My Philosophy of Food: Upon the Request of Rachel

My friend asked me in the beginning of the summer to write out my philosophy of food for her. I went into this task thinking it would be relatively easy since I tend to think about food and its surrounding consequences often. But, as most writing prompts seem to go, writing this was much more difficult than I thought it would be. There was just an unending amount of ground to cover and I soon realized that I am split on many issues (eg. GMO’s)  and need time to learn more before I make any sweeping remarks about my beliefs.

So, for the time being, below is what I believe is the ideal way to approach food for those who have ready access to it. By no means am I saying that I follow these things myself, but I do consider this the standard I strive to reach (and will undoubtedly never attain).

• Eat with a simple mindset. Eat what you want, when you want, but in moderation
• Eat until you are just full enough. You should never feel too uncomfortable after eating something. Even if you are hungry an hour later, that’s okay. You can eat again.
• Not only is overeating disrespectful to the people who labored to produce the food, those who barely have enough to eat to live, and your own body, but it is also the selfish act of a glutton- an act every single human is guilty of.
• For many people, stress eating is a common way of overeating. The idea that gorging ourselves helps us relax before a test, get over a breakup, etc. is simply mental. To an extent, it is merely a social construct that we have adopted in modern society. There are healthier ways to relax and to distract your mind.
• Every human has the right to know the truth of what part of the world their food came from, the processes it underwent before landing on the shelves of the grocery store, and the payment/ conditions of the workers who helped to carry out these processes. This information should be readily available to the public.
• Think about the processes and people it took to create the food you are eating. View each piece of food as a piece of artwork with an artist, a medium, a date, and an intention.
• Sit down to eat and eat slowly so you can think about the above things as well as how your food tastes and how it makes you feel at that moment.
• You cannot be “healthy” by just eating “healthy”- you have to exercise your body too. Whatever this form of exercise is is a completely personal decision. It should make you feel good physically and should be able to clear and relax your mind.
• Always, always be open to trying new dishes no matter how strange they may sound. (Especially pizza toppings. My new favorites are egg and shrimp, though not together.)
• Experiment with mixing flavors and textures. You should never be bored with what you are eating. Once the act of eating becomes only a necessity in order to stay alive, something is wrong.

The Juxtaposition of Pain

April 16, 2013

Yesterday, two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon at around 3:00 in the afternoon. Another went off at the JFK library later, believed to be unaffiliated. Three people were killed. One was an eight year old boy who had gone to cheer his father on.

As I reflect, I realize that until now I have not been able to separate myself from the fact that this is an “act of terror.” This term immediately calls to mind a whole collection of associations with strong connotations- external threat, war, anti-Americam, anti-freedom, anti- captialism, patriotism, courage, hero, red, white, blue.

Not until now have I been able to remove myself from examining these events from the point of an American and, instead, simply take the persepctive a girl who loves to run.

Right now, all I can think about is pain. There is good pain, like the way your legs feel after you have been running for a while. They ache, they feel almost separated from your body, like phantom limbs. But this pain is encouraging. It sustains you. It makes you feel strong.

And then there is bad pain. The kind of pain that makes you stop dead in your tracks, feeling the hot breath of Death upon your lips. The pain of one moment holding something firmly in your hand, and the next, having it plucked from your reach. The pain of suddenly having a time limit. Of having to come to terms with the end. This pain is both physical and mental. An army and navy.

That afternoon in Boston, these two feelings were juxaposed to a fatally close degree. And I cannot even begin to imagine what those runners must have felt.

They were tired, their legs were burning, their hearts were racing, their skin was sweating. But the finish line was in sight. They knew that they only had to push a little further, take a few more strides until they would cross the finish line. And then their pain would cease. The warm glow of accomplishment and celebration would take its place.

But then, the bombs explode. And everything comes crashing down to the pavement.

Those runners who were just a few minutes too slow, who didn’t get to cross the finish line, experienced this increibly baffaling jump from one kind of pain to the next. The first whispered words of encouragment in their ear, the next hissed fire and ice down their throat. The physical pain of exposed blood and severed bone. The mental pain of knowing that they had just taken their last step, and not understanding why.

