Eating With Empathy

I used to say "I'm not a vegangelist" - or vegan-evangelist. I don't believe in evangelizing my religion, so why would I with my diet. I've known vegangelists, and they've bothered me to the ends of the leafy leafy earth. People whose "wise-guy" quips at the dinner table have left me sheepishly whispering to the other horrified diners "we're not all like that!"

And it's true, guilt-tripping and self-gratifying a vegan/vegetarian diet doesn't help spread the word. It doesn't attract people to the cause or cultivate interest, let alone empathy, if anything it paints a picture of priggish individuals viewing themselves as saintly.

So, no, I'm not exactly a vegangelist, but I've changed my mind on being "modestly dignified" about being vegan because the secret is...there's nothing to be modest about. Oh I'm flattered whenever someone comments on my "sacrifice for animals" or lauds my "self-control". Playing a martyr won't ever not be fun, but being a vegan/vegetarian isn't martyrdom, it doesn't require such sac-ri-fice, it doesn't feel abstinent and you really, really don't need iron will (or even iron supplements, for that matter). I would know.

In fact it's quite the opposite. My gosh, it's a relief. There is so. much. shame when it comes to food. The emphasis for these issues is understandably focused on women but men have been prescribed "right" ways to eat, to enjoy and regard food, too. What everyone, and I mean every human has experienced in regards to food, is self-loathing. You don't have to have struggled with an eating disorder to have hurt yourself with food. What you eat, when, how much, in what context, it's shame and regret and disgust.

Empathy, however, is a double-edged gourd. With all this food-frustration, vegan eating is focused around empathy. Just maybe, if you eat in a way that practices compassion towards other animals, it'll make it just that much easier to reflect that practiced-compassion back to yourself. Eating with compassion begets eating with compassion. And right now, let's make it very clear that 'The Vegan' hasn't mastered food. There's this idea that vegans have incredible self-control and have really won the whole "nutrition" puzzle and that they can really CHEF it out in the kitchen. I can say with absolute confidence that all that is False. Since I've been vegan, and certainly since I've been vegetarian, I've both grossly over-eaten and dangerously under-eaten, and this year I haven't used the fancy-spankin-new kitchen of my new pad once.

And have you noticed the trend? Gosh it's so exciting, vegan dishes are more mainstream and lazy-friendly than ever. Even BURGER KING has hopped on board with the popular "Impossible Burger". (and if you haven't taken a look-see at Taco Bell's vegan options, please talk to me).

Veganism doesn't ask for your perfection, it doesn't ask you to perfect and commit to the elusive art of meal-prepping or to grow your own lush oregano and tomato plants or to buy all-organic or sheesh, hand-dye all your hemp-clothes and replace every cosmetic product you've ever owned with coconut oil and rose water. Veganism invites your 2 am chip-binges and your messy Monday morning leftovers-breakfast and your sugary Starbucks drinks and your crappy kitchen. Because in a world of shame and self-loathing and frustration around food, it can be one, simple, much needed aspect of empathy. Veganism, much like religion, asks you to come as you are; messy, chaotic, busy, imperfect, but most importantly, hungry for something more.




And one more thing, goodness, it certainly isn't all salad.

Hobbes and his Toxic Circle

I don't mean to come right out and say that Hobbes didn't have friends. In fact I've never even taken PHIL 101, so I'm especially unqualified to make that claim. Maybe it's that he didn't have good friends. How else could you come up with that "humans are inherently selfish" business?

It's not that it's a far-fetched ideology at first glance. It's explains war pretty nicely, simply. It helps us understand all kinds of humanity's twisted motives. It checks out, on a lot of fronts. But I don't believe it because I've met my friends.

It's true that friendships are, a lot of the time, mutually beneficial. You care for each other, of course. But how. many. times. have my loved ones cared for me in ways I can never repay. Oodles, easily. Would I do the same for them? Gosh I hope so. But that's not why they do it.

Among the most delightful things is realizing your own selflessness. In David Sedaris' (paraphrased) words "one of the best things in the world is feeling so proud of someone that you think you might burst". When you watch a loved one excel and you're suddenly aware of your body's minute capacity to hold in your pride, that's proof of your selflessness there. Just observing their brilliance is a rush. Feeling that you're capable of this, just pure well-wishing, that's exhilarating and fresh, enchanting and Godly.

