my heart barricaded, my mind, discordant. Alone I went to the "Bad neighborhoods" of my mind. Those wily passages on the road to no good. The tortuous caverns that mermaid sing me into a sinking oblivion, that forgets how good life really is.

I could blame the economy and my prolonged unemployment. I could lament in the severing of my friendship with my ex, which was not by choice on my part. I could bury myself under every brick of heartbreak and heartache, disappointment and and dejection, betrayal and rejection.

Or I could just run down the mountain. Run like the demons that swirl in my head. Run towards the eucalyptus flailing its bark. Run because I can because I can run.

I have no answers, no salvation, no prayers answered. But I do have a bike, and it's windy out there. But today, the sun is shining and the bay will glisten, like my sweat as I race the winds of my mind.

The many grains of a cup of Coffee..

A friend of mine stopped by this morning. She is transgendered and is in between moving from her female-born and raised state to, well, to most of us on the dyadic spectrum, there is only the other side, malehood.

She is writing an essay about the intersection of her spiritual and gendered journeys. As we were talking, it became clear to me why some Native American tribes, have delegated this particular community, the two-spirit members of the clan, to be the spiritual leaders. If these leaders, as my friend very well may be, are not attached to being one gender or the other, are able to choose to float between physical genders on the amorphous gender plane, they may be able to expand and contract inside different spiritual realms.

My friend talked about her journey stemming from her questions around her newborn son's circumcision ritual. As we spoke, it dawned on me that several incarnations occurred in the Torah, the Jewish Bible, to Abraham and Sara. First I realized that God required Abraham to make a physical ritual so that people might have an accessible route to the divine. In essence, God brought Abraham to a physical level from what I realized was a less gendered place. I interpreted his name in this way. He was Av-ram, higher father. He became Avraham, which if split into Avr-hm, translated into "appendage" and "them". In essence, the one responsible for the appendeges of all of them. A very physical and gendered role. Maybe that's where most of us, in our spiritual journey, are able to begin. Initially, Avram and his wife Sarai, were barren and could not conceive, neither was a vehicle for gendered procreation, perhaps they were on the transgendered plane. Then God decided to engender them into procreating male and female.

I find it fascinating that we, also, have to go through a circumsion of sorts in order to get into our true divine selves. Some do so with a physical removal of a part of the male appendage. Some of us remove the non-essential chaff, whatever it is that keeps us occluded, from the whey, our present, spiritual self.

I truly believe that the transgendered community has the ability to shed our prescribed biological constraints and allow those willing to be less attached to their male or female parameters to experience another way towards spiritual manifestation.

Imagine what the next cup of coffee might bring.

How to mend a broken heart or how I learned to fly

I decided that I had to see my old friend today. Our relationship has spanned a quarter of a century. To call our saga "tumultuous" would be an understatement. She also happens to be the birth mother of my child. This also makes her my ex.

I have loved this woman since I was a young person, before I could even drive, before I called myself a lesbian, before so many tortuous roads unfurled.

Our breakup was the culmination of heaping betrayals, a profound lack of relational and spiritual tools and my compulsive overeating spiraling into an even deeper abyss.

The truth is: she doesn't know who I am.
The truth is: my heart breaks that we couldn't get it together enough to overcome the shattering of our family.
The truth is: It's been six years since our split up and I had to confront the fact that maybe she was either unwilling or unable to build a bridge towards healing.
So I asked her for a cup of coffee.

We, humans, are not the most evolved bunch. Mostly, we form bonds and when they disintegrate from the original map, we assume the wind will carry the fragments, the ashes. Rarely are we able to create a different map from which we could navigate with a stronger , better, but also familiar crew.

So, I had to know whether this was a conscious decision on her partor not. It was. This isn't the first time she broke my heart. It was, however, a time that my heart got to break more profoundly and I got to not eat over it.

So I went to tell it on the mountain.

I chose the reverse route that she had brought me on when I first visited California. As I started up the mountain, I placed my hand on my crumbling heart. "I am right here. I am not alone." The shocking orange poppies in the vast sea of green whispered "You are not alone." The turkey vultures dipping into the rolling, wavy hills insisted "You are not alone." I was crying into an ocean of Forget-me-nots "Not alone."

