Do the Bins Keep Their Promises?

I stood in the garage and stared at the red, white and blue recycling overflowing in their place in the garage between my car and the garbage bin alongsidethe garage door.  Five plastic crates, two red, two white, one blue, are filled to the brim with leftover materials that Republic will haul off to the recycling center.  Not only are the crates themselves overflowing, but Whole Foods brown bags- four or five in total, are organized in two rows around them.  These bags overflow with plastic water bottles and juice bottles, plastic drinking cups and lettuce containers (we buy Butter lettuce that comes with the root still attached; that it comes in an eight-inch by six- inch plastic tub unnerves me), vegetables canned in tin, and plastic grocery bags.  I stare at the mess of clear plastic, cloudy plastic and colored plastic, sitting in painted plastic bins waiting to be hauled off to the recycling plant.

 I’ve done good, right?  My family and I have salvaged all of these things, saved them from a fate of a landfill where they will spend the next several centuries decomposing amongst every other kind of waste imaginable- food products, household items, electronics, cardboard, Styrofoam, and on and on.  I haven’t figured out how to avoid a life free of plastic, so in the mean time, I’m pleased that plastics are recyclable.  So I could view this miniature mountain of remains as a representation of a transition phase.  In a few days, a dedicated laborer will separate all these plastics and send them off down the conveyer belt to be crushed and melted and whatnot, to meet not an ultimate end but a new beginning in the form of freshly made-over plastic resources.  Then, it will all be sent away to reenter the cycle, right?

The process is of course a bit more complicated, and a little less optimistic.  At least, that’s what I read in a pamphlet in National Geographic.  Two pages were devoted to a graph of our resource use here in America and the percentage of those resources that go to landfills and those that are actually recycled.  Amongst things like food and paper, plastics was one of the most used resources, and even though some of us can place our plastics in a red bin to be collected once every other week, nearly seventy-five percent of plastics (according to this graph) still went into landfills.  A little blurb on the edge of the page said this: Because plastics are made from such a diverse range of materials it is oftentimes difficult to identify the exact components in a jug or a container or any other plastic item we wish to recycle.  Inability to identify components makes it more difficult to determine how to break it down for reuse. 

So I wonder, am I really recycling what I think I’m recycling?

My Mom had an interesting response: Why don’t we figure out a way to ensure that all plastics are made out of the same materials?  I’m no expert in plastic production but that doesn’t seem like a bad idea. 

I don’t know exactly how to fix this problem.  I just know that when I look at my garage, after reading the National Geographic last week I wasn’t quite as tickled at the good I was doing with recycling as I was two weeks ago.  I hope my contribution is a part of the twenty-five percent of plastics that are being recycled.  But that little tidbit in NatGeo urged me to realize that my contribution doesn’t always so easily fit into a labeled bin and end as soon as I take that bin to the curb.  Rather, I’m reminded that there is always room for improvement and to seek those improvements I mustn’t stop questioning and seeking answers and alternatives.  That’s the time to get creative and persist for clearly, there is no one, easy solution.  How do we get our centers to expand and take care of the broad range that plastics and recyclables require to actually be recycled?  Is it possible that one day all of our plastics will be made from the same components to improve the present poor percentage of plastics still entering landfills despite the hype around recycling? 

But it’s not just up to the big guys in charge of the actual recycling.  In the spirit of persistence, how do we not rely entirely on centers to make changes that will assist us in our protection of the environment and the natural world, but instead make changes in our own habits?  How do we get ourselves to reduce our use of plastic to avoid as much as possible our need for recycling in the first place?  When we must, can we stop and think how we could utilize all of it- plastic tubs, plastic bags, for other uses around the home?  I learned to knit recently and heard of a wonderful idea: you can knit with plastic.  That’s a great way to turn something disposable into something fresh and new.  And now, I’m about to get on the phone with my local recycling center, Nevada Republic Services,  to inquire about plastics with a number greater than two.  Where could I send them if not to our recycling center, and what would it take for the center to expand to accommodate plastics with those higher numbers?  These questions have no easy or quick-fix answers but I believe if we truly want to make an impact, we must keep challenging what we think we know and when we see an opportunity to demand more, we must ask those difficult questions because you never know when it could be the question that sparks a change, a transformation into something even better. 

As my Dad always says, ‘You don’t ask, you don’t get.’  So here’s to asking and here’s to perseverance and creativity for the getting.

The Calorie-Restriction Experiment: How Are We Existing?

I read two Letters to the Editor in this week’s New York Times Magazine responding to an article that ran in the Magazine on October 11th, “The Calorie-Restriction Experiment” written by Jon Gertner. I haven’t heard about this before, though I’m curious to find out more based on the responses.  My point isn’t about the article itself, but rather an offshoot of a comment made about it, but I’ll give a bit of background so those interested can follow up.

From what I gather from the comments, an experiment was performed in which the caloric intake of rats was drastically reduced for a period of two years, and studies sought to determine the impact of this reduction on the rats’ life span.  Based on the comments of the first responder, it seems that the fewer calories the rats ingested the longer they lived.  The first to respond, Nelson Marans from Silver Springs, Maryland, seems to wonder whether we can make the jump from the findings in the rats to applying them to humans.  An M.D. from New York critiqued the study for its failure to take into account long-term effects of under-eating and he looks at trends in a specific group of anorexics, those he calls “stable-sick” who eat good food, just fifty to seventy-five percent less of it than what they need (all from page 8 of NYT Magazine, 25 October 2009). 

Nelson Marans’ point about quality of life itself struck me.  He says that “most people under such circumstances [the full set of circumstances as of yet unbeknownst to me] would feel they have ‘existed’ longer and not lived longer.”  So, eating food that we can’t enjoy for the sake of prolonging our lives, for him, isn’t increasing quality of life.  He views food with the utmost respect, reveres it as a crucial element of human enjoyment, “certainly one of the greatest pleasures in life” (p.8).  Food is one of the very reasons one would want to prolong their lives, to extend the time one has to enjoy it.  If we remove good food that provides us with both nutrition and pleasure, from the picture and replace it with nutritious and dull food, some might not necessarily say the trade-off is worth it. 

I’d agree, in a sense.  I love food and thus while I’m not sure what kinds of lower-calorie foods the article was talking about, I empathize with his point.  As Alice Waters, acclaimed chef of Chez Panisse and a huge advocate of eating food grown within 100 miles of you, says we need to reconnect ourselves and our children to the pleasure derived from the wondrous, luscious tastes of the freshest fruits and vegetables, the beauty that one sees when looking at the colors and shapes of these fresh foods.  So many of us take eating for granted, or see it is an area of our lives in which we cannot afford to splurge.  Many of us spend less money on food than anything else, trading fresh and more expensive foods for fast food that does little more for our bodies than satisfy our immediate hunger.  What if we reconnected on an intimate level with our food? 

What if we made it a priority for ourselves to build relationships with our food, the way we strive to build relationships with one another? 

This brings me to my point about what initially struck me about Nelson Marans’ words.  He states that without the ability to enjoy our food we’ll simply feel as if we’re existing longer, perhaps living out our lives somewhat half-heartedly rather than fully embracing the luster and thrills of life, in order to prolong our time.  I can understand this, too; why trade soulful pleasure for mediocrity for the sake of extending the time we survive off of mediocrity?  I don’t know what foods the article refers to that Marans would consider surviving off of simply existing rather than fully living; again, I can’t say because I haven’t read it but I’m just posing questions that were raised in me when I read his response.  But going off of that, if we really started to consider the source of our food, connected with it in a way that we knew where it came from, the processes that went into producing it, the hands that cared for the earth it grew in, wouldn’t we feel that every food item on our plate, in our refrigerators carried with it so much more existence? 

I mean, rather than simply seeing lettuce and tomatoes and peppers and milk and chicken, what if we saw, what if we recognized in each item and each meal all of the relationships that existed to get the food to our plates?  What if we paid attention to every part of the commodity chain from beginning to end: where it was produced and the resources and people who went into it, how it was collected and transported to the places where we bought it, and all of the processes involved in maintaining the places that sold us our food?  If we recognized all of the time, all of the turning of the earth and the water that went into our food, the hands of workers and transporters and grocers and so on (I know I haven’t even covered them all), suddenly, a single tomato is filled with so much life!  It’s not just a round red fruit on a green vine that tastes good on salad or sliced and enjoyed on its own or on top of a piece of sourdough bread sprinkled with basil; this tomato has a life of its own.  What if we saw all of our food items this way?  Every meal teams with stories of its existence. 

