I read a wonderful stream of consciousness letter I wrote in 2007 and I debate publishing it on the blog instead of writing my memoirs. I'm amazed at the poetic slap-stick off the cuff of my mindflow of those writings and dream of reproducing that energy and wittiness today, four years later. I wonder what drugs were enabling me to write so intensely and creatively and what drugs am I lacking today. I ask myself, what happened Ross? First the poet in you died and then died your memory. I say to myself, Now that was a writer! But he died before he took his second step. How could I write so well those days and not be that writer today? I don't take drugs. I never have. So, what was it that I switched off within myself and why? This is not the subject of this posting I started writing hours ago. But I will be damned if I bore you explaining something absolutely incredible that would not happen in a hundred million other people's lifetimes...
The problem is that I don't like writing about myself. If it feels like a journal writing I freeze and my muscles cramp up. I develop pains in my stomach and I run to the bathroom instead of shitting out my experiences upon the computer in a poetic fashion. There's a torrential rainstorm outside my open window spritzing me with mist or misting me with spritz and instead of enjoying the lightning and thunder within which I was born, I'm looking at the computer screen with pain in my back and my gall bladder burning...
Should I cut this life story short? Leave those few limb hangers hanging? Mónica, Johanna, Anya, Joey, Bürcu, Robert and Chris... David appeared a tolvanera crossing dust planes of my mind approaching the highway dividing the low mountains and dust fields as I travel alta velocidad Guadalajara to Colima and the Pacific coast. Now I'm sneezing uncontrollably upon your mind. Wondering about the coming of and passing of time. How much for the key that unlocks the safe to my own personal memories? Time erases memories erases people erases time. I wish to be that spy spying on my former life. Not in the house of love, for the house of love burned down, a gasoline fire. Not Tita and Pedro in the hay barn as Esquivel writes. My own personal fly on the wall of my forgotten memories. My nose swells. I sniffle back the sneeze. I think of David, Peter and Brian and all the pain one must feel in the attempt towards not feeling more pain. Who must we exclude in order for not being excluded in the end negating ourselves within our own personal exclusion. And an intrusion, a disillusion, is there a solution? a remedy, the prevention of ourselves as that calamity being our only true enemy? Love is just a desire and need as I plead with me to set my mind free. The key that onlocks the door to being. I never forget those lines of high school poetry. But the poem floated upon an updraft and was taken out to sea by Gilmore and Water's Albatross somewhere in the southern Andes. The sneeze left me cryoso, Llorando se fue, and left me, eyes swollen half closed and wondering where do all the unknown artists go. Yo necesito saber... me, my own dangling hair mingling with dust bunnies swept up by another tolvanera dust funnel desert hare crossing my vision coliding with me, the road runner, running to where?
Should I leave you hanging on the side of my nail; Bugs Bunny hanging from a toothpick between the teeth of Paul Bunyon's giant dog Sport... I ask if you truly care. And realize that the only You am I looking back at me in the reflection of my mind. I look at the clock and all I see is time. Check Check Check Check Check Check Check.
During the 3 years we were selling our cupcakes in The Lakes of Xalapa I repeatedly told Margarita and my brother-in-laws, One day a man will appear at our stand. He will take interest in our cupcakes and will want to help us. I don't know if he will help us physically. But he will have the economic means of helping us financially. It was something I firmly believed...
And I became sick and Margarita became concerned and said to Rafael, "I don't know how we will manage this if Ross becomes unavailable..."
And I think about how often I become unavailable to myself.
In the process of learning responsibility in the midst of working 18 hour days, 7 day weeks, all holidays, Mothers, and Motherless fathers and a rooster just did a skip step leg kicking outwards to the side, thankful for the camera I call my eyes, Spooks Day and all saints and spirits, October 31st through November 2nd, 3 days of the Guadalupana terminating on the 12th, December posadas, Christmas, New Years and 3 Kings Days, sharing of King Cakes with little hidden plastic baby dolls. Were you the lucky one breaking your tooth on the baby's head; You'll host the fiesta and supply the tamales, February 2nd Candaleria tamale festivals . San Valentine hit the bull's eye striking my heart and I fell into the lake and cooled myself, a fresh new start mixed with continued concern and preoccupation. What if... it were all for naught. I hadn't met Margarita for leaving her with nothing, not even a dream. So, I wrote my family a letter. A responding correspondence after their so many repeated questions ignoring respuestas of when will Margarita and I finally visit. Me in purgatory. They in heaven, although this is the Garden of Edem of everyone's dreams. I saw the snake. It was within me, it responded to my touch, it slinked inward and slinked outward in my studio apartment Ocean Avenue between Avenue O and Kings Highway. A colostomy incision poorly placed. I witnessed the response and the spitting of the snake.
