One Mom and Way Too Many Guns

This article originally appeared on 12th & Broad on December 2, 2015. It went viral the following day.

Photo: source unknown

As Thanksgiving approached last week, I did a lot of thinking about what I'm thankful for this year. My dad is undergoing treatment for pancreatic cancer, and his sudden, unexpected brush with mortality has catapulted me into a reflective mood. Like many families, we have a tradition of going around the Thanksgiving table, each of us saying what we're grateful for. Lubricated by wine and warmth, we pay homage to our blessings.

This year, the most obvious thing to be thankful for was time, the time we still have—all together—in relatively good health. So that's what I said. And I meant it.

But underneath that honest appreciation was an ominous, more disconcerting thankfulness. In my heart of hearts, beyond my father's good health, the thing I'm most thankful for this year is the fact that my four-year-old son has never had to face down the barrel of a gun.

It didn't occur to me to be thankful for this until recently, and, frankly, I'm pissed that I have to be thankful for it. I don't want that thought anywhere near my brain.

I'd prefer to live in a place where guns are regulated and rare. But I don't. I live in a place called America where there are guns under mattresses, on top of refrigerators, and being sold legally—without background checks—in parking lots and at yard sales nationwide. I live in a place where there have been more mass shootings than days of the year in 2015; where 88 people die every single day from firearms; and where little kids are often both victims and accidental perpetrators.

I'm not afraid of terrorism. I'm afraid of play dates. I'm afraid of unsecured guns stored in hard to reach places by well-meaning gun owners. I'm afraid of a split-second.

Gun violence is terrifyingly quick. Whether a toddler shooting his brother or a suicidal college kid wandering into a gun shop on a broken-hearted whim, it's too easy. Access is just way too easy, and the damage done is way too fast.

My kid will have to pass a test and get a license before he can drive a car. He'll be required to wear a seatbelt and get insurance in exchange for his freedom on the open road. But if nothing changes, he will also be able to legally buy a gun from a stranger, when and wherever he wants, walking away with ammunition in hand. As things currently stand, he and everyone else on American soil has that "right"—unregulated and unchecked. 

Photo: John Minchillo/AP

I take no issue with the right to bear arms, but I do take issue with the right to bear them without training or accountability.

And most of the country agrees with me. 92% of Americans believe universal background checks should be required to purchase guns under any and all circumstances. Ninety-two percent! Is there anything else that ninety-two percent of Americans agree on? That the earth is round perhaps? Maybe not even that.

We have an election coming up, and something has to change. Legislators on both sides of the aisle, on national and state levels, need todo something to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, psychopaths, and the clinically depressed. If they can't pledge to support universal background checks, they shouldn't get to be in office. They don't deserve our money or our votes. Period.

I'm late to this party. Moms on the south side of Chicago have thanked their lucky stars for decades when their kids came home safe at night, while the rest of us shook our heads, prayed on Sundays, and wrote off their fears as a problem that would never make its way to our doorsteps. Well, it has arrived.

My own assumption that these casualties would never hit home was rooted in a combination of white privilege, ignorance, and willful blindness. But we're all getting shot now… in nightclubs, movie theaters, and classrooms. Geographic location doesn't protect anybody any more. We are all vulnerable to random gun violence by nature of the sheer number of weapons in our midst and the total lack of oversight from politicians in power.

It's hard to mobilize time and energy for a good cause before tragedy hits close to home. It's easier to turn away until it comes knocking, but by staying silent, every one of us grows increasingly more vulnerable.

I went to a survivor panel hosted by Moms Demand Action for Gun Safety the weekend before Thanksgiving. As I lay in bed the night before, acid churned in my stomach. I was overwhelmed by the news, the shootings in Paris and torrents of fear and hatred flooding the airways. I was afraid to hear the stories of people in my own community who lost loved ones to stray bullets or targeted ones. I was terrified it would add to the very real fear that my son—or any of my loved ones—would find themselves in the path of one of those bullets. But denial wasn't working for me anymore. I needed facts and fellowship. I needed to bear witness on my own turf.

