"Nothing is wasted on the writer." : "50 year old shoulder"

cookbooks I've written

Crescent Dragonwagon: Bean By Bean: A Cookbook: More than 200 Recipes for Fresh Beans, Dried Beans, Cool Beans, Hot Beans, Savory Beans...Even Sweet Beans!
Crescent Dragonwagon: The Cornbread Gospels
Crescent Dragonwagon: Passionate Vegetarian
Crescent Dragonwagon: Dairy Hollow House Soup & Bread Cookbook
Crescent Dragonwagon: The Dairy Hollow House Cookbook/over 400 Delectable Recipes from America's Famed Ozark Inn

children's books I've written

fiction I've written

Books by the bed

Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl: A Novel
Can't-put-it-down double-crossing thriller --- read it in case you need reminding that getting involved with a narcissistic sociopath is always unwise. There's a twist in the middle that'll give you whiplash, vertigo, or both. Ending didn't work for me, however... kind of a whimper, not a bang. Almost like the author ran out of steam. (***)
Kathleen Grissom: The Kitchen House: A Novel
(**)
David Mitchell: The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: A Novel
(****)
Eleanor Brown: Read Pink The Weird Sisters
(***)
Anne Kreamer: Going Gray: What I Learned about Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters
I put an offhand musing up on Facebook about whether or not to let my hair go gray. Such an ASTONISHING outpouring of responses. Though I went back to red, BTW, after a summer of 59 shades of gray... 59 being my age... when I saw this book in the library I knew I had to read it. ... It's a quick, fascinating (if lightweight) read on many aspects of this topic, and how visual aging has gradually become pathologized. Highly recommended. (***)
Neal Pollack: Jewball
I don't read sports novels, but this is exceptional. I just love the characters --- reprobate, nominally criminal Jewish basketball stars on a sharp urban Philly league. Playing under impossible conditions as the Nazis ascend to power in Germany, and the Bund (SS sympathizers in US) try to bring them down in America. Feisty, funny, gum-cracking and delightful. (***)

Books I'm listening to in the car

Sena Jeter Naslund: Abundance, A Novel of Marie Antoinette (P.S.)
I don't like historical fiction. I have very little interest in the French monarchy. But Sena Jeter Nashland, whose first novel could not've been more different, is a brilliant writer, and has me utterly pulled into this world, time, and place, and given me sympathy towards a person to whom I had none. A novel like this reminds me of why I fall in love with fiction, over and over again. Transporting, tragic, and deeply fascinating. (****)
Markus Zusak: I Am the Messenger
(***)
L.A. Meyer: Bloody Jack: Being an Account of the Curious Adventures of Mary 'Jacky' Faber, Ship's Boy (Bloody Jack Adventures)
(***)
Robert Mnookin: Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight
(*****)
Curtis Sittenfeld: American Wife: A Novel
Alice Lindgren Blackwell's normal-enough middle-class Wisconsin life goes through the windshield twice, once quickly and literally (a car wreck when she is in her early teens, in which she kills the young man who just may have been the love of her life) and once very slowly, and for a long, long time (when she marries Charlie, a super-wealthy, basically incompetent charmer with fierce political ambitions, who ends up --- somewhat to everyone's surprise --- in the White House). An imagining of a life loosely based on Laura Bush's, Sittenfield's writing is unshow-offy, as unobtrusive and accommodating as her careful protagonist, who tries to walk the impossible line of being "good wife" to a public figure with whose actions, public and private, she does not always agree, and cleaving to her own conscience, which may have gotten lost somewhere along the way. The book is inhabited by carefully drawn, detailed, dimensional characters: Alice's off-again-on-again best friend, her wise, quietly lesbian grandmother, the members of the dynasty into which she has married. An endless war, a weak wealthy husband saved from being a total wash-up by the embrace of a Christianity Alice herself does not understand, a bereaved parent whose son has died in the war, who attempts to meet the president ... all these echo the tragedy of the Bush years from an imagined perspective. Yet finally the novel rings true not because of this echo, but because Sittenfeld has created characters and a plot as complex, flawed, and mysterious as life itself. (****)
Nora Ephron: I Remember Nothing: And Other Reflections (Vintage)
The wry, funny Nora Ephron, in her own words. She forgot more than many of us knew. Highly entertaining, and makes me grieve her recent death even more. (***)

