Friends and FamilyI could probably write about enjoying my friends and family every week, but this week has been family filled. I spent time with family over the weekend and during this week. I have also spent time this week talking to friends and we luckily had a friend who was visiting close by that we were able to get together with. I am glad that we have made connections and I am reminded in moments like this how lucky we are to have people we care about and who care about us. Even if we have yet to have those people locally yet. Breakfast SandwichesThis week I have become a large fan of breakfast sandwiches. I do not think I disliked them prior, but I was just reminded recently of how delicious a simple breakfast sandwich can be. BakingI have started baking regularly again and I have to say I love all of it. I love the process and I am just finding the joy in baking after a brief hiatus. Korean FoodClearly food has been on my mind, but we spent time going to a Korean restaurant recently and I was reminded how much I love Korean food. I am not a connoisseur, but I do enjoy the variety and distinct dishes they have. UNOsI am aware that UNOs is not considered actual deep dish pizza, but it has been a number of year since I ate at a UNOs and I have to say I was surprised at how delicious their food still was. Also the waitress left a note on my box wishing me a nice weekend and I felt really glad the next day when eating leftovers. I am reminded how it is the little things that can make a large impact. My Favorite Sticky BunThis week as we traveled this weekend, I was able to visit the bakery that makes my favorite sticky bun and it was just as good as I remembered. I loved it so much.
These are a few things I am loving this week; what are you loving lately?
0 Comments
I like goals. I like to check things off the list. I enjoy working towards something. I have been a do-er for quite a while. I learned when I was younger that when you do things, it helps. This may seem obvious, but I always saw my efforts as rewarded. Doing can achieve results. I get things done with surprising ease and am able to complete a number of tasks within the day. I am not the most productive person, but if I say I am going to do something, I am going to do it. I need to believe in what I am doing and have a good reason. I am not as motivated externally. I do not need someone checking in on me, I do not really need someone to push me.
If I want to do something, I will find a way to do it. Through all my travels this summer, I consistently exercised. I run when it rains outside, although not in snow because I am clumsy and that seems dangerous. If I care to do it, I do it. The caveat is that it actually has to be important to me, if I do not see it as valuable I will not put in the effort, hence my constant struggle with food. I realize though that this is not true for most people. There are people who hate goals. There are people who will avoid doing things because the thing is hard and they feel they are "bad at it". Those people term themselves perfectionists, which I find interesting because I would also term myself a perfectionist but not in that way. I am an obsessive practicer. I work hard to do what I want to do and I accomplish things. Am I perfect? No. Do sometimes my plans get delayed? Yes, but when they do I pick them back up eventually and continue. I am starting to realize though that this is not the same for everyone. At New Years, goals become all the rage. We make goals and hope and dream for our new year and our new life and all that it entails. The truth of the matter is though, a goal is just a goal. In America, being driven and hardworking are considered positive traits. We think by accomplishing more we are doing it all. In fact, that is not necessarily the case. In my life, I have given goals much more weight and credence than they deserved. I assume by organizing my home I will change my life. The reality is that I have fewer objects, my life changing is a result of other things. I think one of the things that gets lost as we plan goals is that they are simply what they are. This sounds obvious, but hear me out. If in the new year you get fit or lose weight, that is all that will happen. Being fitter does not innately change everything. Sure working out helps with endorphins if you have not previously been doing that, it provides space and mental clarity, but it does not solve everything. In our society we are concerned with quick fixes. We want it all and we want it now. We are not willing to make the sacrifices to pick one over the other. We think we can find a fast easy solution and our lives will be changed, we assume all life is just waiting for the right product or right gadget to fix it all. We assume one nagging problem is the key to it all, when really it is simply one component. As I look over my past year, yes I exercised almost daily (when I was sick I took a few rest days), and I am not any different on the outside. My exercise routine helps me gain mental clarity, but has done nothing for my appearance. But if I am totally honest with myself, losing those 10 pounds is not going to change my life. Yes, I will have to buy different clothes, but aside from that not much will change. It will be the result it will be. So this year, yes dream big, make your goals, but realize they are only part of the picture. We cannot plan for life. We cannot warp it to be what we want it to. Thank goodness, some