My Brain - Weighs Heavy On My Mind

Seventeen years ago I was in a bad accident and now I have a brain injury. I wrote a book about it called, "Down the Road." And one of the things that concerned me from very early on was that my body wasn't listening to me. At first it was my balance, it was all off. And I couldn't understand why. And I was dizzy all the time. And the world was confusing. The sounds, the sunlight, everything about it was foreign to me. And right on the heels of all of that was a subtle but constant weight gain.

For years I have been telling doctors about this. And they have looked at me in disbelief, stating the obvious, the only way you can be gaining weight is by eating more calories than you burn off. And that is true.

I always ate healthy and practiced yoga for most of my life and exercised and was in good shape, even up to the time of the accident. I didn't over eat or eat junk food but I couldn't exercise and move around too good after the accident.

Even though I was active on our farm and took care of the animals, livestock, a garden and three children my daily exercise wasn't enough.

When I moved I joined a health club. And slowly, over six months, I had lost 25 pounds and I was feeling better. Then I went back to Columbia College and couldn't afford the gas or fees for a health club so I had to let that go. And slowly the weight came back on. Even though I was still eating a healthy diet and had an akita to walk everyday.

When I went to a doctor I always said that my weight was my biggest concern. Not for the sake of vanity but for the sake of being fit. I knew that over time I would have other health issues because of this and it worried me. And they would tell me the same thing, while looking at me like I was another overweight woman living in denial. I even made a report with pages of pictures with captions under them and dates when they were taken so I could show them how I'd been in shape all my life. And I took pictures of how I got back into shape after each baby and how just before and after the accident I was still small. I even took pictures of the inside of my refrigerator and cabinet to show the whole grains and foods and dried fruits and raw food I ate. I was walking my akita service dog everyday and still my weight wasn't budging.

Even though I wrote down for a year everything I ate and how I felt and how much exercise I got and made whatever adjustments I needed to in order to be healthy; things only got better when the weather was good enough that I could get out in it and walk regularly or when I could go someplace to workout. I'm limited in how far I can walk. And how much I can do. I can't walk on wet or slippery ground. I can't walk when it is snowing or raining or windy because it makes me dizzy and I'm in danger of falling and it wouldn't be good to hit my head. So even though I'm active and garden and cut the grass and keep my house clean and walk my akita Coco as much as I can, it still isn't enough.

Still this paradox continued to confuse me so I accepted that I must be doing something wrong. Because it was true that the only way I could be putting on weight or keep it on was through eating too much or not getting enough exercise.

Then I realized that now with this enlarged heart, these numbers are even more serious than they had been before because I was doing absolutley everything right. For a long time I had thought that this problem was going to lead to more health problems and probably kill me and now I am facing this, right now, like a splash of cold water waking me up.

I started wondering, maybe we are both right. Of course the doctors are right. I agree with them. But I know how I'm living and I know I'm doing all of the right things too, with very, very few exceptions. So maybe, just maybe the lens of experience that we have are different for a reason. Maybe, just maybe, my body isn't listening to me. Some where along the lines of communication, my metabolism and what I am eating and how my organs are processing it all is not receiving the messages it used to before I got this brain injury.

Like when I kept telling the doctors when light changes from dark to light, like going out of a movie theater. I would be temporarily blinded by the change of lights and the ground looked like waves of water several feet deep. So I walked all wobbly because my feet didn't know how far down the ground was. And later a special doctor did tests and found that my brain wasn't reading the area between my legs and feet, my ankles. So my feet really didn't know how far down the ground was for a reason.

And like when I complained about the blind spots in my car and then I found out that even though my eyes were capable of seeing, my brain wasn't transmitting what they were seeing in large peripheral areas. My field of vision was seriously impaired and all that time I thought, when I stepped out in front of a car in a parking lot, it was because I wasn't paying close enough attention wasn't true at all. I had extensive peripheral blindness and genuinely didn't see them. And the reason I was dizzy all of the time was because my brain wasn't able to interpret where the boundaries were in a room. So by changing the way the walls were painted and going from patterned material to solid colors and making sure to use mid-tones for contrast and avoid making patterns in a room was all I needed to do so that I wouldn't feel dizzy any more in my house. Pretty neat huh. Thank you Chicago Lighthouse!!

