Off The Running Track. Enticing Sports-Minded Friends to Swap their Runners For Erotica

Three times a week, I wait on the end of the street at 6:15 in the morning for my friends, the runners. I don’t like running. I am not very good at it. I am not athletic, my body is too large and I can’t speak and run at the same time. I can’t even think and run at the same time. But running is what my friends do. From early morning runs to half-marathons, groups of my friends lace-up, hydrate and run. Together. So I join them.

I enjoy the sense of belonging. I know running is good for me and I have high hopes it will someday transform me from the elephant plodding to a bonafide member of the group of gazelles. But I am not inherently athletic. I fear that no matter how much time and effort I put into running, I will never catch up to the rest of the group.

And this is a problem. Wanting to belong is a universal need. But even moreso is the desire to be an equal member of that group; one who contributes or even advances the group processes. And while my friends are accommodating and even patient with me, I feel like the little sister who is tagging along. And like the little sister, I want to pull on their coattails and loudly suggest we do something else. So, one night I did. I proposed we trade in our sneakers for a pen, some paper, a drink and a stack of erotica.

My idea didn’t come completely out of the blue and it wasn’t entirely the tequila talking. I had come up with the idea when I came across the book Sex, Death and Other Distractions by the Kensington Ladies‘ Erotica Society. These Kensington writers hail from the San Fransisco area and I live in Calgary’s own Kensington as do my running friends. It seemed, at first, a hilarious coincidence, so I bought the book. But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to suggest the idea of forming our own Calgary Chapter of the Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society.
So, one night, I did.

We were sitting on the back deck with our spouses. It was an exceptionally hot summer evening. No one was in a hurry to leave, the children were all playing elsewhere. Everyone was talking, everyone was drinking and relaxing. I pulled the book out.

Why not? I asked. The Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society was formed 25 years ago. But now they’re in their seventies. While respectfully still vibrant, I suggested it was time to pass the torch. We could carry on the tradition and write our own stories of erotica.

The reaction? Initially, exhilaration. We sent the men and kids home and moved up to the rooftop deck and continued to drink and explore the possibilities. I pulled out a notebook and took notes. Grand ideas of weekend retreats, and great titles like Licorice Whipped, A Proposal of Sorts and from our local horticulturist, Clematis were bandied about. We’d meet, read, discuss, and then write. It seemed, that night, the next adventure we’d embark on together.

I was thrilled. I didn’t know much about erotica so we would start off on an even playing field. It wouldn’t involve cold mornings (unless for some titillating reason we wanted it to). It didn’t involve my non-athletic body. What it did involve was literature, discussion and creation. We could meet at night, with a drink. We could talk and breathe at the same time. We could become philosophical. Just think of the laughs!

For once, I was ready to run. I began the research. Armed with works from Anais Nin, Henry Miller and Nancy Friday I began calling and emailing the others to share what I had found and start pinning down dates to get started. Slowly, I began to notice that no one was returning my calls and that no one was looking me in the eye any more. Slowly, I began to realize that outside the rooftop deck soused in tequila this idea no longer held any merit. Somewhere in the sober mornings I was left standing alone with a notebook and a stack of erotica under my arm.

I was stunned. What I was proposing was not really deviant, was it? I wasn’t, like some of the pulp erotic novels of the seventies, suggesting an orgy among friends. I was merely trying to create another opportunity to get together.

The idea was eagerly brought forward, not for any deviant reason but for fun and to try something new. Like running, we could use each other to check our instincts, be pulled past our natural area of comfort and gain strength in the process. It would also allow us to step outside of our role as wife, mother, teacher, doctor, scientist and athlete. I thought, perhaps, it would be a vehicle to explore not only the boundaries of pleasure from a woman’s perspective, but real issues we face on a daily basis.

Through fictional stories we could discuss issues of betrayal, of jealousy, loneliness, rejection and insecurity. And perhaps at the root of it, I put the idea forward with the chance to create characters who were not perfect-physically or otherwise-but were still desirable.

Friendships do revolve around closeness, but erotica might be just too close. While my younger, still single friend confessed to late night sex talks among her girlfriends, one married, reluctant friend confided she didn’t want anyone to think what she revealed was about her husband. Hmm. Good point. And what about the children? That was a sticky situation I realized myself when my 9-year-old son asked me what this article was about. I didn’t quite know how to tell him and still keep his psyche intact.

