Haiku Monday: Balance

Good Morning Haiku Contributors.

This week our Haiku mission is to explore the concept of 

"balance"

The No Bowl Winner

A note about that OTHER game, congratulations to Seattle's SeaHawks.
They played impressive football.  I think they have ushered in a new era in football
of fleet, fit, finessed gridiron gladiators. About the Broncos....Peyton showed up to play,

I'm not to sure what happened to his teammates.

Our game had some low and high scores as well.

Thanks to all challengers and a special welcome to new to the Pond player Amanda.

Our thanks also to Chickory for giving us all another game to play! Her haiku:

Ten thousand items

eleven ingredients

Mexican kitchen

To quote Karl, Chickory's wit and wisdom have been missed! I loved this for it's wit, humor, syllable count, construction and the game within the haiku . A menu and a game in just 17 cleverly crafted syllables!  Did you select your eleven ingredients? Mine are these:

Corn

Tomatoes

Onions

Peppers

Cheese

Cream

Frijoles

Meat

Rice

Spices

Cerveza 

Chickory expanded our Game Day fun while declining to compete. 

A winning generosity for sure.

Our naturalist Serendipity cleverly wove the GAMES together with her haiku about a Hawk.

House sparrow main course

Sharp shinned Hawk dines well this eve

Warm flesh heats her gut

Serendipity never ducks the realities of nature. In her environs a warm meal is often survival.

As it turns out, Serendipity did not need a TV to know the score. She predicted it.

The HAWKS dined very well.

Amanda showed up with a childhood gaming classic:

Hiding eyes counting

Others running, hiding fast

Shout, "Ready or not!"

What a charming haiku!
I could feel the rush of excitement from here. We all grew up playing hide and seek. Most of us were blessed to repeat the experience through our own children or loaners. Also, in classic Haiku form there are two halves of a whole concept. If you take out the middle line the message is still clear.  Well done Amanda. Alas, the subject was "menu".

Karl  brought home a big score with this recipe:

Embrace principle

Learning Loving Integrity

Fulfillment menu

This is my favorite entry. I love the concept of having a menu for fulfillment of life.

I so agree with him! To organize a life of principles with an eager reach for learning, for loving well, for bringing integrity to efforts large and small IS gourmet living. Remember the game LIFE? Traveling the roads, rolling the dice, filling your car up with pink and blue babies while trying to pay your  bills? In the Karl approach to a life lived well you need not roll the dice. Just take the high road! Unfortunately my favorite haiku is off  count with  8 syllables in the mid line.

Sigh!

I love our Monday Haiku game. I do not love judging.
So I'm taking a cue from the coaches of that other game
I'm sending in a replacement!

Sunday football fun
beer, wings, chips, dips and, more beer!
Cause brown bottle flu

Congratulations KARL, you are our winner.

First February Haiku Monday Game Day

Welcome Haiku-ers to The Game.
Of course there are some who think the Big Game is about  the Super Bowl.
Like that other game, our weekly haiku contest  is eagerly anticipated. I've already received several  foot tapping, harruummppphing  messages reminding me Friday was POST DAY.

After the shock of the Oops win over at Serendipity Do Dah's I spent some time thinking about themes for this week. I finally landed on a subject I thought had not been done and would be fun when  one of my projects went into overtime leaving none for games.

Somewhere, in the midst of this 2880 minute drill, I lost interest in the original theme.

Maybe it got hijacked by all the hype about that other game.
I think the Super Bowl Season is the  Season of Lucre for those in Advertising.
They have reached saturation via every media form possible. Some of that seeped in.
Or, maybe, it was Blowfish  who thinks far more about the food for a big game day than the game.
Or maybe it was his foot tapping, harruummphing impatience over no posted  Game Day Menu for the Pond. It is a well known fact Blowfish  enjoys his food best when he has had time to  anticipate every offering.