of the best things in my life I never planned for. The things of beauty and wonder are things I could not imagined if I had sat down and planned my life and it had gone accordingly. I think many times we think of who we want to be rather than who we are. I want to be someone who throws elegant dinner parties, but in reality I only want to invite a couple people over for dinner. I have written before about how we change more than we expect to. Our lives look very different from our childhood dreams, some for the better and some for the worse. I am thankful I do not live in a gingerbread house. I am thankful I am not a lawyer. Those dreams came from a different person at a different time. We are constantly changing as human beings. We evolve and react and adjust. Moment by moment we are not the same. So when you dream your life, understand that it may change. The best moments may not be now. The best moments may be things you never could have or would have planned. Those moments make memories they make your life unique and worth living. As we go into the phase of doing and goal-ing, stop and recognize what you have. Appreciate the life you get, the things you have that you take for granted. Realize what of your life was a wonder you would never have planned for or realized. We have lived all over and if I am going to be honest, before living elsewhere I did not realize how much of a welcoming spirit can be evoked by a place and the people there. People who say hello, who share advice, who help without being asked, who offer themselves. I couldn't have planned for that. Yes, we will always have some preferences, yes, we will think what we want now is what we will want forever, but we are allowed to change our minds. We are allowed to not know. We are allowed to ask for help. The goal is just a goal. Not everyone is me, some people who struggle with goals may need a goal for its own sake. But I know for myself, and typically I write to remind myself what is right for me, the goal is not everything. Taking a break and changing your mind does not mean I am a failure. It does not mean I am a lazy slob if I have a day where I chose to stay in pajamas and not leave the house. I can be cognizant of what is and what is not. Also when a goal is not met, it can be a lesson. We have still grown whether we get there or not. We are doing our best and giving ourselves grace along the way is important. I also think we need to hold our goals loosely. We can recognize that they are what they are. Do not think though that meeting a goal will change your life in ways that goal was never meant to. Having a clean house, means my house is clean, it does NOT mean I am winning at life, or I am a better person than someone whose house is not clean. I think we place value judgments on things that were never meant to have a value judgement. I have preferences and so do you, that does not make me better than you or worse than you. I am just doing my best and so are you. I used to think when my house was clean I would finally be a good wife, and really I am telling you honestly, my husband could not care less. My cleanliness of house means nothing to him. He frequently claims he cannot see the dirt. I made my skills as a homemaker into something they were never meant to be. I made my relationship with my husband, something I value and cherish into a menial task of sweeping the floors. We give things heavier weight than they were created to bear. We add more burden to a place where it was not necessarily supposed to be. I am one who makes things harder. My husband often says when I am working towards something I will find the most challenging way to do it. If that doesn't work I will find a more difficult way and try that. I add to my burden when I think of goals as the answer to everything. The reality is by straining myself to do more, be more, be better all the time I am exhausting myself and ruining the very things I cherish most: my mental sanity, my relationship with my husband, my relationship with friends. This year when you make goals, dream big. But understand it is the small moments over time that make the difference in your life. The weekly date night is important, but daily dinner is more so. The anniversary, not so much. Yes, it is fun to mark the passage of time, but rather it is the small daily deposits that make a relationship and that make a life. If I dream and plan and make goals and lose my relationships of highest priority, will I look back and think it was worth it? For me the hardest lesson to learn this with is food. I love food, clearly. I eat more of it than I should but when I get into the mentality of I need to give up bread and cheese and chocolate, I am aware that my life will be significantly worse, and for what; a few pounds. Is that a worthy exchange? For you the answer might be yes, for me the answer is no. I will work on eating intentionally and being present in the moments of delicious food, but giving them up for a few pounds that would not significantly change my life is not important. If it got in the way of my exercising, I might reconsider, but it doesn't. So consider your goals. What do you actually want? What will the goal really do? What are your highest priorities that you want to remain so? Does your goal get in the way of that? What things are you looking forward to in the year? What are the surprises you could never have predicted? Here we are, in Manchester, starting over again.
