Grapefruit, or What I Didn't Know

Growing up I ate grapefruit the way I was taught. I sliced it in half, through the central axis, creating a fruit face that displayed pie segments of bitter, light flesh or sweet, pink pearlesence. I would use a knife to cut along the edge of the pie-shaped wedges, along the membrane and the pith, then I would use my spoon to scoop the sliver out of its cell and deposit the morsel to my mouth. After all the pieces were eaten and the membranes and hull remain, I would pick up the fruit in my palm and squeeze it so the juices that ran out were caught by my spoon. In this way, spoonful by spoonful, I would slowly sip the remaining enjoyment from this citrus. With this approach, eating half a grapefruit is a commitment of time and energy. By the time you finish one half the fruit you decide you’re probably satisfied enough to put the other half away for a morning project on another day (because then grapefruit only occurred to me as a morning time food).

It wasn’t until I was 25 that I saw grapefruit in a different light. As I drove, I watched as a friend peeled away the skin of a grapefruit and divide it into segments. I had only ever seen this done with its sister fruit, the orange. My friend ate the grapefruit, and offered me a few slices, that we ate without the mess or the ritual of my previous and singularly known approach to grapefruit.

With this new way to eat it, I found that I had a fuller appreciation for the fruit. It became a viable snack. Eating it now was less about an intermittent morning ritual and more about enjoying a healthy, Vitamin C packed treat. I buy bags of grapefruit now, and peel and enjoy at work, in the park, on travel, and still for breakfast sometimes.

I didn’t realize I was missing this fruit in the first quarter of my life; I just didn’t have an appreciation for it. I didn’t know that I didn’t know how to better appreciate this slice of life. It’s these tiny discoveries – of learning what we didn’t even know we were missing – that can bring sweetness of into our daily existence.

Is there something you didn’t know you didn’t know that upon discovery has brought lightness to your days?

Making (Digital) Space

There’s lots of talk about less clutter these days. Less stuff = More Space. It allows room for more possibilities to enter in.

To that end, I spent time de-cluttering my cell phone. I removed the numbers of people that I haven’t called recently, or shouldn’t ever call.

When I got my current phone over a year ago, the salesman transferred all my contacts into my new phone. I remember him commenting on how many there were – over one hundred. I like hanging on to numbers, and a cell phone is an easy way to do that.

Rarely do I forget a face, sometimes I forget a name, but I always remember things about people. I like to connect people, too, so sometime it’s handy to have my virtual business card of everyone I’ve ever met – from people on the dance floor to long lost friends.

Despite my inclination to have everyone at my fingertips, I followed the compulsion to streamline my contact list. I removed 79 numbers from my phone. Most of them were added to a Rolodex on my computer. Some were deleted completely.

To think of all the names I don’t have to give energy toward as I scroll through my address book. Wow! That might save me a bit of time.

It has certainly made a lot of new space.

Positive Affirmations

I talk to myself when I’m running sometimes.

“You’ve got this.”

“You can do this” comes out through jagged breaths as I focus toward a point at the top of the hill – the lamppost or a shrub. “You’re almost there.”
 

Presentation of the Chakras by Joanna Barry.

I called the same forceful will today to practice meditation for 15 minutes. Again and again, a return to the breath. Again and again, distractions. Again, the breath. Again.

But I sat, returning to the breath. Things were going well for a span.

Suddenly, near 12 minutes the sitting was almost unbearable, my eyes fluttered open to my timer, legs twitched, and I caught myself completely outside of my practice of meditation.

And so, I returned with words of encouragement to myself as I would on any run “You can do this.”

“You can do anything for 3 minutes.”

(I’ll leave out the part where my mind cast my body aware yet again - acutely aware this time of tingling legs and aching IT band - when my eyes flew open to check the timer still with 30 seconds remaining)

And, I returned again, always returning, with practice, to the breath.

Inner Knowing

In a rare occurrence, my sister and I were at the same yoga class last night. It’s cool to share that experience with her because we first started going together to beginner yoga classes with Mary Kay at the Asheville Yoga Center in 2005. It’s really special that we share a town, and it’s neat to think about how far we’ve both come since 2005, on and off the yoga mat.

Yoga last night was focused on inner knowing, on trusting your gut feelings. Intuition can be an illusive thing when we focus so much on using our heads and our brains to be logical, create process, and define a path – rather than simply walk it.

Our teacher Rich focused on helping us bring focus to that part of the belly between the lower ribs and the bellybutton. He wanted us to rotate that inward. I had one yoga teacher in Kelowna who suggested that the best way to get that engagement in the body was to first draw the bellybutton in then feel like you are pulling it up toward your ribs. This automatically draws a hollowing out of the upper part of your stomach. This, coupled with a tucked tailbone, one gains a solid core and the opportunity to expand (or, I like the term “puff up”) the lower, back part of your ribs all the way down to your kidneys.

As a means of honoring the intuition I brought focus to yesterday, I decided to sit on a sunny patch on the hardwood floors – just sit – you know, meditate, because something in my body said it was a good idea.

Marathon Training

So, I'm doing this thing this year; you might have heard about it. It's called the Nashville Country Music Marathon. I'm doing it for a couple reasons.

This was a really good run the day after Thanksgiving.

