Northern Mississippi through a Child's Eyes

1978, Picking Cotton near the farm my father grew-up on

1983, this is a photo I took of Grandmother Moss when I was 8 years-old.

1983, Grandmother Moss, Christmas

About

Southern Gothic is a genre of American literature.
It is best explained on this page owned by Oprah:
http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Southern-Gothic-Distinguising-Features/1

I am using the term as an adjective.

To learn more about yoga, the following websites are a good starting point:

Yoga Journal

Yoga International

Healing through Communication in the Twenty-First Century

I have never known I could have the power to enact any sort of change in the world, and I am fascinated by the fact that it might actually be possible to do one little thing and see a ripple effect in real life.

My focus, as a yogini particularly, is to evolve, to change myself.

I write; I take pictures; I draw: I bake.
I post stuff online. I get it out of my head. And, I heal.

with a roach on top

postcard

Canned Fruit Cocktail:  Normally edible - I hadn't eaten this sort of thing in years.  I prefer to butcher a fresh pineapple.

The saddest thing was parts-is-parts-breaded-and-fried.  Chickens (I assume) should not live to die and be turned into this clusterf*ck of a meat product.

I have been a pescatarian since I was 27, for over a decade.  Before that, I was a strict, dairy-free vegetarian for a decade.  I think people should have a choice in their diets, but I do not think anyone should eat the low grade food described above.

Every mealtime, in December 2012 at Alliance Health Center, I looked forward to see what was hiding beneath the lid of the gigantic food tray labeled with my name.  For some reason these food trays are over 2 foot wide, making it an exercise in strength training for the smallest version of me to carry to my room.  The only joy came twice during my stay:  banana pudding.  There were real bananas!  

I craved avocados for weeks.  I fantasized eating avocado sushi.  I just wanted simple, recognizable food.

The cockroach just happened to be inside a closed-lid food tray, the main meal after my mother attempted to explain her version of my diet to the kitchen and the dietician met with me without a notepad to take notes.  Coincidence?  Sure, why not?  It's the South; roaches are part of life.

Curiously, every single tray is marked with a slip of paper with your name and a whole long list of optional diets that I assume the kitchen offers to someone?  I'm sure they honor a diabetic diet, at least.

Regular

Diabetic

Cardiac

Vegetarian

Dairy-Free

Anyway, anyone else have a childhood into adulthood dislike of jello?

Asymmetry, Skewed Body, and Fibrocystic Breasts

So, early this month, September 4, I woke up to discover that my right breast had spontaneously shrunk half a cup size.  In all the years I have had fibrocystic breasts that swell up and down a couple of cup sizes, I have never had asymmetry of any noticeable amount or any size change happen this quickly.  So, this is new and weird.  

I waited a few days, thinking perhaps I'll wake-up and these body parts will have corrected themselves over night.  It didn't happen, so I took out my dressmakers tape-measure just to see how well my eyes were seeing the world.  I measured horizontally straight across the nipple line.  The breasts are exactly 1/2" different in size.  Weird.

So, I've seen the doctor by now; and I'm to have an ultrasound just to check them out.  I figure nothing is actually medically wrong with them.  So, I imagine I'll just wait to lose weight and see if they'll even out again.  My left breast is the size I would expect it to be at this body weight, but the right breast is the boob of a smaller version of me.  Oddly enough, my cat had a sarcoma removed from fatty tissue on his right size earlier this year; so we are, coincidentally, both dealing with a smaller right side than left.   His is definitely permanent, though, and he suffered poor health and major surgery.  I am thankful to still have my breasts and pleased they recovered from shriveling to raisins at the end of 2012.

 

At the end of 2012, when I was locked away in a "Health Center," somewhere in the middle of Mississippi, I was horrified to look down one day and realize that my breasts resembled shriveled raisins.  The nipples were turning black and there was absolutely no sensation left in them.  The former flesh of youth on my body was nothing more than loose skin on my thighs.  I don't know how to explain it, but at nearly 4'11" tall, I'm not supposed to be the weight of a young teenager or younger.    

At age 37, with my civil rights removed (I asked more than once on this journey for a lawyer and received no response), I would watch this new, strange world I was dropped into involuntarily and wonder why my health was so insignificant.  Dressed in 4 layers of clothes, attempting to stay warm, I wondered why my priorities were so oddly unaddressed.  Luckily, over the years I learned a lot from life and yoga philosophy to understand that there are so many things in life that there are absolutely no good explanations for.  You cannot control things that are out of your control.  You have to try to change yourself and see how it affects the world you live in and others.  I was not even allowed to control what appeared on my breakfast tray every morning.  I could only control what of it I actually ate.

Extreme Fibrocystic Breasts:  They feel like knotted-bruises, painful to touch.  The best treatment is to wear a sports bra 24 hours a day to keep them immobilized.  

I've tried evening of primrose oil capsules, iodine, Wild Yam cream, and topical progesterone cream with little success.

I worked up to 500mg of Evening of Primrose Oil.  I really hoped this would help, but I could not tell that it made any difference in the cysts in my breasts.  I stopped a bunch of nutritional supplements because it is just too hard on my digestive system to take copious amounts of anything.

