Amano Artisan Chocolate Contest!

Amano Artisan Chocolate Contest

My favorite Artisan Chocolate, comes from Orem Utah.  There aren't a not of wine or tea connoisseurs in Utah Valley, but two returned missionaries that founded Amano Aritisan chocolates are certainly connoisseurs of the chocolate variety.  After trying their chocolates (Montanya is my favorite) I have found it hard to go back to plain old gritty, bland, chalky options available in drug stores.  Their chocolate in smooth and silky in a way I never knew dark chocolate could be.  They travel the world, choosing the highest quality cocoa, from dry climates in high elevations.  I would highly recommend their chocolate, and participating in their contest to guess the location of the cocoa beans of their new brand!  You could win a years supply of chocolate (10 bars per month)!

Perkus Tooth

Today while reading chapter seven in Jonathan Letham’s Chronic City, I felt the desire to slow down, savor and digest sentences and paragraphs. It is sometimes difficult to string together the sentences, observe the spire of the church he sees past the Dorffl tower. It was all started by this sentence: “When I confirm the church's actuality (buildings do persist, Manhattan does exist, things are relentlessly what they seem even if they serve as hosts, as homes, for other phenomena), the sight acts on my mind like an eraser rubbing away the words that might describe it, into crumbs easily swept from the page.” This was what caught my attention, not the first sentence of the chapter with Chase Insteadman (by the way I just got the brilliant description of his last name, what his character serves for other characters in the book, a vessel or “cauldron”) said he wanted to get this description right. It was the image of the eraser leavings, fragments of what was there on the page, changed but still containing the raw material that made the sentence. You can still make out what is there, barely, unless you erase so hard that the paper begins to peel, rubbed raw to expose its pulp. I thought how this sentence was on my brain as pencil on paper, erased by the next sentence I might read, so instead I went back and read it aloud, intending to connect the two thoughts that were separated by the paragraph. Yes, the church does exist, there is something there beyond the eraser rubbing, just not in my brain. So I proceeded to read the rest of the chapter out loud, pausing after realizing I was more concerned with the way my voice sounded and annunciating things succinctly because usually when I read aloud it is to someone else, and the concern that they hear the words properly overwhelms my concern with my own understanding. But it was just me, so I went back to the description of the church, trying to see it.

This brings me to my biofeedback session yesterday. Louise, fixed the sensors, in a process that is called LENS (not sure if it is an acronym or not). The process begins by putting a clip on my shirt, just below my collarbone, then two clamps on my ears, as if I was a drained car battery. Then one of the electrodes is placed precisely on a spot at my crown, Lousie feeling for points on my scalp that will direct her to the mark, then re-feeling to make sure she got it right. Then after talk of, I can’t quite remember now, she asks me to relax. I am expecting the usual relaxing of my forehead (something I’ve had trouble with. You know when a relaxation or meditation cd says to relax your forehead, well my neurons always endeavored to produce the opposite effect) and this time one side relaxes, the right side and the contrast is striking. As my head involuntarily tilts back I feel the tension in the right side of my face dissolve I feel the pulling of my jaw on the left side, the residual clamping of night dreams, (TMJ), the pull of muscles adjacent my left eye. The next site she fixes the electrode to is down, toward the right side, above my ear I believe. There is a reduction of the tension pulling my left forehead, eye, jaw, nose. My jaw goes completely slack and hangs, mouth partially open, and I’m sure tongue slightly protruding. By this time I must be pretty relaxed because I don’t remember the third site, I think it may be at the back of my head. As I write this my brain must be endeavoring to reproduce the effect because my jaw is slack and my eyes limply open. Afterwards, Louise says we will try some biofeedback and fixes a different kind of clamp on my right ear, to measure my heart beat. Then on the little screen in front of me she opens a window with wavy lines, reminiscent of pictures from my online BYU physical science class describing sound waves or light waves. A ball travels up and down and a mans voice tells me to feel my heart in my chest, and my attention goes there. Feeling becomes connected to sight. I am instructed to breath in and out, through my heart, as the ball travels up the wave, in, down as the ball travels down, out. I noticed something monitoring my heart beat at the beginning. Three blocks of color, rapidly rearranging the color between themselves. I am instructed to try to feel a positive feeling, memory, but not to hard. So my brain and heart dance on the top of memories. Everything is converted to feeling as my brain lets go of the desire to describe things in words. Continue breathing through the heart, and follow the ball. The program says I am doing well, and I am now in a state of high consciousness. It repeats it again later, and though my breathing is a little difficult, as my spine is not straight but slightly slumped in the comfy chair, it doesn’t seem to matter, because I am trying to breathe through the heart, not the diaphragm. I find I don’t mind the switching of screens to another visualization, there is no anxiety of what is to come next. Changing lightwaves of color, like an old screen saver, as I breathe. Then another image, a very new age image, the back of a child’s head, I think he was blond and he is wearing a sweater. He seems to be out in space because he looks at the world. Little fuzzy balls of blue light radiate from his chest, the location of his heart, towards the world. All the sudden the balls of light increase, as an organized angle of balls of color streams towards the world. Instead of feeling my normal oh, man this is a cheesy picture, which I knew, I felt, isn’t that little boy cute. As the balls changed to orange, pink, red I couldn’t help thinking of holding a child to my left breast, suckling him, and I wondered if the change of color was automatically designed to go through a spectrum or if this feeling was influencing the color to change red. As the color continued to change to fire orange and then wind its way through yellow, green, and back to blue I think that the color of the light was actually influencing my thoughts and feelings, not the other way around. Though I describe this all now, at the time it was all half thought, mostly felt, dissolving into heartbeat and breathing, back to impression, or maybe I felt it all simultaneously, but no thought held hold, and not frantic sifting through them or longing to hold on. It felt good to let it change and go where it wanted. My mind wandered.

