linda’s blog

I’m continuing on to give an update on the pain/inflammation that I experienced earlier in the week including what I’ve been doing to try and treat this alternatively and how that’s all going, etc.

I’ll start by saying that I’m amazed at how fast the body can shift out of something that feels so terrible to something that feels way more tolerable. Yesterday I was moving around the house with a lot more ease. Two nights ago I woke up noticing that I had both my knees up and there was no pain associated with it. I was able to take a shower yesterday, wash my feet, get undressed and dressed again and put socks on. So I’m definitely having a wider range of motion in my hips and legs. I’m still feeling a dull ache in my leg and this is what has been with me the last week and a half or so. Yesterday I was also experiencing sciatic pain which I’m really thinking is because I’ve been laying on my ass for two days. The other thing I was feeling yesterday was the beginnings of charlie horses in my right hamstring and groin muscle. I’m guessing that my muscles are just a bit worked and it’s my job to help them relax and regain strength/flexibility.

For the sciatic stuff that was beginning yesterday, I was just massaging down the outside of my hip and leg. I am still taking the zyflamends and they are working amazingly well. I’m eating a vegan diet and a majority raw vegan diet so it’s heavy on the greens. That there is no animal fat clogging me up I think is what is helping the most to having this quick turnaround in my body. I can tell you I’ve had this recurrent pain in my hips over the last 9 years. When I went totally vegan (high raw) and increased my greens is when I started to be able to walk and move again without pain. That is a miracle to me because even while I was doing majority raw for the last nine years, I would occasionally have some kind of meat. When I decided to skip all the meat and add more greens was when I saw a major shift in my health and well being.

I’m using the traumeel to rub on as a kind of ben gay. I’m still applying ice packs every couple hours. The massaging, though, seemed to be the most beneficial. That and getting off my ass and moving around a bit to get some circulation going.

To help with the charlie horse feeling, again I was massaging my leg but also drank some magnesium Calm (almost a tsp) in a small glass of warm water. I remember reading somewhere about potassium and magnesium helping with cramping and charlie horses and so I figured it couldn’t hurt. Also, this was a recommendation from a coupla friends the other day to help with inflammation (one friend is nearly finished with her schooling to be an ND - Go Deanna!)

I’m trying to have a dialogue with my body. I don’t want to mask over any of the experience I’m having with pain killers because I’m feeling like my body has some important things for me to know and do. I’m not having unbearable pain - it’s more like an annoying kind of dull ache. Just the simple act of breathing through the pain has been the biggest way to shift out of it quickly. Even when it was at its worst the other day, I felt a bit like I was in labor because I was just breathing fully and deeply into it and trying my best to experience it waning. It was worse than labor because labor comes in waves, pain lasts for a minute and then goes away for a few minutes before coming back. The pain I had the other day was constant and intense and it was more like the pain when you are transitioning and nearing the time for pushing the baby out. If you had a natural childbirth, then you know what I’m talking about. I found that my body was hurting the more I was trying to move and struggle against i. If I breathed deeply and stayed immobilized, the sharp pains went away. So I’m no dummy, I tried best not to move after that! Funny that both the chiropractor and the ER doctor said when there’s an injury the body gives you pain and immobility on purpose, because it wants to protect the injured spot and give it time to heal. Well, that’s amazing, isn’t it? The problem comes in our heads when we fixate on the pain and think “OMG! What’s wrong! Why is this happening?!” instead of breathing and looking for breaks that do come. The body does give us breaks and it does tell us what we need to know if we only shut up our chattering minds and listen.

The way that I see physical pain and illness is really just the body trying to get our attention. Basically our bodies begin to yell at us because we were ignoring the piddly annoying things that can occur. I have a deep reverence for the body and all it’s wisdom. I am just the student. My body is the wise teacher. The amazing thing is that the body really quickly wants to get to a place of happiness and relaxation (homeostasis) and we tend to slow down that process when we try to numb out, tune out, deal with our minds more or overly fixate on emotions. So my body is responding very quickly and well when I do little things like rub an ache, bring circulation to my tired/overworked muscle, drink lots of water to flush out aches.

