Sukoshi Rice - Blog

Poetry

3/16/2021

High school nearly ruined poetry for me. Once we hit that "transmogrifying bee" of John Crowe Ransom's, they lost me. If I had to stop reading and experiencing to go find a dictionary, I wasn't interested. Did it have to be so fancy and challenging? In those days I had a much larger vocabulary, too. Now I have to search for words, but that's a whole other story.
I didn't know about Mary Oliver, and people like her who took their raw aliveness and put it into beautiful words that normal humans knew and could relate to. What I learned in high school was that poetry was all about rules, meter and rhyme.
Before it got to me, I wrote this:
Loneliness to loneliness
And though we mask ourselves in words or silence
Our needs speak out in all we do
And speak to those alike.
I am speaking to you.
I was a stranger in a strange land, hyper-aware and sensitive in a place that didn't have a place for it. I never fit. My mother had taught me about awareness, but hid her own in alcohol and superficial suburban chatter that made her acceptable and likeable. My dad had no time for any of it and was totally puzzled by me.
I was sensitive and aware; I became bulimic, anorexic, then turned to drugs when throwing up was no longer an option. My brother and I actually laugh about it now, how my dad would start picking on me at the dinner table and I would go throw up. It was the only thing I could control, the only place he couldn't get at me, even though in his mind his criticism was to make me better and stronger.
Poetry has nothing to do with rules. There might be structures to it, and it's probably really important to choose your words wisely, but it's always important to choose your words wisely. I haven't always: my apologies to everyone, including myself.
From my same fifteen year old mind:
Human games are all the same.
Wanting more and more and more
Is such a useless thankless chore.
So just let go of all you want and all you know.
Be kind. Keep love in your mind.
I was so smart and kind then. I love finding these old papers, proof of who I've always been.

Morning Musings 4/7/21

3/15/2021

I just found a phrase I scribbled on a piece of paper years ago: self-indulgence or self-care? When I was practicing as a massage therapist, I treated all manner of humans: huge, thin, hard-working, never-having-to-work, curious and bored. I treated a Princess from the Middle East once, who told me, "I feel so heavy!" during the session. Yes, I told her, that is called relaxed. That is what it feels like when your body relaxes. She had never felt it before.
What happens when we don't ever relax and reset our meters is really bad for the body, the mind, the spirit. We drink our coffee (I do) and go, go, go. I don't have to enumerate for you all the ways we speed around, and the things we get anxious about, and the absolute nonsense we often entertain about what other people are thinking and feeling.
How do we counteract that and reset our meters? Here are my favorite go-to's, and then some others that I wish I would get back to:
Reiki self-treatment. If you have Reiki training, great. If you don't, even spending 20 minutes a day putting your hands over your heart or wherever you want with the intention of healing and/or soothing your system is a great way to support yourself.
Journaling, writing down your thoughts with no editing or intention except to write until you're done.
Getting a massage is a great way to reset, and I plan to start that practice again soon after this year away from it.
Meditation. Sit for 20 minutes and watch your breath. Or repeat your mantra. The idea is to give your being a break from your mind, and as you do, you will enter your heart, or a great stillness. I find it takes 20 minutes to disconnect from thinking and sink into that quiet space.
Anything can become a meditation. It's a matter of a quiet mind, steady breathing, a loving heart. Cooking works for me, and writing. Some people garden, exercise or chop wood. Hatha yoga, the stretchy form of yoga, is especially good for stilling the mind, as its original purpose was to prepare the body for long meditations.
Treat yourself. Whatever form you choose to bring peace to your being and to your day, it is self care that ripples out to everyone in your life. This is how we change the world, just as John Lennon said.