Back when I was going to Columbia College a doctor was doing a lot of extensive blood work on me. It was during the time I was going to the health club. And I noticed a pattern at that time too. If I had blood withdrawn right after I worked out these enzimes were way too high. And if the blood was taken before I went to work out, they were still high, but closer to the top of the normal range.

So what does the brain have to do with how we digest food? Well, I know that the hormones of cows or anything they eat or drink is passed along to their calves and to those of us who drink milk or eat cheese. There are lots of documentaries and articles written about this. And there is proof that this is also true with what mothers pass along to their babies before they are even born.

There must be some connection between how our bodies process what we are nourished by; whether it comes from our mother when we are in the womb or whether we are walking around on our own two feet. So if our brains have a part in processing what nourishes us, then maybe my brain isn't doing it the way it used to anymore.

I went back to my amazing doctor recently and we had the same discussion only this time my cholesterol was high, my triglycerides were high and I'm already on blood pressure medicine. And I know he wants to help me. He is a rare doctor who actually cares about the welfare of his patients. This time I realized that now with my enlarged heart, if I have a heart attack, I probably wouldn't make it. And if I have a stroke, well, who knows?

Then I thought, what if I had a heart attack in the middle of the night? What if no-one called me that day? What if I didn't hear from anyone for a day or two? It made me so sad to think of Coco, my akita service dog. And how worried this would make her. And I wondered if she would hurt her feet trying to dig her way through a door or window to go and get help. And the thought of this made me so sad.

Okay, so getting back to the brain injury thing. I think that what my doctors have said is absolutely right. I agree with them completely. If I was processing less calories than I burned off than I wouldn't be overweight. And I know what I am also saying is true. I know this because during the year I kept a health journal, I realized I really was eating good. I had to change very little. I eliminated bread and bought only French or Italian cheeses and used them only occassionally to drizzle a little on a salad. I stopped using cheese in my recipes. But not even changing those things made a difference.

Well, I think my brain and my metabolism and my processing food stimuli have been affected by something that used to work perfectly before.

Once again I have high cholesterol and high triglycerides and I'm on blood pressure medicine and I have an enlarged heart. So just maybe my body really isn't listening to itself like it used to?

I used to think, not being able to get regular exercise is going to create complications that are probably going to kill me. And now I think that is true more than ever. I mean, by the time I can earn enough from selling my books to get a membership to workout somewhere close by I might be dead. How about that Catch 22?

My Brain - All Things Must Pass

So all of this thinking made me realize that I really needed to have access to health equipment so I could exercise and maybe live a few more years. Which I would enjoy. I have an art book I'd like to finish and I'd like to be able to put my writings into a collection piece of poetry, prose and essays, already written.

And if I never write another thing or paint another painting then I still feel like I have done every thing I knew how to live a purposeful life. To live a life worth living, that I was totally engaged in doing. Usually, I'm upbeat and doing pretty good.

But the thought hit me, maybe these numbers and my heart, maybe this is an indication that all of my best efforts in the past have been fruitless because what I am saying is true for me and what is true generally speaking are yes, the same but the lens, the perception of these things isn't consistent with the way my brain works since the accident. And that is also the truth.

The kicker is that, "Down the Road," is available through Amazon and we have a modest beginning ahead of us. Coco, my service dog and I will be doing speaking engagements and book signings and so maybe I will be able to afford to go to the gym. And maybe I'll make it that long and maybe I won't.

So now I'm starting to get depressed and self-pity begins to flood my thoughts. All my life the best that I could do was never good enough. And as little bits of memory or sense of what I experienced in life surfaced, I began to make an account of all of the times life itself seemed to be going against me.

We moved from the south and even though I had been a good student and my IQ tested out pretty good, I was still about two years academically behind my new peers. I felt stupid and preferred to keep my mouth shut. I wanted to disappear and hoped against all hope that the teacher would forget about me and not call on me, because I was totally lost.