I realized that my question had changed in these years of separation. I no longer was asking "Can I climb this mountain?" The question now was "How long will it take to climb this mountain?" But she didn't know that. She never did get the best of me. That was what was so heartbreaking.

On this trail we had put our dreams in a nest, waiting for them to hatch. Some didn't get the longevity and nurturing to hatch and fly. Some fell from such heights and crashed, hitting bottom. And then I realized something. It wasn't just my heart that was breaking, it was my own transformation ready to break open. I was able to tell her that if letting her be right where she is, without remorse, expectations, desperate hopes, or the ability for us to grow closer, was going to give her happiness and serenity, then I wished her blessings and love and farewell. I was ready to fly. I was ready to leave the nest even if no former dreams were to ever hatch.

She may or may not be able to get to a place where she can see me fly. She may or may not be able to fly near me. All I know is when I got to the top of the mountain, the purple lupines, the yellow sulphur flowers, the pink sweet-pea shoots were doing a dance with the bumble bees and I wasn't about to stagnate as a wall-flower.

Tomorrow, I will bring my beloved partner to this place. She is able and willing to have the best of me.

Ah, The Places I will Go...

A funny thing happened on the way to...being spiritually awake. I started waking up, literally, at 5:30 am, without my consent. Most early mornings, sleep slides off my eyelids and wham! They fly open. I decided not to fight it. The universe was beginning to sound like a broken record version of "Proud Mary" with a twist. Instead of "Going to the River..." I was seeing and hearing "Flowing with the River..." everywhere. So, if the universe insists that I be up at the hour where roosters are still groggy, who am I to protest? Maybe the lesson for me is to learn how to take a nap. I'm still working on navigating that part of the river...

Not fighting the river has allowed for some pretty interesting opportunities in my life. For instance, this past weekend, I decided that since I am often so preoccupied with how am I going to get all my shoulds and have-tos done, I was going to do something a little different. I was going to believe that all is possible and just try and be in the present with the Today. For instance, often when we don't have the kids for the weekend (they are at their other parents' houses), I get very verklempt about sex. It is glaring, in neon, from the to do list. Doesn't that sound sexy? One could get performance anxiety just by looking at that list. Not to mention anxious and crabby. Always good tools for a nice, relaxed amorous exchange. So, I decided I was not going to hint about it, allude to it, even give the thought of it my time of day. f it were going to happen, lovely. If it wasn't, my relationship would not decay in a viral Lesbian Death Bed.

On Friday we had friends over for a Shabbat dinner. Fabulous Mediterranean food from Turkey, Israel, Egypt and Italy. All cooked by me, to my abstinent program specifications. I , frankly, cannot believe I get to eat like that. We has a beautiful, calm, connected evening with our friends.

The next day, I went to my 12 step meeting and refusing to schedule anything between that meeting and more friends coming over at 4 pm, I sprawled on the couch. I was practicing doing nothing, aspiring to be among the underworked. At 4 pm , our friends arrived with paper bags full of images, words, magazines, crayons, glitter glue and scissors. We each created a vision board. Ohmigawd! What a total blast! I forgot how much I like to just play. Talk about being present, You can't make a list when you are trying not to cut the around the ears of a child balancing, flying on a haystack. The words and images came to me. They seemed to imprint and transform the rest of the weekend and the week following it. I was so thrilled with the explosion of colors and vibrancy, that I woke up on Sunday morning, not thinking about food or sex, but rather where is my glue stick?

Let me tell you there's nothing hotter in th kitchen than a happy, excited, exuberant partner. As I said, all in good time. And a good time it was. A great, loving, sweet time.

But that's not all.

I realized since I can't fight this unemployment thing. I can do what I can do, but then I have to not let it consume me. I actually have the opportunity to spend some time with my son who is here this week. His brother is on a field trip with school. I did something extraordinarily rare. I choose to spend a relaxed afternoon with the son with whom I struggle most often. We took a walk in the radiant California Spring. I took him out for ice cream and myself for coffee (only decaf these days). We played dominoes and it was so fun even when he beat me (I can be a less than graceful loser...) We came home and all had dinner and played a new game where he beat me again. He is such a lucky boy! (so am I...)