Now, more than ever, I carry the weight of each stride with thanksgiving.

A First Year's First Winter Quarter in Haiku

this is not real life

their voices somehow become

my own words inside.

this statement changes

to questions that cannot be

answered in a proof,

explained and reasoned

by papers drafted over

and over again.

when do my actions

cease to be prerequisites

for so called real life?

A Typical FaceTiming Session

My parents wanted to FaceTime the other day. My mother and my father individually texted me in the morning three minutes apart from each other.

Hey Lc, hope your day is going well. Can we Skype tonight? I love you. xoxo <3

Hey bud. How are you doin? Skype l8er?

So we set a time, and about fifteen minutes after that time, we were talking over the unromantically convenient medium of an iPhone and an iPad. I sat on my bed, alone in my closet of a room, curled around a cup of tea, balancing the phone on my knee.

My parents sat on the floor in front of the fireplace in their pajamas. I could still see the holiday garland hung across the mantel. My father was wearing his round tortishell glasses and was holding a half empty glass of red wine. I could tell the iPad was situated on the coffee table.

How are you, LC? Where are you? Are you in your room? Can I see it? You look tired. Do you feel okay? Is it cold? How are your hands? Are you eating enough? Are you running? You run that far? Off campus? Is that safe? Do you want me send you a can of pepper spray? Because I can do that. Pop-pop told him some story he heard on the news and he’s all freaked out. Don’t listen to him, he’s joking.

I could hear feet running down the kitchen stairs and one by one each sister had a turn to say hello. Catch up. See faces. Then they scampered up the stairs again to finish math worksheets and cultural geography projects that involved scissors and tape and puffy paint and poster boards.

Occasionally, a blurry mass would cover the screen, and I would coo my dog’s name as he obliviously walked past.

I am good. It’s not too cold. My hands are fine. Yes, I’m tired. But I feel fine. Yes, I’ve been running.

(lost connection, reconnecting)

I said, yeah, I’ve been running. And it’s safe. Why are you just freaking out about this now? I’m fine, really I’m fine. Seriously, I’ve come up with a backup plan. Plan B. It’s perfect. If all else fails, I will move to Nantucket and live in a  light house in Madaket. I’ll be the next Madaket Millie. It will be grand. I will live in the lighthouse alone with an old dog and I will guide sailors home when the fog rolls in. I’ll save lives. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do, right? Save lives? I could save lives this way. Living in my little lighthouse on Nantucket. It will be grand. Maybe someday I will have a restaurant named after me where people can order famous homemade guacamole and lemonade served in Mason Jars. They will order from picnic benches. Their dogs can come too. They can come and curl up underneath the table while their owners eat the guacamole. The waitresses can bring out bowls of water for the dogs. It will be grand. Maybe whoever is the new Mr. Rogers will travel to Nantucket and do a television special on me. On me and my lighthouse and my dog and how I save lives. We’ll become friends, the new Mr. Rogers and I. Maybe they won’t air the episode because all of my answers to his questions are two words long and my eyes dart back and forth whenever the cameraman turns towards me. Maybe my dog will be a labrador named Cosmo.

My father took a sip of wine and pushed the bridge of his glasses higher up his nose with his forefinger.

Let’s hope we will never have to resort to that.

The Sketchbook Project

This is such a neat initiative that I am so happy to be a part of.


The cover of my sketchbook.

My favorite page.

Nantucket Poetry Workshop and "Beads"

I cannot recall a summer that I have not spent on Nantucket. I have always loved coming here, but in recent years I began to feel disconnected from the island. The fact that I lived here for over two months and really did not have any ties to the community unsettled me. Last summer I began to work in a store downtown and have met many new people who have strong ties to the island and I now feel more like I belong here, that I am not just a tourist grazing the beaches and the restaurants for a short summer vacation.

