the 2 a.m. shift

up all night with Beckam.  It is 2 a.m.
He is 4 months old.
He is inconsolable.
he begs with his tiny hoarse vocal chords which he barely knows how to use yet.
He thrashes.  Roars.  But it's clear that he is a baby, and no match for whatever has infected him.

My eyes burn.
I feel bloated.
Even in my haze, I can remember that I ate "too much" today.
Which could be a total lie...who knows.
I just slathered my hands and feet with Victoria Secret lotion hoping it would help.
Now at least I smell good.
We just took a bath and I let it run until it nearly ran over the top.
Neither of us wanted the hypnosis of the faucet to end.
As long as the water is running, we can be somewhere else.

I stood and the cold rushed up around his fat legs and around his belly.
I didn't even put a diaper on him.
Just bundled him into towel and blankets and put him in the swing.
I don't hear him now.  At least he doesn't have to cry, if just for 10 minutes.
My eyes are old-lady squints.

I've had many nights like this as a mother.
Nights where I just resign myself to no rest.
These are the long lonely stretches.
The ones I get no credit for.

Thank you Chrysalis Break for helping me be less alone in the basement with my sick baby boy Beckam....for helping me remember that he is worth it.

graham crackers

Gordon Monahan: Theremin Pendulum (2008): Installation view.
My actual pendulum swing

Don't know how many graham crackers I ate yesterday.
Who cares about graham crackers?
They're not even that good.
Why would I give my sanity away for a tower of kid munchies?
They were gone in 10 minutes.
I was driving with my knee, talking on the phone, and crunching at the same time.
Reminded me of being drunk.
My timeless and wise self watching from a balcony and slowly shaking her head.
"Sarah, this is not it.  What are you doing?"

The why is irrelevant - as it so often is.
When it all comes down to it, I am still a bit afraid of food.
Not terrified.  It is not the enemy it once was.
It is like cops.  I know I am not doing anything wrong.
I know they have no reason to come after me, but I am still wary.
I still feel a spike in attention when I see one in the rear view mirror.

The center.  A place I only get to visit.

My pendulum is still swinging.
Some days I eat too little, and feel a tiny triumph.
Then I swing the other way, and eat all the graham crackers.
I wish it were not this way.
I wish my pendulum would hang perfectly still, and I could occupy the balance.
But I am human.  I am imperfect, and that is the trickiest part of recovery.

If you were to meet me, you would never peg a perfectionist.
I paint like a child with wild brush and hair hanging in face.  Mistakes are the hooks my art hangs on.  I need them. I allow them. I expect them.  All the time, trying to outsmart them.
I am rarely clean.  Yesterday I went to pick up Sophie from her friends' in bare feet.  As my skin slapped their pristine wood floor, I thought, 'Am I really a grown up?'
My kids scatter baby powder over the coffee table.  They draw pictures in it with their fingers.

Last night my husband said,
"The main thing to you is that the kids have the most amount of fun all the time."
I just smiled at him. I must be doing okay then.
Even though Lydia wants to tell me I have to be hungry and jogging all the time.
I don't believe her.

I used to think if I were recovering then my food would be forced into submission.  I would eat nothing but protein, vegetables and whole grain.  I'd drink 8 glasses of water per day.  But my recovery is about letting go of how it must be.  It is about joining the stream of life and letting it carry me to places I have yet to see.

911...the wave is approaching

okay.  so here it is.  the moment.
I want to purge.  right now in this moment.
in fact.  I just went into the bathroom to do it.
I stopped at the door jamb and placed my hand on it.
God.
if you're real.  I don't wanna do this right now.
and I walked in here and sat at the computer.
it is all I know to do.
screaming.  my chest is screaming.
I have tears in my eyes.  I want it out.
I just wrote this morning about allowing the food.
I don't want to.  It would be so easy to get rid of it.  Then I could go about my life unrestrained, right?
No.
This is not true.
I know this is not true.
I have believed it.  Been a slave to this belief that if I get rid of food, it doesn't count.
But it does.
Because after I purge, I have to hide.
And I don't want to hide.
tightness - tense chest - shoulders cinched up around my neck.
Pepper is calling to me from the other room.
I have to go to her now.
If I had purged, I'd still be in the bathroom.
And she'd be pounding on the door calling, "Mommy."
Thank you Grace...
Thank you keyboard.
Thank you for carrying me up and over that wave.

