I am on a search for truth about food, healing, and the holistic approach to life.
I blog about my curiosities and my whole self, which tends to be anything that's not cool to bring up at parties: gardening, periods, mental illness, poverty, injury, sex therapy, codependence, healthy eating, poop, avocado tree hoarding, feelings in general, and honesty. I haven’t actually blogged about periods yet, but I do always bring it up at parties.
“True desire, in the heart, for anything good is God’s proof to you, sent beforehand to indicate, that it’s yours already… That itch that you have to be whatever you want to be… You already have it. Claim it… Understand this also: you have these dreams… Dreams without goals remain dreams and ultimately fuel disappointment… Goals on the road to achievement cannot be achieved without discipline and consistency.”
– Denzel Washington
For the first time in life, I hear these words in regards to myself as a human and not as an actor. All of the energy I was putting toward characters, learning craft, practicing, pushing my limits, challenging myself, and believing I deserved the success I wanted and fulfillment I needed as an artist… there were times when all of that came naturally for me as an actor, but I have never allowed them for myself as a person. So I didn’t think of healthy relationships and a healthy mind, body, and spirit as dreams and therefore never made goals to reach them.
I’ve recently started to apply (when I have the strength, or sometimes when I am encouraged by someone else to be honest even if it might hurt them) the same passion, curiosity and fearlessness, that I used to apply to my career, to my life. While it is uncomfortable, the bursts of change release into moments of living in truth which is vibrant, simple and priceless. With consistency and discipline, the bursts will become one consistent moment of truth that will become life.
When I watched the first episode, it felt like the deep groundedness and titillating breathy openness of acupuncture. I was comforted to see them trust their audience by picking unflashy content for their first episode.
Then I realized I’d accidentally watched the last episode first.
Starting the true first one, I was skeptical, expecting hype and drama that would sweep the show off of its audience-trusting pedestal. It opened with an earthquake. Of course, I thought. And the next moment, with the most direct simplicity, a line was said and I instantly wept. And then couldn’t stop laughing at how ridiculous I was. But I couldn’t stop crying either. I’ve never done this the way it happened, before or since.
We just watched the second episode and it made me miss someone I’ve never met. His name is Kevin Sousa. He’s a Pittsburgh chef running a farm and restaurant in Braddock, PA. Kevin I’m so grateful for you!
If anyone reading this has Netflix, please take the time to watch this visual, aural masterpiece that weaves creativity, passion, failure, eco sustainability, fearlessness, psyche, farming, self trust, ancestry and invention together with the most delicious thread, food.
There are times, especially when I am physically healing, when being creative makes me feel better, but it doesn’t make me get better.
The Good Samaritan didn’t say, after helping that guy, “Ok, now you owe me.”
I like to imagine that if he did, he looked like Clint Eastwood, squinting and sweating mud, with a rolled cigar-ette sticking to his lip, standing beside the fellow he helped, but looking off into the sunset because people who receive help don’t deserve eye contact. Except for one flick of a glare just before the long silence that follows him as he walks away.
I’m learning to ask for what I need and want, learning to take up space, and I’m learning that I used to instantly feel like I owed someone if they helped me.
Someone recently gave me a Kit Kat bar and the whole time I was eating it, I was trying to figure out how to give her two fancy chocolates that would cost about $16. This would involve driving to a special store, paying for parking, using my foot and back, both of which I’m healing in physical therapy, and having $16. It also would involve her having some of the most orgasmic chocolates a person can ever experience eating. That feels like a nice thing to do for someone. Everyone loves chocolates, and orgasms. But I’m not working right now so that I can heal. So I don’t have $16 for chocolates and thinking about how to repay her, which I can’t do right now anyway, took me out of the moment of enjoying eating the chocolate and feeling my hunger dissipate.
Also….
Why couldn’t I want to give her a Kit Kat bar in return? If I was insistent on giving something in return, why not give myself permission to give an equal gift instead of one sixteen times greater? This was all so strange because she had simply given me a chocolate bar that she wasn’t interested in eating and it was a simple action for her. And here I was triggered into anxiety about the whole thing, feeling pressure to give her a chocolate orgasm.
