Fasting

So, on Ash Wednesday I made the decision to fast--I was hoping it would lead to some sort of spiritual clarity. It all started off ok--Water and Weleda Liver Tea for breakfast. By midday I was getting a little sluggish and by the evening all I seemed to be able to gather was that I was depriving myself of food and therefore muddling my mood. In the later night I even gave in and with a friend I ate the dinner I had skipped earlier--I felt that I was holding to my fast for all the wrong reasons and was unable to carry through with the whole thing. Instead of finding the internal strength I thought I was missing, I just provided fuel for my poor mood. I didn't want to think of my fasting experience as something I had to feel bitter about or to regret with some sort of vengeance.

However, I did come to grips with this very scary and rapidly growing disaster known as hunger. Even for as little as ten hours, I felt the beginnings of hunger pains. I feel a little unable to quantitatively equate my experience with people who are actually experiencing far worse fates than mine on a day-to-day basis, but I feel that my experience helped to open my eyes to the absolute terror of this epidemic. If we compared those who are not able to fill their bellies each day to those who just completely take for granted the availability of not just any food, but organic, local, wholesome food, I feel very selfish. I prefer organic food and good-quality food which I know is quote-unquote better than "other" food. But how often could I have helped others! Food in itself is amazing. The sheer quantity of edible things in the world is more than anything I could ever count. How many different seeds, roots, flowers, branches are taken from the ground specifically so mammals, etc could consume them?

What would it be like if no one had ever to suffer with an empty stomach?

myself, as an individual

to say that food is the only thing which I think about or which really fuels me would, in itself, be stating an obvious falsity. food brings people together: food can be the reason for almost anything. Food fills me up; food brings me down. But food cannot sustain itself as an independent thought process--it is created with thought and often renders thought but cannot replace thought.

I am as an individual not what you would always call a free thinker. I spend a lot of time thinking and I think about what I will do, but I don't intend for thinking to be the sustenance of my existence. I have recently found it quite difficult to mold myself into someone who, as a matter of being, is inexplicably intertwined in constant thought. I find myself so overwhelmed with all the thoughts and the ideas which come to mind as a result of my "thinking binges." I am I guess in this stream of consciousness trying to express my fear at the idea of becoming more "thoughtful" than I already am. I am fearful that I will create for myself a path into territories unnamed, regions undiscovered, which ultimately show me something I am not sure I want to discover. Not that I fear myself as an individual, but more that I'm just not really ready to grow up even though I try so hard sometimes. I feel as though if I was ready to grow up I would not be living in a life-sharing community. I spend so much of my time enjoying: laughing, cooking, being tickled, hugging, sing-song'ing--and although the idea of sitting down and thinking all the time theoretically could embody the yin to my already personified yang--it seems it would be without the sense of balance which would actually create two mirroring and to borrow the expression of a friend, "wave-like" approaches to 'being.' Alternatively, I feel like, as of recently, I am somehow consciously or perhaps intentionally trying to balance all of my free thinking into one designated bloc of time which in the end does nothing less than overwhelm and confuse me when I step away from it.

Perhaps Macrobiotics hold the future for me: the intentional balance of life-giving nutrients which then seep into all the other nooks and crannies of my life. Peace is good!

On a side-note, in this very moment I feel I AM at peace. I am writing on my newly acquired re gifted laptop Bessie :), listening to Sufjan Stevens' 'Illionoise', sipping cranberry juice and seltzer, nibbling German Ritter Sport, and enjoying proper "mood lighting: colored christmas lights and an unfortunately energy-sucking incandescent light-bulb. If fluorescents were more appealing mood-wise I would totally go all out. Perhaps candles are really the only way to go (but still carbon emitting...).

I am starting to get really excited about the prospect of traveling to Europe: Italy specifically, during my Spring Break and I am pondering the balance between this indulgence and all of the financial-related sadness of our everyday reality. It almost seems like I would be postponing my "reality." But that it is!

I feel that I am experiencing a lot in situations which are both self-created and spontaneous, and I feel I will be something I am happy with when I finally find someone or something sweet enough to bring me clarity with a little mud and perhaps some saliva (but water works, too).

If God would personify himself in you this my life would be.

Real Life

So recently I went to see Revolutionary Road and it was quite a little bit mind-blowing. For me, all that I can think of relationships is that I haven't always had the best luck but I am so hopeful for something genuine in the future. I don't want to see a movie which is perfect; who is perfect anyway? It is unsettling to compare oneself to the characters on the screen who just seem to have it all together. But this movie--this is real. So real that I left the movie stunned. The "heroine" goes through so much just so she can fulfill some dream which she uses as a substitute for reality. She seems to have so much around her and in lieu of appreciating it she throws it all away. I felt connected to the way she tried so hard to find something--anything--to fill the void and make everything good again, when once their was strife and obvious, if not overt, unhappiness. We're often quick to try to put a band-aid on something and hope that a brand new limb will grow in the place of the boiler or severed arm or what have you.

The sadness made me think of how much we undervalue the currents running through our lives. Perhaps we cannot always be amazingly happy, but we can be honest. We can see that their is possibility for something amazing in almost any step you take. It just matters how you care for it and how you are therefore cared for.

Love will save us. Life cannot provide enough obstacles or distractions to keep us unreal forever.

Nantmel Farm Cafe ReOpening

So today was the Big Day--the day we were slotted to wow the community and come back, regal style, into the world of Soltaneous existence. (yes Rachel, I did borrow your phrase I so often read). And of course, yours truly volunteered to be the "Head Chef"--that seemingly responsible individual who charts all the courses and fills all the bottles. Well, it was a little crazy I must say. I forgot some ingredients and I didn't get up at 7 am to prepare like I had done during my dreams the night before. To me, ever the "anal perfectionist" (sometimes) it seemed so different from what I remember before. I realized it's a lot of work to be outwardly 'responsible' for all the activities happening around me. Before I had always assumed responsibility for the elements I thought I could control but never had I vocally expressed such responsibility. I was really frustrated today because the food was a little toasted and the sandwiches I had dreamed about I had not enough time to prepare. But the food was good, nevertheless. At least, I was quite satified in their masticulation.

I wonder if, should I persue culinary school, how my palate will change and adapt. Who decides whether something is "good"? Who decided that certain tastes are superior to others and that certain flavor combinations actually even belong together? I fear that I am not original or creative enough to create such connections on my own without dissapointing others or especially, myself. I am not even sure if cooking is really the path for me. Sometimes I get a big head about it and just assume that I will be good--just like I sometimes do for writing, bowling (but not frequently!), or other areas in which I occasionally have some luck accomplishing my goals. I have a hard time assessing that I have successfully developed skills or comprehensive knowledge of my pursuits. I guess that is why I need more school!

On another note, I was realizing today during some personal reflection how important it is to be appreciate of simply simple things, like hugs or smiles or true personifications of individual character. Today for instance, the simple act of receiving a smile was enough to totally invert my mood and bring me momentary peace. But the simple act of actually acknowledging that something is simply great is quite difficult to attain somedays. I am always amazed how completely compounded I become in the daily grind of this stressful life and significantly my unwillingness tolet go once I have created a pseudo pattern or dare say, habit, of the stressful downplay. Time alone in a moving car often allots me space to reflect on just where I'm headed and where I want to turn up, both figuratively and realistically. To easier find this joy is what I wish I was better at!