Usually I work and travel in China, and I'm a vegan liberal socialist adjective-loving queer treehugger. Currently I'm mosing around intentional communities in the States, getting low with the lowdown.
I write things here. You, apparently, read them.
I now spend all of my time in the kitchen, either cooking, cleaning, or sitting at our large drop down wooden ironing board writing.
Sometimes, when i lean over my computer looking for a particular song, i get distracted by 8tracks, proceed to check up on my messages, look at genderfork, remember in a sharp slap of memory which song i wanted and then (to avoid this lengthy process again) end up putting together a playlist- i then become so engrossed that i forget i'm in my kitchen leaning over a chair to look into the monitor. As i stand up and turn around, somehow i find myself thinking that because i've been so distracted all the dishes will be done. I am, thus far, always mistaken.
Sometimes when i drive around LA i feel like i'm in a videogame. This has become more frequent since they put out that Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas video game.
Sometimes i wonder if anyone reads this, and if they do, what they (you?) glean from it.
Sometimes I listen to The Fugees.
Sometimes i listen to covers of Radiohead, which i try to locate to put into my blog, only to fail.
Project One: Integrate mindfulness into every moment of my life.
Project Two: Feed my mother good vegan food.
Both are large and both require a lot of my attention. In fact, Project One requires all of my attention, but we'll revisit that one at a later date. Project Two is something that I'm very blessed to be spearheading. The seeds of this tree of change took root when my mother visited me in Beijing; I cooked her 7 days of beautiful vegan fare, sparing no amount of love or skill. She was so pleased that, upon hearing of my return home, she requested that I take her meals out of my brother's meat covered hands and do for her again what i did in Beijing.
I am now lucky enough to be cooking all of my mother's meals, all vegan, and all gluten free. This is something that I've wanted to do for years, something I thought I'd have to haggle my way into if i was going to get it at all- but low and behold, patience is, if not a virtue, at least fruitful. I'm making all my mother's meals, filling them with love and wholesome nutrition. And I couldn't be happier about doing it.
Below is a menu of the last 6 or so days, to give you an idea of the how things are starting out. In fact, this is a list of everything I've made for her since we've started this venture. Everything listed is homemade by the hands and heart of yours truly, using only fresh/whole ingredients (all veg/fruit from the farmers market, grains/pulses from Whole Foods)
Thursday (today): Breakie: Yogurt w/ ground flax/pumpkin seeds, walnuts, cranberries Lunch: Split Pea Soup, Chickpea/avocado/tomato salad Snack: Fiberful fruit bar from Trader Joe's, Dark Chocolate Dinner: Oven Baked Polenta, Curried Split Pea Soup, Chard&Kale Salad w/ Peanut Dressing
Wednesday: Breakie: Yogurt w/ ground flax/pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pear pieces Lunch: Chickpea Salad/Curried Potatoes/Salad Snack: Trail mix, two tangerines from the backyard Dinner: Split Pea Soup w/ Fresh Cornbread, Shredded Beet/Sesame Salad
In the midst of working on tonight's stream of conciousness post, I came across a blast from the past.
This little (and by little i mean lengthy) gem was drafted on 1/19/2009, from the reaches of icy cold beijing, from the grips of a life consuming 24/7 personal tutor job.
For your nostalgic reading pleasure:
Alright lovelies, it's a little late and I'm a little tired, but just for all of you i thoughti'd dash off a quick little love note before i tucked myself away for the night.
I'm still in Beijing, which means I'm still more distracted and less contemplative than i was when i was away from home. To me, this is both nice and a little irksome. In about 10 days though I'll be packing myself back off to the Southern reaches of China, so I think I'll enjoy this respite at 'home' while I can. I've just gotten myself a load of fantastic books from the tiny tiny book store up across the street from the Lama Temple, which is making work much easier to deal with. Sinking my teeth in The Heart is a Lonely Hunter is helping me to relish all those hours that I'm sitting around CCTV amidst hectic preparations for their Spring Festival Extravaganza.
Had I not mentioned that yet? My current student is envolved with it, and as I go where she does I now spend a significant portion of my time holed up inside the claustrophobic, smoky interior of CCTV. They have some truly beautiful and amazing things lined up for this Spring Festival show, and some truly bizarre things as well. They have pandas on unicycles, panda contortionists, and even pandas on yoga balls. It's like Chinese stereotype land met the college of preforming arts and had a springtacular love baby.
To wrap this up, I've been doing a lot of reading lately and have been getting more solid information and facts about those things I believe in the most. Mainly, veganism, environmentalism, and eating/consuming/producing locally. To me they all tie into one another, and are things that i try my best to incorporate into my life as much as I can. A lot of the time, since I am living in Beijing currently, these things are ideals. A lot of the time, though, decisions I can make everyday keep me on the right track. Always taking my own bag to the grocery market, not purchasing any packaged foods, and sticking to my vegan diet are all things that help me get there. I had a close moment earlier today when i set my first foot into Jenny Lou's on the way home. For those of you unfamiliar, Jenny Lou's is a chain store in Beijing (maybe in all of China?) that specializes in imported goods and markets to those expats starving for a taste of home.
They have everything I thought I'd never find in Beijing and more- granolas, baguettes, jams, peanut butters, candy bars, the list goes on- and theyre all the same brands i'm used to seeing at home. I felt overwhelmed, excited, and dumbfounded. They even had all those ridiculous prepackaged cake mixes from brands like Duncan Hines and Sara Lee- ridiculous because not only is making up your own cake mix minus preservatives a cinch but because 99.9% of Chinese people do not (and I feel I can say this without being racist because I've had a number of Chinese people say it to me themselves) ever EVER bake things at home. ever. They also have the largest and most comprehensive cheese section in Beijing- I've often heard the Cheese section at Jenny Lou's discussed in reverent tones at parties when Beijing's culinary differences to Europe pop into the conversation. These things having been said, it was the granola that was my downfall. With no oven of my own, I cannot make my own- which makes me want to cry. I love granola. It's so beautiful, so versatile, such a perfect meal anytime of day. Cereal in and of itself...don't get me started.
