Possibility begins with imagination

Latching onto mediocrity prevents personal growth. This may pertain to simple, pragmatic manifestations (stagnating at a mediocre job), but there may be other, deeper obstructions as well (holding oneself to a merely passable work ethic).

I am torn between energy and synergy, straining at the rims of social acceptability, but finding comfort in their elasticity. I bounce back into the safety zone, plastic symbiosis. But kinesis propels me back to the edge, and one day I hope I bust out: shattering the tops of my own expectations like the elevator at the end of the original Willy Wonka movie.

Identity

Funny discovering one’s identity, like listening to your voice in a recording and realizing that you hate it and, in fact, barely recognize it. But everyone else is pretty much used to it, so there’s no sense feeling down about it.

On the seemingly ridiculous but indefatigable act of writing poetry

A poet is not so much a person who writes poetry, but one who sees poetically. The rhythmic and fluxing paper reflections that result are tangible fragments of a great, glittering horizon. The poet stares out upon it and finds it fixating, exhilarating, impossible, and immense. To cope (for sanity is a fragile thing), a scrawled framework or a bad rhyme under duress will suffice, but there is never any real satisfaction in completing a poem, for a poem is inherently never complete. It is, because of what it is, a partial attempt to speak the unspeakable, to swallow the whole of a field or the magnitude of regret or the piercing depth of the human soul. Feebly, we continue the practice because what else can we do? What, if we have not learned to play the violin from the top of the Matterhorn, or sustain eye contact with a homeless person, or catch a heron by the tail and see where it lives? So we pull out the ol’ knapsack, rummage for a pen, and think feverishly, “There must be some way to write this down.”

Barefoot

I would rather be barefoot so I can fee everything under my feet. The pain comes along with the brisk joy of grass under your toes or the sharp surprise of snow, or the poetry of sand as it gives way to sea. If I cannot bear the rocks and thorns, my feet will never be strong enough for the mountains.

footprints in the snow

Crowding out the Bad

I have a list of things I’d like to eat every day. When I eat them, I have very little appetite left for junk. But when I start a day out with the vague and self-sabotaging notion that I’d like to avoid eating junk, I inevitably eat more poorly than I’d intended. I’ve noticed the same is true in many areas of life: if I try to avoid doing something, I set myself up for failure. If I am busy doing something else, I barely notice that I am not doing that on which I would have otherwise fixated. I’m not the first to have noticed this phenomenon, and if I were a halfway decent blogger, I would provide lots of profound historical quotes with imbedded hyperlinks and philosophical rabbit trails and back posts. But most assuredly, I am not a halfway decent blogger. It was a friend who recently recollected this principle and put it before me plainly: it is nearly impossible to avoid doing wrong when one attempts to avoid doing wrong. It is only when one is so inundated with—enraptured by—doing right that one evades the wrong. Tonight, another friend and I discussed some practical manifestations of this principle and ultimately christened with a catchy mantra to help us keep it at the fore: “crowding out the bad.” 

My ignorance (on blogging), and introducing a little thing I like to call “egg pancakes” (only because I can’t think of anything better to call them)

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about how blogging works before I say this next part… okay, now I’ve admitted it; here’s the “next part”: I feel like a lot of blogs repeat each other. Maybe that’s how it works, kind of like restaurants benefit from all being on the same strip of real estate. But I am annoyingly stubborn, and a classic (albeit oxymoronic) ivory-tower renegade. I don’t like posting things five bajillion other people have posted. Like my awesome recipe for lip balm. That’s right, you can’t have it. Go search, oh I don’t know, every other blog in the world and try one of theirs. They’re all good.