Thankfully I’m having reinforcements from the chiropractor. She recommended I use ibuprofen if I needed to for the pain (I haven’t been needing it since the trip to the ER) but she said, “Remember that sometimes we can do more damage when we mask the pain because we don’t feel anything so can overtax the injury and make it take longer to heal.”

I’ve been checking in with her to give her updates. I made two massage appointments - one for this Thursday coming up and one for the following Thursday. Leita (the chiropractor) recommended I do this to help the muscles in my body relax and I’ll feel even better. So that was an easy phone call to make!

I’m also still needing to call and make an appt with the orthopedist. Again, this is the chiropractor’s recommendation. She said if it takes a couple/few weeks to get on their calendar, better to make the appt now and cancel it vs. being a few weeks out and this pain is just not going away. I think I’ve been forgetting to make the appt because I’m feeling so much better (plus I really don’t like allopathic medicine.) But I promise I will do it. I have written it down here so I mustn’t go back on my word.

So that’s the latest. I am doing a good job of caring for myself. I am feeling loads loads loads better. It’s actually feeling quite good to write this out. This way I can look back on this and see what I’ve done and the turn around time. I wish I had done this 9 years ago when the first excruciating pain happened.

Thank you for reading. By the way, Leita Hancock is my chiropractor. She works in Montpelier and she is a kickass chiropractor. I went to several, as I wrote in the first blog on this subject, in VT as well as in MD when we were living there. Her philosophy is to help get a person to a place where they DON’T require her services and that’s why I like her (among other things.) So many places I went were like “OK, you have to see me twice a week, every week for the next 6 weeks and then we’ll go once a week after that for about a month and then we’ll see where we go from there.” When I met her a couple years ago and asked her about this she said that given the pain I was in, she’d want to have me come in every week or couple weeks but she wanted me to do my work of stretching and exercising and help my muscles retain the adjustments. She said she didn’t want me relying on her to feel better and that I have to be in charge of my health. And that has been the case and it’s a much more empowering place to be.

This is just a little update. Today I’ve been continuing with the zyflamend, the extra water, the greens, the traumeel, the ice packs and rest. I’ve been more mobile today which is great although I’m still trying to take it easy so I don’t overdo it. I have to say, I’m tired of sitting with my feet up! I think there’s reason why we have movable appendages! I so want to move and I am but I enjoy the ability to move with more ease and flexibility. My kids cheered me on when I showed them that I was walking without a cane! They are so cute.

My ass wants to move though. So I’m going to go and rest and hope to move a even more tomorrow.

I guess it goes without saying that I haven’t been at the cafe this week. I’m sorry for anyone that has come to find a closed shop. I hope to be there next week! I’m getting there.

The very last thing I wanted to say is that in these times of illness or pain, it’s amazing what one can learn from them. I am looking back to even last week when I was way more mobile and being grateful for that time. I’m also grateful for the feelings of pain, as funny as that sounds. It’s definitely a unique human feeling - to be able to feel it, reflect on it, recall it and then express it. Do other animals feel pain and go, “Gosh, that really hurt Bob. I can’t recall ever feeling a pain like that.” Hey, maybe they do, I don’t know but as far as I do know, this is uniquely ours and whether it’s a good thing or a less than stellar thing to experience from our amazing senses and spirits, it is uniquely human. I’m also incredibly grateful for each moment that I feel better and am amazed at how quickly the body goes towards health. YAY for the human body! YAY for the human experience!

Nighty-night,
Linda

P.S. Before I begin, I’m writing about my OWN experiences here. I’m not advising that you do any of what I’m doing. I *am* advising that you look to your own heart and body for the wisdom it carries and I ask that you find some good support for your health in whatever ways they come to you: ND, chiropractor, massage therapist, etc and so forth. Don’t go doing what I’m doing and then give me grief about it not working for you. We are all connected and yet we are all individuals so take care of yourself, be your own shaman, your own healer and DO NOT rely soley on the anecdotal information of others… OK, so now that’s done, let me get on with my story…

So I’m dealing with an old “war wound” - 9 years old to be exact. I gave birth to two beautiful big babies - the first was 9 lbs 8 oz and the second was 10 lbs 2 oz. The second birth was blissful and amazing. I had a doula (my sister-in-law) with me rubbing lavender oil on me telling me I have the strength of millions of women before me. The second baby was pretty low in my pelvis during that last trimester and she shot out like a canon. I had some serious hip pain from that birth that comes and goes. It used to be super bad - 7 years of pretty bad pain. I got used to it though and managed to do what I could although I was no longer flexible enough for yoga or able to walk or ride my bike. (Doing what I could do meant that I was just living with pain. Sitting, standing, walking, laying down, moving all gave me lots of pain. I just kinda got used to it as a lot of people in this world do.)