He is still sleeping this morning,. He has no idea that I am planning on playing with him again and then helping him with homework. My intention is to have the same attitude as the past few days. It is written on my ten commandments Vision Board: "Levitate above worry" and "why teach when you can inspire?" Sounds like good intentions for the day.

I can't believe that I have such a good life. Great food. Great food for thought. Good grief, Charlie Brown, can I take it all in? Like water boring through a rock, I don't want to put my finger in this dike.

There's No Man behind that Curtained Screen!

Is it parenting in general or parenting in the Bay area that sends one into psychotic spasms every so often?

At dinner the other night, I asked my family to think with me about solutions for living a more sane, cooperative life. You would have thought that I asked if I could pull their teeth to hang as popcorn ornaments! I just needed some help figuring out how to better manage chores, homework, after-school play dates and sports.

I know that as the one parent who stays at home more, I am under a few major "isms." The "ism" that assumes that I will cook every night (because: I am faster, less employed, have food restrictions, the kids can't do it - they have soccer and Kung Fu); that I will hunt and gather our vital vittles (and make sure that it's: cheap, organic, varied, yummy); That I will clean the house (because: people are coming over, it's Shabbat, please no chores on Saturday, and, personally, I can't even think when stuff is spewed all around me); That I will chauffeur everyone (no matter that their schools are at different towns or that I get to work less), volunteer to make and bring a dish to the sick, gather supplies for the homeless bags, and create lessons and activities for our home Jewish schools; Or that I will use most of my other waking hours to work out and go to my 12-step meetings and get some co-counseling help (otherwise my family will really despise me). No, it's the constant need for self improvement so that I won't screw up my kids, so that my relationship with my partner goes well, so that I will be able to grasp that sought after euphoric, confusing state of "Happy."

And Frankly, what would I do if I wasn't doing all of the above? Well, there's a stumper for you.

With my attention waning towards highly functioning ADD levels, sometimes not so highly, I, like so many others, have a hard time sitting without external, electronic stimulation. And I am not even hooked up to a blackberry, a Wii, or a text-messaging system. Frankly I am practically a Luddite, yet, I check my email fifty times a day, or string it all together and spend hours on the computer. I live vicariously cheering 400 lbs. contestants to not eat a roomful of Krispy Kremes on the Biggest Loser campus; I am Simon Cowell's Evil Twin, as I berate and slash wanna-be singers on American Idol; And I secretly, or not so secretly, vote off any "weak" link in my couch travels to Survivor's Exile island.

I did consider, for a millisecond, to turn off all screens for a week. But how will I function and what will I do? Although we limit our kids' screen time to an hour of their choice, when they are with us on weekdays, watching TV with us doesn't count against that time. So, we have gotten into the habit of making dinner and flopping in front of the mesmerizing Great Big Light, and getting engulfed in other people's lives. It's not horrible. We have discussions about body image and sexism (Paula Abdul's constant comments about a female contestant at least being pretty, even if her voice is less so); About addictions, drugs and the need to get out your feelings or you end up on the Biggest Loser... We skip through the commercials, thank God! And we talk about how to conserve, reuse, recycle and get closer to each other with Oprah's challenge to consume less and get out more. But, we do have a hard time figuring out how to get involved in other things. What to do if we were not entertained by the great, swooping talons of technology.

I am aware of the decline in knowing how to entertain myself. I love to hike and paint and photograph and garden. Yet, daily, I get pulled into a magnetic relationship with one non-monogamous screen or another. I think it may be time for weighing and measuring my screen time and my family's communal screen time.

We do read aloud together. We insist, with much initial kvetching, on walking around the neighborhood. We go to cafes with Scrabble and Dominoes. We camp. I wonder if we could take a chunk of the summer, and not use the computer or TV for entertainment. What would we do?

Maybe we would have more time to be helpful and do the dreaded chores together. It may seem less isolating, for me anyway. Maybe we could try new things, like learning an instrument? Maybe we could build a fort? Maybe I could finally use my art studio as something other than a shed? maybe I could take all my broken ceramic boxes and actually do a mosaic that I've been wanting to for several years? Maybe we could even cook a meal and walk to friends on a Thursday night? Maybe we could stop driving so much and teach our kids urban bike riding and map reading? Maybe we could show them how easy it is to play football in the park, which really is only two blocks from our house.