Did Hobbes have kids? From my quick Google search, no. I'm not surprised because there's far more than procreation to that relationship. Never in a million years could we repay for good parenting.

I think it's too bad Hobbes didn't branch out a little more, read up on toxic relationships, maybe try a hobby-based meetup or bookclub. No doubt Leviathan would've read a little differently if he had.

Frances Giles Scott Miller

I don't know much about my paternal grandmother, Frances Giles Scott Miller
I do know, thanks to my Uncle Lynwood's Facebook post, that today is her birthday
That she'd be 105
I know she named me with a laugh
I know that was one of the first gifts I was given after birth
That maybe it wasn't so much the name but the laughter she was gifting me
My parents were contemplating my name options
(Clearly, they couldn't settle on less than three)
When a laugh came from my mom, but it wasn't her laugh
Frances Giles wasn't alive but she filled the room with laughter
Giles, it was decided
Hearing about that I felt like Aurora
Frances a fairy godmother
She gave me the gift of laughter
And I know she's stuck around
Grandmother's love showering their grand babies with gifts
And Frances is no different
I don't know much about her but I probably saw her when I was a baby
When babies stare at empty spaces
and laugh
I don't know much about her but I like to think she's keeping tabs
For now, I'll just thank her for the laughter, the third name, and the stories I look forward to hearing
With Love,
    Giles

"I Miss You"

For someone to take your hand, and pull you gently down as they bend to show you a little dollhouse, saying "Hey, you see that room there, with the light on? The floral wallpaper and the light on?"
"Yeah?" you say
"That's yours" they say, smiling "I keep a light on there"
What could be better. 

Dichotomy of Fall

Fall is ~conspiratorial~.
and cozy.
and especially both at the same time.
Fall is maddeningly sneaky.
maddening in that it's busy and there's hardly time to hide.
in Fall I want to eat cinnamon apple oatmeal, but I want to do it while hacking into a blueprint database.
Fall begs you to indulge in hide n' seek inside while pasta boils on the stove and butternut and sweet potato (simmer? I'm not a chef, can you tell?).
Fall is buzzed and energetic. cozy, comfortable, warm colors
against green and purple, ghosts, darkness, and chilling uneasy
"it's just the wind"
Fall isn't spring, but there's a newness
fresh in a musty way
like exploring the basement you haven't visited in months
or re-discovering an old file in the attic
shedding leaves
Fall is conversational, collaborative, communicative,
sometimes confrontational
communal
Fall is seeking company
Fall is mysterious and transitional
and makes you want to be wrapped in.....something
in blankets or flavors or people or schemes or sensationalized fear
Fall is forgiving
an easy parallel to the leaves falling
Maple Maple Maple Chai
Fall is historical
is touring a landmark mansion but imagining more about it than you learn, maybe
Fall is hunger
for food, communion, reconnection
Fall is observational
and acoustic
and surprisingly expressive
and restless
like the driving need for the harvest
it's generous
Fall in California wonders what the Santa Ana winds will stir up this time
Fall is domestic, somewhat
but with an edge that morphs into mystery and conspiracy
Fall is nostalgic, no doubt
remember where you were a year ago today?
unrecognizable, no?
breezy melancholy
Fall is hopeful, more quietly than spring
uncertain
and aesthetic
fall is crispy soft
musty fresh
warm colors, chilly air, chilling tales
and thinking a word that means "g'bye" and "hello"
one we don't have in English
it's tingly, rich, and waiting
ciao ;)

What a Terrible Time We're Having

In an episode of the consistently brilliant series "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee", Jerry Seinfeld and Kate McKinnon are riding around NYC in a 1962 Fiat 600 Multipla (pay attention to as much of that as interests you) when Kate says "I find I have the most fun when I'm at something that is horrible because I'm making fun of it and I'm enjoying it" and I'll be damned if that's not it.

When talking about heaven (Presbyterians) a concern I both voice and hear pretty often is "but what if we get there, and it's actually  perfect like everyone (clergy, travel agencies, poets) say, that'll be great for all of three days. When you'll have greeted all your loved ones, caught up, met a few historic celebrities, then what? Play easy chess? Eat calorie-less dessert? What's the point?"

