My Health Insurance

My health insurance dropped me last year after my husband switched to Medicare. The company continued to cash my premiums however, so I had no idea that my coverage had expired. It wasn’t until I logged in and found that my account had been suspended that I realized what had happened. After weeks of emails, numerous meetings and a host of managers I was finally reinstated with a new account and number, losing all of the year’s deductible fulfillment in the process.

The powers that be called my situation a “glitch” in the system and in no way apologized for the lack of communication not to mention coverage. In the worst case scenario, customer service assured me, I would have been reimbursed for any charges after I was reinstated.

Oh, sure they would have.

This “glitch” plus the fact that the insurance company couldn’t update my correct address in four years of trying to get it changed has not inspired my confidence in this system or any other. After years of paying thousands for private health insurance, I have no more satisfaction in my quality of medical care than I did as a poor grad student with a meager healthcare program provided through the university. In fact, my student health coverage forty years ago was far better than what I have now.

So after this recent debacle I’ve decided to take my health into my own hands, leading me to my stomach — or rather my diet. I feel that the best insurance comes from investing in good quality food, preferably sourced close to home. This year I’m dedicated to growing my own health security by providing a continuous supply of greens. Salads make up a big part of my daily lunches and the organic ingredients I crave cost a small fortune in the stores.

Timing is everything, of course, so I will have to keep sowing a new crop every month and be vigilant about harvesting before the cool weather crops bolt. Protection from hungry varmints is ongoing since we have a new groundhog in town with a taste for leafy greens. But all this time and effort will be worth it if I can keep the doctor (and the sickness) away. Investing in my own food gives me better health and a little sense of security in this increasingly insecure world.

At least I know my correct address.

Into Focus

My 2023 Year of Healing draws to a close with good results, I’m happy to report. I managed to avoid anything contagious this year, and actually improved some of my chronic conditions. Along the way I learned a few tips. First, when you are stressed to your limits your body will let you know. Listen to it. Second, be open to new treatments and approaches while trusting your intuition to find what you need. It’s remarkably accurate. Third, choose balance in all things. Just because you overdo it occasionally doesn’t mean all is lost. Be kind to yourself over your human frailties. An extra piece of pie won’t kill you, as long as it’s not every day (and is gluten-free).

The completion of my 12-year socks and a couple of daily art challenges this year has encouraged my self-esteem enough to venture into uncharted territory. All my life, I’ve had difficulty completing projects and establishing a daily regimen. Now, with a calmer perspective and a healthy lack of chaos in my life I caste my eye about my surroundings for other specters of incompletion such as the scrapbook patiently waiting to be filled with my daughter’s childhood art, abandoned journals hiding furtively about the house, boxes of art supplies languishing in the basement not to mention various blank canvases crying out for paint. And of course, there are the many beautiful books barely begun and left to dust on bookshelves.

The problem is that I tend to get distracted easily (Squirrel!!!!!!!) and start too many projects. And I’ve only mentioned some of the indoor work that would be best to finish this winter. When spring comes, you gardeners know all too well that work never ends until the yard is frozen solid which in my area doesn’t happen until January. Harvesting, preserving and planning for next year then rear their little green heads demanding attention before I break ground in a few months.

So what does all this background demand for 2024? Lists. Organization. Daily practice. And most important, forgiveness. Perfection must take a backseat to good enough. And if the project no longer gives me joy or serves a purpose other than finishing it, I must let it go. Combine that with the ongoing routine of good diet, moderate exercise, plenty of sleep and the right pair of reading glasses, I have much to FOCUS on in 2024, which is my word for the year.

So, if you come upon me staring down at a patch of dirt next year mumbling to myself, or covered in glue amid a mess of paper, know that I am putting my word into practice.

I wish you peace, health and happiness in the New Year, my friends.