Deep breath, we can do this. Over the years, the things that have made a place feel like home are a sense that I know where things are, but as I am someone who does not have a great sense of direction, that only comes in time and with major assistance from Google. For me to start over, I have come to realize that most of it takes time, months or years. All I can do is plant the seeds. I start with finding a church, exploring the restaurant scene on our weekly date nights, searching for a book club, and determining a grocery store that I enjoy doing my weekly shop in. One of the wonderful things about starting over so often is that you realize that it takes time, and you have the opportunity to restart and majorly shift your typical habits. At this point, I can change how we eat, what we do, our routine. Nothing is set in stone. The freshness of a New Year is still present, the buzz of new beginnings is still humming through my body. I can do this and I will. Not everything needs to be scrapped, I can keep what worked and change the rest. As much as there is new and exciting, there is also old and trusted. When we start the new year with a mix of both, a deep appreciation of what we have and an eye to what could be changed we understand that if nothing happened we would still be okay. We do not need the changes, we may want them or long for them, but on the way realize that they are not what we wanted. We are allowed to grow and change and change our minds. As we enter this new season, remember that it is okay. You are okay and enough. Without knowing this on a deep level, we approach change from a place of seeking a savior, when we sometimes have to look within and save ourselves. See that we did not need change to be worth saving, to see that we are loved and enough today, even if we never leave the couch. The measure of our productivity is not the measure of our worth. The measure of our connectedness and rootedness does not define us. I am here, on a new path, and on a new adventure. As much as starting over starts to get familiar, my mind finds ways to make it feel harder. My brain compares and evaluates and wants to stay comfortable. Change feels harder than it actually is. All the daily actions will compound. I will find my way here in this new year and so will you. The journey we are on is enough, even if we never get to the destination. We are walking on a path and just that walk, each step on that walk is monumental. I know my ability to slow down and see that I am making it harder changes everything. It helps me to breathe and know and trust that it will be okay. I am not in control, I never was, I am a steward, but I am not actually in charge. I only do what I can and learn to accept the rest as it comes. I can be rooted without evidence of roots. I can be connected to the small moments. The walks, the way the sky shows the sunrise, and waking up to a morning of snow. I can find connection even if I choose to leave. My mind wants to treat this as a dichotomy, but this is not an either or situation. I can be connected and also leave. When my brain tries to convince me to disconnect, to not even try, to see it as pointless, I can recognize it sees the change as a danger that is not there. I know that no matter where I am located, no matter the place. I can make a place, if I just accept that I am myself and that is not location dependent I can realize that although it feels like starting over, it is really just continuing in a new place, with opportunities abounding. Our lives ebb and flow. I have noticed this most clearly in thunderstorms. During the storm, the rain is pouring down; the branches crash to the earth. After the storm there is clarity, the clouds clear, the sun shines and the world seems to be born anew. The storms are necessary, lightning is necessary, and even forest fires are necessary. I read Lab Girl last year, and I was surprised to find that there are certain trees that need the hot temperature of a forest fire, to reproduce. Nature happens for a reason.