Books in my (culinary) office

Mary Donovan: The Thirteen Colonies Cookbook: A Collection of Favourite Receipts from Thirteen Exemplary Eighteenth-Century Cooks With Proper Menus for Simple Fare
Early American recipes and lots of good quotes from period source material, this is just the kind of thing that fascinates me. (***)
Kevin Young: The Hungry Ear: Poems of Food and Drink
(***)
Michael Natkin: Herbivoracious: A Flavor Revolution with 150 Vibrant and Original Vegetarian Recipes
(****)
Ben Hewitt: The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food
Hewitt raises more questions and hypotheses than he answer... one has the sense that he was grappling with issues that were too large for him, and the subject of the book, the food-centric (sort of) hardscrabble town of Hardwick, Vermont. I got frustrated with his asides and a certain precious town that occasionally crept in, but I couldn't help but find it enthralling. He tries to make peace with the fact that environmentally sound, home gardening, and incremental agricultural semi-self-sufficiency may be elitist and nay not be economically sustainable. But that our present-day food system is also frighteningly fragile and unhealthful in any way, and simply would work unsubsidized: 1 single fast-food mega-ag calorie on the plate takes an average of ***95*** calories of fossil fuel to get from seed to plate. A gardener himself, Ben Hewitt writes: "The scale on which my family and I grow food is arguably inefficient, in terms of economics, efficiency, and land use. We don't utilize chemical fertilizers, synthetic weed and pest control, or genetically modified seed; these things could probably boost production in the short run, but then, we don't farm for the short run. "I can buy a fine potato from any number of local farmers, but (not) the May afternoon I spent w/ Penny in the garden, sticking our hands deep into the cool soil. I can buy a head of lettuce, but (not) the pleasure & pride of my boys returning from the garden w/ a basket of greens & saying 'We picked it ourselves, Papa.' " And, in this Monsanto-fast food-fake-food world... being willing and able to feed yourself, even partially is a true "Occupy" act. Hewitt quotes a farmer named Eliot Coleman: "Small farmers are the last bastion protecting society from corporate industry. When we feed ourselves, we become unconquerable." I wish this book had been better edited: someone needed to keep Hewitt more on track and focused, with fewer asides. He needed to be less anecdotal and more fact-based, or more anecdotal and... Well. Still very much worth a read. (***)
Ayun Halliday: Dirty Sugar Cookies: Culinary Observations, Questionable Taste
A feisty memoiristic series of vignettes, from growing up in Indiana and aspiring to Betty Crocker Enchanted Castle cakes with a mom who aspired to Julia Child and a fried-chicken-and-mashed-potato cooking grandmother to the author's own "postcoital breakfasts", labor, deliveries, and childrearing (one picky eater, one not). Categorized on the jacket as "FOOD / HUMOR" it is both, sort of. A recipe, written slap-dash but followable, and certainly with personal, um, zest, follows each chapter. It kept me somewhat amused; it kept me reading; and it did warn "questionable taste." The latter was over-the-top for me; a combination of TMI, reliance on gross-out, and a few too many gratuitous 'fucks' crossed the just-have-to-drop-the-#-of-stars line. Ayun's a good writer; a little less smart-assiness and a little more depth to the revelations, and I could be done for the cause with her. (**)