The kids were working on multiplying and dividing fractions this year and I didn't even know what a fraction was. And at the same time I started studying the Teachings of Confucious, thank you Grandma. The Shakespere and poetry Grandma read to me gave me a sense of ease when it came to the written word. And I saw it as something beautiful. It wasn't a surprise to anyone that what my earliest beginnings were, painting a mural on my childhood freshly painted pink wall. Or whether it was writing my first poem in symbols that vaguely looked like letters on a page in my favorite Robert Frost book. I just got the book out and flipped through the pages to find out which poem I felt compelled to write on, would it be significant or random? The poem it called, "Departmental". And I thought, how ironic.

In my early tweens and teens I started learning latin from Grandma. And we leraned how to do chores and help out around the house. Structure and home cooked food country style with great smelling stews and soups and farm fresh vegetables was what we ate every summer. We spent summers with our grandparents out in the country in Michigan. Which is why I have always loved Michigan so much. I miss it now.

Anyway, the summers became quiet times of walks and visiting neighbors and fishing and being home for meals and learning all about life from Grandma, who never held back what she was thinking. Which drove a few people crazy but I admired her for it. As the summers passed we studied Emerson and Einstein and great poets like Walt Whitman and Robert Frost and Edgar Alan Poe and Sandburg. And we also read books that all kinds of philosophers like Buddha and Ghandi and Fromm Sandburg had written. And these things to think about came into my awareness. And they gave me peace of mind. It was a turbulent time back in the sixties. And a lot of it wasn't pretty. There was a lot of hatred and ignorance we were facing, in all kinds of ways.

So no matter how lost I felt in life; some how it was comforting to know that I wasn't alone in this experience. This was very much a part of the human experience in general. Regardless, of income status, achievements, intelligence, beauty or fitness everyone at some time feels alone in a crowd and lost though they know exactly where they are going. So feeling lost was something I had been familiar with in many different ways, throughout my life.

My interests were typically assigned to men. I loved writing poetry and stories and drawing and singing and playing the piano. But in museums I had seen there weren't many women included in their exhibits. I could rattle off Picaso and Renoir and Monet and DaVinci and countless others but at that time I did not know of any females who were artists or sculptors. So early on I assumed that I would never be a great artist. My work would never be in a gallery or in a museum some where. I never identified the possibility that I could devote my life to this passion and have something come out of it at that time. And in fact, that is mostly what I've experienced up till now.

And I accepted that the only famous, talented, amazing writers were all men. I had read everything these authors had written(more than once): Shakespere, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and Tennessee Williams. All of the great writers were clearly men. Even the writers who were a little older than me but my contemporaries were all men. I wasn't aware of one female who had been a writer - not then anyway.

There were a few females who were singer-song writers that had inspired me early on but serious composers? They were all men.

And cabinet makers and wood workers and sculptors or rabbi's and tibetan monks, they were all men too.

Everything that I enjoyed about life, was good at and was interested in was all well and good for men but not for women. That was a long time ago. And it turned out there were a few females who were remarkable writers like Dickinson and Woolf and there was a great female artist, Marie Cassatt who had beautiful paintings in the Art Institute. But I hadn't discovered her yet. All that being said, it was a man's world back then. And judging by the ratio of men to women that win awards and grants, it's still pretty much the same way.

The cool thing that came out of all of this was that though I felt at a loss in many ways, I also gained a sense of determination and elation everytime I wrote something or painted something I knew, was good because I knew it was all mine. Even if I was a woman. My work, whether it was writing or painting, was random and expressed something that was perplexing me about life. My work was like my happy place when the world got to be too much. Or when the world was just fine and it was the "me" focus that had gotten to be too much. Either way, my refuge and love throughout all of my life has been and continues to be found in the written word and on a sheet of paper or a canvas.

Okay, so now this whole body mind and weight thing that is starting to weigh on me. What would happen if I died? Would I lay on the floor for a couple of days before anyone would call? Would it be longer? What would my Akita do? Would she hurt her feet trying to dig through a door to get out and get some help? And this whole thought process was like digging in for the big one. A sadness took hold of me and filled every pore of my being. It felt like even the room grew dimmer.