I am starting to see that my life flows in its own way. I have ebbs of creativity and moments of exhaustion. I am not unchanging and perfect, which I struggle with more than I wish to. I listened to a podcast on The Nuanced Life that discussed how our energy ebbs and flows throughout the day. I was surprised it is not just me that experiences an afternoon slump or a slump as the weeks go on. Part of life is being aware of all we do not know. I am constantly surprised by the amount I do not know and I struggle with recognizing all that I cannot know. Often humans see ourselves as outside of nature, we consider ourselves to be exempt, when that is impossible. We exist; we are a result of nature. Humans love to take all the credit to flaunt our knowledge. I am one for this too. I think I know better, but after reading The Botany of Desire and The Omnivore's Dilemma, I am starting to realize that all the things we think we know are reductionist, our views about food, and gardening are simply the tip of the iceberg of things we do not understand or know. America focuses on greed and for me I focus on the greed of knowledge. I want to know it all, I believe if I just knew better I would be better, but more and more I realize I do not need to know more, I need to trust. To believe things will work out without intervention. I am not saying do not find information or research, but simply that research only takes you so far. Also research gives me the false sense of superiority. I think I know better, my research is better. Here is what I do know, most of the information I know to be true right now will turn out with better research and time to be wrong. I know this and yet I persist. In moments of clarity and rationality, I see the futility of what I am doing. I see that I am heading nowhere and that too much information is destructive for me. I can be paralyzed by information, I doubt what I know or question is what I know wrong. Those are not the right questions though. The right question is how can I deal with the ups and downs of life? How can I accept my limited viewpoint? How can I be present with what is rather than focusing on what it could be or what is "should" be? How can I trust that everything is as it should be? How can I look outside before, during and after a rainstorm and see the calm as only possible because of all that came before? A calm does not exist in absence of a storm, it is a result of the storm. My life is the same, the times of joy cannot exist without times of struggle, but I do not need to actively make them harder. I can let go of expectations and simply be. The idea of simply being is one I struggle with on a consistent basis. I am not sure who said the phrase we are human beings not human doings. In times of stress, I revert back to be a human doing. My doing aspect has been coming to the forefront lately. You may have noticed quite a large absence from me in the past few weeks. The absence coincided with lots of change. I did not plan to be away, but the doing took over and I lost a sense of the ability to slow down, the ability to ruminate, to contemplate and to reflect. Only lately have I realized the importance of giving myself this time. Quite a lot of changes have taken place in the last few months. My husband took a new job, that was the impetus. The caveat was the job he took wasn't in Iowa. The job was in New Hampshire. You can see how my wanting to do in a time when there are things to be done went wild. My brain went a hundred miles an hour not stopping to think just making list after list after list. Nonstop doing for weeks. This is my foible. When I am overwhelmed, my pattern is to research and do. I am good at those things and to some degree all the doing has served me well. The problem is doing and research only get you so far. When your soul is in a state of unrest, all the doing and the research just feeds my monkey mind. I spin out on tangents worried about things that are unlikely at best and a near impossibility at worst, which is a way of saying I freak out and fall apart. My falling apart does not look like such from an outside perspective. You have to be close to me to see all the cracks in my facade, the fissures that show the strain, the wear, the not being kind, the moments of snapping, of crying of despair. Why in a moment of joy and hope do I find despair? Because life is not simple, to gain one thing you lose another. Life is an odd game of chess where you make concessions, you take losses, in exchange for hope. We have moved from one state to another before, in fact those seem to be the only times we move. Why the sense of despair? Haven't I done this before? Yes, I have done this before, but as much as I have moved, each one is different. The doing stuff is simple, make the call, go to the store, get what is needed. The harder parts are saying goodbye to a community, starting over in a place where you know no one. Beginning again. I love to learn, but I want it to be on my terms, when I am ready. Oftentimes, life tells me I need to learn when I am not ready or when I thought I had it all together. I had a feeling of peace and acceptance. I felt I was able to be in the world the person I wanted to be, and then stress tested me and I broke apart. Religious authors sometimes say when we break apart it is a way to allow God in, for God to show himself in the mess. I am not sure I see God in this yet. I haven't given up hope, but I am not seeing what God is doing in this moment. If I am completely honest, I am not sure how I feel about God lately. Right now I am in the midst of the storm or so I think, being present with mess in the middle is hard for me. Even in fiction, when a character is making a bad choice intentionally I get worked up and frustrated. If I am watching a movie, I will pause and walk away for a bit because I am so infuriated by their choice. I clearly prefer like-able characters and am attached to their outcomes. I am working to find peace in this messiness, but it is a daily struggle and at least lately I feel like I fail more than I succeed. I have days where my temper is short, where I cry many tears and wonder if we made the right choice. I doubt when I should have faith, I fear the future when I should trust. And here we see the irony, that I am judging and evaluating myself even now. I am not accepting. I am striving. A deep part of me wants to justify why this is the right thing to do- how striving will help me, why I need to be better and do more. Instead though, I need to give myself grace. To understand that I am really doing the best I can even if it doesn't feel like it, even if I am crying and falling apart. Right now I am doing my best, and the continual striving doesn't actually help. I need to be present with the tears, the joy, and the moments in between. In the busy-ness of this season I wish you a few moments of presence, of taking it all in and accepting ourselves and each other as we are. Because we are all doing our best to weather the storm. Fear is a necessary emotion, when I say that fear is not useful, I do not mean that unilaterally. If you are being chased by a hungry lion or attacked, fear is a useful instinct. The larger message is that although we experience fear as an emotional response, our body experiences a visceral fear to things that are unlikely to cause us physical harm. We fear public speaking, in places where it is an understood practice, we fear change and the unfamiliar, we fear the unknown. Basically we are very very afraid, but I have found through research, that as our society has grown, we have literally become safer. We are less likely to die now than ever before in history. Why then do I not experience life in that way?
