Heidi Beth

Before I get started praising the wonders of dairy, and telling you how overjoyed I am to cross off my list of “can’t eats” anything derived from cow’s milk, I must give you fair warning. We are one of those families.
If one day you get the idea to call and invite us for dinner, here’s how the conversation may play out, unless you hang up on me first. You call to extend an invitation. I laugh knowingly. I ask if we can come with a basket of our own food or would you rather get a pen and paper out because there’s a good reason for my socially awkward requests.
Here’s what you learn after few long minutes: We would love to be gracious guests, gracefully sitting at table with you in your lovely home, but….
We have a few dietary restrictions (let alone preferences) you should know.
Our whole family steadfastly avoids white sugar because two of us turn into monsters if we accidentally eat even a small amount. A grouchy monster in her thirties is easier to handle than a havoc wreaking ten year old, but neither are pleasant. Sugar hides in most packaged food and home cooked recipes so you’re looking at either modifying tried and true favorites just for us or label reading all through aisles two through seven.
I’m considerate. I let you know we really are accustomed to taking along a large basket of food to eat potluck style with our hosts.
Because there’s more.
I’m gluten sensitive (it’s not pretty), allergic to most soy, I get migraines if I eat any kind of onion…but garlic is fine and until recently, I was lactose intolerant.
Now you know not to invite us for dinner unless you’re cool with attempting to navigate all that, or happy to make room for our big basket on your kitchen floor.
Now back to delightful dairy.
Of all the ingredients I’ve had to give up due to reactions including digestive difficulties, nausea, eczema, migraines and hives, dairy was the hardest to let go.
When I couldn’t eat dairy for two years, I missed sitting outside on a cool autumn afternoon savoring Brown Cow Organic, cream on top, fruit on the bottom, Cherry Vanilla yogurt.
I missed dinners of Kraft jalapeno jack in tiny squares sprinkled on a bowl of piping hot organic brown rice with steamed broccoli florets.
I craved late night snacks of light and crunchy fresh baked tortilla chips covered with refried beans, shredded mozzarella and Rotel Original diced tomatoes with green chiles.
I missed sharing with my boys spoonfuls of airy froth atop of a mug of steamed milk, or savoring every drop of a decaf vente cappuccino I always filled with a quarter cup of half & half from a black screw top tin at any cafe USA.
While I couldn’t eat dairy for two years I found exactly one vegan cheese acceptable for ingestion and it was prone to mold one day after opening so BLAH!
While deprived I gave thanks to ingenious creators of butter alternatives and drowned homemade split pea soup in soy free Earth Balance margarine.
This summer I experimented with a recipe for vegan cheesecake made of cashews, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, agave nectar, and vanilla bean. I fooled no one, but everyone, including me, asked for more, more, more!
In my second year without dairy, I discovered raw goat’s milk mozzarella and willingly shelled out $14 weekly for a pound so I could add tiny squares of near perfection to steamed spinach with black beans over brown rice.
Armed with cheese made from a real animal’s milk, I found a simple gluten free pizza crust recipe to which I added garlic powder, diced garlic and dried herbs. On top I smoothed large spoonfuls of Organic tomato sauce, fresh basil leaves, spinach and mushrooms and generous handfuls of goat mozzarella I willingly shredded by hand.
Then…one September evening, as my husband reached for a canister of Kraft parmesan, I decided yet another attempt at eating cow dairy was due.
And Lo! My body cooperated!!!
Of all the nice things people have said about me through my life, “You are good with moderation,” is not on the compliment list.
Oh man! There’s a dairy party going on at our house every night of the week!
I’m well aware of the less than wonderful facts about main stream cheese, milk and butter. In a few weeks, or a few months or…well, eventually, I’ll seek balance.
But for now, the party must go on! I’m heading out now to pick up two pounds of shredded sharp cheddar, fresh basil, spinach, mushrooms and a can of tomato sauce. We’re having pizza for dinner.

You have just read the finale of a successfully completed “30 posts in 30 days” self imposed challenge.

