The Universe's Christmas Present
Themes:
My relationship with food
My relationship with making decisions
Signs from the universe
Intuitive healing
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Christmas morning I walked next door to Otter and Polecat's. They were sitting at their dining room table with friends and Polecat's son. I presented them with a wrapped package.
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I gifted Polecat with organic cotton panties and a scarf, and to them as a family I gifted them with a little wooden box I'd painted years ago. It was painted to look like a dark blue trunk, and on top of it was the Harry Potter crest, which I had drawn, scanned, colored digitally, printed, and then laminated onto the box. Inside the trunk were little "books" from the series, each cover made digitally, cut out, and then glued with paper to look and feel like a real little book. Polecat's son, at the age of twelve, claimed it as his own.
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I asked to borrow super-glue. Otter brought it to me and I used it to put together the two halves the the Eldar Wraith Lord (a warhammer figurine) back together. I had painted it. Hibiscus had paid for it. It had been glued before, but came apart. I wasn't upset about it, since Otter hadn't glued it quite right.
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I put the Wraith Lord into a gift box. I said farewell, wishing them all a merry Christmas. I went back over to Hibiscus's house - my home. (Home? I had told Marigold that no where felt like home. I'd felt deep despair when I said that. I'd been accessing a real part of me. But where did that fit in to everything?)
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I came into Paladin's room where he was sleeping. I woke him gently and shared with him a GT's multigreen kombucha. It stirred up my menstrual cramps a little. I drank slowly. I massaged his back, waking him and helping ease his morning pain.
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"Are you awake enough now for your present?" I asked.
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"Yes," he said, smiling at me. I gave him the red, ribboned box.
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He opened it and said, "Oh! Is this a Wraith Lord?"
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"Yes," I said, grinning.
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He was very pleased, but not nearly as surprised as he'd been when he'd received the first wind-riders back in Snowland when my parents and nephew had been present.
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We talked merrily for a while. We talked of greenhouses, and of the puzzle of trying to grow tropical trees in such a cold climate.
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"We can do carob, but probably not mango," he said.
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"Why not?"
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"Not enough sun," he said.
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"Oh, right," I said, agreeing. "But pomegranate and fig. Those have been grown in colder climates with care."
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"Yes, we can probably do those."
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I suggested various combinations of glass, cob, straw-bales, windows and heating solutions, and he shot down the ideas he knew wouldn't work and contemplated the ones he thought might.
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We talked about Hibiscus and my relationship with him. We talked about my dysfunctional relationship with food. I felt my mood growing more sour as we talked about food.
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I presented to him my latest idea, which I had texted Hibiscus about the previous night.
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Me to Hibiscus: "I had the new idea for a way to alter my diet besides restraining my calories. The idea is called: Nuria Does Not Enter The Kitchen. Nuria only eats things that are brought to her and are plain. Not mixed with other foods.
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"Part of the reason for the new idea is I realize that all of my thinking about food is perpetuating the issue. Perhaps I should stop talking about food and other people should stop talking to me about food. Food could be forbidden topic for me. It is probably a fairly unworkable idea. But it helps me brainstorm."
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Even though I stated it was unworkable, since I knew it would worry Hibiscus, I continued to think about it seriously. If Paladin agrees to it, we can at least try it.
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"I'm realizing that a lot of my misery actually comes from having a little too much control," I continued texting Hibiscus on Christmas Eve. "Everyone always ask me what I want to do. The other things that people are doing seem to be off limits to me. That leaves me always deciding for myself.
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"Last night, I got so fed up with it... I told Paladin I would not do anything besides what he directed me to do. You'd laugh if you saw what ended up doing."
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Paladin's idea had been as follows: "Let's start going through Hibiscus's CDs one by one, and try listening to them."
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I laughed, "Okay."
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We got through five, with me repeatedly saying "next" somewhere between ten and thirty seconds into a song. We learned some things about each other's music taste. I left notes for Hibiscus on sticky notes on the CD cases.