If we recognized the existence of our food in that way, would it change the way we felt about how it was raised and how it was delivered to us?  I know that if I looked at every meal that way, contemplated every step in the essential life of my food, I’d want to ensure that the relationships that went into it were the best they could be, the healthiest possible at every step of the way.  For I believe that healthy relationships are one of the greatest if not the greatest link between a life of mere prolonged existence and a life of true living.  And that kind of living goes beyond our enjoyment of food once it has reached us.  In thinking about this, it becomes clear that the elements of a healthy relationship begin working together long before I encounter the product, before I have the opportunity to choose how I relate to each meal, each snack, each beverage I enjoy.  While the way I experience food and drink could either enrich my living or could just be another step along the way in my existence, the relationships between my sustenance and I begin much further back in time.  It starts at the source, even if I cannot see it.  

How do we come to see this source, to make it a real part of the process of eating for ourselves?  To what lengths are we willing to go for healthy relationships?

Give Forward

I’ve taken some time over the past few weeks to revisit some of my old homes- my beloved college campus, friends and professors in the Chicago, as well as my mobile IHP home.  The IHP home is any place where any members of the IHP family gather, and the beauty of this family is that it is ever expanding.  While reuniting with the people I traveled around the globe with will always have a special place in my heart- just as reuniting with any old friend does for you, each IHP gathering offers a chance to make new friends, find new allies in this global movement to create a just world for all of its inhabitants, and connect with brilliant and inspiring people of all ages and backgrounds who devote their time and wide range of talents to this vision they believe in.  I feel honored to be a part of this family, and spending a week with old and new siblings alike rekindles the fire, the passion and desire to say yes to struggle, say yes to hardship, say yes to the unknown, say yes to leaps of faith, and say no to immobility. 

I’ve never taken well to anyone telling me I can’t change the world.  Honestly, that just makes me want to fight harder to prove to you that yes, I can.  If you said to me, “You can’t change the world alone,” I’d heartily agree with that statement.  But the brilliant thing is, none of us are alone.  Even when we think we are, as I often do here in my residence in this desert of sin, we feel that way because we haven’t taken the first step outside of ourselves.  Because yes, in my own head I am alone.  I’ve spent the entire summer in my head, scraping at stone walls with brittle fingernails, asking myself over and over again, “What do I do?  What do I do?”  I’ve answered myself time and time again.  Write this story or that story, get involved in local politics, keep on working that compost pile in the pickle tub in the backyard, gather the neighborhood kids in our park for a day of arts and crafts to create signs to warn speedy drivers of the bunnies, learn the ins and outs of water issues in the Vegas valley and determine the viability of starting greenhouse projects here, petitioning the hotels to utilize all of the leftover food from the countless buffets and restaurants that we so proudly draw people to this city to enjoy to compost it and supply ourselves with soil for urban gardening and greenhouses.  And so on. 

I’ve answered myself, given myself plenty of ideas and discussed these ideas with friends and mentors, but the ideas are easy.  Taking the next step is the hard part.  That’s when we must realize that we are not alone, that things happen because someone speaks up and happens to meet someone who knows this person who can get the ball rolling, if you make the phone call.  Big plans start with baby steps, and sometimes forgetting this crucial element can immobilize us.  I’ve certainly experienced it, because unfortunately willingness to take responsibility doesn’t so easily translate into action.  Obama campaigned for change, and many Americans are upset with how little he’s done since January.  But can we really expect him to fix it all for us?  Can we really expect ourselves to act alone and fix all the problems that plague our minds but provide plenty of stimulus for conversation and debate? 

We’re all in this together, and we all had to take to our knees before we built up the strength to take our first steps on our feet and learn to walk.  That basic lesson still applies to us today, no matter what it is we strive for.  Whether our dreams and desires are of a specific career, or building a family and instilling certain values, or pursuing the arts in hopes that we can share our insights about the world with the world, we have to get up off the couch. 

I spent two hours lounging one Saturday evening half paying attention to “The Tudors” I’d ordered on demand on Netflix and half wandering through the labyrinth of my thoughts after once again asking myself, What do I do?  I stared at my laptop closed on the table next to me, willing myself to open it up and start writing.  Nothing.  Come on, I chided myself.  All you have to do is open the damn thing, Microsoft Word is already open so all you need to do is just put your fingers to the keys and write down these thoughts and questions.  But instead, I rolled over and just kept thinking, floundering around inside my head.  Then it occurred to me that I’ve been wanting to make postcards and greeting cards using the beautiful pictures I’ve taken all around the world over the past couple of years and if I could just use materials I already have around the house…

Cheerios.  I’ve been obsessed with them for the past couple of weeks.  What if I could use old cereal boxes, cracker boxes, etc?  I jumped up and grabbed everything I could get my hands on and spend the next few hours cutting, playing around with the images of a heart-shaped bowl filled with cereal and a cup of soup on a Saltines crackers box.  And it occurred to me, I didn’t harp on whether or not it would work before I did it.  I just started, made a first move.  Whether it works or not will work itself out eventually.  If we could all pay attention and give a little time to an idea that fills us with so much enthusiasm we couldn’t sit still if we tried, imagine how far we could go.  Because just a little bit of success, that feeling of empowerment we can get from feeling good about doing what we love- get a taste of that and it fuels my fire.

What fuels you?

Pouring over the plot for character development

I get embarrassed when I play the piano with people in the house.  I am self-taught except for the few months of lessons from a good friend our last semester of college.   I’m not trained but can still appreciate beautiful music, yet when I plunk away at the keys I pretend that the sounds coming from the keys my fingers randomly tap sounds beautiful.  My little cousin Mikey is a drummer and the first time in a long while that I sat down at the piano and began to play, I heard the pitter-patter of his footsteps upstairs as he ran across the game room above me and down the stairs to see what that music was.  He came and stood beside me at the bench and stared down at my fingers on the keys for a moment before nerves overcame me and suddenly, what had been smooth and melodic became clunky and jerky noises.  I apologized to Mikey, for nearly instantly- at least to me, the music changed based on my perception of my ability to play it.  That changes, depending on your environment.  I feel like I can play the piano decently, for not knowing how to read music or even knowing the keys, when no one is around to hear me.  I’ve received positive feedback, but that doesn’t take away my embarrassment, which leads me to look differently upon myself as a pianist if I had to talk to someone else about it who heard me play.  I suppose there is some merit to looking at the things you do when you’re alone as a way to look into your character.

That’s a theme in my life, certainly.  I might not be considered a pianist by its definition, since I don’t really know or understand the workings of a piano.  I know for me what sounds good, and what doesn’t.  I know when I’m focusing too hard on making something beautiful, and I know that at times I can let go and let my fingers do the work, as if something else outside of me took over them and I just got to experience how passion for music can bubble in your gut and rush through your veins and crash into your soul so that the only way to escape the intensity of emotion and of being overcome by movement you are not consciously aware of.  Really, I’m one of those people that will bend and writhe from the waist up with the melodies?  I guess so. 

But that’s only for me. As soon as someone else comes into the room, the way I see myself as a musician changes entirely.  I wonder how many other things this is true for, as well.  I definitely see a pattern with the way I approach art, for which there is some sort of standard but one I’ve never really understood.  I know when I like something, for studying specific terms and details does not always enhance my appreciation and understanding of a piece of art, whether it is music, a painting, a piece of writing, or a movie.  I like what I like, and I like what I produce when I’m alone, without anyone watching.  I’m not sure if it’s solely my sensitivity as a person, and what if any role my figure skating and putting myself in the spotlight and opening myself up to constant criticism and critiques while it has certainly made me stronger in many regards I oftentimes notice that I perform differently when I’m alone. 