What is torn can often be mended, but not always. I was lucky.
Dusk came to the dock. In his parent’s lake house, one lamp on a night stand lit up a corner over cream colored carpet. My toes sank slightly on my way back to his bed. The TV in another corner, facing his pull out sofa, never shut up.
EMF, “Unbelievable” rocked with him. It wasn’t supposed to hurt.
He rolled over and wouldn’t speak to me.
We drove home the next morning. I could have seen the scenery if he hadn’t been made of stone.
Two hours of rolling tires, silence breaks.
I am reminded of two freshman who dated for a week five years before. I am reminded I humiliated him.
“Am I paid back in silence,” I wonder? Mercifully, I missed what he really said.
When I went to College two months later, I was perfect.
I was one year older than most of the freshmen and three years more independent from having dropped out of high school at sixteen. Few understood how I could room alone. Wouldn’t I get lonely, they wondered? No. Two weeks into fall term, frustrated faces came to my top bunk for breathing room.
My single dorm room was always clean, walls ornate with memory filled trinkets and a beautiful head shot. When friends came over, I liked when they looked at that black and white proof I was pretty another day. I liked when they lingered there before my frozen image, especially when a compliment followed.
In the shadows, in an office near the Dean, I visited a health counselor. My period was three months late. She took me to a local clinic for a pregnancy test. Fortunately, I was not occupied by new life. I didn’t visit the counselor again. I didn’t tell another living soul.
I made close friends fast.
I met Jonathon, the boy who grew up with a single foster mom south of Chicago. Jonathon and I were zooming airplanes on the football field under a starry sky, arms stretched out, vrooming, spitting, crashing and laughing over and over again. Nineteen year olds think of themselves as children too quickly parked in adult forms, expected to give up childish play for a focus on bright futures that seem dull. Jonathon and I decided to be seven that night, claiming the relevance of years past, years slipping fast from our loosening grip.
Spare time in the early evening was often spent with Sandra, a graceful soul from a family of seventeen children. We talked of many things through our months together, but I only remember one conversation. She spoke of regret and concern for consequences after sleeping with a certain boy. I nodded but did not verbally empathize. Answering questions was unthinkable.
When we couldn’t sleep, Darren, my theater friend, and I sat on the backs steps of “some dead mans name” hall. I was always one step lower than Darren, my back nestled between his legs, both of us gazing out at light sprinkled darkness. We shared “one day” talk in slight southern accents, painting our future life together, discussing unborn children as if they were asleep in the house that didn’t exist and the too long lawn that needed mowing. Since we were both into theater, we slid seamlessly between spinning out our imaginary play and talking about life at school. I was playing along in a magical game of comforting word play. He proposed one night late in the semester. Our game was over and I couldn’t explain why. I would have had to tell him what I wouldn’t tell myself. We didn’t talk for the remainder of the term.
I ate three meals a day. I lined my ridged cafeteria tray with half sized cloudy plastic tumblers full of whole milk. I needed extra liquid to get solids down. I had to trick my body into accepting food with each swallow even though I desired nourishment, into overiding my no-name (hide it in shame) OCD eating disorder.
Every night I ordered a small, easy cheese, triple sauce (to help it get down), pepperoni pizza from Dominos for delivery to our residence hall.
I gained thirty pounds in four months. For this bony size one who doggedly struggled to eat, 30 pounds was a talisman (or maybe a shield). For the first time ever I could lift my arms over my head and not see rib bones.
I came to my English teacher for one on one help with out of class creative writing, the pieces I wrote because they talked to me every morning. I helped with tech for Hot L Baltimore. I shook my body in synchronized motion in poodle skirts with other dancers on stage for a fifties musical. I excelled in Oral Interp, English 101 and Tech.
For the first time in years, I enjoyed school. For the first time in my life, I accepted my creative talents as valuable, even advanced.
Then I dropped out.
I made an attempt at being an adult. It was harder than I could have possibly imagined. I was supposed to pay Karen and Mark $300 the first of every month for calling home their basement apartment next to the family laundry room. I didn’t have any money for them.
How do people work behind a counter and protective glass cutting white bread rolls full of mayo and vegetables all day? I lasted six shifts in a daze. My fellow Jimmy John’s employees were relieved by my disappearance. I was a crappy employee.
I’d had to leave the sandwich shop or explode. Falling into fragments is not acceptable. I slipped away instead.
Shirt sleeves and sweaty socks hung over the edge of a broken basket. It lived in my living room because I didn’t. No couch, no bed, no sense of reality. There was never light down there. I forgot about switches. I wandered from bedroom to kitchen in the dark. Kittens were hungry. I poured canned corn in their small square dishes and didn’t realize they’d never eat it. No food for me, no money to buy cat food for Gibber and Chile. That pack of Marlboros I bought after nine months of being a non smoker was held in place between my sweaty stomach and the elastic of my shorts.
My mantra the was, “What the hell is wrong with me?!”
I had no idea I was going insane.
I don’t know how to bring this account to a conclusion in the same style it was written. What happened to wake me up was purely magical. It’s also why I believe in prayer. I was not praying at the time, but my landlord Karen was. As long as I’ve known her she walks in a state of prayer. I didn’t know this at the time. I knew her as one of the most loving women in the entire world. I was right.
When I knew absolutely for sure I would not have any money for rent, I went to her house upstairs. Fortunately no one else was home. We sat on her orange couch next to a west facing window in late afternoon. The room was bright and clean. I was stammering along about quitting Jimmy John’s and feeling like I couldn’t handle work right now. Then she caught sight of a corner of red cardboard in cellophane sticking out from my shorts. I explained how the strange scene of buying them had played out. I went to the security glass window with a twenty to pay for the gas I’d just pumped and asked for a pack of Marlboros. I was simply listening to myself speak words I didn’t think before hand, but I didn’t argue either. I’d quit nine months earlier but there I was, pulling onto Chicago Ave lighting up a cigarette, pulling in a smooth inhale.
The entire time I talked she held eye contact with me even though I spent much of the conversation looking at the wooden trim on the back of the couch. When I fell silent, out of seemingly nowhere, she said, “You were raped.”
In that slow motion moment, I realized what I’d missed a year before. His silent treatment wasn’t my punishment for humiliating a freshman boy six years ago by breaking up with him after a week to go out with his friend.
Now I knew why it hurt.
Willingness to talk about my experience marked the end of debilitating insanity and the beginning of healing a no longer secret wound. In the ensuing weeks, friends and family rallied around me, offering strong emotional and physical support and help if I wanted them to “take care” of the offender. Recovery was slow but steady, checkered with minor and major breakdowns that tested my parent’s spirits.
I don’t have any special purpose in sharing this account. A few days ago I prayed for guidance about what to write next and within seconds, a friend interrupted my work at the computer to tell me about the book she was reading. I didn’t looked at the title. She said it was about a woman who was raped and didn’t tell anyone and how her life was falling apart. My friend said it reminded her of me twenty years ago. I showed no interest so she didn’t speak about it further.
A few minutes later, as I was writing a list of possible blog topics, #7 formed, “Tell about what happened to you, in snap shots.”
So I did.

