The gypsy in me.

Today I awoke a bit healthier than I have done in the last week or so. But what I awoke to was a longing for the visceral again. For actually seeing the world. Walking it. Interacting with it. Tasting it’s flavors. Understanding bits of it. Definitely appreciating it.

When I get this feeling at this level, it actually physically hurts that I'm not attaining it. It’s the deepest, most intense longing in me. It goes beyond even the desire for companionship.

It’s not about making my mark on the world. My time here on this planet, in the scope of all of history and all that is to come, is miniscule at most. It’s about BEING in it. Experiencing it. Knowing, truly knowing, the wonder of it during these moments I'm privileged to be in it. Glimpsing it’s beauty in this moment. Marveling at the cultures I encounter. And touching as much of it as I possibly can.

This. This is what drives me. What feeds me. I spend my time downloading books to my reader or films to my external hard drive in anticipation of the first step of this journey. Yet, in reality when I go I won’t give a crap about these things. I’ll care about engaging with what is around me. Not what is made to entertain. (Not that I obviously don’t enjoy these things… but they often can dilute the preciousness of the moment as well as suck time from this sacred interaction.)

I used the word “sacred.” I do see being deeply engaged in each moment as spiritual encounter – as the most profound way to honor the divine, or at least to honor this mysterious gift called life.

But I digress. This drive, this desire for a nomadic existence is both marvelous and maddening. How do I support myself financially is the most trying part to figure out. (Yes, I am open to suggestions – and especially connections.)

It is isolating, too. Many people I meet think it’s a great dream, but then have a lot of negative comments about it. They even become angry. I do understand. They have made choices in life that have allowed them to walk away from their dreams. To encounter someone who still holds to theirs is not always comfortable. It is only hard when I get discouraged and haven’t someone who believes in me and my goals to encourage me. (I’m so very grateful I have a few wonderful women who do that for me now. What a true blessing.)

Whatever this wayfaring passion is, it is my objective; my goal. my future. I just wish so much I knew how be in it now rather than always, ever “moving towards it.”

The weight of me.

I thought with the New Year I would start afresh. An invigorated focus on my goals in life brings me back with a new look for the blog and a refreshed sense of purpose for my writing. But first, a reflection…

The last few months I have had some personal breakthroughs I didn’t even know I was needing. (Sometimes those are the most awe inspiring.) These epiphanies have centered me as never before.

What it comes down to is a knowing myself completely at the deepest levels of my being. Really being good with who that is. This is an all-encompassing knowing; a resting in and embracing of my whole self. This includes recognizing and appreciating my place in the journey of life, loving my body just as it is, and being both contented with and excited about my spiritual path with the wrestling and expanding it involves.

This sounds so corny, really. But it was born of coming the other side of an intense trauma after finally truly healing. In that final emergence from the dark waters of that churning ocean of betrayal, despair, and brokenness I was lost in, with that first step on dry land I felt the weight of me. By that I mean I knew the depth of my courage as well as just how intense and incredible my strength is. That was my “grounding.”

One interesting thing about that ocean: you feel so overwhelmed in the depths of it when you can’t see the shore as the waves are pounding you and threatening to take you under, but the very hardest part is when you finally stand in the shallows of the tide and are taking that long walk to the beaches. Because you feel the sand between your toes as you step, you think you are on land, so the effort is all the more frustrating as you fight to bring your legs forward through the eddying riptides. Never have you worked so hard, yet you don’t realize you really aren’t out of it yet. It’s only on that first step out of the waters that you find that true freedom.

And that’s the moment you know. You know just how fierce you are. You know it’s not an invincibility but an endurance. You feel your strength in every molecule and know… that you can. Who you are is enough – more than enough. Whatever comes next, strenuous and painful or freeing and joyful, will not be beyond you. You can.

Edith Södergran said:

“My self-confidence comes from the fact that I have discovered my own dimensions. It does not behoove me to make myself smaller than I am.”

I know my own dimensions now. In fact, I OWN my own dimensions. I revel in them. So I walk tall. Because I am tall.

Timing is everything.

Hope. That’s what this is. I’d forgotten. Or at least, I’d forgotten the pleasant side of it. This last month, being out of touch, I have been discovering hope again… in the strangest of ways.

I suppose it had been building for a while, leading me to this place of feeling again. Then I had a couple weeks where suddenly I was feeling all the pain of the traumas of the last five years – all at once. It was nearly unbearable, but I knew that if I could feel this pain, if I could find a way to walk along with it, then I could again feel love and have passion and find… hope. I just didn’t want to be numb anymore, but until then didn’t have the tools – the pain and heartbreak – to be free of the anesthesia.