By reading the news, I fill myself with fear and I have to admit that I currently choose to be willfully ignorant on that front. I do not read the news, I find that I get enough information just being a person in the world. I also read it in longer form of books rather than short news articles. I find that having a broader and more nuanced view is easier to have over time than in short bursts or responding to the immediate. I take my life slower, I realize I do not need to know it all, nor can I know it all. I also know in my heart I was not made to handle all of the sorrow of the world. I am aware of the despair in my surroundings and some of the sadness of the world. When I experience all the news all the time, I am filled with a sense of loss and overwhelming grief for the pain in our world. I cannot handle life if I am constantly exposing myself to distress. I cannot feel all the sorrow in the world and be a useful member of society. I feel my feelings in a physical way and spending my whole day feeling sad and crying over the tragedies taking place worldwide would not lead to a productive or fulfilling life. I have found by consciously giving myself space away from all the stimuli, I am better able to experience the world around me and to do what I can to help. Culture likes to use fear as a motivating factor by considering how we can scare people into action. I like to think that we would realize that the shock value doesn't matter, but honestly as we grow our society ends up focusing on the click bait and the instant reward is more important than the lasting. If the tide someday shifts away from instant gratification, to a slower pace of life (more Norwegian, specifically their slow TV) that may change. When we scare people into action though, we can only create temporary momentum, when people feel safe they will stop acting. I also believe when we act from a place of fear we slow down the rational part of our brain and respond more instinctively with less understanding and sophistication. Here is the bottom line, we experience more fear (for clarification it is more likely anxiety which was once explained to me, in a book, as fear without a basis for being) than before, and yet we have less reason to be. I think our society as a whole needs to consider what could happen and change if we motivate based on love and kindness rather than fear and anxiety. In the past year from the outside, my life looks quite similar. I am still unemployed and living an apartment. I have not joined any new groups or started anything new. And yet, everything has shifted. I have spent the past year and a half letting go of what others think of me and looking to myself to determine what I think. I have tried to find the point, the meaning behind why things are the way they are. How did they get there? Why am I here? What is my purpose?