Misery is not only better with company, its heavenly. Easily the hardest I've laughed while at college is right after I've been crying, and my roommates have made me laugh until I have new tears by brilliantly parody-ing whatever situation I'm bewailing. Work friends are wonderful because you're united against the labor you're doing and the boss/clients/other coworkers you've deemed the opposition. Mornings suck, which is probably why breakfast is so good. The week before finals is when I got closest with some truly awesome people. Two summers ago my friend (who happens to be brilliantly hilarious) and I went to an "improv" show that sounded cool, underground, and like a great time. The show was an absolute disaster, we spent intermission hiding and trash-talking, and it was no doubt a great time. If you've ever been dragged to an antique store "party", but you got to bring a friend, you know exactly the feeling.

There is of course a happy (or "misery", rather) medium that allows for this sweet-sour spot of struggle, go too far over it and you cross from perfect inconvenience to real misery. If the most fun is a terrible improv show, an argumentative coworker or waking up early, even sobbing in my dorm over my hopes, dreams, and career, the fun stops upon hearing of the death of a loved one, sickness, loss, oppression, violence. These types of misery are undoubtedly made leagues better with company, but they are not and can not be made fun, let alone heavenly. Are there silver-linings? Most of the time, I'd say yes, but not a good time, certainly not a "best time". Not here. That's out of the sweet-sour spot.

I think we do hunger for this medium. It's why places that aren't meant for fun, like work or school, are inevitable playgrounds, depending on your angle and chiefly, who you're with. It's what defines the ideal adventure, somewhere between sorrow and sedentary, neither true fear nor apathy. It's a large part of what draws me to opera, the word for "work" in both Latin and Italian. It's really hard, and you get to 'work' on it with passionate, dedicated co-conspirators to make something extraordinary.

All of it to say, have fun out there kids. I hope you're just a little under-prepared, a little out-of-your-league, a little in over your head, but I hope your company is a lot of lovely, I know mine is.

Guaranteed Unbelievable

In my last post, I focused on the special occasion that is today, the day before the first day back at school. For the past two years, while this day has held a great deal of uncertainty, I have always had some idea or expectation, an approximate mindscape-synopsis of what the year might look like or entail. Two years into this operation however, and I finally know better. I can finally throw up my hands and declare my predictions futile, because if I've learned anything these past two years of college (other than the necessity of a good microwavable bowl) it's that I will absolutely, 100% guaranteed, be totally shocked.

I will enchant myself with my capacity to admire, love, and communicate with others or to find myself on the opposite shore of frustrating situations. I will horrify myself with my potential to hurt, regret, and reject people, actions, and opportunities. I will, day after day, find myself sitting or standing or walking (seldom running) thinking, "if you told me a year ago today....." and shaking my head in disbelief, whether smiling or in tears.

Today feels like being pulled to the extreme end of a pendulum swing, not with a clean slate but carrying all the lovely and ghastly results and residues of last year, with no idea where I'm about to be launched knowing only that it's just about to be released into motion, or begin to be.

I hope you too, whatever transitional or stagnate situation you read from now, can feel the two-way pull of whatever's next. The limitless potential containing heaven and hell, fueling a desire to always be adjusting, adapting, improving, revising, while encouraging you with the mystery of unbelievable value, hardly digestible for its unexpected goodness. There's no doubt that even when you're absolutely sure nothing is moving, you'll find a shocking change somewhere and at some point.

I'm excited to watch and feel old issues disintegrate and both anxious and curious to see the new ones that burgeon. Knowing I'll be both distraught and delighted beyond what I can fathom, wholly uncertain but full of faith that the delight will, eventually, outweigh the disaster. Here goes, here's to nothing, long story short, cheers and good luck!

Happy New Year's Eve

This sunny August day, I'm quietly observing New Year's Eve. I, like many people currently or recently participating in the standard school-year-summer-break system, have never actually felt that January 1st marked the beginning of a new year, far from it.