Dementia, the trickster

2/28/2021

My mom was a big fan of Dell Easy Crosswords. My dad liked the harder ones, calling me from time to time to check on a French or Spanish word, while my older brother Rocky competes in the National Crossword Contest every year there's not a pandemic raging. And he ranks very high. But for my mom, and now alas, for me, it's the Dell Easy book, full of crosswords so easy I asked Rocky if he thinks they make me stupider to do them. (He said only if you can't answer them!)
Today I found one of my mom's Dell Easy books I had tucked away years ago at my son Rasta's house and on the front cover my mother had filled in the blanks with her name, her married name, her maiden name and her nickname. As I looked at this, I flashed on all the things she had covered with her name and address labels, sometimes sticking 10 or 20 of the same label on a pie plate or casserole dish. I had always assumed she did this because she was so possessive of her stuff, a trait I sincerely hoped not to inherit. But seeing her name in those block letters on the crossword book cover hit me like a sack of bricks. She wasn't just trying to possess, she was trying to not forget. She had dementia, but at the time, I didn't know it. She was trying to make sure she could remember who she was. She wanted to not disappear.
Dementia is a trickster. My mom was always distant and difficult for me, so it was just in hindsight that I realized it was way worse than just her personality. Today, it broke my heart to think about all the times I was impatient, all the times we clashed and I thought she was just being difficult on purpose. Cause she could do that, too.
Until a few months before she died, my mom arranged the flowers at the Nursing Home birthday parties. She liked to give "the old folks" something to look forward to, even though she was 98 years old at the time and had to hold on to the counter as she arranged the flowers. There was nothing I could do to help, and even offering made her angry. There was this insistence on things being a certain way, a way that really didn't make sense and created lots of stress. But at the time I didn't realize how crazy it was; I didn't realize she had dementia. I thought she was just being a little more herself than usual.
My brother used to try to set her straight, explaining to her how things really were, but there's no setting straight with dementia. It's just crazy ideas and theories that you hope will pass.
So if your folks are making no sense, starting weird projects in the middle of the night, wandering around the house or insisting on something that just isn't real, love them and keep them safe. Don't let them use the stove or drive, but don't argue either. Just love them and be as patient as you can. My blessings and best wishes go out to you.

Who decides who's crazy/

7/7/2020

1968: I had given up on college after two very broken and disassociated years, due to indiscriminate drug use, illness and absence. At the end of my sophomore year, I met Glenn, who was just graduating law school. Handsome, sexy, fun and smart as a whip, we got together and moved to Brooklyn, where he was from, so he could study for the bar exam (law, not bartender school) and I could get a job to help pay the rent.
Our first apartment in Park Slope was a huge duplex. Imagine a duplex in Park Slope now for $250 a month! Unfortunately, our roommate left a candle burning when he went out, it all caught fire and we had to move.
Our next apartment, in the environs of which this story takes place, was a junior single, a living room, kitchenette and bathroom. You could choose where to put your bed, so we built a loft in the kitchen part. It was in an elegant old brownstone, mercilessly divided for maximum profit, minimum grace and liveability. But we were young, it was fine, and it was across the street from Prospect Park, a bigger park than Central Park in Manhattan.
Every day, pretty much rain or shine, I walked in the park with my dog, Arthur, a scruffy terrier mutt. I may have owned a leash, but we never used it. He was a smart, intuitive dog I'd rescued from the pound.
One day we were sitting on a hillside and a tall man came swooping out of the woods, flapping the sides of his big jacket like wings, running across the slope to pick up wind. He looked like a giant three year old, with his long hair flying as he flapped his wings. Spotting me and Arthur, he flew over to us. Arthur may have growled, maybe not. This guy looked harmless enough, and it was bright middle of the day. In those days, I didn't worry so much and told him to have a seat.
His story was that he'd just gotten out of some mental institution or treatment, but he was fun to talk to and bright, and as we all got up to go our separate ways, he said, quite reverentially, "You are a very high being."
I held him in high esteem after that as a person of great insight. We'd sit and talk awhile every now and then, or walk together in the park. It didn't happen often, but whenever we saw each other we were friendly.
One Saturday, Glenn and I were going to the park with his college friend Roger and his wife Katrina and their baby. Now they were a case. He was on the psychiatric staff of somewhere very prestigious like Mt. Sinai, and she was German, I think, and wound waaaaaay tight. I heard they locked their child in the bathroom sometimes so it wouldn't make a mess, but it's over fifty years ago. Surely it must have been a dog, and that's bad enough.
In any case, we were all sitting on the same hillside I liked to frequent, Arthur running around, their child (or dog) restrained, when out of the woods appeared my friend, the running man, in his usual state of disarray. Glenn knew about him and gave no notice, but Roger turned to Katrian in deep agitation, whispering, "Don't look at him! Don't look at him! If you don't look at him, he'll go away." This from the great psychiatrist.
My friend flew over and plunked himself down next to me. Leaning over confidentially, he quietly asked, "Who's the crazy guy?"