I also notice that I write differently when I’m alone and when I’m writing for an audience.  When it’s an audience I know, I’m incredibly self-conscious.  I’d struggle to look teachers in the face as a student (which made things particularly challenging when my Mom was my teacher for every subject those three years of home schooling in elementary school) until I got a paper back because until I knew my grade, what were they thinking of me now that they’d seen a part of me I’d never shown anyone before?  Writing has always been very personal, and every paper simultaneously took a piece of myself away and allowed me to give some of myself away.  If that piece of me, those ideas I had been instructed to copy down in a well-planned and organized fashion, received a poor grade that grade on that assignment reflected poorly on me as a person.  Like I said, writing has always been an active and living process for me.  If I am a writer, and what I write isn’t so great, in my simple mind that could equate to I’m not so great.  Now, depending on my mood and level of sensitivity ‘I’m not so great’ could mean for me in any particular moment that I as a writer am not that great or that I as a person am not great.  Neither is necessarily reflected in a grade, for perhaps I just didn’t put much effort into a paper that my grade reflected that.  However, this rhythm of thought does not always find its place in the melody of my mind and emotions. 

Life gets ever so complicated when you find something you care about.  If you come across something and enjoy it but don’t develop a bond with it that leaves you yearning for more, making goals and plans around it, putting time and effort into it, and hoping beyond reasonable hope that all will work out as you plan.  A lot of times, things don’t work out the way we’d plan but for a lot of us, especially in America, we can still get ourselves into a particular area that we enjoy.  Just because I want to become a rock star doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll become one, but if what’s driving me is the love of music, I think I could be happy to sing my songs to any crowd, big or small.  The bottom line would be, and is for a lot of people, can I support myself doing this?  Can I make any money at all doing this, so that even if it’s not too much I could make it by working another part time job and be satisfied?  Many of us would consider something like this settling for mediocrity.  I suppose we all have to define for ourselves what success looks like.  Some people want to play shows for the whole world and make it that far.  Others of us don’t.  I couldn’t tell you why, but I suspect that sometimes maybe the perks become the driving force and the art itself, the music and writing and acting itself, simply becomes a means to an end.  Sometimes a specific lifestyle is most desirable to us so we do what we must to get there.  I’m not saying that’s always a bad thing because not everyone considers their job and their lifestyle one in the same.  The importance of serving in a server’s life might not be as important as playing the guitar and singing and songwriting are for The Killers (I say them because they’re from Las Vegas, so there’s a little local shout out).  Both will earn the respective workers money, but some serve because they have to when they’d rather be playing guitar.  I’m sure, somewhere in the world someone is playing guitar and singing when they might rather be doing something else, living a little bit simpler of a life.

Here in America, we at least know that opportunities for different lifestyles are out there.  How available they are to each and every one of us is debatable but we see it happen every day.  People make their dreams come true for themselves.  Do they stop in the middle of it all and break down, thinking this can’t be happening because it’s just too surreal?  It doesn’t make sense, why would this happen to me and how does it continue to work out even though I can think of a million reasons why it shouldn’t?  Maybe.  I know I’m constantly battling myself even though I am my greatest single asset at this moment as a writer.  I write about what I think and what I see and what I respond to and how.  I am also the one who is the first to break myself down, to question and second guess myself. 

I know if I take the job at Starbucks that’s been offered to me, I won’t question myself as a barista every single day.  I might occasionally if I have a bad day, or if one of the managers tells me I need to buck up but overall, I’d be pretty solid in my abilities as a barista.  I know that because I’ve done that work before and have excelled at it.  Why?  Was I a particularly talented at pulling shots?  Heavens no, because all you do is press a button.  How about ratios of shots to milks?  Not so much, because that’s what the green lines on the cups are there for.  Was it because I was efficient?  It probably had something to do with it, but we’re very adaptable creatures, we humans.  We can catch on to routines and form new habits pretty quickly.  I got into a habit of doing two, three things at once- switch and brew, mark cups, chat with customers, ring them up, get pastries and if I had no customers fill the pastry case or restock cups or whatever needed to be done.  I knew I had a job to do and I knew what my job description was, so I did it.  But I also loved it.  I loved starting my mornings at 5am chatting with the still sleepy-eyed, with the cabbies and the truckers, the early morning commuters, and the elderly who just couldn’t wait for us to open so they’d have somewhere to go after a few restless hours of sleep.  I loved being a part of a team, I loved getting things done and seeing people smile when they had their first sip of a well-made latte, or chuckle at something witty I’d said as I handed them their change. 

I once heard my job described as giving people something they need.  Do they need that coffee?  Again, we’ll have to go off of our own ideas of what need is, but some would say yes they do.  I would because I know how differently I function without it.  I certainly enjoy being able to purchase it, that’s for sure.  But perhaps some people simply need a positive interaction with someone.  I leave my house sometimes just to go out and be with people.  I mean, after spending most every day of nine months with at least twenty-five other people my age, I find I get lonely much quicker than I used to.  I used to love the weekends when my parents would go to Lake Arrowhead and leave me with the house to myself.  Now, I look forward to them but by about Saturday afternoon I’ve typically had enough alone time.  So I go out and find new friends, or just short but sweet encounters.  Many times, I wind up at a coffee shop, or a park, or a bookstore.  Essentially, all the places I go to write I typically quickly make friends so I have to allot extra time at such places or else I won’t get as much work done because I talk!  It amazes me how many times a friendly hello will grow into a full-on conversation.  I stayed at the VW dealership a half hour later than I needed to just so I could keep talking with people I’d met.  Sometimes, that simple need of interaction and receiving fulfillment from positive encounters is the real need, not the coffee or the particular food product itself. 

Why do I write?  I have to.  I really do need to.  I’m not satisfied simply having thoughts and enjoying the beauty of a line or two of poetry.  I want to record them so I can remember them.  And in some twisted parts of my brain, to prove to myself that at one point I did have them.  I’d say this applies more to my personal journaling.  I care about my writing, and I’m also human.  I have doubts even though I know with every fiber of my being that I have to give it everything I have.  If that isn’t enough to make me a writer, then perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a writer because truly pouring your heart and soul into something does not show a lack of belief and drive.  However, things get tough and we start to question and sometimes even reevaluate if we need to change direction to get somewhere.  But is every little doubt reason to change course?  If they start to pile up perhaps but we must always take into account the reasons behind the doubt.  But first, we have to uncover those because simply knowing we have fears we want to rid ourselves of isn’t enough.  We need to find out where they come from, and if they have patterns.  I know that I doubt and fear because I really want to use writing as a way to touch people.  I suppose I could say I want people to be as influenced by reading what I write as I am by writing it.  Writing helps me clear my head and sort through things in journal entries, and those things I can use to help others sort through similar things.  Plus, writing allows me to share the stories of all the amazing encounters I have had in the past few years and continue to have each and every day.  I believe that we all deserve to live our lives and not let them pass us by, for our lives are made up of the moments we live. 

I’m thinking a lot today about passage of time, since one year ago today I first joined my group on our IHP journey.  I can’t believe that not only has an entire year passed, but I can’t believe how much I did in it, and how close it all still feels to me even though I haven’t seen most of my group or had a day in the life of IHP for four months now.  I am also now painfully aware of the fact that my program is indeed over.  I can continue to live out the ideals I learned on the program, and continue the relationships I formed but my year is over, and I know that now because a whole new group has started their experiences.  I know that I’ve been home for nearly half as long as I was gone, but in my head, today, knowing that the newest Rethinking Globalization group is going to sleep for the first time all together tonight reminds me that my life has changed, a period of it has definitely ended.  My mind likes to play tricks on me, especially as I reflect today from a place of sentiment and sadness. 

One year ago, I barely picked at my gourmet burger and fries at a fine restaurant that came highly recommended by the concierge at the hotel my parents and I stayed in DC before they dropped me at The Pilgrimage to meet my group and board a bus to West Virginia for a weeklong retreat to introduce us to the program and each other.  I remember seeing the spire of the church for the first time and simultaneously wanting to throw up and get out of the cab to run back to the hotel.  I felt fear, of the unknown.  But isn’t it all really unknown?  We can make plans, but we can never really know if they’ll work out as we thought they would until we try them.  We can’t sell ourselves short before we’ve even attempted and if it’s worth it to we keep attempting, over and over again until it becomes too much of a hassle or somewhere along the way, attempts fade into successes and time you spent “trying to write” or “trying to play piano” simply becomes “writing” or “playing piano” because passion and perseverance quieted the voice of fear.  I don’t think we can ever truly silence that voice, nor should we because fear keeps us aware and provides us with a bit of perspective, but when it comes to fear that comes from within regarding your own success or failure, the only fear we should truly fear is the fear that we won’t get up and give it a shot.   If I’d gotten out of the car because I’d never felt such incredible panic before, I would have missed the opportunity of my life.  If I’d left the program halfway through India after seeing my parents because in a moment of passion none of us understood what I was getting from the program- they didn’t know what had gotten into my head, and I didn’t know how I was going to handle life in the ‘real world’ after spending the better part of a year outside the mainstream. 