I had gone to several chiropractors and physical therapists in the beginning. When one chiropractor told me I’d be in pain forever, I went to another one. (Don’t tell me about forever! Everything in this world changes!)  Finally I met a chiropractor that said, “Why would anyone tell you you’d be in pain forever? Everything changes.” I replied, “Wonderful! I just found myself a chiropractor!” In the 2 or so years of seeing her, I’ve been able to get myself to a place where I’m able to walk 5 miles a day, ride a bike, do pilates and other stretches. She helped me to NOT rely on her for help by giving me exercises to do to help strengthen my body back up. HOWEVER, every now and then I have these recurrences of this “war wound.”

This past Sunday was the most recent one. This actually was the worst one yet. I’m not exactly sure what I did or didn’t do. I was having some aches in my hip and front of my leg for over a week. I had seen my chiropractor (whom I hadn’t seen for a couple/few months) and she gave me a tune up. I went home and was still having some aches in the front part of my leg where it meets the pelvis but just kept going on. The tightness in that front muscle (the iliopsoas) was just getting tighter and tighter. On Sunday I was having trouble moving my leg and getting into the shower. Picking up my leg to walk up the stairs was a bit tender, too. On Monday morning it was worse and I thought I would get on the floor and do some of the exercises that I learned to help my pelvis. But whatever I did must have made things worse because a couple hours after I stretched, the tightness turned to spasms. The spasms turned to incredible pain. My body became immobilized and I was shaking like an animal after a trauma.

By about 9 pm I thought I might go to the hospital because the pain was so great but decided to take an ibuprofen and put on some ice packs. It was clear that there was inflammation and I didn’t really want to get poked and prodded whilst in so much pain. So I asked my chiropractor for her opinion the next morning.

She asked me to describe in detail the symptoms and based on what I told her she said that if it were her or someone in her family, she’d probably want to go to the ER or an orthopedist to rule out things like tears and fractures. She said it would be good to go and see and be sent home saying it’s a severe muscle spasm but better safe than sorry. Matt was very willing to take me because he had never seen me in that much pain than I was in the night before. The kids, too, were wanting me to go to a doctor and see what they can do for me.

So I went and I was nervous about getting and x-ray or MRI. To me, these are invasive and I don’t want this or any real allopathic stuff done to me unless there is a broken bone or something. To me, that’s where the allopaths are at their best - fixing broken bones, helping with emergency things like rashes or major allergic reactions. We got to the hospital and Matt borrowed a wheelchair so I didn’t have to walk. Man, those things are great! I was wishing for one at home so I could be wheeled around to and fro, but really, it was a very fleeting wish and not one that I’d ever really want in my house… I met with the doctor and he asked who my primary care physician was. I told him I go to an ND. He asked if I ever go to an allopath and I said I went to an MD but she moved. (I didn’t tell him the real reason why I stopped going to her… I’ll save that for another time…)

Anyway, he did a few stress tests on me and said he feels like I had a few inflammations going on. He pressed into a few muscles and I winced and he confirmed the inflammations. He didn’t feel I needed an x-ray and wouldn’t go with an MRI unless I was having this unbearable pain for several weeks. He thought because overall, I’m healthy and wasn’t showing signs of nerve damage that it was best to treat this conventionally with a prescription pain killer/anti-inflammatory drug and things like going to the chiropractor, putting ice packs on the muscles, etc. He said that I could use ibuprofen but would recommend I take 4 times the dosage on the bottle. (ee-gads! I thought - 4 times! one ibuprofen really fucks up my stomach!)

The nurse came in to give me the prescription and discuss the drug. It had a lot of side effects that I didn’t want to bother finding out if I might get them. With both this drug and the ibuprofen, I was told it can tear up your stomach (literally and figuratively) so she advised to eat a full meal before taking it. And with the drug, it was advised not to take it for more than 7 days because I guess bad things could happen like stomach bleeding!

