the most important thing in life

Life has its ups and downs.  But my husband pointed out that we always ate well, even though we didn’t always buy organic or put wine on the weekday dinner table.  Now I mostly buy organic, enjoy a glass of wine with many weekday dinners, and my food knowledge and awareness have evolved in so many other ways that inform how I shop and cook.  Yet, I still make concessions.  My 2007 car is a bit banged up, most of my clothes come from  2nd hand stores (I actually hate mall shopping, find the selection more creative, and appreciate the idea of reuse), and my iphone 6s needs to be charged all the time because its battery is on its last leg, and you can’t replace it.  

It’s all about priorities and values.  Food is at the very top of my list.  It’s preventative healthcare and health insurance.  It’s quality of life and pleasure (stimulates your senses through color, aroma and smell).  It has to do with caring for our planet (less pesticides means more birds and bees, less poison in my body, and more minerals and nutrients in my food), and the farm workers (better for them if they don’t have to wade in sprayed soil).  Take a look at related posts, good food heals, cheap food kills, and what’s your food worth it to you.

Ponder your priorities.

filling the emptiness anew

Taking down the Christmas tree ends the mystical magic and sparkly festiveness of early winter.  It’s back to day-to-day perfunctoriness, practicality, and normality.  The tree spot is empty.  When I posted a last picture of the tree on social media, accompanied by a melancholic,  “Ohhhh, soon the magic will have to go….,” a friend replied, “You will just have to make some new magic.” That’s it!

In an attempt to keep the magic going some leave their tree up until February.  But it’s just not the same.  It’s procrastination to let go of the old, clean the slate, and start afresh.  “When one door closes another one opens,” is a common saying.  It’s time to let the new year in and embrace the emptiness of the Christmas tree spot. It’s also an opportunity to fill it with brand new magic.  After all, we had to move some things around to make space for the tree in the first place.  

It’s an exciting thought to think of all the wonderful experiences, events, goals, achievements and new magic we can fill not only this new year with, but also a whole new decade.   Emptiness is so full of potential.

last post of the year

How was 2019 for you?  Was it an annus mirabilis, or rather an annus horribilis?  Or perhaps neither?  Either way, it’s almost over and in our thoughts we are making room for the new.  As we eat our last breakfast of the year, go to bed one or two more times, wind down our work year, and pause on New Year’s Day, we turn to the future, a year full of potential.  

What do you envision?   What would you like to experience?  What are your dreams?  I updated my vision board, which I see every morning when I come up to the office.  Vision boarding is a powerful tool to clarify your thoughts and wishes, and help manifest change – here an earlier post on it.  

Without dreams and wishes the universe doesn’t know what you want, hence can’t help you manifest it.  We are entering a new decade, may as well dream up some cool wishes for 2020 and the coming decade.

On a global level I strongly wish for a greater momentum on working with and facing the reality of climate change.  On a community level I wish for greater communication and understanding across the many divides we have created.  On a personal level I wish for greater kindness and gratitude.

What wishes have you whipped up for 2020?

merry merry

We don’t celebrate Thanksgiving where I come from.  Yet, it has become one of my favorite holidays, and I have wholeheartedly incorporated it into our family traditions, and wish of course all people around me a very happy Thanksgiving. When we lived in Hong Kong in the late 1980s everyone wished us a happy lunar new year, and we reciprocated the wish, even though it’s not one of our holidays.   

Christmastime is very joyful in America, filled with parties, opulent decorations, twinkle lights everywhere, and cheerful Christmas music. Offices and organizations have staff and member parties to celebrate the season, friends get together for feast and fun, it’s convivial and inclusive even if you don’t celebrate the underlying religious reason, or don’t celebrate Christmas at all.  For us Christmas has always been more a cultural than a religious celebration, and I just love getting carried away in this sparkly, red and green tide, and all the togetherness.  

