Social Networks

I recently read about how the longest-living and happiest people are those with strong social networks. Whether that’s provided by the community they live in, family or friends.

As I age, the more troubling I find my birthday’s. I was never supposed to get old. I am reminded of all I am not, of how my once-bright masterpiece is fading into muted tones, having less and less faces to fill it.

I always imagined my wedding day would involve a crowd, in the very least, a few close friends. As I find myself engaged, I am quickly approaching a life event full of the faces reflected throughout my 36-years of work on my life’s masterpiece. I wonder what faces of my masterpiece will be there at the end of my days. Isn’t this the true testiment of a successful, well-lived, well-loved life?

I’m afraid. Anxiety fills my sleep. The parade is marching on, passing me over. Present but looked over like a shadow. By all my community, family and friends. I am deeply loved and remembered by just one. It should be enough. I am deeply blessed. As for all the rest of a social network, I am isolated in a world of people who have floated away from me. I don’t know how to fix it. I have only myself to blame. I don’t crave a social schedule, I crave a place where I am remembered, a place I can give to, a place where there’s always a seat at the table waiting for me whenever I need to fill my heart and my soul.

And to you, this empty space filled with nothingness of eyes to see it, the new medium painting the canvas of my life, thanks for reading.

Colors

I am rapidly approaching 35. Since my birthday falls in February I become reflective in January, spurred on by the heavy New Year’s Resolution campaigns waging war on my social media feeds. It’s amazing how proportionally unbalanced my life has become with the advent of social media. These days, it is my primary source of information. Information about views, opinions, how friends and acquaintances are; and the occasional stalking of a former Frenemy to see what’s happened to them over the years (to validated if my life path has somehow proved better.)

In the last five years I’ve become a recluse, far more isolated from the relationships and activities that used to define my daily life. It began like most things do, unobtrusively. It hid in places such as the busy-ness of a hospitality career, hours spent in the gym, missed rsvp’s to activities then weddings then baby showers. I began to wonder if I had become hidden in the background of everyone’s lives. Present yet forgotten. Then there were no more rsvp’s, my posts received a handful of likes, my phone battery stayed charged for days, birthday texts instead of birthday visits.

Then Jonny- stalwart and kind- arrived in my life and pulled me from my slump, just in time to keep watch while I battled my own health problems and life struggles for a time. I became guarded in my personal life. I didn’t seek to join or belong to any communities in the small social space I occupied. I preferred not to cultivate relationships among peers. Especially work. That avenue had long turned bitter and sour--no longer ever an outlet. So I turned inward.

I read quotes all the time about how our history is not our future; who we have been, is not who we need to be now. I’ve long believed we are always on a path of creating who we are. We are constantly evolving into a new person. What we surround ourselves with, are influenced by, these forces are always molding us.

For a time, much longer than I should've allowed myself "this is just a bad year", I felt disappointment at my life’s path, at the seclusion I experienced. Those cumulative excuses and reasons over the years added up to a new, reclusive me I didn't want to be. Sadness descended at the realization two things pivotal to measuring Success were sources of shame. Thinking of marriage, those I invited wouldn’t fill the space of even my favorite room- the kitchen. Thinking far into the future of my funeral, I imagined heads randomly clustered amongst the third, fourth and fifth pews, the first and second empty (in my religion, we shy away from sitting in the front rows when we can help it.)

 My Masterpiece is in danger of being painted missing the whole width and breath of the rainbow. People are the color in which the canvas of my life is painted. Their experiences, their lives, all the wins and all the losses,their way of seeing the world enriches me, inspires me to create a rich and vivid picture of life to be shared. This is my legacy, the Success I seek.

As an introvert, I don’t like being overly social. I prefer meaningful exchanges with people. I've had to sacrifice as much as I've gained to exchange a busy schedule for a slower life filled with time to reflect, cook, spend time with people I care about, go on a trip, work on hobbies and take a nap if I so choose. This is how I want to live my life.

In my 34^th year, I redefined myself. I cast off “watching the parade pass me by” and starting interacting with the world around me. I began in earnest to continue learning on a professional level, on a personal level, on a hobby level. I reconnected with people who have been meaningful to me and cast off the rest to occupy the space of happy memories. I cleaned up my social media exposure to include the positive, the informative, the enriching, the spiritual, the mind-expanding. I tried to run, once. I made my way back to the gym, back to good health, and began seeking an awareness of others.

What I found is my experience these past few years has not been exclusive or unique. So many are struggling with feelings of isolation and aloneness, craving connection with people, with the world. Wondering where to find a friend, just one would be enough. Seeking adventure, the fullness of life and companionship in genuine individuals they can relate to. Disconnecting from relationships whose only interaction comes in the form of a screen.

In my 35^th year, I will build. I will build connections. Seek them out. Continue adding colors and patterns and textures and pictures to the canvas of Life. So when my Masterpiece is shown on funeral day, the first and second pew will be filled by those whose colors helped paint that canvas, whose colors I adored in life.

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.

Seasons

I've struggled these last few years with seasons.

Forever friends who become former friends. Those precious few souls you meet where you plead with Life, "please, don't take this one." I don't think you can ever forget someone who was once the reason you smiled. It's sad how the people you were once so close with can become just another stranger you don't know. 

I've often said people are the paint on the canvas of my life. Without them, I could not create a masterpiece. That masterpiece of a life lived, the people it was comprised of, that's the legacy I leave behind at the end of my days. 

I always loved the seasons. The beauty only found in spring, winter, summer, fall. The vibrant life of it has to give way for the next season to bloom.

Hive

Recently there was a significant and controversial news surrounding the Mormon church that made it’s rounds on Facebook. I took the opportunity to conduct a survey, an unofficial survey, my Facebook feed is biased as well as the ratio of friends to whom this news it impacted vs those who would never hear this news.  As the years have gone on I have come to conclude the following about social media:

• It creates community
• Within those communities a school of thought emerges
• This school of thought is regurgitated amongst the community
• There is a hive mentality on Facebook

Case Study:

In the most recent Facebook controversy, the Headline reads “Mormon church labels same-sex couples apostates” (CNN.) Or, “Mormons Sharpen Stand against Same-Sex Marriage” (NYT.) Depending on the community you prefer to subscribe to.

In a survey of Facebook posts:

• 70% were reposts accompanied with comment
• 20% were original thought (coincidentally this same 20% are outliers who consistently post original thought)
• 10% were reposts with no comment.  

Of these posts and comments, and here I include responses/replies, a whopping 80% used argumentum ad passiones. 

Wikipedia definition: Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy characterized by the manipulation of the recipient's emotions in order to win an argument, especially in the absence of factual evidence. [1] This kind of appeal to emotion is a type of red herring and encompasses several logical fallacies, including appeal to consequences, appeal to fear, appeal to flattery, appeal to pity, appeal to ridicule, appeal to spite, and wishful thinking. 

What I found interesting: 75% within the outlier ‘original thought posters’-- both for and against on either side of the controversy--  referenced established information. 10% did not post a controversial statement and took a humanist approach. The outliers remaining used emotion. 

To be clear, I am speaking of BOTH sides of the argument. Herein lies a paradox of social media. The factual evidence was a written policy taken from a handbook; interpreted to the needs of each community? I too rather frequently subscribe to this, to fit the needs of feeling validated.

