CocoGarcia

Vieques Nurtures Spirit

Nature nurtures spirit.  While in Vieques I devoured two books by Jim Harrison, The Raw and the Cooked and his memoir Off to the Side.  Gobbled up whole with every cell in my being his spending hours and hours in nature in order to prepare for and recover from being in the world and how it taxes the soul.  Vieques was the perfect place to read this message.  A tiny island of brave fishermen who faced down the U.S. Navy after 7 decades of NATO war games and reclaimed their right to paradise.  An unbelievable David and Goliath story.  What spirit nature nurtures on Vieques.  And in us all.

Unplug, Recharge, Sleep

Yes, unplug, recharge, sleep. These recent words of Arianna Huffington in this month's Vogue caught my attention, and for the obvious reason. I need all of the above.  I too have much ahead for which I wish to be at my best. And you?  Time for a homemade bowl of soup anyone?

Save Bluefin Tuna from Extinction

Read Tuna's End in this past Sunday New York Times Magazine and weep.  It made me so sad that this inveterate foodie is ready to give up not only a favorite delicacy, toro sashimi and sushi, but a lifetime devotion to Matsuhisa and Nobu restaurants as well.  How did we get here?  Where we think that our consumption has no consequence?  Where we are unwilling to contemplate a reasonable course of action to save such a magnificent species?  Where we don't even care to inform ourselves?  Please read this important article and give it up.  Save bluefin tuna from needless extinction.  Make a fuss.  Change habits.  Dare to care.

A Perfect Margarita Surprise

Lunch this week with a dear friend at Church & State in the very funky downtown LA garment district deliciously reminded me of what's important in life.  Friendship coupled with good food and a healthy dose of fun goes such a long way.  So does a killer margarita at the end of the day.  We need more surprises!

The Perfect Margarita

In a pitcher mix equal parts of just 3 things, start with one cup of each...Silver or gold tequila, Freshly squeezed lime juice, and Triple Sec for an austere margarita or Cointreau for a sweeter one.  Serve on the rocks accompanied by chips, salsa and guacamole.  An added benefit?  Dinner may become unnecessary!

Fending off Flab Now Takes 60 Minutes a Day

I don't know how I feel about this.  Is it ever enough?  This latest research reported in the NYT and WSJ  last week from an article appearing in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association states that older women need at least an hour of moderate activity daily to fend off weight gain in later years.  Brisk walking, leisurely bicycling and golfing all qualify.  Or you can engage in 30 minutes a day of intense activity like running, cycling, swimming or working out at the gym.  Tossed is the idea that 30 minutes a day 3-4 times a week is enough to fend off weight gain when consuming a normal diet.  Let's face it.  Any amount of exercise is good.  More is usually better than less unless I'm in pain.  If it's fun, all the better.  Apparently a half hour of exercise 5x a week will not stop weight gain without my limiting calories.  The bottom line is that with age we become more sedentary without changing our eating habits.  So ramp it up!  Walk, garden, bike, hike, dance.  And knock off those peanut butter filled pretzels from Trader Joe's. 

Walking Awakens the Senses

Walking awakens me.  It prompts me to really notice.  All sorts of things.  All around me.  To look up at the sky.  To look far and near.  To inhale deeply and really smell things.  To see the smallest movement or change.  Like a baby bunny scampering across the street as I set out on my morning constitutional.  As if waiting for me to emerge so it could alert the others.  One block later I take in that the pepper trees on the corner are heavy with fruit and hear bees buzzing overhead with excitement.  Pink peppercorns crunch underfoot. 
Shall I come back to gather lest it all go to waste?  When did I last see peppercorns outside of a store-bought jar?  My wonder reminds me of the time a friend brought me a fragrant branch of bay leaves as an offering from her very own garden and I marveled at bay leaf from the wild.  Meanwhile I see that while I muse about where to go for a good viewing this promising wildflower season, the hills around me are already covered.  In orange mimulus. White and yellow daisies. Lavender lupine.  Golden poppies.  Butterflies flutter from flower to flower.  Blueblossom ceonothus peeks out everywhere.  I lose myself for an hour or two walking mindlessly filling eyes, ears and lungs, heart and soul.  On my return the sharp fragrance of orange blossom arrests me.  Could I possibly have missed this on my way out?  I am only now fully awakened.  Past a gaggle of bowing birds of paradise and I am home again.  My last sight?  A mourning dove waiting impatiently in my empty birdbath!