In recent years we have all tried so hard to be politically correct by wishing everyone happy holidays, afraid to offend or exclude those who don’t celebrate Christmas.  It’s impossible to please everyone, and every wish comes from the heart and is well meant.  Hence, I wish all of you, whatever you believe, whatever your cultural background, a very merry Christmas, because it’s a joyful time of year, full of light and laughter and sparkle and togetherness, and that’s what I wish you. 

P.S. Please check the website for the latest workshop and talk dates.

your own madeleine

Before my daughter went back to college after Thanksgiving, she made the spice Christmas cookies from her German great-grandmother, my grandmother, to take with her.  Yesterday, my son, away at grad school, asked for that same recipe.  Those particular cookies, like no others, evokes the taste of Christmas for us.  They conjure up visions of sugar plums so to speak, or rather the flavors of German Christmas.

 Cocoa powder makes the cookies deep dark brown, they are covered with white powdered sugar glazing, and they combine the chocolaty aroma of the cocoa with the intense spice tastes of cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg.

my grandmother’s German spice cookies

In his famous madeleine episode Proust describes how eating the cake spontaneously resurrects childhood memories from somewhere deep down in his subconscious. 

For me my grandma’s spice cookies evoke not only the taste of Christmas but also memories of her; for my children, who did not get to know her, these cookies have become the most evocative of all Christmas tastes.  Now that they are older, they both make the cookies themselves to travel back memory lane to their younger selves and earlier Christmases.

What is your madeleine?  What memories does it bring back in you?

wiser, not older

Next year I will hit my 60th run-around-the sun, and I am reflecting on all the ways in which maturing is more fun, more grounding, or even perhaps more desirable than remaining young forever.

Traditional societies have revered elders for their wisdom and perspective.  In our younger societies we have come to worship youth as more desirable – my theory being that we’re deflecting our fear of death, or maybe we just don’t think wrinkles are fashionable (although not everyone becomes wrinkly as they age). Young people may be creative and exuberant, technologically with it (absolutely important in our day and age), but they lack experience, and potentially depth, because they haven’t been around the block. 

Nowadays “older” depends so much on your personal outlook.  Ernestine Shepherd is an 80-year old body builder who began training not so long ago. Tao Porchon-Lynch, the 101-year old ballroom dancer and yogini, still  teaches yoga several times a week.  Bless people who can afford to retire in their 50s, but not all wish to do so.   Many professors teach into their 70s and even 80s.   Authors can practice their craft until the day they die.  86-year old Ruth Bader Ginsburg still sits on the Supreme Court, and I know many people who travel into their high 80s.  And why not?

Our thinking about aging and “old age” is evolving.  When AARP sent me a card a few years ago I laughed it all the way into the trash can.  The French have broadened their senior citizen categorization from le troisième age, the 3rdage, the over 60s, to the quatrième age, the fourth age, the over 80s.  “Old” seems to relate more to how you look and feel and think instead of your actual age.  The Huffington Post published a chart that shows activity peaks according to age.  Peaks in life satisfaction, happiness with your body, and psychological wellbeing are all achieved starting in your late 60s.  And aren’t those the markers that count most?

Is it all in the mind? Are we our worst enemy?  To some extent yes.  How do you think about old age?  What are your plans?  

replenishing naturally

Lawns need fertilization.  Leaving the shredded grass and leaves after lawn mowing nourishes the soil on an ongoing basis. If you use a clippings bag you need to fertilize your lawn artificially eventually, and that never works as well as the natural way because of the chemicals.  Forest floors replenish themselves in a never ending cycle of falling leaves and other organic matter that decay and decompose back into the soil.  Houseplants especially need added nutrition since they grow in  the confined environment of a pot.  As the roots absorb minerals over time, the soil  depletes in the same way agricultural soils deplete if we don’t put nutrients back in.  I put the yellowed leaves from my houseplants back into the pot to perpetuate the continuous cycle of adding natural nutrients back, and I use the leftover water from steaming greens for my plants. 