Certainly there is much more to be said on this topic. The purpose of this post isn’t to discuss the policy, simply it’s mechanism as the mechanism is a prevalent, reoccurring theme in my social media usage. I used this informal case study to develop an understanding of the world around me, the reality which I understand and the reality which other’s understand. (I have found myself guilty of not having the imaginative abilities to understand the lives, perspectives or thought processes of others. I simply lack the ability to think as others do. It has lead to trouble when I have not considered the other possibilities, not from lack of trying, simply that I do not know what I do not know. I require communicative and expressive people or sources to help me.)  I have seen this community-of-thought-mechanism phenomenon occur repeatedly, with a similar breakdown of % as in the case study above, with other themes on social media such as:

• The role of relationships and their terms
• How to live life to its fullest
• Success is: material possessions vs experiences
• Religion: Role, function, and authenticity
• What is a meaningful life?
• Politics: Who deserves what and the rights attributed
• Look at my life! Isn’t it ___fill in the blank____?!!
• What to eat
• Fitness and fashion
• How to Human

These are pretty big topics we use our social media communities for to help us define our understanding. It seemingly gives a state-of-the-people as to what internet-able humanity focuses on in a globalized world (considering the bias of my fb feed.) I could argue social media isn't the appropriate platform for this transmission of identity or culture. That's the wistful part of me that believes in a world of explores like Darwin and Armstrong, writers like Toni Morrison and Jules Vern and J.R.R. Tolkein, and game-changers like Ghandi and Einstein; none of these perfect people.  Before social media was Media and school and the people in our community, towns, neighborhoods in which we lived and worked which molded our identities. The difference is social media has broadened the body of knowledge, schools of thought and brought the possibilities straight to our screens nearly instantaneously as news happens without requiring us to actually experience a thing before we are able to form an opinion of it, based on our exposure to the online communities we favor. Our informative interaction with reality, in this sense, is becoming less real and more digital. (For the record, Ted Talks and MOOCs, amongst others, are one of the best ideas of our time!)

I use Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram as my social media. Mainly to look at pictures, out of curiosity, to get ideas, or boredom. I post every once in a while but I am beginning to feel old, or less influenced by popular opinion. Or maybe it’s that I want to be one of those outliers who think and act for themselves. After all, the popular opinion these days is shun Hive Mentality. Facebook taught me that.

I got everything from someone. Nobody can be original.

~Philip Johnson

The Wind

I always envisioned myself a seed that picks up with the wind and drifts.

Almost exactly one year ago, a physic medium on Bourbon Street told me as I was shuffling the tarot cards, "we create our destinies." She "reads the energies of the cards as I am putting them out into the universe." She then proceeded to tell me in one year's time my life would be completely different. Through it, I would find my life long happiness. I was a skeptic.

I met Jonny. The love of my life. A man I would never have noticed if it weren't for the intervention of a person who is now, someone we are both grateful to. He's the kind of man you dream of as a little girl growing up with fairytales; the one who will sweep you off your feet, move heaven and earth for you, protect and defend you and spend their life making yours better. He is Home no matter where we are. We are not perfect, together or as individuals; we are perfect for each other.

I gained six pounds last year in New Orleans. My fitness coach congratulated me. With my newly acquired six pounds of fat, I tipped the scales at a whopping 18% BMI. It felt good to work hard and it felt good to be strong, toned and "healthy." I ran everywhere I travelled and loved it. I worked out hard. This was the lifestyle for me. I walked a fine line of developing and preaching disordered eating. I am a foodie as true as ever there was one. Eating outside my meal plan gave me guilt. In my head, it was because I was dedicated. Until you are obsessing over macros and whether that extra rice cracker you ate will put you off track, it's hard to explain that kind of devotion verses mental instability.

If I were to see my coach again, he'd tell me I can do it. My BMI is at least 28% or above by now. Undergoing that transformation, I was the very definition of mental instability. My workout now is learning to love myself, even if my size 2 wardrobe sits in the closet indefinitely. Until one week ago if you had taken me to a mental health doctor I would've undoubtedly been diagnosed with depression. My body permanently broke on me last fall. I still don't have any definitive answers why. I spent six months rehabilitating in order to walk properly. It's only been a little over a month I've been "normal" again, already I've forgotten much of the struggle...until I try to do "normal" things. I may never run again. I have yet to graduate physical therapy but I am mobile and pain no longer rules my days. One day I'll be physically strong again. I had no idea what "strong" meant. The hardest workout will never compare to trying to raise your leg with all your effort or walk twenty feet to the toilet so you don't loose your dignity. It's a hard lesson. I am grateful every day now my lesson wasn't worse. You come out of it fighting or you give up. I gave up plenty of times.

The wind was full of changes. It snatched away my best friend when I needed her most. The friendship was already dwindling as my body began to break. I grieved as I stood by watching her grudge replace years of friendship. I chose to move on. There is nothing positive holding on to the past hoping for a different future. People change and so do I.

In a short time I'll be leaving behind a successful career filled with sacrifice, blood, sweat and tears. There have been as many disappointments as there have been victories. I gave it my all.

The wind hasn't subsided yet the wind has never led me astray, even when the conditions getting there are uncomfortable.

From healthy to broken, and wealthy to who-knows-what, I do know the path to happiness. The wind is blowing this little seed to greener pastures. Perhaps we create our destinies but maybe they are drifting with us in the wind.

If you're happy and you know it clap your hands

A little over two years ago I met one of the most influential friends of my adult life. I didn't know it at the time and it took me a few months to reacquaint myself with my newest life-lesson mentor. Had I known the ride in store for me I would've been a lot less dern' enthusiastic and given them the stink eye. Harrumph!

"He said the most valuable thing I could do was to meet as many people as I could[...] because behind every one of those faces was a different take on a vast world. He thought that understanding that and living that was the best way to be liberally educated."
-Michael Hawley

An education was about to arrive on my doorstep dressed up in shorts, a t-shirt and a stubborn personality more difficult than the set-in stain caused by my Easter egg dying misadventure. My intuition told me it was inevitable to resist from the moment I set eyes on my newest friend, I must, had-to, and simply insisted to burrow my way into a friendship that would find me flummoxed, challenged, exhausted and entirely grateful. My friend is a difficult person to get close to being hardened by life’s challenges. Prone to adrenaline and pushing their body to the edge of its physical limits, they are no stranger to developing mental and physical strength to conquer anything. A trait I deeply admire and simultaneously apprehensive over, for their safety seems always an afterthought. 

I always fancied myself a fairly kicked-back yet ambitious person who attended the school-of-hard-knocks far more than my fair share of years and consequently became something of a tough but driven and empathetic soul. I follow my intuition to a fault and on occasion it has led me astray. It has also given me a set of principles, marathon-level tenacity and an uncanny ability to see to the core of a person to figure out what makes them tick. For my friend, this proved invaluable in deciphering the life philosophy of a floater, a renegade from the culture and norms of the place in which we live. No matter how I tried I could not wrap my mind around their world. My frustration and patience grew thin. Why couldn't my friend be like everyone else? This description should serve as a suitable background for understanding the education I was about to receive.