When I think about writing, I can’t tell if I’m more afraid to fail or to see it work.  That looks weird written down and certainly sounds weird to me, but I think there’s something to that.  If this thing that I’ve worked for and dreamed of for years actually works, then what?  Well, then I continue to live whatever lifestyle that leads me to.  If it doesn’t?  Well, I continue to live my life and seize whatever opportunities that leads me to.  Essentially, the outcome is quite the same, isn’t it?  I have no real grasp of what either failure or success looks like, and since both are different than what I’m used to now, of course it’s scary.  So if either way I’m going to be afraid, and if I know I believe in what I love more than I fear it, and also because I fear it because I love it, that pursuit is worth everything to me.  If something has to change anyway, I might as well have my say in what the path to that change looks like.  And the only way I really know how to have any say at this point is to just keep writing, going with the ideas and taking action.  Something will come next, that’s for sure.  Something always does, whether it’s what we anticipate or not. 

All I know is, I’m actively choosing this path and acknowledging all of the accessories and details that come along with it, including the fear.  I’m choosing to be a person who pays attention to things, who tries to analyze and make connections and improvements.  I like to fix what’s not working, and not just in myself.  I’ve had people say that they feel they have something to learn from me.  They’ve said I have a way of living, a wisdom that they can see in me and want to find for themselves.  I don’t know what that means exactly but I’m here to share that it’s not me, per se.  I’m a person in this world just like everyone else, an animal among all animals, who happens to have a complex brain that allows me to do some pretty incredible things.  However, the little tricks I’ve picked up along the way that assist me in pulling myself out of a bad mood and being friendly when I really just want to snap at every comment directed at me, or keep my mouth shut when I want to fight, or get up when I want to sleep, or act when I want to just bitch about everything that’s wrong in my eyes, I learned.  The only thing I’d say that’s really special about me is that I try love everyone and everything, and I try as best I can hard as it may be at times to embrace all the good about us as people and the world rather than insisting there’s no way out of how things are.  And I’d say that’s special about me, but not to me.  When I think of love first, when it comes to my relationships to family, friends, new friends, acquaintances, people I drive by on the road and will never see again, society as a whole, animals and plants, food, water, my clothing, my use of my car, my use of my money and the products I choose to buy…when looking at all of these things I try to view them with love and care.  Everything I do has an effect somewhere, on something or someone and probably both with just one purchase, with just one choice.  And knowing that I want to take responsibility makes it that much harder when I slack off and pretend that the consequences aren’t as bad when I really don’t feel like dealing with them.  Because whether I’m alone in a room or not does not matter.  Turning off the faucet isn’t the same as getting giddy about someone listening to me play the piano.  It’s not something that I can do better at certain times than others.  If no one’s there to hear it, does it mean I played?  If no one was here to see me NOT turn off the water, does it mean it doesn’t count?  Well, I’m a rational person and I could devise an argument for either way if I wanted, but I’d say that whether or not we acknowledge our decisions, the water knows.  The fish (and quite possibly still an alligator in Lake Mead? from several years ago?  Or perhaps he’s been removed, I’m not quite sure) will know the difference now, and we’ll feel it as our population continues to grow and fresh water becomes even more and more precious to us.

So what do I do, when I either want to ignore or found I already have ignored those consequences before acting?  I think of what’s being given to me- clean water for a shower or for food, and since I currently have no control of how these things come to me.  The only choice I have is what I choose not to choose- I don’t drink bottled water for instance.  I have tap water available to me, and while some studies show that our drinking water isn’t “safe” I have to wonder, really?  True, regulations are not what they need to be, but does that mean the water is completely undrinkable, leaving me with just bottled water to drink, which I must purchase from of a few major beverage bottlers that have access and control to natural water resources not only in the US but abroad?  This is a sensitive issue as well for me since I live in the desert where I really shouldn’t.  The water we use in this valley, and the water we waste in this valley, is frustrating and for some quite painful, especially since we rely on Lake Mead and the Colorado for everything.  Rain water provides us with little, and yet we still waste vast amounts of water.  And then we ship in bottled water from bottling plants, which was shipped from its original location in a freshwater preserve somewhere quite possibly not even in the US to a treatment and bottling plant, which may or may not be at two separate sites.  Really, if we knew all of the resources that went into delivering us our bottled water, I wonder how many of us would reconsider how much we need that little fresher of a taste.  I don’t have a preference for taste anymore, but that’s easier for me because I’ve gotten into a habit of adjusting my habits in both big and small ways.  I no longer consistently eat cheese, my favorite food in the world, thus adjusting to the taste of tap water wasn’t too big of a struggle for me.

Ultimately, based on the information I have available to me, I try to choose the option that has the least impact.  If I buy a bottle of water, I’m not only utilizing the city’s water and all that this entails, but I’m not even drinking it but instead spending money to buy “fresher” water that comes in petroleum-mongering plastic and has been shipped to and fro to get to me.  I don’t want to be used as a person any more than I have to, to have more taken from me than I have to give.  Do unto others, and for me that doesn’t just mean for other people, as I would have them do unto me.  I want water to nourish me, so I should do my best to nourish the places where it comes from.  For me, that’s a way I can have a relationship based on love and care.  Loving and caring also means that I know I won’t always be perfect and make the best decision for the time, but I know it means I’ll do the best I can to pay attention to all of these things, to slow down and take an active role in my life.  I, and we all, can choose how we want this world to look.  We might not all be able to walk onto Capitol Hill and get bills passed but as taxpayers and consumers we get to choose how our world looks with the choices we make.  If you don’t know, look into it.  It takes much more time, but if we are all tired of the mundane what could be more out of the ordinary for us than to take an hour at the grocery store to check all the ingredients, to make a list of all the organic products we thought about buying and then take that list home and do further research?  Making changes doesn’t have to look like waking up one day and starting to do everything completely different.  Change starts slowly.  It starts with going to the store then going home from the store and doing a little more research before my next visit, or going outside for a walk and meeting neighbors I never have before, or trying my damnedest to finish all the food in my fridge. 

Love sustains me, both received and given.

The discovery that keeps leading to more

11 September 2009.  9:18pm. 

I’m sitting at a table on the patio of Barnes & Noble, about ten minutes from my house and fifteen from the Red Rock national conservation area, one of my favorite spots to hang out in since being back in the US.  I spent a fair amount of time there, taking lover’s lane-inspired trips up there with the occasional boy, and taking my telescope to particular lookout points, and also just myself and my convertible, putting the top down, turning up the music and gazing at the stars and the orange haze hovering over my sinful city, hiding behind a mountain.  I wish I could take a table or something, maybe a camping chair? so I could sit and write out there, rather than having to come back in town to find a place to work, because typing on a laptop in the driver’s seat of your car doesn’t work so well.  Elbows hit doors and arm rests, and I feel like I’m a crooked old woman, my fingers awkwardly bent over the keys of the laptop, wedged in the crevices of my legs crossed on the seat and propped against the steering wheel.

I just had a flashback to seventh grade English class and doing grammar diagrams for homework during the first quarter of school.  I was reviewing that sentence, making sure it was grammatically correct and visualized one of those diagrams, you know where you write the words on lines that branch out into spider-leg lookin’ things, so you can see the parts of speech and the structure of the sentence?  I have school on my mind a lot these days, with Mikey attending Faith now.  I also run into teachers out and about more often, at the cafes and coffee places around the area, and if it’s a really odd night at a bar.  This afternoon I also spoke to one of my teachers form seventh and eighth grade, for the first time in five years.  I homeschooled for three years before starting at Faith, so she called me Homeschool.  She and I always got along really well, and we shared that we’ve thought of each other often over the years and we’re hoping for a chance to visit.  I loved that Faith gave me an opportunity to meet such wonderful people.  I was closer with many more of my teachers than I was my classmates.  When I figure skated I hung out with mostly older girls, who had four or more years on me and Christine, who is a year younger than me.  So I suppose my environment in my childhood had a role in my ability to relate to people older than me.  I’ve always had multiple mother figures, the first secondary being my skating coach, Melissa.  Then when I got to elementary school, I bonded with my teachers there as well, and then learned to rely on them even more so after I realized what a tremendous asset they were to me.  I know, because I spent three years reading books and taking tests with my mother as my teacher.  A lot of kids, it takes them awhile to understand how important mentors are to you, how important it is to have people around you in every aspect of your life who care about you and your wellbeing.  I, fortunately, always found this in school and thus seeking strong relationship bonds has been a crucial part of who I’ve become.  I like to build solid, honest relationships with people, who I can look up to and who I can now also give something back to. 