Do you remember 3rd grade gym class on the play ground or 6th grade off the bus returning home spit in the eye? Had I forgotten about those experiences, my aunts and cousins, my sisters and my mother, brought it back with the back hand slap of their choreographed reply. No one knew that in a few short months time, 3 days beyond the anniversary of my birth, cutting the silence of our lack of truce, my Uncle Henry would die. Coming from God and the spirits, angels floating between the ground and the sky, my father and Harry, a universal sigh. Relief? Please... But a message. And the last conversation manuscript of my failed mentor clasped within the beak of a dove shot off into the sky. I want to help you. But we've gotta think outside of the box. You don't accomplish your goals accusing people of horrendous things even if those things may be true... My first and last hope Uncle Henry was you.
I was surprised. I smiled to myself and I calmed. Life showed its logic and its pureness, cleansing my mind. From the beginning to the end it was my uncle's perfect friend. To mourn his death? or to celebrate his success? No one could have orchestrated a better exit stage left. Carl Henry Nacht, Doctor, Husband and lover, father, younger brother, beloved Uncle and mentor, hero for all, 800 attended his funeral, Cathedral St. John the Divinehttp://gothamist.com/2006/06/27/west_side_bicyc_1.php, how many times had I walked past those steps Amsterdam and 110th years before he and the New York City I had died, a wonderful Austrian cafe/bakery to the left, to the right steps that dropped down into the Harlem park with the racoons around the lily pools at night. Harlem of my dreams, a crimeless crime.
The Elevated took Henry's soul towards the Cloisters, Inwood and his favorite Bronx Pizza. I stand there, my back against the scratched glass of the sliding side door, my hoodlum gangsta hood pulled down towards my eyes, my favorite self-portrait, charcoal black and white floating upon an inundated basement 60 miles outside the most stimulating and preoccupying New York City street and coffee house artist's lonely life... Henry had deamons, fears and phobias and ran daily marathons in his mind in the attempt towards not being grasped by those pursuing him nor by me. Mental illness, obesity, time for thinking about thoughts not desired, below the feet of Hermes, not wings but flames, a 5 alarmclock fire chiming all times of the day. He slept 4 hour nights, his Nikes, Asix, Sauconies at the side of his bed. With one massive gulp on the lower back of his head. Time stopped. Time to rewind the clock. To reconsider who is my true mentor. Who will save us now? And I loved his love for all those black and white Jersey Vermont milking cows. But, truthfully, where were my feet planted and how?
Uncle Henry as I knew him mainly after my father's death until death do we all part for the following journey and grand lesson, the next marathon life experience where we only sleep upon lacking the desire to live our true lives was a calm and soft spoken man of constant movement. At 6am he hopped on his bike to the gym, ate a piece of chocolate cake and downed it with a Coke pumped up for his early morning workout. He rode his bike to his office on West 66th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Avenue one sideskip to Juiliard, one trust fall from Trump Tower. He rode his bike to his in-house patients and to his position as Director of Internal Medicine at St. Lukes Hospital. He was a marathon runner, a weekend soccer player and an assistant soccer coach alongside his friend and 20/20 investigative reporter, John Stossel, when their sons were children and teamates. He rode his bike with his family all over the world and all over the city and had just become an aficionado (what is that word in Inglés?) of rock climbing. Henry detested the idea of entropy, whether it be the mind or the body. One of his fears was that of aging and not being able to be the strong and active man as he knew himself. We called him Dr. Demento for his crazy stories and his entertaining and childish antics. His friends and colleagues probably called him crazy for running the New York Marathon once with a slipped disc in his spine and the other time with a broken bone in his foot, later to call him incredible for finishing the race as he always had finished it... Mulling over the notice of his hospitalization and then semi-immediate death sent to me by my older sister Sheri, I mulled over the situation and realized that life was perfect with all of it's traumas and so-called "tragedies." Henry lived in movement and died in movement on the Hudson River Park bike path. He didn't see it coming. He wasn't wearing a helmut. Mary Beth says that he knew what he was doing. I think she was correct. He knew the least drawn out dying and least painful way of leaving.
