fun learning

            Curiosity motivates us to learn, encouragement inspires us to thrive.  If I were independently wealthy I would take classes all the time.  But - and here's the caveat - it's got to be fun.  More so than the all-season gray skies in Belgium, I left Brussels because I was fed up with the dusty post secondary academic system that seeped all the way into creative fields like my design studies.  I felt inhibited and put down, instead of motivated and inspired.  That's how I landed on the shores of this country where I found a much more open learning environment (I'll leave the financial picture out of the conversation because that's a whole other discussion).

            I find that in general college education here encourages inquisitiveness, individualism, creative thinking and doing, critical-analytical thinking, and is practically oriented.   Many institutions have beautiful facilities with new buildings, great lab and studio spaces, well designed sports and communal facilities, all of which foster a positive learning environment.  I have experienced encouraging, nurturing, personal relationships with professors who work with, not above, the students - a totally different atmosphere than I knew from Europe where I encountered condescending professors on pedestals assured of their superiority.

            A Parisian friend said to me a while ago that France's dusty, staid, academic environment discourages exploring and voicing novel theories and inhibits innovation in research.  The best learning environments foster an inquisitiveness of seeing the world through children's eyes, full of wonderment and curiosity and of "what if?".  I love learning.

it's ok

I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags.  They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can.  Yet, I bought a big box of sixty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily.  The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, be a good example, and do my share to save the world.   Plastic is an environmental

           I am so frustrated with these compostable trash bags.  They rip easily, humidity seeps through them, I can only fill them about halfways before they fall apart, and many times I need to double them up before bringing them out to the trash can.  Yet, I bought a big box of fifty twice - out of guilt, figured I couldn't give up so easily.  The environment is really important to me, I want to be responsible, lead by example, and do my share to save the world.   Plastic is an environmental nightmare that never (well, at least almost never) decomposes!  It swirls the Pacific in plastic islands the size of Texas, plastic shopping bags hang from our trees like rags and fly across roadways and fields, softdrink loops ensnare fish and seabirds, and fish and marine mammals ingest plastic bits and pieces that float in the ocean.  I don't want to be yet another contributor to this horror show. 

            Remember the days when we didn't care because we didn't know?  But sometimes life, and practicality, takes over and I think I'm done with these compostable trash bags because they just don't work and I really have tried and done my very best. For now I will settle for sturdy bags that are made from recycled plastic (at least something good), but, alas, are not compostable.  And I think the world will survive, and I will be ok.  What are your thoughts?

quandary of choices

           I have so many different types of tea in my kitchen cabinet, soothing green sencha, earthy green barley popcorn Genmaicha, perfumy black Early Grey and strong basic Irish breakfast, soothing camomile tea, astringent rosehips and hibiscus, herbal bitter orange, and stomach calming fennel tea.  Each tea has a different characteristic, which I drink according to my different moods, some are therapeutic, some are soothing, some have oomph, some have caffeine, some not.  This diversity in teas is wonderful and offers me all these different options.  In general, we welcome choices like these, whether in food and drink, or the way we dress, or about what books we like.

            People, too, are diverse.  So many different beliefs and convictions, so many different talents, so many different physical characteristics, so many different expressions.  Why is it then that we can sometimes feel threatened by the diversity in people?  That we feel intimated by a different physicality, by a different opinion? Why do we feel safe among people who think like us?   We do we have a tendency to judge different opinions?  How about relishing our diversity?  What do you think?

creating community

            I am so fortunate to live in a fantastic town and community.  Traditionally the church used to be the anchor of a town.  In any small European village you can find the town center with its market place by looking for the church steeple.   At church and at the market is where people used to gather and meet. 

            Creating and being part of a community is a much more diverse experience nowadays than meeting at market or church.  My small town offers an amazing number of cultural and community events, many of them free; from concerts and talks to art parades and music festivals, from street fairs and a community garden to carnivals and the drive-in.  Then there is an endless variety of organizations with opportunities for volunteering, an activity that gets you out to meet new townspeople and creates a better and more compassionate community; from school organizations to food pantries, from literacy and homework programs to community dinners and fundraisers, from organizations to improve life in our community in general or the life of a specific group of people  to organizations for specific causes - you can find an organization for just about any cause.