I’d like to say that I’m anti-using-orgasms-as-currency. Currency orgasms are akin to slavery. Some things should always be free and never bartered or traded. That Kit Kat made me forget how I feel about slavery. I really like chocolate.
Beyond the chocolate amnesia, I passionately didn’t want her to think I was only talking to her because I wanted something from her. I’d rather sit there, hungry, and see she isn’t eating the food, but know she knows she’s valued to me in an honest way.
And I wanted to repay her because that’s how deeply I felt the feeling of gratitude for that each layer of that crispy, crack-like Kit Kat bar.
In the moment, I was aware that my thoughts were irrational and extreme and I needed to just eat the fucking candy bar. But it wasn’t until much later when I had stopped judging the thoughts as ridiculous that I had realizations about them.
If I’m always worried about repaying during the time I am receiving anything, how will I ever enjoy receiving? (This is actually very applicable to orgasms, too.) And if I’m not truly experiencing receiving, what exactly am I repaying?
I’m learning that I don’t owe her. Now. Or Later. (That’s not a candy joke.) I used to think, “When I’m physically healed, I’ll repay this person.” But there are times in life when I need help and it will take all that I have just to get better. All of my energy is needed for me in these moments, plus some energy from someone else. And I thought today, “Well, maybe that’s because I won’t repay that specific person in a balanced way. Maybe I’ll end up repaying someone else later who is in that same needing place. And they, in turn, won’t repay me, but will also Pay It Forward,” as they say.
But I think that if I’m doing something nice for someone because I owe a debt to someone else, I’m not doing that nice thing because I want to be nice. I’d be doing it because I have to pay it back. This is the first time I noticed “Pay It Forward” sounds very similar to “Pay It Back,” only because the word “pay” is in both of them.
I feel good wrapping my head around the idea that I won’t set the intention to pay back those gifts that are given to me while I’m not whole, to the person who gave them to me or to another person. Sometimes people are deficient and need from a depleted place. Sometimes I’m that person. While I’m not whole, the stress of worrying about how to repay takes me away from becoming whole again. Which also takes away from my ability to repay them.
It wasn’t until I was trying to give this post a title that I realized that these people are just trying to give me a gift! Ha! It took me this long to realize that I’m trying to repay something that doesn’t need to be repaid. It’s a gift. That’s what a gift is. A loan needs to be repaid. A gift doesn’t. So not only am I worried about something that I can’t do while I’m hurt, it’s in regards to something that doesn’t need to be repaid in the first place. Sigh.
Whew, my little brain gets a big work out with all this unnecessary worrying all the time. My body may be weak, but my mind is overly muscular. I’m working on balancing that muscle ratio.
My fear of needing and wanting results in my never allowing myself to receive because then I would be someone who may need or want. I’m realizing I usually feel honest, wild gratitude for even the tiniest gift. I’ll say thank you with a heart full of hummingbirds. But I will sometimes, accidentally, not say Thank You for big gifts that I needed or for little gifts or words by which I feel overwhelmed. This happens because I’ll spend days thinking about it and dreaming of ways I could repay them equally. Or ways I could express exactly what it meant to me. Sadly, the days can add up to never simply saying Thank You. I usually recognize that my perfectionist hope of perfectly giving them credit for what they did gets in the way of taking action. But I hadn’t realized that subconsciously I felt I didn’t deserve it. And that not saying anything feels better than actually saying Thank You because that would mean I am accepting the idea of needing and wanting. And, up until last month, that idea freaked me out.
Also, if someone says Thank You to me, I rarely say You’re Welcome because I’m uncomfortable even receiving thanks. I never consciously noticed these things before. But I see them clear as day now. Which is weird because who has ever said, “I see day.” But I see them nonetheless.
I finally learned why I’m scared to want and need and it comes from a dark, sad place in my past. My little kid self is still trying to protect me from that old place. Humans are wired to remember where we see a bear in the woods so we don’t go that way again and we have a better chance of not getting eaten. So it’s easy for me to forgive myself for not wanting to recreate a bear situation. It was violently difficult to see that I don’t need to have this fear anymore. It was relevant when I was little, but I don’t have to worry about that specific bear anymore. Figuring this out recently let me feel grateful to my little self for looking out for me, which wasn’t something I expected to happen and it was nice. It was also a huge release to let my big self understand that I don’t have to make decisions from a place of fear that I never even realized I was feeling.