Sweet September

As the Super Harvest Moon continues to cast its powerful spell across the land, I find giddy satisfaction in harvesting and storing this summer’s bounty by freezer, fridge and shelf. My garden won’t be stopped by cooler nights and drier days. The tomatoes, peppers and green beans refuse to quit while carrots and sweet potatoes wait in the wings for their debut. The asters, boneset, white snakeroot, goldenrod, cosmos and zinnias shine in their glory this fall among the summer flowers that hold on, refusing to let go.

As bad as last September was for me and my health issues, I marvel at how much difference a year makes. I have enough energy to walk seven miles in one day and work in my gardens daily while making plans for next year. Since January, I’ve traveled, attended workshops and taken full advantage of my city’s public transportation. Even though I still avoid crowded indoor spaces, I really enjoy the outdoor fairs and community events that enrich my life after a three-year hiatus.

So far my Year of Healing has been a success, in part because I’m grateful for the simple little things — from an effortless stroll around my neighborhood to a scenic drive among the local rolling hills. The pandemic has changed so many aspects but I’m not going to let it restrict the rest of my life. I must admit that my physical minimalism has slipped a notch (gardening, food preservation and heating with wood have necessitated some accumulation). But what hasn’t changed is my commitment to letting go of the emotional and spiritual junk that no longer serves me, the self-destructive and limiting notions that keep me from living my best life.

I let go and let live to the bugs and weeds and unconscious comments made by the self-absorbed. Instead, I take time for sweet bird songs, chipmunk’s chit, a deer’s soft graze, buzzing bees in my backyard, and the inner light’s bloom of a Japanese morning glory.

Time to savor the sweet nectar of autumn.

The Magic Door

The door to our home’s crawl space may seem ordinary, but I’d like to think there is a magical world inside, one that I travel to at night in my dreams. When I enter this land, the colors are brighter and the air fresher, plants and animals glow with vibrant life and while there I carry no physical maladies. A sense of peace walks beside me as I travel without fear of what lies ahead. I look forward to the surprises I encounter rather than dread them while time has no pace there.

In some ways I have never left that enchanted land when morning comes. A year ago, I was in a very different space. Even before contracting Covid, my body was already overreacting to the environment and my mental outlook was full of dark dangers lurking in every outing and outside contact. I functioned in crisis mode and expected only the bad. Any glitch was the biggest calamity ever.

When the bottom fell out last summer and I struggled to get through one day at a time, I couldn’t imagine anything feeling normal again. All I saw was the worst case scenario and nobody could reassure me that everything would be all right. The most tragic part of all was that I lost faith in myself and my ability to heal and move on. I was lost forever in a dark kingdom where life was dull and lackluster.

Slowly but surely, I found my way. Through the helpful advice of healers along the path, the support of friends and family who stayed by my side and the restorative powers I found in nature, my world began to brighten and expand. My body started to respond to treatment and my mind focused on the positive again.

As I come up on the one-year anniversary of my illness last June and the changes that came from that journey, I open the door to my house every day, wandering around in wonder at the bright flowers and vibrant gardens that have continued to flourish with and without my help. I marvel at the abundant wildlife that chooses my little yard for their homes and allows me to witness their cycles, the feeding, mating, births, struggles and even the endings.

I am grateful every day for the magical moments I live in.

Peace in Pieces

I must say my word for 2022 took interesting twists and turns. “Peace” did not come easily this year while war, social turmoil, health issues and brutal weather events attempted to disrupt any gains I made in my inner and outer work. In overcoming the challenges and setbacks during these past months, I found occasional moments of serenity more precious than gold. Life’s chaos taught me that achieving peace is a state of mind first, and then the rest will follow.

Looking back, I feel like the first half of the year was spent under pressure, hurrying from project to project as we began to venture out of our quarantines. After two years of staying put with good excuses not to make any real plans, the starting gate was flung open and suddenly there were deadlines and invitations and expectations. Although I told myself that life had changed, I fell back into the old patterns and mindset all too quickly, thinking that we were guaranteed good health after taking all the prescribed steps. But vaccinations and wishful thinking don’t prevent infection, and the wily virus knocked my legs out from under me and sent me to bed, for months.