Maybe I could figure out how to just lie in the hammock and do nothing?
Maybe I could conquer my fear of trampoline jumping and relent to my children's begging?

I don't think this is so insurmountable. I actually remember the days when we wrote letters and were excited to get something unexpected in the mail. And I remember when my parents told me that they'd see me at dark for supper. And no,I didn't get kidnapped. And there were no minutes to go over and pay exorbitant fees for such, in fact, there were no bills for the cell phone at all. And the world as we know it, didn't fall into disarray, as it has now, because of massive overspending and consuming when we couldn't afford things.

Wait till I bring up this concept at dinner.

The Not-So-Terrible Twos

On this day, 23 years ago, my father disowned me for coming out as a lesbian. This occurrence along with a myriad of confusing, disconnecting and heartbreaking events cemented my already fierce, passionate and desperate union with food. If my father, mother or whomever I loved and wanted to be close to was unavailable, I could always turn to my other beloved which was always there, food. I defended my relationship with food vehemently, lest anyone get in the way of what kept me from having it. I was fat-rights advocate because anyone who wanted to minimize my portions was confused, under the influence of sexist thought, fallen pry to the patriarchy of keeping women small and weak. Whom ever uttered a word about food choices, weight loss or health was immediately sent to the “enemy” camp, labeled as one who had only conditional love for me, and therefore undesirable, not trustworthy. My thinking, that one could actually have a relationship with food and my treatment of food as a powerful, demanding entity led to a straight and direct path to tipping the scale at 273lbs. That was four years ago.

My road had been strewn with strife. When I started this program, I was at war with my mother. Our volatile relationship had erupted into a no-contact battle zone. My former partner and mother of my child had left me in a very dramatic, heart wrenching tornado, my heart pieces blown all over my personal map. My blood pressure was stealthily climbing towards an alarming wake-up call. My constant, steady and rapid emotion was rage, which visited me often and with a vengeance. It was my frequent visitor, often holding hands with my food. This triangulated alliance of food, rage and what was left of my inner spirit, was getting tighter and, like invasive ivy, suffocated any avenues towards closeness with people. I was getting progressively more isolated, desperate and bigger. That’s what my disease looked like. This disease is wily. Our bottom doesn’t necessarily look like other addictions. I may have been fat, but my skin was ruddy and wrinkle-free and my hair, overflowing with vitamins and minerals, looked healthy. I had a partner and kids and a home. Although my career path was too overwhelming to look at, I wasn’t homeless in a gutter. No. I was heading towards a heart attack or diabetes, both silent creepers. I wanted to be a good parent, but I was raging and out-of-control: the complete opposite of the kind of parent that I wanted to be, and my kids cowered. Mostly I lived in fear that I would lose everything I had.

And then, for reasons that I still don’t understand, but for which I am humbly grateful, grace reached out and placed me smack in the middle of a fork, one way leading to abstinence, the other, to the same hard hitting reality which I’d been knocking my head on for decades. And then grace nudged me towards the path of right living. And this is what has happened since: By admitting that I couldn’t do this alone, I have a newfound relationship with the universe, myself and nature. All I had to do was ask. This triangulation now lets me have a really good life. My father is not only in my life, he is in this program. Thank God. My relationship with my mother did a 180. It’s amazing how profoundly she’d changed now that I stopped blaming her and decided to look at my own shortcoming. Once I was able to really take a look at my part in all of my broken, fragile unions, I was able to get some seriously compressing weight off my shoulders and abdomen and butt. With this program, I have a warrior’s code by which I try and live. If it gets messy, I must clean it up. I know if I don’t, my disease will be right there, happily jumping in to the muck and miring my life. My life is anything but static. One of the most divine aspects of my life is that I get to notice: I notice the profusion of magnolias that wink to the cherry and pear trees as I hike up physical and spiritual mountains; I notice on dark and gloomy days, when I forget there’s hope, hummingbirds, the bringers of joy, surround my home and open my heart. I notice how connected I feel to a range of emotions, how less dramatic life is, but how Technicolor it has become. I notice how lucky I am to be surrounded by folks, kin really, who are holding me as I hold them, as we walk this path together, as we witness each others valleys and zeniths. And I am so grateful that we get to share the weighed and measured abundance this earth has to offer with an incredible presence of mind and heart.