The years grew on and by some miracle I gained a trusted confidante. Their take on the world began to fit together for me in pieces of lessons: No matter what happens to you in life, you are in charge of who you become and of how you react to your circumstances. The next piece: You are free to choose the life that will make you happiest. The magnum opus: “I’m sorry you feel that way.” I have never been so livid! How dare anyone be so callous and final! Worst sentence ever... until the final piece of comprehension came in a months long battle of wills; the lesson that makes my friend tick: I held the power to make me happy. Once I brushed off my slightly bruised ego, I took one wobbly step forward choosing to let the small things roll off my back that could get me down.  The next step choosing to start my difficult days saying they were the best day and setting off to make it happen. I began walking along looking at what I was creating for myself. I’m on a voyage to discover the courage to be happy in spite of all that works to bring us down; like my friend who had the patience to teach me being true to yourself means to find happiness within yourself, even if you stand alone. In the challenging moments I found at letting my troubles go, I grew to learn happiness comes from within. My friend's lessons couldn't be told or shown by example. They could only be learned by doing. Suddenly life-in-limbo wasn't melancholy anymore and I got about living the rest of my life. I find happiness and joy in others even more than before now. I know my friend will say I've gone and twisted one person’s life philosophy for survival into some grand optimistic life motto it wasn't intended to be- but hey- they’re full of all sorts of wisdom I’m good at exploiting. I’m just a bright little ray of sunshine like that.

My friend is no less difficult than the day we met.

“There is something infantile in the presumption that somebody else has a responsibility to give your life meaning and point… The truly adult view, by contrast, is that our life is as meaningful, as full and as wonderful as we choose to make it.”
― Richard Dawkins

Eddie.

Sonder:
n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk.

Eddie Munster. The most vivid memory of San Francisco. I often define my travels by the food I eat. The ethos of the foodie. In this scenario, Tonys Pizza Napoletana  on Stockton Street has secured it’s spot as my greatest travelling achievement.  An average size establishment reminiscent of a trendy east coast pub, (seedier if it were in less capable hands) with a bar in one room and booths lining the walls in another, Tonys has the air of a favorite locals-only spot for those in-the-know. The smell of pizza hangs in the air outside as you crowd your way in. Inside, a whirlwind of sounds and smells and people until the cacophony suddenly dims upon reaching the refuge of your booth.

I enjoy pizza well enough. I used to live on the Little Caesar’s variety in my early twenties.  I’m not a person of discriminating tastes by any means. Over the years my palate has become accustomed to the nuances of flavors and textures.  By de facto, the epicurean frou-frou "daring" foods now speak a language I’m fluent in. However, you will never convince me street food isn't the best down-and-dirty food on the planet. That honor belongs to my first: a churro cart in Tijuana.  Point is, I like all kinds of food, doesn't matter if it’s from a kitchen, a dive, or Spain.

That brings me back to Eddie. I believe food transcends nutrition and becomes culture and experience. My obsession with food and anthropology has lead me to believe our food traditions are one of the common languages all of humanity shares. It has only been recently the tradition of breaking bread together has become a novelty instead of the norm. On Stockton Street, seated with a superstitiously fateful perfect combination of eating companions, an experience was unfolding around me in every booth. People were gathering to experience the same thing, the gathering of friends to share a meal that would both entice and delight the taste buds. This wasn't another pizza place, this was a place where total strangers gathered to delight their senses. And Eddie. From skepticism to sheer joy! My taste buds felt instantly as though they had been caught up in the Rapture and were ascending to Nirvana. Layers of flavor and texture! This wasn’t pizza! This was art my tongue could appreciate! An edible version of Picasso's Three Musicians. I confess, it was almost emotional. First, the fried kale of which there are no earthly words to describe the crunch as the saltiness disintegrates on your tongue, followed by the sweet taste of honey and lemon. A symphony wherein each movement builds upon the last; the bacon, Munster and peppers joining in one last grand finale of flourish….and when the taste is about to pass- a subtle finish of satisfaction a tongue cannot speak but waters at the thought of.

All around me in the other booths exclamations of taste buds reveling in delight met my ears. In that moment I bonded with a hundred other hungry guests over pizza. Food transcends boundaries and unifies in the partaking of it, a shared human experience; for this simple soul, one not to be forgotten in reminiscences. For the booth by the kitchen at Tonys will always be when Sonder beat in time with all who ate within.

It’s safe to say, it is the best pizza I’ve ever had. Sorry New York. 

The Oldest Profession

I support and love the world’s oldest profession. From the story of humanity as written 2 million years ago we have been able to discover much about how we came to be the people we are today. We see it in the bones of the past and the human record.

If you are a health food buff- I’m about to rain on your parade.

Cooking is the world’s oldest profession. Don’t be fooled by the stories you hear otherwise. It was the advent of cooking that changed the world.  Diet changed the entire course of human history.

Amaranth eaters beware! That statement was not for you. Don’t feel validated just yet. (If you don’t know what amaranth even is, don’t be overly alarmed- it’s an ancient grain and comes with the territory of the health food industry.)

The health food industry and fitness professionals tout one phenomenal philosophy: You Are What You Eat. Under this banner, millions flock to the life enhancing powers of diet and exercise.  It is a true statement- diet and exercise are absolutely, without a doubt, verifiably life enhancing.  More importantly, you ARE what you eat.

Two million years ago cooking advanced humanity. Raw foodists, I understand what you believe but I very apologetically submit that cooking and food processing was in the most literal sense, food for thought. The nutritional punch of cooking foods fostered brain development and growth. Many ancient foods, and now modern foods in their raw form are poisonous to humans. Yes, I’m looking at you Mr. Potato; the number two food staple in the world today feeding most of the world’s population.

Bikini ready body season flooded my Facebook feed with endless posts and picture-proof updates of resolutions to only eat protein and complex carbs and a healthy dose of fruits and veggies in 2-3 hour increments. I myself was in the throes of a food-identity crisis.  Weighing in at 115 lbs and 17% BMI, I had never been more proud of my diet and exercise success. What began as a quest into food as medicine resulted in a full-blown obsession. I ate at regular intervals a regimented diet, exercised religiously and felt my stress melt away with the fat laden free-radicals and toxins stored up from all the wrong foods. What I ate changed my ability to function giving me more energy and happiness. My mental acuity grew, my emotions stabilized, and I felt empowered and ready to take on the world. But there was one fundamental problem- no matter what I did that nag at the base of the brain sent up a red flag. ....Let the rain begin.

Lithe, sleek, toned, slim. Beautiful. A sexy body is a tan and toned body. Culturally we are programmed to believe beautiful is healthy. The wealthy can afford these bodies. This is the model of perfection, the model of health and wealth and happiness. Unfortunately, we’ve been duped by the fitness industry once again. I’ve seen the documentaries and read all the books, The China Study, Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead, Food Inc, and the one that started it all Super Size Me. Jamie Oliver stands gloriously perched on a podium in my mind to this day. I praise everyone who has brought the dark side of food to the public’s knowledge. But, take it with a grain of salt. Actually, skip the salt. Today’s food fads (Diet) are effective for achieving the body you’ve always wanted, or think you’ve wanted. Unfortunately they aren’t as healthy as you think. Double standards abound. I’m no nutritionist but it seems logical to conclude that eating organic and fresh and gluten free amounts to nothing the second you ingested that protein shake. I don’t remember seeing any natural ingredients in my protein powder. I did add water- so I guess that counts as a natural ingredient. Our bodies are hardwired to love fat and sugar- it gives us energy quickly. Health food buffs shun those- well, we use the term “healthy” fats. In the absence of flavor, we add salt. In large amounts. Have you had your blood pressure checked lately? In the absence of one thou shalt over apply another to compensate. Is this really healthy?