When I set up shop outside Starbucks at 5:15pm, I was hopeful, but over an hour later, nothing worth posting had happened on the screen.
Around 6:45pm, on my way to Goodwill to purchase a couple pairs of jeans, when I looked up at a gorgeous spray of pink clouds lingering at dusk I thought of a question to answer once I got back to my computer.
“Look at the sunset then look at me. Which is more beautiful?” “Me” in this case is any human being.
My answer is that a person is potentially more beautiful than the most magnificent sunset, or any other natural wonder. I’m not going to explain why because I’ve been trying to do just that since 8pm and I’m tired of deleting half finished thoughts that abruptly refuse to give up any more words to the cause of writing #28 of 30 posts in 30 days.
Instead I’ll tell you a story.
Ten years ago my dad was a house painter with a gift for detail and restoration. He was restoring a lovely old farm house in the middle of nowhere. He was temporarily living in the house, working sixty to seventy hours a week. He wanted his family to see his work, to walk us around the house and share his tales of frustration and wonder evident in each finished inch of wood and stone.
On a lonely country road in Illinois, on the way to his master piece, while I drove and my dad caught us up on his adventures so far, a cd played in the background…until track eleven. As one of my favorite songs began to play, my dad grew silent. Then he was in tears.
I believe most of us are doing the best we can at any given moment and we often hope that others will appreciate us just as we are. Here’s track eleven, in honor of the beauty in all of us.