Topical Iodine:  Placebo effect the first week?  I quit when I realized both it wasn't resolving the issue and that iodine interplays with the thyroid, but not in a way I understand.

Wild Yam cream:  I really liked this stuff, but when cysts are still going up and down in size, you realize these creams are not effective enough.

Life-flo Progesta-Care Body Cream, 480 mg of progesterone/ounce.  I used this for 3 months.  For this time period I had cysts that were stable; they did not get any larger.  I stopped this because progesterone also somehow interacts with the thyroid hormone.  After I stopped using it, my fibrocystic breasts went into what I call "remission."  So, who knows.  I think its an all over shift in body chemistry that determines whether or not you have cysts and how abundant and how painful they are to you.  

Shortly after gaining enough weight back in 2013, to not be underweight, a cyst appeared in one of the breasts.

Resources:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/fibrocystic-breasts/basics/definition/con-20034681

http://drtorihudson.com/articles/natural-approaches-to-fibrocystic-breasts/

Best Sports Bras

The best sports bras for women who are super petite or short-torsoed.  It has fully adjustable straps and back.  You can run as fast as you can in one of these bras.

http://www.titlenine.com/product/310184.do?sli=32_C_Flight_15kwd=Moving+Comfort#.VBIP2mK9KSN

http://www.movingcomfort.com/en_us/jubralee-sports-bra/350042.html

http://www.titlenine.com/product/310139.do?sli=32_C_Berry_blizzard_20&kwd=Moving+Comfort#.VBIP5GK9KSN

You know all of those super cool and hip yoga tops with lots of lovely spaghetti straps?  I used to wonder, "If only I had a little dancer's bosom, I'd look awesome in yoga class or out for a latte afterwards."  Yeah, I got over that.  Here's my pick for petite women who want support and need adjustable straps.  This top can help raise the elegance of your workout outfit when paired with those cheap Old Navy girls size 10 - 12 bottoms??!!!  Vanity sized children, too . . .  

Oh, I actually own this top, and it provides plenty of support for ashtanga yoga practice.

http://athleta.gap.com/browse/product.do?cid=97470&vid=1&pid=964875012

Postcard Before and After #1

Postcard of Before and After in the Same T-shirt

Feel free to print this image as a postcard or 4" x 6" photo at 100% and send around the world. 
I'm working with the truth and, of course, untouched photos.
I spent my late-teens writing to penpals sending lovely colored envelopes and one-of-kind collage and watercolor postcards.
Thank you.

Present Day: Restaurant Roulette

Today, Mom and I attempted to eat at a new Bollywood restaurant in a strip-mall across from the actual mall. It is strange how these things go. You sit down in a booth in what appears to be the set of an Indian village. Your mother attempts to order tea, but they apparently don't have any in India. We are informed it is a buffet only restaurant. I go to see less of a buffet than you find in a Indian American owned motel breakfast bar, and the pans are nearly empty. Baffled as usual at a new restaurant experience, I scrape the little bit of rice stuck to the bottom of the chaffing dish (trying to imagine it is like paella) and not sure what to do walk back to my seat. Mom comes to find me. I laugh, take out a 5 dollar bill and place it on the table, and walk out. "How Hattiesburg," I think. We are much in need of a good Indian restaurant, but I received a Bollywood type of experience.

So, on to the Southern-Italian fusion restaurant. I walk in to the sound of Dead or Alive spinning me around. We start with fried-green tomato with Creole seasoning made into a Southern take on a caprese salad. I enjoy the garlic green beans. I was absolutely amused by the European tartar sauce, and yes, this is absolutely the intention of the chef. My only wish is that the pasta had been more al dente. I prefer an extra chew to my pasta.

So, I'm always toying with ideas in my head of what would be a successful venture for someone who had the money to buy a building, put in a commercial kitchen, and invest in Hattiesburg. One of my favorites is the Permanent Pop-Up Restaurant. We would import someone once a week or month from New Orleans or India or Jackson or Mobile or the local university to actually give us the food experience we all crave. Hattiesburgers absolutely rush-out in droves to try newly opened restaurants giving the new owners a false sense of success and the rest of town something new to discuss. I have now sworn off eating anywhere that hasn't been open for a few months, which is easy for someone who is poor and cooks. I will try again to teach myself Indian cuisine from the couple of cookbooks I bought years ago only to realize I had to go to New Orleans to find the exotic ingredients - Garam Marsala, anyone?





Visit Chef Robert St. John's Website.

Colored Capsules

"One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish"  Dr. Seuss

Compound pharmacy staffed by nurses

Capsules remind me of Fahrenheit 451, especially with my empty stomach

Large and white one day

blue and blue

blue and red

red and blue

blue and white

white and red, too

The colors of flags

Does this make any sense?

Same medication in a different wrapping today

Through the window, I see them back there making this stuff

The same ones who monitor us

Is this all the same as they tell me?

At least the largest capsules feel half-empty

Trying to find reality, in a land where nurses choose to live chaotically 

Medication Time, people line-up

I stand in my doorway watching

Over-drugged, stumbling about men

The herd of cattle soon to be released to the pasture

I see people stay a few days, as I remain to watch the shuffle

What is wrong with him?  