Last night I arrived home late. Again. After our normal dinner hour.  Blowfish was so puffed out he looked like one of those WWII mines waiting to explode with minimal contact. Here it was

  Friday Night on Super Bowl Weekend

and there was  no dinner and no menu posted for THE GAME.  Even worse, there was no stocked larder or stuffed refrigerator for him to investigate the mystery of the menu. Alarmingly, he had not been sweetly summoned to fetch in mountains of grocery bags from the Fizz.  Before I got my coat shrugged off he was saying, " Fishy, I've been thinking it sure would be great if you'd make us some of those sweet, juicy, baby back ribs for the Game"

 "Really?
That's so ordinary I thought this year we'd celebrate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

So now you know. 

Our theme this week is 

Menu

Epiphany Blessings!

This year in the deep South, the  twelfth day of Christmas will  be accompanied  by a mammoth Winter storm dropping temperatures into the single digits.

There is much preparing. Folks are stocking up on firewood, kerosene, propane, charcoal, matches and sterno. There is concern ice will down power  lines and leave families at risk with no means for warmth.

Even at the Pond we went out to fetch home some essentials.  We were out of winter suet cakes for the wild birds which spend the cold season with us. It will be too cold for most of them but we hope they will find a good place to survive the freeze.  We are trying to help.

 This morning there was a war with bully squirrels trying to oust a mother bird from her good, dry, tree hole. I came  rushing inside to ask Blowfish to help with bb gun, rocks, whatever was at hand to protect the Dove who was crying out for mercy. A Dove. On Epiphany Eve, trying to find a safe place to nest. Blowfish shook his head at my foolish hope to avert the dark side of nature. One nesting bird against a gang of four determined squirrels? Back outside  I yelled, I threw stones, I shook my fist at the squirrels and then I came inside to grab a bag of trail mix to scatter up the driveway in hopes of luring them away from Dove.

Sigh.

All three of our Christmas trees are still up, lights shining morning and night when we are home. We always leave our halls decked and our trees lighted through Epiphany. We are in the minority as most families now put their trees up earlier and take them down sooner.
I find it odd that a Christian calendar is no longer followed in celebrating Christmas.  We saw several discarded trees along the side of the road this morning on our way to fetch suet. I thought, " It's so close, you could have made it!".  Sometimes the rush to pack away and end the Christmas season seems greater than the rush to prepare for the celebration of Christ.

Why?

Once, years ago I rode a camel at the zoo in New Orleans. It was not my favorite experience. I certainly would not want to travel by camel over rough terrain for twelve days and nights. As did the three kings. The wise men. Who prepared  to accept a messiah. Bearing gifts they traversed afar.
They followed a star to guide them to His perfect Light. They prepared and pursued.

 On camels!

I have a cookbook my sister gave me long years ago. It follows the Catholic calendar with traditional recipes for various feast days or  celebrations of saints. The recipes hail from around the globe so there is much diversity of taste and tradition which demonstrates the entire world can get on the same page.

With a little effort. No traversing afar by camel required.

In this book "A Continual Feast" it has a bit of history to accompany the recipes. I was surprised to read the celebration of the Feast of Epiphany, begun in the third century, predates the Feast of Christ's Nativity or Christmas Day, begun in the fourth century. In my childhood, everyone I knew celebrated Epiphany. There were many families who distributed one gift to each child for each of the twelve days  of Christmas. Often with the best gift arriving on Epiphany. Just like the Magi arriving with Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh.  Now? Well let's just say our neighbors joke about how we Fishy's are the last family to take down our traditions. 

Are you  familiar with the tradition of a Kings Cake in honor of the Magi on this 12th day of Christmas?   There are many traditions but most of them include the baking of gifts within the cake. Gold or silver coin or trinkets are incorporated into the batter. The person(s) receiving the gifts in their serving may look forward to an especially blessed year. I wonder if the Southern tradition of adding a lucky dime to the black eyed peas on New Year's Day is borrowed from the King's cake tradition?

No matter.