I took these issues and presented them to the San Fransisco Kensington women. Surely, the original six had dealt with these issues of uncertainty. Elvira Pearson (a pseudonym, probably not a bad idea) responded. She told me that the members of the Kensington Ladies’ Erotica Society were not originally friends. The idea to explore erotica sprang up at a party when the conversation turned to what men and women thought was sexy. To avoid betraying the men they had in their lives though, the authors wrote strictly about fantasies.

There were other uncomfortable issues, she warned. Like when one of them wrote “My Gorilla” and didn’t want her name on it. Gorilla fantasies, she told me, have their followers.

Gorilla lovers? This didn’t help me. It only aroused my curiosity further. I want to know more. Anyone with me? Anyone?

As with most life experiences I have limped away from this one with more understanding on how the world works. The erotica dialogue has not progressed much, unfortunately. If I ever catch up with my girlfriends on the running track, I plan on throwing the idea out again to see if anything has changed.

But, I confess, I am reluctant to give up completely on this idea. I am still running and still not loving it. And I’m inspired. If those original Kensington gals can be in their seventies and still be thinking and writing erotically, we’ve got a few decades to go to figure things out. I still think it would be a blast and I confess, I am interested in what is up with the whole gorilla loving situation.

The original notebook, along with a secret stash of tequila and erotica is put away together, ready to be pulled out at the first sign of interest. I think our own little Kensington story is yet to be written. I don’t know if it would be any good, but it would be a hell of a lot more fun than running on dark cold mornings.

Healing Waters

I was a fool to think I would avoid it altogether. Each time, after the bottle of wine was drunk, the long talk had quieted, and a soak in the bath had gone cold, the decision to move had been thwarted. It was my husband’s company that was suggesting we move. It was I who was suggesting we stay put. This tug-o-war had been going on for a decade but the company’s tug was gaining strength with every year.

“Fine,” I finally had to relent over the phone, long-distance. My husband had been summoned South and offered a job better than the rest. He felt we should move. “But I want a pool in the backyard.” I had to show that I wasn’t going without conditions. He felt that my demand was fair and accepted the position. Three months later our two sons and I joined him. Three months and three days later we were swimming together in our very own backyard pool.

Growing up in the North where snow falls more days than it doesn’t, swimming outdoors is a joyous and gluttonous activity. Outdoor-swimming days are so rare that long line-ups of swimmers snaking around the community pool; swimmers waiting for other swimmers to leave so they can safely replace them in the warm and suspect water, is a common sight. Equally common is the drive to the mountains to dive in the glacier lakes, freezing, but clear and outdoors. Anything that slightly resembles a swimming hole, no matter how small, how cold, how far or how crowded becomes the summertime destination on a hot day for those of us who live in a mostly cold climate.

So demanding a pool seemed a justifiable condition to move to a place I had avoided for ten years. I had worked hard to avoid the move. I was not opposed to moving in general. I just was opposed to moving There. Of all the places in the world to move, of all the cultures waiting to be experienced, of all the school systems I was willing to subject my children to, There had not made the list. I had hoped a pool would ease the pain.

The first year in our new Southern home was rough. The heat was extreme. The school challenged my fondness for public schools. We found it difficult to make friends. The spiders and snakes frightened us. We had to get used to pesticides being sprayed in and around our home. But despite these setbacks, one thing remained gentle and true to us. Our pool.

When the heat got unbearable, we found refuge in its water. Submerging ourselves for hours beneath its surface, we invented water games and exercise routines to keep us cool and occupied. When the boys were at school and my husband was at work and I found myself struggling with loneliness I swam my negative feelings away. When my sons began to bring friends home they would spend much of their time jumping and screaming and splashing in our pool’s waters.

Since arriving, my sons have got to experience the joy of skinny dipping before they were teens, something I had to wait until I was an adult to do. Something, I had not done at all until just recently when my husband moved me to a city I did not want to go to. The boys easily swim naked by day and I by night comfortably shielded by trees and our home and the fact that we have Our. Very. Own. Pool.

And having our very own pool gave way to my first all-over tan since I was a teen. As an active woman and a mom being in the sun is unavoidable but the difference between being in the sun in the North and in the South is the Farmer’s Tan.

In the North, wearing a bathing suit is a rare occasion so the only skin that sees the sun regularly is from the knees and elbows down. Having a pool I have a tan up past my knees and even past my shoulders. It’s a simple pleasure having an all-over tan, but it’s a pleasure that makes me content.