During the long, sleepless nights, I had plenty of time for review. It seems like the Universe is determined to give me a chance to see the error of my ways, namely that I am always ignoring chronic health issues that won’t just go away on their own. I had to make some conscious decisions to find healthcare that worked for me instead of settling for systems chosen by my insurance company. Going off of the conventional path to discover lifestyle alternatives seemed scary at first, but I followed my intuition and knew in my heart that my healing couldn’t just come from a pill. I had to educate myself first and then pay attention to how my body reacts to remedies.

Ultimately the greatest healer was time. And in a period of gestation that couldn’t be rushed, I found peace. Regardless of what was going on around me, when I needed to rest I would rest. When I needed to eat then a snack was in order no matter the hour. I began to chart my body’s functions like a mother does with a newborn, and I needed to establish a routine that would accommodate my medicine, supplements, exercise, nutrition and sleep patterns. I discovered that audio books were a marvelous way to fall asleep and that certain voices lulled me off to dreamland like a little child.

In childlike surrender I found the peace of taking one day at a time. Each day would be unique, with different symptoms and patterns. It was a bit like a big puzzle, and I found that when I stopped thinking about the causes so much, the simple solutions would come to me. I had to let go of the anger and blame I held toward the conventional healthcare system and providers who didn’t care or were too rushed to listen. And finally, when I stopped depending on others to fix me and took the reigns for my own life decisions, I found peace of mind. Like Dorothy in Oz I’d had the ability to reach this place all along; I just needed to try.

So I say goodbye to 2022 a little older, wiser, stronger and at peace. And I wish you peace as well as we enter a New Year.

To Begin at the Ending

The last two months have been all about reemergence. Because of the unusually mild fall weather (even after a killer frost) I was able to enjoy a few extra weeks of gardening after months of indoor confinement. As my energy and strength returned I could venture out for longer sessions of weeding, planting bulbs and harvesting the survivors of summer’s heat and drought. The decent sweet potato yield was surprising because you never know what is going on underneath those leafy canopies until the vines die back.

Like the shaggy squirrels frantically scurrying about with their nuts, we tucked away the garlic, carrots and potatoes in cool storage, covered cool season greens with cold frames and even brought in the houseplants expelled this summer when my immune system couldn’t tolerate soil molds and fungus indoors. I’m very happy to be surrounded by my green friends again, although not as many as last year. I said goodbye until next year to the annuals that would have a hard time in our dark bungalow now equipped with a little wood stove that will provide additional warmth but very dry air this winter.

The lesson I learned from my return to the garden was that life goes on despite an absence. Perhaps my importance and sense of control have been illusions after all. The flowers and vegetables that were healthy and established carried on and those that were weak and needed to be babied probably weren’t going to survive anyway. Nature has a way of doing just fine without my help with the design, it seems. As I sat in recuperation through the summer, I experienced a hit to the ego knowing how little my presence made a real difference to the world I had created.

What I found instead, as I surfaced from dark interiors into golden autumn rays was the welcome physical sensation of interacting with the retiring landscape again, to ground in spent garden beds while admiring seed heads ready to fly away toward their next reincarnations. I realized that what’s important is not tidy vegetable beds, plentiful harvests or pristine flower borders, but the immersion back into nature even when you are a little late to the party. And nature welcomes you back just the same.

Like the bounty of sweet orange tubers revealed after loss of the vine, chronic illness can strip away petty perfectionism and shallow surface adornment to reveal what has been incubating below on a level that can only be felt as I return to a world that I no longer take for granted. To be reborn into the end of a season is truly a gift.

Blooming Where Planted

These asters are pinker than the typical bluer blooms.