I could spend an hour easy perusing the cereal aisle of almost any store, and a good 2 hours on the ones in health food stores. My love of cereal and granola I had put away until returning home...but then, in Jenny Lou's, I saw a spectrum unlike any i could have imagined in China. They even had (though I wouldn't buy it and do not prefer it) Honey Bunches of Oats. Insanity. And then, THEN, a box of Amaranth clusters on sale for a fifth the price of all the others. I grabbed it. I grabbed two. I would have grabbed three, but a third there was not. I was exhilarated. I imagined myself in bed, with a bowl, a spoon, fresh soy milk from around the corner and my darling sweet amaranthy goodness. Then i thought about the distance it had traveled to reach me. The processing. The workers. The ridiculousness of eating something whose source was so utterly unconnected to me when I could just as easily eat the unrefined oats with corner store dried fruits from inside China- not to mention that the latter would be much better for me. I waffled. I sulked. I put the cereal back, in a show of epic and unheard of self control for this granola loving beast. The environmentalist/locally dedicated being inside me lived to see another day.
When I started that paragraph, it had a totally different aim than where it ended up. Since I'm so tired, I'm neither going to split it up to edit it nor revisit my original target. And I'll leave you with that.
Coming to you live from sunny SoCal, these words are tinged slightly with nostalgia, motivation, raindrops, jetlag, hot tea, cool nights, reflection, longing, decisiveness, and indecision.
After quite the long trek across many seas, one ocean, and three continents (via one train ride and three flights), I find myself writing to all of you from the living room of my maternal home, sitting on a couch struggling to revel in solitude while all i am able to honestly manage is jostled. Every item, every room, every street, every vista in my current proximity is imbued with teeming memories, each flush against the next, slightly overlapped, individual moments reflecting from different pairs of my own eyes. It's so interesting to come back after such a long time, especially interesting after seeing something new everyday for so many day, for suddenly seeing so many familiar things is making me feel...claustrophobic? No, that's not quite right. I'm feeling the presence of myself quite acutely, tangibly- more acutely than i have in quite a while. The presence, that is, of the selves of many yesterdays. The presence of my past persons is palpable in the memories of the spaces around me. My couch remembers, the driveway remembers, the tangerine tree, the street signs, the clear air on the mountains at 6 after rain knows a me from each day of the last 15 years. Sitting or standing, walking down paths well worn by my own feet, I can't help but feel like a flip-book jessie, one single in a sequence forming a complete picture only when viewed in context and in motion.
This is the mindset that I'm coming to you from.
Surveying my audience from this mood, what can i possibly share with you? What kinds of reflections on India are possible at this juncture?
For an overview and in the neighborhood of brevity, India was a country to be reckoned with, an experience that lingers like 3am on my hands. Multitudinous experiences touching such a variety of nerves that eventually a system re-set of perceptions, emotions, and reactions was achieved. I shall not forget the role of China, who had a heavy hand in this as well- it's accurate to say that the process of re-assemblage completed by India was only possible after the disassembly artfully undertaken by China. Disassembly is a slow and painful process, the strip down of desires, impulses, and duality related attachments/concepts done more by force than choice; reassembly, on the other hand, was comparatively pleasant while equally momentous.
Today I am talking entirely about inner processes initiated and pushed to fruitation mostly by (what appeared at the time to be) outer forces. I better understand the myriad of ways people build up the experience of india; the skepticism and confusion previously admitted to have been, at least in some ways, relieved and sated. I leave you at this time with the previously revealed reflections, to return to you on a later date with more concrete relations of events and occurences, more clearly defined perceptions, more sensically wrought musings.
The date of today is January 5, though by the time I finish writing and post this the number will have turned to 6. A fast has been finished, a Vipassana session cancelled; a massage course completed, a new yoga undertaken.
Today has been a revelry of a day, but I’m currently at a loss for any earth shattering expositories or heartrending revelations. The mist has been sitting low on the foothills with what we in LA would refer to as ‘intermittent drizzle’ drifting in and out of focus. I’m currently sitting in my spacious lower floor hotel room, watching the candle light flicker off the peeling light blue paint- the walls have acquired the splotched melancholic beauty that only years of cheap paint and water damage poured in equal amounts over cold concrete can lend. It is, in each moment that passes, quintessential Northern India.
So as I sit here in the damp chill, said candlelight aflicker, I’m rather unmotivated to rouse my inner faculties and deliver a rousing story. I’ve had a day of quiet reflection, replete with meditation, and am as such feeling rather calm and quiet. I’d hoped you’d walk over the unfinished construction site outside my balcony, hop the little fence and rap at my bolted door, but alas. You’re a bit far for those kind of antics, aren’t you? I’ll be enjoying this candlelight alone, just me and my yoga, me and my tea, me and my small stone Buddha.
[If I could paint you a picture, I would. What I would paint, I do not know, and what insight the 1,000 words captured in said picture would grant, I cannot guarantee. I can’t guarantee that 1,000 words would be enough- in matters such as this you’re often left with two options; a tome of a treatise, or the subtle communication of bittersweet silence.]
Proper Nouns: jessie, tea, paintings. Adjectives: vegan, liberal, pierced, down to go and up for action. Adverbs: slyly, slinkily, silkily. Verbs: Eating, biking, changing.
Favorite word? Subjective.