I submit a crazy but startling thought: There is another form of disordered eating. In my obsessed food-identity crisis I became concerned with everything I consumed. Food as fuel.  I forgot food is a unifier, a means of bonding with people, an activity, enjoyment of the senses, and that my body is an amazing and complex machine. My lifestyle change became anxiety and stress if I ate the wrong thing. The empowerment I felt is a classic sign of disordered eating- the feeling I can control my body in the way it looks and behaves and that if I don’t, I am less than desirable and successful. How many of you feel this way? Better take a second look at what you think is healthy. An eating disorder isn’t limited to anorexia and bulimia. The food and fitness industry has taken full advantage of this and exploited it into a word: Diet.

I can’t tell you what is and what isn’t correct when it comes to food philosophy and what’s healthy and what isn’t. But what I can tell you is there is a startling and oh-so-subtle difference between food as medicine and food as an eating disorder. Before you disagree I’ll leave you with one simple example. Gluten free.  The rate of gluten intolerance has become startling. In fact, if you were to classify this as an actual problem, it would be an epidemic. Granted, I know the grain politics, Monsanto, GMO’s, and the agricultural revolution. I won’t pretend wheat isn’t a problem. National news hasn’t covered this epidemic. Why not? There isn’t one. The gluten free intolerance epidemic coincided with the latest food fad. Simply put, if you remove something from your diet and then reintroduce it, typically there is an intolerance to it. This is also true for dairy, sugar, and anything that will change your body’s digestive chemistry. Ironically we also call these items “bad” for us. So is salt. Essentially, baby food and it’s Ph is the only thing you can rely on to keep you from getting sick. Let’s start a baby food diet.

I do believe in food as medicine and I believe the right food is a lifestyle choice. I do believe food can enhance and enrich your life. I do believe there is a measure of truth to a lot of the information pop culture feeds us. But don’t be fooled that Diet is the same as diet. A healthy diet doesn’t make you sick if you stop eating something, it doesn’t require mental strength to stick to when your body screams at you it needs nutrition you aren’t giving it, it only requires a stock of real food and a bit of time to cook. The world’s oldest profession is a fundamental building block of our history. We run into it every day in public and in private whether we go out or stay in. Stay informed, not influenced. You are what you eat. "You can't taste the beauty and energy of the earth in a Twinkie."

Human beings do not eat nutrients. They eat food.
~Mary Catherine Bateson

Wander-thirst

I've come to the conclusion all us jilted folks have something in common- we wander. We fill the void with adventure, new places and faces. And then we fall in love with it. Hearts need an occupation.

BEYOND the East the sunrise, beyond the West the sea,

And East and West the wander-thirst that will not let me be;

It works in me like madness, dear, to bid me say good-bye;

For the seas call, and the stars call, and oh! the call of the sky!

I know not where the white road runs, nor what the blue hills are;

But a man can have the sun for a friend, and for his guide a star;

And there's no end of voyaging when once the voice is heard,

For the rivers call, and the roads call, and oh! the call of the bird!

Yonder the long horizon lies, and there by night and day

The old ships draw to home again, the young ships sail away;

And come I may, but go I must, and, if men ask you why,

You may put the blame on the stars and the sun and the white

 road and the sky.

~Gerald Gould

Food as Medicine

Food makes the world go round. Literally. Food is a source of prosperity, poverty and even war. It has been immortalized in every form: written, spoken, art, fossilized, traded, preserved, displayed, you name it and it's been done. Food is associated with everything. It is often referentially used as innuendo, as pain, as comfort, as happiness, as anger. There's a food for every emotion. There are even people named after food..Miss Apple Paltrow (I meant real people, not Candy or Cherry ...) Food is the #1 killer leading to skyrocketing obesity rates while simultaneously attributed as the cause of death for malnourished children worldwide. Ironically, being saturated as we are with food knowledge, pop culture and folklore, there's a disconnect in today's culture of food as medicine.

The weight loss industry is rife with wanna-be success stories. We've all seen the infomercials selling magic weight loss solutions, fitness routines sure to guarantee rockin' hard abs. In all the ads, all I notice are the images of tight bodies of models who I've never seen the like of in real life. "Belly blast your way to 12% body fat!" They're selling miracles. 

I've spent my adulthood winters attempting to combat what began as the winter blues. I'm now convinced my mental state has less to do with the cold and dreary weather and more to do with my actual mental health. This winter in particular. I have a strong desire to become reclusive and favor sleep in what free time I have. Some may call it depression. The more optimistic friends call it my body's response to stress and an imbalanced life style. So as a last ditch effort before I make an appointment to see the shrink, I decided to try a $600 experiment. 

A few years ago I did a fitness program. It was the best thing I ever did to my health. Not only did I become desirably fit, but I felt better than I ever had in my life. If it weren't for an accident 3/4 of the way through my program I would've finished it. I worked out 30-45 mins 3 times a week. That's it. What was it then, that made the difference? Food.

I am now on a quest to see if food, eaten in the exact prescribed amounts tailored exactly to what my body needs to be properly nourished, can change not just my body but my mental health. Every food I consume has been planed out for me, right down to the time I eat it. I'm not talking about medicinal  derivatives our modern pharmaceuticals are made of, I'm talking about plain old, buy-it-at-the-store foods. There's a lot of science behind it that's beyond my time, skepticism or brain power to understand so I'll leave that to the professionals until I have the time to understand it better.  In the meantime, 3 months from now, I'll post my findings on the power of food as medicine. Call it my ode to "China Study"/"fat, sick, and nearly dead" experiment. What exactly can it cure? 

Storing in my memory bank until next time,

"You don't get permanently well unless you permanently change the way you live[...]70% of diseases that affect us now are caused by our life choices: how we exercise, if we smoke and what we eat."
--Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead

Saving Christmas

Against all odds, the Christmas I hoped never to remember has become one I will never forget.

I've lost track of days now. It’s slightly past midnight as I write so Christmas is officially over. I rolled the Christmas Spirit of the season into the last few hours of Dec 25^th. It came late but it came.

I've long loved the holidays. They begin in October for me and last through New Year’s. As I've grown older they've become more difficult. It began a few years back when I discovered my occupation meant I spent the holidays working. It was difficult at first but as the years have gone on, it’s gotten more and more upsetting. For me, the holidays are about spending and making memories with friends and family. Imagine my surprise when I discovered not only would I spend them this year at work but I would spend every one working overtime. I don’t know how many hours I've worked this week. Maybe 80. It’s all a blur to me now. All I knew is I would be living at work, out of a hotel room; my last shred of holiday cheer crushed when I discovered late Christmas Eve it would be spent at work, again, to be available to work even earlier the next morning while the roads were shut because of a major storm. I was inconsolable. I cried. Maybe because of stress or the long hours working hard, feeling more alone as each day wore on--I wept at being trapped in a world of cold snow. My director could see I was deeply discouraged and told me to stop whatever I was doing and go rest. So, I had a few hours to myself on Christmas Eve. I had a fireplace and a beautiful snowy wonderland outside my window. I was miserable. I was alone.