Hearing the nurse tell me about the drug, I decided I didn’t want any of that. Matt was thinking I was crazy not to take something to help with the swelling and the pain. I said, “if there’s less side effects with ibuprofen, why would I take something else?” And then I started thinking about ibuprofen and I thought I didn’t really want to take that either! LOL

So I asked the chiropractor and she said that there are good alternatives for inflammation and she reminded me about a supplement from New Chapter called Zyflamend. “Oh yea! I have that in the cupboard!” And then I remembered that I have this stuff called Traumeel! OH YAY! I don’t have to run to a store! And then I remembered about greens and how wonderful they have been to me, healing me in so many ways. Greens are good anti-inflammatory medicine. The chiropractor told me about big doses of tumeric and ginger. She said that tumeric in high doses can be thinning to the blood. She also said that if a person is prone to gallstones, then it would be better not to use the tumeric.

So this is what I’m doing right now and I’ll keep you posted on changes and on how I’m feeling:

The pain is pretty tolerable at this point (it’s Wednesday.) It hurts but I have a pretty high pain tolerance (everything gets compared to labor…) I went to the chiropractor this morning and she adjusted me and gave me a good massage. My muscles feel quite weak from the spasms they’ve been doing and continue to do. I’m massaging them 3 x/day as my chiropractor showed me in order to get circulation going in them. I’m drinking lots of water and liquids. I’m having green green juices.

Matt made me one today that had:

• local kale
• local radish greens
• local lettuces
• an orange
• 2 local apples
• spirulina
• filtered water
He buzzed that in the Vitamix and poured it through one of our V-Shape nut milk bags. It filtered out really well and was really yummy. I gave a taste to my son and Matt had some too.

I’ve taken double the dosage of zyflamend today. 2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon. I’ve rubbed the traumeel on me a couple of times. Friends have recommended magnesium so tomorrow I’ll add some CALM to my water and see what that does. I’ve used the ice pack several times today.

Today I’ve been able to sit up again and walk around with a cane. I’m very slow moving and feel highly connected to my grandmother (she used to walk with a cane after she had half her foot removed from diabetes.) I keep saying, “Hi grandma!” as I gimp along with my shiny blue cane. I was able to go to most of the school play today but found that my muscles were shaking uncontrollably when I got there. They subsided and then on the walk home I was all shaky again. This, I’m guessing, is because my muscles are very strained and it is a great effort for me to walk. Perhaps I was overdoing it for today but I really wanted to see the plays. As it was I had to leave for the last part and missed some of my son’s play. He was very disappointed and I feel badly about it. He understood but you know how that goes.

Since coming home from the shaky walk back, I’ve been resting. I put a hot water bottle on my back as I iced my leg, pelvis and hips. I put some more traumeel on my leg and I cried out whatever needed to get cried out. I’m feeling good at the moment. My bed is comfy and the company is good. I’m off to clip some nut milk bags now. I’ll keep you posted on this pain and inflammation journey of 9 years.

So I have to say that I sometimes forget to eat. I get into what I’m doing and my stomach isn’t growling or anything so I just work away. Well I did this the other day and then hunger came on and I was looking for something really yummy to eat. It was around 5 or 5:30 and I decided to make a pudding. Here’s what I did:

• 1 ripe banana
• 1/2 perfectly ripened avocado
• juice of about 1/2 lemon
• rounded TBSP raw honey (use whatever sweetener of your choosing
• 1 scoop Sun Warrior rice protein powder

Put ingredients into a small food processor and blend until creamy. Man-oh-man, this is a hella yum pudding!