And, in regards to paying back that ol’ Good Samaritan, if I help the giver or others later, and a balance of giving is accidentally created, it will be a beautiful thing. But it will be coming from an honest, organic, strong, grounded, tranquilly motivated, maybe even orgasmic place, a place based on the truth of how capable I am in the present moment, not a place of guilt, debt, or Owing It Forward.
This tasty burger is award-winning! I was presented with “Jake’s Favorite Burger Award.” What does that mean? It means this is my friend Jake’s favorite burger! Yay!
I think it looks like it was made by a man who just mowed his lawn and got curious about what it would taste like if he piled some clippings on his much-earned burger. Luckily this particular man has a lawn made entirely of organic arugula and he massaged the clippings in apple cider vinegar and the burger tastes great!
A few fun facts: There is a top piece of bread, it’s just hiding on the other side of the plate. This is organic, grass-fed beef. The burger is gluten-free, soy-free, corn-free & dairy-free. It has about 6.5 grams of sugar (4g from two slices of bread, 2g from the ketchup, and a whole medium tomato has 3.2g of sugar, so I’m guessing these two slices are around .5g). Everything in it is organic except for the bread.
Also, I eat beef if it’s organic and when I feel like I need it, which varies greatly. It seems like once a month or every two months, I’ll eat a one pound package of grass-fed organic beef or a bag of beef jerky. But it’s not often. Beef is an inflammatory food and I can tell I swell from it a bit. I also usually keep my meat separate from carbs because my body stays leaner that way. It’s called food combining and it’s very effective. The theory behind it is that the enzymes that break down carbs and proteins are different and mixing them makes digestion more difficult. Without going into a huge explanation of how and why I eat what I eat, I’ll simply say everyone is different, but I wanted to share that I eat this meal as a rare, well-done treat!
Here is the “award-winning” recipe:
Ingredients:
1/3 of a pound of grass-fed, organic beef
1 large organic garlic clove
organic oregano
organic crushed black pepper
organic yellow mustard
organic ketchup
handful of organic arugula
tablespoon organic, raw apple-cider vinegar
1/4 of an organic avocado
2 slices of organic red tomato
2 slices of organic yellow onion
2 slices of gluten-free, multi-grain bread
tablespoon organic olive oil
Hide Garlic in Patty Mince the garlic glove. Heat pan on medium high. Remove about half or a third of the hamburger meat and set it aside. Form a patty with the rest of the hamburger meat and sprinkle the minced garlic on top. Cover the garlic with the meat that was set aside so that the garlic ends up in the center of the burger. Shape the patty how you’d like and place in pan. Wash your hands, you nasty bastard. (Shane added that last part.)
Toast Bread Heat a separate large pan for about thirty seconds. Add olive oil and set the bread slices in the oil, covering each side. Toast each side in pan until brown.
Sauté Onion Add onion to the same pan so it can sauté in the oil at the same time. I like to use the least amount of pans possible so there is less clean up afterwards.
Spice & Cook Burger When the first side looks cooked almost half way up to the raw side, flip the burger and add oregano to the cooked side. Add pepper to one side when it is almost done.
I don’t know that much about cooking burgers, but it seems like when I don’t drain the fat out of the burger (or smash it with a spatula or puncture it to see how well it has cooked), the juices help cook the burger all the way through in a more even way and in a shorter amount of time. It seems like the boiling juice inside is helping cook the center. Once it is cooked all the way through, there is less fat to drain anyway. So my advice is don’t smash, puncture or drain it until it is done cooking. How will you know it’s done cooking without puncturing it? I don’t know yet. I wait until I think it’s done and then puncture it in the center a little bit with a small knife. If it has juice immediately come out, I quickly stop applying pressure and leave it be. If it seems cooked, it’s done.
Massage Arugula In a small dish, massage the arugula with the apple cider vinegar about 10 times. Don’t be scared to squish it.
