Eat a Rainbow

Now that cooler temperatures are here, I can’t help thinking of the coming winter. I dread the frigid temperatures, but I no longer have to worry about the depressions I used to get, because I discovered a way to minimize the effects. I steep myself in color, using bright comforters and afghans, set out large bouquets of silk flowers, and spend time outside to get the benefit of the natural full spectrum light. But mostly I eat a rainbow every day.

Eat a rainbow? Impossible, you’re thinking. But what is a rainbow? Refracted light. Color. Energy. Color is energy, so by eating color we eat the color’s energy. And the best way to eat a rainbow to eat a salad. Not a few wimpy iceberg lettuce leaves with a few croutons sprinkled on top, but a robust salad full of color and life and energy.

Edible Rainbow:

Red: tomatoes, radishes, red bell pepper
Orange: carrots, orange bell pepper
Yellow: yellow squash, yellow bell pepper
Green: leaf lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, green bell pepper, olives, celery, avocado
Purple: red cabbage

Blue is missing, but if you serve your rainbow on a sky blue plate, you will have your rainbow, a rainbow that nourishes the body, nourishes the mind, nourishes the soul.

Purple, Menopause, and You

After menopause, many women begin to favor the color purple. For some, it might be a rebellion against the conformity in dress they had to adhere to during their younger years, for others it represents a move to a more spiritual time in their lives

Purple is associated with spirituality, enlightenment, and transcendence of ordinary reality. As young adults, we all — men and women alike — tend to avoid purple, suggesting a lack of spiritual dimension in our lives. As we get older, our minds turn to thoughts of life and death. What is it all about? What is coming? Did our lives have meaning? And with this new spirituality often comes a fondness for the color purple.

Besides this spiritual aspect, people who like purple are intuitive, imaginative, and highly creative. They have a greater sense of the intangible than most people; they don’t have to see it to believe it. Purple people are easy to live with and hard to know; sometimes their friends don’t even understand them. These characteristics often show up in older people, especially women after menopause. Their families are grown, and they have time to indulge their inner lives. They begin writing that novel they always wanted to write, take up painting or other artistic ventures, read books that help them find the answers to life.

It is this striving for meaning and purpose that gives us an affinity for purple.

There are two faces of purple. When it as on the reddish side, it embraces sensuality; when it is on the bluish side, it embraces spirituality. Trying to balance those opposites is one of the reasons purple people are so enigmatic. Just when someone thinks they have the exciting red side of them figured out, the tranquil blue side colors their lives. It has been said that because of this balance, purple is the ideal color. If so, then purple people are at the pinnacle of life: sensual and spiritual, exciting and tranquil, warm and cool.

So, if after menopause you find yourself gravitating toward purple, embrace it. You earned it.

Hooray For the Red, White, and . . . Purple?

Memorial Day weekend is more than barbecues, hot dogs, and drinking too much cold beer. I know. Came as a shock to me, too. But it’s a time of reflection, of remembering, of thinking about what comes next for us as a country. (Perhaps this article would be more suited to the fourth of July, but by then it could be too late. And anyway, I already wrote it.)

So what does come next? The red, white, and . . . purple.

The colors of our flag came directly from the British. This new country wanted to be separate from the old one, but not too separate. How else to explain our reverence for all things British, especially their nobility? Sir Elton John. Sir Paul McCartney. Right, that nobility.

I have no objection to keeping the red. Red is for passion, and nowhere are we more passionate than in our opinions. Not a bad thing, really. We all have the right to be passionate, no matter how wrong we are.

Nor do I have any objection to the white. White is the color of innocence, of naiveté. I can already see you shaking your head, but it’s the truth. We have the naïve belief that our president is the leader of the free world. Does anyone else but us think that way? Of course not. Ask the French how they feel. Still, that naiveté is part of our charm.

What I do object to is the blue. Blue is the most popular color in our country. Comfortable, calming, soothing, blue gives us a sense of well being and complacency. We talk of change, but what we want is the status quo with a lot more status and a bit less quo.

So what’s the answer? Purple. Purple is a color favored by older women because they have found a higher purpose in their our lives. It is the color of understanding, of quick perception, of keen observation, of wisdom and high ideals. Our country would be a lot better off if it were governed by purple power. By wise old women. (No, I am not endorsing Clinton for president. I said wise old women. What part of wise don’t you understand?)

The only drawback to this plan, is that wise old women are too wise to get involved in politics. But still . . .

Hooray for the red, white, and purple.

Do You Do Squidoo? What Do You Think About It?

