Pass the Salt

A few years ago I switched to natural peanut butter. It was not an easy transition because, at first, I found it dry and flavourless. In our culture, we rely very heavily on salt. Far too often, instead of noticing the natural flavours of food we are only interested in tasting the salt.

Love, is a lot like that. We have become so dependent on the fantasy that we’ve lost the taste for the real thing. Have we let our fantasy of love drown out the real experience? Is that what we’re really mourning when we end a relationship? Are we mourning the loss of the other person or are we mourning the loss of the fantasy we have built in our heads?

Lately, I have this nagging doubt that I have thrown away something special simply because it wasn’t quite living up to the fantasy. But why does love have to follow the prescribed path that society has chosen? We generalize about human behaviour and read meanings into certain actions – or lack of action – which may not be based in any truth. We can never truly know another person, so why do we presume to think that we know what their actions mean? Every relationship, like the people who create it, is unique. By judging our relationships on generalizations, are we limiting ourselves to a stunted experience? Are we once again we depending on the salt for the flavour instead of the reality?

I don’t advocate a total elimination of salt from your life. In fact, the human body needs a certain amount to survive. A little salt can serve to enhance the natural flavour but too much drowns it out completely. I’ve learned to like the taste of the natural peanut butter but sometimes I still need to add a pinch of salt. I hope that I can learn to better appreciate the natural flavours of love but I think it’s human nature to need a little fantasy once in a while.

In Repair

Have you ever listened to a song that you’ve heard a hundred times and suddenly felt like you're hearing it for the first time?

“I am in repair. I’m not together but I’m getting there”.

Those are the lyrics to a John Mayer song and they seem to be speaking about me. Lately, life has been a bit of a struggle but in the last week I feel like there has been a shift. Sunday was the first day of the 50,000 word challenge and I’ve thrown myself into it with an enthusiasm that I haven’t had in years. This has inspired me to push myself other areas as well. I have worked out every morning this week, which I haven’t done in months. I’ve even been washing the dishes every day and anyone who knows me well knows what a telling indicator that is of my mental health.

The writing itself is not going well. To be honest, the book is a load of crap at this point. I hate the characters and the plot and am only writing this story for lack of a more inspired idea but I’m trying to take the advice of the NaNoWriMo organizers to heart and just keep writing. Hopefully at some point in the next few weeks the words will take on a life of their own and the characters and plot will develop into something worth keeping.

Really, writing is not that different from life. Sometimes you just need to keep plodding on even when it seems like a load of crap and trust that at some point things will change for the better. Sub-plots and new characters that you never anticipated will suddenly find their way into your story. So I’ve started a new chapter in my story and I’m not sure what’s going to happen next but I’m looking forward to finding out.

Lost

Six months ago I was a happy, confident woman who felt hopeful about the future, inspired and creative, sure of whom I was and the path I wanted to be on. Where did that person go? Sometime in those six months, I lost myself.

For the last few weeks I have been desperately searching for a glimpse of that missing girl. I’ve read books, I’ve done surveys. I even bought O Magazine because this month’s issue was “Who are you meant to be? A step-by-step guide to finding (and fulfilling) you life’s purpose.” Not surprisingly, Oprah didn’t have the answers either.

What did surprise me in all of my searching and survey-taking was how consistent my results were; the same themes kept repeating themselves. These are the things I know: I need to be creative in some form or another. I love knowledge of any kind and learning, just for the sake of learning. People are fascinating; how we are similar, how we are different, how we are all connected. I crave love and security. I feel joy when I sing. Baking soothes my soul. I need to write.

That seems like quite a bit, actually, so maybe I’m not really lost. Maybe I just got a bit disoriented and started moving in the wrong direction. So now I need to turn myself back in the right direction and take the next step. What's the next step?

I’ve signed up for a writing challenge to write a novel in November. The idea of writing 50,000 words in 30 days is more than a little daunting, especially since I still don’t know what I’m going to write about. But the concept of the challenge is to let go of the need for perfection. Once you give yourself permission to write crap, you’re more likely to write something worth reading. Either way, I think this will be a good way to get back on my path.

Harvest Time

Fall makes me want to bake, pies especially. I want to make roast chicken dinners with all the fixings and apple pie for desert. I want to bake homemade bread. I want to cook pots and pots of soup. I want to make jam and applesauce. I want to create hearty meals for my family.

But I don’t have a family to cook for. I don’t even have any fruits and vegetables to harvest and I don’t know how to bake bread. I’m a modern woman with a house, a car and a career. I’ve done it all on my own with no husband which is a source of pride because I’ve often been labelled as “dependant.” And yet...there it is; this yearning. So where does it come from?