Winter break, which has encompassed Christmas and New Year's since the beginning of elementary school, was just that, a break. We returned to the same classroom, same desks, same teacher, same classmates, same after school routines, more or less. But the first day of the school-year was the real new beginning, a different chapter or season, a clear new compartment of our lives. I refer to both last October and last January as "last year". The three months of summer are a vague, timeless, no-man's land, claiming "this year" or "last year" depending on how long ago they were at the time I'm speaking, and without any concrete beginning or ending day. My last day of class might occur several days before returning to Tennessee, so the "end of the year" might occur when I walk out of the last exam, or close my old apartment door for the last time, when I say " 'til next year" to the last college friend, or maybe when the plane takes off or when it lands or when I de-board.

But the first day of class is the clearest moment of annual transition I, and surely many of my peers, have actually been able to experience. The one place where we could confidently expect our producers to distinguish a new season. Across the globe, on different dates in different months, and in every grade, the day before the first day of the school-year kids and adults go to sleep privately and universally knowing they'll wake up in what could for all we know be a new dimension.

I have a lot to say about what this particular New Year's feels like, halfway (hopefully) through college, but I'll save that for the next post. If you go to Chapman University, then we're observing the holiday together, if not, from my NYE today to yours when/where-ever it falls, Happy New Year's Eve.

The Ones Who Got Away

If you know me, you know I'm both frustrated and fascinated by the cultural, societal, and linguistic emphasis we place on romantic relationships relative to friendships. I could dedicate an entire blog domain on my endless thoughts on this, which my first post since this blog's "revival", Weddings: A Celebration of Friendship begins to touch on (begins).  As a side note, while I clearly resent the tendency to frame romantic relationships as the raison d'être of life, I certainly don't intend to diminish their power, wonder, or gravity.

Occasionally in my life (the whole twenty whopping years hitherto) I have recognized that the time span of potential friendship for someone with whom I felt a unique connection, a spark of platonic chemistry, a 'same-page-ness' , has passed or was never realized. I am faced with the recognition that this person is a friend "who got away". Maybe we were right under the close-ness threshold that would allow space for virtual keeping-in-touch, maybe we never quite felt the opportunity to deepen the relationship, maybe the friendship dwindled to acquaintance-ship and withered there for too long. There's endless reasons why it never leafed or stuck. And it's a helpless, quietly sad, realization. There's rarely the drama or tears or profound words that are often present at the close of a romantic relationship with these faded or cut friendships. Often it's only in hindsight that you can even see they got away. Without lessening the hurt of a retired romance, these unrealized or dissolved friendships can be especially frustrating because while with a romantic partner, for many people, you either end up with them ultimately and exclusively, or the relationship expires, with friendships you can continue indefinitely as many as you can nourish. Thinking along this vein, you could have kept them in your life, you could have attained and maintained a friendship, but for any number of infinite reasons, it didn't happen, and there is, in my opinion, a special grief for that.

I'm also fascinated by the incredibly mysterious nature of great friendships. There's hundreds, maybe thousands of people in the world with whom you might have an eternally unrealized, inexplicably crisp connection with, and that's overwhelming and a little sad. But it's also guaranteed that some of these people you will meet, and some, you will keep. There's something thrilling about knowing that there will always be new people to "discover", new friendships that reveal themselves at the most unsuspecting times, and new ways to learn about, empathize with, and marvel at the friendships you hold already and feel ever underserving of.

The number of people in my heart but not in my address book or recent-call list grows yearly. I'll probably never know what became of fifth grade-summer camp McClain, who made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe when I was scared to go to the camp nurse to get a tick (in my armpit, no less) removed, or Jesse from elementary ballet who liked green crayons specifically and never held her two years seniority over me, or any number of now acquaintances I know from more recent eras of my life, who I'll refrain from naming.

Next time you see me stopped at a red light, windows down, blasting Meryl Streep's arresting rendition of Slipping Through My Fingers, don't get it twisted. It's not necessarily a romance, and despite my best efforts it's not my daughter's upcoming marriage, but every now and then I still feel the subtle little sting of missing and mourning the friends who got away. But then again, you never really know who you'll stumble into...

Camera, Mic, & Me

I recently read a blurb from an article, probably for a sociology class but I can't remember for sure, that offered a classic comparison to the novel 1984. It agreed that the society presented by Orwell, under constant, technological surveillance, is eerie, but claimed our current society might just be eerier, considering we ourselves willingly purchase and install such devices.