This summer I wanted to try even more things that would connect my to the island. I looked at posters on street corners and coffee shops for interesting things to do and I came across one for a poetry workshop led by the UVA professor and published poet Gregory Orr. The flyer said the workshop was free to both teens and adult. At the end of the four weekly sessions there would be a reading in the atheneum. I am always willing to hear feedback, "go to a poetry reading" was on my summer bucket list, and I thought maybe I could meet some people who were interested in some of the same things as me. So, I thought "why not?".

Let's just say that I was the only "teen" there. Actually, I think I was the youngest one at the workshop by at least a decade or two. I got some pretty strange looks when I went to the first meeting. Most of the people sitting around the circle I could tell were locals. And some of their poems revealed that they had endured through some pretty rough winters cooped up in the moors. So, I wouldn't exactly call my experience fun, but I continued to go because I knew I would regret it if I didn't.

Last night was the poetry reading. I drove into town way too early and walked around the block twice, afraid to go inside the library and be forced to talk to people a generation (or two...or three) ahead of me. I almost didn't go, but I knew I would regret it if I didn't. I hadn't exactly talked very much (or at all) at the workshops and I wanted to read my poem aloud to show everyone that "that young quiet girl" doesn't write poems half-heartedly, that she actually came to learn.

So I went. And it wasn't bad! Some people had come just to hear the poetry, and I think a few were so old that they fell asleep during the reading and began to drool on their sweaters. But I actually talked to some of the people there before the reading began and was quite inspired. I love hearing about the lifestyle of people who live here all year long. Many have interesting pasts. Greg also read some of his own poetry. I am ashamed to admit I never read one of his poems prior to last night but I was extremely moved by what I heard, especially the heart-wrenching eulogy to his younger brother who tragically died in a hunting accident, as well as his poem "To Be Alive", which he deems his "theme song".

Overall, I am glad I went through with the workshop. I didn't exactly make any new friends but I was truly inspired by some of the things I heard and now feel more motivated to experiment with poetry.

This is the poem I read last night at the reading. I like to think of it as a bit or a surrealist poem, one with exotic and possibly disturbing imagery. The structure of the third part was influenced a great deal by Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". I felt a little strange reading this aloud to a crowd of people who wrote poems that metaphorically compared their enemies to bugs, romantically described a dying lover, and reflected on a personal journey in the Buddhist faith. I hope no one was scarred (although one man did read a poem called "Whale Song", a poem describing a whale's tossing and moaning in the ocean, which he later revealed was actually about having intercourse with his lover).

Beads

I.            You had the answers long ago

You held them in your hands

And let them brush the skin between your fingers

The way cool fringe feels lining a pillow’s edge

Watch as one roles back and forth along your knuckles

While your naked skin bathes in the lush grass unashamed

Adorned in beads of dew

II.            The day we discovered we did not know

            Was the day we fell to earthly strife

            Without warning our fingers began to bleed

            Crimson concentrate trickling down to our scabby little elbows

            Dripping from palms marked by the star of that righteous stigmata

            The serpent’s four fangs sank into the webbed flesh between our fingers

            Like tiny keys fitting into tiny locks

            Turning out logical sacrifices for future sinners of future generations

            As darkness and light charged over the horizon           

III.            “He made me do it” we scream through hysterical tears as we buckle over at the waist

            Waiting to feel the next blow straight to the gut

            “He made me do it” we scream trying to ignore the frantic pulse of our swollen backs

            Scourged by holy flames borrowed from Hell

“He mad me do it” we scream as our mothers lie naked and exposed on tabletops withering in pain

The subject of clammy plastic gloves about to be burdened with another demanding life

            “He made me do it” we scream like the brothers whom we stalk through view finders dodging patriotic bullets

            Across borders and oceans and prehistoric values

            “He made me do it” we scream into empty nights conquered by insomniacs tracing cosmos and constellations and Wall Street prophecies

            “He made me do it” we scream as we are forced to march with hands tied behind our backs with rusty chains

            Led by a prison angle out the door incrusted in wilted ivy