            Social interaction is important.  The first part of my life I spent living in metropolises.  Life there can be exhilarating, full of energy and creativity, with an endless array of choices to get involved.  But it can also be overwhelming and lonely.  It sure takes time and intent to become integrated into the fabric of a community.  I like knowing the farmers I buy my food from, I like knowing the shop owners where I buy my clothes, books, and gifts.  I like running into acquaintances at the Sunday market or a library event or a festival in town.  I feel embedded in the web of relationships that we as a town have created through our activities and offerings.   The more you're part of it the more fun it is; moreover it's healthy for you (see a previous post on that).  Help to create the community you wish to live in - it's truly rewarding. 

unslumping yourself

             Inspiration is what renews my creativity and energy, and refreshes my enthusiasm for life.  Inspiration can come from people, things I experience, things I read, things I see, do, taste, hear, even feel - anything that stimulates my senses in a positive way, the more positive, the more inspiring end energizing. 

            Every once in a while it is necessary to break out of our day-to-day routine and make it a point to experience something new.  Routine has its merits - see a previous blog post on that - but all routine and no fun and stimulus makes us bored and boring, and potentially even depressed. 

            What inspires you?  Last spring I wrote about going on an adventure.  I get good energy and a kick in the mind from conversations with people - when my voice becomes loud, as my husband points out, it means I am passionate about what I'm talking about.  Exhilaration can come from overcoming our comfort zone and succeeding beyond our initial expectations.   Sparkling eyes are a sign of good energy, as are big smiles or laughs - that's when a person is inspired and inspiring.  Do you have a trick for getting out of a mental slump and boosting your enthusiasm for the zest of life?

making food your ally

            So many people view food as their enemy.  Whether it's the perception that fat is bad, that cholesterol clogs your arteries, that dessert is sinful, that foods that are good for you taste bad, or that all the yummy foods are bad for you.  Well, here is a list of complaints that makes food your enemy. There is a lot of bad science behind these blanket statements, and many of them have been debunked in recent years, although it is a fact that the so-called Western Diet makes us sick. It is true that eating empty calories, foods without nutritional value, will never satisfy your body and you'll keep craving and eating more in a vicious cycle.   

            How about making food your ally in building a strong and energetic body instead?  "Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food," Hippocrates, the famous physician from Ancient Greece, is purported to have said.  When you learn to cook well with the foods that are healing and beneficial you'll make food your ally.  When you learn to love good food unconditionally because it is what heals your body and assures a good life you'll make food your friend.  When you become knowledgeable about the healing properties of food, the guiltless pleasures of food, you'll not only create a great hobby, but also the basis for healing the Western civilization diseases. When you learn about the good-for-you foods, and how to prepare them well so they taste delicious, you can have your cake and eat it too. 

design goes mainstream

     Designer-this and designer-that is everywhere.  We want our stuff to look good besides being functional.    While Walmart sells on price and functionality alone, Ikea and Target have added beauty to the mix with great success - design for less, design for the masses, and that's a great thing.   

            Designer-everything has entered the main stream.   Pretty things make our surroundings more pleasant, color adds joy, and well designed items take it even a notch up from there.   Design is aesthetics with intent and it adds sophistication.  We love Bauhaus style, many people know the Mies and Barcelona chairs, industrial designer is a sought after job. 

            From a cultural perspective we enjoy material abundance way beyond the bare necessities and find it no longer sufficient to buy a lamp that lights the room, a coaster that prevents the tablecloth from scorching, or plain disposable paper cups.  Our senses have become more finely tuned and the pervasiveness of good design is astonishing.   How do you feel about design?  Superfluous or adds to the quality of your life?

the best art

           Walls without pictures are naked.  Counters, consoles, and bookcases without tchochtkes are barren.    Visual art pulls a place, whether home or office, together and gives it that unique touch.  Because I am not a visual artist myself I need other people's art in my life.

