Laundry Monday

Happiness is an ice cream sandwich with hot black coffee, after hanging up the clothes in the sun.

Concussions

“Concussions.”

His son Curtis had written the paper for a college composition class in 2009, five years before his death. In it, Curtis recalled having been knocked unconscious three times in 14 years while playing soccer, twice after leaping to head the ball, only to — “WHAM” — collide with another player. The continuing side effects, he wrote, included “horrendous migraine headaches.”

“If I feel this way now,” he wondered, “what will it be like when I’m older?” He was 19.

[...]

Curtis began exhibiting behavior now recognized as suggestive of postconcussive trauma. Dramatic mood swings. Depression. Headaches so debilitating he would need to lie down in a dark room.
Article

She Started to Second-Guess Herself

Amid all that, one call stood out.

After the sighting, Ms. Thompson said she called 911 as she bolted toward her house. “I told them I might have possibly seen the fugitives,” she said.

She said the dispatcher told her to lock her doors and windows and call neighbors to warn them. Two State Police troopers arrived within about five minutes, but they waited several minutes for additional officers and dogs before they went looking for the men, she recalled.

She was well aware of the commotion caused by her call. She started to second-guess herself and what she saw, and wondered if there might have been another explanation. Others raised the same questions. Some speculated that she had seen nothing more threatening than a pair of carnival workers returning from a town a few miles away.

But even with those doubts, Ms. Thompson said, there was one thing of which she was certain: She made the right call.

Article

Business Dinner

$1.9-billion CVS-Target deal came together over dinner.

Target Corp. Chief Executive Officer Brian Cornell hatched the $1.9 billion plan to sell the company’s pharmacies over dinner with his counterpart at CVS Health Corp., capitalizing on his relationships from a career spent in retail.

Cornell and CVS’s CEO, Larry Merlo, have known each other for years and are occasional dinner companions, letting them share thoughts about running two of the biggest chains in the U.S. The plan to have Woonsocket-based CVS buy the pharmacies and operate them within Target’s stores, announced on Monday, was “a collective idea,” Merlo said.

“We would get together for dinner from time to time and we always compared notes in terms of challenges, opportunities,” he said.
Article

Mango Cigars

Last night while walking Lily, I found two mango cigars in a package on the ground, unopened. I'm saving these, I said to my husband. We'll light them up when Paula has her baby.

I LOVE this Linguini poem!

Linguini

by Diane Lockward

It was always linguini between us.
Linguini with white sauce, or
red sauce, sauce with basil snatched from
the garden, oregano rubbed between
our palms, a single bay leaf adrift amidst
plum tomatoes. Linguini with meatballs,
sausage, a side of brascioli. Like lovers
trying positions, we enjoyed it every way
we could-artichokes, mushrooms, little
neck clams, mussels, and calamari-linguini
twining and braiding us each to each.
Linguini knew of the kisses, the smooches,
the molti baci. It was never spaghetti
between us, not cappellini, nor farfalle,
vermicelli, pappardelle, fettucini, perciatelli,
or even tagliarini. Linguini we stabbed, pitched,
and twirled on forks, spun round and round
on silver spoons. Long, smooth, and always
al dente. In dark trattorias, we broke crusty panera,
toasted each other—La dolce vita!—and sipped
Amarone, wrapped ourselves in linguini,
briskly boiled, lightly oiled, salted, and lavished
with sauce. Bellissimo, paradisio, belle gente!
Linguini witnessed our slurping, pulling, and
sucking, our unraveling and raveling, chins
glistening, napkins tucked like bibs in collars,
linguini stuck to lips, hips, and bellies, cheeks
flecked with formaggio—parmesan, romano,
and shaved pecorino—strands of linguini flung
around our necks like two fine silk scarves.

- Diane Lockward from What Feeds Us © Wind Publications, 2006.

Graffiti of Sound

The morning is sacred because the graffiti of sound hasn't started yet.

