The time will come when, with elation, you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror, and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
After finishing a truly bad novel by Kathy Reichs from which one of my favorite shows, Bones, is based I picked up something completely different. Having previously been a vegetarian for nearly 12 years and having lately been keenly aware of environmental, animal and sustainability issues, I decided to pick up the highly-controversial Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer. Long story short, he decided to become a vegetarian after having a child and worrying about what to feed him. What he found in his research turned him off meat.
I cant lie, this book has been bringing tears to my eyes for the last few nights I have been reading it. Sure, some of it is the typical shock and awe, but I think the public in general may be used to the PETA-style shock and awe campaign, which in fact, REALLY should shock and awe us – and not in a good way. Ive realized that all the reasons I became a vegetarian when I was younger still hold true. I still love animals. I still feel badly when Im eating a factory-farmed burger. I still think about what all the methane and raw sewage we are dumping from these factories into the environment is doing for our future.
One thing that I really hadn’t considered before, which now weighs on me heavily is the issue of seafood. When I was younger I didn’t eat seafood, so it wasn’t an issue I confronted. Now, I crave sushi daily. Until recently I had been one of those people who believed that being a vegetarian, but still eating fish may be the best choice. I figured the true evil was red meat and cattle slaughter houses. Chicken plants weren’t at the top of my list either. It wasn’t until very recently that I have realized that mass production fishing is probably the worst of the food evils. The author puts it best when referring to “bycatch”, the unintentional animals caught when fishing for one particular species:
“The average shrimp-trawling operation throws 80 to 90 percent of the sea animals it captures overboard, dead or dying, as bycatch… What if there were labeling on our food letting us know how many animals were killed to bring our desired animal to our plate? So, with trawled shrimp from Indonesia, for example, the label might read: 26 POUNDS OF OTHER SEA ANIMALS WERE KILLED AND TOSSED BACK INTO THE OCEAN FOR EVERY 1 POUND OF THIS SHRIMP.”
So, the question is: can I justify killing 145 other species as bycatch so that I can have tuna in my sushi hand roll? For me, the answer is simply, no. My claims to be a lover of the sea, the waves, its creatures, diving, and the underwater world cant really hold true if I am simultaneously encouraging companies to dredge the sea floor, killing everything in their path, so I can have a nice shrimp cocktail. Its just not acceptable and I am opening my eyes and become aware of my own contradictions. I might miss my salmon sashimi, but Ill miss the animals when Im diving in an empty ocean even more.
I am reading this book with a renewed passion for changing myself and the things around me in which I have influence. When I was younger I took a hard stance. I refused any meat or meat product at friends’ house, was ridiculed by my cattle-raising, meat-loving family, and stood outside KFC in a chicken suit. I really had beliefs, but those went by the wayside as I grew older, busier, let the reality fade away of what my craving for a cheeseburger means for the suffering, terrible life of that factory-farm cow. So, I think. Im looking into the possibilities of small local, truly farm-raised and humanely-treated animals for my meat source. Those are getting harder and harder to find, though. If so I will return to the creative life of a vegetarian.
Today I sat silently reading articles in the laundry room as my clothes went on whirring in the dryer. It was nice. Peaceful. Spring break in a small, college town. All the students have gone, it is early Saturday morning, nothing to distract me, nothing to interfere with my enjoyment of the rare British sun coming in through the windows. Or so I thought.
Enter single remaining undergraduate student in all of Durham. She trudges into the room in her mud-stained Uggs, dragging her feet intentionally, "shhhhf, shhhhf". Her hair looks as if she got into a fight with her cat, but I suspect she spent quite a bit of time creating this style. Her bloated face reveals a long Friday night of drinking and the unfortunate use of non-waterproof mascara. Her low-rise jeans are three sizes too small, revealing the final resting place of all those beer calories. She doesnt seem to be in the best of moods. She is slamming washer doors, dropping laundry powder all over the floor and cursing at the machine change slots. I am staring at her. She looks at me with annoyance. I move out to the lobby in an attempt to continue enjoying my morning. She follows (I hear the "shhhf, shhhf" of her sad Uggs behind me) and sits on the bench next to me. Im a bit irked. Really? Of all the places, she has to sit here? Then it happens.
We are in a college town which is now void of most undergraduate students being Spring Break, yet this one straggler has decided to get up early on a Saturday morning, come into the laundry room (which has been void of anyone but myself all morning), sit right next to me, break out her cell phone and relate the story of last nights drinking to every friend she has. Its truly unimaginable. Im not sure how many buildings we have on campus, but its a lot. She could have picked any of them. Or her dorm room. Or the cafe. Or any other spot, but right next to me. Its like being on an empty airplane with one other person and choosing to sit in the center seat right next to them.
So, what is my point? As this situation was unfolding, I happened to be reading an article that got me thinking about things like, "Are we really better off?" Technological innovations (cell phone girl), food innovations (the joy of corn syrup) - they all seem to have their pluses and minuses. This got me to thinking about my previous post on hunter-gatherer sleeping patterns... which related back to the article I was reading.