If you saw a thirty something mother and father pushing a well used umbrella stroller along the sidewalk, accompanied by their two young boys, this would be average.
If neither boy was in the stroller, this would still be common as kids get tired of sitting and like to jump around.
If the stroller’s seat was the temporary resting place for a worn blue duffle bag with white trim and a tattered black back pack, you might stare an extra second, but likely no new thoughts would form.
Now concentrate as you picture the next scene.
If a large clear garbage bag stretched to capacity, clearly carrying a pink floral comforter and two sleeping pillows was tied right behind the left hand grip, stuck out like a massive thought bubble and two plastic t-shirt bags carrying lunch leftovers and empty drink containers hung from the right handle, you might widen the circle between you and them as you pass by or cross their path.
But what would you do if one of the boys turned his hazel eyes up to meet yours and said a brilliant, “Hi!”
When we were that family of four, looking like a brood of vagrants, walking downtown Chicago one afternoon while my mom went through exploratory surgery, not a single person said “Hi” back.
They had no idea we were taking clean clothes and bedding a short eight blocks from my parents hotel room to Northwestern Memorial hospital to help my dad’s makeshift window seat bed more comfortable so he might endure a less uncomfortable night’s sleep at his wife’s side in her single room.
That walk marks the only time my children’s bright eyed greetings have been blatantly and consistently shunned. They didn’t even notice.
What if we weren’t average?

remote control cord
stretches from television to ez chair
I eat canned spinach
dripping forkfuls
memorize TV guide “weeknights until 10pm”
mom’s bed in our dining room
aged green blanket
stretched and wrinkly
next to a typewriter
story half written
latchkey love
table set for mom and dad
I’m alone with hotdogs, can of Campbells country vegetable
evenly distributed beside mismatched forks
until they come home
neighborhood boys gather
in my backyard
blue eyes
lanky cool
awkward laughter
folded paper bags on our walk-in pantry floor
stretched dirty yellow phone cord
I sit
behind closed door
whisper beneath pure cane sugar
Chiquita banana lady stickers decorate
cardboard end table
she sticks on our noses
daddy and I laugh after dark
in Trapper John MD’s glow
cluttered corners
roach eggs collect in paper stacks
magazine corner hangs off scrap wood book shelf
advertises nuclear war
I want to grow up

Here I am outside Starbucks. I have fresh decaf loaded with cream, a borrowed copy of Bird by Bird By Anne Lamott, a 3.5oz bar of “Organic & fairly traded chocolate caramel crunch *with sea salt*” and my laptop.
This is my out of the house, bask in the autumn sunshine time to read and write today. When I sit down, I have exactly forty nine minutes available.
As I open my book, a couple of women climb into their cute red truck parked a few feet away from where I’m perched on a sturdy wicker chair. In the usual fashion, the driver turns the key, expecting the usual thing to happen. It doesn’t. Instead, her truck whinnies and whines, coughs and gives a soft moan before she turns the key back toward herself.
I look up at them over my book, squinting a bit due to the bright light of early evening sun glinting off the smooth red finish of their struggling vehicle.
I turn my attention back to “Bird by Bird.” I nod internally, laugh out loud and wonder if I should be enjoying my book so much when fellow human beings are experiencing a frustrating moment so near by, turning the key periodically to see if something might shift just so, just so they won’t have to call a tow truck and deal with all that.
I have an idea then, but continue to feel guilty as I finish reading chapter two.
When I am done, there they still sit.
I look over at the truck in order to summon a bit of courage, reach down into the front small square zipper compartment of my old green back pack and pull out my version of gold.
Up from my seat, I walk over to the driver window, extend my newly opened bar of amazing chocolate (see above) and say something like, “I have no words of wisdom but I came to offer you chocolate as it may help while you wait.” The driver declines but smiles in appreciation.
“My baby, this truck, has never given me a single problem. We haven’t driven her much lately because we’ve been driving our newer car. Maybe she’s gummed up…even though I just drove her 50 miles today. Too bad our mechanic’s gone home for the night.” This report is given in a tone of amused resignation.
When our brief conversation ends, I walk back to my wobbly round table.
Key turns one more time, familiar whine and whinny is heard…and then…..Little Red starts! From the driver’s seat I hear an exclamation of triumph.
“Cool! Maybe she wanted, um…chocolate?” I suggest, trying to be funny.
“I think she wanted the kindness of a stranger.” Says the driver, flashing a sweet smile. Then off they go.
Maybe both. Good chocolate can go a long way toward making our world a delightful place to keep on keepin’ on.
When I finished the first draft of this story, as I was packing to leave the cafe, I summoned my courage again, looked up at two college students I would normally ignore because they look fancy and probably think I’m dressed funny (oy, the tangled imagination that keeps people apart!) and offered them each a piece of chocolate while making some comical remark about overlooking them when I was handing out treats earlier. They enthusiastically accepted.
And the potentially awkward space between strangers shrinks again.