Books in my (writing/creativity/teaching) office

Carolyn G. Heilbrun: The Last Gift of Time: Life Beyond Sixty
The perplexing, brilliant and thoughtful Carolyn Heilbrun, a feminist and academic (who also wrote mysteries under the name of Amanda Cross) on various aspects of aging, as well as the people --- some well-known, like writer May Sarton, some not, like her husband --- who have crossed her life. She is smart, stubborn, and interesting. The last chapter, "On Mortality", is particularly good. It's not a how-to, a self-help book, oir an inspirational read; rather, it is a thoughtful and personal exploration about the span and depth of one individual, intellectual life. (***)
Thomas M. Sterner: The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life - Master Any Skill or Challenge by Learning to Love the Process
Over simplified, under-edited, states the obvious. I SO wanted to like this one (being as 'practice' fascinates me deeply), but was very 'enh' about it. (**)
Charles Duhigg: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business
Fascinating word from the brain neurophysiology/ psychology front on why we do and don't do what we should and shouldn't. Clunkily written, science-based, lots of case histories... well worth the read. (***)
Laraine Herring: The Writing Warrior: Discovering the Courage to Free Your True Voice
If you take an holistic approach to creativity (I do) you'll find much to like in Herring's suggested writing practice, and the thoughtful, story-rich anecdotes about the ever-cycling nature of writing. Herring's been compared to Julia Cameron (The Arist's Way) and there are some similarities. But where Julia Cameron comes out of a 12-step program and brings that perspective, Herring is a yoga teacher, so her mind-body-spirit lens, and the language with which she describes it, differs. There's a little more emphasis on the importance of craft in addition to process, and she comes across with more humility than Cameron, at least, to me. Good addition to a writer's library, and interesting suggestions for setting up a beginner's practice... no matter how experienced you are. (***)
Jane Maas: Mad Women: The Other Side of Life on Madison Avenue in the '60s and Beyond
(****)
Patricia Ryan Madson: Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up
Jonathan Fields: Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance
Michael Port: Book Yourself Solid: The Fastest, Easiest, and Most Reliable System for Getting More Clients Than You Can Handle Even if You Hate Marketing and Selling
Leonard S. Marcus: Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom
Douglas Stone: Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most

Food-Related Blogs

Writing-related blogs & links

Charlotte, Aunt Dot & me

An elderly mother, her even older sister, their middle-aged daughter/niece ... and a small sheep.

National Cornbread Festival

The apogee of all experiences for the true cornbread lover is the National Cornbread Festival, held annually the last full weekend of April in South Pittsburg, Tennessee.

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December 19, 2008

"50 year old shoulder"

If I want to eat anything else, I have 15 minutes in which to do it. No solid food after midnight.

When I hurt my left shoulder about a decade ago, some now-forgotten person said to me, "Rotator cuff, probably. Rotator cuffs just wear out. You know what they call it in Chinese medicine? 'Fifty year-old shoulder.'"

Since I was only 45 or so at the time, I found this offensive. And it turned out not to be the rotator cuff anyway. Not then.

But now it is (only partially torn, however). Some other stuff going on in this 56-year-old shoulder, too.

Here's what the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center "What to Expect After Shoulder Surgery" sheet says: "Whether your shoulder surgery is done arthroscopically or through a regular incision, you should still consider your procedure a major surgery. You'll be living life with only one useful arm for awhile..."

Here's what Gail, Dr. John-Erik Bell's orthopedic nurse, whose hobby is --- get this --- racing motorcycles --- says: "Look, it's a big deal. It is. Time, money, pain. Not being able to use your dominant arm is a biiiig hassle, I won't lie to you. But you need to think of it as an investment. Shoulder surgery is an investment. And it is so, so worth it."

She also says, "Stay ahead of the pain. Take the painkiller before you think you need it. We have good drugs. Use them."

I like her. I like Caroline, the scheduler, and Jessica, who was the first person in the department I spoke with. I like John-Erik Bell, too. Each of whom, though no doubt busy up the wazoo and no doubt sick of answering the same questions countless times, all gave me and David the impression that they had as much time and information as we might need in order to reach whatever the best decision for us might be. I don't think this was just "impression" either, for it's not possible to fake caring or thoughtful listening for longer than a few minutes before a glance at the watch, a set of the shoulders, a micro-grimace, gets across the too-busy-time's-a-wasting-can't-you-see-I've-got-a-job-to-do message. Those DHMC folks, at least all I've met so far, don't have jobs as much as they do callings: their attention and intention is aligned with being called to do do their particular work. It's not only not just a job, it's not even just work; it's work with meaning: meaning for them and meaning for those they serve. Meaning is what makes work a calling.

