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sublingua | |||||
| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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The Demon Goddess Who Looked Within
You Say It's The Day After Your Birthday, Well It's The Day After My Birthday Too, Yeah!
There I am, in front of the Sydney Opera House, five years ago. It was that Sublingua that got us there. It was that Sublingua who took the chance, applied to the program that paid her way to study tropical biology in Australia. It was that Sublingua who learned, at twenty-seven, how to swim so that she could swim with reef sharks and sea turtles along the Great Barrier Reef. It was that Sublingua who got herself down to three-hundred pounds so that she could hike in the rainforest before dawn and spotlight tree kangaroos at night. It was that Sublingua who began to love herself enough to risk her life. It was that Sublingua who saved us. I was twenty-seven and I had resolved to learn to love and accept who I was and that resolution gave me the strength to take chances and risk rejection and move forward. She got us unstuck and I love her for it and I am grateful to her. More grateful than you can possibly imagine. Yesterday was our thirty-third birthday. I had Max take this picture before our walk:
I walked with Judi in the morning, then had a long, pleasurable lunch with The Demon Who Always Does The Right Thing in the afternoon. The Demon bought me lunch and gave me a gift certificate which I immediately went off to use to buy earrings from Africa to wear to dinner later with Max. Here I am, ready for dinner, complete with new earrings.
Max and I went to an out of the way Japanese restaurant where I had what was easily the best sashimi of my life. I told this to the owner, who had come to pack up our leftovers (well, Max's leftovers, anyway, as I don't think leftover sashimi is a real good idea) for us and chat, asking in his charmingly accented English how the food was. The kitchen was very slow (this I did not complain about, but some maki had been sent to our table anyway in apology for the wait), but the waitstaff and the owner were delightful. (And anyway, I remember times from my days as a waitress when the kitchen would back up and there was nothing to do but smile at customers and endlessly refill their drinks and apologize profusely and assure them that, yes, sometime this year perhaps they would be receiving their dinner. And, too, I remember from my days as a cook when the kitchen would get backed up and I was working as hard as I could and still nothing seemed to be moving but I was still trying and still doing my best to get food out. So I don't complain when food or service is slow--only when it's indifferent or downright bad, neither of which was the case last night.) Then, after we had eaten a fabulous dinner and paid our bill (tipping very generously, I might add) and we were walking out, one of the waitresses said to me, "You're all dressed up! Is it a special occasion?" I had heard her say earlier that it was her birthday, so I told her that it was my birthday as well and then I wished her a happy birthday. She told me that two more customers in the tiny (maybe ten or eleven table) restaurant were also celebrating birthdays that night. We laughed about the coincidence. As we were getting in the car, the owner ran out and handed me a handful of little Japanese sweets--a kind I haven't had since I was probably eleven or so. It was a wonderful treat. Here I am, again with dinner with friends, again five years ago, again the Sublingua who had taken the first step to changing our life:
I remember how much I loved--and still love to eat. It was my hobby, my comfort. And I did it well. In that picture, Max and PAM and I were having dinner in a tiny French restaurant. PAM, who had studied cooking (and other things) in France, ordered bottle after bottle of wine, and we ate and ate and ate the wonderful things that came out of the kitchen. The chef's wife waited on table with their eight-month old daughter in a carrier on her front, and I remember thinking of the child how lucky she was to be born into a family of gourmets. At the end of the meal, PAM asked the waitress to tell the chef that she was holding her left foot. Everyone looked puzzled, including the waitress, who duly conveyed the message to her husband in the kitchen. He was delighted, and came out--a tall, handsome, harried-looking Frenchman--to speak to us. It turns out that PAM had paid him quite a compliment--a compliment meaningless outside the region where he came from and where PAM had traveled for study. So, yes. Food was my friend--and still is, even after a two-hundred and twelve pound weight loss. But I'll tell you, the journey? Has been a tremendous one--and has been watched carefully by so many people who have so many questions. For example, people as all the time what motivates me. They are seemingly asking what motivated me to get started, but this is a strange question because everyone begins a diet every other minute. Rather, they should be asking what motivates me to continue. What motivates me to get out of bed and walk for miles or go to the gym or eat right every day of my life. But hardly anyone asks this. And what would I answer if they did ask? I'd tell them to begin to love themselves and to accept who they are and to stop hating whatever it is that they hate about themselves. I'd tell them that when you hate, all your energy goes into that hate, and you have no energy left over to enact true changes in your life. I'd tell them that once you stop despising yourself, once you begin to take chances, you are transformed. The external, physical changes may take years to come about, but the internal changes are immediate. The ramifications are profound. Once you accept whatever it is that you have spent so much time and energy despising, you have time and energy to take chances, to learn from your mistakes, to move forward, to change in ways that you never thought you would. Believe in yourself today, I'd tell them. Believe yourself worthy of better things and they will come to you. It sounds like mystical mumbo-jumbo, doesn't it? But it's true. It works. Just look. (But within, okay? Look within.) And Be Grateful I am. The past year has been amazing. I am grateful to all the demons and all the angels who came disguised as demons and to all the demons who came disguised as angels. I m grateful to my friends and family and to all dogs. I am grateful for exercise, for food, for shelter, for friendship--the basics in life. I am grateful for a year well-spent. I am grateful for a birthday--the best birthday I've ever had because I am in the best health and in the best shape I've ever been in. And I am grateful to look so damn good, yeah?
More lies:
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