Billy Wilder Quote

An actor entering through the door, you’ve got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you’ve got a situation.
-Billy Wilder

Kenn Adams on the Story Spine

The Story Spine is both a practice technique for learning how to tell a well-constructed story as well as an outlining tool to help construct a story. Practice with it by simply making up a bunch of different Story Spines as quickly as possible. It’s fun! It’s easy! You can rattle off a dozen as you’re waiting for the bus. Pretty soon, the well-constructed story structure will become instinctual. As an outlining tool, it is very helpful when you have a bunch of great ideas for a story but are not quite sure how they all fit together. By fitting them onto a Story Spine you’ll be able to see what you’ve already got in terms of your structure and, from there, you’ll be able to start filling in the missing pieces.
Article

Kenn Adams has over twenty years of experience teaching, directing, and performing improvisational theater. He is the Artistic Director of Synergy Theater and the author of the book How to Improvise a Full-Length Play, the Art of Spontaneous Theater. Kenn is also a playwright, ghostwriter, and story-doctor.

Swim Champions Nutrition

What Champions Know About Nutrition

6/16/2015
By Jill Castle MS, RDN

Swimmers want to do their best. Not only that, they want to win. Many young swimmers work hard to get to the next level. They log endless hours in the pool, work on their stroke technique, and even tweak their eating to get the most out of their bodies and their performance.

Many champion swimmers know that nutrition is an essential part of their success. In other words, they understand how important food is to their performance results.

Here are a few things that all champion swimmers understand about nutrition:

Food is fuel. Premium fuel is the food swimmers eat. The recipe for success includes healthy, wholesome foods and beverages. Fried foods, sweets, and sugary beverages, although tasty, aren’t the ideal food components of a champion.

Carbs count…a lot. The good carbs found in whole grains, fruit, vegetables and dairy are prime sources of fuel for exercising muscles. Refined carbs, such as those found in sweets, sugary beverages, and snack foods may add too much sugar and fat to the diet and work against performance and health. Champions know to maximize the good fuel, and trim down unhealthy foods.

Protein is essential but can be abused. Too much protein can contribute to dehydration as well as other problems for the young athlete. Eating large amounts of protein at the end of the day, or not eating enough protein at breakfast isn’t the most efficient way to fuel muscles. Ideally, wholesome protein sources like meat, eggs or beans evenly spaced throughout the day is optimal for the young athlete.

Dehydrated muscles don’t work well. Drinking plenty of fluids is a constant effort, as thirst isn’t always easy to identify among young swimmers. If dehydration occurs, it may impair performance, contribute to muscle cramping, and slow down performance.

Recovery is a key to progress. The harder you train the more important nutrition is to your recovery and development as an athlete. For example, eating a snack that contains protein and carbohydrate after an extended training session helps the body heal afterward. When swimmers add recovery nutrition to their training they are able to repair muscle damage, promote muscle gain, and re-load muscles with fuel for training and competition.

You can’t out-exercise a bad diet. No matter how hard you work, the habits of overeating, skipping meals, or under-eating, as well as unhealthy food itself, work against optimal performance. Just like a racing car relies on premium fuel, your body performs its best when it’s given premium fuel (healthy food). In the same vein, when a racing car uses low octane fuel, its performance may fall off.

Eating habits are key to lifelong health. Swimmers may not swim forever, but their eating habits can last a lifetime. Making healthy choices now means a better chance at being healthy later in life.

It's all about timing. When swimmers eat is just as important as what and how much they eat. If a swimmer skips out on breakfast and lunch, how will her body have the stamina and strength to train hard after school? Or, if he eats large amounts of food at the end of the day, staying at an optimal weight for performance may be harder.

If swimmers want to take swimming to the next level, they need to eat like champions.

Jill Castle, MS, RDN is a childhood nutrition expert and author of Eat Like a Champion: Performance Nutrition for Your Young Athlete. She lives with her husband and four children in New Canaan, CT. For more about Jill, go to www.JillCastle.com.

Swim Coach Mat Hudson and Spark – The Revolutionary Science of Exercise And The Brain

Swimming and Depression
April 21, 2013 · by Mat Hudson · in Heart & Mind, Motivations For Training. ·

I wrote some time ago about my experience of depression and how swimming really helps.

A couple weeks ago I returned home from a medical emergency trip to the US for a family member there. It was the right move no doubt and well worth the price paid to go. But I did pay a price. The jet-lag, the emotional strain, the needs of my wonderful family at home in addition to all the work that piled up for me was a heavy burden to bear when I got back. Plus I live in a foreign land that puts a continuous mental load on the brain already, more than one living in his homeland may understand. Throw that on top of being a fairly strong introvert and I really just wanted to go hide away by myself for a few weeks!

Even with keeping all this in mind, I understandably struggled with depression. At least this time I could clearly see the circumstantial causes behind it. And I have the benefit of routine like of a diligent boat captain, to get up each day, survey his ship, and get to work keeping critical things going for everyone. But some of you can imagine how hard it was to draw strength to do anything more.