I heard terrible stories there: of kids shooting kids, hate crimes, suicides, crossfire, and deluded madmen. One survivor, Katie, was steps away from her father when he was shot dead in a shopping mall at the age of 45. Each story reeked of chaos and meaninglessness, but instead of adding to the noise in my head, I found power and strength in that room. The fear was no longer distant. It was right there, held sacred by human beings who were willing to crack open their own stories, prepared to link arms and hold on tight for a common cause: common sense.

Guns are everywhere. That's just the truth. This isn't about taking anybody's guns away. It's about registering and storing them properly and keeping them far, far away from people who would do harm with them.

So this Thanksgiving I'm thankful that my 67-year-old father is persevering in the face of cancer. He's doing everything in his power to stay here with us as long as he can. Katie's dad wasn't so lucky. He was shot down in a shopping mall, selling coasters that were handmade by his own father for Christmas. He never got a chance to grow old, to fight for his health and wellbeing, and to see his grandkids grow up.

So in my darkest but most hopeful heart of hearts, I am thankful for every public figure who has the guts to stand up for universal background checks, and I'm thankful for every mom who has the guts to ask before a play date, "Are there guns in the house, and, if so, are they locked up?"

The randomness is almost too much to bear, but in every corner of this country, there is a lot that can be done to make us and our kids safer if we stop turning a blind eye and demand what we know is right. Common sense. That's all. Just a little common sense.

Bodies in Motion

This article was originally published in the Nov/Dec 2015 issue of The East Nashvillian.

I found a butterfly on the sidewalk yesterday — freshly passed, wings fully spread, lying still on its back as if it expired midair and floated to the ground. I picked it up for a friend, an artist who had recently revealed to me her love of such things. Though I cringed at the thought of carrying a butterfly carcass in my hand (not my thing), I figured it would be better served by making the trip to her home than by getting run over by a bike. 

It was so large that the only way to transport it without doing damage was in my open palm, cupped gently against my side to prevent the breeze from carrying it away. I corralled my pit bull with my left arm, pulling back on his leash to slow our pace, and set out on the six-block walk home with my right arm crooked stiffly at 90 degrees. 

As I walked, protectively hunched over, I could see passing drivers craning their necks to see what was wrong with me and realized that from a distance at 40 miles per hour I must have looked impaired somehow, either injured or disabled. People stared freely, peering out over their dashboards as they drove down the tree-lined street, seemingly unaware that I could see them right back. 

It made me think of a personal training client of mine, a young woman — currently 20 years old — who had a stroke at the age of 11. She navigates the world with a severe tremor and no feeling in one side of her body. She has told me what it’s like to be stared at — carelessly, thoughtlessly stared at.

Walking down the sidewalk that day, I felt the drivers’ eyes on me and got a taste of what it’s like to be watched, but not seen, observed as an object of curiosity and pity. As a woman, I’ve been objectified countless times on the street, dodging catcalls from passing men, but this was different. These stares were not overt. They were silent, sideways observations; strange and disconcerting.

Of course, I wasn’t disabled or injured — I was just transporting a dead butterfly, trying to keep her wings intact. But to do that, I had to make my way down the street with what looked like a broken wing of my own, and that sort of thing makes people nervous. Bodies that don’t conform make people nervous.

I work with other people’s bodies for a living, and the greatest gift I have received from that work is the ability to see beauty in every living, breathing one of them — no matter what size they might be or what disability they might have. Our bodies are all a little odd, but there is reliable elegance in muscle and bone working together to move and lift and breathe.

I catch myself staring at strangers on the street, too, but for a different reason. I’m in awe of their ability to stay coordinated and in motion, to push a double stroller up a hill, to ride a bike, or corral a rambunctious, slobbering, joyful harem of mutts down the street. Sometimes it’s OK to look – but not to judge; instead to watch and learn the value of bodies we so often dismiss or neglect based on how they appear.

The butterfly was delivered safely. By the time she found her final resting place on a small branch in my friend’s curio cabinet, she had arched her back and stiffened into an upright pose with wings back and together, as if about to take flight again.

We all have a broken wing now and then, especially around the holidays with our hearts wide open and the weather putting us on ice. As winter creeps in, I can feel my own wings curling up, my back arching against the cold. But my clients have taught me to feed and nurture my body, to value whatever capacity I have, whenever I manage to have it. Working with them has taught me to notice what’s right with other people’s bodies instead of what’s wrong and take inspiration from that — and to keep right on moving.