After Henry's death, I decided it was time for accepting my life in Mexico, with all the difficulties and seek a way of truly believing in the future I was constructing with Margarita. I had succeeding upon cutting some of the negativity chords, more like steel Brooklyn and Manhattan bridge suspension cables, suspending me in a liminility above a caldron of negativity, the acid vapors burning my nostrils and eyes, connecting me with my extended family and continued the beginning of the process of opening the door to the cell they had placed me in after my father died.
The letter I had written to my family in the early Spring of 2006 was a petition asking everyone if there was a way that they could pool money for a loan enabling us to create a professional bakery in an upper middle-class community where the people would pay the value of our cupcakes. For 2 years middle-class people visited us at our stand in the Lakes and asked us, "where are you located so we can visit you and place orders for fiestas." I responded, "We're here." And they would ask, "What do you mean you're here? Don't you have a bakery we can visit?" The bakery was in our apartment overlooking the Lakes, with a view of the stand. Margarita and I slept in the storage room and Rafael slept infront of the bathroom... They could have visited us there if they wanted... I told them that we were where they were standing; 7 days a week from 9am until 11pm. The wonderful cupcakes weren't wonderful enough. They wanted a prestigious storefront bakery they could enter completing their buying experience. They looked at me as if my cupcakes had just become spoiled and they never returned. This was a repeated experience. Another typical experience was that of being discovered by upper middle-class women. They would exclaim, "Wow! What nice cupcakes! Where do they come from?" and I would reply, "They are my recipes." The women become further interested and say, "You bake them?" and "Where do you come from?" When I tell them that I am from New York, they respond, "You have such a nice way of speaking. Doesn't he? I like your accent! What are you doing here?" I responded Baking, pointing at Margarita I continue, "She is my wife. We prepare these mini pasteles together." With that statement, the women look at Margarita and then look at each other. Their white Mexican faces become gray. They say something less enthusiastic and walk away from the stand. This fantasy of finding a nice wealthy foreignor for their debutant daughters is typical here. They look at Margarita and realize that she isn't one of their people, that she's a campesina, direct lineage to the indigenous Veracruzanos. In their minds, I had dropped my status to the floor. They couldn't understand how I could marry so low. Hence, there must be something wrong with my cupcakes.
I know a middle-aged American man who claims that he is the original Gringo in Xalapa. Roy came to Mexico 40 years ago to study anthropology, met a young woman from a very wealthy family and married her. In November 2004 he invited us to celebrate Thanksgiving in his mini mansion. During the dessert, Roy's wife exclaimed that our product was for the upper classes. Roy responded, "However, you can have the highest quality product. But, when the upper middle-class or wealthy Mexicans realize that you don't come from American money, your product ceases interesting them..." Here, the most important aspect about the product is its packaging. No one truly gives a damn about the quality of the product. All they care about is the car they drive, in what community the live, the restaurants and bars they frequent on Friday and Saturday nights and who discovered the most recent novelty, such as a Gringo who sells gourmet filled cupcakes topped with creamcheese...
I don't like living with illusions. I don't like waiting for Godot. With my uncle's death I became relieved. It's very stressful waiting for things that won't arrive. I've learned throughout life that the only person you can truly trust is yourself, if you can even trust that person. I believe firmly in the phrase, If you want it done correctly, do it yourself. However, I am constantly reminded of that beautiful princelike 20-something man from a wealthy family in Bernardsville at Carrier Clinic who was hospitalized for being a work-a-holic. Can you be hospitalized for being a work-a-holic? Maybe he attempted suicide at realizing just how alone he was within his endeavor at seeking personal success. Part of the therapy consisted of teaching him the concept of division of labor and sharing responsibility. But, what if there isn't anyone else in your life who wishes to carry part of your burden? Michelle said to me, But I don't want to be a burden on you. Park Slope, Brooklyn 1999. I replied, Michelle, your life is a table. You are the legs. If I am your friend and one of your four legs is broken, isn't it my responsibility to become one of those legs and help you support the burnden of that table you call your life? She disappeared repeatedly, driving me crazy....