Whatever the traditions of

 Christmas , 

New Year  

or 

Epiphany 

you celebrate.

May you be joyful

May you be healthy

May you be prepared

May you celebrate life's many blessings

Merry Christmas Joy to All

No Justice

A while back Blowfish had his semi-annual visit to his primary doc. Yes, he has reached the phase of life where he has a primary and some specialists too.  Generally the exams are routine, sometimes they want to take a closer look at a skin irregularity but mostly it's about keeping tabs on his general well being and prescription renewals.

The last trip was a little different.

Doc came into the room and told Blowfish straight away his Toledo results were unsatisfactory. 

"Toledo results?"

" Those scales speak your reality my friend. You weigh too much for a man  with five coronary artery stents and a pacemaker. A nutrition and lifestyle change is in order. Start today."

Of course, this is all hearsay. I do not go to these appointments with Blowfish. I did  back in the days when Blowfish was in the CCU every three months with the digital skull flashing on the monitors and the cardiac nurses applying all their skills and prayers.  The thing is Blowfish is not very good about providing the docs with usable information. Some years back, when he was too ill to take himself to the docs, I would take him. Sometimes in utter frustration the docs would ask me about my observations and opinions of the man. Medically speaking. As it turns out I am a pretty keen observer and, on occasion, my commentary led to testing which identified crucial issues. 

This irritated the whey out of Blowfish. 

To make matters worse a couple of these docs annoyed him beyond all measure when they told him he should not come to his appointments without me. That actually was a trigger for him banning me from coming with him. When I asked him if he really wanted to make that decision his answer was emphatic.

"You can talk to my docs when I am unconscious or dead. It is not RIGHT for MY doctors to listen to you more than me."

"The thing is they are just trying to find every available tool to save your life. It just so happens they ask for my observations because I live with you and may be able to provide useful data."

" They can ask me!"

" Well they have and this has not  been successful.  They ask what is wrong and you tell them if you knew the answer to that question you would not be paying them! If they ask how you are feeling you say 'bad', if they ask if there is any change you say 'huh?'  You don't actually give them any information which will help them treat you!"  

So, it was a couple of days after his appointment when I encountered him in the Kitchen reading a food label. A first time event in the 35 years I have known the man. The look on his face and the label in his hand made me break into uncontrolled  laughter. Had justice finally shown up at the Pond? Did the man with the magic metabolism actually need to  pay attention to his intake for the first time in his life? I cannot tell you the number of times I have sat across a table from this man watching him work his way through a 10,000 calorie meal washed down with a bottle of Merlot  while I had water with lemon and an undressed lettuce leaf. 

Guess who has always been slim and guess who has not?

He had a brief problem back when he hit 55. He started to add weight which he did not find

acceptable. Since he had never dealt with this reality before, having to do so made him extremely cranky. Even his students and fellow faculty members wondered what happened to the good natured fellow they knew and enjoyed. That was in public, at home "cranky" was an understatement. The man was unhappy. His whole life he had loved and enjoyed food far more than most people. He did not want to be fat and he did not want to give up the exciting and comforting experience food represented in his life. It sounds comical but in truth the man was suffering with what was for him, a life changing event. I did a bit of research and convinced Blowfish to try the Hilton Head Metabolism Diet which was hailed to be THE way to invigorate a stalled metabolism.  He agreed I could do this for him. It changed us all;  Blowfish happily returned to unrestrained food consumption, Mermaid got too thin and I gained 7 pounds.  

Blowfish received his amazing metabolism from his mother. A tiny woman who kept her apron pockets full of Snickers bars which she ate hourly to keep from becoming too thin. For her it was a great choice, "a little protein for the long haul from the peanuts, a little sugar for the quick energy burst and a little chocolate for the pure pleasure of it" was her frequent refrain. Her bad cholesterol was over 400 but she had no cardiac or circulatory issues. Go figure. I should have never married this family.