But perhaps the most profound moment in our pool happened several days after a category-4 hurricane ripped through our city uprooting trees, tearing rooftops, shattering windows and causing general havoc and disruption to the city and the lives of its inhabitants. After three days of no electricity and water yet hard clean-up efforts, our neighbors gathered around our pool to relax, cool off and cleanse themselves-both spiritually and physically.

I have caught myself on several occasions stopping and watching the happy activity in and around our pool and recognizing that in spite of myself, these scenes of family and friends make me very, very, happy. But even more than the immediate gratification, this relationship with 2100 cubic feet of water will endure the years. For these are scenes unique to this house. These are memories that will not be confused with any other place or time.

And I have realized this truth: When you are cooled from the heat or when you have an outlet to soothe your nerves or if there is a place where laughter constantly flows, your mind is free and your heart more open to opportunities that you wish to remain stubbornly closed to. I know this first hand.

Thanks to the healing waters of our pool I am growing fonder of my new home each day, appreciating the good this Southern city offers our family and swimming away the tensions that it also inevitably still presents us.

Cupboard Love*

*Mid 18th century- to denote feigned love in hopes of getting a meal or a snack

It started with a book. No. Before that. A move from her hometown to a new town. Her husband got transferred. And she followed. Behind she left what was familiar, ingrained. But this new place had possibilities and this book.

It was left for here. Purposely. Or so she assumed. The lady, the former owner of their home was a writer. She wrote smut- or at least that’s what the book suggested. The title was Languid, Pretty and Perverse written not only by her but five others. They called themselves The Bowmont Ladies’ Erotica Club. The inscription was cryptic. At first she didn’t understand it, but now she did. It read. “Sylvia,” she must have got her name from the real estate contracts-“Sylvia, this neighbourhood is filled with the unexpected. Seek women with real fires in their belly. Welcome to Bowmont. Welcome to the neighbourhood.

Blushing that day, Sylvia had tucked the book away, not wanting her husband to see it. But she reached for it now not caring if the food still on her fingers would rub off on its creamy pages.
She stood alone, surrounded by her mess. The she reached up high in the back of the cupboard where the recipe books were stacked and pulled out a cigarette. She was not typically a smoker, but she had planned to have one at the end of this night. She uncorked the last bottle of wine and poured herself a hefty amount. Turning the gas burner on low, she leaned down, pulled her hair back, and lit her cigarette.

She inhaled deeply. She had smoked on and off since university. Mostly at parties or while travelling but now, now smoking was reserved for more intimate and solitary moments. Like tonight.

Sylvia looked around her kitchen. It was overflowing with plates stained red from the tomato sauce, asparagus left limp, abandoned mid-meal. Pots were coupled by the sink and the eggbeaters sticky from the dessert. She sipped her wine and smoked her cigarette. She would have to clean up, get rid of the stains and smells, but not yet. She looked at the clock. 2:15am. She liked that it lasted so long. She’d savour the memory minute more.

It had been a welcoming neighbourhood when she first arrived. Casseroles arrived in the hands of trim women, children gripping tightly off their pant legs or chasing each other through her front garden. The casseroles had tasted bland, but she was happy for the welcome and looked forward to more encounters.

The moving truck arrived and Sylvia’s days were full of unpacking and decorating. She’d watch the neighbours out on their front lawns talking while their children rode their bikes up and down the cul-de-sac.

Sylvia had no children. Not yet. Maybe not ever. She thought of her husband. He was a good man. An honest man. But he lacked passion. And he travelled. A lot. She bent down and unpacked another box. Its contents belonged in the bathroom. She dragged it across the hardwood floors, liking the tactile scratchy sound it made.

Opening the third drawer down on her side of the bathroom, lay the book. A silk-stockinged leg was thrust across the cover from a body unseen. The stiletto heel was black and strappy, the toe pointed. Sylvia reached for the book, held it to her breast and brought it to the front room. Closing the blinds slightly she opened the book and began to read.

The doorbell rang. She rose from the chair, finger holding her spot between page eight and page nine, and cleared her head. She opened the door. It was Tib from next door. Her cheeks were pink and her hair wind-blown. She looked in need of a drink of water. She came with an invitation. Was Sylvia a runner? Three times a week they all met at 6:15am and ran to keep in shape and to keep young and to keep their bodies from sagging. Sylvia stood a little taller and said she would think about it.