A couple of times a day for the past week, I've been listening to the pre-op portion of a recording called "Stress Free Surgery: a self-relaxation program to help you prepare for and recover from surgery." Here's (in part --- it's 44 minutes long) is what it says:

"Breathe in ... re... breathe out... lax. That's right. In ... re... out... lax.
"You're at the top of a staircase of comfort. Each step down takes you twice as relaxed as the step above it. " (Don't get irritated at the grammar, Crescent.)
"Ten... Relax... Nine...relax.
"The doctors and the nurses will take such good care of you..."
"You'll feel the blood pressure cuff inflate, like a gentle hug..."
"Any sounds you may hear, unless said directly to you, recede into the background, and become a quiet... peaceful... lull, like waves on the ocean..."

For the first fifteen or twenty minutes of listening to this, I also listen to my mind, which chitters, ridicules, jeers, disparages, critiques the language use, wonders if the whole experience would be better if I had remembered to put the eye mask on and maybe I should get up and find it and put it on my eyes because it's really bright in here, and then I could relax. Things I haven't gotten done yet and really need to do before I am one-armed also run in and out, one after another putting in an appearance.

But eventually the part of me watching all this sighs, and says "Give it a rest, Dragon, chill."

And I really do.

Here's what my mother's friend, the retired children's book editor Susan Hirschman, told her some years ago. "Oh, Charlotte, let's not waste time talking about our health. At our age, it's just one organ recital after another!"

Here's what Gaelen, my down-the-hill neighbor, sweet pal, vernal wild-flower aficionado, and nurse says, "Do NOT take opioids without taking Colase and senna with them. " I demur, point out that I've soaked prunes and apricots, and David can make me fruit compote using them... I don't like discussions about intimate scatalogical matters. Gaelen repeats "Do NOT take opiods without taking Colase and senna with them.Get David to pick them up when he has the painkiller prescriptions filled."

Undergoing voluntary pain and temporary disability --- it's anxious-making, no matter how good you are with anxiety, no matter how good the eventual pay-off from the investment.

Now it's 12:01 a.m. I've missed chance for eating the other half of that perfectly ripe d'Anjou pear I was eating at 11:28 p.m.

Here's what I say: how we tell our stories matters. I know this much is true, to quote the title of the Wally Lamb novel which is in turn based on a song originally recorded by Spandau Ballet and made popular by the 80's rock-pop group, whose music I never particularly liked, Tears for Fears.

Here is what I say when I tell the story about this upcoming surgery to myself:

I'm glad I live in a time and place where people routinely live long enough to have 50-year-old shoulder, and that there is a medical intervention to fix it actually exists. As well as drugs to put you to sleep while it's being performed.

And that my doctor is a Johns-Hopkins graduate who did a residency at Columbia-Presbyterian just in shoulders, and shoulders are mostly what he does now.

And that the surgery is taking place at Dartmouth-Hitchcock, where they did such good work on David's spine two summers ago, and where, from the moment you walk in to that light, non-hospital-smelling atrium space and see the arch that says, "We, the employees of Dartmouth-Hitchcock, welcome you", and see the grand piano that a volunteer plays at noon each day, you know this is an astonishingly kind as well as well-practiced facility. (Left, DHMC's photograph of the info desk that centers the atrium --- a mandala out of which the life of the Center spreads)

And that David, the loving partner with whom I am privileged to walk through time during this phase of our respective lives, will take care of me in the weeks to come. No doubt with a mixture of compassion, impatience, thoughtfulness, aggravation, and tenderness --- much as I did when he had his spine surgery.

And that I made an extra lasagna, and extra black bean soup, and other stuff I fixed in the past few weeks, and froze it. Plus I taught David how to make a smoothie the way I like it, and that pasta dish with the garlic and chiles and loads of kale or swiss chard or broccoli and chick peas and lemon juice and Parmesan...

Here's something else I say to myself: it's elective surgery. You are choosing to do this. To that extent, it's within your control. You weren't in an accident. You got to pick.

Here's something else I say to myself: you fortunate girl you!

And sometimes, something else, something my old, one-time Eureka Springs compadre, Vernon Tucker, once said to me: "All this positive thinking is driving me to despair!"

I hear David coming up the stairs. Time to get offline --- for a month, six weeks? Time to get in the hot bath and let David scrub my shoulder with the presurgical Hibiclens.

