I ask for silence (Pablo Neruda)
(Translation by Heidi Fischbach. Read Neruda’s original “Pido Silencio” here)
Now if you’d leave me in peace.
Now if you’d get on without me.
I am going to close my eyes
And I only want five things,
five favorite roots.
One is love without end.
Second is to see autumn.
I cannot be without leaves
flying away and returning to the earth.
Third is grave winter,
the rain I loved, the caress
of a fire in a wilderness of cold.
In fourth place is summertime
round like a watermelon.
The fifth thing is your eyes,
Matilde, my love, my beloved,
I don’t want to sleep without your eyes,
I don’t want to be without your seeing me:
I’d trade springtime
for your gaze still upon me.
My friends, all of that is what I want.
It’s nearly nothing and almost everything.
And now if you wish you may leave.
So much have I lived that one day
you’ll have to make yourselves forget me,
erasing me from the blackboard:
my heart was endless.
But just because I ask for silence
don’t go thinking I’m about to die:
au contraire:
it so happens I’m about to be lived.
It just so happens that I am and I keep being.
I will not be dying for within me
grains will grow,
first the kernels that break through
the earth to see light,
but mother earth is dark:
and inside me I am dark:
I am like a well in whose waters
the night sky leaves her stars
and goes on alone through the fields.
This is about my having lived so much
that I want to live another much.
Never have I felt such resonance,
never have I had so many kisses.
Now, as always, it is early.
The light takes flight with her bees.
Leave me alone with this day.
I ask permission to be born.
I can’t get sick. I can’t get sick. I can’t get sick. Knock on wood & swallow garlic.
A couple days ago I sensed the onset of what felt like a major cold, maybe even a flu.
Now the benefits of self-employment are many, but health insurance and paid sick time don’t figure among them. (Neither can you fake the I’m-so-busy-look for your boss and coworkers while you surf the internet—not that any of my friends would ever do that, mind you.)
So, when I felt my throat feeling thick and a bit sore and found myself sneezing a couple times on Sunday, I panicked. And then I went to the kitchen.
In a panic, I often find myself in the kitchen. Don’t ask. Maybe it’s from the olden olden days of eating disorder, when cupboards and refrigerator offered comfort, albeit with vice. Who knows. But there I was. And for whatever reason, all I could really find that appealed to a thickening throat were garlic and lemon, and always, of course, salt.
I’m very excited to have come upon an amazing cold aversion technique. And feel indebted to share it. This is what I did:
1. I crushed up 2 medium-ish cloves of fresh garlic with some rock sea salt up in my beloved stone mortar and pestle.
(I don’t know if a mortar and pestle must be involved, nor if they must be beloved, but in the interest of science and research replicability, I come clean about all factors and motivations. That, and to tell you I wasn’t always surfing the net in my data manager at NERI days—not that you asked.)
2. I squeezed out the juice of 1 lemon.
3. I mixed that all up and added a bit of olive oil (for taste).
4. I swallowed half of that and set the rest aside for later, at which time I ate the remainder on half an avocado. That was actually quite delish. But then, avocado always is.
So, yes. This sounds like a very strong salad dressing and I suppose it is, but it was nothing short of miraculous. I did it again the next day and I have barely a trace of anything.
Some other things I did, which I’m sure contributed but have not been enough to ward off major colds in the past:
1000 mg. of vitamin C (I have the powdered ascorbic acid kind, which I mixed into fresh squeezed OJ) — a couple times a day.
In the middle of the night, a couple times when I woke up with scratchy throat, I gargled with warm salt water. (Helpful to keep cup and salt in bathroom to avoid stumbling about in the dark half asleep)
So, “santo remedio,” as we said in Chile.
As for garlic breath, I had pretty much an alone day yesterday, so it didn’t much matter. And Humlum? Well, he doesn’t mind.
Today, out of curiosity, I googled garlic and confirmed what I suspected and must have known to some degree: it is packed with anti-microbials and anti-bacterials and anti-fungals, among other many good things. (Fresh garlic, that is. Forget the powdered stuff)
(Lastly: all opinions expressed by way of this note are simply the personal experience of one Heidi Fischbach, who is NOT a doctor nor has she ever played one. On TV, that is ;)
Here here to our health. Be well and laugh if it’s in you. And, if you have any “santo remedios” up your sleeve, do tell.
Sometimes I want to be…
Sometimes I want to be my niece Caroline who’s cool and groovy, an awesome swimmer with a butterfly stroke that makes you jump up and down with joy (she’s 8!) and a growing leaf collection. Caroline loves girly things AND earthworms. She thinks slugs are a bit disgusting, but that doesn’t stop her from examining them up close and personal and telling me that I should make a new massage kind of crème from the clay she’s found on the Whidbey Island beach, plus slug guts, ginger-ale (to make it more liquidy) and cinnamon—she only added cinnamon when I said my clients might not want to leave a massage smelling like slug guts. Always creative, Caroline takes things in stride and can sit back quietly. She takes her time to answer a question that she doesn’t know the answer to off the top of her head. She won’t say just anything to make the asker happy.
Sometimes I want to be my quiet writer friend who’s taught himself to play guitar. At home he will sit down on his awesome antique art nouveau couch and just make up songs. He says things succinctly if he says them at all and when he says something it sits there strong and tall like a mountain, sometimes even for days. Or weeks. It is enough to drive an impatient Mexican jumping bean girl crazy but there you have it. Sometimes I wish I could be more like him.
Remember the laps that were comfortable to sit on when you were a kid? Sometimes I want to be like my friend Barbara’s big lap. Figurative big lap, people, figurative. What I mean is that when you talk to Barbara you feel so at ease — she doesn’t have an agenda for you because she knows that you, somewhere inside yourself, know what’s best. People who love you and don’t have an agenda are amazing people to have in your life and hands-down the best listeners. They aren’t just nodding their heads and pretending either. Neither are they playing devils advocate to every thing you mention that sounds the least bit “negative”, neither are they thinking of what they will say next. They don’t freak out if you cry and quickly smother you with Kleenexes. They aren’t afraid of snot. No. They are really just right there with you. Even a half hour of presence like that can turn a whole day around. I can be that way with my clients. And sometimes I am that way with my friends too. I like that.
Sometimes I want to be my stuffed bear Humlum because he never ever tries to change anyone. That doesn’t mean he hangs out with people he doesn’t like for very long, mind you, and I have seen him roll his eyes on occasion, but still. Point made. Humlum does not even try to fix my obsessive habits, like refreshing my email or facebook page to see who loves me. Or who doesn’t. He knows that when I finally have had enough I wil sit still and write or cry or go to the park. He never says I told you so, Heidi. He is endlessly patient. He knows I’m creative and persistent and that in my time I will figure how to wear myself with ease.