However, I know well the benefits of exercise in helping adjust brain chemistry – even better than anti-depressant medication can. I have been tremendously encouraged by this book: Spark – The Revolutionary Science of Exercise And The Brain, by John J. Ratey MD.

It addresses not just depression, but how exercise enhances learning, combats stress, anxiety, attention deficit disorder, womens’ hormonal challenges, addictions, and aging.

My wife and I have found encouragement even for parenting our kids!

Basically, getting the heart and brain up and working together in some good exercise challenge (like intelligent TOTAL IMMERSION SWIMMING, of course) is one powerful thing we control that can seriously combat the neurological (and hence, mental and emotional) challenges you and I face.

So, last week I headed to the sea and plunged in despite the feelings of burden and desperation and I let those cool waves carry a good portion away from me. My problems were not gone when I got out, but I had a sufficient boost of strength to get back in the game and face them. And sure enough, I eventually pulled out and see sunny skies again.

Go swim, my friend.

Mat Hudson Swimmer

Years ago, when I was in that darkest season of depression, when my spiritual life was neglected too much to gain much strength from it, I think the only thing that kept me from sinking into complete apathy was my triathlon training routine. Somedays, it was the only thing that could get me out of bed and on my feet. When the darkness hit often the only way I could feel some life was to go out and get into the rhythm of my stroke, or cadence, or stride where I could finally feel blood, oxygen and electricity pump through my system again.

Now I have built up a pattern of health, and have a lot more experience, more tools, and a broader perspective to help me when I feel the threat of depression looming nearby. I recognize the threat earlier then scan my condition more quickly and take some steps to add or remove something critical from my day to prevent most falls. But sometimes I do take on too much and fall into it. It was like that a few weeks ago.

It was the fourth day. A great part of me, the depressed part, was not in the mood to do anything but sleep, and I was feeling the momentum pulling on me to go deeper, to start willingly wrap the heavy, warm blanket tigher around myself. I had not been able to swim for a couple days before but I was headed downtown on my scooter to do a couple tasks- I had my swim bag along like an emergency car kit. When I caught a glimpse of the sea it started was calling me. Just enough of my mind was in control and knew from experience that if I could just get into that water, just slip into the rhythm for a while I would feel some energy, perhaps enough of it to break out.

And I did.

It’s not that my enthusiasm instantly returned, but as I swam for an hour, blood started pumping, oxygen starting flowing, neural signals started firing in a focused, constructive way. It was no ‘happy pill’- it was more like I got a little jump-start on my nearly dead battery, or a slow-drip IV with just enough electrolytes injected into my anemic blood. I came out of the water with a mind recovered enough to think clearly about what to do next.

With that boost I had gained a window of time with a choice to make: take it and get busy refreshing my health and rebuilding my focus, or waste it by wrapping myself back up in the ‘heavy, warm blanket’ of depression hoping something will change without putting out any of my own effort. I was given a chance to build momentum in either direction at that moment. I received the energy from that swim as a gift, and used it to take a few steps forward, out of my gloom. This is what I mean by taking responsibility.

One popular author might advise you to Eat, Love, Pray. My advice is to Sleep, Pray, Swim.

You are not alone. Go swim. It will do you good.

source

Swimming Through Depression

It is easy to assume no one else feels what we feel (or has the ‘absence’ of feeling, if that is the form your depression comes in). The calm public exterior we see on others, the confident words we read on blogs (like mine), the ‘down-to-business’ or worse, the ‘smiley-happy-people’ world we interact with can lead us to believe that others don’t struggle like we struggle. When we are in leadership positions, or know that others are looking to us, or up to us, we can feel particularly isolated in our dark times. Feeling like we are letting people down can make the gloom even worse.

But there are things we can do to help ourselves, to keep better distance from the threat. Though there may be many factors contributing to depression outside of our control, there are many things we can do to reduce our vulnerability to it. We are not helpless.

Here are some things I pay particular attention to to reduce my vulnerability:

– I am careful to get more restful sleep.

– I am careful to get more solitary time to recharge emotionally and mentally (I am an introvert with ‘good social skills’). I have social limits that I must respect.

– I am careful about what forms of ‘entertainment’ I expose myself to, especially sensitive to the effects of certain kinds of music and movies.