For generations, the women in my family have harvested the fruits and vegetables they’ve grown. Waste was the ultimate sin. Each season brought a new crop and a new opportunity to create something wonderful. Cooking is an expression of creativity. To take the same basic ingredients and turn them into a delicious meal is magical. And what they created wasn’t just food, it was memories and love. Strawberry tarts mean spring is here, it’s graduation time! A pot of soup is a pot of comfort, a warm hug from the inside out. So I’ve come to realize that this yearning comes from a connection to the women who came before me, from a desire to express my creativity and something else; something more basic and yet more important. It’s very simple: Food = Love.

Love is like those fruits and vegetables. It needs to be harvested and something magical created with it. I have a lot of love to give and I’ve been wasting my crop. I share it with my friends, my siblings and my parents but, until recently, I’ve avoided sharing that love with a partner. Choosing not to harvest that love and share it with someone special has left me unsatisfied. I’ve started to harvest that fruit but, just like cooking, every recipe is not a keeper. Fortunately, love is a crop that ripens often. So I’m going to take some time to let the fruit ripen again and then I guess I’ll try a new recipe.

Ghosts

The past has an interesting way of coming back to haunt you when you least expect it. And yet...I have to wonder if the timing isn't more than just mere coincidence. Lately, a lot of so-called ancient history has been coming to the surface. Just because they were forgotten (well, almost forgotten) doesn't mean the wounds were healed. Scar tissue had formed around them to protect me from the pain but the wounds were still there.

Being in a new relationship has naturally brought up some of these old wounds. This week though, things got a lot spookier. It hasn't just been memories that have come to the surface; the actual ghost who inflicted many of these wounds has reappeared after a decade with an apology. I had convinced myself that I didn't need it but here it is anyway; the words I never expected to hear: I'm sorry.

The fact that it has come now when I am in the midst of an identity crisis brought on, in part by the resurfacing memories of this past pain, must be meaningful. Where does it leave me? I'm not sure but hopefully I'm one step closer to living my life for myself instead of trying to prove someone else wrong.

Is the Honeymoon Over?

When we would visit my grandma in the last few years of her life she used to tell the same stories, over and over again - sometimes within the same visit. She wasn't struggling with her memory, she just didn't have anything new to talk about. She rarely left the house anymore and her hearing and eyesight weren't good anymore so she didn't listen to the radio, watch TV or read anymore and her physical health prevented her from doing any of her old hobbies. Visitors had become a burden instead of a joy. She was frustrated at having little to contribute so she would recycle the same stories in a desperate attempt to entertain us. Her life had become stagnant.

Relationships run the same risk. True, most relationships start out with that honeymoon stage- where the two of you hole up together and nothing and no-one else is really as important or interesting as that new person. What a fun stage that is but it doesn't last forever. If you don't get past the "honeymoon" and venture out into the world together then you run the risk of letting things get stagnant.

Life can't exist in a vacuum; neither can relationships. How much can you really learn about a person if you don't see them in the real world? How they interact with other people? How they react to certain events? How do they see the world around them? A little outside stimuli can prompt some pretty interesting conversations.

The world has a habit of forcing its way in whether you want it to or not. You might as well invite it in - then you can do it on your own terms. Why miss out on a great opportunity to learn and grow together? Isn't that the point?

Ripping Off the Band-Aid

I'm not the type of person who rips the band-aid off in one quick motion. I couldn't even bring myselft to wax a second strip off my legs. While I can see the wisdom of getting the pain over with quickly, I would rather avoid it completely - or at least ease into it.

When it comes to communication, I'm not really any different. It is my natural instinct to avoid confrontation with the key people in my life. I usually overlook any negative emotions that come up because I don't want to rock the boat. As it turns out, this is not a particularly effective approach to communication, in the long run. What starts out as something small has a tendency to fester and grow into something much larger than it should be.

It has often seemed to dangerous to express any negative feedback or emotions. Lately, I've been pushed out of my comfort zone, both personally and professionally. It has not come easy to me, in fact, I would rather have run for the hills than face these situations but luckily the other people involved didn't let me off the hook. They prodded me and coaxed me into being honest about my feelings and they did the same.

Not only did I survive these uncomfortable experiences but I'm now grateful that I wasn't allowed to take the easy route of avoidance. Every one of those experiences has allowed my relationship to grow into something stronger and more positive than it was before. I see now that by avoiding the confrontation all of these years I have been dishonest in my relationships. I claim that I want a partnership with someone else but how do I expect that to happen if I can't show him the respect of being honest about my feelings - good and bad?

So it comes down to this: am I willing to rip the band-aid off? As difficult as it is, yes. So here it goes - deep breath - 1...2...3...go!