Tib turned to leave but then her eye caught the book in Sylvia’s hand. “Can you believe they wrote that book, right here, in this neighbourhood? In your house?” She giggled then moved in closer. “I hear they were swingers.” Then stood back and laughed. “Hard to imagine now with all those wrinkles and thick waists and tits down their knees.” Tib turned. “See you in the morning.” She raised her arms up and pumped her muscles.

Sylvia closed the door, climbed the stairs to her bedroom, put the book under her side of the bed and returned to the bathroom. One by one, she lifted the shampoos, conditioners, face creams and hand lotions onto the shelves.

Running had become a routine. Sylvia hated it, but she was the only one. Loudly and energetically, six neighbours met under the soft morning light, at first, then the lighted street lamp as winter drew nearer. They ran in the rain and the snow and the warmth of the chinook winds. Merrily and exuberantly they talked. Sylvia listened. She could not talk and keep up. She ran slightly behind and breathed and listened and cursed her body which resembled that of an elephant. She longed to morph into a gazelle and join the others ahead of her.

Her days at home became long without the demand of moving boxes. She had painted the kitchen, the bathroom and the family room. She no longer wanted to paint. She found herself at the front window, often, watching who passed by her new house. She was lonely. Her husband was gone, and even when he was home, she was lonely.

In Edmonton she had studied as a poet and then had worked as a librarian. She wrote a little and read a little since, but she felt stagnated. She needed something to get her back on track. It had been several months before she reached under the bed and pulled out the book again.
She started at the beginning. The first short story began with a bang. Literally. Before long, Sylvia had finished the book. She put on her shoes and coat and walked to the corner store. She bought a package of cigarettes, placed them quickly into her coat pocket and headed straight home.

Turning the corner she ran into Molly who was just heading off to pick up her kids at the school. “Did you hear?” She asked breathlessly, “Poker at my house. Friday at 7pm. Bring a bottle of wine.”

Sylvia nodded then continued on home. She locked the front door and walked straight to the back door. She brushed some twigs off her garden chair, lit her cigarette and inhaled deeply.
She coughed. It didn’t taste as good as she remembered and she felt light headed. But this didn’t’ stop her. She inhaled again and again until the cigarette was finished and her memory of it was restored. She sat back and looked up at the tree branches above her head.

The book had moved her. Made her stir. Made her remember what being sexual really meant. She moved to her bedroom and closed the door.

After her second cigarette of the day, Sylvia felt restless (and a little nauseas). There was something she had been missing. She booted up her computer for the first time that week and sat back with trepidation. She logged on and pulled up the Internet. She typed the word ‘sex’. In 0.04 seconds results 1-10 of 688 000 000 flashed on her screen. She scrolled past the two dictionary definitions, past Playboy’s site and settled on an article titled “Combining Long-Term love with Erotic Desire”. She began to read but quickly reminded herself that she hadn’t come to the computer looking for a mirror, she had come to step away from one.

She pulled up the next 10 sites. Settling on the one titled “Sex in the kitchen,” Sylvia double clicked. It was a video and lasted just 4 minutes.

Leaving it on her screen in a paused state, Sylvia returned with vodka on the rocks and hit play. And again. Then one more time. The vodka was empty. She refilled it but returned not wanting any more images. The words in the book had been more profound.

She clicked onto her email. There was mail from her husband, away this time in K.L. She read it then steamily responded. She hoped he was on the computer at the time and would reciprocate instantly. They had never engaged in email sex, but perhaps, considering his travel schedule, they should. Sylvia refilled her drink.

The morning found her face down on her keyboard, the keys imbedded into her soft cheek. She raised her head and looked for what had hit her. It was on the desk beside her; an empty bottle. She was up in time to meet the others to run. But first she quickly checked her emails. Nothing. She crawled into bed.

Poker started promptly at half past eight. Sylvia had been the first to arrive and had sat alone until about 8:15. Molly was still bathing the kids and then she had to read them each two books. Sylvia found the vodka and poured herself one with soda. Finally, slowly, the others arrived.

It was less a poker game then more of the same talk. Some new faces-the nonrunners-who offered new insight into the same stories. None of them involved Sylvia. They had lived together a lifetime, it seemed. She thought to mention her previous homeowner and the others who wrote with her.
“It was a long time ago,” they said.
“The sixties.” Someone offered.
“Your former homeowner was the last to leave the neighbourhood.”
“Have you read the book?” Sylvia asked.
“Oh, no. Porn doesn’t interest me.”
“I haven’t time to read.”
“We’re mothers,” one giggled.