Another Addict's Aspirations

It's hard for me to read certain blogs that my friends write about food. As an addict, I have a hard time reading that some people don't think they have an addiction with food, but they keep getting fatter, are pre-diabetic or diabetic, are on the verge or have had a heart attack and continue to have a constant, incessant monologue obsessing over food. It's hard for me to read that, because that is how I write when I eat compulsively.

I want to support friends who feel that it's just their "bad attitude" or that they were being "bad", in the way with which they engaged with food. I've heard all the reasons why today is not the right day for my so-called "Nazi" food program. If these friends could understand internally the freedom that I now feel because I don't have the obsession with the food, they might feel differently.

This is what my conversation sounded like before I was abstinent:
"I really shouldn't be eating this.
I've got to be strong.
Well, Maybe just a little won't hurt.
I've had a bad day and I deserve a bit of a break.
Fuck those who think I am ugly because I have a bit of girth. In renaissance times, they liked real women. Sexism and the media suck.
I will have that brownie and some ice cream for all the jerks who want to minimize me.
I am not an addict. not a bad one. I have a home, a job, a partner. I am not in the gutter.
I wonder if anyone will notice if I have a second brownie.
Maybe I'll help with the "clean-up",
I hate to toss food away..."

The amazing thing is that I NO LONGER have this conversation. It just doesn't exist. My worth is not based on food. I am neither good or bad. I am not in dialogue with the food. I now get my weighed and measured meal from the list of foods that don't make me crazy when I eat them, I commit them to my sponsor, and eat them while I have a dialogue with the person who sits and eats with me. There are no thoughts of what I should or shouldn't have afterward. It's done. I am released. My food is delicious. I can actually be present enough to taste it.

I am not judging those who struggle with food. I understand it's the disease that speaks. Or maybe, they really aren't addicts and they can manage their life just fine, thank you very much. I pray that they are not like me. I hope that they don't have food and health issues that keep them hating themselves. Or that stop them from moving towards happiness and connection. I hope they can just go to weight watchers or regular OA and maintain a healthy weight for the rest of their lives. I hope they don't need the spiritual tools of the program to help them take a look at why they've eaten or to help them see what is their character flaws and how to work with them. Maybe unlike me, they really don't need to deal with devastating rage or despair, loneliness and confusion. I really pray that they are not like me.

But if they are, then I pray for the Divine to intervene and please grant them the desperation to come to my program. To come to the place of sanity after they've done their research and failed. To come in and hold hands with the rest of us who know that our will is what we had to give up in order to get a life.

So to all that are still struggling, please know that when I get a little anxious when I invite you to a meeting and you aren't ready, it's not because I am mad at you or think you are "bad", I just want you to stay my friend for a really long time and I'd really love to see you loving yourself first and foremost.

Viva La Valentine's Day Daily!

Valentine's Day. The morning after. Nope. It doesn't feel like a hangover. Or a chocolate-induced fog clouding my head. I don't have a new sparkler on my finger or a new teddy bear ready to eat some dust. What I do get to witness is a soundly asleep, soft body, breathing synchronously with the raindrops pelting our bedroom window. I get to feel morning breath warming my back. Frankly See's Candies have nothing on this.

I woke up early, as it happens so often these days, between my overstimulated, over-occupied Jewish brain, which, like New York City, never sleeps and my peri-menopausal hormones that believe that 5 hours of sleep is plenty for an aging crustacean like me. This is a blessed time that, I believe, was given to me by the universe, not coincidentally. It is a time for contemplation, for a dialogue with my Divine. A possible connection with you. A time to be with myself, exploring, what is this all about, Alfie?

Leading up to yesterday, I was faced with some challenges and confusion. I already schedule naughty, wily kidnappings of my partner, already make gourmet meals from far and near reaches of the Earth brought into bed; already barter with the best-darn aesthetician for facials for her; I often bring her sprays of roses, buckets of bougainvillea, bouquets of Lavender,rosemary and sage. And those happen just because. On a Wednesday. or a Thursday.