Online Dating

9/27/2019

I was going to write this last night when the memory of it was nice and fresh, but it was actually fresh enough to be embarrassing, so I watched Grace and Frankie episodes instead. They'd understand a shitty weird online lunch date! Years of being single and thinking I wanted a partner, or longing for a partner, I'd occasionally window shop at the different online sites and finally figured if I wanted it to work, I had to join one and get in the game.
It's disheartening. Maybe I joined the wrong one, or maybe I live in the wrong place or century, but out of dozens and dozens of profiles, I only found two that interested me. I wrote to those guys and they didn't respond, so I started thinking maybe I was just being too harsh. Instead of holding my admittedly high standards, I could think the best of these men and maybe they'd be kind of cute and quirky instead of just fucking weird.
Wrong!
This guy wrote and wanted to meet. We wrote a few times back and forth. Call me crazy, but if someone doesn't put spaces in his texts, it's going to be annoying to be with him.This is what everything looked like,with no spaces where there should be.And his texts were long,telling me all about himself.Also no capital letters,but enough of that. Annoying.
I sent one text about me and he said it was troubling and did that mean we weren't meeting for lunch? Whaaa? And he wanted to meet for lunch at 11, which is my usual breakfast time, but ok, maybe he's an early riser. See how I started making it ok?
Also, his pictures make him look all puffy and old, which he's not. But he's an engineer by trade, and a builder, so I thought it might be interesting, someone so different from me who knows how the material world works and is old and patient. HA!
We met at a local restaurant. He had been waiting 1/2 hour and had his tablet with him. I thought, to kill time. To Cliff note this, he talked and talked and talked. Maybe because he is deaf-ish, he likes to talk, but also whenever I talked, he stared at me, reading my lips (he had forewarned that) like a cobra watching a mouse. He was super intense but much better looking, younger and fitter than his pictures.
I know about his former wife, his former girlfriend, their sex lives a little, his family of origin, his parents love of each other and wonderful sex life, his work life, the actual detailed design of two houses he built. He knows nothing about me, except he liked my "hippy" clothes in one of my pictures, which apparently gave him ideas, because after an hour, he asked, out of the total blue, "What do you think of camping?"
"I'm not much of a camper," I told him, which is true. I used to love it, but haven't in a long time. He went in to a whole long monologue, and did I mention he's French and has still a super strong accent after nearly 30 years in the USA so I had to either listen really hard (UGH, this was getting tiring) or zone him out completely, which was hard since he was staring at me like a cobra the whole time.
Sometime around in there, while he was describing the houses he built, I got a pretty good inner dialogue going. It mainly said, What the fuck am I doing here?
After I said I didn't camp, he told me the entire reason for this lunch was about camping. "I have even brought this" indicating the tablet "to show you the camper I think of buying. It is only one bedroom, really, so I am looking for a woman to go camping. We must be passionate, be in love, because it is really only one bedroom, just one box with a bed."
Yeah dude, I get it, I get it. "We're not making any agreements to go camping or anything else on the basis of one lunch," I told him, and in a huff, he got up, took his tablet and was gone.
Thank God.

How Stupid People Change the World

10/8/2018

In the early morning, before the phone rings or the computer gets turned on, I like to sit and drink my caffeinated beverage and think about stuff. I wonder about stuff all the time: what is the nature of Truth? is there such a thing as Absolute Truth? and who would know? This morning, of all lofty images came the face of Mitch McConnell.
I wonder how people can do so much evil and think they are doing good. Or do they? Or do they even care?
This came up because of the suggestion on social media that McConnell be credited on his tombstone with ending our constitutional government through his interference and obstruction. Why would a person do that? And then I came up with an answer.
The people, mostly men, who are running our country at the moment are very much like little children. I would say four year olds, because they scream and yell and have to have their way. They have neither the wisdom or maturity or maybe even the native intelligence to look at a bigger picture. Instead of "what will this do for or to the country?" they are at the level of "what will this do for or to me?"
There's a pack of 'em, and i think they appeal to the four year old brat in many people, the ones who want to finally get their way, the ones who don't give a good fat damn what it means to anyone else. What a strange time we are in, and I hate to compare it to strange times that have come before, in other lands, when the intelligent and educated are reviled by the selfish and greedy, who just happen to be in charge.
I don't have an answer. I was just thinking.

Today's discovery thanks to TAT and Grace

10/5/2018

Last week I came back from New York so proud that I had done two things: made the trip at all and not gotten sick. Pablo got sick, and so I was doubly proud of myself, since we traveled home together. And then, after a couple of productive days, I got sick, too.
When I get sick, I seem to take it very seriously. I know this goes back to when I was a kid, when the doctors told my mom several times that I was going to die. Having already lost one daughter, she would panic and extreme measures became the norm for every childhood illness I got.
So here I was, sick again, blowing unGodly stuff out of my head, and giving myself endless shit about how I "did this to myself" again by eating dairy products on my trip. It was easy, cheese is in everything, I kept telling myself it was ok, that other people could do it, so could I. But I always get sick when I eat dairy, especially when the weather is colder, which it was getting to be up there.
So here I am, back in the warm sunny South, blowing my nose, miserable, when I remember that hello!! I know TAT, I can do a session on this. In case you don't know, TAT is this beautiful, loving way of investigating and healing our issues. It is so gentle and inclusive.
I wrote down all my thoughts, which included: "everytime there's something going around, I get sick" (and variations on that theme) to "there's something wrong with me" to the very specific "I can't handle dairy products. Everytime I try they make me sick."
and then I start the TAT process, which involves a specific placement of hands on the head and a series of statements.
With the first statement, I am taken back to a night when I was seven years old. I had gotten a bottle of milk (remember glass bottles with those crimped foil lids?) out of the fridge when it slipped out of my little hand and shattered all over the floor. And that was, I discovered through TAT, when my world shattered. Instead of comforting and helping me, I was yelled at. My dad had wartime PTSD, my mom already a little afraid of his rages. The story goes on, but no wonder I haven't been able to handle dairy!!! Literally.
My horoscope today:Oct 05, 2018 - You're detached from your feelings today, which makes it easier to check under the hood for forgotten memories. You can rummage through those old feelings and experiences, and reflect on where your life has taken you. You don't react to your memories with such fresh emotion anymore, which gives you a bit of objectivity. Just make sure that you let those old events go instead of putting them back into storage. It's time to close certain chapters of your life. Make way for a new version of yourself.

Who says God doesn't have a sense of humor? If you're plagued with recurring somethings, as I have been with respiratory stuff, you might want to give TAT a try. You can Google it and do it yourself or talk to me about a session. Message me here or on Facebook. Love to you.

Abundance

9/2/2018

abundance

As far as I can tell so far, there are three reactions to abundance: one is arrogance, one is guilt, and one is gratitude.
Arrogance is the idea that our abundance comes to us because we deserve it, that we are somehow better than other people. It reminds me of the night we were down in Atlanta at Grady Hospital, which is the huge trauma center down in the heart of old down town. My sons' father, my former husband become good friend, was in there, dying of a glioblastoma. His brain tumor had just that week been diagnosed after he got lost in his own house. When his mother showed up she insisted on taking him to Grady. It was a rough time and we barely left the hospital for his last weeks.
Rasta and Pablo went out to get food to some Jamaican jerk place. Rasta's order got mixed up, and instead of getting chicken, it was pork, which he doesn't eat. I mean c'mon, his name is Rasta.
There were a bunch of homeless people sitting around and without studying them, Rasta handed one the take-out container full of a barely touched dinner. The guy turned triumphantly to all the others and shouted, "I've got food, motherfuckers!" and ran off to eat it alone.
It was upsetting to Rasta and Pablo. They were in a pretty tender state watching their dad die, and wanted the gesture to engender a similar gesture of sharing. But some people are just dicks.
I have a friend who tends to gloat when he does well, gets some money, gets a good deal. It's a most unpalatable characteristic because inherent in that behavior is the statement, "I got this because I'm special and you didn't." Not too different from, "I've got food, motherfuckers!" So that's arrogance.
Guilt is the absolutely total flip side of that coin. "Oh my God, what did I do to deserve this?" or even more to the point, "I don't deserve this." The B side of arrogance is shamefulness and self-doubt. I've been there, I know. HOW could we not deserve what we receive? If it comes to us, it is meant to. That's just natural law. It's not because we're so special, as in the case of arrogance. We don't have to do anything except be able and willing to receive. Which leads us to GRATITUDE.
If arrogance is one side of the coin, and guilt is the other, gratitude is the balance point. We don't have to understand or explain. All we have to do is say Thank You. That's it. Just say thank you.

