Dayna Macy’s Blog

If John McCain becomes president, he will be the oldest President to have ever been elected to office. He’s a cancer survivor. And, for his VP, he picks Sarah Palin, Govenor of Alaska.

Is this someone ready to lead the country? What does she know about the running of the federal government?  The military? Does she have any foreign policy experience? She is, as Obama said, a heartbeat away from the Presidency and it seems to me she is not ready to assume that mantle.

This looks like a desperate ploy on McCain’s part — like in a basketball game where you’re down to the last three seconds and you shoot from the other end of the court, just in case you can sink it.

I don’t know if choice this will sink McCain’s candidacy, but it’s hard to tell how it will help.

I got a call a few days ago from yogajournal.com’s talented editorial director, Andrea Kowalski. She tells me we’re sending a blogger to the DNC, and could I send a press release out on it. “Oy,” I thought, “If anyone at all writes about it, it will be to make fun of it.” But send I did.

Leah Garchik wrote about it in her column today, sharing my fear of being lampooned by New York press. LA Times will write about. And, I hear, Newsweek.

The blogger, Sara Avant Stovers, first dispatch, from the Convention manages to mention New York Times reporter David Carr, Daryl Hannah, and Bobby Kennedy in the same breath. Pretty cool.

So though I fear yoga will be made fun of, I also know that press is press. And if anyone dares ask me if yoga is more Democratic than Republican (I mean really, can you imagine John McCain in any yoga position?), I’ll tell them the practice predates the political parties by, oh, at least 4500 years.

I’ve noticed, without planning or trying, that every August I clean out my closet. Not such exciting news, but this year, my annual closet cleaning gave me an unanticipated gift.

I not only found some clothes I really liked but had forgotten I owned, I also realized how many lovely things I have. Instead of my chronic case of the “gimmees,” and “let’s shop!” I felt like I have enough. My closet wasn’t lacking anything (except a great pair of gray slacks). I have plenty and don’t’ need to keep filling it (and myself) up with more stuff.

I’ll try to remember that.

Whether in politics, Hollywood, or in my personal circle of friends, I don’t care who sleeps with who. I don’t care if a politician is gay (unless he’s a homophobe in public, then all bets are off). So I just didn’t get what all the hoopla about John Edwards was about.

“Why all the fuss?” I asked my husband Scott, a journalist. “Who the hell cares, besides his wife and kids?”

Scott gently pointed out  that this man could have been Obama’s nominated VP, or even the nominee himself.  And had that happened — well, disaster. The democratic nomination derailed. John McCain the next President.

The country deserves better than Bush. Better than McCain, and, I guess, better than Edwards. It deserves Obama. If he wins, I will throw a party on January 20, 2009, and toast the end of an eight-year nightmare.

I picked my boys up from camp yesterday, and got them fabulous cupcakes from Love at First Bite — a cupcakery (who cares if that’s a word) smack in the heart of Berkeley’s “Gourmet Ghetto”. (The boys each wanted crushed oreo cupcakes. I, in a fit of rare discipline, declined). As we were walking back to our car, I told them I wanted to show them something cool. I pointed out the window of Mandy Aftel’s workshop, filled with antique perfume bottles. Mandy is a perfume maker, and I had interviewed her for a piece I wrote several years ago on cooking with essential oils. Just as I was pointing out the different shape bottles, the door opens, and out steps Mandy with her boyfriend.

“Hi Mandy,” I said,  reminding her of who I was. Knowing this was a rare chance to bring my boys into her perfume studio, I asked her if I could briefly show the boys her workshop. She very graciously said, “of course.”

I knew my boys would love her space, because it’s magical. She has a perfume “organ,” a three sided workspace that allows her to mix scents within easy reach. Stepping into her workshop is like stepping back in time, when alchemists and witchcraft reigned. My son Jack asked her if he could smell some rose scent, and Mandy began describing the difference between Moroccan Rose and Oman Rose, the difference between essential oils and absolutes, and top, middle or base notes. We smelled Frankincense, Oakmoss, Lavender, Tobacco, and my personal favorite, Black Spruce.

We spent about a half hour there, as Mandy kindly entertained my boys questions. Smelling her perfume mixtures is a completely different experience from anything you’ll find in department stores (I don’t wear perfume for this reason — they smell, and in fact, are synthetic), and while I can’t say I love all of Mandy’s fragrances — I find them all interesting (she’s coming out with a black currant fragrance this fall that is wonderful, deep, earthy, and berryish).

As we left, I said, “Fellas, you’ve just met a witch, and I mean that in the very best possible way,” to which Mandy gave us a big smile.

Magic is still alive and well in the world. And Berkeley seems to have a higher than average amount.

