The Rich Vegetarian

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July 6, 2022 / 0 Comments

And that’s why

Recently I found myself saying, “…and that’s why I Ieft that class.” Next instant I wondered, is that true? Is that truly why I left? Could I ever say with complete certainty that THAT is the reason?

No, not really. All I can say with certainty is that I stopped going to the class. As for the reason why (assuming there is one), I cannot really say what that is.

I will be the first to admit that I am not what you’d call a reasonable person. Not that I am unreasonable but I hardly ever use reason to decide on a course of action. Perhaps I employ reason to plan a course of action but even that’s largely suspect, truth be told. And I know that this kind of “unreasonable” behavior is sometimes aggravating to my loved ones. (Not my parents, I think… I suspect they are of similar orientation.)

I found this scrawled in an old notebook. “What is ‘too soon’ or ‘too late?’ Who is to know? Our perspective of time is so limited—we can never comment on whether an event happened before or after time. All we can be sure of is that happened when it had to.”

Now, the rumination above pertains to the timing of events but I can see that it applies to their cause, too. Truly, we can never know the why. Yes, we are highly skilled at constructing the why, and we have elevated that skill to a science. Yet I wonder if we may be better served by dumping all construction and reconstruction efforts, by being “unreasonable,” by being with what is, sans reason or explanation or justification… not to anyone else, not to our own self.

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July 3, 2022 / 0 Comments

love is the reason

A friend was going through the motions of finding a house to buy, and I was privy to some of the ruminations. A den was important, also a flattish backyard that wouldn’t require much work, a space for entertaining, an outdoor patio, a particular aesthetic… the list went on. As expected, there were few homes that met all criteria, and then there were other factors such as price, area, commute, preconditions, repairs, etc. Suffices to say that the process was fraught with its particular drama/excitement.

I was reminded of the “naive” way we went about searching for a home so many years ago. We had a (fixed) budget, and we had an area preference. Everything else was up for grabs. If I recall correctly, our current home is the third one we saw. I walked in through the foyer, entered the living room, looked up at the high windows and ceilings, and I knew right away—this was it. Things proceeded smoothly, and it has been many years for us at this current dwelling. Needless to say, I love this home very much.

Perhaps it was the open floor plan that floored us. Or maybe it was the light flooding the space, or the pale wooden floors, or the pure white mantel with molded columns, or the dark maroon colored kitchen walls. Not that any of this mattered… I knew that I loved it, and husband was in agreement, so it was perfect.

As I said in an earlier post, I am not a “reasonable” person. In my experience, love has always descended first, and the reasons are made up later. I have heard this line in so many romantic films. “I love her. She is kind, funny, smart…” As if! As if love (attraction?) is based on said person’s kindness, or funny quotient, or smartness.

You hear it on real estate TV shows, too. “We love this home. It is close to bars, coffee shops, restaurants…” Really? You mean to say that you fell in love with the house because of its proximity to these establishments? Because stating that you fell in love in the simplest way possible would make you look/feel like a bit of an impractical idiot?

I know clearly that I fell in love first, made up the reasons later. That goes for the husband, the house, and possibly a million other things.

Love doesn’t need a reason—love IS the reason. 😄

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August 11, 2021 / 2 Comments

All me, All You

Every once in a while, I get the feeling that I may be a bit of a misfit, as far as being a woman is concerned.

For one, I don’t have a strong connection with my physical body. Not that I have a problematic relationship with it; au contraire, I share a warm, friendly bond with my body. But it has never been a defining aspect of my identity, neither has it taken up much space in my mind/life. Then there is the total lack of interest in female rituals and kinships and sisterhoods. Add to the fact that I have always seen myself as “girl,” not “woman…” you get my drift?

I have been long following the work and writing of women who talk of reclaiming the body and its fullness, women who talk about their manifest experience as being inextricably tied to their femininity/femaleness, women who are owning more and more of their physical space with their female bodies and feeling pride and joy in all that that endeavor entails.

I wear my female identity v-e-r-y l-o-o-s-e-l-y, and I have (kinda) strived to make it a “tighter” experience. It’s rather funny, honestly… and my husband has guffawed plenty at my half-hearted attempts to “be more female.” I suppose there is a part of me that envies the wholeness of these women (or the conviction of their projections, maybe?) because I have NEVER been this convinced about anything, least of all my gender identity. And you know, all that passion is powerful and compelling. I imagine it must be awesome to feel such passionate, clear knowing course through your veins and vessels and channels.

That has never been my experience, no matter how hard I have tried to understand and/or imagine it.

Ahh, well.

And then I had a teeny tiny glimmer of insight last week.

All that I have read and heard from these women is contextualized entirely by who they are. Meaning, there is nothing objective about any of it. It’s fully held and circumscribed within the boundaries of their ego identities. Small wonder that it means nothing to me! Because that experience is wholly their own… For me to expect that I must “strive” to gain a similar realization or experience is so foolish! One cannot work towards gaining these experiences. My identity is entirely separate, and it has conjured its unique set of experiences. Yes, there may be a few (or more) similarities or there may be none. But there is very little I can do about lack of resonance.

Phew, such a relief.

What this means is, I do not need to try and understand their experiences, much less recreate or imagine it for myself. I can simply regard them as personal stories.

Because if there isn’t a trace of those ideas in me, I couldn’t have had them experiences anyway.

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August 7, 2021 / 0 Comments

Oil & Water

It is very interesting to be partnered with someone who envelops you in a neutral, uncompromising space.

Someone who neither adds fuel to your fire nor pours water on it, someone who supplies fertilizer in a silent manner and does not intervene during a bug attack. Here is someone who is perfectly capable of watching this house go up in flames simply because they trust the structure to prop itself up. Someone who doesn’t know the I of intervention (or interference).

I must say that all ideas of love and companionship have been clear blown out of the water at this stage… NO shared goals, no real interest in each other’s aspirations, no claim to the other’s successes or failures. People would say that this is clearly NOT a recipe for harmony! And yet it is simply that… By getting out of each other’s way, I suppose we have become the way for the other to walk on.

Love is very strange because it is so spacious and it has no colors, really. It is about sweet gestures, all meaningless, of course… and it also seems to be about aloneness.

So strange, I had no idea this was what it was all about.

Like attracts like, or a moth is drawn to a flame, or we are oil and water, never to mix with each other, always floating separate and together.

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