If we had the bakery in a more posh section of Xalapa, we could have hired the high school aged children of these rich classist/racists for tending the counters while Margarita, Rafael and I prepared the cupcakes and other wonderful baked goods in the back. They didn't have to know us. By default of having our wonderful bakery in their neighborhood, they would have assumed that we were of their social class. I guess I'm dreaming and remaining naive. They would have figured out the truth in short time...
My bad Aunt E was the first person who responded to the letter and said that I had the nerve imposing myself upon everyone. I responded that I didn't understand what was the problem. It seemed that every other month someone was asking when Margarita and I would visit. Every time I explained to them that we did not have the economy for dropping everything and leaving for the U.S. Plus, first Margarita must obtain a Visa requiring that she has property in her name, credit cards, steady income and at least $7000 USD in her bank account. In 2004, my step brother Alan (Franklin HS valedictorian, 1st M.I.T. undergraduate invited onto their board of trustees, Yale Law School graduate, assistant to Hilary Clinton in her health care program under Bill, husband to the daughter of a lawyer to the U.S. Congress and niece to the owners of the the British clothing company Burberry. One of Alan's 4 great uncles married the French Heiress to the world leader in Oil Field technology, worth today $22 billion dollars, Schlumberger Limited) told my mother that he had spoken to one of his Yale Law School friends and immigration expert working for the the U.S. Immigration department within the Latin America division. Alan told my mother, "Tell Ross to find something to do for a long time in Mexico, because Margarita is not going to enter the U.S. married to him. With 9/11, the Bush Administration has made it very difficult for poor Mexicans to gain entrance visas married to Americans..." How many times did I explain this to family and friends and receive the same response, "But if she is married to you she has the right..." ?
What began with an honest request that could satisfy the needs of parties on both sides and that wouldn't create a burden upon the economy of any given person, created an all out war between my family and I. When I left for Mexico, I wasn't only cutting the Umbilical Chord with my mother, but I was removing myself from negative mental paradymns regarding me in the minds of my relatives. I realized that I had just received a knee-jerk reaction totally lacking thought on the part of my Aunt. I had never asked her for anything in my life. When my mother received the Social Security Death of a Spouse Check after my father's death, my aunt's husband, my Uncle Stan asked my mother for a $40,000 USD loan to construct his dental practice and put an addition onto their house. Before my mother pressured him to return that loan 10 years later, when my sister Sheri went away to college, he had bought season tickets to Giant's games, sent his children to Italy, thrown expensive parties, bought semi-luxury cars, renovated and restyled and refurnished the house, etc and etc, while sending Beth and I hand-me-down clothing of their children. What a lucky older brother to have a sister-in-law who would lend him the social security money of her husband, the father of her 3 young children, Stan's deceased younger brother and I didn't have the right to ask for a similar but much smaller loan spread out amongst many very successful family members who were asking me every other month when they would see us in the U.S.?
No one paid me retribution for a disastrous childhood directly connected with the death of my father, the mentor and inspiration of my Uncle Henry, not only a family hero, but a New York City hero.
I couldn't ask the same for myself?
That year I became ill again and went to an Internist who sent me to a Gastro Enterologist who performed an upper endoscopy on me and who sent me for many blood and fecal tests along with an ultrasound. It turns out that Xalapa had its very own Rabbit Test and I was the first male in Mexico diagnosed with pregnancy. If God could give birth to a Son through his penis, and if I was created in the image of God... WHAM 10 MORE YEARS OF SUFFERING! But, truthfully, what had I done in my past life that warranted the removal of my father from my life and then the spiritual dissapearance of my mother?
Aside from having Familial Poliposis/Gardners Syndrome and half my panza removed, I was diagnosed with gastritis, hiatal hernia, 2 ulcers at the entrance of my stomach, H. Pylori Bacteria (70% of Mexicans have this bacteria in their stomachs due to poor water treatment and lack of adequate hygene in the restaurants and kitchens throughout the country) in those ulcers that could become stomach cancer. My gall bladder was inflamed and protruding due to gall stones. It was recommended that I come up with $2,000 USD to have another organ removed from my abdomin before one of those stones becomes dislodged, blocking the tubes leading from the Pancrease causing Pancreatitis (better known as Diabetis, the shutting down of the Pancreas). I had hypertension, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The upper part of my small intestine, the duodenum if I am correct was inflamed near the bial and the pancreatic ducts, supposedly preventing the absorption of certain vitamins and minerals. The internist gave me a prescription for blood pressure medication and medication for lowering cholesterol levels. She also gave me a list of all the food ingredients I should not ingest. Let's see if I can remember half of it:
Garlic, chile peppers, black pepper, ginger, cumin, salt, onions, eggs, coffee, soda, milk, bread, red meat, butter, cream, limited yogurt, cheese, pastas, sugar, no more than 3 tortillas per day, vegetable oil, cilantro, mint, dark meat chicken, limited chicken breast without the skin, refined rice (can you find whole grain rice in Xalapa?), citrus fruits including limes, oranges and grapefruits, oregano, olives, capers, tomatoes.