I’m attempting to structure my life around giving back, to everyone who has given me the tools I need to get to the point I’m at today, which is at peace with the path I’m on, and excited as hell by it.  I’m thrilled that each day I wake up and have no idea what to expect.  I learned to love adventures from an early age, and IHP spoiled me, giving me something new and exciting each day.  Now that I’m back home, I thought adventures would be harder to come by but turns out, it’s all in your outlook.  Open your eyes and look at the people around you, the roads and the buildings, the sky and the landscape, and listen!  Listen to all of the noises, all of the signifiers of all of the life, activity and movement all around you.  I’m sure if you realize that when you look out your window you’re seeing not just seven people in the seven cars parked at the light next to you, but seven different stories.  Seven different music tastes, seven different life paths, seven sets of ambitions, fears, hopes, dreams, loves and losses.  Look up at the name of the street sign, and you have a story; why did they choose that name?  I like to push the boundaries a little bit and guess which song is going to come on the radio next.  I also make requests out loud for songs and allow myself to have a full out dance party in my car if it comes on within two or three songs.  I LOVE it when it’s the next song on.  I had a friend who’d call it ‘the finger’.  I’d start singing a favorite song, point at the radio, and there you go.  Lifehouse would be on, or Rascal Flatts, or Nickelback, or whatever I was really into at the time.  I choose what I listen to based on how the stories relate to my current struggles, and the inspiration of various artists has pulled me through the depths of a bitter and broken heart upon returning to the US.  I never thought I’d actually do it, but I’m really pursuing art as a career path.  I have particular goals when it comes to writing, but I’d also like to get into photography in starting a little greeting card business, and really utilize my time to do general activist work, for which I could also use my art skills.

I suppose I always wanted to have this kind of life but always just imagined myself going the traditional route, for a time that meant getting married but that idea’s been tucked away for a couple years now, get a job, eventually go to graduate school, and get back into a steady career.  I realized today, when I think about what I really want, I want to be flexible.  I want to write, I want to use the skills and that I enjoy using, to support myself modestly for the times when I’m stationary and just enough left over to continue to travel.  I have until the spring before I have to start considering a regular job, but for now I’m enjoying living the life I’ve always dreamed of. 

At night, however, I dream of returning to IHP.  I think because this is the weekend last year that it began, it’s on my mind more.  Today, I drove around town and took pictures, wrote, visited friends, had dinner with my Dad, and am planning to go out for a drink with friends later on.  Last year, at this time, I was on a pull-out couch bed, tucked in under a brown blanket watching Along Came Polly, glancing nervously at my cell phone every few minutes waiting until the clock turned over to 12:00am, which meant tomorrow I’d be meeting my IHP group.  I’d gone on a tour of DC that day and had gone to Capitol Hill the day before.  Today, I applied the knowledge I gained on IHP that I so anxiously laid awaiting at this time last year: be aware of your relationships and try to treat every single one with respect.  Respect your environment, respect nature and humanity, and respect yourself.  If we can ask ourselves what’s truly best for us, and what we really want, I think we’ll find that we want something different, something we’ve never thought possible but always knew we yearned for.  I can’t yet articulate what I yearn for, but I know that I learned what yearning makes me capable of.  I hope you can find your own passions as deep that lead you to a sense of truth about who you are and what you can do with your talents.  Do you like to paint, talk, eat, write, learn, study, travel, compete, sport?  I hear so often now, being back around kids, “I’m bored, I’m bored.”  Really, in such a rich world right through your door- outside and in! how could one ever be bored?  The world is outside of you and within you, a part of you and you it, ready and waiting for discovery.

Why fear?

09/09/09- Sidenote: I’m not usually a numbers person, but I’ve had this thing ever 2001 that I or my Mom had to write a check on the date with the same number pattern.  I haven’t missed a year.  And we always had to put the zero in front, for numerical soundness.  I didn’t even realize the date when I walked into the bank today, so imagine my excitement when I went to fill in the blank line on the deposit slip left for the date when I realized today is one of my favorite days of the year. 

 

After half an hour jotting down notes about the nature of my fears in my laptop while I sat parked in my car with the top down, looking at the backdrop of the dark, lone mountain of Red Rock against the orange horizon hovering over the Strip, I drove away on impulse as soon as a car pulled up beside me.  I heard about people driving around with lights and sirens who then pull cars over and rob them, so a car I cannot identify makes me nervous, especially out alone.  I hate that I have to worry about this, that I have to interrupt my jive out with the elements but before I can even really think twice about it I’ve turned on the engine and pulled onto the road.  I suppose the catch 22 of being a writer and writing about fear while simultaneously understanding its influence is that, if you’re going to delve into fears and discover their secrets, you might be overcome by them unless you fight them off, until you learn how to ward them off.  I am incredibly overcome by things, deeply moved and capable of incredible commitment, even at times when I’m not aware that it’s happening. 

I ran away this time, when it concerned my safety.  When it’s mere discomfort, having to visit a difficult place inside myself or in a relationship with another, I refuse to run away.  And I hope to always refuse to run away.  Sometimes you can be swept away with fear, but you can learn the skills to tell the difference, between danger and risk, with awareness.  Where is it coming from?  What are you reacting to?  Where does it stem from?  I ask myself these questions all the time and it helps me to deal with my fears and while it takes awhile at first, to get to know the nature of your fears and learn how best to deal with them, you do learn.  I did learn and now, it’s much easier to fend off negative thoughts.  At times, it’s still quite a challenge.  Yet I have learned and have proved to myself through positive results- the most recent example being the success at the Nickelback concert- that when I let nothing stand in my way and use what I know I have to offer and persevere even when it’s hard, I can do it. 

A blog might not seem like that giant of an accomplishment.  Hell, I don’t have a tremendous readership or any pending book deals, but for me, that doesn’t matter.  The issue was the very first step: taking it.  I feared writing so intently because it was something I cared deeply enough to not touch for fear of losing.  Paradoxical, contradictory, yes.  But does that resonate at all?  I avoided trying because then I never had to prove myself that I could fail at it.  But as soon as I just sat down to the computer and didn’t worry about what I should write, and simply wrote what came to mind, I began exercising the atrophied muscle and realized, it wasn’t as weak as I thought.  And the more I worked it, the more I enjoyed working it.  And in doing so, well, I realized that I can’t fail at it, because no matter what happens I will always be a writer.  I will always compose lyrics in my head when I see a beautiful scene in a natural setting, or a tender moment between two people.  I will always frame my thoughts in the light in which I would write them.  I will always seek out a way to write things down, whether in an email, in a Word document, in a $1.99 journal I bought at Borders before departing on IHP, a text message, or a phrase in the sand with my feet, I will always write.  Knowing that, what do I have to fear?  I will always be who I am, under any circumstance.  Shouldn’t we all be?

Musical threads

After dwelling in my bad mood all day yesterday, I knew as soon as I turned over last night and stared at the moon shining as brilliantly as the sun in the clear night sky, framed between the white panels of my open shudders, that tomorrow would be a better day.  I had a day of rest, of reflection and restoration, and recharged with all of those things, tomorrow would be a better day.

I woke up at 8am, a little later than I anticipated and was irritated by the gossip of Jon and Kate.  “We’re so sick of hearing about them” the DJs both proclaimed, then proceeded to discuss the topic for ten minutes but not before a commercial and music break, of which the first song was… do I really need to say it?  It’s as if I can feel the beats in my nerves and that sends a message to my brain before my ears even hear the song.  And isn’t the radio station on delay?  I’m not sure, but as I finished scrubbing my face and picked up my towel, I started bobbing to the rhythm of the song while the commercial music was just fading away and into my favorite note- whatever note it is Chad hits on the guitar before he strums the second and starts singing and jamming about seizing the day.  I don’t know music so you’ll have to forgive me, but I’ll find out what note it is I mean and report back, unless anyone can help me out.