Cool the Bread Once the bread is toasted to your liking, lean it at an angle on the edge of your plate. This sounds weird. But the bottom of the gluten-free bread makes condensation from the heat and moisture so if you place it flat on the plate and leave it in the same place, it can get soggy. I like to air it out by leaning it at a diagonal on the lip of the plate. Once it’s cooled down for a couple of minutes while I do something else, I’ll flip it over and move it to a different section of the plate. If there is condensation under the original spot, I’ll wipe off the water.
Slice Tomato & Avocado Cut two tomato slices. Open your avocado by running a knife through the center until it hits the pit, then sliding the knife along the pit to slice the avocado in half. Pull the halves apart and slice the side without the seed. Scoop out the slices with a spoon. I used about 1/4 of an avocado.
Plate & Eat Place the sautéed onion on the toasted bread, then the tomato slices, the burger, avocado, and arugula. Add ketchup, mustard, the top bread slice and enjoy! Or feed it to your friend Jake. It’s his favorite! 🙂
I didn’t realize how violent this recipe title could sound until after I became attached to the name. Oops! To me it sounds like an adorable Hobbit man in heavy tweed pants that are held up by brown-striped suspenders meeting his neighbor for the first time, in the morning, sharing a breakfast shake over the fence. He also has a bulby red nose and little cold, so even though he has a warm twinkle in his eye, his consonants are stifled.
“Berry Dice to Beet You…”
It tastes like a sunny Hobbit morning too. Hope you like it.
Recipe:
In a blender, combine the ingredients and blend on high. Makes almost 1½ glasses.
Because our blender is not as strong, I usually start blending by pulsating on low for a second and then letting it settle, again for a second, and let it settle, and I continue this until I can see that the blender has pulled in all of the whole food. It’s usually about five times. Once that has happened, I turn the blender to the highest low setting and let it run for about 30 seconds. Then I switch it to the highest high setting and blend for 30 seconds to a minute or until the texture looks drinkable. If you have a strong blender, please feel free to move through your life at your own pace.
Small organic banana
¼ cup raw cashews
½ cooked organic beet
10 organic raspberries (rinsed)
28 non-organic blueberries (soaked in a fruit/vegetable cleaner for a minute, swished for 30 seconds, rinsed until no more soap, & hopefully no more toxins 🙂
½ organic Royal Gala apple (rinsed)
1 big handful of dinosaur kale
small squeeze of fresh lime
1 cup filtered water
Today I feel overwhelmingly grateful that my poop goes away when I flush. Isn’t life amazing? #blessed#thatshowbaditsmelled
Hookers must hate GPS. How are they going to become Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman if Richard Gere never stops to ask for directions?
I just watched Fed Up, an important, helpful, honest documentary about US obesity, especially in kids. If you have Netflix, you can stream it right now. This very moment. If you aren’t in such a hurry, no worries. I’m totally psyched about it.
The best thing about this movie is that it points out how our weight gain is not our fault. And it explains why.
I remember in the mid 2000’s doing what I thought was right: researching, paying attention and acting on what I learned in regards to food. I wasn’t fad dieting; I was making lifestyle changes. When I learned, later in the decade, that I had been misguided and had wasted years and money on unhealthy foods, I was very angry. Angry at companies for lying to me, at the government for guiding me with unhealthy guidelines that they said were healthy, and angry at myself for not being smart enough to notice.
The ways in which I was misguided were many, but this film focuses on one of them: sugar. I knew I had a “sweet tooth” but I never saw it as a wild, ravenous, over consumption of sugar until I saw an episode of Ellen. Dr. Wayne Dyer was the guest and they talked about how much sugar humans ate years ago versus now. Here Dr. Dyer talks about it in another interview:
19TH CENTURY SUGAR CONSUMPTION
“…In the 19th century… the average amount of sugar consumed by Americans was around 13 grams a day and today its 285 grams. That’s like a 500% increase in the amount of sugar consumed! …If you just get your sugar consumption down to under 15 grams a day… Well, a banana has 11 grams of sugar! An eight ounce glass of orange juice has 35 grams of sugar in it. So it’s a pretty radical shift. Sugar is in everything! If you start looking at what’s on the packaging you’ll see huge amounts of it; in some cases its 100 grams in one serving…
If you get it down below 15 grams a day, or even just below 40 grams a day, you’ll take off between 15–17 pounds, which is about what I wanted to take off. I am not overweight. But I am thicker and I just decided to look at the excuses I have used to stay this way and put this paradigm to work. Sure enough, in less than 30 days I have taken off 17 pounds all the way around the middle. So, you can really make these kinds of shifts.”