speech and thought

After having some difficulty annunciating the ‘set’ in poinsettia, having it get trapped somewhere on the tip of the tongue, repetition of this world will only cause more of a blockage. So i walked around and looked at the items in my house. I always liked doing such a thing, appraising objects by the value of memories behind them. I looked at the little polar bear blanketed with coarse, worn fur, and remarked to my mother on the very new-to-me discovery, the head moved. you could rotate the polar bear head 360 degrees. After a lifetime of what i thought was familiarity with this object, the back left paw that was chewed by my brother, the prickly white fur, the glassy black eyes i learned something new, or perhaps just had forgotten that i had known it.

Back to poinsettia. Standing, the word came out this time. it was easier without frustrated unrealized effort looming over the tongue. Repeating the word a few times as i walked downstairs seemed to help place me, then i repeated it in my mind and could hear the hiss of ‘set’ and almost feel the relaxed mechanisms in my mouth and throat. And i thought how curious it is that my thoughts are all limited to a physiologically, well coordinated set of movements. I wondered at my thoughts when i was a baby, before the utterances had been pronounced by my own tongue. What was thought then? Was it something similar to what thought is now, when it seems to pause in the middle of things, dropping into a black hole, being sucked inward and becoming totally void. But not void, it is there in the form of half conceived notions and words, all bubbling up but bursting before formation. yes, the metaphor of the bubbles sums it up best. and my mind grasps at them just like tiny hands reaching, eyes lighting up with fascination, fingers stretched, but it burst on its own before i have the chance to tangibly touch it and transform it into soapy wet foam on my fingers.

“Poinseee”- pop!

CCSVI

The body is a finely tuned instrument, and when one cord gets out of tune a symphony just doesn’t sound the same. Whether CCSVI is the foundational problem leading to MS or not; it is most certainly foundational to the symptoms many people with MS struggle with. I read people’s blogs about having their veins liberated and the brain fog dissipates. I try to imagine what that would be like. I see myself on a sterile medical table- complete with white sheets, masked faces, and trained eyes.  I think of the many things I desire that would be so much easier to accomplish without the fatigue; without the millions of little pricks and twists and tugs and general falling apart of the system. To feel that weightlessness.

I’m not so bad off. I can walk- really walk- without assentive devices, for short to moderate amounts of time during the day. For the rest I use a cane. Oh, and clog shoes. Sometimes it is easier wearing the clogs and walking, sometimes without. For a while during each day I can feel myself suspended from the ceiling or sky from a string. My spine supports my whole body. But eventually there is the snap or the gradual bending. Try to right it and I gradually feel myself falling to the front, the back, left and right, like fragile beach grass bending to winds I can’t see or comprehend. What would it be like to have that lessened at least to some extent? What would it be like to type for hours and not slow down like a train going up a steep hill, eyes unfocusing, brain loosing its place? Then what would it be like for those people who have no momentary relenting of symptoms? For those that can’t walk normally all the time? For those that constantly have spasticity with no relenting? Who deal with constant pain? Even the lifting of one problem would make such a difference.

Oh and what would it be like to go to a museum and be able to look at the paintings higher up on the wall, or to turn my head up while standing and look at stars?

With MS, at least in my case, I feel at times like I am being pulled back into a tunnel, unable to concentrate on what people are saying to me. I feel like I am not even there? What would it be like to be fully engaged in a conversation, and not loose concentration after 10 or 20 minutes?

So, I know this desire I have is shared by thousands of people who deal with the same issues, or worse issues. We all are wondering what it would be like? Should we really have to wait till it may be too late? Shouldn’t some of the research dollars be going toward designing a new type of stent that would withstand the turns and twists of the neck? If we can’t find it from Big Pharma, we’ll have to find it somewhere else.

The flood gates have opened, and we will gush forward; blood flows to the heart.

Saul Williams:

I just saw you at WCU. A fellow leap yearer; I was struck. I had not heard of you. I did not know of you. All that came flowing from your mouth had a familiar sound. That sound of the unspoken you were talking of. The Dharma, The Tao, The Way, The Faith.