Nose plugged...about to plunge.

Hanging in Wait. 2009 Acrylic on wood 48" X 60"

Awake at 5:30 this morning.
It is the only time I get to myself, and I take it, relish it, like good juice.
I am the little boy in the Welch's commercial, rolling it around on my tongue.

I spent the morning squatted in my jammies besides the art cupboard.
Two bags of oils have been gifted to me, and I've been avoiding them.
Because oil paints are serious.  Acrylics are flighty and will dry in 5 minutes.  They are an easy one-night-stand.  Expecting nothing they will lie down anywhere, and be painted over if you like.
But not oils.  They take a week to dry.  They are delicate.  They require integrity, because if I am too indecisive with them, they turn to brown.
It is worth the agony though, because when I get it right...they shine.

I have sketched the painting I intend to paint at least 10 times.  Now I'm just stalling.  I am afraid of "right." I am afraid of ambition.  I know I need it, but I know it doesn't always turn out either.  The process is so beautiful and will not be tamed.  I respect it.  As with anything I respect, I am a bit timid to approach.

Everything is in order.  Now I just have to dive in.  Nose plugged.  Okay.

Chips

chips.....and...

God help me stop eating chips...
does that really work?
Or is it too late already?
Do I pray before the chips?
Probably before the chips.
_______________________________________________________________
Now I get to allow the food.

C.H.I.P.S.

I get to remember that eating meals, specifically, is peaceful.
And grazing mindlessly is for cattle.
And despite what Lydia may be hissing right now, I am not, actually - a cow.

Allowing the food does not feel good.
I have had to allow loads of peanut butter to stay in my system.
I have digested thousands of calories that I did not want to.
A few years ago, I could not do this.
I had to get rid of them.
My stomach would panic-push at my waistband until I alleviated it all.
I was forced to strange toilet at a road stop after the breakfast buffet.
Once I purged in the alley behind my house at 3 o'clock in the morning.
Peanut butter cookies.
Then I scuttled back into the sheets with my husband, like a cockroach.
The next morning I hid in my coffee cup, and couldn't look him in the eye.

Already I can feel the food shrinking and Sarah growing.
Each time I say it out loud...all of it.  Sarah gets stronger and grows in substance.
I don't like how food makes me be honest.  I don't like that I can't let this go easily.
I wish I could just read enough spiritual literature so that it would become my reality.
I get it.  I do.  But...
I am a human being.  Not a book.
Not a chip.  Not a waistline.

the dentist part 2

A.M.
I am skinny this morning.
That's weird.
But I'll take it.
Cuz I have bigger things to worry about today.

Pepper's dentist appointment is in 3 hours.
The hard part is explaining to her why she can't eat or drink anything.
All senses are on alert.  Bambi's mommy ears are pricked and hearing everything.
to be continued...
_________________________________________________________
P.M.
I just spoke Pepper to sleep.
A story about a little girl who lived in a pink satin tent by the sea.
When she was tired the waves' sound would carry her back and forth...and back...and forth...and back and forth...................................................and she's asleep.
It takes much more imagination to get her to sleep this way.  But it is cheaper.
No more bottles.
They have cost us $1,000 in dental work today.  Apparently bottle rot is a real thing.

The anesthesiologist came and put a shot into Pepper's arm.  She cried out, "Mom!" went stiff.  Then went limp.  Then was gone.  Her eyes stayed open, and I felt that I held a dead child.  I told myself, 'This is normal.'  It didn't look normal though.  The life went out of her.  No more quotations from finding Nemo bubbled from her lips.  Her lips looked as if they had never spoken at all.

I sat in the waiting room and tried to read my Buddhist book.  Sometimes Buddhism is just silly.  I am attached.  Very much attached to the little girl in the other room with her mouth flayed open, unconscious and hopefully dreaming of unicorns.

They called me back and she was still out.  Still looked dead.  I had to catch my breath and tell myself again, 'This is normal.'  I wanted her to wake up and talk.  Instead she flailed her limbs around and tried to climb out of my lap with all her strength, which was a lot.  I could hardly hold onto her.  She was a 26 pound fish.  The first coherent thing she said was,
"I luuuuv juice.  MmmmMmmmmm  It soooogoooood."

When Andrew came home.  I said, "I either need to go for a run, or cry, or both."
I did both.  I felt the familiar sturdiness of my legs and the fullness of my breath.  I saw the tops of the trees and an expanse of sky.