At the time I learned this, I was going to a nutritionist who told me I could have raw, organic honey as one of my sugar sources. “Oh, wonderful!” I said. “I already eat that!” The nurse asked, “What do you eat it with?” I said, “…a spoon.” I told her that I had seen this man speak on Ellen and I was aiming to have 20 grams of sugar a day. But I would be fine with myself if I went way over, because even 45 grams was way less than the 285 grams Dr. Dyer was talking about. The nurse gave me a new goal. Instead of telling myself I can have 20 grams of sugar a day, and then standing over the honey jar with a spoon and crazy eyes, just tell myself “I can have less sugar. Just less.” It’s years later and I don’t even buy honey anymore.
SUGAR VS. COCAINE
Now that I look back, I think it may have been so difficult to quit my sugar habit because having a little bit had lead me to wanting more. Brain scans in the movie reveal that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. Rats will choose sugar over cocaine. This makes me feel better. Not for those dear rats, poor things. Sugar Crack Rats. Me and those rats don’t stand a chance; sugar will kick our asses. But it seems now that I don’t buy sugar, I’m not tempted. There is no sugar in the house. And over the years, my cravings finally settled down.
I think my transition, though, was unfair in a horrible and lucky way. I had spinal and foot injuries that resulted in my isolation, plus poordom, plus not having a car during the years that I was hurt, plus not having a TV for seven years, which all means I’m insane. Also those things meant that I really didn’t have to use will power while I was learning about nutrition. If there was no sugar in the house, I couldn’t drive to get some, or walk there, and if I did, I didn’t have money to buy it, and I didn’t totally care because I didn’t have commercials to *remind me that I love Reese’s peanut butter cups. *Reese’s peanut butter cups, I love you and will never forget that. Commercials just make me lustlove you.
“SWEET TOOTH” OR “LA-LA-LA-WHAT-FEELINGS TOOTH?”
Instead of calling a sugar addiction the darling name of “sweet tooth,” it should be called a “sharp-fanged sugar monster.” Even that sounds sort of adorable and mildly… edible? I didn’t have a sweet tooth. I had a set of razor fangs that would leave the sanity of the world behind while devouring a whole pie in the middle of the night alone, or right from under your nose while you are talking to me at a party. Sugar is more important than whatever you are trying to say to me, or my own dignity, or my own sleep. But we give it such a cute name, “sweet tooth.” It’s much harder to tilt my head to one side and smile with chocolate smeared on my face and say, “Aw, sorry, I have a demon monster inside me that is addicted to sugar because I’m scared of my feelings.” It’s way longer to say, first of all.
My sugar monster now only comes out about 25% of the time that it used to. Now I understand not only the connection between sugar and the reward center of the brain, but also the mind, body, spirit connection to my need for comfort food. If I’m distracting myself with a sugar high, I’m running from some feeling my mind thinks is too scary to let me see. If my mind doesn’t know how to deal with it and can’t foresee the exact outcome and that it would be positive, it tells me to look at something sparkly, claps its hands and says, “Look over here! Isn’t this shiny?! OOO- Let’s eat a pizza.” I still fall for it sometimes. Even though I’ve since learned that the crust breaks down in my body as pure sugar, so it’s not just a cheese fix, it’s a sweet fix too! Sugar should be in the CIA. It’s very sneaky.
But I’ve come to be more interested in the idea that I need to become empty before I can fill myself spiritually. Drugs, alcohol, sex, shopping, sugar and many other things can make humans feel whole. But unless we empty the places those things fill, we can’t look at the hole they leave in order to fill it with real, lasting contentment. Knowing this, in combination with seeing that the fake fills weren’t helping over time, now makes my shiny pizza monster a little less attractive. (What if that was what I called my vagina? That would be the worst.)