Sylvia walked over to the buffet and stood before the bowl of cheezies, the nuts and the long slender trough of olives. She didn’t know what she wanted. She poured herself another vodka, and then remembered what she had read and watched the night before. She placed her plate down on the table. She knew exactly what she wanted to do.

“I’d like to invite you to dinner next Saturday,” Sylvia announced before the next hand was dealt and before the discussion of what game of poker would be played.

The enthusiastic response brought some colour to her cheeks. She turned down the profuse offers to bring a dish, or an appetizer. “No, this is my way of saying thanks for welcoming me to your neighbourhood.

She loved to cook, as did her mother. For her mom it was more than nourishment. Feeding people was a way to express her love. If you refused her food, you refused her love. Sylvia took this with her as she planned her menu.

It would be a buffet, Sylvia decided, but with courses. First the appetizer, then the main course, followed by a dessert. She would cook with fresh food, local, and organic, wherever possible. For while she was excited about feeding her neighbours any semblance to fast food would not be satisfying.

She began to pore over her cookbooks. She wanted to bring in some ethnic flavours, but not too spicy as to turn the women off. Perhaps something French, something saucy. And she would barbeque, perhaps a loin. Sylvia quickly made her grocery list then headed to the meat market followed by the farmers’ market.

It had rained hard for several days and much of the produce was dirty, but it was gorgeous and juicy and plump. She carefully chose some button mushrooms, cucumbers, turnips and radishes, asparagus and some apples for her pie.

She cooked solidly for two days and had set the table with her marriage china, grandmother’s linen, a vase of nosegays and candles procured for romantic evenings. Her dinner guests brought wine, and laughter and the chill from outdoors. They had dressed for the evening, unbidden. Sylvia had only seen them in the uniforms of mothers and athletes. Tonight, they came as, women. Sylvia uncorked the wine.

The talk began as it always did. Birthing stories, half-marathons run, the local school, but by around the third bite of the salmon appetizer, the talked changed. With a morsel of fish in her mouth, Molly spoke of its unexpected flavours. Soon words were replaced by ecstatic oohs and aahs. Tib reached over and unscrewed another bottle of wine.

The hours of pounding and the heat from the flame of the stove were worth it. With eyes half-closed, the rest of the meal was received with rising pleasure.

By coffee-time, Molly had risen, a bit unsteadily and recited a poem.

Coffee arrives, that grave and wholesome Liquor,
That heals the stomach, makes the genius quicker,
Relieves the memory, revives the sad,
And cheers the Spirits, without making mad…

“Who is this Anon person anyway?” Tib yelled and a lively discussion ensued.

By dessert, the last of the opened wine had been empty. Twelve bottles were lined-up perfectly along the back of the buffet. Food had been spilled, dripped and spotted the fronts of blouses. Upon seeing this, Tib unbuttoned her sweater and threw it towards the utility room.

“Filthy Pig” she shouted to the depths of her wine glass. She then lifted her head and exclaimed. “You know what I love most about food?” (It didn’t look like she enjoyed food that often) “Is that it never bites back. It’s already dead.”

Uproarious laughter filled the dining room.

“If you eat a tongue sandwich,” someone shouted over the smashing of a glass on the floor,” does it taste you while you taste it?” More laughter.

Then Tib stood uncertainly, but raised her empty glass with command. “Food is always there. It simply says, take me I’m yours.” She looked towards Sylvia, “Let‘s do this again.”

Choruses of agreement rose up together and then, completely full and satisfied, Sylvia’s neighbours left.

Sylvia rose from her place amongst the culinary wreckage in her kitchen. She toasted the former owner of the house, butted her cigarette out and quickly drained the last of her drink. Her husband would arrive by 9am the following day. She wanted the kitchen cleaned for him. She was ready to cook him breakfast.

When Food Isn't the Final Frontier (Calgary Herald Article Dec. 15, 2008)

Getting kids to eat exotic foods might just be a case of playingfollow-the-leader
Iwas torn. Should I fork out the $25 for the seafood main the nine-yearold was contemplating for lunch? After all, children can be a fickle crowd. They order, push the food around, crawl under the table, complain the food is gross and then spend the next 48 hours living off the cracker crumbs they find in the creases of their car seat.