So the pressure and expectation for Valentine's day baffles me. Who is this holiday for? Some schmuck who, once a year, needs a reminder to buy you flowers? or is it for you, yourself, to sit in the waiting tower, weighing your worth or love-ability on whether you get anything from anyone . What a set-up.

What if we did something radical - treat every day as Valentine's day? Write poems or even e-mails telling people we love why we love them on a Tuesday; What if we took all of our Halloween candy, bagged it into individually wrapped morsels and attached a sparkly note that said " Hello, may your day be sweet! From a human who cares!" What if you decided to round up all the stuff you absconded with from various hotels, miniature soaps and conditioners, lotions and, from your sock drawer, all the non-matching ones and make those into love bundles to give to the guys who live under the freeway? There are so many love acts that could be done easily, cheaply, thoughtfully.

What are you waiting for? There is a world out there to love. If you think you can get buzzed from a glass of champagne or high on a sugar rush from a 5 LBS. chocolate heart, wait till you taste the sweetness of expected kindness. It's orgasmic. xox

"Ex" marks the tender spot -Deconstructing Divorce

I have a friend who is considering divorcing her husband. Something big is missing for her - connection. She's heard and swallowed all reasons why she should stay: He is a great dad; he treats her well; He doesn't beat her or come home drunk; Men are different from women. You are asking for too much; Divorce is immoral; The kids will be devastated;

Frankly, the relationship's shelf life has expired. She learned, like most women, to put her needs last. She married him out of obligation. She didn't want to hurt him. She didn't want to hurt all those that wanted them together. She didn't even put herself in the equation. Her mother did the same thing and my friend learned well how to take care of everyone else first.

I am not the type of person who advocates that people leave when life challenges them. I am not the type to side with one partner or the other. I do believe we ALL are doing the best that we can with the tools that we have. Some of us don't have many tools.I am the kind of person who believes that it's easy to blame the other person and that it's hard to take a look at our own stuff. I encourage friends and demand of myself to do the work we were meant to do and stop blaming others. I figure whether I do the work with one partner or another, it doesn't matter. My work will still be there, no matter who I try to blame and who is there to receive it on the other hand.

But I am also a huge advocate of taking care of one's self first and believe that each one of us has a right to happiness and to a full life on our terms. I don't think it's selfish. I believe it's self-full. I believe that when I take care of my mental, emotional, physical and spiritual self, I don't come from desperation to my other relationships. I believe that when I put myself first, then and only then, can I offer the best of me and take in the best of you. I truly believe that if kids see dependence, instead of interdependence, and interactions based on desperate financial or emotional needs, rather than the coming together of wants and willingness, they will continue to propagate that kind of a relationship.

Unfortunately, people get so obfuscated when the big "D" comes up. They think about their own relationships and some feel threatened. Some would ask the same questions, but are afraid to ask, because of possible outcomes. Some have asked the same questions, but have chosen or were coerced, by their fears or community, to stay, so their judgment may be harsh and swift. Some people have divorced and long for what could have been. Others divorced and were met by hostile family and community reactions, appalling behaviors from their "exes" or themselves. And often the loss of family, legally and emotionally, the loss of friends who felt they had to choose sides. My friend is petrified of all of the reactions above.

Somehow, it is still rare to find "amicable" in front of divorce. It is even rarer to find familial terms when introducing a former partner. It is as if it is required that a big "X" mark the spot of where all was lost and buried. Maybe that is why we call them "Exes".

However, if "X" or "EX" marks the spot, then there may be a possibility of a real treasure there. The treasure of raising kids to see and believe that relationships may end, but can also grow differently. The gems of being able to celebrate life together within a rich, extended family, inclusive of those with whom we have chosen to change the nature of our relationships. The radical notion of being able to expand our hearts and minds to embrace our former in-laws, so they become current in-loves. The Golden opportunity to trust that our current partners don't need or want to go back to their former partners, but that we, ourselves, are good and plenty and that they have chosen to be with us in a certain way AND that there's still room for the former administration in a different, safe, loving way.

I try to work on that last one all the time...