“I tend not to write about what’s currently going on in my life as if writing it will make living it less real.” I wrote this a few days ago. I’m now going to contradict myself by telling you, in clear language, what happened this evening.
In writing class tonight, I gave out copies of a poem I wrote thirteen years ago. I read it aloud and when I finished, a deep sigh spread over the table. They liked it. The teacher had nothing critical to say. I saw my poem as the seed of a book geared toward an audience of younger only children. She disagreed. She sees it as the start of a young adult book. She showed me where the break in time is between the child speaking and the grown up reflecting, said I should fill in the story there, if I was willing to tell that part of my life.
In my head I saw pages and pages of story I would have to sit down and write to get to what she was suggesting. I almost wanted to give it up then, but the other day, about 6 months ago, I decided to step it up a notch and do more than practice at this obsession called writing.
The interesting thing is, the story she suggested is the one and only book idea I’ve ever had. It’s been a brewing passion for years, waiting for the right time, namely, me to be ready to sit down and write with a mind available to give up the details. So there it is. A poem I wrote thirteen years ago may have become the seed of that book I have, for a long time, been intimidated to begin.
When I signed up for this writing class, I intended to learn to write for children. To me this meant books like I read to my boys at bed time. “The Quiltmakers Gift,” “The Seven Silly Eaters,” “The Giving Tree.” Instead, I’m learning skills, information, perspective I can apply to writing my book. I didn’t realize books for young adults was under the umbrella of “writing for children.”
Maybe I’ve been thinking my own kids would need to be grown before I could start. Maybe I simply wanted to eat chocolate, bake cookies and run the vacuum instead of carve out thirty minutes, one hour or even two each day to write for a single (not small) project because I picture myself going thoughtless every day as soon as I reach the keyboard. That would mean failure. “Better to keep such aspirations just out of reach,” I must have thought, though never in hearing range of my conscious mind.
If I can find a couple hours each day to keep an assignment I pulled out of the air (to write thirty posts in thirty days), then when day thirty has passed, I can surely find at least half an hour a day to hammer through the pages of a book I’ve been wanting to write for years.
What happens on the page once I get started, I must not try to predict. I must simply show up and make an effort.
Recently, I’ve been seeking help with grammar, punctuation and clarity as well as taking a break and reading aloud before hitting publish. I love the results. As it’s too late at night to bounce this off someone else right now, I’m not sure how it reads.
If you have a comment to share, please be kind. I’m not looking for advice. I just needed to make myself accountable.

“O God, I pray for the willingness to accept the prosperity in my life.”
The rest area had a playground.
Sun eased in sideways along my shoulders.
I couldn’t have walked any slower to tomorrow.
How long would I linger here, I wondered, as tears fell over a quiet smile?
I swung my small frame around a monkey bar, righting myself with the bar at my hips, arms straight, fingers gripping tight, in front of pelvic bones.
From this familiar perch I stared at nothing swaying in the breeze that sent young spring leaves to dancing.
Once feet landed on earth, in circles and circles I danced to dizziness. I was 8 and 18, 23 and 26 all at once, alone. No single thought could be heard through the slide show of my life. Arms stretched straight out until I let them drop, hands flopping on thighs.
I made my way to a tire swing, sat limp, one foot hanging down, a pivot as I rocked back and forth, never around, head resting on chain links.
Across mulch and grass, over cement walks, past restrooms and vending machines, I found my silver 86 Ford Escort.
Back on the road, listening to the hum of swiftly rolling tires, sunlight tickling my face, drying tears, I was ready for my wedding day.