Here is the book list in the order that they were suggested on Facebook. Begin reading with me:

Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

the World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony, by Will Tuttle

Amazing Grace by David Wolfe and NIck Good

“The Help” by Kathryn Stockett

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Tarth Stein

Grandmothers Cousel the World: Women Elders Offer their Vision for our Planet by Carol Shaefer

auto biography of a yogi by paramahansa yogananda

The Unknown She: Eight Faces of an Emerging Consciousness by Hilary Hart

Spiritual Nutrition: Six Foundations for Spiritual Life and the Awakening of Kundalini by Gabriel Cousens

Conscious Eating by Gabriel Cousens

ADDING:

The Art of Racing … ‘Garth’ Stein

Holy cow! Today I did a little breathwork session with Sandra Denner. She is hosting a breathwork intensive in June here in Worcester and asked if I wanted to have a little taste of what is going to occur. I agreed and she came to my house today for said taste. She was describing what I was going to do… “Breathe heavy and hard for an hour” is what I thought and then said, “Well, that’s more of a meal than a taste, Sandra!” But I’m open and I laid down on the table and I started breathing the way she showed me.

This, I have to say, is way more intense and profound than any meditating. When I was in labor with my second child, I had my first awakening to my chakras. I felt my subtle self - tingling in my face and hands and feet. I felt so alive and blissed out. I asked the nurse about the tingling sensations and she and the doctor said, “well, if you had an epidural, we’d be worried right now but you are going au natural, so if you don’t mind it, we say go for it.”

Ever since that birth experience with my daughter, I would have these kind of spontaneous awakenings here and there. I couldn’t control them. Sometimes they’d happen while driving and I actually gave up driving for a while because I didn’t want to alarm anyone (mainly my kids.) I just figured this was part of my journey, part of the changes I’ve had in my body since childbirth and more intensely since the age of 35. I tried asking various doctors and people and they all had similar responses. I went to a 2 week shamanic intensive with journeying for 6 hours a day and I journeyed through one of these experiences. I’ll have to write about that later but I’ll just say that I’m getting more and more accepting of these things that happen.

Anyway, I’m on the table and I’m breathing like Sandra demonstrated I should. I start thinking, “I hope the hour goes by fast.” And within minutes I’m feeling the tingling of my whole body. She asks me if any thought is popping up but it’s more just the feelings that I feel. I’m experiencing the whole thing and following my breath. The tingling sensations are getting super strong and intense. My ears are buzzing. I feel like a tuning fork. I feel like I’ve got electrical currents going through my body.

At one point, there are some super stiff parts of my body happening - my hands are super stiff. My knees are super stiff. I’m just breathing through them as these intense feelings of buzzing is going through me. Sandra tells me to “keep breathing, I’m doing great.” These are stuck patterns that I need to breathe out of me. OK, I’ll keep breathing. I’m sort of feeling very similar feelings to when I was giving birth to both my kids. The feeling of intense energy and needs to release, exhale, breathe, moan and whatever else. The stiffness in my hands and feet goes away and I’m breathing again and feeling the buzz buzz buzzing all over. It is a part of me and outside of me. I don’t seem to feel the room or the outside anymore. It’s all seeming to be the same thing.

So I think, “OK, I can roll like this for a while. It’s intense but I feel very alive. I’m giving birth again. I did that for 8 hours, I can do this for an hour.” And then wouldn’t you know it, another wave came over me. This time I saw my skeleton. I felt as if I was being held on my head and neck and it was dark. There was no light that I could see from my eyes, even while shut, I could only see blackness. It was a deep dark fear I was clearly working through. “Keep breathing, you are taking very courageous breaths,” Sandra said. So I’m breathing and I’m breathing and it is heavy and intense and I’m now feeling like I don’t care if it takes hours, I’m going to breath until this dark shit goes away. Now I’m on a mission! So I’m breathing and breathing and I’m focusing on my breath instead of the darkness and the skeleton I see. Wow, this was an amazing trip!

Eventually, I felt like I literally labored through that one. I was definitely reminded of giving birth, except I thankfully don’t remember any dark skeletons during any of my kids’ labors! LOL I can only describe this feeling as being intensely in one’s body, feeling every bit of energy in and around me. It’s really an amazing feeling. So this feeling goes away and I’m left with an even wider open space inside me. Just breathing breathing breathing. I am back to seeing colors even with my eyes shut. I always see colors when I meditate and journey and stuff so this is normal for me. I am feeling very trippy and groovy in all good ways. I have had this feeling many times before, in meditation, etc. It’s a down right amazing feeling. It’s intense for sure. I am still buzz buzz buzzing all in my hands, my ears, my body, my chakras, my feet, my everything. It feels like I’m feeling the energy in the whole of the earth.