Yet, there sat my son’s friend, trying to decide between the mussels and the crab legs.
This was one of our favourite restaurants, a Greek place close to the Natural Science Museum in Houston, and I’d had the $8 souvlaki in mind: a pita sandwich with pork smothered in tahini sauce and sliced cucumbers and onions. But Alejandro was hungry for something from the sea . . .
Of course, I knew this boy would be adventurous. Alejandro Lorente Jordan is my son Charlie’s Spanish friend, whom we’d met because our families are transient residents, together temporarily in the same city in the southern states.
Initially, I’d worried about my two boys succumbing to the pervasive fast food culture here, yet — happily — they instead clung tighter to their upbringing, labelling lunches “Canadian food” whenever their classmates recoiled in horror.
But take a back seat, Canadian food. You pale in comparison to the Spanish lunches Alejandro packs.
This little ray of Spanish sunshine sauntered into my life with a half-grin, unlaced sneakers and a tolerance for mussels, eel, lamb and caviar, all of which he tucks back with a devil-may-care attitude. So developed is his palate that he was able to identify Grand Marnier as the flavour in my Thanksgiving sugar cookies.
Of course, Charlie doesn’t adore this friend for his surprising taste in food. He likes Alejandro for his playful spirit. The two of them work up their appetite by sword fighting or creating new worlds from Lego — but it is Alejandro’s appetite, and how he feeds it, that thrills me.
My desire to feed my own family well has always included others, both young and old, and I often take it personally if I fail in nourishing everyone at the table. I come by this honestly.
My own mother, an excellent cook with Eastern European roots, demonstrates her love through cooking and will actually lose a night’s sleep if dinner guests don’t completely lick their plates clean. (Don’t they know it’s not the extra calories but her love they are rejecting?)
Thus, I hold strong affection for this young man because he not only eats without issue, he’s leading my son into a whole new culinary world.
After we spent our afternoon at the science museum, the boys regained their strength by sharing a box of sour-creamflavoured crickets from the vending machine.
This is not an unusual leap for a boy who routinely eats escargot, electric eel and, for breakfast, smoked salmon with extra-virgin olive oil, lemon and sea salt.
After a decade of trying to please the under-10 crowd with the right kind of cheese (sliced, not grated), apples (red, then peeled), bread (no seeds), tacos (yes, but deconstructed) — and failing miserably time and time again — this kind of adventure fills me with glee.
Recently, we joined Alejandro’s mother, Alexandra Jordan, and his younger sister, Andrea, at one of their favourite Japanese restaurants. It was well after 10 p.m. and our two families sat languidly around the table with bits of sushi, pickled ginger and wasabi left on otherwise empty plates. The children had ordered and eaten eel, tofu and cucumber rolls and were entertaining themselves noisily as nine-year-olds do while we finished our wine.
“This is the European way of eating,” Alexandra tells me. “Where children are part of the affair, where the late-night hour doesn’t matter, but where food, wine and friendship does.”
Yes, but how do you get him to eat such exotic fare?
Seafood is the norm in Spain, she explains, and Spanish culture embraces good, healthy food.
In the schools, lunches are hearty and lunch breaks run 2½ hours. There, the students eat three-course lunches: soup, followed by a main dish that’s often paella or lamb with a vegetable, and then fruit.
As the years progress, I imagine Charlie and Alejandro’s love of sword fighting will wane, but I hope their love of sharing good food grows.
There are plans to meet again in their hometown of Madrid and also in the bodega of Alejandro’s grandparents in the city of Tarija, Bolivia, where the boys’ friendship will continue with the promise of more good food.
In the meantime, we’re grateful for the follow-theleader example Alejandro and his family have given ours. In celebration, Alejandro’s mom offers the recipe above, for garlic shrimp. It’s Alejandro’s favourite hot lunch.

Eating My Mother's Words

I read somewhere recently that a woman’s relationship with food can be even more complex than her relationship with her family. Pair food with family and one would likely need a dual doctorate in psychology and nutrition to navigate the tumultuous twists and turns of this double helping.

Growing up, my mother’s message about food was simple and uncomplicated. Eat well because your body and mind deserves it. Follow the food guide and you can’t go wrong. And eat in the company of others you love. Meals are as much about nurturing relationships as they are about nurturing bodies.

So why did such a simple message go so wrong with my sisters and I?