Nothing.
No story.
No images.
No inclination to write.
Just determination to stay with the assignment I set for myself to write 30 posts in 30 days.
Here’s the deal.
I slept in.
I encoraged dad and son to get moving on that birthday present shopping trip for little brother.
I woke up little brother who also slept in. I took him to the couch first. He curled up on my lap. I should have taken him to the toilet first.
Our couch is dry, my pants are changed.
I reheated oatmeal for little brother. He asked when the others in his family would return. He asked where they went. Fortunately I didn’t know so could answer honestly. He didn’t ask me why they went out.
And the day went on in the usual way from there.
A busy weekend tore through our ordered home. TV trays, dirty dishes, clean laundry waiting on my bed, Pokemon cards and legos underfoot.
I’m not upset. I’m disoriented.
I grew up in a messy disorganized house. I was the only child. I cleaned before I wrote. Emptied ash trays, dumped cups of cold coffee found on end tables, made stacks of my parents’ papers, washed dishes, cleared the dining room table. Then I could think. Then I wrote.
If I was downstairs when a creative urge presented itself, I cleaned my room first. Since not much was out of order, I ‘d add another trinket to my wall (always decorating), light a candle, set the needle on Simon and Garfunkel, wait a moment in that quiet, then begin shedding my thoughts, letting them land on loose leaf and spiral bound pages. I still have most of my recordings from back then.
In between pages I memorized every word of every song my dearly loved Simon and Garfunkel ever produced. Corn Flakes and war, silence and Hallelujah mingled in my subconscious. I didn’t unravel meaning. I listened, lulled by the “soft sound of a pick pulling single strings of an acoustic guitar,” entranced by perfect poems in harmony so delicious I nearly always closed my eyes and sang along.
I am an only child. I spent the first years of adulthood living alone. I am accustomed to total control (perceived) over my domestic surroundings.
I’m married now and we have two children. I love my family dearly. I’m finding balance between cleanliness and order and living in harmony with my family. I can no longer wait for perfect outer serenity in order to write.
One might think, after 11 years of wedded happiness, I’d have grown out of this inclination to wait for order to create. I’m stubborn.
Day 21 (of 30) written. Now I’m going home to clean house.

Daddy read Dr. Seuss, “Happy Birthday to You,” letting the boys make funny commentary all the way through. They prayed together while I dozed on the couch. Now I’ve come to join them, but I don’t follow my own rule: No talking after lights out. Nobody minds, especially boys who are used to mommy’s questions having a voice once the house is quiet and I know I have their thoughtful attention.
“What if this were our only bed and we only had 4 pillows and one blanket?” “I’d sleep on the floor,” moans dad. “The floor is made of gravel,” I explain. He’s out of the conversation now, stepping back to hear little boys tramp the tangled possibilities wandering in their fresh minds.
“Only one pillow each?” one asks.
“Yes.”
Silence.
If this were our only bed and the floor were made of gravel we’d still be better off than many people in other parts of the world. I think this then say it.
“Really?!”
I know we’re not moving toward sleep. I know I’ve initiated a conversation I don’t want to continue but since I let slip the contents of my hazy thoughts I share the vague idea. “Many people are always hungry, never knowing the feeling of being satisfied. Many people have to choose between muddy, possibly disease filled water or dying of thirst.”
“I wouldn’t drink the water.”
“If they don’t drink it they will die or get very sick. If they do drink it they only might die or get sick from it.”
“How far do they go for water? Can’t they go find clean water down the road?”
Many thoughtful questions are imperfectly answered. Eventually they let life be what it is.
My hope is that my sons will keep wondering, looking for solutions. My hope is they will care what people they may never meet must endure.
That conversation has ended.
Child on my left tries to start a fresh conversation about Pokemon (safe entertaining topic). His brother joins in. I let them talk for less than a minute. I come out of my haze. “No more talking, go to sleep.” I know I’m being contradictory. They know too, but get quiet.
“I love you D. I love you M.” D reaches over his father who is now fast asleep. He wraps his arms around my neck for a good night hug and kiss. I hug and kiss him back. I turn to my left where M is already reaching out for mom. Hugs and kisses once more. Then we are quiet again.
As the other three drift off to sleep I lay awake. We don’t often fall asleep all four of us in a bed. Tonight, for no particular reason other than love and needing a break from routine, we are all together.
In that dark cradle of safety, I am reminded (as I am almost every day) that I have no idea the value of my family.