Weekday Evening Grace

My mother was always surprised at my expressed desire to have children “but you like to spend so much time by yourself” she’d say. I had no idea how rabid I am/was about my personal time and space until I got a dog and a full time job. I realize a job gives people a general framework to exist within, a place to go each day, a coterie of coworkers to chat with, a desk to call home. And I realize that first time mothers always remark on how nothing TRULY existed before having a child, their lives rendered almost innocuously self absorbed before the tiny creature helpless and waving limbs needing to be bathed, wiped and fed made these woman for the first time feel responsible for something other than themselves. I get that. In a way. But I also think that carving out space, existing in a realm for how ever short or long it is granted without expectation and demand, suspending action to unconsciously contemplate is still my favourite way to savour moments. A cabin on a river in a forested glen is not where I am anymore and I need to adjust my thinking to stop rejecting the now and supplanting my vision with greenery and stillness when I’m in the midst of a burning spot of pavement with wafts of greasy restaurant food and rotting garbage filling the air as cars stand idly stuck in traffic with the bass pumping. I rebel and reject my environment constantly because it threatens the quiet and natural beauty that helps me think and resonate.

As I’ve mentioned before getting a dog helped force me to be outside in my urban environment and it gave me moonlit -40 below solitary walks. Fearing being eaten by my own rapacious mind, I too, like those first time mothers, sought to GET OUT OF MY OWN HEAD. Get outside. Make connections. Live in harmony with whatever exists around me. But it is hard to change one’s constitution. And I am constantly overwhelmed with this new arrangement. With a creature who watches my every move hoping it leads to something for him – food, play, affection, walks. Having spent many years of my life as an urban hobo – rambling from job to job with a satchel on a stick – avoiding career in order to grant myself perpetual motion, I have held a job for 3 ½ years, the same job, in 35 y ears of living, that’s the longest I’ve ever done the same thing, the longest relationship I’ve nurtured. These years while banking money have also felt the least self nurturing, the rhythm of life a job demands, short circuits allowing for randomness to play a role. I have spent so much of my life remaining open to serendipity parachuting me off someplace, to moments swollen with potential, to ideas that cloud out chores and responsibilities I guess I’m finally exhausted of routine. When you begin to reject the framework of your life then it’s the beginning of some sort of metamorphosis. I’m certain of that.

That whole preamble leads me to share what does make me feel grounded and that’s food. Beautiful, colourful sustenance. A typical weeknight includes making dinner for my dog with ground beef from my local butcher kneaded with chopped parsley and carrots topped with cod liver oil, apple cider vinegar, kelp powder and maple syrup; washing a variety of vegetables for the week’s worth of salad – corn on the cob, asparagus, sugar snap peas, dandelion leaves and a variety of lettuces; and preparing fruit to take for breakfast – baggies of cherries, tupperwares of chopped up honey dew and canteloup, raspberries and blackberries and blueberries. The excitement of my day at the office are my meals. Now that is not surprising.