Mom and I got a slow start to our days, chatting over breakfast, coffee and lunch about family, about politics, about traveling, about writing, about philosophy, all the things Mom and I usually hash out in a grand hours-long conversation about once a month, as the cycle has seemed to go since I’ve returned home from IHP (and that in itself amazes me that the new group is meeting up this coming Sunday.  That was me and all twenty-five of us, and all our professors, last year.  How is it possible that it’s been a year since the grand adventure and a key time period in my coming of age experiences, and four months since we all parted?  I dream of them so often and so vividly that when I wake up and realize I’m in my bed alone in room, not in a tent on safari in Tanzania or on a mattress in Maori longhouse in New Zealand with all of my travel-mates, or in a Zapatista community in Mexico, it throws me off so this morning when I woke up from a dream about sitting next to Mary and Anneka in our classroom at the Gandhi Labor Institute in Ahmedabad (haha, spellcheck just offered head band as a spelling suggestion) in India, I was a bit thrown.  Yet, I smiled because they were my first conscious thoughts for the day.  They set the tone for me, got me in the IHP frame of mind: question, examine, rethink, act. 

I just looked at those words I chose and thought, e, r, a.  IHP was the start of a new era for me, a new way of thinking to orient my life, since as a 2008 college graduate with two years of travel under her belt, it’s time to make something of myself.  When I’d once talked about moving to Manhattan, after nine months on the Rethinking Globalization program I now talk about working on organic farms and turning the old dog run into a garden?  I read in my journal about a month ago one of my first entries from our first retreat in West Virginia last September that I wondered if I’d ever become one of those sustainable farming, vegan, barefoot and longhaired hippies that I was joining on my trip.  I, in my pearls (and for the record- they’re NOT pearls, they’re metal beads that were made to look like pearls, which was why Alice purchased them for me) and Banana Republic skirt and white floral-embroidered shirt.  And, lo and behold, after a year I came to better understand the ways of these people I had assumed I was nothing like, and realized that there’s something to what hippies are saying, to what people who support urban gardening and smaller-scaled societies and who truly care about the environment and don’t just follow suit in this current “green” movement but really examine what environmentalism means, and social justice means. 

I’m still not sure exactly how I feel about it all, but I know to ask questions.  As I once heard it described, I’m experimenting with new ideas, trying them on for size and seeing how they work in the real world in America.  I know that I now examine things (I know, I should be more specific but really, it’s every thing.  Anisha, a girl from RG 07-08, and I spent forty-five minutes selecting eleven items at the grocery store to prepare to cook our IHP reunion feast in San Francisco back in July, checking ingredients, looking for organic and local goods, not prepackaged and preferably not industrially produced) a lot more critically, and to act a little more slowly and with greater awareness of what my choices entail for the whole of society, and not just ours but people across the world, and for all of the individual actors in the environment, the animals and forests and rivers and so on.  So then, what will this new outlook materialize for me?  I have my dreams, and armed with curiosity and eager to answer questions and ask new ones, I hopped out of bed this morning to a commercial for 49 cent greeting cards at Wal Mart and I rocked my way into my white t-shirt, brown shorts and my confetti beaded shoes from Chennai in southern India to the hope-infused tunes of one of my favorite songs. 

As soon as I opened the garage door and saw the sunlight slowly spill onto my car, I felt better.  It was only 11:15, I had the whole day ahead of me after a wonderful morning with my Mom, and all be damned if I didn’t get in the car and catch the last verse of that song.  I kid you not.  It’s getting a little obnoxious right, the way it’s always present in my life, and how excited I get about it and how much I write about it?  But really, last week and the first few days of this week must be devoted to Nickelback in some regards, since I put so much brain power all last week into their pending Sunday show.  When things are meant to be, they really do happen.  Seven frantic days got me nowhere closer than I got myself in seven hours.  Really.  I parked Gracie (my Bug, did I mention her name is Grace Kelly?  I call her Gracie sometimes, too) backstage pass-less and drove her out of the parking lot with the memory of a brilliant concert and the joy of giving my cousin a surprise for his birthday and the satisfaction of knowing that genuinely artistic people have shared their words of wisdom far across the world.  And come to find out, a friend of mine in India heard about my plight, so this story spans three continents and four countries.  Tanzania, the reason behind the initial intent for scouring for passes, the US where I met the group, Canada where they originate from, and India where friends are reading about my desperate attempts to share stories with people who inspire them.  There is reason behind this intense passion for the particular sounds and words of this group of musicians, found in brilliant, independent and intertwining life-defining moments for not only me, but all of those around the world whom their words touch.  I hope the next time you turn on your radio, “If Today Was Your Last Day” plays for you, for if you’ve never heard it, if you love it, if you’re struggling and need a boost, if you’re on the brink of a decision and need a cue, or if you just feel like rockin’ out in your car with the windows down and your aviator shades slipping down your nose.  The day is a day of moments, so infuse every one of them with life and significance!  You never know where your road will lead you but if you know you’ve taken the right one, just wait awhile. 

 

You might not even have to wait as long as you thought you would.

Earth vibes in a vegan spirit

3 September 2009.

I stood in front of the fridge looking for leftovers to bring with me for lunch on the go.  I looked at the pesto pasta with sun dried tomatoes and green beans and thought, “oooh, yeah…”  but then I remembered, I still had capellini with tomato basil sauce leftover from the night before.  But oh the crunch of the green beans, and the tart of the sun dried tomatoes, the smooth, oily pesto… as opposed to drying tomato sauce with drying flecks of basil…

 

The waste argument of veganism I have with myself plays through my brain.  You choose vegan when you can to avoid wasting, and for the sake of being polite to hosts.  You eat cheese and on rare occasion meat to avoid wasting.  You have two vegan options, and you really want the one that tastes good (the equivalent of the difference between perfect, fresh al dente capellini with smooth tomato sauce flavored with wilted basil, and perfect, fresh al dente capellini with smooth tomato sauce flavored with wilted basil and brought together with a layer if freshly-grated parmesan cheese that melts as the steam from the pasta rises from the center of the bowl like vapors released from a volcano.  The heat melts the cheese and as I twirl the pasta around in my spoon with my fork the cheese melts through the layers of pasta like water trickling into the moist soil after Mom waters her the vegetable garden on an autumn Friday morning (that was for you, Lindley!).  I bring the fork to my mouth, the anticipation of the symphony in flavors and textures of taste causing the taste buds on my tongue to twitch, my lips to quiver, my mouth to water. 

 

Why am I vegan?  I want to use my dollar to support local, smaller-scale food production systems.  Ideally.  Right now, I have not been.  Veganism in Las Vegas means choosing to lessen the demand for the industrialized production of food products such as meat, poultry, fish and dairy.  Veganism in Las Vegas means lessening the demand for hens, pigs, cows, turkeys, fish, lobsters, shrimp factory farms where their lives are manufactured for our culinary enjoyment.  Don’t get me wrong.  I totally think that food should be enjoyed, that the process of a meal should be a pleasurable one, which is why I don’t like to eat food from large-scale farms.  I prefer that the food I eat is as environmentally friendly as possible.  In Vegas, this means veganism is a broad term.  As my Economics professor on IHP used to described himself, “vegan plus.”  Vegan plus everything else. 

 

I will eat meat, so as not to waste.  Las Vegas’ food is all imported, from somewhere.  I think the stuff the locals get is a bit more local, coming from at least the Southwestern region, which I support.  So I try to buy foods from these places.  I try to buy beans in bulk to soak and cook myself.  I still don’t buy milk but I buy juices from regional orchards (I think…, I’ll have to check again).  I’ve stopped buying tofu unless it comes from smaller places because I still enjoy tofu.  But, if I’m using veganism as a tool for me to lessen my environmental impact, I couldn’t not address soybeans.

 

Soybeans were a godsend when I first returned to the US and explored life eating as a vegan back at home.  My body craves protein, so tofu was a quick fix for me.  Yet a debate I had with Elena over corn and soybeans at our lunch table in Oaxaca, Mexico haunted me.  “Soybeans are just as bad.  We’re clearing forests in Brazil to grow them, then they are flown to a plant to be made into tofu, and then flown to you.  So if you’re trying to avoid meat traveling all over that comes from a huge factory forest was cleared for and uses water and energy from the land around it for, soybeans aren’t doing much better.  You’re a good vegetarian, protecting factory-raised animals, but soybeans are still just as bad as corn.  But at least we don’t feed soybeans to cows.” 