I digress. On the day I found Blowfish reading a nutrition label we went to lunch at his favorite Steakhouse Saloon.  It's one of those places that puts a bucket of roasted peanuts on the table along with the menus and a basket of just out of the oven , steaming hot yeast rolls and half a pound of whipped honey-butter.  On this day, instead of ordering his usual ribeye steak sandwich on a ginormous hoagie roll with onion rings, fries, slaw and dessert he heaved a big sigh and ordered a salad. While munching his way through a  thousand calories of peanuts, butter and yeast he shared his dissatisfaction about his most recent trip to his primary. He bemoaned the  "cruelty" of this new  reality and how he was going to put

 

this behind him by getting this extra weight dispatched immediately. I smiled and encouraged him and did not mention the calories he was consuming. Eventually his salad arrived with a mound of shrimp, a mound of steak, a mound of ham, a mound of cheese and a couple of eggs, tomatoes, onions and olives all of which was drowned in a cup of high fat, high calorie, high sodium Roquefort dressing.  He always asks his servers to "dig deep" when ladling out the dressing. They find it charming. I get queasy.

When he finished this "lite" lunch washed down with a gallon of sweet tea he said, " Well, I hope this will hold me 'til dinner. But even if it doesn't I will just suffer though because I do not want to be a fat man".

" What are you talking about?"

"This salad for lunch. This need to diet"

" That was not a diet lunch Blowfish. That was a 3000 calorie

salad with another 1000 calories of blue cheese on top, not to mention the 1000 calories from the peanuts, rolls and butter!"

                                              "Fishy, your problem is you do not know how to eat." 

When Mermaid heard of her Dad's "dieting" endeavors she rode to his rescue. She told him she started each day with a high protein chocolate Muscle Milk and maybe he should try this. 

"Daddy," she said, "you will love this!  It is like having a milkshake for breakfast, gives you tons of energy and helps maintain muscle mass which burns calories". 

Blowfish did not like the taste of Muscle Milk but we did find a protein drink he does enjoy, Lean Muscle vanilla. It sports 32 grams of protein, 1000 mg of omega three and all the vitamins I could never get this man to take. So he crafted a diet he could live with. He did not eliminate or moderate his usual meals. He added a Lean Muscle to his daily intake as a mid afternoon boost and limited his nightly ice cream intake to just one serving before bed.  He lost 12 pounds. His pants fell to an impolite low. We had to order him a half dozen pairs of slim cowboy cut jeans because all of the in stock jeans were baggy on him.  Now the man struts around preening in his new sveltness. He tells others he does not understand what all the yap is about regarding dieting. He states  with great authority and gravitas that it is very clear if a person sets his or her  mind to a goal it can be obtained with a little research and a lot of discipline.  Right. Mr. Discipline  does not know I fantasize about seeking justice by bashing his mouth shut with a quart jar of Roquefort.

The Vision of Self

I've been having one of those weeks which leads to contemplation about self perception. Over the weekend  I was at Mermaids's helping to replant window boxes and containers for the Autumnal season. Once, when I looked up from my happy duties  I saw she was preoccupied with her phone.
" Tell me you did not just take my picture!"
" I did".
"Well then please discard it. I wish for there to be no recordings of me half covered in mud with my nose down and my fanny high."
" I won't be doing that. I want a record of this day of us together. Doing simple things with happy hearts."
"Hit the trash icon! There is a reason God gave us memories and not cameras."

I suspect mud dauber mother is still in her phone gallery. Sigh.

I am one who has never been fond of being a photographers subject. In fact my record for missing picture day at school was positively stellar. I am certain no picture of me exists in my high school yearbook. There was a reason I was on the yearbook committee. In the box of photos my mother kept under her bed there were many of me with tear stained face from being forced against my will to be in a staged photograph. I disliked those only slightly more than the ones of my mouth cranked open to the max for a drooling anticipated bite of real fried chicken. I still feel the horror of those images.