What is wrong with her?

Is she bi-polar or hormonal?

Must be the anti-anxiety medication that gives a woman the look of pregnancy

She cries like a teenager

He gazes off into the distance; did anyone even try to give him medical treatment?

I can't say they are necessarily psychopathic or cray-cray, but they are doing the opposite of well-respected pharmacies

Daymares

The daymares occurred over a couple of days:  November 20 and 21, 2012.  It was such a bizarre experience that I didn't even realize was humanly possible.  They first occurred in the French Quarter, of all places.  My brother, who was visiting, wanted to weave in and out of old bookstores that day.  I took photos the whole time I was walking around like a zombie.  Everything in the world was as it is normally, but for brief periods all of the beings (humans and cats) were transformed into broken versions of themselves.  The people in the French Quarter had skewed, asymmetrical bodies (think a daylight, normal version of Thriller zombies without the zombie aspect and normal clothes).  Nothing I saw was not there.  I wasn't hallucinating random things; only the people were affected.  The version with the cats the next day was truly terrifying because one of my greatest fears is for the cats to be hurt.

Photos taken in the French Quarter whilst I was experiencing daymares:

http://southerngothicyogini.blogspot.com/2014/06/posting-from-november-22-2012-photos.html

http://southerngothicyogini.blogspot.com/2014/06/posting-from-november-22-2012-in-french.html

The day in the French Quarter, November 2012, was the first day that I had trouble with food. I lost my appetite, food tasted off, and I could only stomach beignets at Café du Monde.

Clear Memory

West Pier (burnt down), Brighton, U.K., September 8, 1995

When I was home in November 2012 and experiencing what I kindly referred to as my near-enlightenment, my mind rushed back through all of my timeline unlocking all of my memories. Then, it rushed forward to the strangeness of the present. I don't wish for anyone to ever have to relive their life in that way, but it did flood back a lot of the great memories in crystal clear detail, complete with sound and smell memories. I was literally there, in my mind, with a friend in his old car with the glass of ice water on the dashboard. I was there on the pebble beach of Brighton perplexed by the strange swimming pool.  I was walking the pedestrian path through Bournemouth to Boscombe, walking past the Salvation Army Hall.

Now, some of the memories have been rearranged and refiled and are not just like yesterday, as I think they should be. But, do you remember a golden Buddha at a closed drive-thru restaurant in Gainesville?

Debbie, age 20, Royal Pavilion, Brighton, England, September 8, 1995

BT Phonebox, Brighton, September 8, 1995  - Quite a contrast to the phoneboxes of Bournemouth.

Chaos of Sound and Sound of Mind

crispy, dry leaves

Over a year and half later, and my mind often revolves around the events of late 2012:  strange feelings of unwell, couple of days in and out of daymares, hand-balances and arm balances and my near-enlightenment, imprisonment and the Alliance Health Center.

I returned home with a lot of hope.  I came home to a world that was changed and chaotic.  

My parents argued over placing Christmas tree lights on the tree.  So, in the hope of silencing them, I volunteered to untangle and place Christmas lights on a Christmas tree for the first time in my life.  I was thin and unsteady, but decided it did not matter.  I could not explain how hard it is to dangle upon a ladder with an aorta pulse swaying your whole body off balance.  I wanted to make the world better.  I wanted to be better.  I knew I could not explain how unstable my body was; it might be mistook for my brain.

This was to be the first Christmas with the first grandchild for my parents.  But, my youngest sister and her family had become estranged from our piece of the family.

Christmas Tree 2012

Baking Christmas treats to try to prove my cognitive function and to regain my patience and composure.  The whole world is more frustrating;  I'm absolutely overwhelmed by everything.  Sound is the most disturbing.  It is all amplified beyond my belief.  I just want to hear the natural world as it was.  I cry that I am lost in this loud place.  The subtlety of tree leaves moving in the wind, of crickets, of cats trudging gingerly through fallen dry leaves, are lost when all of them become exaggerated.  I hear electricity for the first time in my life.  I must be crazy, but I test my reality.  I plug the portable DVD player in, and I unplug the portable DVD player.  I hear the static, the charge.  I do this again.  I confirm it.  I am overwhelmed.  I jump at a sound that's too loud.  It is truly terrifying.  It is nearly impossible to tell where sound is coming from when it is all louder.  Is there someone in the garden or across the street?  I don't know what is wrong with me, but this is not something anyone should ever have to manage.  You can learn coping skills, but you cannot manage or control the modern or natural worlds.  

To see is not to hear, but we know what sound belongs with what image.

When you live in survival mode for weeks as I did, it is a great challenge to be patient and understanding with other people.  I just can't put up with squabbling over little things.  I can't deal with people who catastrophize everyday events.   I hold myself to a higher standard. I want to embody la petite yogini, who honors the yamas and niyamas. I struggle with my own bitterness and wonder what went wrong with my karma. Discovering and experiencing a darker side of humanity and a new level of ignorance is very difficult to come to terms with as my reality/our reality.