 

Ok, so less tofu.  After my trip to San Francisco and cooking with Anisha, the home stay family I stayed with outside the city, inspired me to want to cook.  And I was desperate for new vegan recipes.  So, I went to Whole Foods (it’s the best I can do until we get farmers markets and urban gardens going) and decided to try an experiment.  Buy nothing prepared, nothing prepackaged.  Buy all fresh.  So I bought beans in bulk and have since found a new obsession, refried beans.  I’ve used pinto and black, they taste different each time I make them but oh my, with chips, in a taco shell with lettuce, tomato and olives, or just by itself with a spoon, it’s delicious.  Since, I’ve stopped buying as much tofu.  I choose to refrain from eating everything I want when I want it.  Sometimes, I avoid eating what I want entirely, especially when it comes to meat, poultry and fish.  I have eaten meat four times- shrimp once, beef twice, and chicken once, oh and I forgot about the accidental trace of bacon so I suppose five times- since starting my experiment with veganism.  Four of those five times I ate it to avoid wasting food.  Either throw it out in the fridge because really, when you pay attention to what you eat and make a concerted effort to finish everything, it’s hard to do.  And it amazes me how long fresh vegetables will cover you.  Sometimes one trip to the fresh produce section will feed me for ten days when I’m finishing everything I start.

 

For me, to do my best to not waste is on par with doing my best to avoid animal products that are not produced locally or at best, regionally.  I have nothing near a perfect system down, but the vegan lifestyle has opened my eyes to new ways of approaching food, and I think the arguments at the base level carry over into other realms of issues, hence the vendetta against not wasting and avoiding prepackaged foods.  If you can make one change in one area- commit to eating everything that you buy and order, order only what you can eat at restaurants so you don’t have to take to-go boxes home (something I’ve recently tried to commit to, after thinking about it off and on all summer; it does take time), finishing all the food in the fridge, improvising with what’s already in the pantry before going out for something a little more precise but no more functional in a dish, staying away from animal products as often and as best as I can- then you’re doing something incredible.  If you want to make a change to make a stand, do it.  If you just want to do something different, do it.  It’s hard, and it takes work, every single day.  But it feels good, to know where I stand and to make active steps and conscious decisions- like taking the less desirable capellini for lunch because it would go bad first rather than the delicious pesto pasta I could save for another day- and even to constructively criticize myself when I give into temptation and ask for the cheese on the pasta (I actually never have ordered cheese on the pasta, though I did consider it for more than two minutes last night…but sometimes, those precious moments when I convince myself that I’m going to make an exception is often fulfilling enough, a trick played on my brain that leaves me no longer desiring the actual cheese). 

 

Something like this, though a greatly condensed version, occurs in my brain each time I am tempted by something delicious and non-vegan, or when I happen upon old food that I did not originally have a use for, or when I see excessive amounts of food piled high onto plates and I look at the faces around the table and realize that never will all of it be finished.  I’ve ceased getting upset every time this happens, because life happens.  Nothing is perfect, but when I recognize the need for improvement, I’m going to take a stab at making decisions that benefit more than just me, and see how it goes.  I never thought I’d live the lifestyle of a vegan and yet, ten months later, I love it more and more, and the options available to me that I never knew existed.  You never know, it might be a decision that winds up catapulting you in a new direction that you never thought you could embrace and love.  Feeling bold or restless?  Take a chance, and try something new today.  Go outside and tune into the vibes of the Earth, of nature.  Let go, and be free.

How do we get what we want, if we don’t know what we want?

I woke up again today feeling anxious.  I’m worried, I wrote in a text to myself that I’m not sure if our generation will see the fruits of our trust in change.  I felt I had to quell myself, for perhaps I would say to myself, for I am truly the most impatient of people, that if we did not see the fruits of change immediately that I had been wrong.  I woke up today feeling a little bit insecure, and I allowed that seed (thanks, Thich Nhat Hhan- he talks about the seeds of love and fear in Living Buddha, Living Christ) to grow and I began to question my beliefs, if I’m doing what it takes to fight for what I believe in, if what I believe in is worth the costs of fighting for it, and if I even knew what I believed in at all. 

 

I wonder, if by allowing myself to confront the negative, to acknowledge its relevance by delving into details surrounding it, if I’m giving into the possibility of such a negative outcome? 

 

Let me take it a step back.  I had a conversation on the North Island of New Zealand with a cashier at a movie theatre and after giving us plot summaries of every movie showing (have you ever heard the gal selling your tickets give you a rundown of the show?  I never had before, and this woman, she was passionate about her films), we somehow got onto the topic of ideas and thoughts.  She said to me and I’ll always remember, “Once you speak, you let your idea go.  Once it’s left your head it’s gone and you can’t control what happens to it anymore.  It will grow and take new forms at its own will, regardless of what you intended to do with it.” I believe that, or at least especially as a writer and a philosopher I respect the possibility of the claim having enough merit that I make changes in what I choose to say.  And I need to start speaking encouragingly, focusing my conversations with family and friends not on the negatives and the challenges we currently face in our country and our world, but focus more time on the positives.  What are we doing right?  If like attracts like, then is my emphasis on negativity creating more out there in ways I cannot control after the thoughts and words leave my head.  I’m willing to give time to the negative, so much time that it consumes me and all I can think about is the issues- regardless of where they came from; we have them now and we need to deal with them, what’s done is done and we need to know what was done so that we ensure we do not find ourselves in the same territory again in the future- and if I’m willing to do that, am I allowing these negative thoughts to gain enough momentum that they manifest themselves in the real world? 

 

Possibly, and I think that’s the case for some people.  I dwell on the negative but I think of it in different terms.  I dwell there because it brings about understanding for transformation.  I do my best to avoid the quicksand nature of negative thinking that before you know it you’re up to your neck in it and the only thing left to pull down is the head, the mind and thoughts.  Negative thinking, and I am planning to write a whole book about this in terms of how negative thinking influenced the experience I had in India in 2008-2009 versus the five days I spent there with Semester at Sea in 2007, has tremendous power, just as much as positive thinking.  Understanding the power of both, I choose to live my life on the sunny side of the street, and visit the shadows just often enough to know what’s going on and hopefully to bring a little sunshine.  For awareness of a potential problem does not automatically mean the manifestation of this problem.  If we see two options, deem one as desirable and one less so, we can choose which path we take and hope for the best.  We cannot control the whole external around us, but we do have a voice with the intention of our thoughts.  And I’m a proponent for positive thinking, so this is the lens through which I’m writing this. 

 

 

We get to decide which road we want to take when it comes to our thinking but what is it that holds us back from doing what we really want and what we know is better for us in the long run?  We (hope to) understand the road of fear and where it will lead us, and we understand the road where our desires will lead us.  I think our personal desires stem from a greater depth of care for one’s community as a whole and that with perseverance, persistence, passion, love for ourselves and those around us, and trusting in ourselves and those around us, we can achieve the goals we so often relegate to the corners of our hearts because we have become subjects of a school of thought that says we cannot get what we want.  Living a fulfilled life is not something that should be limited to a select group of “lucky” people, for Life doesn’t simply happen to us.  We do have a voice, in this world, in this country.

 

So maybe, problem solving should revolve less around finding new ways to get us to the same old place, but instead around finding clarity of where it is we want these new ways to take us.  We all want something.  I say “so we can get what we want” but what do we want?  We are Americans, and our wants are as varied as the turns in the tides, but is there a thread of similarity that runs through all of our hearts?  Can we find that common ground, a new platform to dream from and act on?  If it’s a numbers game, let’s find the common denominator and strive to work towards that instead of spending all of our time and energy coming up with the proper equation to get us to an answer, when maybe that answer isn’t really what we want, but instead what we’ve become attached to of late. 

 

I’ve been gone for nine months studying in other countries and studying my country from the perspective of other countries.  What I want has certainly changed.  With the current financial crisis and a new president, our country has changed and ideologies are starting to shift.  So perhaps it’s time to really set our minds to listening to our hearts to discover what we want, what we truly need, and how we merge the two.  We all have voices, we all have dignity, and we all have the right to be heard.  So what do you want?  I’m listening.  Are you?