            Art adds color, art adds interest, art adds meaning, art adds creativity.  Art doesn't have to be expensive, and it sure doesn't have to be from someone famous.  As a matter of fact I like to know the people whose art I hang up or display, and I like to know their stories - I get more meaning out of that than I would from an expensive piece whose maker I don't know. 

            I have saved the best of my children's art from their elementary school years and framed it. A friend's young son made a piece of book art which I cherish and display together with some super heavy candle sticks a friend made from farm implements and a tree study we got from a painter friend.  And I love my daughter's African inspired gazelle head made from a plastic gallon jug.  They are all beautiful pieces that make the room around them look more special, and each piece has a story.  This type of art surrounds me with beauty and meaning.

complex shopping logistics

             Thirty, forty years ago things were simpler.  You'd go to the big supermarket to one-stop shop for most things.  We weren't worried about pesticide residue, we didn't think much about where our foods came from,  we didn't see the bigger picture of the conflict between profit and growing food sustainably, and the Western Diet hadn't blown up in our face yet.

            Nowadays I spend quite a bit of time running around to different places to fulfill my many food philosophies:  local food from local farmers to support the local economy and get the freshest possible food, produce that has not been sprayed or at least as little as possible, foods that are grown sustainably, pasture raised meat and sustainably fished seafood, eating more vegetables and lots of greens, and of course being cost conscious of the higher cost these types of food command.  It creates an intricate and more time consuming web of food related errands. 

            While we still do eat meat we eat a lot less of it and every few months I stock the freezer at a local farm where the animals graze outside all year round.  We get our raw milk and yogurt from a farm that is twenty-five miles away and have organized with several other families to take turns picking it up for the group so each of us only has to drive every other month.  Eggs come from the family whose place serves as the local weekly milk pick-up point.  Once a month our buying club gets a grocery and produce delivery from our food coop - we buy in bulk and share and save.  Some of the things I buy from the coop are bulk legumes, seeds and nuts, bulk tea and spices, condiments, nut and seed butters, also some personal care items.  Since the coop produce only lasts for about two weeks I fill in from a whole bunch of local farmers, and sometimes the supermarket.  I buy my recycled paper goods at Trader Joe's, where I also get some other organic basics such as vinegar and oils, chocolate, frozen organic spinach, and organic canned tomatoes.  Most of our supplements I order online as well as some specialty items I cannot readily find locally or through the coop (like our favorite smoky tea lapsang souchong, which our daughter humorously calls lapsang sooch).  And, believe it or not, I recently found a 5.5lb container of organic chia seeds at Walmart of all places (yes, I admit that I go there, too).

why we need stories

            Everyone likes a good story.  We like to be transported away, we like to be entertained.  Time stands still when I get lost in a great novel with a cup of tea by my side.

            But stories can do so much more than entertain us.  They can provide a mirror for something we go through or need, like when we commiserate with the heroine or long to experience what she goes through.  Then the story provides emotional support.  Stories inspire us to muse and ponder and philosophize, perhaps to see things differently, perhaps to stretch our imagination and mind. 

            Another very important aspect of story telling, of creating a narrative, is to knit a culture or events together, creating meaning, making sense.  Not all of us can see a pattern when we are walking through the woods and seeing all those individual trees.  But once someone flies a drone above the trees, or climbs on a tower, so to speak, and sees the whole of it as a forest, sharing that narrative helps all of us to see the bigger picture. 

            Creation stories ground a culture in a narrative base.  Cultural beliefs are a story that informs how people think about something (that mainstream medicine thinks of the body in a mechanical way is a narrative that informs our healing methods; when we change the narrative the healing methods will change, too).  Traditional fairytales teach us about good and bad, and that light always triumphs over darkness.  Without stories things seem random and our human mind needs patterns.  Nature changes all the time and doesn't need patterns, at least not human patters of orderliness.  We do.  We create meaning and context through stories and narrative.