I am the middle of three daughters and our all-consuming relationship with food and each other is astonishing. My younger sister developed a destructive relationship with food that has plagued her for two decades. For my older sister, Michelle, the need for food became something to conquer in the name of thinness. And for me, my relationship has been mostly based in bewilderment as I try to truly figure out the conflicting messages.

I remember receiving a card one year from Michelle that read something like, As I wish you a happy birthday and look forward to getting together I sit and wonder…which one of us is thinner? She was. She was always thinner than me. Thinness was important to her and the man she married. He once told me he only considered a woman’s ideas if he found her first beautiful.

With long blond hair and a self-assuredness, Michelle was beautiful. And she worked in television and so looking her best, all the time, was as important to her career as it was to her marriage.

Luckily for me, I married a man who doesn’t equate my worth with my weight. Despite this, and my upbringing and my own common sense, I have lived many self-centred and unproductive years. I, like my older sister bought into the camp of denial , thinking that a kick-ass body would bring me happiness. So I joined the ranks of self-flagellating eaters who looked down upon those who ate with enjoyment and without apology. But, like her, I didn’t find happiness. I also didn’t find that kick-ass body.

What I did find was that I was in a constant state of guilt, dealing with stomach aches that festered during Sunday dinners or meals with friends. I lived vicariously through other’s ease with food. I became defensive about what I ate and I was obsessed with self-criticism.
I’ve also read that thinking obsessively about fat and weight loss changes peoples’ thought patterns and brain chemistry. I am here to say that this appears to be true. With all these neurosis it is a wonder I accomplished anything else in my life.

I knew, deep down, that these obsessive acts were doing very little good and a whole lot of harm and I began to desire the easy, utilitarian and social relationship I once had with food. But it wasn’t until my older sister, Michelle, became ill with a brain tumour that I truly realized the pettiness of my obsession. At 40, despite her size 8 triumph, cancer aggressively moved into her brain and her husband left her. It was time to stop the madness.

As a family we wanted nothing more than Michelle to join the statistics of those who beat cancer. We were not willing to let her die. But none of us were doctors or healers or in the business of miracles. We had to preach what we knew best and that was food. We presented to her a list of cancer fighting foods, we shopped for her and we brought her meals. But, I guess, if she was going to die, she was going to die thin. She fought us at every turn.

In her final year of life my sister had to move back in with our parents. Her cancer had robbed her of her strength down the right side of her body. As a result, she needed help dressing and I got to see my Michelle’s body more than a grown sister should. It remained thin, even with her newly found willingness to eat when our mother became her full-time cook, but it was weak. Despite her lifetime effort to gain power and recognition and a husband through a slim body, her body had let her down.

At her funeral, friends and family shared stories of her intelligence, of her caring nature, and of her spunky side. Not one person praised her because of her ability to remain thin. She was beautiful when she died. Beautiful because she was able to forgive her ex-husband, say good-bye to her children and accept her death peacefully. She was beautiful at her death because of her character.

Now I am the one in charge of buying groceries and creating meals for a family of my own. I realize I am no longer just wading though the massive amounts of diet and food related information for myself. I play the larger role of establishing our own family philosophy on food and weight and it is up to me to guide my two sons through the world of contradictory and at times, shallow messages. I need to raise them to honour women for their ideas rather than their bodies.

I’m not saying that eating more and obsessing less would have saved Michelle’s life. But the more I read and listen and think, the more I realize not only was my mother right, but that we were fools, dangerously so, not to listen.

17 words in a moment of chaos

The first time I contemplated embracing the life of an artist, I was standing by a disorderly pile of books and poster paper and a teaching partner whose anger was escalating. The school year had just ended, the kids were at home or at day camp and the two of us were still in the school tying up loose ends and preparing for the following year.

I was helping this colleague move classrooms, something she resented. She was tired from the year behind her, as was I, and I had learned from experience over the years that she struggled with change. The day was nearly at an end and yet her new classroom was in complete disarray. Realizing she would have to return to the school the next day, my teaching partner began to curse her decision to become a teacher. In the middle of her rant, she turned to me. “Sometimes,” she said, “I want to give this all up and write children’s books.”

I remember standing a moment quietly among her chaos. Aware of her swift unraveling just feet from me, I was consumed by the words she had just spoken. Could she really just give up her career as a teacher and write children’s books? And if she could, could I?