Have you ever used Squidoo? I am still new to the internet and am exploring different things to do on the information highway. And perhaps make a little money along the way.

If you have used Squidoo, do you have any suggestions about what to do or what not to do? Is it hard to break in? Do the people who have been around for a while make all the money? Have you used similar websites? Is it possible for the average person to make money on the internet? Is it better to sign up on several sites? If so, which ones?

Melatonin, Menopause, and Insomnia

Recent research indicates that melatonin supplementation is safe, but that except in rare cases such as the blind or nightshift workers, it is not an effective sleep aid. Controlled trials showed no difference between melatonin and placebos. (Isn’t it interesting how placebos work at least in a small way for so many different ailments? Maybe scientists should stop perfecting drugs and start perfecting the placebo. It would be safer, cheaper, and perhaps more effective than many of today’s drugs.)

I found the study interesting because I take melatonin, and it does help me. I suffered from insomnia for many years. I’d toss and turn, sit up and rearrange the pillow, and then toss and turn again. I don’t know if it was the nightly exercise or the lack of sleep that exhausted me, but either way, I was tired all the time. Then I heard about melatonin and decided to try it. To be honest, I took it as an immune system enhancer because I seemed to get more than my share of colds. Interestingly enough, it didn’t help noticeably with my immune system, but I started sleeping better.

Melatonin does not work like a sleeping pill. Basically, it sets the biological clock and lets the body know when it’s time to sleep, which is why it’s good for jet lag. I take it an hour before bed, and it helps me fall sleep, but it does not promote deep sleep. Although I still wake up often, I can lie comfortably and eventually fall back asleep. I would not recommend melatonin in place of a sleeping pill for those who need it, but it does work for me, at least most of the time.

Melatonin is a hormone, and like all hormones, it diminishes with menopause. The decrease in melatonin in turn increases the effects of aging. The body repairs itself during sleep, and if there is not enough sleep, the body can’t repair itself, and so the body ages. And the more the body ages, the more melatonin and all other hormones diminish. The cycle of life.

So, even if melatonin works for me because of the placebo effect, I’ll continue taking it. I need whatever sleep I can get.

 

A New Moon Rising — Again

This morning, before the snow and sleet, it rained; a timorous promise of spring. 

Spring doesn’t speak to me the way it did when I was young. The winds blow away the gentle voices of hope and rebirth, leaving only the harshness of a world struggling to overcome the ravages of winter. But this year, I am looking forward to spring — the winter has been long and bitter, and I feel as if my new life has been on hold.

A friend told me that the worst thing about aging was the people you lost on the way to getting lost yourself. I thought “getting lost” was an apt way of describing the aging process. Everyday, it seems, vital parts disappear or begin to fade out, and you no longer know who you are.

After I went through menopause, I felt as if I were reborn, a new moon rising after the old one had set. Those missing parts no longer seemed to matter; they belonged to someone else, someone I could barely remember. Now that the cocooning winter is almost over, I am again wondering who this new person is, the one I am becoming. In the youth of my old age, in this spring of a new year, I realize that there is still some hope left in me. Perhaps success will still come my way. Perhaps new friends are on the horizon.

Perhaps my moon is still rising.

Do Childless Women Have a Harder Time With Menopause?

I don’t have the answer to the question posed in the title; I was hoping you did. Menopause has been fairly easy for me, but perimenopause (the years preceding menopause) was horrendous. The depression, the painful vaginal itching, the bouts of tears that continued for hours at a time made wonder if nature was punishing me for not having done my genetic duty.

I’m certain the handful of supplements I take every day help with my menopause symptoms, and so does walking, which is a great way balance hormones. Also, once the depression lifted and the tears dried up, I felt so good that anything would have seemed easy by comparison. But the question still rises: is my easy menopause a result of my efforts, or did nature finally realize that I was past child-bearing age and give me a break?

Fat People Deserve Better

The commercials this time of year are even more tiresome and relentless than the Christmas ones. First the bacchanalia, then the dieting. Admittedly, most of us would like be less cushioned, but the simple fact is that diets don’t work except to put money in corporate pockets.

I get tired of all the thin folk who feel as if they have a right to an opinion about the rest of us. They think they know what type of person we are just by looking at us. Sure, some overweight people overeat, but so do some thin ones. Not all thin people got that way by diet and exercise; a great percentage of them are proud of being able to eat whatever they want without gaining weight, forgetting that it’s an unearned genetic gift. And not all overweight people got there by overeating; their weight is also an unearned genetic gift.