I got my paints out and looked through my albums and thought, I am going to play some George Harrison, yes, "All Things Must Pass". And I turned it on. It was too dark for me to see what the title or side of the ablum set I had taken out of its sleve. Every side of the three album series was excellent. The music was so amazingly in tune with my exact frame of mind. And George's words washed over me and I began to remember that life is to be appreciated. Every minute. No matter what you are facing. And that whether you are taking a look at your own mortality or purpose, remember, to appreciate this rare moment. Because we can't hold onto it forever.

The first song on side 3 is "Beware of Darkness".
Excerpt of lyrics... Here is the video of George Harrison and Leon Russell performing Beware of Darkness...



"Watch out now, take care beware
the thoughts that linger
winding up inside your head--
The hopelessness around you
in the dead of night
Beware of sadness

It can hit you; it can hurt you --
Make you sore and what is more, that is
not what you are here for..."

And peace washed over me with this summer thunder storm.
And the refreshing rains of knowing
that "All things must pass, all things must pass away..."
is a challenging lens to see life through sometimes
but this is also so true.

Here is a video of the tribute to George Harrison. His son is playing guitar with Paul McCartney and Eric Clapton and Ringo is at the drums. There are lots of wonderful musicians playing.


I guess dreams will come and they will go. Life can be damn rough and disappointing. And it can be surprising and wonderful and fill you with a sense of awe that can make you grateful for all of it. And all of it is temporary. We can't make it last any longer than our bodies will allow. But to love and to be loved, that's what has made it all worth it.

I remember when my second akita Bear died. I grieved so. Just like I grieved over Angel, my first akita. And I thought, this is so silly. You know energy, life, it is connected and always moving. There is no beginning and there is no end. So why are you suffering so? I'd wake up out of a sound sleep and just want him there. And sob and like a little baby just wanting him back. And in time I realized that it didn't matter if he was here to love. Because I would always love him.

Through the years I had grown to understand that love is an amazing continuum all its own. Whether I was loved in return or understood or was far away, or someone dear to me had died; love was the thread that had woven every meaningful moment together. Every experience was the touchstone that made my heart want to go on beating. So instead of missing those who had passed or suffering loss I just loved them still. The only thing I miss is the physical part, like being able to hear someone's voice on the phone. But love transcends all pain and loss into something profoundly beautiful.

I'm glad for every new day to experience it. And when I am no longer, it won't matter. Because I lived and loved to my fullest and that has made all of the difference.

But Is It Good Enough?

I got to wondering if what we think is our best, is ever good enough?

There is always going to be some one else who has higher standards or expectations of how you should live and what you should do. Always. As sure as there is always going to be someone who has more than you and someone who has less.

I have long since stopped allowing these standards to keep me from appreciating life and feeling joy. Because most of these are self-emposed.

And I decided I wasn't interested in living up to one's low expectations of who I was or what I could do or even, if any of it was worth anything to anyone. All of this thinking is making me woozy.

Nevertheless, I could have a heart attack and keel over at this desk and what will it have all been worth? Will my life have been worthwhile to anyone? Well, gladly, the answer is yes. To my family every bit of our lives has been a worthwhile gift that we have shared together. And to me? Well, it got a lot more interesting when I became truly engaged in it. Oh this was a process. It took most of my life to understand. And there is still so much yet to know.

But have I learned anything worth passing on? And I think, there have always been great thinkers, great writers and artists and musicians. Life is like this moving sea. It is always moving. All around and through us. So if I have lived to my best hope for this moment, for this day, than this life has been worthwhile to me. This whole great big life and my tiny interaction with it has been wonderfully worthwhile.

And this is why I keep painting and writing. It is my life and the way I life it and express all that I think and feel and see. And it may not ever matter in the great scheme of things. But it matters to the people I love. And I enjoy the peace and quiet best. The being able to rest in a moment and create some thing that wasn't there before. And I truly love that.

I have been writing off and on all day. And finishing up what I thought was a finished painting. Now I love her and I will no longer try to improve her with one more stroke. I take better pictures until I get one that has good color and the right light on it. But here it is....

Yes, my life is pretty solitary and I like it that way. I find great friendship with these trees outside my window. I think they have always given me comfort though the windows have changed.