Books and reading were a big part of my upbringing, but access to the life of writers-or artists of any kind—was not. As a child, I viewed those that wrote or painted or danced or sculpted as ethereal. These were people who lived Elsewhere-in Europe or New York. They wrote and created from afar and I enjoyed their work from my classroom or my home. It was a separation so vast that the idea of following in the footsteps of a writer or an artist was unimaginable. So I never did imagine.

Instead, I studied to be a teacher of children with special needs. In university I had to choose from three methodology classes to study: physical education, music and art. I took the first two, not stepping outside of who I thought I was-or who I felt I was not. I had not taken an art course since the age of ten and I am quite positive that I never used the adjective ‘creative’ in reference to who I was, not even privately. It didn’t matter too much to me then, as I was content in where I was heading and who I was becoming. My outlook on the artistic process and those that engaged in it hadn’t changed. In fact, I had never given it much thought at all. Until that day. And then I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

My teaching partner and I parted ways shortly after and yet her words remained with me. Like a young child, they forever poked at me and demanded my attention. Caught up in the busyness of life though, I heeded the words lightly and carried on my way.

A year later and expecting our first child I left teaching temporarily and moved to England with my husband. No longer employed and still pregnant I was faced with the prospect of free-time, something I hadn’t had in years since before beginning university. Still viewing the world largely through teacher eyes, I decided to use this gift of time to develop the two areas of my teaching day that I had the least experience in: the writing process and the instruction of art.

I began to explore both disciplines initially with the teacher-intent to understand how my students felt going through the creative process themselves, but soon I found that I began to write and learn for myself. Those ever present words that had been nagging me burst forth and demanded my attention in a new and intense way. Could writing be something legitimate for me?

I found those twelve words were no longer those of an old colleague’s that I thought about on occasion. Those words had become my own mantra. I shed my teacher hat and began writing as, well, a writer. I loved seeking out time and making it my writing time. Soon, I found that my day was not complete, that my mood was not congenial until I found the time to work on my writing.

During that same period, Waterloo Station in London was just a 40-minute train ride away. And in London there was the Tate Gallery, the National Gallery, The Portrait Gallery and the Courtauld Institute of Art. And in each of those fantastic places was the art of Monet, Dali, Leonardo and Van Gogh and thousands of other artists waiting for me to discover. What an opportunity.

I was transformed. I knew I not only wanted to, but needed to develop the creative side of me.
I run to keep healthy, but I don’t experience the high that many runners do. But the intense need to hit the pathways that my running friends describe is not unlike the intense need I feel now about engaging in creative activities. And like them, going too long without, I begin to feel sluggish and slow and absolutely irritated.

I am surrounded by children much of the time either in the classroom or at home with my two boys. As an artist I crave silence, but as a teacher and a mom I create noise. There needs to be noise in learning; the dialogue and the discovery of ideas is not a quiet affair. But over time this noise slowly seeps into my head, clouding my thoughts and creating in me a desire to escape and seek solitude.

I can now recognize what the agitation in my soul is. It is the need to create. If I’m particularly worn out from my interactions with children I know I can walk into my studio and shut myself away from life if only for an hour or two. But in my small sanctuary that I carved out for myself in our home I can play with words and images, dream, create and be stirred by the words and works of others. When I reemerge and tuck my children into bed, I can do so with a clear mind and a renewed sense of energy to enjoy every new moment with them.

Time will tell whether that important day, the day that twelve words were uttered in a moment of chaos, will transpire into a success in a commercial success. But the value in the discovery that I am creative is boundless.

I know nothing about my former colleague’s whereabouts today, but I often think of her. I’m grateful to her, of course, for in the inadvertent nudge she gave me to explore my creative side. But I also wonder what became of her. She was a dedicated teacher who knew the curriculum well and taught it with expertise, but she was so very unhappy. She struck me, in hindsight, as someone who was looking for an outlet to bring her satisfaction, but hadn’t yet discovered it. How many people are in the same situation?

I hope she followed her heart and tried her hand at writing because I understand her turmoil. Like her, I love teaching, I really do. I love the opportunity to share the possibilities of literature and the puzzling nature of math. And I enjoy the stories my students tell me as they reveal a bit about who they are and where they come from. But for me, full-time in a classroom doesn’t leave time to contemplate and think and dream and create for purely selfish reasons. And without that in my life, I now know I could easily be the one melting down in the middle of my classroom—or my home—and wondering why.