The thing about pain is that without feeling it we can’t feel anything. Not really. Certainly not deeply. Overwhelmed, I had flipped that switch to “off” in order to deal with the fallout of various extreme situations that I was bombarded with in rapid succession. However, by the time I wanted it turned on, I couldn’t reach it. I was so far from it wandering in that darkness, I couldn't even see it.

When I then all these years later unexpectedly backed into it, I was blinded by the light. It was incapacitating to experience so much emotional pain all at once. Now my heart has adjusted. (I’m so grateful.) And I find I have passion again… so much of it! Yet, now it it tempered with wisdom and experience, so it is a fuller and a more beautiful sort of passion.

I’m not saying everything’s perfect, and frankly I hope I never will say so – how boring that would be! I am saying I feel [internally] prepared for what may come. More, I am moving toward it with anticipation while still endeavoring to be present even in these duller moments.

As this hope builds, and more specifically as I complete my few remaining (time consuming) projects, I will be much more consistent with my blog entries… and I would imagine they will be getting more interesting as I enter into the flow of, well, my destiny.

Here’s hoping…

The reality.

I am a reality TV hater. Truly. However, I did see the “preview” episode of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution. Honestly, what he’s trying to accomplish is so vital, and also so valiant.

He has gone in to the most unhealthy city in America. They have the most deaths from health problems resulting from obesity. So they are dying young. They are the most obese city in the most obese country in the world. So he went there to attempt to effect positive change.

He’s trying to start in one school, be successful there and they will start to adopt his ideas for the entire school system. But he only has a week. A week to make healthy food that meets the ridiculous USDA requirements, a week to serve fresh food on the same budget as processed, a week to feed all those kids and get them to like it. A week. I can’t imagine kids that have been raised only on processed foods could change their tastes and these eating habits they’ve had no choice in for pretty much the whole of their lives.

Worst of all, he’s got a kitchen full of women who pretty much hate and resent him. Their contempt is palpable. One in particular is a real ball-busting biotch. I CANNOT fathom not wanting someone to bring healthy change knowing that these kids they are feeding are the first in generations to have a shorter life expectancy than the previous generation. At least, I cannot imagine not being OPEN to a better way.

Having lived abroad, I think the saddest thing that Americans are known for is for being, on the whole, fat. I remember having been there about a month, when in a bathroom I heard two Europeans talking about this. I wanted to come out of the stall and say, “Really, ALL Americans?” using me as an example for the thin side… but I knew at that point a least I was only proof of their stereotype. It really bummed me out. Not because I cared about their opinions, but because I cared that we are so unhealthy. That I was (am again) so unhealthy.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with my body whatever it’s size. But I want to be healthy and fit as a way of life. When I lived abroad I achieved that. Without even knowing it, I lost 50 pounds. Just eating like the locals, walking everywhere, and frankly, being happy. And I truly didn’t have a clue it was happening.

These women at the school kitchen Jaime Oliver is working in think they don’t have a choice. They just do what they’re told, so to speak. The school food board essentially say the same thing – they just follow the USDA guidelines. Two breads a day. At least this much sodium, at least this much fat. Blah-blah-blah. No personal responsibility, so no guilt. No ability to change anything (so they tell themselves), so no extra effort need be made. Worst of all, they don’t think anything is wrong with their status quo.

It seems to me we are allowing the government, yet again, to decide things for us. This time it’s the health of our children. It’s the length of their lives. I’m not even a parent and I care deeply about this. Yes, I’m pissed off that our government is so all-invasive and can control so much, but why I care deeply is that these are children. We, in feeding them this processed CRAP, are taking years off their lives and training them to do the same for themselves. Not to mention the things that can’t develop properly because they aren’t getting the proper nutrition.

I think the most significant thing that Oliver said in that episode is that he’s been to South Africa in the townships and those kids are getting fed better and healthier food than American kids are in school. Appalling. Parents should care. We as a community should care. I care.

I won’t be watching the show because I frankly cannot stand the platform of reality TV (if it were a documentary project I’d be all-in), but I will try to discover whether his project succeeded or failed. I know he did revolutionize the food system in schools in Britain, so there is some hope. I will hope. And eat veggies for lunch!

By the way, Oliver has a petition going to improve school food, if you’re interested.