*cue Twilight Zone theme*
What's more controlling and terrifying than a society that forces you to remain under constant surveillance? A society that tricks you into choosing it yourself.

It all sounds very dramatic and high-risk, very "you've been warned", very Black Mirror.

And I'm well aware of all the cookies and search tracking and Facebook whatnothaveyou about figuring out my interests and buying-patterns for targeted ads. My knickers aren't in a knot over that, if anything I am getting some pretty relevant ads. The more unsettling situation is the being watched/eavesdropped on.

I said it's "unsettling", but is it really? If it were just me and a handful of other people that were being monitored, then yeah, I'd be unsettled, but everyone (that consistently operates modern technology)?

That's enough for everything to be personally irrelevant. Maybe someone is reading my personal texts to close friends, maybe. But if they are, they don't care! Because guess who else has ever texted a friend about a crush or an embarrassing situation or a matter of personal hygiene or their weight loss plans? Every single person with a phone. 

Beyond that, think of how many hundreds of crimes, ones that were for sure discussed over phone and/or text, succeed per day!

My roommate and I have, countless times, directly addressed the NSA when discussing how we would orchestrate our own multi-million dollar heists, given the opportunity, and we've yet to detect the PI's following us or the officers assigned to our case.

I'm just not too concerned about it. At one point it was the national security thing, then we were all talking about the business side of it, the ad targeting. And I long ago lost track of how it all aligns politically. Was it too much government? Was it not enough government? Donkeys and Elephants were involved at some point? Maybe bulls? Good gravy America, take a breather. I know you're stressed, I know what your ex said last week, I know about that late bill, ohhohoo, I know everything *fade out*

Small Rooms, Closed Doors, Big Plans

It can be so intriguing and convenient to assume that they're behind it all.

Big Business and Men™and The Upper Class are behind sexism.

East Coast Comedy and College™and the Illuminati are scheming up The Liberal Agenda.

Some group of people somewhere closed a door, sat at a board room table, and designed all social media platforms to make sure we regulate each other and uphold societal norms.

Progressives might say kindness is being schemed away.
Conservatives might say values are being schemed away.
Young 'uns say the older generations are making us look bad while older generations might seem to think that millennials, collectively, are set to destroy them.

I'm un-informed, relatively speaking. Goodness knows I certainly don't know who/what/why our society acts the way it does, oppresses those it oppresses and exults those it exults (I'm only a few weeks into Sociology 101) but I feel like it's a group effort. One that we might not even be aware of.

We like to think the opposition's scheming because we can't wrap our head around the fact that they believe their ideas with the same conviction and simplicity as we do ours. It's so simple but so impossible to swallow.

I'm no expert, but I'm sure there's no weekly, Wednesday night meeting with all the patriarchal men of America where they think of new ways to sneakily uphold the patriarchy. No, more likely, patriarchal values are still around, not because of some club's vision board, but because of one guy's comment here, one subconscious action there, a million little by-stander moments and a million little uninformed opinions (not too different from the ones I post here, other than by content) adding up to create something big, evil, and seemingly intentional.

I don't say this to dismiss injustice, actually whatever is the polar opposite of that.

In his book The Gift of Fear, Gavin Debecker discusses the ironic danger of calling perpetrators of violent crimes "monsters". Inhuman. Unlike us. We like to think that by separating ourselves so dramatically from the harm-er, we emphasize how not ok this behavior is, while really we couldn't be doing anything less productive in preventing it.

While calling serial killers "monsters" feels good and assures us that we're nothing like them, DeBecker emphasizes that it's in seeing ourselves in the perpetrators of violence that we're actually able to predict and prevent.

I like to parallel it to a hypothetical, radical hippie. Let's say you're a member of a small, niche, hippie cult. We'll say that your whole manifesto is that you don't believe in washing machines. It's that rickity board and a bucket or dirty clothes, for you and your 10 fellow cult members.

Now let's say you want to make more of a difference. You and your fellow wash-by-handians have caused the world to have eleven fewer washing-machine users by converting to hand-washing (actually ten, considering Beth and Ron are a couple and would probably be living together if not in the commune). But you believe in hand-washing clothes so strongly that you propose to go out into the washing-machine society and live with and among people who use washing machines.