David, Mom, I challenge you to cook and be happy with these restrictions. It seems that the only thing I could eat plenty of was Salmon, Avocados, Cactus Paddles, Papaya, extra virgin olive oil and Water. In Mexico Avocados cost between 50 cents and $2 USD per pound. And Cactus Paddles are almost free. However, Salmon is a rich person's fish here, and extra virgin olive oil...
Look, I admit that I was wrong; For the first time I admit that one of my senses, one of the messages I received over the years was pure stupidity, fantasy, wishful thinking. No one is going to appear helping us succeed with the cupcakes and coffee. It was a locura. From now on I will accept my Mexican life as being very little by very little and let's see what we accomplish.
During my long periods of introspection and discomfort due to my illness, a thought entered my head: No more doctors, no more surgeries, no more medication. You've gotta investigate alternative healing methods using fresh agricultural products.
And that's what I did. I didn't remove garlic, onions, cilantro, salt, citrus (I increased my intake of natural yogurt a thousand fold), fresh green chile peppers, ginger, oregano, olives, tomatoes, capers...
In the morning I drank two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil with a glass of grapefruit juice for removing gall stones. I ate yogurt for the difficulties I experienced with my J-pouch (the risk of it decomposing; Imagine that. But I haven't yet explained what was happening with me in that part of my body). I ate broccoli sprouts for the H.Pylori Bacteria. Raw cabbage for inflamation of the digestive tract (Gastritis). I became an incredible believer in eating broccoli, Papaya, Guayaba (guava/passion fruit), kale, and carrots for vitamin C and anti-oxidents. I took Omega 3 fish oil for the cholesterol and Soy Lecithin for the Hypertension. I became a fanatic of apples, the whole apple chewed is much better for you than the apple juiced. In fact, the apple removed strange forms of constipation and acid indigestion/heartburn. Parsley for Vitamin C and a better functioning mind. Garlic should be eaten raw and cooked for optimal health. The same goes for tomatoes and mushrooms. I included cooked colliflower in our diets once a week, and fell in-love with calve's liver for certain nutricional needs very difficult for vegetarian nutritionists to deny. For a long while I removed dark meat chicken from my diet and fell in-love with quicker lighter and simpler cooking. The Arabic and Mediterranean diet is one easily recreated in Mexico, due to its base of fresh vegetables and fish and Mexico's extensive agricultural industry. I interchanged fish fillets with chicken breast and chicken wings. And instead of cooking with a dry chile base, the base of my cooking became fresh green chiles; Jalapeños, Serranos, Habaneros and Poblanos. I removed black pepper and cumin from my diet and changed from using vegetable oil to exclusively cooking with Canola Oil and Olive Oil.
5 years later and I don't experience Gastritis inflamation of the stomach, nor have I removed my Gall Bladder. For the most part I don't experience problems with my J-pouch. My blood pressure has been normal for most of the 5 years. I do have problems with the Hiatal Hernia and the Ulcers, mainly due to our working lifestyle.
2 comments:
I am sorry you have such a terrible disease (I looked it up and read about it). You were wise to search for practical solutions to the extremes of discomfort by looking beyond the medical establishment. I think people who have chonic illnesses, esp. rare one, usually come to a point where they realize they will have to save themselves because the doctors are "just practicing." Just curious if coconut oil, a coconut diet, might help with some aspects of this disease? I've given up all vegitable oils and avoid soy lethicin and all forms of soy like the Plague (highly carcinogenic) to adopt a coconut diet. See www.RayPeat.com.
You have had a hell of hard time.
I avoid coconut oil because of it's level of cholesterol if correct. I find that the soy lecithin does wonders for focussing on colors and with thinking clearly. I love tofu, but can't eat soy protein...
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