My father talked with you at Mad Batter. He did not know you either, till he shouted at a friend “are you going to see the Hip Hop guy?” You talked of Paris and the 10th arrondissement. Paris is the city that holds all hearts, those forged through hip hop and french philosophy.

My brother would sing to me John Henry and Paul Robeson. My brother is one outside of time. History is his present. Communists, dreamers of Utopia, dead but still living like Joe Hill, talking to him through dreams. Dreams so thick we could not reach him, had to pull him out from fingers strumming their tunes. Jonny, Jonny, Jonny, come back; stop playing mandolin. Those strings needed to be reverberated through friction and voice.

Thank you, for sharing my day of birth and telling me what you have learned. All days of birth must be shrouded with uncertainty. The existence of a birth, half believed through evidence, and a lack of knowledge of what came before first memory. But you know it. Aloof, floating in the mists of Brigadoon, February 29th.

When I was in Paris I studied Language, through the medium of undergrad anthropology, through the medium of BYU, through the medium of text, language, and internet. I remembered reading that everything we know and are taught is prior text. Culmination of generations, thoughts formed, truths learned, opinions gleaned. Giving us commonality to share commonalities through. So there is enough commonality to bridge the gap of “race.” A black man can speak to a white girl. She struggles to express voice, organize scattered thoughts. She writes the voices that whispered to her while you talked. The tangents taken and thoughts bubble through. Then a shift. I needed to listen to you. But I couldn’t listen without the other. The realizations. Ortega was right. All utterances exuberant and deficient. I didn’t even hear everything. And that missing will lead me to buy your work. So everything is forever changed.

Goodbye for now. It’s time to look up Nina Simone, and your books.

Antigua.

Earlier on, the village we passed at the top of the assent out of Lake Atitlan, had a section filled with colorful plastered boxes. Were they houses? Turquoise, pink, green, yellows. But they are so small; ah, a house of shorts, but for the dead. A cemetery of mosuleums I decided. The suspicion was enhanced upon passing a shop, open to the air as most of the shops were, with shiny silver coffins. Oddly morose, at least to a person with Western eyes, bright and shining death. Perhaps gladly, joyfully morose? Is that so strange in a country that celebrates the day of the dead, ancestors and the past. Just to a person from the land of the present and future, when the past is only brought up at religious functions, and the occasional holiday.

So that brings me to today. Mom woke me and I lay in bed debating whether to get up. Do I sleep, have a relaxing lazy morning. Waste time the way I wanted without anyone to look on? Or should I have an experience. See the way other people live and worship, in a way not so different than my own (same religion.) I got up, not wanting to waste my life.

We walked from the blue house- connected to other colored houses. They look so plain from the front- but are so busy within. Down the street to find a tuck-tuck, trying to balance in slightly loose and worn clog sandals on also worn and uneven cobblestone. Squished into the tuck tuck, bump, bump and speed along- even closer quarters than the tourist shuttle. At least I am in the middle, no end of a screw stabbing my thigh, I wonder if Dad is okay, because he is on that side. The meeting house is also seemingly plain, but inside high arched cathedral and wood beamed ceilings. Later a member, Francisco Sagastume, explains that they wouldn’t have let them build the usual Mormon chapel in Antigua. He has a rotund figure and face, jolly mustache smile, a creased forehead.

That was after the meeting, before the meeting pews are barely half full, greeted with Buenos Dias, handshakes, and smiles. The meeting starts with Nearer My God to Thee in spanish. Hum along. More and more people file in and when sacrament is passed the meeting house is full with young couples, some old, and many, many babies and children. Testimonies- I heard hermonos, hermanas, then crying, joyful squeals, and heartfelt bearings of spirit- all of which are slightly lost to me as they all compete for my attention.

Lunch at Tartines- carrot soup, chicken with paresly and wonderful crunchy onions, salad, a few fries. Tartines overlooks a ruin, grey, and black and some red brick with grey mortar, tan grasses grow from the broken pillars, and green down below with occational tourists.

The rest of the day is spent inside, lazy, sore throat, tired, but not resting. Playing games on DS and Nokia device. Success was had.

Feel slightly feverish, but maybe it is just my sunburnt face. So sleepy. Goodnight.

Lake Altitlan

We arrived yesterday around 1:30. I am still in a fog from lack of sleep before we left and didn’t sleep well last night. Yesterday was dream like, arriving in the airport, waiting for the shuttle, driving through guatemala city, villages, and windy roads.

They made me a special dinner last night. The chicken dish was spaghetti with a tomato sauce, tomato soup, brucetta, cucumber salad preceding it. I can’t have tomatoes on this diet so they made my chicken special with parsley, garlic and olive oil. It was very tasty, even more so because I was famished and exhausted, only having snacked all day. The couple next to us were speaking German, we did not have much interaction; which was okay because I could barely think, much less communicate.

The boat ride over was cramped, uncomfortable, and beautiful. A wooded cliff with birds turning concentrically, flocking away from the cliff and back, dusk settling over the lake as the sun set. All this I saw from my perch on the boat with a low ceiling and ten or so rough benches.