Stuff

11/21/2017

I have too much stuff. There's no getting around it; while I recognize it's a pretty first-world problem, it gets to me. I grew up in a huge colonial house in suburban New York. Its six bedrooms and huge living room were filled with antiques and collectibles my parents had gathered in decades of living in Japan and travel around the world. At some point the house was full, so the entire attic was filled. Lots of people used to live like that, keeping just about everything because some day you might need it.
My parents moved to Georgia to be near me and my sons in 1980 and eventually found a house almost as big, with a huge shed. Boxes and trunks were loaded into the shed, and never touched or opened until my mom died in 2015. By then, my sons had lives and homes of their own and I had the overwhelming job of clearing out everything my mother and father had kept.
It took two full years, four estate sales, many trips to the local thrift stores and just as many to the dump before we got the house cleared to sell. And of course, there were little trinkets from my childhood I couldn't bear to let go of, so my house filled up, too.
In August of this year I moved to a smaller house. I have given away carloads of clothes and bedding and furniture and dishes and I still have TOO MUCH STUFF.
Which brings me to tonight. I had this idea that I tried to turn into a pledge that I would open and deal with one box a day until there were no boxes left and no excess. At some point I got moved in enough to stop unpacking, and there the boxes sat. This week I started again and what I have discovered is not only do I have too much stuff, but most of it is pretty cool stuff with a whole history to it, and I don't have room for it. I bet my mom felt like that, too.

Research and Data Collecting

3/26/2017

Dr. Randolph Stone, the founder of Polarity Therapy, loved to experiment on himself. He was an Osteopath, Neuropath and Chiropractor and traveled to the East to study Ayurveda and healing techniques native to other cultures. When we were learning our brief intro to Polarity in massage school, our teacher told us about Dr. Stone's experiments. He made little hats for himself with bb's in them to see what would happen when pressure was put on one part of the skull or another. Often he would go unconscious; sometimes his assistant would find him on the floor the next day and have to take the hat off him and help him pull himself back together. I remember thinking, "What a nut job!"
Since I have long-held beliefs about the nature of disease and healing, maybe what I've been doing the last few months was simply experimenting, collecting data. My main belief about illness in the physical is that it originates in the non-physical realms, so maybe I got good and sick just to see.
Now I say, "just to see" but during the FIVE TIMES I've been sick in the last five months, sometimes for weeks at a stretch, I did not for a second consider it an experiment. What I felt, believed and intuited was an emotional/mental/spiritual cause that I just couldn't reach on my own. I knew what it was, or at least what the superficial cause was (unrequited love and loneliness) but aside from getting other people to do what I wanted (love me and come live here) I was at a loss as to how to deal with it.
When I asked for help, I began to heal. I told a therapist friend that my latest congested sinus mess was unshed tears, because my childhood taught me very effectively not to cry. She suggested I curl up in bed and breathe into the place I felt the emotion. I tried (honest) but nothing happened. Then I watched a really sweet video on Facebook and all of a sudden I was crying to beat the band, and the pressure lessened.
The unrequited love remains unrequited, but another healer friend suggested I cut the cords that attached us one to the other. Now this is something I have known about for at least 30 years, but had never really done, and in fact relegated to shamanic work. What is shamnic work but non physical, energy work? I went inside, felt where the attachments were, and cut the cords. If you want to know more about how to do that and how to follow up with it, just ask. I had to.
The relief I felt was immediate. Even though it's only been 36 hours or so, that obsessive hook is gone. I remember how to do this!
Another friend who heals with massage and prayer talked to me for a long time today, and her way was to honor me and be present to what I have gone through in the last year, to validate my experience and never once suggest it was time for me to "just get over it." Feeling her love, I breathed deeper.
The next friend, a herbal healer studying to be a Reiki Master, told me to go out in the garden and pick mullein and make a tea. I remembered when I did everything naturally, with herbs and clay and vegetarian food, and I reconnected.
This is a short synopsis of today's healing journey. I feel about 200% better, more hopeful and alive, more empowered to take care of myself. With the help of my friends, my tribe of healers, I have been led back to connection with myself. I had just lost my way, gotten detoured. This is why I need a tribe, to remind me of who I really am when I lose my way.

Author

I am a lifelong seeker of connection with the Divine through music, food, art, meditation, healing work, love, travel and people. My search has taken me around the world to my current home in the mountains of GA. Everything I do is part of this Divine Life. On a good day, I am aware of it, and grateful.

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