Your fellow wash-by-handians are shocked and disgusted. "How could you stoop to their level, living among, interacting with, and, I can hardly say it, befriending people of such beliefs?!" Ron spits at you.

"No, no!" you say "You don't understand! How can I help people see why hand-washing is better and feasible if I don't know why they prefer washing-machines, and learn about their beliefs surrounding washing clothes in general? And need I remind you that I will most certainly not be using washing-machines, only listening to why they do, good granola get a grip Ron!"

Understanding isn't compromising. For me, it's been more challenging than I might have thought understanding that kind people I care for, respect, and love, shoot and kill wildlife for sport. I don't think it's at all more acceptable to do it just because there are people who do it who I know and love, it only makes me a more productive, understanding advocate for not hunting.

The better I understand why they think it's ok, the better I can explain why I think it's not. It's like that old adage someone said at some point: if you shout people will lean away but if you talk at normal volume, they'll lean in or at least not leave the table.

I don't think there's a board room of evil gremlins who devise methods of convincing citizens that hunting is acceptable. Not at all. I think it's people I know well and love more, who simply believe it's acceptable, perhaps as, actually almost certainly as, organically, simply, and powerfully as I believe it's not.

I won't solve anything by saying they must be otherworldly monsters, firstly because they're not.
We can't cure the world of injustice by crashing a Friends of World Injustice meeting and exposing some sneaky sneaky schemes. But we can communicate. We can relate and retort all in one breath.
It's simple, impossible, and invaluable.




ps: if you're reading this trying to figure out a political affiliation, you're doing it wrong ;)

Blood Money

I. Don't. Want your blood money

Oh, that doesn't matter, our expenses are good

I. Don't. Need your blood money

But you might as well take it, we think that you should
Think of the things you could do with that money, choose any charity, give to the poor
We've noted your motives, we've noted your feelings, this isn't blood money, it's a fee- a fee nothing more

Have I ever accepted 'blood money'. Of course, about everyday. And you have at some point too, as well as everyone you know.

I know what you're thinking: three semesters into an art music major and she thinks it's normal for everyone to do hit-work on the side.

Again, if I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times, I'm "not a hitman", the rumors you're hearing "are false", and please let me back into the building I'm cold. 

The bolded words up top are, as you may be aware, lyrics from the 1970 Webber/Rice rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. I've had Carl Anderson's 1973 rendition of Damned for All Time/Blood Money from the show playing on a steady repeat all week. The song/scene illustrates Judas' initial refusal and hesitant acceptance of payment for agreeing to betray Jesus. Those lyrics, plus Carl Anderson's gripping delivery, speak to a broad sweeping tendency of humanhood, one that I couldn't even consolidate into one word.

Most literally, 'blood money' is payment for causing/aiding in harm. More generally, 'blood money' is material security at a rotten price. Most generally, 'blood money' is what you're not free from. Maybe you've found yourself in a literal hit-man situation that you'd like out of (best of luck), maybe you feel beholden to seeking material security in a way that you don't truly value, or maybe you're still trying to prove yourself, maybe you're a slave to the opinions of old naysayers or to your own self-doubt.

Whenever you act in service of material or abstract forces that don't give you joy or serve your sense of purpose, you're accepting blood money. Loosing weight to spite an ex? Blood money. Giving someone a "taste of their own medicine"? Blood money. Hauling around that grudge from high school? Blood money. Buying it to impress them? Blood money. "Success" at the price of happiness? Blood money. Staying quiet because of what they'll say/think? Blood money.

Your focus and energy are, objectively, invaluable. It's nothing short of heartbreaking, then, that we channel it towards purposes that aren't for our hearts, but for someone else's head.

If it's not for you, if your time could be better spent to your joy and purpose, chances are you're laboring for blood money. Blood money isn't worth your time or head space, but of course it isn't that easy.

It's impossible to believe, but true, that you don't need to prove yourself. You don't require any more beauty, wealth, prestige, or popularity to be as powerful, worthy, and important as everyone around you. You are worth infinitely more than blood money, you don't need it.

"I like you just the way you are" - Mr. Rogers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arwTvFPvpBQ