Time to say, goodbye for now, dear friends, readers, and colleagues.

Time to see what new insights this series of experiences turns out to have yielded.

For here is what I also say to myself --- and if, again, I know this much is true, then it's the hugest and most comforting much there is, that of utility, usefulness --- I tell myself, nothing is wasted on the writer.

Posted at 06:10 AM in aging, appreciation, Charlotte Zolotow, compassion towards self and others, cooking, Crescent Dragonwagon, David Koff, getting things done, gradual transformation, health, love, narrative, organization, self-understanding, personal growth, Surgery, writers, writing | Permalink

Comments

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During this holiday season, I wish you peace, joy, love, and a speedy recovery from your surgery! I love that you are willing to share this news with us.

I also loved the part about teaching David how to make some of your favorite foods. That is really cute. I noticed, however, that you didn't mention DK's special banana-ginger-cornmeal muffins from The Cornbread Gospels. Surely a batch of those would be extra-healing! I made them around this time last year for a special breakfast with friends, and we all swooned over them, especially with the Aphrodite Butter. Hubba hubba!

Even if David didn't get a special muffin-making lesson, your instructions are nice and clear, so I'm sure he could figure it out if necessary.

Posted by: Rose-Anne | December 19, 2008 at 01:59 PM

Get well, be gentle on yourself, and I promise not to pound on your shoulder next time I see you.

Posted by: S Longfellow | December 21, 2008 at 03:29 PM

Heal and delight in the extra nurturing, CD. You deserve the extra attention being given to you. Don't dismiss it.

I mentioned your blog on mine tonight, and I have been sending healing vibes your way.

Posted by: growingcurious | December 23, 2008 at 12:50 AM

I hope by now the worst pain is over and you are healing well. Just thinking about you this morning and sending you best wishes.

Posted by: Chance | December 27, 2008 at 08:07 AM

Here's hoping your recovery is speedy and that the new year will bring you happiness and good health. FYI, I am making one of your cornbread recipes to eat with my black-eyed peas on New Year's Day....for good luck as you know down here in the South.

Jon at Mississippi Garden

Posted by: Jon | December 31, 2008 at 08:16 PM

I am hoping that the surgery went well, that you have been relatively free of pain [and of GI complications from the opioids], that you are moving steadily on your way to full recovery, and that you'll soon be back with us here.

All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well...

Posted by: Suzette Haden Elgin | January 02, 2009 at 08:40 AM

crescent - just stumbled upon your blog - its been a long time since we spoke at iacp and then later regarding your writers colony in arkansas. i see you are a month or so out from your surgery. with so much inaugural goodness going on in the last few days i just wanted to wish you well and godspeed and i look forward to your tale yet to be told about where you are with recovery. besides, i think i have 5o year old shoulder too. so i will try to bite the nails off only one hand while i wait for your answer. warmest, dorette

ps my printer went totally nutso and stated spontaneously printing off your blog - 50 odd pages. so i sat up to take notice - it will take me a few to read it all, but i know there is an important message in there...

Posted by: Account Deleted | January 21, 2009 at 08:43 AM

Dear everyone,

as I hope you know from the blog that followed this one, I am alive and well and my 56-and-counting year-old shoulder, though it has cycles where it hurts a lot (whenever I switch to new PT exercise series), I am doing well. And I attribute a sizable portion of that to your good wishes (even if I am so frighteningly tardy in acknowledging them). Thank you, Rose-Anne, Syd, Cathy, Jon, and Suzette.

And dear dear Dorette! Please know that that printer thing is hilarious! I LOVE being an omen, and I hope a good one. Secondly... in around 1975 I wrote a poem called "The Garlic Lady in February" so your screen name tickled me no end. I hope you DON'T have 50-year-old shoulder and do have some intact nails left... You going to IACP this year? I'm dithering...

warm greetings and happy post inaugural glow, everyone ---

Posted by: Crescent Dragonwagon | January 22, 2009 at 09:24 PM

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"Nothing is wasted on the writer."

Cooking, eating, living, loving, writing, reading, thinking. Listening, tasting, sniffing. Cozying up to mystery at midlife. I think we're all part of the narrative life tells itself about itself.

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