I am madly in love with The Xocolate Bar – a new chocolate store in Berkeley at 1709 Solano Avenue. Owned by Malena and Clive, a former metalsmith and glassblower respectively, their chocolates are deep, rich, and wonderful (my favorites are the Kalamata Olive truffle — salty and sweet, and the Cardomon ganache). Malena makes her own molds, and the results are gorgeous — a zaftig Venus of Willendorff, a spritely Bacchus, and lusty Kama Sutra tiles. And if that weren’t enough, the molded chocolates are covered with an iridescent shimmer. They even serve vegan chocolate (no carob silliness here!). And, they serve it all with great smiles and good will. The store has become a favorite hangout for me and my boys, and if you live in Berkeley or are just passing through, I urge you to stop by and taste their divinely inspired confections.

I had just come from Mandy Aftel’s perfume studio (more on that another time) where she had given me an absolute of Black Spruce (how wonderful is Berkeley?) I gave Malena a smell from the bottle and I had, what I humbly consider, a flash of genius — conifer chocolate for the holidays! Malena seemed amused and interested. Come December, we shall see if she and Clive have whipped up something foresty and sweet.

I recently wrote a piece for Yoga Journal titled “Eat Like a Yogi”. In the piece, I interviewed some of the top yoga teachers in the United States on what they ate and why.

I was inspired to write the piece because there are a lot of assumptions about food in the yoga world, namely, that if you are serious about yoga, then you’re a vegetarian.

I don’t agree. Vegetarianism is a noble path, but some people need meat in their diets. (And by meat I mean organic and humanely raised. No one who is the least bit aware could support factory-farming practices.)

There are those who disagree, who say that if you practice yoga then you must adhere to the tenet of ahimsa, or non-violence. And eating meat is a violent act.

Yes, but so is eating. I do think a vegetarian diet is healthy for many people, and much better for the planet. But I don’t believe in a one size fits all philosophy.

I have enormous respect for all the teachers I interviewed, including Scott Blossom, Gary Kraftsow, David Life, and Ana Forrest. All had different takes on what it meant to eat like a yogi, but all agreed that respecting food and bringing a sense of reverence to the table was important. I was especially moved by Ana Forrest’s words: “I honor the elk, buffalo, or moose by not wasting its life force or mine. I use that force to heal myself and others, and to teach, inspire, and help people evolve. My ethics about what to eat come down to my personal truth. Eating in a way that impairs your health and thinking is immoral.”

It’s often easier to see the world in terms of black and white, or to think that following a spiritual path means living only one way. It’s harder to feel your way into your own truth, and respecting whatever it is you find there.

I just got back from four days camping at Lake Siskayou, near the base of Mt. Shasta.

Six families from my boys’ school went. My family and I slept in a tent. I was dreading it.

Instead, I loved it. One dad, Greg, made fresh olive bread baked over coals — a technique he learned from the Bedouins in the Sinai. (This is the person who also brought an Olivetti typewriter for the kids to play with. You would have thought it the most magnificent video game ever created, the way the kids gathered round it).

What I loved most was swimming in the cold lake, looking up at Mt. Shasta. I felt so small in the very best possible way — part of something much bigger than I — a perspective often lost in the grind of daily life.

I loved sleeping in our tent (with a very plush air mattress), looking up at the big trees and stars. Big trees are healing.

Did I mention how great the food tasted, even when it wasn’t great food?

And when I came home, I loved our home even more. Our sometimes chaotic, always messy home now seems very beautiful to me.  And I am more appreciative of this wonderful, strange foursome that is our family.

What comes to mind when you read those words?

So I wonder what Michelle Obama was thinking when she wore a lovely, moderately priced dress made by a company of that name.

That she’s not a snob? ($128.00 isn’t much for a dress). That she’s destined for the White House? That she is, obviously, black?

I’m not sure — but she seems far too savvy and insightful not to have had something in mind.

I just came back from CT where we celebrated my niece Lindsey’s wedding to the fine young Doug Robertson.  She was a vision — beautiful, sweet, with the kindest smile you’ve ever seen.

Two days after the wedding, I took my sister and her other wonderful daughter Kyra, and my two sons to a local beach. I did not last long — the weather hit 103 degrees that day. But I did take off my beach wrap, and stroll leisurely into the water, which is nothing to write about, except that I didn’t wrap myself up as I usually do, mummy like in my pareo. Doing whatever I can to tastefully hide my body.

Nope. Life’s too short to not feel the warmth (okay, scorch) of the sun on my bare shoulders, arms and legs. What is most interesting, to me anyway, is that the less I care about how I appear to others, the more comfortable I am in my own skin.