I have, on occasion, wondered if my dislike of images of me stems from an inability to accept reality or just the fact most of us have an image of self which differs greatly from how others, or cameras, see us. If we accept how we "see" is more than visual then  this makes sense. We see ourselves from inside out not outside in. When we do "see" ourselves it is either reversed in a reflection which brings a degree of distortion or, in a photograph which often does not showcase the person within so how can it actually portray us?

A phone call with a friend on Monday went like this,
"Dear God Fishy! Pictures of me from this weekend tells it all. I am now an old hag"
Since I am a decade older than this self declared "hag" I could sympathize. A little. Not a lot since
I was pretty sure no one had taken a picture of her in the classic old mother in the garden stance.

"Well, don't obsess about it. Here's how this works, you get old or you get dead."
To me, this friend lamenting her "decline" is not in decline! I know her to be a smart, beautiful, vibrant woman. Is there some character showing on her? Sure, but this is not how I see or perceive or value her. I hope the image of her from a picture does not negatively effect her vision of self.

There are however days when I succumb to  self criticism because of
the "character" showing on me. On these days I sometimes think there is

an argument for Muslim women having an advantage.
On those days I think being swathed in dark yardage would be great. I could go forth and none could recognize that bundle of cloth and veiling as me. There is a certain freedom in being able to go forth as the "unseen"!

On Tuesday I went for my scheduled haircut.
I was Aimee's first appointment of the day. I was there by 10, she was not. I did not mind since Ted makes a great mimosa. Aimee has a son who is two who does not like shoes. His daycare program requires shoes so his mother  is often delayed,  arriving  frazzled and  apologetic. On Tuesday she was so frazzled she misplaced her mute button.
"What happened to you?"
"Me?"
"Yes you! What happened to your hair?" As she was asking she began picking through my hair like she was a monkey looking for nits. We were in the  reception room  with an audience. I turned to Ted and asked him to make a mimosa for Aimee too. Clearly she needed one. Before he could respond she was saying,
"Up! Get up Fishy! This is horrible!"
I sort of got the impression she did not want to be in her reception room with me because it might be bad for her reputation. While being hustled out of there I wondered if I looked as bad as her response indicated? How did I miss that? Was it my perception that was off ? Or was Aimees?

Once we reached her station she continued her inspection, mumbling to herself and looking very disgruntled. Eventually she took in  a steadying breath and said,
"Well we best get busy".
We headed off to the wash stations where she used an inordinate amount of "product" while maintaining a running commentary on the state of my appearance. It was about as bad as one of those photographs. While she was still thumping my head around on the sink notch I said,
"Really Aimee? Do you think the day will never come when more than your hair is dehydrated and grizzled too?"
She did not even pause for thought before saying, "No!"

I understood.
One of the pictures I do leave on my dresser is one of Mermaid and I when she was two. I am sure on the day that photograph was taken I was not thinking one day  my waist length, lustrous,  thick, curly,chestnut hair would be the frizzed, broken stranded, wiry  halo typical  on  apple dolls.

In truth my hair is, according to Aimee, only at the 30% gray stage. But, it has a tendency to overwhelm the remaining 70%. Since  I am sensitive to chemicals and my hair grows fast I do not color it. I do add a clear glaze made for  brunettes to make the remaining brunette hairs look richer.
Sadly, there is no "glaze" for my also aging face. Reality on this day was tough since back at the styling station I was swiveled 'round and 'round for numerous views of my decline. Even after all of Aimees talents being applied to my appearance I left there wishing I had indulged in another mimosa to soften the impact of reality.

On my way home I gave thought to the concept of beauty. In the salon there had been books of hairstyles. There was even a section on "mature styles". I had flipped through these while awaiting Aimee's arrival. Some where candid photographs of the glitterati.

This one caught my eye.

I do not know Vanessa Redgrave's current age but I thought it wonderful her hair looked more natural than processed. I also had wondered if  she still felt like Guinevere? Or really, just herself. The herself of her own perception not the self of that photo. What if she had hated that particular image and it was in salons around the world? How awful for her. I found myself wondering if we all still have our own "Guinevere" within or if time and wisdom had slowly eliminated our true selves? I pray not!