Pedaling for Energy

This is the coolest thing I've seen in a very long time... a bike that generates electricity! Pedaling for an hour generates enough energy to power an entire house for a full day. It's completely clean energy, doesn't rely on anything other than human power, and supports health and wellbeing while you're at it. What a cool, amazing thing if these were available for communities around the world who don't have access to electricity, not to mention large companies and consumers in the developed world. Google and Facebook, I'm looking at you! Eco meets innovation. Love it!!

Photo via cyberwarzone.com

See this link at cyberwarzone.com for a video on how it works. :-)

The Lost Art of Play in Fitness

Tim Walker at The Atlantic wrote an enlightening article that came out yesterday about the differences in kindergarten classrooms in the United States and Finland, entitled The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland. In it, he compares the regimented schedules increasingly dominating American classrooms and the self-directed play that drives Finland's early-education programs.

Buried in the article, one of the teachers he is interviewing quotes an old Finnish saying: 

"Those things you learn without joy,

you will easily forget."

I find this extraordinary on many different levels. With a threenager at my house, just a year and a half from entering his kindergarten year, the thought of limiting his physical activity and play time to 20 minutes at school is unacceptable. But beyond that - beyond Mr. Walker's salient point about the importance of play for young kids - the message he has uncovered applies to the American population-at-large (a.k.a. grown-ups) more than we might be prepared to admit.  

In particular, it applies to our pursuit of health and wellness. "Those things you learn without joy, you will easily forget." Diets and workouts that don't give us joy, that don't spring from our authentic selves are destined to be left roadside. It's really that simple.

We spend a lot of time defending our kids and fighting for their right to a happy childhood, but what about our own right to a happy adulthood in agile bodies, energized by what we love to do?

Let the kids have their recess! Yes! And while we're at it, how about setting aside all of the shoulds and shouldn'ts of fitness to discover what kinds of physical activity actually turn us on and set us alight? 

We could all use a whole lot more joy in our workouts... and in our kitchens. We could learn a thing or two from our kindergarteners at play.

My boys at play, summer 2015.

All Together Now - Race and Friendship

(This column originally appeared in the Sept/Oct 2015 issue of The East Nashvillian)

I went to QDP at The 5 Spot last month (Queer Dance Party, for the uninitiated) and found myself — a 30-something, white, married mom — blissfully sweating bullets, surrounded by people of all ages and races, raising our hands to the roof with Alicia Keys blaring through the sound system. I was sporting a turquoise tutu and got a nod of approval from a young, black woman who oozed generosity of spirit. We danced for a while, the music bringing us together, but drifted off as the night went on.

Photo credit QDP Nashville

I left that night hungry for a lasting connection with her, and if I’m being honest, hungry for access to diversity in general. Her spirit caught my eye, but the color of her skin made me long, even more, for her friendship — and for that, I felt weak-in-the-knees shameful. I saw and differentiated the color of her skin. Did that make me a racist? I’m supposed to be colorblind, right?

But I’m not colorblind, and I can’t pretend to be anymore after watching the news this past summer about Sandra Bland, the woman who died in a Texas jail cell after having been incarcerated for three days for not using her turn signal. I can’t conceive of a scenario in which that would happen to me.

Hearing her story, I imagined what it must have been like for her to be starting a new life in a new state, and the desperation she must have felt at the possibility that her dream job could be lost due to her arrest. I cannot conceive of how despondent she must have been to take her own life in that jail cell — if, in fact, that’s what happened.

Her experience of living in America is one that I will never be able to fully understand, but if I’m not supposed to acknowledge how shocking the disparity is between her experience and mine — and if I’m not allowed to shout from the rooftops that I want to be friends with the woman on the dance floor partially because of the color of her skin — if those things can’t happen, I remain hopelessly powerless and permanently separate. And I can’t live with that.

I moved to Nashville from California eight years ago. On the West Coast, I have close friends of many races, but have found those friendships harder to come by here. That’s not meant to be a broad statement about the South. It’s just the truth. The problem clearly exists nationwide, and maybe I just got lucky in L.A. But I have to acknowledge that right now, here, in this neighborhood that I love so much, it’s notable when I find myself in effortless contact with people of other races — and that divide makes no sense in such a diverse and thriving city.