Our minds and bodies are no different.  If you take out, you have to replenish lest your capital shrinks until there is no more.  Today’s Times has an article about the many rich who now work constantly because enough is never enough for them, and they operate on a treadmill of accumulation for the sake of accumulation - 85% of their assets are locked into investments!  But for what?  To make it to the finish line aka death with tons of money in the bank?   A business coach told me a while ago, when we were discussing some hang-ups over money, “Money is an incredible vehicle to purpose and pleasure in life.”  Locked-up money may give us a sense of security, but it doesn’t nourish the mind and gives you no purpose and pleasure.  Money by itself, sitting in an investment, account does not nourish your mind and body. Doing something with the money, dislodging it from its investment vehicle, is what moves mountains, creates meaning and nourishment not only for ourselves, but also for our society.  

If you keep taking out of yourself, by working constantly without putting back in, meaning, experiences, friendships, you deplete your human capital and your ability to experience joy and satisfaction.  Supplements can only go so far in replenishing your body and mind, coffee, alcohol and medications can help over a hump but do not replenish or heal naturally. 

How do you fertilize and replenish your mind and body the natural way so you experience meaning and joy on life?

a real cup of tea (or coffee)

Having a real cup of tea (or coffee) goes with sitting down and serving it in an actual porcelain cup, taking time to relax, tasting and enjoying the beverage, and using the moment as a chance to take a break, either by yourself or with others.

On the run and on the go is our motto, a quick cup of coffee scooped up in a cardboard cup at the corner take-out or gas station, protecting its content from spilling out while quickly walking to your office, or drinking while you’re driving.  Or perhaps quick cup of coffee, often of inferior quality, poured on the run in the office by the water cooler, coupled with a quick chat, and back to your cubicle and computer.

The question is whether you actually taste what you’re drinking?  Enjoy what you’re drinking?  Appreciate the container you’re drinking out of? Or has it become so transactional that only the idea of “a nice cup of tea (or coffee)” remains? Even a mug, compared to a cup, is a way to increase the amount your container holds, and decrease the effort to fill it up again, simply sipping more slowly and truly lingering for a bit.  

A real cup of tea or not? That is the question.

empty nesting testing

Our son went off to college four years ago, our daughter just flew off for a 3-week vacation, and we are now practicing empty nesting ahead of next month when she leaves for college as well.

Prior to retirement from the corporate world some companies offer retirement rehearsal and practice retirement.   While we are a long way from retirement, this is a bit similar in that we will have more time for our own activities, whether business, personal or relationship wise. And now, while our daughter is away for the next three weeks we get to rehearse empty nesting. No more making school breakfasts and school lunches, no more school concerts, college info sessions or visits, or any of the other activities that went with having high schoolers at home. No more wondering whether they’ll be here for dinner or not, and if the cats have been fed and their litter boxes cleaned (I get to do that part now).   Less laundry and less food shopping.  Less silly texting with my daughter, and less nerve ringing when the text tone chimes, wondering what’s going on now.  Freeeeeeeeeee…………. to do other stuff. 

I hope to change my morning routine to incorporate a short meditation practice before getting ready for work.  I hope to have a bit more mid-week fun, as we did before children when we regularly had people over, went out with friends right after work, or did a free museum night.  And I already know that I will appreciate the children even more when I see them again after a longer absence. 

summertiiiiiime…..

.…and the livin’ is easy, goes the first line of Gershwin’s famous song from Porgy and Bess.  After a cool and rainy spring, and a slow start to the summer (all fine for my Northern constitution) real summer is finally here.

Summer energy is so different from the other seasonal energies, and I am so glad to be living in a place where I get to experience these four distinct energies every year again.  Summer energy is light.  Summer energy is carefree.  Summer energy is joyful.  Summer energy is abundant.  Summer energy is vibrant.  Whether swimming and being at the beach, whether wearing bright and light colors, whether enjoying lighter foods and drinks, or nature’s abundance in flowers and produce, there is something exuberant about summer energy.

May you feel it, may it pervade your life, may you enjoy it to the fullest for the next two months.

Since summer invites a lesser workload, this will also serve as an abbreviated substitute newsletter to let you know that July and August food workshops are up on my website in case you need a joyful infusion of creative cooking and food inspiration in the next two months.