– I am careful about what I put in my body, including medications, sugar, processed foods, articifial substances, and stimulants.

– I invest heavily in my spiritual life- I maintain a strong sense of connection with God through Jesus. I am connected to some thing good, loving and stable outside myself.

– I have developed skill for ‘framing’ my situations into a positive or constructive storyline- even my struggles and failures have purpose.

– I have cut down my exposure to people who reinforce a negative, or fearful view of life.

– And, I swim.

Article

Therese J. Borchard: How Swimming Reduces Depression

How Swimming Reduces Depression
By Therese J. Borchard Associate Editor

How Swimming Reduces Depression

I’ve always known that I climb out of any pool a lot happier than when I dove in.

Yes, I know any kind of aerobic exercise relieves depression.

For starters, it stimulates brain chemicals that foster the growth of nerve cells; exercise also affects neurotransmitters such as serotonin that influence mood and produces ANP, a stress-reducing hormone, which helps control the brain’s response to stress and anxiety. But swimming, for me, seems to zap a bad mood more efficiently than even running. Swimming a good 3000 meters for me can, in the midst of a depressive cycle, hush the dead thoughts for up to two hours. It’s like taking a Tylenol for a headache! It was with interest, then, that I read an article in “Swimmer” magazine about why, in fact, that’s the case.

Here’s the gist, excerpted from the article “Staying Happy?” by Jim Thornton in the Jan/Feb issue of “Swimmer” magazine.

Regardless of cause, a growing number of researchers and psychologists alike have become true believers in the efficacy of swimming. “We know, for instance, that vigorous exercise like swimming can significantly decrease both anxiety and depression” says sports psychologist Aimee C. Kimball, director of mental training at the Center for Sports Medicine at University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. “Currently, there’s a ton of research looking at the various mechanisms by which it works.”

On the physiological level, hard swimming workouts release endorphins, natural feel-good compounds whose very name derives from “endogenous” and “morphine.” Swimming serves, as well, to sop up excess fight-or-flight stress hormones, converting free-floating angst into muscle relaxation. It can even promote so-called “hippocampal neurogenesis” – the growth of new brain cells in a part of the brain that atrophies under chronic stress. In animal models, exercise has shown itself to be even more potent than drugs like Prozac at spurring such beneficial changes.

Moby Coquillard, a psychotherapist and swimmer from San Mateo, Calif., is so convinced that he prescribes exercise to depressed patients. “I absolutely believe swimming can serve as a kind of medicine. For me, it represents a potent adjunct to antidepressant medications and, for some patients, it’s something you can take in lieu of pills.”

Besides possible biochemical changes in the brain, swimming requires the alternating stretch and relaxation of skeletal muscles while simultaneously deep-breathing in a rhythmic pattern. If this sounds familiar, it’s because these are key elements of many practices, from hatha yoga to progressive muscle relaxation, used to evoke the relaxation response. “Swimming, because of its repetitive nature, is incredibly meditative,” Coquillard says. There’s even a built-in mantra, be this the slow count of laps, or self-directed thoughts like “relax” or “stay smooth.”

“I teach a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy class for depression,” he adds, “and we use focus on the body here in the moment to keep past thoughts or future worries from invading our consciousness.” By concentrating on different aspects of their stroke mechanics, from hip rotation and kick patterns, to streamlining and pulls, regular swimmers practice this intuitively. The result: On a regular basis, most get a break from life’s not always pleasant stream of rumination.

Moreover, since most pools have set times for lap swimming and coached Masters workouts alike, regular swimmer usually find themselves settling into a schedule that becomes automatic. There’s no need to decide if you should go exercise now or later. For stressed out people, this lack of options, says Coquillard, is paradoxically comforting because it removes the burden of yet another decision. “All you have to do is show up at the regular time,” he says, “and you know there’s a good chance you’ll end up leaving the pool feeling a little better than when you arrived.

Swimming with Lily

I've been enjoying swimming at the pool next door. It's my hydro-psychotherapy and it's great, especially when I have the blues. I wish I could bring Lily to swim in the pool too. I can swim with her at the pond.

My Amazing and Inspiring Cousin Sue

Sue Epstein, who divides her time between Park City and upstate New York, was accustomed to accomplishment. Having competed in equestrian competitions, served as director of a therapeutic horseback riding organization and cycled all over the world in places such as Italy and Slovenia, Sue assumed those days were now over. Diagnosed with Glioblastoma in the motor strip at age 62, Sue was given the choice to let the brain tumor take her life, or to live with a disability. To Sue, the choice was clear. Following surgery, the entire right side of Sue’s body became immobile. She’s fortunate to not have suffered cognitive effects.