I try to allow life to flow through me, and often it does.
Often I am the clean clear lake.
Today I know emptiness and it is good.
I'm tired.  I have done all I can do.  And I was scared, even though I knew better.

the dentist

I don't want to write today.

Back when it was just me. 2006

I want to go to bed.
If I don't write - the narrating will occur while I'm trying to sleep.
Then I'll have to get in the bath and try to reconcile with my naked body...so I may as well just get it out right now.
____________________________________
I have too many zits on my face.
That's what I was thinking as Andrew caressed my face.
We laid in bed, naked.  Which is rare for us, and that is what I was thinking.
I didn't keep that thought.  I let it ride up and over my forehead like a wave.  I can even picture a little body surfer on top.  That's how absurd such a thought is.
Then I came back to the moment.
Looked at him.  Saw him.  Remembered.

Tomorrow I have to take Pepper to the dentist.
They will put her under anesthesia and fill her cavities.
She is 2 years old, and she already has 3 cavities.
I am nervous.  I want to be ready.  I want someone else to take her.
Not really though, because she will want me.
It is never-ending, this process of filling the needs of my children.
I get very little time to realize much for myself.  I'm sure I am missing huge chunks of my own life because I am at the grocery store.  I spend hours putting things back in their places.  It's ridiculous,  how many tiny clothes I fold, and sort, and give away, and receive.

me now.  trying to get some perspective. Pepper trying to get some toothpaste.

I believe an eating disorder is selfishness, self-loathing, self-deception, and gross amounts of fear.  How do I have time for all this self-centeredness? If anything, I have no time for myself.
I have often wondered about this, and never found an answer.
My grandmother was also bulimic, and she had 9 kids, or 13 or some outrageous number.

A 4 minute shower is a luxury, and that is where I pray. 
I read Buddhist literature and marvel at the time available to other people - to sit.
I don't have that time.  I can't imagine it.  I remember when there was only me, another life ago.
But I can't wait until I have more time.  I have to claim it now, or the road back will be too long.
I may just plop down in the dirt and stop walking altogether.

So, I write.  Because it is less messy than painting.

Eat in Kitchen

Day 7 of eating one meal at a time.
I look at the full plate of chicken and green beans and think it is way too much food.
I am ashamed that it is mine.
And I want it to be mine.
Ambivalent.
Just like Winona on Girl, Interrupted.
_____________________________________________________________________________

Susanna: I'm ambivalent. In fact that's my new favorite word. 
Dr. Wick: Do you know what that means, ambivalence? 
Susanna: I don't care. 
Dr. Wick: If it's your favorite word, I would've thought you would... 
Susanna: It *means* I don't care. That's what it means. 
Dr. Wick: On the contrary, Susanna. Ambivalence suggests strong feelings... in opposition. The prefix, as in "ambidextrous," means "both." The rest of it, in Latin, means "vigor." The word suggests that you are torn... between two opposing courses of action. 
Susanna: Will I stay or will I go? 
Dr. Wick: Am I sane... or, am I crazy? 
Susanna: Those aren't courses of action. 
Dr. Wick: They can be, dear - for some. 
Susanna: Well, then - it's the wrong word. 
Dr. Wick: No. I think it's perfect. 


I used to watch that movie and wonder if I was mostly sane, like Winona.
Or mostly crazy, like Angelina Jolie.
I wanted to be Angelina.  Because she roared from the screen her apathy in every movement she made...in the bony swivel of her hips.
In fact, she says that.  She screams it.

"You think you're free? I'm free! You don't know what freedom is!  I'm free. I can breathe. And you... will choke on your average fuckin' mediocre life! "

    'Will I choke on my average mediocre body if I eat this plate of chicken and green beans?'


It used to be, past a certain point, I wasn't hungry anymore.  My stomach just gave up. It almost seemed possible, that I could starve the light out of me.
I could be in one place and not have any desires...not need anything.  
That's why I have a hard time eating the full plate of food.
But there is a light in me. It knows better.  It grows warmer when truth is near, and it propels me to keep trusting the world.
It is the same light I heard in my Mom's voice when she would sing me to sleep.  Her voice was meek and uncertain.  She wasn't the best singer, but she was the only one I wanted.  She'd run her pointer finger along the contours of my face, along my forehead and down around my ear.  I do this for my daughters, even when I can't keep my eyes open. I do it because it matters.