An elderly black gentleman and I had a chat over clementines in the produce section at the grocery store the other day. He wanted to know if they were sweet. I told him kids love them because they’re delicious and easy to peel. He grinned and said, “Well, I’m a kid today then,” and placed a bag in his cart. And I was hungry again. I wanted to know him better, to sit down for a meal.

I don’t know if it makes me a racist to reach out for more intimate contact partially based on the color of someone’s skin, so I shy away most of the time. But I got the number of my beautiful dance partner that night. I hope she’s up for a glass of wine, and I hope it’s OK if we talk about race, as well as family, work, and love. I don’t want to be an activist. I just want to be friends, but to do that with an honest heart, I have to admit that we’re not the same. Our experiences, opportunities, and the assumptions made about us every day are not the same.

I’m not colorblind. I’m color hungry. Fortunately, we in Nashville (and thankfully in the country at large) have something accessible to bring us together. We have music writhing up through our history, defining us and reliably uniting us when we need it the most. We should take better advantage of it. Music reaches into the gaps, recognizing and shrinking them.

It looked to me like the folks at QDP had things pretty much worked out. I think I found a new hang. Kumbaya, people. All together now.

Cancer and Clarity

My dad spent a few days at our house in Nashville this past weekend recording some long overdue love songs for my mom, for posterity, and for the grandkids. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer over the summer and retired from his post as Dean of Duke Divinity School as of August 1st.

What happened here this weekend should have happened much more frequently over the years... but other things seemed more pressing; and singing together, the songs he sang me to sleep with as a little girl, would have seemed too cheesy, too earnest, too raw. But illness changes things, and suddenly it was the most obvious thing to do. So we did.

There is cancer, and then there is the togetherness and clarity of mind that cancer brings. I would never have wished for this to happen, but I am so grateful for the grace it has brought... the willingness to be together in a way we never have before and the value sinking into every moment we have while we still have it.


Dad's Caring Bridge website is here.

Michael Silverblatt on Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks died over the weekend. Reading him over the years taught me a lot about the human mind, but even more importantly, it taught me how to be with my clients, good people in less-than-ideal circumstances, with gentleness and compassion. We lost an amazing voice this weekend, but he has left us with a wealth of knowledge.

So when I heard the following interview today with Michael Silverblatt (NPR's Bookworm) on To The Point with Barbara Bogaev - a tribute to Oliver Sacks - it made me smile. I can't help but regurgitate it at length. We could use a lot more people like this in the world. You can listen to the whole interview here.

Dr. Sacks via Alamy at medscape.com

Michael Silverblatt on preparing to interview Oliver Sacks at a book festival:

"I don't usually do public events, and I was really quite frightened. And added to my list of fears, "will Oliver be there in the auditorium, or is he going to find something that interests him?" You have to understand, he's kind of a nutty professor. He didn't like being hot, so he carried a portable fan with him in his vest pocket when I first met him. I said to him, "Oliver, I'm quite frightened of doing this. I don't do things in public. Can we walk over together, and can we hold hands?" And, as if there were nothing odd about this, he said, "I would love to." And we held hands all the way across the campus together, two grown men hand-in-hand. It was amazing. When we got to the auditorium, he took out of his pocket, the same magic pocket that held his portable fan,... his crayons, his colored pencils, and his magic markers, and we colored together. We sat while we waited for the audience to come, coloring. He immediately saw that I was one of his child patients, and he treated me the way he treated children, with great joy and considerateness and participation. He colored too... He could immediately be the other person's shepherd, lover, insight giver. It was amazing...

"He was a magician of spirit and spoke always of things we'd forgotten. He'd talk about how people who were suffering, of the sort we are talking about - the way he suffered - would do well with gardening. Touching soil and watching things grow meant a great deal. It wasn't just tree-hugging. It was part of the spirit, the same way music not only heals the savage breast, but gives us a sense of order."

Seems to me that healthy living happens when we reach out like that... to be shepherds for and lovers of well-being... in others and in ourselves.

How Not To Do An Affirmation

Okay, the book has been handed in; I have collapsed for approximately a week; and now I am back (after too long away) to have a little rant about this...