After weeks of drought, September’s rains finally arrived long enough to give the sugar maples their first blush. The temperatures dropped in time to provide plenty of dew for bejeweling the spiders’ webs that decorated undisturbed corners of my forgotten gardens. New England asters that made themselves at home in my garden last year bloomed right on time. And gradually, very gradually I have begun to feel better.

What this long haul has taught me is to appreciate the positive and to count on a completely different set of symptoms tomorrow. When a system like mine is driven by a crazily capricious autoimmune pilot, life becomes a lesson in impermanence. Just when I think I’ve sent one unpleasant condition packing, here it comes again like the rejected suitor who refuses to take “no” for an answer. Fortunately, each time they return, they are less enthusiastic than the last time. And each time, I am fortified with better armament.

Even though my time outside is limited, I try to walk every day and take a moment to visit the flowers on my porches and vegetables in the gardens. The fact that they’ve carried on without me with only minimal effort from my husband is both humbling and comforting. We gardeners sometimes think we are indispensable with our planting guides and to-do lists, but Nature always has the final say in that regard. There have been many happy accidents and appearances that would not have occurred if I’d been diligent with weeding and pruning.

The volunteer asters mentioned above have flourished this year in particular, with multitudes of black-eyed Susans and ironweed popping up in unexpected places. An entire army of Autumn Beauty sunflowers came up from one little tortured survivor last year, and lined our driveway to the delight of the goldfinches. A month ago I found an Ageratina altissima, the notorious white snakeroot that led to Nancy Hanks Lincoln’s premature death, perkily blooming amidst my butterfly weed. I welcomed the sight since it is a beneficial native for pollinators despite its bad reputation.

There is still a long road to health, but through a slow summer and beginning autumn I have learned to let go of expectations, worry and control (mostly). There is peace (this year’s Word) to be found in a good night’s sleep, negative lab results, a beautiful chrysanthemum from a neighbor or visit from the occasional fluttering monarch. Finding a new flower friend in the mess and chaos of the world is a sign that confirms my efforts to be happy where I am in the moment.

Healing Harvest

Healthy greens from my garden are helping my recovery.

I won’t sugarcoat these past two months. While my husband has finally recovered, I have been overwhelmed by a virus that is unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my body before. Whether it remains like an unwelcome guest when the pantry has been raided bare or the specter of some mutation that has found my bodily hospitality irresistible, I have been made aware of its presence every day for weeks, often incapacitating me for days at a time.

I had falsely presumed that I was pretty healthy and protected going into the infection, but apparently my longstanding autoimmune issues and poor digestion that I’d been skirting around for years provided the perfect playground for viral monsters to enjoy. Women over sixty seem to be the likely age group that the virus likes to target for the long haul. Nearly all my symptoms are reported by others in the same boat, and there doesn’t seem to be anything that western medicine can do for us except treat the symptoms. Inflammation that moves around constantly, multiple infections, anxiety attacks, environmental sensitivities, neurological issues, insomnia and depression are all part of the welcome package, unfortunately.

There have been days when I want to give up as OTC meds and prescriptions fail or cause bad side effects. I have always been very sensitive to chemicals so this health journey has been an exercise in frustration. But not treating symptoms wasn’t an option, either. On the other hand, I am lucky because all my tests have come back normal with the exception of high blood sugar, which I was probably on the way to developing anyway but the virus kicked the pre-diabetes up a notch.

In fact, all the symptoms are issues I’ve dealt with at some time in my life, from very young (ear infection) to recent (food intolerances). My immune system has gone haywire from overreacting to innocent foods and environmental conditions, only making the symptoms worse. In eliminating the histamine triggers to buy some time for recovery, I’ve had to drastically remove many products from my life, eat a very restricted clean diet, and restrict activities including work in my beloved garden. In essence, I’m basically starting over and this is an opportunity for rebirth. I really have no choice in the matter because I can’t return to the old habits and diet. My body won’t let me.