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Returning to Christmas day, presenting the idea to Paladin, I said, "I don't think Hibiscus would like this idea at all. He already thinks I'm anorexic. Honestly, I don't think you have to worry about starving me. If I lose my fat reserves, then it is time to worry about it. But it seems better if I got in the habit of processing hunger with tears instead of food."
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"Hibiscus hasn't seen you at potlucks."
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"He only sees small portions of what I eat. I'll eat a small portion when he eats dinner and when he eats lunch, but then there are the other seven times I ate that day. Also, people seem to think salads don't have calories. Sometimes I outline to him all of what I ate all day, and you know what he'll say?"
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"What?"
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"He'll say, 'but that's all good food,' as if that has anything to do with whether or not I ate too much food!"
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Paladin chuckled. "It sounds emotional. He's seeing 'all good food' as 'no comfort food' and thereby not meeting emotional needs. So he then translates starving oneself of one's emotional needs into starving oneself physically."
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I laughed. "You might be right! That would explain why he's worried that I'm anorexic repeatedly. But you know, if you told him this idea, he'd flatly deny it at first. Then three days later he'd come back and say perhaps I was on to something. I've learned that about him."
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Paladin gave me a smile that I read as, just like you, dear.
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We continued to talk of food, nutrition and plans. Finally I went to his computer to do some nutritional calculations. At the least, Paladin wanted a guideline so he would have some idea that he was feeding me enough food. I devised a 1,100 calorie day that would meet all the USDA requirements, or at least nearly. It was a little short on niacin, oddly.
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"No wonder I've been so into eating two cups of raspberries a day. That contributes a lot of things I would not be getting so much of otherwise - zinc and niacin, for starters," I said.
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I have to do something though. I can't just be "too expensive" forever, and I can't have this drama-llama relationship with food forever.
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I felt on the verge of tears again at the idea of eating less raspberries. Thinking of not combining my foods brought me even closer. I choked those thoughts back. I have to do something.
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Disgusted, I got up from his computer and went to find comfort in Paladin's arms. Moving onto the bed I noticed - too late - he was moving too. His elbow connected with my eye, sending shooting pains through my skull and body. I clamped my hand to my eye and collapsed onto him, moaning terribly.
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He held himself still, and then began to shake with worry as I didn't move. The pain was horrible, but not as bad as my worry - he'll feel guilty.
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Nausea battled with worry and pain. After a several minutes of lying in place I slowly sat up.
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What can I do to help this? I wondered. A small part of me was frantic, but mostly I felt calm beneath the pain. I felt more worried about Paladin than myself.
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Finally, I said, "Please bring me an aloe spine from Hibiscus's plant downstairs. Bring a ceramic knife too. I'll be able to peel it quicker than you."
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He stood and walked briskly from the room. He never runs, no matter how important something is, I thought. I would have ran. Is it because his back hurts him so much? I thought back to the severe back pain I'd experienced at Marigold's house. It had mirrored many of the symptoms that Paladin regularly suffered from - limited mobility in the arms and shoulders, and carefully needing to use specific positions to lift or manipulate anything in order to avoid sharp pains.
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Paladin returned with the aloe spine in a wooden bowl with a ceramic knife. I deftly sliced off the spiny edges and then one side of the skin. I pressed a piece that was about an inch long to my face, gently. I began to move it around the area that hurt, shocked by the sheer pain of moving it. Paladin directed me to the part of the bruise that was visible. It hadn't hurt in that specific spot until I moved the aloe there, and then the pain was staggering, causing me to double over with nausea.
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I babbled to Paladin about my symptoms for a while. He told me to breathe into it, and I did.
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"My jaw hurts," I commented. "My entire skull rattled, and my jaw hurts here," I said indicating the part of my jaw closest to my ear, "and here," I said indicating the same spot on the other side.
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"Sage," I said suddenly. "I want to chew some sage - now."