This Issadora cover is probably more famous than all the "Guinevere" photographs of Redgrave.
It is beautiful. She is beautiful. I sincerely hope she feels as wonderful today as she did on the day of this photograph. The Vanessa within has seen a lot of life; some good, some horrid, some mundane.
As do we all. But do we all remain ourselves to ourselves for ourselves with love?

Maybe not.

There are days when  I suffer a severe jolt when I pass by a mirror. Once, in a sort of reverse Peter Pan moment I thought " Dear God! Is that shadow really me?" I certainly was not elated to the point I wanted to dance with my shadow. There are other days where I feel like "me" which usually means I am pleased with whatever creative challenge I am pursuing. On those days I am doubly surprised the confident, eager, energetic, happy me of my thirties is no longer who I am on the outside. On the days when all of me hurts from one misery or another I think,"Damn! Hagatha is back!" So I have come to understand the self that is my perception of me is not about my physical self. In truth it never has been. I will admit I had my day in the sun on that measure but it was never my measuring stick. Now? When I am confronted with that me I am shocked. Does this mean I actually have kept my "Guinevere"? Does this mean I succeeded by the terms of my own measuring stick?

Or does this just mean I  am in full retreat from reality?

Often friends or clients will make comments which confirm their perception and my perception of me are not on the same page. Recently one said, "I wish I had your confidence".  I discounted this as not being valid because her reference was about me "the designer" not "me Fishy". Like all of us I have areas of confidence and areas of no confidence. For instance, I cannot do math. Arithmatic, certainly. Math? Just say the word and I become jello!  It is comforting to know my areas of "no confidence" are not usually visible to others. I am reminded of the song lyrics from The King and I. The 1956 version with Yul Brenner and Deborah Kerr.

" Whenever I feel afraid

I hold myself erect

and whistle a happy tune

so no one would suspect

I'm afraid"

In a later stanza:

"The results of this deception

are very plain to tell

for when I fool

the people I fear

I fool myself as well"

When I was a design student I did a summer internship with a Frank Lloyd Wright disciple who had earned his architectural education at Taliesen West. He was exacting, impossible to please. There was many a day where I had to take a time out as I struggled to not see myself as something lower than a cockroach. Before starting the internship I had been so proud to be the chosen one! I was reeling with the excitement of the opportunity. To have been chosen to learn from one of the "greats" in our region. By the second week in Hell with this "great" I was singing those lyrics on the way there every morning and crying all the way home at the end of the day.  It was brutal. A daily struggle to make it through his scathing rants. While he would be spewing oui vicious versions of his take on me I would be silently reminding myself I was a talented, 4.0 scholarship winning honor student at our nations number one school for art and design and this man was not going to take that from me. Some days I won that silent battle, some days I lost. At the end of the 4 month long internship he told me I was the only architecture or design student  who had ever lasted an entire Summer. That now I was probably going to be tough enough to "make it" in a field fraught with difficulties thanks to him.  I hit him. With all my might. A right punch to his left bicep which he did not even feel but which  made me feel a lot better.

The following Summer I did not accept his invitation to return. The following year I declined  his job offer upon graduation. I could never have withstood the onslaught of those daily rants.

 I learned so much that Summer! The most important thing I learned was not about design or architecture. It was about me. That internship forced me to be the "me" of my own perceptions or be the "me" he projected onto me. That was the Summer I learned  to protect and defend my core self . Perhaps it was the Summer I found the grit my friend  describes as "confidence".

I know this now.

 Facing "Hagatha" in shadows, photographs , mirrors, daily realities and perceptions takes grit.

 I read somewhere your true vision of yourself is the one your mind shows you in your dreams.

 For years I wanted to look like my beautiful mother. 

I don't.

 I never did.

 But when she looked like this

 I dreamed of one day having those perfect cheekbones!