Of course I went through another wave, although not as intense, but it was a feeling of being held a bit on my head. This was not an upsetting feeling and I breathed through it and more opening occurred. Now I’m in total bliss out land. I love it here and yet I’m also saying that it must be about time to end. Sure enough, Sandra says, “five more minutes.” So I’m breathing and breathing and breathing and I’m just purely experiencing the feelings of being in me, of being in my body. Thank goodness there wasn’t more visions, I think I had enough sensations for a Monday morning.

So OK, now it was time to relax my breath. I’m slowing down my breath and I’m relaxing. Now my body is shaking like an animal for what felt like 20-30 minutes or so. I just lay there until all the shaking was done. I’m used to the shaking too. It happened after panic attacks a long time ago and I finally got to a place where I just took it to be an animal response to “shake off” a fear. I even read a year or so ago about this as a healthy way to get rid of fears and traumas, so YAY ME for just being ok with it even before I saw it in print. Again, I’m grateful not too many people see it because I’m sure it would worry them. But I’m fine. I always feel quite fine when the shaking off happens. And Sandra was also OK with the shaking off. She said it was normal to have this happen. How nice to be validated.

So that was my breathwork experience this morning! I feel really really good. I’m of course now wondering if I’ll be able to attend the intensive that she’s having in June. I’ll post it up soon so that you and I know the details. :-)  I’m really grateful for the experience. It was hella intense but most things worth doing take some effort! Thank you Sandra for coming over today and sharing this with me. It’s quite a phenominal experience.

check out the new products:

http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=products_new

lots more herbs up: http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=herbs
also just posted these 3 new items:
http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=56_9_15&products_id=651 - coconut vinegar
http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=56_9_15&products_id=650 - coconut crystals
http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=56_9_15&products_id=649 - coconut aminos

also check the sales page: http://vt-fiddle.com/shop/index.php?main_page=specials

posting this up as a request: (one very special ingredient that I include in all my recipes is LOVE!) If you ain’t got it while you are food prepping, it will show! So get in love and put it in your food!

This is a simple but delicious recipe:

3 cups cashews
1 cup fresh or filtered water
2 Tbsp lemon juice
2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
1-2 cloves garlic
1 tsp dried mustard, ground
1 tsp dried tumeric, ground (not yet posted but have it for sale)
1 pinch sea salt

Put all ingredients in the Vitamix and blend until creamy. Use as a spread for sandwiches or put a dollop onto a salad. Cut up red bell pepper, tomatoes and onions and combine for a delicious salad spread.

I finished painting my “me shield” - now I have to make a fabric border for it since the frame broke. i was initially painting it outside during a breezy but beautiful day. the breeze swept the canvas away and BONK the frame broke. Still, I managed to paint on it until I just had to take it off the stretchers.

it’s late and I’ve got too much on my mind to sleep. So I figured I’d write this out. OY, is all I can really say to start this out. I live in a beautiful place. We chose this spot because it had a beautiful space and high speed internet, to be honest. I need high speed internet for my job and so we couldn’t be out in the middle of nowhere. And frankly, I don’t want to be out in the middle of nowhere. This beautiful place is far enough away and yet not isolated (which is pretty funny considering we live in a town of 900 people and friends/family that come to visit invariably go, “how did you find this place out in the middle of nowhere!”) But believe me, this place is not isolated compared to several places you could be here in VT! It’s beautiful and we have this hill that we see from our backyard that I love to look at each day. I love the trees in my yard and all the grass everywhere.

It seems that because we live where we live (in the middle of the village), we seem to find ourselves in this place where we are literally in the middle of things that aren’t so great all the time. When we first moved here, a kid was trying to molest other kids and hey, we found ourselves in the middle of that trying to keep our kids safe and the kids in school safe. Then came the potential agricultural fair that wanted to use the field behind our house (it is town property - it is where the fireworks happen each year on my birthday and when we moved here, we were told it was given to the town to be used for agricultural purposes and recreational purposes, not to be developed on.) So we found ourselves in the middle of a short but passionate discussion of whether the ag fair would be setting up their everything and vendors camping out in the field for a couple weeks each year. Thankfully, that didn’t happen. Then came the recreational committee who wanted to use some grant money to change the field a bit and add a soccer field and baseball field and they used some chemicals on the land saying that they would give a buffer zone. How funny is that!? The buffer zone didn’t happen because that got mucked up and honestly, how can there be a buffer zone anyway? For real! Do the chemicals go, “Oops, we have to stop here. We’re not allowed to cross this line.” What chemical company paid for that bullshit to get passed? Hello! Air! Water! Sun! We have these things called elements! Weather! There is no buffer zone when you put chemicals in the ground or in the air! Geezum!