But even on my darkest days, I’ve finally recognized the need to address the trauma from my past so that it does not dictate my future. Part of what is holding my healing back is the extreme flight-or-fight response of an inner child who never felt safe and can override any of my adult reasoning. Until I acknowledge the emotional and psychological steps in my recovery, the progress will be very slow. I’ve learned the hard way that relying on medicine alone to address my illness is just a bandaid to the underlying conditions that led me to this dramatic shift in my life. Wholistic treatments and counseling need to be a part of my recovery plan as well because building back my whole health is more important than almost anything else, and well worth my time and resources.

Seeing this situation as a lesson rather than punishment is a good first step as we enter September and the cooler breezes of autumn. May I be able to reap a healthy harvest in my efforts to heal.

Being Idle

After a fortunate two years, the dreaded illness finally entered our house in June after my husband’s business trip. And while we both managed to stay out of the hospital and recover from our initial symptoms, other lingering problems require us to rest and recuperate, a state of being neither of us has the patience for. With flower and vegetable gardens in full swing during a drought, the timing couldn’t be worse.

The fatigue they always talk about is real, requiring us to take turns with the yard duties depending on who has the energy or not. Either way, by high noon, we are relegated to sitting on the patio and watching plants and wildlife do their thing, whether we approve or not. This inactivity has become an exercise in Zen meditation, where nothing is good or bad, it just is. We are too tired to intervene.

Among our observations I’m sad to say that there are fewer pollinators at our house this year, although the lightening bugs are back in force rising up like little satellites of hope at dusk. On a positive note, wrens have finally built a nest in the wren house I put up that sat empty last year. And the bluebirds are back, always a symbol of happiness when they flash their beautiful blues. The rabbits have been quite brazen this year, particularly a buck we call Bad Bunny who was with us last summer. We know it’s still him because he’ll come right up to you, arrogantly munching our clover with a look that says “Yeah, so what are you going to do about it?”

Friends and neighbors have been very kind to us during quarantine, offering to bring us food and run errands. For the most part, we enjoy staying home and sitting out in our garden, comforted by the sense of community offered and counting ourselves lucky even though June hasn’t been the happiest of months.

The bluebirds are here to remind us that joy can still be found if you are waiting for it.

Fleet of Foot

The young bucks showed up during local hunting season at our house, leisurely strolling among the rows of bungalows acting like our little urban neighborhood close to downtown was some enchanted clapboard forest. But don’t be fooled — they are alert, wily fellows who are always on the lookout for the flash of a florescent orange hat or glint of gun metal, ready at a moment’s notice for a quick change of plans into the brambly unknown. And I’ve been right there with them this year, veering and leaping away from looming fear and uncertainty that still hunt for the vulnerable in dark shadows.

After the vaccinations, we thought we could venture out into the bright open meadows, that plague season was almost over. The news was optimistic, and we held on to those rescheduled concert tickets instead of asking for refunds. Herd immunity was within our grasp, and the seeds of future plans were planted. By midsummer, there was a faint scent of danger on the breeze but close-to-normal outdoor gatherings and events led us to believe that we were still cautiously protected as we brazenly shopped in stores barefaced.

By fall, we were masked again, waiting for boosters, forfeiting the tickets to shows that blindly continued to go on, and debated whether to gather in large numbers for our annual rituals. Last-minute decisions and changes in venue were woven into the run of our days as we tried to anticipate the hunt’s next move. At Thanksgiving we were back to zooming our greetings from afar.

Now at the turn of the year, I find that my trail has circled back to the same trap. My escapes have all been discovered and cover exposed. The herd has dispersed into separate ways, and we may not meet again. I walk into the darkest months with tools I have honed, senses sharpened, prepared to spin into new directions. As I watch the buck boys bedded down in our backyard with their antlers blended into branches, they return my gaze telling me that they know I’m there and the worst mistake in life is to become complacent.

Here’s to safer sojourns and greener pastures in 2022.