A few days earlier my sister and brother in law made the trek to my work to visit and they brought me a Christmas present. Knowing I was trapped there and not able to come to the annual Christmas Eve gathering, they came. It touched my heart and I kept their gift out as a reminder during my stay. I treasure nothing more than I treasure my family.

My friends are very near and dear to me. They have been a godsend more times than I can count. It’s been the last three years I've been lucky enough to find friends who have become family.  Tonight, a dear friend’s family was visiting as I showed up at their house, my car dead after my long absence. I had been dropped off by my brother who was kind enough to store it for me while I was working. As I walked in they all wished me a Merry Christmas and welcomed me with hugs and kind words. They didn't know at the moment, between the loneliness and the despair of missing the holidays, that to see a family together, welcoming me with open arms, was nothing short of a miracle. It saved Christmas.While I couldn't be home with my family, I had family to spend Christmas with.

Santa, I was told last night you were the Christmas spirit. I was sure you would miss me this year. Thank you for saving Christmas.

Movin' On

There was a song a few years back by Rascal Flatts called Movin’ On. I remember it vividly. I lived those lyrics, every one. The day I heard it on the radio, I left town.  

I sold what I could and packed what I couldn't

Stopped to fill up on my way out of town

I've loved like I should but lived like I shouldn't

I had to lose everything to find out

Maybe forgiveness will find me somewhere down this road

I moved to a new place and for about 6 months, life was one fantastic, exciting adventure to all but drown out my past. Until it fell apart and I moved again. Then the wind came whispering at my window and I moved on a whim. It turned out right and took me to another new place after. I got rid of most things I had collected through the years and kept only what I could fit in my small room. I sold my Jeep and began driving around my mom’s spare 1998 Mazda truck. My gutless wonder.  It was an effort in faith that if I could be free from all that binds me, I’d be happy one day. A true nomad. I haven't found the happiness I'm seeking. My job is highly stressful, long hours and keeps me away from friends and family. My time with them is precious and priceless, they are what matters. Work consumes my life. On the surface, it gets me status points I care less about. They aren't worth the price I've paid. I give them away, it’s the least I can do to repay my friends and family for all the times I am absent and half-crazed with stress. I thought a non-relationship might be the key. The freedom to simply be without the worry. Eventually, it found me and someone to fill the role. It came with an upsetting discovery: I couldn't stop myself, I'm utterly sold on Guy Freedom. Suddenly I realized my mom was right when she wrote to me this afternoon, “don’t be afraid to let go.”

To the sea of eyes in that great void that will never read this post--wish me luck. 

There comes a time in everyone's life

When all you can see are the years passing by

And I have made up my mind that those days are gone

I'm movin' on.

...All That Dreams

I have been woefully lacking these past few months at blogging. It could be I have run amuck with my thoughts, my lack of writing skill, or that I simply found myself busy and distracted. Truth? It’s: D. All the above.

There’s this nagging string somewhere in the back of my brain, towards the nape, that keeps being tugged. To whomever and whatever is on the other end of that string; my thoughts are still too murky to understand so I’ll do my best to write the bits I know. You'll be appeased for today, you nag. 

There’s something about humanity that compels me. “Compels? To what?” You ask. To understand. I can’t get enough of people. (Ironic statement from one who is an antisocial.) I love people. They fascinate me, they intrigue me, they constantly surprise me. I could pull out a thesaurus here... Mostly, I love what drives them. I love trying to understand <--- that. The aspect of 'Humanity.' I love to hear and witness the stories that comprise our lives. The stuff that makes us real and feeling and living. Over and over, the thought keeps popping into my head “all that dreams.”

Last I heard, the jury was out on whether (and which!) animals could dream. I do a lot of dreaming. I am proud of the dreams my brain can whip up. Even Christopher Nolan his'self couldn’t do better. Its lead me to think: what impact do our dreams have? Little font disclaimer: no personal research has gone into this question so it’s all very unofficial. I daydream, I dream at night, I dream of things to come. If there’s a dreaming, I do it. Frequently. It has had huge impact on my development.

Nagging string, I hear you! Here’s where I’m at: We all dream. I feel profound grief at this. My grief is because I have never, not once, realized even the simplest or the craziest or the hardest of us all is human in this way. We dream. These personal voyages through imagination and wonder are undertaken by the man on the corner I refuse to give change to, the disabled man I feel uncomfortable around, the ones who get under my skin and irritate, the friends I adore, the family I love, and the people I desperately hope to understand. I’ve missed a huge aspect of humanity.

One day I will revisit this idea once I’ve followed the string at my nape around my brain and back again. I'll wrap that idea in buckram and put it on the blogging shelf to be cataloged. My only hope is that it doesn't sit there gathering dust. 

10,000 hours

People. They are incredible. The most potent changes experienced are administered in the form of people. I have met a few who have affected change. I offer the last 30 days as proof. And so, after much thought, 10,000 hours found their way into my head. After an hour's worth of conversation, I have new challenge. My brain works in odd ways I still don't understand but once it catches something, it goes, propelled inexhaustibly forward by some magic my conscious self is unaware of. So now I'm going and we'll see where it leads in the end. In the meantime, I'll stop with the logic and read the page as I feel it, wherever it takes me, without trying to understand it. Then after awhile, I'll look at my findings and logic can tell me what I discovered. This is for you two who were there that night when something inside me clicked into place. I dedicate this to you, 10,000 hours from now.

"In fact, researchers have settled on what they believe is the magic number for true expertise: ten thousand hours."
--Malcom Gladwell. Outliers: The Story of Success

At Seventeen

The human experience as chronicled through music is like pairing air with lungs. It breathes life into the inhaling that feels.

I am largely unqualified to blog of music. I grew up listening to the Kingston Trio, Carpenters, Johnny Mathis, Peter, Paul & Mary, and classical music. I was nearly through high school before I switched from the oldies station on the radio to the pop station. At first, I didn’t even know which station to listen to. Music at my house was performed more than heard. My dad played Hawaiian on his pedal steel guitar, my siblings their band or jazz or MIDI music. So when I speak of music, it comes from a standpoint of feeling, rather than hearing.

Janice Ian is resonance.  I think of Tracy Chapman every time I hear her name and with it the following memory. It is significant for a reason.

I was a promising 21 year old. I spent a lot of time at a house, kiddie-corner from my parent's backyard, where there lived a group of guys. This was my first introduction to what being cool meant. (I still consider my acquaintance with them a crowning achievement.) Cool and popular aren't the same, many are popular but few of those are cool. I suspect it all comes down to whether you think you are elite or not. There were always people coming and going at that house, good conversation, music fests, movies, games, food and people to meet. My time there were my golden years.

