postcards from nowhere

note from Karen:  This was written by my client, Debra.    
Please let her know what you think, and if you like it, subscribe!

d_schanilec@hotmail.com
 
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Welcome to my first internet salon, sort of a one-sided discussion about 
whatever I feel like at the time. It was born of a personal coaching 
assignment, and I’d like to keep doing it! If you find value in it, please 
forward it on to anyone else you think might. If you find yourself 
wanting to give feedback, comments, suggestions, recipes (just kidding :~) 
please reply!

Debra


A Golfer’s Berlin Wall

I find myself eagerly participating in water cooler conversations 
these days, the ones about that maddening 4 putt on the eighth hole 
or a previously adequate swing that has been held captive by the 
merciless golf gods for weeks on end. I’m learning to play that 
singularly frustrating and thoroughly exhilarating sport that, 
previous to this year, used to prompt a quick pass on the remote 
over any channel broadcasting tournament highlights.

I had taken a club into my hands three times before this spring, 
tagging along for a 'walk' a few times in my youth when my dad 
and a friend or relative played a round. When there was no foursome 
immediately upon us, I was allowed to take the time to swing at a ball 
at some random point on the fairway.   I was able to get it up into 
the air once each outing (hmm - my dad is left-handed and I am not - 
did I swing his club?).

That temporary thrill did not translate into a keen enough interest to 
pursue the matter any further, on any occasion (nor be encouraged to, 
when I think about it - ah, fledgling feminist angst). The sensation 
of connecting with enough of the sweet-spot on the ball with enough 
of the sweet-spot on the club simmered in the back of my mind however 
for several decades. Enter golf fanatic of a boyfriend this spring, 
and the rest is history.

Today, I connect well enough with those sweet spots to have gradually 
lowered my score from an initial 79 for nine holes to my present 
personal best of 50, all in the span of my first summer. This phenomenon 
has been a pleasant surprise for me. The extent of my previous athletic 
endeavors include the spring semester of my sophomore year in high school
as a sprinter on the track team, until killer shin splints and a bout 
with mono sidelined me for the season.

I took parks and rec. tennis lessons the summer after my seventh grade 
year and did well enough, but not well enough to go out for the JV team 
(not that there was one for girls at that time anyway - more angst). 
At family reunions I could connect with a baseball or two admirably 
enough alongside my male cousins. Athletic ability always seemed to be 
latent in my build and in the way I move, when I compared myself to 
the general population, but prowess, no.

Relating this recent circumstance of success has produced a surprising 
spectrum of reactions, especially in those of the male population. One 
acquaintance warned that if my score began to nip at the heels of my 
boyfriend’s, much less claim my first 'w' at his expense, shock waves 
of threat would wreck havoc through our relationship.   Luckily, 
my boyfriend holds the view that since he taught me everything I know, 
he thus reserves and deserves bragging rights for every milestone 
and every victory I achieve,including beating him (yes, on two occasions).

Others ask me after the weekend to see if I’ve broken the 40s threshold; 
so far we can only exchange sad tales of scores imitating the consistency
of a rollercoaster and helplessly curse the golf gods.   Apparently 
I must learn to endure laboring under this handicap of omnipotent whim. 
In spite of that fact, I find that I am literally convinced of the 
possibility that I can swing with 95% accuracy, loft and distance, 
95% of the time I address the ball.

The likelihood of that happening hovers at around 65%. My practice 
swings are stellar, but my ability seems to waver when the stroke 
counts on a scorecard. And your point is? you say - you’ve only 
been playing for four months. Waddya want? Well, what I want is, 
to be in that 95% range. Not being privy to the world of competitive 
sport might be interpreted as a disadvantage in this effort.   
How do I improve my skills and learn to perform with confidence 
under pressure if I haven't faced an opponent on the playing field 
before, worthy or otherwise?

Possibility cavorts with champagne in hand on the top of the crumbling 
Berlin Wall of a challenge taken on, sections of rock falling away, 
while Likelihood watches safely from behind the crowd control barricades 
on the street, wondering when the riot police are going to arrive and 
disperse everyone with hoses of retribution poised to blast at full 
strength.

How to resolve this juxtaposition of ability and actual results? 
There are other troughs to draw from than athletic competition alone. 
Life experience can supply the necessary sustenance and strength to fuel 
a campaign against the golf gods, that most odious of adversaries. 
I’ve thrust myself into and had thrust upon me situations that required 
at least as much if not more of me, and thrived in spite of it all.

My first real job out of college I taught middle school students in an 
American school overseas.   Far from becoming an expatriot, I chose to 
participate in another culture rather than merely continue living my own 
within it.   By the end of my three year stint, I emerged looking and 
sounding enough like a native to be complimented when dealing with store 
clerks or being introduced to strangers.

I survived a graduate school inquiry that 1) completely changed the way I 
looked at learning and energized how I facilitated my classroom, and 2) 
would lead to my eventual departure from the world of education.   For those 
who haven't embraced a whole new world and left behind a paradigm for other 
pursuits, this is no small feat.

Along with the typical challenges of parenthood, I’ve learned how to deal 
with my son’s high functioning autism, a condition that mainly hinders his 
ability to interact socially as intuitively as you or I would. There’s a 
theory that 'exceptional' children, before they arrive on this earth, choose 
parents who will become exceptional, and I believe that to be true.

A few years back, while doing research on the internet (thank god for the 
internet!) for my son, I bumped into some health information that was 
completely foreign to me but would seem to explain my slowly deteriorating 
condition when conventional medicine could not.  Through educating myself 
and choosing to alter my diet, I turned my health concerns around and so far 
have avoided such insanity as dependency on prescription drugs for the rest 
of my life.

I may not be able to perfect my game in one season, but my track record with 
equally daunting struggles tells me that I possess the discipline and the 
ability to find the resources to help me do it, and do it well over time.   
Wrestling these golf gods to the ground until they cry uncle may take a 
little longer.

Debra Schanilec
2003

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Provocative ideas from books I’ve read:
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*How much sugar do we need?
Our bodies do not need simple sugars at all.

The human body needs about two teaspoons of sugar in the bloodstream at any 
time. This small amount can easily be met through the digestion of complex 
carbs, protein and fat. And those complex carbs don’t even need to be fruit. 
We can meet our sugar requirements quite adequately from vegetables, 
legumes, and grains.

From - Get the Sugar Out: 501 Simple Ways to Cut the Sugar Out of Any Diet 
by Ann Louise Gittleman


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Are we happy? Not really. Cults promise a kind of boundless contentment  
punctuated by moments of bliss - but never quite deliver on that promise.  
They fill the void, but only with a different kind of void. Disillusionment 
sets in - or it would of we were allowed to think much about it. Hence the 
first commandment of a cult: thou shalt not think. Free thinking will break 
the trance and introduce competing perspectives. Which leads to doubt. Which 
leads to contemplation of the nearest exit.

"How did all this happen in the first place? Why have we no memory of it? 
When were we recruited?"

From Culture Jam- The Uncooling of America® by Kalle Lasn


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In Russia, China, Formosa, and other countries where cigarettes are made of 
air-dried tobacco - close to the kind the American Indian used before the 
invention of sugar sauces - they are unable to find any correlation at all 
between smoking and lung cancer.

From Sugar Blues by William Dufty

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~~ happy reading, thinking, living~~