A friend whom I love and cherish, who has faced an onslaught of health problems over the past few years, posted this image on Facebook today (originally from PCOSDiva). Okay, so... yes, great, absolutely. We should all definitely walk away from people and situations that harm us. Fine...

but can we please stop superimposing these messages over images of supermodels on beaches or mountaintops or wherever this woman is walking in her size zero, 
snow white evening gown????

In what universe can we achieve peace of mind, self-respect, or self-worth if that is our image of what it looks like. No more. 

Instead I offer you this...

If we must quote and affirm, can we please do it sans evening gowns on hillsides? Please and thank you. 

There is boundless inspiration to be found every day in our real lives and real bodies. All we need to do is take a second to notice. We do astonishing things all the time... almost never while clad in silk organza.

The Weight of the Evidence: STOP DIETING

This article on Slate.com by Harriet Brown makes my heart sing. It details the enormous evidence that weight loss does not necessarily lead to better health outcomes. It addresses the social norms and assumptions that keep all of us (including doctors) on the weight loss merry-go-round, and at the end, it highlights a few brave and wise souls who decided to choose psychological and physical wellbeing over a prescribed number on the scale. 

Illustration by Robert Neubecker at Slate.com

Setting aside food tracking apps, diet schemes, and boot camp can make you feel groundless, even panicked, but the freedom that follows can be extraordinary. When food becomes pleasurable again and available brain space is no longer filled with destructive body fixation, what's left is living... plain, old, peaceful, living. 


Food shouldn't be a punishment or prize. It's sustenance, glorious sustenance, and our bodies are incredible vessels that get us where we need to go. We should appreciate them, no matter their size, and treat them well. That's all. No more condemnation. No more diets. 

The Weight of the Evidence:

It's Time to Stop Telling Fat People to Become Thin

Fuel

I would say it's time to exhale, but according to the internet machine it's going to be cold and rainy again later this week. That said... use this last week to wrap up winter in your heart and mind, and give some thought to what you might like spring to look and feel like. 

That's all. There are flowers blooming. Let the rain come this week. It's fuel for what's to come.

Featured Video: This Is What Happens To Your Brain and Body When You Check Your Phone Before Bed

Most of us know we don't get enough sleep. We stay up too late, eat too much too late, and get sucked into screens when we should be turning them off. 

This 2 minute video from Dr. Dan Seigel at UCLA sums up the damage done when we don't shut everything down and prioritize sleep. On the list of many things that suffer: memory, focus, creativity, impulse control (DOUGHNUTS!), and insulin/metabolism.

In other words, you can be smarter, faster, stronger and slimmer if you turn your screens off an hour earlier every night - and the world will not stop spinning.

This Is What Happens To Your Brain and Body When You Check Your Phone Before Bed

Featured Article: Walk Hard. Walk Easy. Repeat.

I've been preaching the benefits of interval training to my clients for many years, and evidence has been steadily mounting that working with intervals is the most effective way to increase cardiovascular health and sustain long-term calorie burn. In other words, it can help you lose weight more easily and takes much less time than most of us spend at the gym when trying to drop pounds.

I get push back on this when people are afraid to run or push harder. They assume the difficult intervals must be punishing in order to be effective. We now know that this is not the case. Intervals can be effective when limited entirely to walking... slow, then fast, slow and fast again.

An article came out in the New York Times this week, Walk Hard. Walk Easy. Repeat. by Gretchen Reynolds, detailing the results of a study out of Japan by Dr. Hiroshi Nose. The study shows that walkers who stuck with gentle interval workouts achieved significantly "improved aerobic fitness, leg strength, and blood pressure readings."

Workouts don't have to hurt to be helpful, but they should be at least a little bit challenging if you want to see measurable health benefits. Just pick up the pace now and then. Take a walk!

Take a Load Off: Rising Above Weight Loss Mind Games

(The following article appeared in the Nashville Scene on January 15, 2015)

I've been a personal trainer for more than a decade, but I never felt the need to maintain a trainer's stereotypically muscle-bound physique. In fact, I carried a little extra weight around as a badge of honor, 20 subversive pounds that proved my commitment to quality of life over superficial concerns. That was my story, and I was sticking to it.

My clients didn't seem to care one way or another. They work and play too much, just like me, and we try to focus on health and balance over inches lost. But the "quality of life" I so proudly defended for myself wasn't the result of eating freely and joyfully with people I loved. Instead, it was the product of excessive midnight snacks that took the edge off my anxiety as I drifted off to sleep.