Read her story here.

Keila Merino

“You have a lot of time for reflection when you’re running 100 miles through the mountains, and I think a lot about my students,” Ms. Merino, who has taught at P.S. X114 for 11 years now, said one day recently after class, before a training run.
Article

My first Thought was that She was Very Brave

Tormented by horrific memories of being sexually abused years before by a middle school gym teacher, Kristen Cunnane thought about killing herself --
[...]

Deputy Berch Parker, then a detective assigned to the Lafayette Police Department, was the lead investigator in the Kristen Cunanne case.

"What was your first thought when you heard Kristen's story?" Smith asked Det. Parker.

"I think my first thought was that she was very brave," he replied.
[...]
For years now, Kristen has been unable to visit the house where she grew up.

"There's millions of good memories of growing up there, but the hundreds of bad memories of what she did to me there, just is like overwhelming," she said.

Through all the pain and upheaval, Kristen has always had swimming -- the sport she loves -- to fall back on.

She also has the support of her "little army" as she likes to call them -- the women of Cal Berkeley's swim team where she's the associate coach.

"I get to coach swimmers transitioning from adolescents and to being college adult athletes and it's a wonderful job and it's gotten me through some really hard times," said Kristen.
[...]
Swimming is different than any other sport. There is a sense of peace that I never experienced anywhere else.

Article

Neil Gaiman

Gaiman illustrates [...] with the most breath-stopping testament to what we endure for stories as they in turn help us endure, by way of his 97-year-old cousin Helen, a Polish Holocaust survivor:

A few years ago, she started telling me this story of how, in the ghetto, they were not allowed books. If you had a book ... the Nazis could put a gun to your head and pull the trigger – books were forbidden. And she used to teach under the pretense of having a sewing class... a class of about twenty little girls, and they would come in for about an hour a day, and she would teach them maths, she'd teach them Polish, she'd teach them grammar...

One day, somebody slipped her a Polish translation of Margaret Mitchell's novel Gone with the Wind. And Helen stayed up – she blacked out her window so she could stay up an extra hour, she read a chapter of Gone with the Wind. And when the girls came in the next day, instead of teaching them, she told them what happened in the book. And each night, she'd stay up; and each day, she'd tell them the story.

And I said, "Why? Why would you risk death – for a story?"

And she said, "Because for an hour every day, those girls weren't in the ghetto – they were in the American South; they were having adventures; they got away.

I think four out of those twenty girls survived the war. And she told me how, when she was an old woman, she found one of them, who was also an old woman. And they got together and called each other by names from Gone with the Wind...

We [writers] decry too easily what we do, as being kind of trivial – the creation of stories as being a trivial thing. But the magic of escapist fiction ... is that it can actually offer you a genuine escape from a bad place and, in the process of escaping, it can furnish you with armor, with knowledge, with weapons, with tools you can take back into your life to help make it better... It's a real escape – and when you come back, you come back better-armed than when you left.

Helen's story is a true story, and this is what we learn from it – that stories are worth risking your life for; they're worth dying for. Written stories and oral stories both offer escape – escape from somewhere, escape to somewhere.

Remarking on how Helen's story changed him, he adds:

Stories should change you – good stories should change you.

Article

Rebecca Solnit: That Center Called Love

The desire to go home that is a desire to be whole, to know where you are, to be the point of intersection of all the lines drawn through all the stars, to be the constellation-maker and the center of the world, that center called love. To awaken from sleep, to rest from awakening, to tame the animal, to let the soul go wild, to shelter in darkness and blaze with light, to cease to speak and be perfectly understood.
― Rebecca Solnit, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics

The art is not one of forgetting but letting go. And when everything else is gone, you can be rich in loss.
― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

When someone doesn't show up, the people who wait sometimes tell stories about what might have happened and come to half believe the desertion, the abduction, the accident. Worry is a way to pretend that you have knowledge or control over what you don't--and it surprises me, even in myself, how much we prefer ugly scenarios to the pure unknown. Perhaps fantasy is what you fill up maps with rather than saying that they too contain the unknown.
― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark. That’s where the most important things come from, where you yourself came from, and where you will go.
― Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.
― Rebecca Solnit, Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics