health – Stefanie Moore

Build your beet basket! Build it high!

I’m going through a bit of a change.

No, not hot flushes (I’m always sweaty and flushed, so it will be hard to tell when they begin), nor am I coming out. Things are changing. I am undergoing change. change is upon me, etc, etc.

Like one of my chillis, this has been a bit of a slow burner. In fact, any change that I make is the result of many arduous hours of half-assed research, handwringing and procrastination interspersed with what I like to call the ‘settling process’, which involves many hours of oblivious television watching. Seriously, rocks form faster.

The most important part of any change-making I undergo is listening and subjecting myself to the stereotypes and pronouncements offered up by family, friends and media.

For example, I wore black trousers and a black polo neck consistently throughout my year at drama school. Urged on by my mother (who had never been to drama school), I was pretty much convinced that this was the uniform of all serious students of theatrical arts. I then went on to wear a mood ring during a vaguely hippy phase which culminated in me visiting a a pagan store twice in one week, feeling the relationship was becoming too intense and guilt buying a bookmark before leaving, never to return.

The black theme resurfaced when I moved to London, teamed now with Buffalo trainers and a droll expression, as my friend, who already lived in London and was therefore already always in black with drollface, assured me that this was ‘what Londoners are like’.

Well done, you noticed: my stereotypes are very image led – shallow me! And I think lots of them were formulated during childhood. Most of the time, they’re not bad prejudgements on a group of people or type of living; they mostly aim at being humorous (my family deal almost exclusively in jokes and jokes alone). Some of them are quite strange, specific and could only be deciphered if you belonged to my family (hence the title of this post).

I also feel that my keenness to adopt stereotypes and images when I was younger was because of a desperate need to afiliate (thanks Maslow). I would happily have joined any group that would have had me and if all I had to do to identify was wear a ring, bandana or shell suit, so be it. I was part of the gang – or so I thought. Sometimes the desire to fit in is stronger than the desire to be yourself, after all.

But things have started to change recently. Really change. After years of diddling about, I finally learnt how to practise Transcendental Meditation. My battles with my negative talking mind have been well documented and while my audio fast gave me some respite (as does writing), mindful meditation hasn’t suited me. After reading ‘Catching the Big Fish’ by David Lynch, I was inspired to finally give it a go. I will write more about it at length elsewhere,but suffice to say that I am enjoying the process and wonder whether my shift in perspective has led to other changes.

After one lost Saturday too many, I finally gave up alcohol. This has been miraculous – who knew being clear-headed could be this much fun? Please bear in mind, that I used to get the most God-awful hangovers, like the inside of my head and stomach lining were being peeled back simultaneously. I looked like I had been poisoned. I had been poisoned! Dumb ass that I am, it has taken me this long to realise that maybe alcohol and I didn’t get on too well.

From this point on, the floodgates have opened. I’ve stopped eating all dairy except for goats cheese and most meat as well. Naturally the stereotype dial has just shot past ten and up to eleven, but please, give me a moment of your time. I’m no fan of animals; pigeons are satan’s minions and I’ve no desire to pet a monkey. But recently, when I’ve eaten steak, I’ve heard screams. Not because I’m eating in bad neighbourhoods. I mean mental screams. And I’ve clunked down on far too many of those chewy veins that you get in chicken, the bits that make you gag then spit hurriedly into the nearest receptacle, then spend the rest of the meal wondering what sort of monster is lurking in there. So my reasons are really those of a fourteen year old girl, except I am also aware of the benefits of a plant based diet. If it’s good enough for Prince, it’s good enough for me.

It’s this final change that has led to the most stereotypes. Stereotypes extempore, as I’m about to demonstrate. When I told my mother about my swtich in diet, she responded ‘oh go and build your beet basket, then’.

Beet basket?

I’m not entirely sure what a beet basket is and neither is she, but I love her crystallization of what being a vegetarian teetotaler was. God, it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. But is eating dead flesh and poisoning oneself?

I can’t guarantee that all these changes will stay (vegan cheese ain’t fooling anyone and tempeh tastes like the devil’s drainscrapings), but they do at least feel like changes from within rather than without. They’re not a mood ring for the soul. And in the meantime I shall continue building my beet baskets with pride.

Mountains

So. I felt terrible about not trying for Prince tickets, but then I realised I am actually too lazy and can’t cope with disappointment – how negative is that? Regardless, I had an angst-ridden night, awake at 4.45, reading my inability, my stasis, in the face of the Purple One as a sign of the fact that life is passing me by, that i will never be a Zelig character and I should punish myself by continuing on this track of apathy and self-denial. Night thoughts are the worse, aren’t they?

I took evasive action in the morning. I unfollowed all things Prince and we headed up to Hadrian’s Wall, and I’m pleased to say that a day’s walking blasted the rest of the dross out of my head. The wall itself is about 6 foot wide and only about 2 foot high in some places, but it just …goes. There’s nothing to interrupt and barely a house, let alone a village on either side of the wall for miles. The landscape is light green and rolling and reminded me of frontier. It felt a lot more optimistic than the landscape of the Lake District and clear, a seventies-postcard clear sky.

Well, the hills roll and the wall hugs them like a zipper. In fact I’m not entirely sure that Hadrian didn’t build it to segregate the Scots from England, but to suture us together? Who knows? Anyway, I was ‘ calfy-hearted ‘ to use a mum phrase (meaning a bit wimpy) when we started out at Cawfield: I’m putting it down to my night mind-wrestles. Still, Northumberland seems to be the land that Health and Safety forgot; there’s no reflective tape, handrails or cautionary signs. I imagine they have a pretty active St Johns service or something, but if you fall on your ass, tough tits.

Billed as ‘moderate’ on the guide, it looked nothing but; a series of hills growing in magnitude unfurled before us, the only foothold provided by loose rocks, tufts of grass and boggy mud. You had to hope the wind kept blowing you forwards on the ascent so that you didn’t fly off. Yes, I was shitting myself, but I wasn’t going to be a not-do this time. I climbed (on all fours) each rock rollercoaster toute seule. I hated the before and loved the during and after. 2 out of 3 is a win, right?

The best thing about walking for me is not the views, its the genuine need for focus that it lends me. If I don’t pay attention and shut my brain off from its chatter, I’ll fall. For once, I don;t have a theme tune in my head, I’m not worrying about someone’s coursework, I’m not thinking about dinner, or missing Prince. I’m thinking about where to put each foot

It’s probably the closest to a child state that I’ll achieve, but with a feeling of risk that you can only get as an adult. It’s being in the zone, I guess they call it and it feels wonderful. It staunches the mindshit for ten minutes. Respite!

I never see much wildlife on these trips (they know to hide). This time, sitting on a rock chatting to my mother (about bad red wine, prosaically), I heard a thundering and turned to see four hunters on horseback. Dressed in navy, they rose over the brow of the hill like some mythic being drawn out of the ground, followed by three dogs, so alive to the scent hat their eyese were defocused. The four hunters were caricature posh: the women wore girlish pony tails and the men were crimson and well-fed with tiny little chins.

And they all completely ignored me. Angus (one of the four) was an absolute dear and hopped off to undo the gate and they took off, over the lonely rolling hills, a gradient so steep that they soon disappeared out of view.

I didn’t open the fence for them in some shit small form of protest. Hunting is bulllying isn’t it? However, i don’t imagine the chicken in my pie had a ball while it was alive, either. I’m not particularly up to date with the laws on hunting, so it is entirely possible that they were following a scent. But I’ve always thought the ritual of it, the dressing up in matching outfits like they’re in a band is faintly ridiculous. Seeing it up close, it felt like part of the landscape. And if it’s their way of cutting out the brain chatter for an afternoon (and no animal is battered in the process) why the hell not?

So, this post is called Mountains for easons of both pleasure and pain. Pain: it’s a favourite Prince song (still hurting but getting better!) And Pleasure: I feel like I climbed a few this weekend.

Spot check

Last night, while I was watching a Golden Eagle on the telly, my fingers instinctively reached up to my chin. I didn’t need to scratch, nor was I suddenly aware of a bit of errant tomato landed there; my digits found a warm, pulsating shiny-feeling lump under the dermis; a burgeoning zit.

How did my fingers know that? No matter how, they’d led me to he motherlode. And I went through all the stages of spot-grief; denial (it may be a bite?), anger (oh for God’s sake, why, you bloody thing?) To acceptance (I’ll put something on it in a bit).

At 36, it is not befitting to get spots and it’s even more excruciating if you spend your day surrounded by teenagers, scrutinsing every inch of you in favour of actually listening to what you have to say about Wilfred Owen or complex sentence formation. In utopia, spots would bring us together, but they rarely do. You spend the whole day thinking that the blushing beacon on your face is the subject of every adolescent quip and aside. It’s a jungle. So here’s how I deal.

Firstly, don’t use the ironically named concealer. I know all the stuff about ‘leaving the area to breathe’, but ultimately, foundation or base just gathers around the base of a zit, clustered like druids around a monument, highlighting the big white head that forms stealthily at the centre. Don’t try and make it a beauty spot using eyepencil either, for the very same reason. Instead, adopt a series of increasingly mannered facial contortions and use your eyebrows animatedly to try and draw off face-perverts. If anyone appears to be looking too closely or too long at a particular hot zone, redouble your efforts. The thought of the spot on your face will soon be replaced with our about your sanity. And that is far easier to manage than spot fixation.

So far today, this technique has proved effective, but I fear that I may have merely angered the ‘red one’ and must now face its retribution. It’s getting bigger. So I’ll have to go with strategy number two: the polo or turtle neck. This is a risky game to play, as inevitably at some points tomorrow, the zit will get caught in the fibres of the jumper, which has the same effect as tickling a lion. There will be blood!

Perhaps I should just take the day off. Teenagers can be so so cruel and i am such an idiot.

Day 17 of my blogathon and i think, in fairness, there’ve only been a couple of days where I ‘ve surrendered to producing something meaningless and poorly crafted, and just blahhed on, like relaxing into a lovely piss. Today is one of those days; I had a whole acupuncture session to dream up something pithy, poetic, or provoking and got zero return. So I’m going to leave a recipe with you.

I’ve more or less given up carbs for a few months now. I say more or less, because I lack the dedication and organisation to do this consistently. There’s always the interim between shopping trips, when I realise how poorly planned the whole activity is and resort to eating the Ritz crackers that are stuck to the back of the cupboard. But most of the time, I stick with it. Not because I’m trying to lose weight, or be healthier. It just strikes me that the best part of any meal is the protein and the veg part, so why not just have more of that? Couple my thinking with the advent of brother-in-law’s health club based around a low carb diet, and it was a natural progression. The food, and discussion of it evolved. And here we are.

I genuinely feel better eating less processed carbs, and there’s a wealth of guidance on the web about it (my favourite being nomnompaleo). The recipes that work the least well are those that imitate carb based food; so savoury muffins made with coconut flour are good, but why bother tricksying around with faux versions? The best low carb meals are those that you would eat regardless of your dietary intentions, like this very simple take on a cassoulet.

Ingredients:

Tin tomatoes

Garlic, 2 cloves, minced

1 onion

1 courgette

1 red pepper

1 leek

Sausages, browned in a pan

Cubes of pancetta

Oregano

Olive oil

Red wine

White beans (if you fancy it)

Pre-heat the oven to 190°. Fry the onion rings till translucent, add garlic, oregano and the rest of the veg and the pancetta. Cook until it is smooshed together and then add the tomatoes, half a tin of water and a glass of red wine. Let it simmer for 10 minutes.