I felt heavy, not liberated, and as I sat in a wooden pew at my grandmother's funeral last summer, I took a hard look at how I wanted to feel walking around on planet Earth while I still had the chance. I didn't want to be weighed down anymore.

Physically, I knew what to do. Eat better. Move more. It doesn't take a Ph.D. But mentally and emotionally, sticking to that path — for real this time — was a comedy of errors, a pageant of psychological acrobatics. I decided to make a study of it, not only to document my progress, but to examine with surgical precision what had interrupted my weight-loss attempts in the past. I wanted to understand what forces were hijacking my own best efforts and those of my clients just when we were starting to make progress.

As the weight came off, the difference in how I felt physically was breathtaking, but I could have predicted that. What I didn't anticipate was how difficult it would be for my brain to adjust to living in this exhilarating yet unfamiliar new body. My confidence grew and collapsed unpredictably, leaving me constantly in search of stability, but the only stability I knew would involve regaining the weight.

When I lost the first five pounds, I began to feel out of sorts. I was awkward in conversation and prodded by nagging self-doubt, which didn't make sense. I should have felt great, but I had grown accustomed to my body being a certain way in the world — wearing clothes, sitting at my desk, walking to the hardware store. Just because I didn't like tugging at my waistband on a daily basis didn't mean I wasn't used to it. When we're used to something, it's decidedly weird to let it go. As my shape shifted, my identity came loose a bit, and it threw me.

I had to get OK with being awkward for a little while. I felt like a teenage girl growing into oversized boobs — uncomfortable, but hopeful that the payoff would be good. If I could recognize that my foibles were fleeting and not nearly as bad as I imagined them, I could avoid medicating my discomfort with food.

After hitting my goal weight and landing in a new body, I was haunted by a desire to look over my shoulder, as if the lost pounds were lurking in the shadows, waiting for an opportunity to rejoin me. It was victory punctuated by fear. I was terrified I'd be unable to hang onto the weight loss, and that fear brought with it the impulse to deprive myself of all things fun. After deprivation came rebellion and indulgence, echoes of the habits that kept me heavy in the first place.

When panic set in, instead of depriving or demeaning myself, I had to actively reach for the food and physical motion that had healed me months earlier. I had to identify which tangible actions reliably calmed my mind and strengthened my body.

Months after the weight was lost, periodically I would become convinced that I had gained it back. My clothes no longer felt effortlessly loose. The number on the scale was as low as ever, but I was still living in the same body. I had the same old lumps and bumps as always; they were just smaller.

Eventually, my new size stopped feeling otherworldly, magical, and came to feel just plain normal. That feeling of normalcy — which felt like a letdown — is actually a remarkable accomplishment. It means I redefined my comfort zone. The weight range where I feel "average" is now lower, which might seem mundane but is in fact extraordinary.

Even better than losing the weight, I found my way off of the psychological seesaw I'd been on for two decades, and I learned how to better help my clients do the same. Weight loss is a mind game more than a battle of the bulge. It should have been obvious to me that "success" would be a weird amalgam of awkwardness and triumph. It's been that way every other time I've succeeded at something new. Why should I expect weight loss to be any different? It feels nice to be at home in my own skin. And strange ... really, very strange.

The Pleasure Principle: Wellness Unhinged

I refrained from writing a New Year's post this year because I have two articles coming out this month on goal setting and weight loss - in support of what happens after the resolutions slip away. The weeks after New Year's are the ones most fraught with trouble. That first week is a cake walk compared to the rest. 

Below is my article appearing in The East Nashvillian. The basic premise: The way we're pursuing health and fitness is backwards. Bodies are best when utilized and pampered, not conquered. 

If you happen to be in Nashville, I detail countless resources at your fingertips. If not, you might get some ideas for practitioners and practices to seek out in your own area. Happy new year, everybody! Let's take better care this year, seek pleasure over pain... 

     When I was a sophomore in college, I had a professor who took the class outside for a friendly game of tag on the first day of school. Home base was a large oak tree situated at the far corner of an open courtyard. I eyeballed it from beneath the steps of a nearby building. I skulked and schemed and, when I saw an opening, took off running: chest out, chin up, legs pumping like my very life depended on it... more...