So to all the women who have settled for less than absolutely everything and to all the men who felt badly at not being able to get close and get "It", and to all the kids who felt that the ending of their parents' relationship meant the ending of civility and compassion and the beginning of the unbearable choosing of sides, and to all the family members and friends who didn't know how to feel or examine their own losses as a result of a divorce; here's a prayer:
May you find the "Exes" in your life and dig for the treasure that awaits all of us.

Economy Slump? Ecology Dump? Move your Rump!

My girl and I have a reason to celebrate. In this crazy economy, while my work has dwindled to a few hours a week, and gas prices have climbed like an aggressive, invasive ivy, we are about to finish paying off our cumulative debt. How is that possible? We did not rob a bank, though we are so grateful to a government program that has allowed us to keep our home sweet home from falling into foreclosure; We haven't won the lottery, though we have been rich within our means.So, how do 2 moms, working part time, living in the expensive Bay Area feel so abundant these days?

Well, we've gotten very creative:

We BARTER anything we can. I use my photography skills, my ability to cook gourmet, low-cost, international meals, and my organizational and coaching skills to help people who are stuck in clutter, procrastination or general confusion.

For the above we have received a deck, midwifery services, haircuts and frequent flyer miles; coffee beans and tickets to a myriad of events; Even stays at vacation homes.

Don't tell me you have nothing to BARTER Can you play with kids? Parents are in desperate need for a night off. Can you pull weeds and rake some leaves? Gardening help for those of us who love our gardens but have no time to maintain them, may yield some fruit, literally, for the weed whacker. Can you drive? shop for food? walk the dog? Clean a house? If you have the time, there is a need for your services.

We SWAP! books and clothes, toys and homes. I hate clutter and I love giving stuff away. If I don't use something for 6 months and it takes up emotional and physical precious space, it gets listed on the internet at swapping sites and ousted. I refuse to buy new and consume more of our already fragile world's resources. There are tons of sites where I get my books for my book club for free; Speakers for my Ipod, enormous plants for my home; pokemon sheets for my boys; frames and vases; chairs and cushions; bikes and bulbs all for free. I am seriously thinking of starting a business finding free and cheap stuff for people. I think this is what Obama would call a Green Job opportunity.

We've started driving our tiny, boxy Honda that gets as good a gas mileage as the Hybrids! It has no radio and no heat, but it rides like a race car and costs only $20 to fill per week, unlike our cherished, but beastly soccer team toting minivan. My partner started walking to work and I accompany her often for the FREE exercise, communing in nature and getting time to talk!

We've started incorporating more VEGGIE AND VEGAN MEALS into our weekly menu. For one thing, it's cheaper. Did you know that it takes 16 lbs. of rice to feed a 1 lb. of beef? Well a Pound of beef doesn't eat, but 16 lbs. of rice feeds a ton of people, whereas 1 lbs. of beef feeds, well, just me. The toxins that are created from raising and shipping meat are greater than all the pollution cause by cars, planes and trains combined. I am not kidding. Our arteries surely appreciate our weekly efforts and so does the ozone layer. How can we go wrong?

We insist on REUSING our plastic bags and take canvass bags whenever we shop. We even have a tiny stuff-able bag, called a Chico bag that I keep in my purse, which expands to a nice, large and sturdy one whenever and wherever I need it. Forget your Visa, you'll only be getting into more debt, don't leave home with this!

We COMPOST! We had so much garbage, we decided to dig a hole in our yard and put in our unused veggies and fruit in there. The worms love us. We love them turning this stuff into good dirt for our newly built Raised BEDS. Our garbage can debris was halved.

We created a BUDGET that allows us the freedom from the insanity of constantly worrying about living beyond our means. We don't get resentful because we have chosen not to buy a Wii, or get a new car, or go out to new fandangled restaurants. We are grateful that we are coming out of debt and haven't had to declare bankruptcy. We believe our kids will be better off not getting the newest Video system and that we will not heap debt on them because we will aggressively pursue saving for their future when our debts are paid off.

We hold POTLUCKS and SINGALONGS and go out for HIKES with our friends. We share our resources and find amusements in connecting with others.

There are so many ways we are figuring out on how to live more responsibly on this planet and we do it together,as a family, and that's worth a whole bunch. And these values that we teach our kids are, you got it, free and recyclable.