Author: lakshmibertram

My first book, 'Choosing Waterbirth: Reclaiming the Sacred Power of Birth' was published in 2000. I continue to write, working on a number of projects, both fiction and non-fiction.

Nature Girl….Or Not….?

It’s made me wonder who I am, is what spring did.

As we go through life, we acquire ways of identifying ourselves, ways to relate our individual being to the world outside. If we have an affinity for music, we may labels ourselves musicians. If we’re drawn to drawing, we might say we’re graphic artists. If we are, inexplicably, excited by algebraic equations we could proclaim ourselves rocket scientists or mechanical engineers or at the very least math brainiacs. We have boundless external identifiers to choose from and it is the combination of natural inclination and environmental influence that leads us to conclusions about who we are and guide us into who we become.

Throughout my life, I have always thought of myself a ‘nature girl.’ If I made a list of my top ten personal identifiers and named them in order of dominance, ‘nature girl’ would be in the top three—right after ‘writer’ and before ‘dancer.’ An inherent curiosity combined with a childhood that included a horse ranch, a three hundred acre preparatory school, a thousand acre Ashram, and countless hours allowed to roam cultivated the nature girl within me. My favorite pastime was wandering through the woods or over fields with the birds and butterflies for company. I grew to love all of nature; rain, snow, sunshine, mountain tops, valleys, rivers, lakes, and streams. My love of the natural world also influenced my development as a person, I’m conscious of the environment and even my consumerism became naturally oriented, all my hair and cleaning products are biodegradable, my perfume is from natural essential oils, and even my diet is free from chemical influences.

This thing—nature—overwhelming and beautiful, inspiring and terrible, fascinating and dominating, became a part of who I believed myself to be.

Until recently.

Suddenly, without alteration of my inner self, without a mutation of my natural inclinations or a decline in my usual tastes, I cannot go outside! I have allergies, bad ones, thus the natural world I have long loved is now lost to me. If I should hope to refrain from being dreadfully ill, if I should hope to be able to continue to breathe—no longer can I roam the wilds.

It’s been a shock and has taken adjustment. You may imagine I would feel sad thinking on this—but as it happens I don’t anymore. Over the long course of our lives, we are constantly in flux, who we think of as ourselves today will be just a shadow come tomorrow. Change is the only certainty in this world but even through the course of change the essence of things remain. I am no longer able to go out into the wild to roam, but the fine seeds of that world were planted in my psyche and laid roots that extend beyond the physical. From the safety of my allergy-proof home, I remain a part of that brash wind, those groaning oaks, that amorous frog, and those earnest saplings, that optimistic grass, and the furious sunshine. I may no longer be able to justify the label ‘nature girl’ through my lifestyle but the way I see it is this:

You can take the girl out of the nature, but you can’t take the nature out of the girl.

And so, Nature Girl, I will remain—albeit an unusual one.

Blood Inheritance

Blood inheritance:
Priceless treasures held in trust—
Passed down through cheek bones.

It’s when I’m quietest that the boat is really rocking. It’s when I fall short of even the ability to write, that I know I’ve been hit at the core. Life, it seems, will do that at times. All we can do is face the tempest, wait for the rain to pass, the wind to die down, and the happy blue sky to reappear.

My grandfather passed away on March 18, 2011. It was 3:33 in the afternoon. He had been ill for two months, slowly fading from life via mesothelioma. He was 91 years old.

Papa passed away as he had lived, with the same sense of humor and ridiculous fun that characterized everything he did. Up until the day before he died, he was cracking jokes with my family and the last truly coherent thing he ever said to me was to ask, “What’s good in the family?”

Papa’s memory had not been great for years. It was faded thin, like a worn table cloth with holes all through it. Amazingly, with this irregular, spotty pattern, he only remembered the good stuff! Every story he told, every question he asked, everything he commented on was all about love, fun, and the re-telling of honored family stories. It was a pleasure to be around him. Even if I had to hear the same tale over and over again, it was fun to hear him tell it. He was animated when he talked, his eyes going wide, his arms throwing gestures. He loved life while he lived it, and then loved to bring the joy of his adventures back to whomever cared to listen.

Papa was physically big and strong and enjoyed great health for most of his life. When he became sick, they let us know the end would be soon. He lasted longer than we thought. It is my theory that Papa was stubborn. My grandmother, his lover for 72 years, agrees. Papa did not leave this earth until his body became absolutely incapable of supporting life. Only then did he let go. Left to him, he would have lived forever. He loved life and the people he shared it with that much.

My grandmother stood at the head of his bed when Papa passed away. She leaned over and stroked his cheeks while he took a few, last labored breaths. That was the truest and deepest expression of love I have ever seen. Even as tears streamed down her face, she murmured words of comfort to help him pass on. Under her touch, with her whispers in his ears, his face relaxed, and peacefully and easily he let go.