ADVERTISING
I’m proud of Fed Up for being realistic with Americans by truthfully sharing that advertising leads us towards sugar, but that we are expected to act as though advertising doesn’t affect us and take care of ourselves through sheer will power. The advertising clearly affects us and that’s why companies invest in it. And will power against something so addictive, even without the advertising, would obviously be difficult. On top of all that, most of the advertising presents many sugar-filled foods as healthy or diet, fat-free or sugar-free so most of the time we don’t even know to use will power against those foods. Usually we’re told to use our will power for them.
When the film teaches the psychological science behind how we respond to advertising, sugar, and sugar advertising, it lets people feel sane for being confused about why they can’t lose weight. Not only are unhealthy people fighting an uphill battle, they are usually left in the cold feeling like it’s their fault. And when I feel alone and confused, I eat more.
One of my favorite fact nuggets in the film was that when kids were given a snack to eat while they watched a tv show with food commercials vs. the same tv show with non-food commercials, they ate 45% more snack food. I got hungry just when I wrote the word nuggets.
HIGH SCHOOL EXPECTATIONS
I also learned in the movie how much fast food is now offered in America’s schools. Pairing that with how humans are wired to behave with certain food, brings to light that leaving our children alone with unhealthy foods and their own will power is truly neglectful. It seems easy to blame the parents and say they just have to make lunches for their kids. But as long as there are unhealthy options at school, the battle will be lost. I usually brought a lunch to school, but I figured out how to get the good tasting stuff. Trade things or bring a bit of money when I could to buy something. If it’s there, I want it.
Most adults I know are this way. And it’s not because they don’t know better. It’s because humans are designed to look for fat, salt, and sugar because those things used to be scarce. If the office has homemade cookies out for free, and then a birthday party with cake, and then someone brings in chocolates, we usually have a hard time not eating all of those things. Some people don’t like to waste food, some people don’t like to bring the mood down by saying no, some people want to fit in, some people want to be nice to the person who took the time to make cookies, some people are sleepy and need a pick-me-up, some people want to make out with their coworker but they can’t so some sugar is a close second, some people want to punch their boss in the face and going to the break room, they’ll eat whatever is there just to have a moment away. Some people just freaking love the way it all tastes. There are a million reasons why we make choices we know are bad for us. So expecting kids to act more responsibly in the lunch line than we do as adults is not kind or rational.
BUYING YOUR DIABETES
The film also brings up that the government subsidizes ingredients that cause obesity. Which I’d like to take a step further by saying that our tax dollars are really those subsidies, meaning we are really, unwillingly and unknowingly, paying for our own problem.
IT’S WHAT ON THE INSIDE THAT COUNTS
The film also shows that not all fat stores itself on the outside of the body. People eating unhealthy diets can be thin and still be a larger percentage of fat inside that will cause the same chronic diseases as someone who looks obese.
In the same way that what matters is on the inside of us, Fed Up shows that it goes for food too. Calories have been taught to us as math, and that they are equal. If the amount of calories going into your body equal the amount of calories going out, all should be well. At least that is what is usually said. But it is what is on the inside of a calorie that matters. 100 calories of broccoli don’t break down in our bodies the same way 100 calories of brownies do.
I’ve only gone on diets twice in my whole life. Once, for a week in high school, I tried (what I now see as my version of) the Adkins Diet and only ate microwaved cheese and eggs and meat. I had such low energy from this that I couldn’t walk through the halls from class to class. I remember being surprised by this at the time because I thought I was within their guidelines. Why would I think having just microwaved cheese as a third of my diet would be ok?
The other time I dieted was for a random month in college when I learned about calories in vs. calories out. I realized I didn’t have enough calories for my short frame to eat dessert. So I used my dessert-loving brain and figured out a way around it: only eat dessert. At one point, I was just eating whole bags of Reese’s peanut butter cups for dinner. I got bronchitis when my friends all got it and theirs went away with a Z-pak and mine stuck around for months. Because of the wheezing and deep, deep coughing lasting so long, my body got used to the sharp muscle constricting and, after a while, I started projectile vomiting. Which my roommate Hoosty and I thought was hilarious. So we’d laugh, which would get the muscles going again, which in turn would make me wheeze and cough, and projectile vomit. The cycle continued. College was a special time.
That was how I learned all calories are not created equally. You may already know this. If not, instead of trying your own dessert experiment/ torture, you could read this that is one of my favorite articles: Why Calories Don’t Matter by Dr. Mark Hyman, MD. Or you could watch Fed Up. Or it’s just really easy to understand and you probably already got it before I told those ridiculous dieting stories.