I feel like by saying I am looking for bigger meaning it gives off the air of lofty ideas. What I have found to be my meaning isn't lofty. It is not big or flashy, but is meaningful to me. The past year has been a journey. I started with religion, wound up weaving religion and religious ideas into my life. Looked towards other religions, other habits, other practices. In the midst of seeking guidance outside, I found it within. Only I can guide myself, because only I am myself. Yes, I have had help and others who help me navigate and give me a direction or a place to start, but ultimately I have done the work. I have gotten up again and again. I have found the time and the space. I have slowed down, accepted myself as I am and found what I view as my own purpose. I also have grown to realize that for me finding a purpose is essential. Yes, I can work for money and do things for some sort of external reward, but when push comes to shove meaning is what moves me. Meaning is what helps me see the reasons behind my life. Meaning keeps me going and growing. I look back at me a year ago and I have so much compassion, she really struggled. But me today feels so much better regularly. Me of today loves her life, me of today trusts who she is and who she is growing to be. I keep thinking that each day I am done. Well, what more could there be to learn, and each day I learn oh, there is quite a lot more. I want to say to anyone out there reading that yes, the road is hard. It may have lots of tears to get there, some days I just feel blue, but there can be a light. I feel it now, an inner calm and peace that I did not have a year ago, that I couldn't have imagined a year ago. If you are looking for greater meaning, keep going, because in my life this search has brought me more peace than I could have possibly known. I could give you names of people who have helped me and guided me, but here is what I do know, what I need and what you need might be the same but they might be different. I do not want to create false expectations that what worked for me will work for you, because it might but it also might not. In recent weeks, I have noticed something wondrous and surprising about humanity. I can see myself in everyone around me, I can relate and connect and see moments when I was there or felt that way, but I also realize we are different. We are the same as each other and we are uniquely ourselves, both can be true. All I can say is the journey is worth it. The time invested is worth it. Finding a purpose matters and even if nothing changes, changing your mind can change everything. You may or may not have noticed my love of chicken shawarma here. I have noticed in the past two years I have sought out shawarma locally and on two trips, eating shawarma in Ottawa and Salt Lake City. I have a confession to make though, I have not always loved shawarma. I did not grow up eating shawarma, and only ate it with my high school boyfriend (now husband) and his family. When we ate shawarma, there was always a garlic sauce that at the time I hated. I thought it was bitter and too garlicky. Now though as I have aged, I have grown to appreciate it and as I started making shawarma at home using this recipe (pro tip always cook it in the skillet, it crisps it up and makes a wonderful textural contrast against sauces), I noticed that the sauce was lacking. I searched for shawarma sauce and often found a simple tatziki, which I knew my husband would not think was enough. I found this sauce and trust me when I say your shawarma needs it and it will make all the difference.
The one other area of shawarma making that I have lots of opinions about is the toppings. I like to think of chicken shawarma as the middle eastern taco. Yup, I said it, but here is why. You add all the ingredients to a pita (taco shell) and the toppings make each bite different and unique. My favorite options to have include- chopped tomatoes and cucumbers, hummus, garlic sauce, za'atar seasoning, grilled onions, and feta cheese. Feel free to also include olives or tatziki or baba ganoush if you are feeling fancy, or maybe throw some falafel in to change up your protein. I love the flexibility of eating this way. One of my extended uncles once said that the beauty of home cooking is that each bite tastes slightly different, and I love that, especially with a variety of toppings that becomes quite true. Quite a while ago, a friend of mine who is a personal historian asked me to be on her podcast, The Delicious Story. I of course agreed, and now I am sharing with you.
Find the whole podcast here, and enjoy. How do you feel about podcasts? I love them but am picky about what I will listen to. I can share a post about the ones I love if you are interested let me know in the comments.
Something I have started to learn is that I like old people. I often feel like an old person, I like to eat dinner at 5:00 and go to bed early, and get up early. I like restaurants where the customer base feels established. I enjoy people with more experience than me. I find this to be the case because I feel less judged, more accepted and I love to listen to stories that are different from my own. I have come to realize I also like this in my literature. The following books have an old man as the protagonist, some of them explore coming to terms with the past, finding a space in the future, some are just intriguing stories.
A Man Called Ove- An old man copes with finding a space in the future as a person without a job and who has experienced loss.
At Home in Mitford- An old man, who is a priest, copes with aging, and also finding balance between helping others and helping himself. This is a series and so far I have read the first three that all have the same protagonist.
The Hundred Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out The Window and Disappeared- An old man runs away from a nursing home, and finds unlikely companions as he recounts his incredible life.
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry- An old man goes on a walk across England and finds a way to come to terms with the past and make peace for the future.
Major Pettigrew's Last Stand- An old man copes with loss of his brother and a changing world. He tries to find his place in an unfamiliar world and struggles with doing the right thing and how that might be viewed by society.
Have you noticed this pattern? Do you have any other suggestions of things that I have missed in this category? The only other one I have heard of but haven't read yet is The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. Any other suggestions would be welcome. |
About MeI'm Sarah; a wife, traveler, foodie, and adventurer. Archives
October 2019
Categories
All
|