After he had passed away, my grandmother told me something that has fast become a law I will live by. She said, “What your grandfather and I had together was a whole lot of fun. I have always thought that people who don’t have fun are not trying hard enough. You have always got to try, and never quit trying, to make your life fun.”

While I knew him, my grandfather made my life fun. I was not alone; he had an impact on pretty much everyone he met. Google his name, Charlie Metro. The Internet is filled with pictures of his smiling face. Dashing and good looking, strong and charismatic, he left a legacy that I now understand I carry on.

Juniper, Alder & Elm

Mine enemies have arrived, cloaked                                                                                        in the guise of friends. Reigning Gods

of the natural world, with swaying words                                                                          and the promise of all things good and youthful.

They steal me from myself. In bitter solitude,                                                                        I await their slow decline. Long months,

till their inevitable sleep gives me  life again.

Fried Potatoes

I don’t often cook for my family anymore. I work full-time and don’t have the energy—or perhaps it’s the inclination—at the end of the day to go into the kitchen and prepare a meal. Fortunately, my husband (unemployed since last December), has taken on the role of house-husband and most evenings he cooks a meal for our family of seven.

I do miss cooking, so I often cook on weekends, preparing a family favorite or experimenting with something new.

Last Saturday morning I made Fried Potatoes as part our breakfast. I always fry my potatoes in the same skillet. A large stainless steel revere wear pan with a black plastic handle and a bottom warped from years of use. It’s not a great skillet but I can’t get rid of it because it belonged to my mother.

She gave this skillet to me years ago when the ratio of my six kids to hers tipped over; hers were leaving just as mine were still arriving. She knew I needed a larger skillet to keep my growing crew fed, so she passed it on to me.

I grew up poor, many people did, and food was sometimes hard to come by. We never starved, but neither did we have those convenience foods my children now enjoy. We didn’t eat boxed cereal, or bags of chips, cheese slices, or jars of juice or soda and almost never had candy bars or ice cream. We ate whole foods like oats and wheat cereal, fresh fruits and vegetables, and lots of and beans and rice.

My mother had six children, as I do, and every night she set our table with a meal. We were never hungry but staples are not the most fun foods to eat. My mother has an indomitable sense of fun. She believes it doesn’t matter how much you have, but what kind of experience you choose to create with what you have that makes life enjoyable. With my mother, I have sat at the kitchen, dressed in a nightgown and make-up, playing cards, I have learned to make grape jelly from grapes we picked in our back yard, I’ve made bread and biscuits, pizza and cinnamon rolls all from scratch. I’ve had picnics and sleepovers where we cordoned off one room for music and danced. I had very little from the standpoint of what you could measure in material wealth growing up, but from my mother I learned how to take what you have—no matter what that is—and make it fun.

On Sundays, all my growing years, my mother made us a big breakfast just for fun. It was a celebration of family and also a chance to eat our favorite foods. Traditionally, it consisted of pancakes with orange sauce and maple syrup, soya sausages and, of course, fried potatoes. My mother is a master at putting a complex meal together, and she was brisk, the heat making her face glisten as she hustled about the kitchen, assigning tasks to her fledgling cooks. We each had a job to do and mine was often to watch the potatoes.

My mother cut her potatoes in slim wedges, peels on. Today, I peel mine and chop them into one inch squares. The shapes of the potatoes may differ, but the procedure is the same. Chop them, drop them into hot oil and let them fry. I learned how to flip them without dumping them over the edges of the pan, I learned the timing for how long to let them fry before they needed flipping, I learned when to sprinkle the salt and how much was the right amount of pepper. I learned all I needed to know and took it with me into my own motherhood.

Over the years, amidst the bustle of the Sunday cooking, my mother often commented on how this skillet was the same make and style as the one her father had used when made fried potatoes for her and her sisters in the tradition of their family.

On Saturday, I repeated the fried potato ritual as I had many times before. I grasped the handle of the warped-bottom skillet, ready to flip and felt the ghost of my mother’s hand in the plastic. I felt a link, stretching back through my bloodlines to my mother then beyond her into my grandfather. I realized, I was a third generation potato fryer, and felt this simple act unite us as family as absolutely as the color of our hair, or the shade of our skin.

One of my children has left home and the next one down is right behind him. I fed four kids with the potatoes I fried on Saturday. I stood before the heat, with potatoes popping and frying, remembering my ancestors and wondered which one of my kids would inherit this skillet once my need for it is done.

For the Hills and Valleys of Home


I dreamt about Peebles last night, the place fresh in my mind after our recent sojourn through the Tweed Valley.