Shortly after I took up semi-permanent residence at their house, a new guy moved in for the summer. He had his own place but wanted to mix up the social scene. He was nearly 30 if I recall, which to me back then was ooold. I couldn't resist being attracted to him. Maybe because he was elusive or “older” or just an incredibly awesome attractive guy who had passed the age of caring about being a twentysomething. I was intimidated by him and ipso facto extremely attracted. One afternoon after moving in he was sitting at his computer listening to music. It was the music that drew me over- he was listening to Tracy Chapman. As I listened to her most popular song, Fast Car, I felt, not heard, the music and it felt like Janis Ian. Months later, over a dinner downtown at CPK he asked me a question that changed the course of events in my life, my response began a spectacular love story with…another man. I have never forgotten how young I was then, how flattered I was, nor how naive and inexperienced about relationships I was. I often think back and wonder what would have been if I had answered differently. And now every time I hear that song I think of him.

At seventeen, I had never been asked out. I was never asked to a high school dance or had a secret admirer. I never knew of most the social events I wasn’t invited to. My friends ranged from the Navajo girl I had known since elementary school and wondered where she was half the semester to the student body president. I didn’t have any concept of social positioning other than what dreamed resided at the top. As all high school girls, high school is "real life" and I often felt swept aside by everyone because I blended into the background so well they forgot me. I sat at home most weekends listening to those oldies.

The sound of 70’s is music genius. Think about it. In one song you have Spanish guitar, smooth synth, trumpets, and jazz rhythms- for a folk song. At Seventeen spoke to my soul. Janis Ian and her contemporaries, Melanie, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins (Send in the Clowns is still one of the best songs of all time) wrote about things that mattered. None of this music about partying and raising our glasses until we’re drunk- they were raw and meaningful. You could get lost in that music. You felt that music. Even if you were the beauty queen, you still felt the longing, the loss, and the pain of the 'simple girls like me'. You can’t listen to music like that without going on a journey. Those songs changed something about your humanity- you would come away understanding somehow-even if you couldn’t understand the meaning of the words. You sink into it, like an abyss when you listen.

The music we indentify with, those anthems of experience. Suddenly we have a tool and a way to express what’s within. We can pin ourselves to it and say we are not alone in how we feel.

A few days ago I went to the mall, a place I avoid like the plague unless the words Sephora or Nordstrom are above my head, but it was an emergency and I had only time for one stop. I was wearing a bright yellow t-shirt emblazoned with “Volunteer”, pink sweats and the homeliest mop of hair perched above an undone face. The effeminate man behind the counter stared at me in protest while his coworker resolutely slumped up to the counter to take my money. A few hours later I was at a photoshoot leaning against a wall modeling when a group of photogs walked by wildly snapping pictures. All the while played in my head:

“I leaned the truth at seventeen that love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew, the Friday night charades of youth were spent of one more beautiful.
 At seventeen I learned the truth.
And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say, "Come dance with me," and murmured vague obscenities.
It isn't all it seems at seventeen.”
-Janis Ian

Food!

I am a foodie. It often gets misinterpreted as a gourmet. Which I am definitely not. I am qualified to make that statement because I do know a number of gourmets. “Elite” is a four letter word in my vocab.

Why a foodie?

I’ve always loved food. A few years back I took a class on the anthropology of food and a class on osteology. Combining two things I absolutely love, anthropology and food, was magical. It set in motion a whole whirl of purpose. My blog’s mostly about these two topics. But here’s what happened to make a believer out of me:

Food rules the world. There aren’t many things bigger than food in the world. Most people don’t think about it. From an anthropological stand point, this is, well you can’t get much bigger of a topic to study.  Food customs, food beliefs, access to food, food in pop culture, food and ritual (myth, magic, and religion) - it is in everything. And it just keeps getting more popular by the day thanks to the media. Which, as all media does, exploits and promotes in one fell swoop.  

I know a lot about food and it surprises some people that I haven’t joined the vegan bandwagon or shop exclusively at upscale markets. Like I said, I’m a foodie. I’ve been to the slaughterhouse, seen the propaganda movies, visited dairies, food production warehouses, been to open markets, bartered for food from the supplier, seen an airport hanger full of produce and witnessed how its distribution is decided and had my moments where I vowed never to eat food I didn’t grow myself again. I do believe in slow food and I do have my milk delivered. Beyond that, I join the ranks of the informed consumer.  I’m addicted to food. In a strange twist of fate vegans and the like are non-existent in the ranks of gourmets and rare among foodies.

Outside of my food hobby, it is my profession. Originally, I thought the two might come into conflict with each other but they never have. I keep the two separate. I run a seven-figure revenue generating restaurant. It is humble and off the map and you wouldn’t think it’s so successful. It is wildly successful, more than a lot of popular restaurants locals are familiar with. It has gotten me and my chef on T.V. more than a few times.  My wait staff pulls in incomes only fine dining can compete with. Outside of this I run a few more successful ventures: a pizza shop, a coffee shop, a grill, and Utah’s largest outdoor festival, along with a smattering of other special events. So, I know a lot about the industry in these areas. Because of this position I hold, I have a lot of buying power. Through me, insane dollars in product and supplies are purchased. It gets me to a lot of places. What this has effectively done is to build my foodie hobby. Not many foodies have access to those resources.  Only people who revolve in my world know who I am and I like to keep it that way.

I’m not a great cook, but I try. It helps that I have plenty in the profession to mentor me. As a teetotaler in charge of the biggest drinking festival in Utah, I spend a fair amount of time learning about spirits, wines, and beer. This has made me a number of “friends” who want the freebies I get. A lot of people think it’s amusing, I think it’s just the fun part of my job.

So all this exposure has made a foodie out of me but once the stars aligned and anthropology came into the mix- it gave me purpose. I’ve discovered not many view food as a very interesting topic. I understand this is my world and also my bias so I try to keep it real and discuss other things. Next time I am dining with directors and head chefs, I’ll invite you and we’ll see how you feel then. It is a HUGE industry. I am a plebian on this ladder and one seriously lucky gal to have landed in the industry with no background. I still know relatively little and am fairly green.

Food runs as a theme through essentially every aspect of our lives, it’s a fundamental so a lot of the time it isn’t thought about by the average joe. Our food habits are very telling, telling about us, telling about our society, and telling about the world we live in. There are so many food phenomenons now that globalization has taken root for better and for worse.

 I love food dialects; that food “you can only get here.” Food is exactly like language in that way. You have different languages and dialects within it.  It is as broad as the world and as localized as your town. (There’s a great “only get here” taco stand downtown at the Sears on State.) The food on the east coast is different than the west and the food on the west side is different than the east side. I am multilingual in the language of food.

 Even more interestingly, not only does food have dialect, is has gender as well. I wrote an interesting article about men, meat and marriage and in the very next week an article about the cupcake bakery fad sweeping the nation. Very gendered. Food also has social status associated with it and heritage. Food is incredibly telling.

The next time you sit down to eat, consider what you are eating and why. You might just find out a little something about yourself and the world in which you live. And if ever you find food is becoming a hobby, join me, we’ll find a little café somewhere and chat. I’m always excited to meet people who I can discuss passions with. Food and people is the best entertainment, and the oldest, there is.