Then there was the property boundaries. Some dude who appeared as if he must have been intoxicated or something came in to figure out property lines. Come over some time and I’ll show you, the lines are all SO crooked. Property boundaries are ALL wrong and this was a few years ago now. Has it been fixed? um, nope. According to this, half of my house shouldn’t be there! The stake that this dude put on what would be the corner of my lot runs right down the center of my house. No joke! Isn’t this stuff for a cartoon?

Then we wanted to plant some fruit and nut trees and bushes at the cafe. We had a permaculturist come and make a plan to help put some life back into the soil (frankly some previous owner used to bury their lawn equipment in the ground there.) We asked for permission to do this on some of the adjacent town property saying that when we leave, the plantings will be a donation to the town. Well then we got in the middle of some phone chain about how the town gave us property for free. Ee-gads, I’m not making this up! What a nightmare of a meeting that was for me. They said well, we didn’t know you were going to plant so much.  (Can you believe that tonight this was brought up in the meeting! Hello! Can you say UNRELATED! and recalled oh so differently. Tonight it was stated that they didn’t know trees were going to be planted at all and it was a septic issue for people. Um no! nearly 20 people showed up because they were told via the rumor mill that we were given property. There was never a septic issue.) OY! So surreal. I’m not making this up!

The most recent is this gravel crushing project. Again, let’s bring in industrial equipment that has the potential to cause a lot of environmental harm to the air and the adjacent river and let’s just start crushing rocks. Oops on the parts that are spilling into the river and oops on the parts that are getting breathed in by the neighbors. Our bad. Um, sorry. We can’t control this thing that we decided to have happen.  It’s almost laughable and yet this is part of what we’ve experienced living in this beautiful village… Thankfully more great things have happened that thankfully outweigh this WTF stuff.

But still, I am trying to decompress from another night that makes me question so many things. I really want to have faith in my town government. I don’t look at anyone there and think they are bad people or whatever. I just want to live my life and not feel like I have to be some damn watchdog. You know what I’m saying? Like I lived in NJ, I lived in the Silicon Valley - I’ve had enough superfund sites around me, I don’t want to have to worry about the crap that is quite literally happening in my own back yard. I’ve got kids here. There’s a school just right across the street! Even more kids to worry about! Geezum Geezum!

And yet shit keeps happening and I think I must be getting called to have to participate more than what I have. But I’ve already done my time serving on the school board and I don’t want to be in public office at all!  I seriously loathe meetings and I don’t want to have to go to meetings in order to know that this crazy laughable stuff isn’t happening. Meetings to me are such a waste of time. No one sticks to agenda, no one keeps to point (except for Spencer Weart at the American Institute of Physics. That man should be a trainer and train people how to run a meeting. I swear. It was a pleasure to have meetings with that guy.)

But I digress. See? I digress! I don’t want to stick to my point either! LOL I just want to live in this gorgeous town and do my gorgeous thing. I don’t want chemicals dumped for no damn good reason on the field behind my house. I’d rather take the long grass and field mice we used to have when we first moved here. I don’t want the rocks being pulverized essentially two properties over. OMG! To me, this is short sighted stuff! What is it to the end? We have such a short life to live in the big scheme of things, why do people have to fuck things up like this on our earth? For what? I ask questions. I try to understand but I honestly don’t understand.

Ugh. I don’t want this job. I’ve got enough on my plate. Really great stuff on my plate. I think I’ve found my gifts and I want to use them. Being a watchdog doesn’t feel like a gift and yet I’m trying to be grateful for this. To see the divine in this. I’m a student here, learning in this life. I know I have lots to learn.

OK, it’s out and I’m going to sleep. Thanks for reading. Or not. I just needed to get it out. Rant is over. Good night.