Sometimes when I am eating, I snap at my kids.  Like I did today.
Because I am trying so hard to be good...and I don't want to be trying.
I just want things to be easy.  I want to food to be a non-issue.  But that's not going to happen.


At the end of the movie, Winona is riding in the cab away from her mental institution.  Away from barred windows, and little white paper cups of pills.  She leaves her friends there too,- all smiling.  What a convenient ending.  So now here I am.  I've decided to be Winona...now what?  What life is worthy of this hopeful end to the girl who was interrupted?
It is lonely sometimes.  In fact, everyday I am lonely for small moments.


I am not certain why I chose this last image...I guess because I do love, even my sickness...even my most cynical self has a desire to sing.  I tried to explain to my husband this alternative, eating-disordered voice whom I call Lydia.  I told him how destructive and afraid she is.  
His response was, 
"Well, I guess I'll just have to learn to love Lydia too."

rose petals one by one

At the end of the day I am alone in the basement computer room.
Sophie sleeps in the bottom bunk with Pepper.
Beckam still sleeps in the bathroom with the fan running.
Andrew is leaving at 10:10 p.m. to play an 11 o'clock soccer game.
The loneliness of a mother is a strange thing.

Even though the house is silent, my ears prick up like Bambi's mother in the meadow.
It is kinda like speed, this awareness.
Although, not nearly so fun.
Buddhist ideals, which I find so appetizing, would suggest I do one thing at a time.
Mindfully.
I squeeze at least 2 things into one slot, if not 3 or 4.
I tell myself it is necessary.
It isn't though.
For example, I have eaten breakfast, lunch and dinner as separate entities every day this week.
I have not done the usual tally marks. For example : transfering a piece of cheeze from lunch over into dinner..
subtract that from what I would have intended to eat for breakfast the next day...
carry one piece of bread...
negate butter...
add 3 hershey's kisses...
........which cancels out any need for creamer in my coffee.....
and it just goes on.
Never equaling any sense.

When I am in this frantic state my ears are perked but perceive nothing.
I am going full speed into the wind and can't hear.
And at the end of the day, it's as if I've just come out of a black-out.
I don't know where I left my shoes, and I don't want to look anyone in the eyes.

Not today though.
Today I know exactly what I did.
I can remember the faces of my junior high girls.
They are in 7th grade.  We make art after school from 3-5 because their parents are at work.
We made Mother's day cards out of flower petals.
When we ran out of petals...we raced across the street in the rain to pick more.
I'll bet they will remember that.  The teacher who climbed a tree during a storm to finish an art project.
I brought them graham crackers, but didn't eat any.  Because it wasn't eating time.  It was 7th grade art time and I didn't want to miss it.

Where have I gone?

Dr. Seuss's waiting place.  I am the last blue person in line.

2 weeks.  at least.  since I have written.  wow.
What is keeping me from this?
Every time I sit down at the keyboard, I am empty.
The only voice I hear echoes, 'I have nothing to say.'
And I believe it...

Also, I have had my first negative feedback about this blog, and I am scared.
Scared that in my effort to tell the truth, I say too much.
How do I...do this, right?
There it is...that nemesis of truth.  Right.
Right implies Wrong.
No wonder I can't find words.

I sit here now, in my post-run sweat.
Cut off black dress slacks which somehow serve as jogging shorts.
My braids are trying so hard to be significant.  They are maybe 3 inches long.
In every way, I am trying to get somewhere.

To a place where my hair is longer, and I am less scared.
Where I am in better shape, my legs more solid, and my run fluid.
I am hoping to be more "Sarah."
I am my own ideal reflected in old pictures from times when my life made more sense.
And when I get there, I will paint everyday.
I will have arrived.  Whom do I expect to meet?  Other idealized, realized, actualizations of people?

Funny thing is.  I remember how I felt when those pictures were taken of me at a size 4 with 3 feet of hair.  I was the same.  I was just the same, only now I've experienced more life.  Now I am 32 instead of 25.  And if I've learned anything, it is this: everything I fear does not have to be scary, but it is anyway, and my path is through it.  Right now, I am walking through my eating disorder recovery out loud.

I was asked to do a youth group for anorexic and bulimic women.  So that is next.  And I am afraid I won't be able to help anyone.  But I am doing it anyway.  Why not?

Here I go...don't stop no matter what.
My running/life mantra