Feldenkrais and Awareness Through Movement

Feldenkrais.  In 1994 a physical therapist introduced me to the Feldenkrais somatic education method as part of my rehabilitation from a shoulder injury.  An injury that the orthopedist considered irreparable and chronic, from which I had a full recovery thanks to Feldenkrais.  My relentless fascination and curiousity with the rather unorthodox physical therapy I received led my therapist after a few sessions to suggest that I check out a local training program.  My enthusiasm was off the chart. Off I went on a lark down to Orange County one weekend to check out the 4-year training program just starting.  The friend I stood up that weekend has yet to forgive me.  I had done no research, investigation, thinking or consulting of any kind.  I simply sought more of the experience.  One weekend was all it took, rolling around on the floor for hours lulled by the method's movement, touch and poetry.  I signed up on the spot!  For the first two years I simply put one foot in front of the other and did the next indicated movement lesson, focusing on my own development, without worrying about where any of it would lead.  It felt so good.  It brought me fully alive.  I began to feel things more deeply, physically and emotionally.  Eventually I began teaching Awareness Through Movement group classes (ATM) and individual Functional Integration (FI) lessons in my community.  People actually showed up!  In 1999 I became a guild certified Feldenkrais practitioner.  Even when teaching I am always very reserved about my unabashed love for Feldenkrais work lest I scare people off.  This work opened me up emotionally, split me wide open in a way I could not even have imagined let alone sought.  How could I have asked for that I did not know?  The work met my deepest yearning for more.  It made so much sense to me.  I could feel how much sense it made.  Moving while paying attention to what I was feeling on every plane from the most obvious physicality to the most elusive emotion.  Moving in this exploratory Feldenkrais way helped me process a lifetime of numbness.  Literally it moved things around.  Tension, kinks, stuffed feelings, embarrassments, dreams, loves, aspirations.  Slowly and gently a hardness in me dissolved and I discovered the possibilities of flexibility, softness, pliability.  From brittle hyper alert towards a softer neutral stance.  Effortlessness and ease revealed themselves and became accessible in me.  What a different place from which to operate, from which to experience life.  Never had I felt so fit while vulnerable.  Years later it is still difficult to speak and do it justice.  It is so precious that I actually avoid talking about it.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  Or feel it yourself.  Today when things get tough and I feel lost, I get on the floor and do Feldenkrais lessons at random into oblivion.  For hours, sometimes days.  Clarity and ease return and I am once again at home in myself.  Care to join me?

Waves of Elation Continue

On Thursday I had a second high magnification mammogram and got the excellent news that all was well.  The operative word was BENIGN.  I hadn't realized the depth of my anxiety, to the point that I went to this appointment that could have yielded much worse news by myself.  My learning from this?  Don't do this alone.  In me meditative attempt to allow only for the possibility of perfect health I was completely unprepared should the news have gone south.  I would have found myself alone with it all.  I only realized all this about half way through the hour-long exam when I burst into tears from the sheer anxiety of it all.  Luckily I delivered myself into the arms of my brother immediately after the harrowing experience and into the arms of my partner later that night.  Since then I have been experiencing these waves of elation, of sheer exiliration, that I can only describe as drug induced.  Endorphins?  I don't really know the science of it all but I certainly am feeling the high.  It is a wave of warmth combined with extreme joy and celebration.  First it was the larger than life violet jacarandas outside the doctor's office, followed by the magenta bougainvillea around the corner from my brother's house, the pink rose bouquet in my front garden, the exploding coral and pink peonies all over my house.  Then last night I came home to jubilantly make homemade guacamole and a pitcher of margaritas with the help of my neighbor Hope's Cointreau supply.  Still don't know how it was that there was no Triple Sec in either of our pantries!  My margarita recipe is equal parts fresh lime juice, silver tequila and Triple Sec with Cointreau a respectable stand-in.  Serve on the rocks, lots of rocks.  Topping it all off was the visit at dusk of our dear friend Denise.  We sat in the living room against the darkening western sky and drank it all in.  ¡ Salud!

The Jacarandas Are In Bloom!

These jacarandas almost made me late today for my very own mammogram.  Number 3 in the space of 6 months.  In December I had my usual mammogram, now annual due to the rise in incidence among people I actually know.  In February I was called back for high magnification pictures of my right breast.  There was enough there that the radiologist wanted a better look.  High magnification digital pictures led to an unexpected ultrasound.  The suspects?  Four or five calcifications at twelve o'clock on my breast.  Today they repeated the high magnification pics to see how the calcifications were doing.  Then the radiologist revealed that the ultrasound had nothing to do with those calcifications and was instead monitoring "nodules" in the same breast.  Nodules?  First I heard the word.  Did I not hear this in February?  Or are we talking Communications 101 for the medical profession?  After a very long hour of intense breast scrutiny, I heard "stable, no change, small, microscopic, benign."  The jacarandas are in bloom all along the street where I parked.  The jacarandas say it all!

The Elixir of Friends

I am wealthy in my friends.  So much so that my friends even include a select few family members.  Friend is a much bigger role to play than mere relative because it is chosen and reciprocated.  If lucky we chose and are chosen again and again over the years.  Now there is research confirming what many of us have suspected all along, that friends enhance our health and well-being.  "In their quest for better health, many people turn to doctors, self-help books or herbal supplements.  But they overlook a powerful weapon that could help them fight illness and depression, speed recovery, slow aging and prolong life: their friends."  In her NYT article Tara Parker-Pope goes on to quote Rebecca G. Adams, professor of sociology at UNC saying that "friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships."  The article goes on to suggest that friendships can be more important to survival than the presence of a spouse or partner!  So bathe in the elixir of your friends.  I am!