That said, I think this recipe is unique-ish. Given my recent attempts to use the computer as little as possible, I am probably not the most authoritative resource on whether or not this recipe (or something close) exists in myriad forms already, but I haven’t seen it, so here you go:

I don’t know what to call these babies. They’re kind of like latkes, but fluffier. They began when I started puréeing all my leftover vegetables in the morning, throwing in an egg, and frying it. Then one day, I discovered the one thing that I should always have leftover if I want to be happy in this life: butternut squash. Even if you are not a huge fan of squash or veggies (neither is my two-year-old, ok?), give these babies a whirl. I have only one word for you: fluffy. Fluff-ee.

For one approximately 6″ pancake (so multiply by however many you want to make), purée:

3/4–1 C butternut squash, cooked (and seasoned, if you like; mine usually already has salt and herbs on it)
1/2–1 C green vegetable of choice (I like either raw spinach, cooked green beans, zucchini [either way], or a stir-fry blend)
A little garlic and a little parmesan (real parmesan, not crumbly-dry-comes-in-a-green-plastic-canister parmesan)
1 egg

Fry in butter, as you would a pancake: until lightly browned on each side and not too wet in the middle. Top with some form of real, unprocessed salt, which is really stinking good for you. Eat it hot. Send me a thank you note.

Naked

I learned yesterday that photoshop magicians are now adding weight back onto models, who are so deathly skinny they look, well, like they’re dying. A wash of feelings ensued: sadness, pity, annoyance, disdain, pride, etc., and guilt.

Guilt because I photoshop myself all the time. Not literally; I really don’t even have time to look at my pictures, much less edit them. I mean I do what everybody else seems to be doing: I try to appear perfect. No, scratch that, not perfect, because that would be just over-the-top enough to get on everybody’s nerves. I aim for just shy of perfect enough to make people think I have it all together. It’s not only exhausting and dishonest on my part; think of what I achieve if I succeed: I make other people feel like crap. How do I know this? Because I feel like crap when everyone around me seems to have it all together.

I’m not saying we should all hang our dirty laundry out and gawk at each other. I am not talking about complaining. No, but about admitting the things that are hard to admit, embracing authenticity; taking pleasure in the remarkable things about life that even make grief possible.

A simple piece of music by an old college friend of mine speaks to this last bit. Sorry about the sound quality, but I wanted you to be able to see her reverberating smile. If you love it, here’s a better version. She is a lovely and passionate artist, brimming over with authenticity and gentleness.

I am reminded at last of Hebrews 12:1 from the NIV of the Bible: “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.” Worst of all, my failure to be spiritually and relationally naked hinders my ability to be healed and to embrace Life.

Immuni-juice: Yellow and spicy

In the post-holiday slog that lasts from January to early April in the midwest, I find myself repeatedly battling the devilish viruses that lurk in the cold and dry—shut up inside the house with everybody else’s germs rubbing off on all the wrong surfaces.

One method I use to combat the dastardly viral invaders is the consumption of fresh, raw juice. If you don’t have a juicer, you can blend all the ingredients with a blender and strain (or not, but… ew…), but you definitely get more bang for your buck with a juicer. I’ve heard some people get down on juicers because we need the fiber that ends up in the pulp. Do we need fiber? Yes. Do we need lots-and-lots of line-your-pharmacy-shelves-with-supplements quantities of fiber? Not so much. Raw, fresh juice is full of enzymes, minerals, vitamins, and trace elements. Almost all of these are directly absorbed directly into the body, as juice requires virtually no digestion (source).

So without further ado, here is one crazy, kick-you-in-the-mouth, delicious, and immunity-boosting recipe… Don’t judge it before you try it:

(Serves 1)
1 chayote squash
1/2 C parsley
1/2 C spinach
2 radishes
1/4 large apple or 1/2 small apple
1/2 yellow bell pepper
1 whole lime, peeled (or juiced by hand)

1/2 small onion or 1/4 large onion
1 clove garlic
(Add these last two LAST and you may want to leave the room before you put them through the juicer depending on how much you normally weep when dicing onions by hand.)

Add a sprinkle each of cayenne pepper and cardamom and consume right away, but slowly. Anybody brave enough to try it? Let me know what you think!