When we’re told that our health comes down to calories eaten matching calories burned but so many other relevant parts of the equation are left out, our health is ignored. That only works if you are eating healthy calories and if you know what “healthy” means. And if you have time to burn an unlimited amount of calories.
Obesity is a nation-wide, chronic problem that should be met with compassion and education. The kids in this film break my heart. They are trying so hard, but no one is telling them where to put their energy that will be effective. Their parents are lovingly trying to but no one told their parents how to be healthy either. Hopefully they all watched their own movie though. They are a part of something that will bless so many people, and I hope this is a case where the blessings out do indeed equal the blessings coming back to them.
If you don’t have Netflix, learn more about where to find the movie at http://www.fedupmovie.com. Here is the Fed Up trailer:
I feel peaceful in nature. Because it’s so expansive, I feel like I’m bigger and the world opens when I’m in it, so it’s bigger too. When I think of solitude, I feel small and think of an enclosed space. But today, walking on the sidewalk of my poor, bustling Hollywood neighborhood, which is both expansive and enclosed by walls people everywhere, I felt peaceful.
Maybe it was because I haven’t been able to walk for two years and I’ve done enough physical therapy to be at the point of adding in walks. The rush of standing up straight, the freedom of feeling my left leg muscles. Maybe it’s because I realized I had a fear of taking up space and found the most helpful therapy to actively get through it so I was enjoying taking up space. But for some reason, I wondered, “If the entire street were empty and it was just me and the cement sidewalk, the cement road, and the cement buildings, would I feel the peace I feel in nature?”
I never imagined that I was alone when I was in nature. Maybe it’s because of all of the life around me when I’m there. The movement, the flow, the sound. Everything there is growing or helping something else grow. But somehow, the thought of being alone in this cityscape felt like I would like it in the same way as I like nature. It made me wonder if it’s the nature alone that makes me feel better when I’m in it. Or if it’s the aloneness, the peace, quiet, and time with myself that makes me feel better.
We rarely get a chance to empty a city and stand alone in it. How would it feel? Tom Cruise got to stand in an empty Times Square in the movie Vanilla Sky. I never saw the movie but I’ve always been fascinated by that moment and curious if he feels like he absorbed the moment with more vigor, not just because it was extraordinary, but in honor of everyone who will never know how that feels.
In December of 2013, I was in Greenwich Village in NYC, walking alone under a sky that I remember as the blackest navy ink, lit with stars that sprinkled into the twinkling streetlights. Maybe it was just the Christmas lights, maybe there were no stars, but it felt like the stars were falling right there with us and there was no separation between the sky and me.
There was nothing special happening that day, no streets blocked off, no reason for the corner I was at to be more quiet than usual, but it was. It was still. The snow had blanketed the sidewalk and roads in a way that rarely happens in a city. In the Battle of Tires and Feet vs. the Snow Blanket, the cars and people usually win by squishing the blanket into a blackened slosh. This blanket had won though, and humbly. It was not that thick and knew to enjoy the time it had. Its might was only apparent in its sound. A happy, frosty, dense crunch beneath the feet. And its power seemed to grow as it absorbed our sound too.
The road curved and, the way I remember it, it had a triangular three-stop meet-up. I honestly don’t know what that means, but that is how it felt. It leant itself to feeling cove-like with old, small roads showing up to pop their heads out and participate. The way the sound bounced off the buildings cupping it, plus the sound-hungry snow made my ears feel muffled.
The other reason things seemed quiet was because there were at least twenty of us there, in the dark, lit by street lights and white Christmas twinkles, and most people were in pairs, but some how, no one was speaking. Not in a brisk-walk, too-busy-to-look-up kind of way. It was like if you mixed the feeling of A Southern, Wrap-Around-Porch Rocking Chair with a snow globe. That is how they were walking. People of all shapes and sizes, types and ages. Absorbing with their hearts what the snow had taken from their ears. And no cars or buses or taxis drove by for at least 3 minutes. And I kid you not, all you could hear, like the crisp, white air, was a man, soulfully whistling the theme song to the Andy Griffith show.
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