Dinner in Vegas

I’m sitting at Starbucks, one of the locations in my writing rotation, and before I head off to Barnes and Noble to try out a new spot, I worked through my finances.  I’m not used to, as most of us aren’t these days, keeping such a close eye on our pennies and dimes.  Have you noticed how every so often, lines move just a little bit slower because customers have started paying with coins on a more regular basis?  Suddenly, in an economic crisis, a penny becomes a big deal.  When I used to clean out my car, my room, I admit I’d throw pennies away.  Not intentionally necessarily, but if a penny or two or five got swept up with the garbage, no big deal.  But now, I and many of us are realizing that those add up.  Why break another dollar when you can dig around in the depths of your designer (or knockoff) bag and pull out a handful of change?  Money is money, whether it’s a bill or a coin

My purse is currently lacking coins.  I think I’ve got a couple of nickels and a penny or two.  Certainly no quarters, everyone’s favorite coin.  Come to think of it, I have no cash in my wallet whatsoever.  I had a twenty in my back pocket this morning as prepared to leave the house for the day, but not with the twenty still in my pocket.  I gave that back to my Mom, who had left it for me to use this weekend.  My parents travel to Lake Arrowhead, a mountain town about four hours from Las Vegas, on a regular basis.  They try to get up there three weekends a month, to relax and escape the pressures of life in Las Vegas.  My Dad has been selling light fixtures in the valley for over thirty years now, so the Las Vegas environment, whether at the office, at home, or in transit between the two, means Dad remains in work mode.  On the phone, at a desk, on a job site (which aren’t too prevalent these days, unless there’s an issue like the fixtures that exploded into flames at a casino last week), in meetings with customers and suppliers or with his partner or employees, or stomping around the office when he’s having a bad day, Las Vegas for my father means stress.  The house with the view of the lake, the dock down three flights of steps where a boat floats during summer weekdays, patiently waiting for my Dad to pay it a visit and rev its engine, provides clarity and peace of mind, at least for twenty-four hours.  He typically works on Sunday, his sixth day of his workweek, and gives himself Saturday to relax.  What is it about water that we humans respond to, and countless other animals for that matter that live near a shoreline, that soothes us at such soul-reaching depths?  Even when weekenders like my family and locals all take their boats out in an afternoon and the waves rage, what looks like chaos in the water actually makes perfect sense.  Waves grow and crash, but you know what they’re going to do.  You know the pattern of rising and falling, gathering and breaking.  Watching waves crash against a speeding boat is as mesmerizing for me as watching a droplet of water ripple away into a still bay.  For even when the water itself remains calm, the twinkling of playful sun rays glisten in the water reveals energetic and harmonic movement below the surface.  Though quiet on top, below the surface energy surges and beauty abounds for what a moment when you see a stream of light bounce off of the water like little bursting firecrackers, and then a fish swims by and nibbles a piece of old bread you brought down from the house to toss out into the water instead of in the trash bin?  I am so thankful that along the way, I have encountered stories and people that live solely for these moments of divinely inspired beauty in nature, untouched by human hands (Well, I suppose my hands touched the bread that the fish ate, but the fish approached my offering all on its own, and his buddies missed out). 

 

I, unlike my father, do not need to escape the lights of Vegas in order to relax.  Honestly, I welcome the weekends to myself when they take off for the weekend.  At 23, sometimes I like to know that if I choose not to go back home after an evening out until 2am, I won’t wake anyone up when I come in the door and set the alarm.  I can sleep in and not worry about having to explain myself (I don’t have to worry about that so much now, because my Mom knows I like to stay up late and sleep in late sometimes, but in high school this was a real point of contention for me.  We had to wake up by a certain time on the weekends and if I didn’t, if I heard her bustling around in the laundry room right next to my bedroom before I’d gotten myself out of bed, pangs of guilt would give me the spring in my step I needed to get moving.  But I hated that, hated awaking with such a start, to such a feeling of guilt that I was going against what my parents and I had agreed upon- because yes, I did agree to wake up by 9am on weekends, but how much choice did I really have?  I couldn’t exactly say “No Mom and Dad, I’m going to sleep til I want” and expect to not have consequences of some kind).  The two days I have to myself during the week, to wake up when I please, go about my schedule as I please, intertwine my work and my play as I please, I can do from my own backyard when I have the house to myself.  My parents feel the same way about the Lake Arrowhead house.  The change in environment elevates our moods in similar ways, but the specific environments that result in this craved feeling of peace vary for us.  This weekend, however, of anticipated peace turned into a weekend riddled with fretting, over the one thing that has everyone’s hands clenching, teeth gritting, eyebrows furrowing, minds reeling, and hearts wrenched with fear: money.

 

I’m a freelance writer, and I am in the process of becoming a substitute teacher and a tutor for students at my alma mater, Faith Lutheran High School.  I anticipate an income shortly, but until then I’m living off of the good graces of my parents and what I have in savings.  I’d say what I’ve got in savings puts me in much better shape than many of my peers, even though I’m currently working towards the goal of a steady income from writing.  However, I still worry about money and for that I feel guilty.  Everyone has to be cautious and make changes to their budgets and spending habits, but I’m really not in a position to worry, yet.  My weekend of the house to myself included a lovely evening out for a nice dinner followed by drinks.  And let me tell you, going out for in Vegas is expensive if you’re not living like a local.  I was invited by a friend to a birthday party at a Brazilian steakhouse near the Strip, which automatically means that the price range of a meal increases drastically- location, location, location.  I understand that what I paid (or what was paid for me because I was taken out- and that also adds to my guilt because he’s in no better position than me to shell out so much for a meal, but he did and we had a fabulous time, but money is my newest morning-after worry.  I no longer wake up in my bed in my apartment on my college campus and think, how much did I drink last night?  Now, it’s how much did I spend last night?  This particular Sunday morning, the exact thought was, oh how much was spent on me?) for was fine food, flown from places all across the globe because yes, Vegas has a huge market for fine dining.  I also paid for the meticulous service by the server, the bussers and the bartenders.  I paid to sit in a gorgeous wood and red walled- and soft yellow light-themed room, porcelain dishes and walk around a salad buffet that had all the fixings I could ever want, including fine cheeses, lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, sushi, gourmet pasta and bean salads, and delicious sauces for flavoring. 

 

Now, here’s where I have another problem.  I thank my friend dearly for inviting me out to such a wonderful meal, and I feel guilty for it because, even though I had access to divine cheeses and, as the restaurant is a Brazilian steakhouse, heaps of meats brought right to my table on a stick and carved to my liking.  If I ate meat. 

 

I often had moral quandaries about veganism while living in homestays with families preparing meals for us.  They were happy to accommodate our requests but at the times they could not, I did not require my preferences to be catered to.  So was my evening at Texas de Brazil a situation similar to that, when I was a guest and the recipient of warm hospitality on the part of my friend and his family, I should have ignored my dietary preferences?  I won’t give a specific dollar amount but from the descriptions of the process at the restaurant we can guess it’s not cheap.  Along with the impeccable service and trendy atmosphere, you’re paying for good food.  And I didn’t eat the showcased good food, the meats, the pork and chicken and sausage and steaks grilled in various different ways and spiced with exotic flavors from around the world and wrapped in bacon, and so on.  I ate the goods at the salad bar.  I did, however, eat the cheese.  I filled up on the cheese because like my friend said, if I’m paying for it I want to get everything I possibly can out of it.  I’m not sure if eating as a vegetarian rather than a vegan was the best thing I could have done, because I’ve eaten meat in the past before so it’s not beyond me to sacrifice my preferences of late, but I didn’t.  I just ate the cheeses.  And I do, in fact, feel guilty about that.  I gave in a little bit, but not all the way.  Should I have gone all the way, as a guest?  I know there are lots of debates around veganism versus vegetarianism, and I’m not one to say that just because I’m allowing myself to eat cheese, which means I’m breaking veganism, I might as well go for the meat and the chicken too.  But in this case, on this occasion, would it have been the proper thing to do?  The guilt weighing on me, even three days later, tells me that maybe, if a similar situation arises, I probably will make different choices.  For now, I will look back the evening as an experience at one of the finest salad bars I’ve ever been to, a fun date night with new friends, and of course, as everything is, as a learning experience further entrenching me in the idea that nothing is ever simple, black and white, or set in stone.  Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m all wrong, maybe I’m hoving over the hors d’ourves in the gray area buffet line.  All I know is, this evening reminded me of something a wise man from Racine, Wisconsin once told me when I started college five years ago (already?? How times flies),

“Question everything.”

Check.  Please.