1) It's a bucket list kind of thing. I have always wanted to run THAT specific marathon. I figure if I run it and decide never to run another than I've checked this one off my list.

2) It seems fitting that its dubbed the Country Music Marathon. For year, lots of years, I railed against country music, or what I thought was country music. The year I hiked the Appalachian Trail, 2003, there were times the radio I carried only received country stations. Low and behold, I discovered that I actually liked country music. Granted, the songs often sent me into tears. That year there was a song about baseball that made me cry. I never would have expect that.

Since 2003 my appreciation has grown for country music. Lots of times it makes me want to roll my eyes (unnecessary rhyming, stupid songs about red solo cups (is that a product-placement or what?), uber-nationalist jingoistic propaganda), but when I get beyond those songs I hear lyrics of living simply, putting love first, the tenderness of families, and life's quirks (the Camo is my Favorite Color song, anyone).

My friend Christina has always held an appreciation for country music. I used to pick on her for it. I came clean about my mutual appreciation when I visited her in December.  We participated in a terrible race with the crowd support of interstate (that we were running on) drivers stalled in traffic (gag on exhaust).

3) With any luck I'll be running around some guys who wear cowboy hats.

4) I've heard there's great crowd support.

5) I feel like I've reached a place where a half-marathon isn't a big deal anymore (I can't believe I just said that). It's not that running 13 miles is easy; it's that I know I can do it. Mentally, I've overcome the hurdle. Even if it didn't seem like I could do it last Saturday on my 13-mile training run with Elizabeth, I DO know it's possible to do it with relative ease and enjoy it.

Me and Elizabeth. I was very happy to be finished running last Saturday. It was a tough run for me (was I dehydrated or under-fueled?) And it was really, really cold. It took at least a mile or two before my fingers and face felt normal on my body.

There's a hiccup in my plan to run this year. To achieve my goal, I need someone with a conversion van waiting at the finish line to pick me up and drive me, non-stop to the middle of South Carolina. I'll sleep in the back and hopefully I can convince my massage therapist and friend Audra to flush the lactic acid from my body as I snooze.

Yes, damnit, I dream big! A marathon, a van with room for a massage table, a driver, my massage therapist, and arrival "just in time" for my evening appearance is possible. I believe it!!

Miracles happen every day, I'm just looking for about six to happen in one day.

The Fastest Way to Put Out a Grease Fire

It got pretty messy in here a couple days into the New Year. I had a grease fire.

I was making the Liberian black-eyed pea soup recipe from my favorite cookbook, Moosewood Daily Specials on a burner that some grease had spilled onto over the holidays. We had cleaned it up from the burner itself but neglected to get the rest off the drip plate below. I cranked the burner up to its highest setting to start boiling the water for the peas. Soon the burner was smoking. I ignored it for a while, but when the billowing smoke became too much to ignore, I moved the pot and turned off the burner in synchronicity with the burner pan catching alight.

I stood baffled for a split second since only a couple days earlier on New Years Eve my friend Audra and I had been exchanging stories of our childhood, watching our mothers put out fires with baking soda. This memory of my mother and my conversation still fresh in my mind, I turned to the cabinet and reached toward the second shelf where I’d last seen the baking soda.

With a few solid shakes of the baking soda the fire was put out; the mist of powder hung in the swirling smoke.

My pride broke with the ear-piercing sounds of the smoke detectors of the house going off in unison, since my dad has wired them all to coordinate in the event of an alarm.

I threw open the doors and windows, and turned on the fans.

When the ringing subsided, I eased back in to my position by the stove. I felt thankful for all the lessons mommy taught me, and I contemplated the way that particular story re-told came alive again. 

A Word on My Word

Get this, my friend Desiree has a word for each year. The word represents what she wants to be, do, or cultivate in this world during those twelve months. Over lunch at the end of 2011 as she talked about her plans for breakthroughs in 2012, I determined to come up with a word for myself for 2012. 

I thought about this for days and weeks. I vacillated between thinking about it and letting it come to me naturally.

I finally settled on a word during the last days of December: Kindness. I will speak it. I will spread it. I will act it. I will feel it.

It seemed almost too simple, and yet its essence is so powerful. It just kept coming back to me, again and again.

As I played it out in my head it represents how I want to be in the world. I reasoned that if I acted with kindness at the forefront of my decision making then I can make a difference.

I told friends, and they razzed me a bit. They think it will be easy. They asked, fairly, if this will stretch me and if it will be a challenge for me.

At the same gathering I heard of another woman who used “why the hell not” as her mantra for 2011 and planned to use “step it up” as a focal point for change in 2012.

I began to feel like my little commitment to kindness was meager and without courage. Do I need a powerful word to represent my place in this world and set my stage for 2012? I toyed with “unabashed” because it seemed to capture boldness and shamelessness (after all, you serve no one by playing small, to paraphrase Marianne Williamson), but the word is clunky. And I think that kindness still fills the niche. If I speak boldly and fully embody myself in my words and actions, I am kind to myself. If I ensure my words and deeds consider others as much as myself, then that is also kind.

It’s almost two weeks in to 2012 and I do think having a word helps. I have given more pause in the space before I speak and act, to try harder to bring kindness into my interactions.

It seems small, but I hope the effect will be large.