I’m a sucker for places, this is what I’ve come to realize.

I can’t explain why I’m easily seduced by the lay of a certain land or the look of light falling across those mountains, or tripping across that river. Land speaks to me and when I like what I hear, I fall for a place.

This is how I’m in love with the Tweed Valley in the Scottish Borders. If you’ve been there, you understand why—if not, you should plan a trip; it’s unforgettable.

I first visited Peebles when seventeen whilst coming back from the touristy Loch Ness. I swam naked in Loch Ness and what I can tell you about that experience is; don’t underestimate the midges. Despite their diminutive name and size, they do some bodily damage. The water at Loch Ness was inky black and icy, perfect for a swim. We stayed in a small bed and breakfast and what struck me then was the red of the setting sun, streaking across a midnight sky. By the time I awoke, early as usual, the sky was already bright with sun.

When we drove into the tweed valley, winding down an impossible road between green sloping hills, my chest shuddered, as if a bird struggling to take flight. The insides of me hummed; I drank in the sharp contrasts of green fields and low, rolling sky, white sheep and dark shale. From the first moment I lay eyes on this valley, I have wanted to live there.

Life is not so easy as this, allowing us to simply follow the trail of a yearning, commitment and responsibility get in the way.

I’ve gone two more times since that first glimpse and each time, my experience has been the same. Some sleeping part of me awakens; I come alive. It reminds me of the quickening in the Highlander series. I almost feel as if my hair was standing on end and lightning bolts shooting out my ears. I almost feel immortal.

Last week, we rode again through the hills dropping down into Walkerburn and Innerleithen, then on to Peebles. The weather was variable, meaning it rained, then the sun shone brightly and skimmed the wet grass with sparkling light. Then it rained. Then the sun shone brightly. Then it rained. Then the sun shone brightly. Over and over again all day long. Every time the sun broke through those fickle Scottish clouds, I took off my rain jacket and polar fleece and said, “My, what a beautiful sunny day!” Then, when the storm clouds rolled in and the rain began to pour, “I love the rain!” That day was my favorite weather ever. Not a moment to brood over a hot sun or rainy sky. Before you could grow weary of what was—it had already changed. We walked for miles in that town; to and from the pub, to and from the coffee shop, the crisp, clean air filling my lungs, allowing me to breathe. That’s another thing I love of the North; air I can actually breathe.

These days, I’m seriously considering places to live, knowing it would be best for me to leave this polleny place I have long called home. It was inevitable that Peebles should creep into my mind and tap on the inside of my skull. This time when visiting, I looked at it with a new eye, asking, “Could I live here? Would I be happy in this place, with these mountains, by this river, raising my children, cooking dinner, dancing, and dreaming my life into being, wishing for things or crying over disappointments?” It’s an impossible question to answer, based solely on the spare days I’ve spent in the valley. But, like I said, places speak to me and when I think of Peebles I hear this river and the slant of these mountains and the slope of that valley calling me home.

Speaking of England….

Ah, life–never a dull moment with you.

Everyone says life can change in a flash. When it happens to you, you don’t really notice. Our car accident changed my life, but not in a way that directly makes sense. Or maybe it does—in a convoluted, everything-is-connected, things-happen-for-a-reason, philosophically-oriented sort of way.

It’s hard to find that thread at first. We hit a tree in late 2008 and now we’re moving to England. How are these two things connected? One could ask, and not immediately come up with an answer because it all started way back when I was twelve. Or thirteen. Something like that.

I have been sick forever. My symptoms have never changed, but those docs kept slapping diagnosises on me like they were the latest fashion jeans. I have been tested and diagnosed with a lot of things, and given treatments that never worked up until I got sick of doctors and stopped seeing them as they never did me any good anyway.

Then, we hit a tree. I had to see a doctor then. With very bad whiplash, it was the only sensible thing to do. Recovery from that included an initial round of muscle relaxers and heavy duty pain-killers, followed by the more “me-friendly” applications of yoga, chiropractic treatment, and exercise.

Come February, 2009, I was still feeling pretty bad. I caught a flu, nothing to worry about, just a cold and a cough that came on quite suddenly. I wasn’t going to see a doctor for it, but my youngest son was sick, too. I thought, as I’m going in, why not let them have a listen to me while I was there? It couldn’t hurt and my lungs did sound gurgley. This turned out to be one of those accidentally brilliant decisions. I had ‘silent lungs’ which, as an asthma sufferer will tell you, is not a good thing to have. It means a portion of your lungs have become so inflamed, the air has been trapped inside them, preventing good things from happening, such as getting enough oxygen. Silent lungs will get a doctor hustling. I had some kind of breathing treatment immediately, a scrip written for oral steroids and was given an albuterol inhaler. My son, as it happens, was perfectly fine.