Drain the beans, if using, and pour over the sausages in a casserole dish. Add the tomatoes mixture and pop it in the oven for half an hour.

Who needs mashed potato, when you’ve got this bad boy?

Creativity, good wishes and epiphanies

Noises Off: Experiment Day 4

Hello! If you’ve just found me, you may need to read the last couple of posts to work out what I’m doing. If you like intrigue and are short of time, let’s just say I’m audio-fasting (thanks Rhi x)

The power of the written word! Something about contextualising my frustrations in print yesterday must have done me good, for I spent the rest of the evening with the attitude of a meditative android, calmly going about the business of making aubergine parmigiana and doing the washing in an audio-free bubble, judiciously and easily avoiding eye contact with my mind (if that’s possible) for the duration. No explanation as to why it was so easy to switch off after writing, but stranger things have happened.

However, day 4 arrives and i’m frustrated at not having attained a plateau of peace. This morning, my internal radio accompanied me with a Doors medley and ‘Sometimes it Snows in April’ by Prince, both of which swelled in my brain and burst through my mouth in intermittent melody blurts, forcing me to randomly sing half lines here and there, unconnected to anything else that was going on. How odd! On the way to the train I pre-empted several conversations that I may or may not have today (update: I didn’t have any of them) and mentally tried out a few lines from each one. This may of course make me insane, but this morning I preferred to see my current state as akin to the island infested by rats that Agent Silva reminisces about in Skyfall. Mentally, I’m letting my thoughts over-run me (and sometimes it does feel like a swarm of movement and unstoppable tessellations). I’m observing this, waiting for the poison to be ministered and the hubbub to subdue. All weaker thoughts will die out till we’re down to just two giant mega thoughts who must fight to the death.

But this is a pretty nasty metaphor and inaccurate. I don’t wish to kill my brain-chatter, just find a way of disengaging. Thoughts bring creativity, good wishes, epiphanies. Frankly, thoughts are what I’m writing to you right now. And, more practically, it’s impossible to kill them off. Like creativity, good wishes and epiphanies, they are endless and spontaneous. Just not always relevant or helpful. So I’ll turn my attention to the present again. These critters have had free rein for long enough.

Outside the sky is a block of grey white, and the trees all shades of green and in between. It’s about to rain …

3 days to go.

Bring me sunshine

An avid reader of my blog (me) recently pointed out to me that the agenda set out in ‘A Call to Positivity’ (Date 28/08/09) has not been honoured in subsequent posts. Briefly, for those of you who are (understandably) too lazy to read it, in this post I promised to be more postive about things and point out alternative ways to maintain personal happiness in this crazy crazy world.

And I concur with avid reader – on the surface, it seems that I’m the fickle sort, promising the world but offering up nothing but sour grapes. But allow me to explain. All subsequent posts have shown, (albeit laterally) how I try to inject optimism into my day-to-day. They may lack the boldness of my first missives on Kurt Russell and cheap food, but my ideas on how to be happy linger on in more recent postings. So…for any of you who may care, here are my ideas on developing one’s own sanguinity, extrapolated from my blog and reformulated in a handy ‘chicken soup for the soul’ type list.

1 Watch Kurt Russell films.
2 Eat cheap filthy food often and in secret.
3 Write/draw abundantly, and publish the consequences on a blog that no one reads.
4 Only watch football matches where you are not attached to either team.
5 Run as slowly or as fast as you like. Outdoors.
6 Always have a book as well as your mp3 for the commute. Otherwise you will end up playing the lousy games that I suggested in a previous post.
7 Reject all free newspapers, along with any Murdoch/Northcliffe owned national media. They will make you angry regardless of your politics.
8 There is nothing cool or ironic about watching junk television like Loose Women. Turn it off.

I assure – they’re all in my posts in one way or another.