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He got up faster that time.
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"Four leaves," I added.
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He came back with five leaves, rather large ones too. I began chewing on one. The pain left my jaw.
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Ten minutes later I carefully walked to the bathroom, afraid I would be unsteady on my feet. It turned out that I was fine. I looked in the mirror and was shocked to see such an ugly bulge next to my eye.
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"It will probably turn purple, I'm afraid," Paladin said.
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I nodded. "Feels like it." What can I do to stop it? I wondered.
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"When I came in here there was a spider waiting for me," he said, and gestured toward it.
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"Ah, that old friend," I said. "I saw a spider earlier this morning, but I saw a different one. It was downstairs on the handle of the sink. It was like the universe sent me a new one so that I would not disregard this one up here since I keep seeing it."
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After we were back in his room, myself curled under his electric blanket, I said, "This is a warning, an analogy of something," I said. "I think it is saying that my new idea is a bad one. It would end up with you feeling guilty and me feeling hurt. Our subconsciouses must know it, and so they caused this to happen as a major warning."
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Paladin nodded. He spoke so little in comparison to Hibiscus. Sometimes I appreciated that, but in the past few days it had bothered me immensely.
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"I need to process how much I feel dependent on food for pleasure. I think that is the place to start."
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A little while later I had a sudden inspiration, "Please bring the frankincense essential oil from my room." Many times previously I had ran by that in my mind as a possible aid to something, but never had it rung true. This time it occurred to with me a force of certainty, even though I had no logical knowledge telling me why it would help.
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I applied four drops to my face, covering nearly the entire surface of my face. It smelled wonderful. The pain I had been experiencing from smiling and speaking went away almost immediately.
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A couple hours later when I looked in the mirror the mark was already flat again, hardly visible. I was astonished.
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It did purple a bit over the course of the next few days, but it didn't bump up again. I was convinced that somewhere in the aloe, sage and frankincense I had prevented the worst of it.
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"I keep getting sick of making decisions," I said to Paladin. It was Christmas afternoon. We'd slept for a while on his bed, and it was already approaching sunset. "Every time I try to decide something I end up second-guessing it so many times that I end up not wanting to do anything. But with food I end up eating something eventually, so I have to make up my mind, but it is so hard to do when everything feels potentially like a problem."
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A little later I wondered aloud: "What would happen if I just followed my every impulse?" I resolved to try it.
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I had a few bites of a grapefruit and then left it. I moved on to a little cream off the top of the goat milk. Then I stopped with that and had a few bites of sheep's yogurt. I went upstairs and spent a little while on the "wiggle machine" in a silly way suggested by Paladin - "Why not use it to shake your breasts?" So I put my breasts onto it where the ankles are meant to go and went at it. "Not as good as your hands," I said, referring to my breasts being shaken.
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I pulled out a random binder and opened it. It was an old role-play written between Squirrel and I. I read a few bits of it, laughed and put it back. I caught sight of Taluva in my closet and said to Paladin, "Want to play Taluva?"
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He agreed. I put on a few more layers of clothes and we played on Hibiscus's dining room table. I won, but only barely. I had made a critical mistake or two mid-game. Paladin wasn't on top of his game. I didn't think he was trying very hard. I used Paladin's phone to take a couple photos of the game and text them to Hibiscus.
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I went upstairs to get Hibiscus's phone number, which was not programmed into Paladin's phone. I stopped in the bathroom to pee but then wanted a bath. I started filling the tub, feeling guilty that I had not put Taluva away.
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This is working though, I thought. This is how it worked as a child. I wanted to do something and I did it without questioning it. Before I started worrying all the time, before I started learning to be "considerate" to the point of being self-hating, hardly considering myself because I was too worried about others.
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As usual, it took spiders and injury to get the message across, but it was the best message I'd had in months. Follow the impulses. Stop second-guessing and just go for it.
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Merry Christmas from the universe.