Thus began my love affair with asthma. Do not get asthma if you can avoid it; it is not fun.

Though no doctor has ever said it, I think my asthma finally appeared out of the blue at forty years old due to the car accident. The spinal column is your nerve center, with all communication to and from that master planner, the brain, running through it, out to our extremities and vital organs and then back to the brain. It seems to me that the hit my upper back took from that tree could certainly trigger a condition that might have lurked in me for years. Once I got my inhaler and used it a few times, I realized I had been having asthma symptoms all my life, I just hadn’t realized that tight-chested, breathlessness was an asthma attack. It was a normal part of my world, and only with the inhaler did I realize it was correctable.

Asthma. One more diagnosis to add to my list. I wanted to know why I had asthma. I always want to know why. It doesn’t matter what it is, I want to know why it is. One type of asthma is allergy induced. At some point, I had been diagnosed with allergies to chemicals. I knew you could also be allergic to other things. In talking with my doctor, we opted to get me a thorough allergy panel and see if there was more going on than the chemical sensitivity.

If you could see me now, you would realize, I am laughing out loud. It’s funny, but in that very awful sort of way. I was tested for 70 allergens. I tested positive to 43. If you’ve read this blog before now, this won’t be news to you. As it turns out, allergies is what I’ve been suffering from forever—those same set of symptoms with multiple diagnosises turned out to be allergies plain and simple. Well, plain, maybe–but not so simple.

It’s hard to be that allergic. You feel as if everything is making you sick because, in fact, it is. Once I found out, I dutifully took two doses of antihistamines daily as prescribed. Everyone asked if they made me feel sleepy. Are you kidding? I have been fighting chronic fatigue since I was twelve years old; antihistamines finally gave me some of my energy back. I have often wondered if being so sick is why I simultaneously became focused on health. I eat a great diet. I work out. I practice stress-reduction techniques. I drink gallons of water, I limit my fat and sugar intake. My blood-work is beautiful. I realize now, I have to do all of that–just to feel reasonably well. I have fatigue so crippling at times, I feel as if I am dragging myself through quicksand and I can get sick in a minute, seemingly out of the blue. At any moment, on any given day, I can come across something that knocks me out. That is what being highly allergic is like. It’s like being repeatedly ambushed by the world. I would do anything to avoid being made sick. It’s just not easy to know what to do.

All of this leads us up to this Spring. I was taking antihistamines, I was feeling really good. Life was happy and I was happy in it. I planted a big garden. That same one I went on about in my last post. I enjoyed every moment of fresh air and planting until the pollen started to kick. Being out side in pollen is like having fine sand thrown in my eyes all day. I itched, I coughed and I relied on my antihistamines to protect me.

In my defense, I have only known I’ve had allergies for one year, so I’m not the smartest patient in understanding how to deal with them. Avoidance is, apparently, the best measure. I was not fully aware of this going into Spring. We had record pollen levels in VA and by April 15th, having overexposed myself to the blooming world, I was sick. I was Patagonia Dreamin’ because it hurt to breathe. It hurt to think, to move my eyes. My joints ached, my muscles cramped. I dragged through every day at work and collapsed once I got home. I had lost my beautiful life, once again, to ill health.

In trying to recover, I locked myself indoors, cried over the loss of my beautiful garden which I couldn’t tend, cried over the loss of my horses which I could no longer care for, and cried over the loss of the outside world, which I loved. After all the crying, I took a good, hard look at my life. I realized I needed to do things differently. Of course, I talked with doctors first. What that boiled down to was a recommendation I go on low-level steroids. With my sensitive nervous system, they might as well book me a white-walled room now. I’ve been on oral steroids; they are not good for my mental health.

On occasion, I tend to show slightly obsessive tendencies, particularly when I have a problem to sort out. Understanding pollen was my problem, I became obsessed with learning about pollen and how to avoid it. It turns out, there is pollen everywhere. With the exception of Siberia are the top and bottom of the globe, pollen a part of the natural world I love so well. But, this is not the end of the story. There are places that have better pollen profiles. Cool, rainy climates, with shorter growing seasons mean that pollen exposure is minimized. Mountainous regions also have this same affect. Can anyone say…Patagonia? I can’t really move to southern Argentina. It’s not practical, but there is a place I can move that looks much better from a pollen perspective. Can anyone say…England?

Lucky for me, I married a Brit.

We’re moving. Once the house sells, we’re going to a place less plagued by pollen levels and I will, hopefully, for the first time in my life, breath a little easier and itch a little less.

Cheerio, peeps! Onward, ho!, to Britain!