I have been sad all my life over my own genetic gift of being short and fat, partly because of the way I look, but mostly because the way I look does not reflect the person I am. I look self-indulgent and lazy, though I am self-disciplined almost to the point of asceticism. I eat properly and exercise, but until menopause, I never lost weight. Nor have I been a regular in a doctor’s office. When I broke my ankle a few weeks ago, that was the first time I had seen a doctor of any kind in more than three decades. (Though I have to admit that has more to do with my dislike of the breed than because I enjoy perfect health.)

I know fat isn’t beautiful, but neither is thin. I remember my disappointment when I first saw nudity in the movies – all those bones jutting out was unsightly to say the least. Whether fat or thin, ninety-nine percent of us aren’t beautiful. In fact, some of those considered to be the most beautiful women in the world are downright unattractive. Dare I say ugly?

Fat is still the one allowable prejudice, perhaps because thin folk believe we brought it on ourselves. I have to grit my teeth every time I see an actor in a fat suit. Blackface is no longer acceptable, and neither should be the mimicking of fat people.

We have our own problems, we don’t need your attitude.

Life is a Pain . . . In the Ankle

I broke my ankle a couple of weeks ago just before my mother’s funeral, and I am still stunned. I have never broken a bone before, so that alone was cause for shock, but the worst of it was the crutches.

I remember seeing, when I was young, other children swinging along on their crutches (a badge of honor or at least of wealth, because most of those broken bones were the result of skiing accidents). I always wondered what it would be like to use crutches, and now I know: defeating, debilitating, depressing.

The emergency room people didn’t adjust the crutches properly, so I was overbalanced and kept falling. Even after they were properly adjusted, I still fell once or twice. It’s amazing I didn’t break the fiberglass cast or even the other ankle.

When I was down, I felt totally helpless, and this feeling of helplessness was exacerbated by my brothers and sisters-in-law trying to pull me to my feet. I understand they wanted, perhaps needed to help, but what I wanted was to be left alone so I could figure out on my own how to lift myself up using only my hands and one leg.

It’s a good thing the hotel where we were staying had a wheelchair, because those crutches totally defeated me, especially when it came time to lift myself up a curb. I could not do it. I do not have great upper body strength – I’ve never been able to do pull-ups or chin-ups — but I have been working out with thirty and forty pound barbells, so I do have some upper body strength. Just not enough.

That first night was rough. I had driven by myself to California for the funeral (which I missed) and I was nine hundred miles from home. I had visions of being stuck in that hotel for six weeks until I healed, because how would I ever be able to get back? I knew the driving part would be okay (love that cruise control!) but what about bathroom breaks and gassing the car?

I was lucky. The next day I went to the bone specialist the emergency room people had suggested, and he took off the fiberglass cast and put me in something called an aircast, which allowed some movement of the foot while keeping the ankle immobile. He also said I could put weight on it as soon as I was able. What a total relief! I still needed the crutches for a few days, but as long as I could use the bad foot for balance, I could get around fine.

I did get home all right, and my ankle is doing better, though it is still painful. What I will never get over is that feeling of total helplessness. As I’m heading into old age, I am afraid this is a feeling I will be meeting again, and I don’t like it. As soon as the ankle is healed, I will resume my walking and weight training. I will continue to take calcium supplements. Though I do not believe my break had anything to do with being newly post-menopausal, I do know that after menopause our bones do weaken, and I want to give myself every benefit I can. Beyond that, I guess I have to just leave it up to the fates.

I learned one other thing — handicap accessible ramps and bathrooms are not all that accessible.

Ouch! Life After Menopause Can be a Pain

I started out this year, my first post-menopausal year, feeling as if I were embarking on a new life. To learn who this reborn person was and to try to change my luck, I did things that in the past I would have shunned, such as entering a writing contest. For a while, I really did think my luck would change: an agent was interested in my book, I had a chance of resurrecting my defunct jewelry business, and I made the semi-finals in the writing contest.

But now? The agent turned down my book with a bland, “Not for me,” nothing has happened with the jewelry business, and I didn’t win the contest. Even worse, I drove nine hundred miles to attend my mother’s funeral, and two hours after I got there, I broke my ankle. Instead of going to her viewing, I went to the emergency room. Instead of going to her funeral, I went to see a bone specialist. Then I had to drive back home with said broken ankle. (Thank heaven for cruise control!)

So was I wrong about being reborn? Perhaps, but I don’t think so. Even with the constant pain of my ankle, I feel a thrum of well-being as if somewhere deep inside hope is singing. The continued adversity simply means that in this new life, as in the old, I have to take one step at a time and try not to pay attention to those who are passing me by.