 "Vegetarians, and their Hezbollah-like splinter faction, the vegans....are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit."
--Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidental

American Beauty

I watched American Beauty for two reasons. 1. Rebellion. It was forbidden to watch so I did. 2. I have an obsession with Kevin Spacey. I didn’t understand most of the film at the time; after all, I was breaking the rules watching it for all the wrong reasons. I never forgot the dead bird. I identified with a morbid sense of beauty long before I enshrined it. (Tragedy!, dear readers who have always considered me an absurd reincarnation of Fido who caught a bright little ray of sunshine.)

A year ago as I drove home from church I saw a bird flailing in the gutter on the side of the road after being hit. I couldn’t let it die in the gutter so I pulled over and removed my sweater to pick up the sickeningly car-beaten bird and move it to the grass. The bird was terrified. The thought occurred to me I had made the situation worse putting it on grass that would irritate and poke its already broken body. So I made a nest of my sweater and laid the bird on it to die and drove away.  All the while I cried, not for the bird but because I am haunted by the times I didn’t stop: the child who fell in the street, the couple on the scooter who had impaled themselves on rebar, the ancient man who asked me to trim his hedges on a blisteringly hot day, the time it took me to join the response to a hit and run where the man died and the woman who hit him went insane.

And looking back on it all, it was in sepia tones.

I call those moments tragically beautiful. (Does the word beautiful offend?) My life is riddled with them. And black. Solid black; the things I no longer remember unless dragged to the surface. I call this "beautiful" because it created.

I took this picture this afternoon. I’ve admired this plant from afar the whole winter. I finally had to capture it. It was aesthetically beautiful in death. An ordinary plant this summer; now, it’s paper thin walls spoke volumes to me of how something past, in death and so delicate, can be beautiful where in life it could not. I don’t celebrate my horrors. I honor what filled their place and how from these rose a phoenix. 

I’m not much of a better person but I stop now and dedicate myself to honoring the phoenix moments in us all and I remember every day we see the world as we are, not as it is. 

"It is a serious thing," says Lewis, "to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no 'ordinary' people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations -- these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whome we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit -- immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously -- no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner -- no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment."

--C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.

p.s. for all you Fido aficionado's out there, a redeeming aside to keep you from worrying (you know who you are--your claims I am going "Amish" are ridiculous...) Here's a little bit o' fun I smattered a good handful of un-suspecting victims via text with in a fit of  amusement. The back story here is that I have a bunch of fresh stitches throughout my scalp...  don't pat my head for a few days. I'm still down to catch a Frisbee though.

The Sound of Silence

There is no such thing as silence. There is sound in every corner of every space.

A good friend of mine is a composer at a recording studio. Hanging out with him one night, I walked into the booth where the air is as dead as I’ve ever heard.  I stood in silence. Almost. It physically hurt.

See, I don’t live in silence. My world is very loud. It crept up on me? I can’t remember any more.  I only remember the moment I recognized it. It was in Barnes & Noble and it hit me like a tidal wave. I arrived home in time to collapse onto my bedroom floor. Even that was unstable. I couldn’t tell if I was falling or lying still in space; I had no sense of space anymore. I was a terrified void. I heard sound. The sound pinned me to the existence I began to doubt.  Sound so loud it seemed my body would make those tones audible for everyone to hear. Sound has been my constant companion since.

The Dr said the only cure for my condition was to live with it, or scramble up my middle ear so nothing was left to cause a problem.  Naturally I chose to live with it. At first, with drugs, and then as I became trained to cope, without.

I had hearing tests a lot as a kid. This time it was different. No clown nose to light up. It wasn’t pass/fail anymore. I understood this test. I had passed the others, the xrays, the MRI, the psychological evaluations; everything before the audiologist. Ultimately, I failed. The sound was destroying my hearing. Slowly. There have been more tests since that day, every time hoping the loss won’t go so fast or be so permanent. Maybe the sound will one day grow tired and stop.  It could happen.

I am obsessed with sound now.  Maybe because I want to hear as much as I can before I can’t. Maybe because I hear too much noise in my head that I can’t shut off. Maybe because sound is my drug.

I listen to a lot of sound. Sometimes, when I’m most riled up, someone will put on some music and it tranquilizes me. I mean that. Halcion tranquil, I've taken the drug, it's the same effect.White noise. My salve. Most people find it irritating. It is my salvation. Without it, I’d end up in a psych ward.

My favorite sound is music. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, ecstasy all, even if the band was terrible. I’ve spent the last decade of my life listening to music to replace silence I never hear. I don’t know much about music. I am not well versed in bands, what’s hip, what’s obscure, what’s worthy of being called music. I just listen to whatever I can access and makes me happy. No, I am juvenile about music, except for one thing: passion. If appreciation were a talent, in the words of Lady Catherine DeBurg, “I should have been a great proficient.” I am McLean’s living, breathing, littlest angel with music in my soul I can’t express.

I’ve learned to tune out sound. I sleep without ear plugs in a house of 8 girls. I simply roll over, put my bad ear up to mute the noise, and tune the rest of it out. I've learned not to pay attention to sound. I can focus "in the zone" at  loud, raging parties, and fall asleep in movie theaters. I barely notice I hear it all the time anymore. It is kind of a cruel fate- knowing one day I may not hear and learning not to hear while I can.

Sound often overwhelms me.  I’m possessive of sound. Bad sound irritates me worse than any annoyance I can imagine. In crowded rooms, I read lips. I can hear sound but I can’t recognize the sound as words in big crowds. My brain doesn’t want to filter that much noise. So I try to avoid crowds where I have to interact with people. Sound disorients me.  Sound makes me uncomfortable-the sound booth that had been silenced.  It physically hurts me when I can’t process silence that should be there; like the noise of nails on a chalkboard or Styrofoam rubbing against Styrofoam.  A whisper in my right ear sends my body into muscle spasms as if it is one giant exposed nerve. I involuntarily flick at the sound as I would a fly resting on my eyelashes.

I am drawn to the musical types. I don’t discriminate between performers and dealers. But, I don’t live that life. I’m a fish out of water there and quite awkward. Music is my drug and I abuse it like any junkie. I know my boundaries and I steer clear. That hasn't stopped me from being a mosquito drawn to a bug zapper. I can’t walk by a piano being played without stopping, I cried when I heard the story of Joshua Bell, I involuntarily stop breathing when my ears hear new and stronger drugs, I fall in love with the minds of musicians. I become obsessed with what they are capable of creating. It is an unfair advantage to put a pharm lab in front of a junkie. It is dangerous to even put a dealer in front of a junkie.  And that’s my foible. My great weakness.

I’m addicted to the sound of silence.

 "There was a woman named Ivy who seemed to hold in her mouth all of the sounds of Pauline's soul. Standing a little apart from the choir, Ivy sang the dark sweetness Pauline could not name."
-Toni Morrison, The Bluest Eye

Food as Seduction

For this Valentine’s the most appropriate topic on food: seduction. Not only is Valentine Day synonymous with the word “chocolate” but it is the epitome of the role of food in seduction. The gift of chocolate has so engrained itself into holiday tradition that in the month of February chocolate metamorphs into a universal symbol of love, lust, and sensuality. Brave souls the country over buy boxes of the stuff (the world’s most recognized aphrodisiac, even clever cupid with all his arrows simply can’t compete) to give away in a gift giving ritual repeated every February 14^th asking a bold question: “Will you be my valentine?”

Our infatuation with chocolate first began 2,000 years ago when it was discovered in Latin America. The Maya and Aztec elites infused cocoa beans with water to form frothy chocolate drinks – the first frappuccinos, if you will – for special occasions and as sacrifices to the gods. The Aztec ruler Montezuma believed that chocolate was an aphrodisiac and routinely drank it before entering his harem, thus increasing chocolate’s popularity and its association with love and romance. As it turns out, he was ahead of his time. Modern-day scientists have linked the chemical phenylethylamine in chocolate to feelings of excitement, attraction and even pleasure.

The rest of Aztec society used cocoa beans as money and were unable to afford to drink it. Thus “gifting” chocolate for consumption was the Aztec version of John Cusak standing outside of your window with a boom-box. Christopher Columbus saw how the Aztecs revered cocoa when he entered the picture in the sixteenth century and immediately took the luxury product back to Queen Isabella of Spain. Chocoholics sprouted up all over Europe, sharing the legend of their new obsession’s alleged mythical powers. At one point in time, chocolate was believed to be so potent that nuns were forbidden from eating it and French doctors used it to treat “broken hearts.”

Consider all the films (Chocolat), books (The Chocolate Touch), music (Kylie Minogue’s Chocolate) and traditions that embrace chocolate as a sensual delight.

But you don’t have to take my word for it…

Food as Seduction

Feeding has always been clearly linked with courtship. In nature this is not without its dangers. In several species of insect (the praying mantis, for example) the female devours the males after mating: he has done his job and so becomes a source of nutrition for the now expectant mother. Many species tone this down by having the male offer little packages of food to the female, who eats them and leaves him alone. The males and females of all species, including our own, seem to be involved in this mating gamble with food as the bait. Even if the male is not himself the food, he universally seems to have to make some show of feeding to be acceptable. With humans this works two ways since we are the only animals who cook: the bride is usually appraised for her cooking ability. (“Can she bake a cherry pie, Bill boy, Billy boy?”) In some cultures this is far more important than her virginity.

But food and sex are generally closely linked. They are physically linked in the limbic system of the brain, which controls emotional activity generally. It is not surprising that we not only link them but do so emotionally. Good food = good sex. It is this sensuality of eating that spurs the puritan and ascetic rejection of food pleasures. But the link makes sense. To reproduce effectively, a female needs not only insemination but also provisioning. Particularly in species such as ours, where she is relatively dependent during the suckling period, she needs a male to provide food. Thus, a male’s willingness to provide food becomes an important index of his sustainability as a mate. Above all, it suggests his willingness to “invest” in the female’s offspring. Studies of mate preferences in many cultures reveal that while men universally go for looks (actually a fair indicator of fertility), women go for provisioning: a male with resources is preferred to one without, regardless of his attractivity. Studies of Western females show that one of the most “attractive” features of a male is his willingness to “pick up the tab” for a meal. This may be an appeal to deep and atavistic survival motives in the female, but unscrupulous seducers can use it to their advantage. Courtship etiquette today seems to demand the offer of a meal by the male as part of foreplay; and the female is then supposed to cook breakfast to complete her part of the bargain. (Some modern cynic defined a contemporary “moral dilemma” as whether or not to go bed with a man after only a cheeseburger.) 

The choice of setting for food and courtship is as important as the food itself. There is a tendency to move gradually (or swiftly as the case may be) from the public to the private. For modern urban couples, “dates” usually begin in a crowded public place such as a bar or disco. On the crucial “second date,” they may move to a restaurant, where the male is able to demonstrate his “resource accrual ability” by paying the bill. This stage may be prolonged, but at some time the “your place or mine” issue will arise, with, researchers have found, her place being generally preferred. At this stage she is supposed to supply a meal – usually a “romantic” candlelight dinner – thus demonstrating her abilities as a cook and hostess. Breakfast follows the consummation, again usually cooked by the female since it’s her kitchen. But it is order at this point for the male at least to offer to make breakfast, thus demonstrating his egalitarian and cooperative nature. 

If the relationship gets serious, then the next important ceremonial meal is likely to be with her family. Again the meal is used as a “bridge” to mark the importance of the event and as an icebreaker and demonstration of the family’s good will. The prospective mate joins her family at its most familial: eating the family meal. He can be assessed. He in turn gets to see his prospective in-laws close up, in a setting which both offers information and lubricates the difficult mechanism of social interaction.
Food and Eating: An Anthropological Perspective  by Robin Fox 

Guanxi

Recently I have been hearing a lot about social networks--not to be confused with social media (I'm referring to everything that happens offline.)  According to people who study this sort of thing in terms of psychology, economics, and to figure out why people can make more money than an entire country, a good social network is one of the keys to a successful life. So I did a brief survey in my head of my current social network. It is a tiered system: small and sturdy in the closest tier, all other relationships building into bigger tiers according to distance off of that base. Some people use a categorization social network system where each person gets placed into a box according to their role, each being utilized more or less according to their usefulness. And still others have what I call the “pinball” system. This system is exactly as it sounds. Social networking that rebounds haphazardly off anything, sometimes making connections and sometimes failing to hit anything.

I’ve been thinking a fair amount about the nature of my relationships with people. My relationship dynamic has changed. The older I get the more settled I become in my friendships. They age well. The more time passes, the finer they are. I don’t like peripheral friends much so, everyone who has made their way into my personal acquaintance, it’s an invitation to be friends. It seems a waste of effort to only know someone superficially. Good intentions aside, many times I’m too busy to put in ample effort. It’s up to the future social network member to move it past the initial stages. I always reciprocate which allows the relationship to build. That’s my relationship dynamic.  And, that’s the conclusion I’ve arrived at: I believe in an idea called Guanxi. It’s how you know the rules of reciprocation and the accompanying results and strategy. This is why I believe social networks are key to the successful life. Not only is there a system of exchange, but there is a system of exchange that builds positive interactions with people who support your emotional health.  

A few real life Case Studies.

Case Study #1:

Person A grows into position of Best Friend. Mutual building of friendship relationship for a year.  Separation begins due to lack of maintaining guanxi friendship. Conflict in personal ideals leads to “parenting” moments. Guanxi lost. Friendship dissolves into immaturity and indifference. Social networking becomes toxic and ceases.

Case Study #2:

Person B grows into position of Best Friend. Mutual building of friendship relationship for a year.  Separation begins due to lack of maintaining guanxi friendship. Behavioral conflict affected by individual incongruent perspectives. Guanxi lost. Person B initiates Guanxi exchange. Relationship rebuilds. Friendship strengthens into maturity and longevity. Social networking healthy and increases.

On the few occasions when I was sick in the village, I received a stream of visitors. […]I had to deal with well-meaning friends. On one such occasion I must have let my irritation show; one man said, “You should be so happy to have so many people embody concern.” “Why?” I asked. “Because if they didn’t embody concern, they wouldn’t be your friends anymore.”
-Producing Guanxi