Cordain, et al. write in 'Plant-animal subsistence ratios and macronutrient energy estimations in worldwide hunter-gatherer diets' (Am. Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2000), when discussing hunter-gatherer diet vs. the modern diet:
"Total fat intakes would have been similar or higher; however, under all circumstances, protein intakes would have been higher and carbohydrate intakes would have been lower. These differences are due, in part, to the high reliance of Western societies on cereal grains, dairy products, beverages, oils and dressings, and sugar and candy in lieu of meat and fruit and vegetables.
Anthropologic and medical studies of hunter-gatherer societies indicate that these people were relatively free of many of the chronic degenerative diseases and disease symptoms that plague modern societies and that this freedom from disease was attributable in part to their diet. Therefore, macronutrient characteristics of hunter-gatherer diets may provide insight into potentially therapeutic dietary recommendations for contemporary populations."
"Whats wrong with us?" "I dont know, ask the hunter-gatherers."
Ha. I just love the we think of ourselves as so advanced in comparison to archaic hunter-gatherers. So advanced we are killing ourselves. Michael would say KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.
OK, admittedly sometimes I let this get me down. Politics, Ugg girls, text messaging, terrible eating habits, the state of the world in general. Thats when Wendell Berry becomes helpful.
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
There is something to be said for checklists. I am a big fan. I am an even bigger fan of checking things OFF checklists and today was a whopper.
Something I saw or heard yesterday must have set off a chain reaction in my mind, because my dreams were something else last night. It was as if someone was playing a filmstrip of every childhood memory I have between 4-14 on an endless loop. The last thing I remember when waking up is something that has often been a point of contention for me. The image was that of a red-haired, monocle-sporting ventriloquists dummy with a maniacal grin. I go through phases of insisting that I remember some movie or show with this scenario, especially this dummy. I have searched the internet, asked so-called ‘horror movie fans’, scoured old video store collections. Nothing. Im pretty sure people think I am making it up or imagining it.
And this morning, again, the dummy. That fuzzy red hair, that monocle. So, I decided it was finally time to put an end to this haunting memory. I did some real investigative work on the internet today (always a productive way to spend time when working on a PhD). And… SUCCESS! I am happy to report that I have not lost my mind. In fact, there are apparently legions of people my age who have faint memories similar to my own and have sought out this movie as well. I give you… Joey (1985), also known as Making Contact. Its German (I should have known!) and apparently it is a movie intended for kids, which is truly shocking as it was clearly scarring for myself and others who saw it as children. I mean, this is a movie whose plot involves an evil, possessed dummy who tries to control a young boy by faking phone calls from his dead father. Not the plot of your typical Disney movie.
If you feel the need to put yourself through the psychological trauma, have at it. As for me, I am checking this off my list and attempting to heal my childhood scars.
So, today is Ada Lovelace Day, the day to celebrate the achievements of women in science and technology. Personally, I think every day is a day to celebrate that. Not just women, but men... and children... and, uh, dogs. Just anyone/anything who achieves something in science.
According to Lovelace's Wikipedia entry, “During a nine-month period in 1842-43, Lovelace translated Italian mathematician Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s newest proposed machine, the Analytical Engine. With the article, she appended a set of notes. The notes are longer than the memoir itself and include in complete detail, a method for calculating a sequence of Bernoulli numbers with the Engine, which would have run correctly had the Analytical Engine ever been built. Based on his work, Lovelace is now widely credited with being the first computer programmer and her method is recognized as the world’s first computer program…In 1953, over one hundred years after her death, Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine were republished. The engine has now been recognized as an early model for a computer and Lovelace’s notes as a description of a computer and software.”
Interestingly, Lovelace was the daughter of the poet Lord Byron, who died when she was nine. Apparently her mother was obsessed "with rooting out any of the insanity of which she accused Lord Byron".
So, in the spirit of Ada Lovelace Day I bring you... Gertrude Bell!
One of the first working female archaeologists, she was a force in what was a man's world - and in Iraq! She did some serious work in Mesopotamian archaeology as well as travelling the world and writing books about her adventures. Read her entire story here. This obituary, written by a male colleague, is just the definition of perfection. If I could write my own obituary, this would be it.
"No woman in recent time has combined her qualities – her taste for arduous and dangerous adventure with her scientific interest and knowledge, her competence in archaeology and art, her distinguished literary gift, her sympathy for all sorts and condition of men, her political insight and appreciation of human values, her masculine vigor, hard common sense and practical efficiency – all tempered by feminine charm and a most romantic spirit."
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
There is a certain anticipation, a longing, a curiosity, a tinge of fear, heightened awareness of life and the world around you associated with SCUBA diving. Those feelings only grow as you approach dive time. Your body prepares itself to be hyper-aware, your senses perk, you suddenly thinkabout things that come naturally such as breathing and appendage movement. All systems are go and every endorphin your body has is released into your bloodstream.
And then it happens.
A fin strap snaps. A tank leaks. A mask cracks. And its over.
Yet... those endorphins, that feeling your body released in preparation for a life-threatening situation, they remain. Like Regan's demon, it has to be exorcised. The only way to do that is to dive.
My last two planned dives failed pretty miserably. In Ecuador Cameron and I had planned to dive the entire bay at Salango in hopes of plotting some underwater archaeological material. When we got there and saw the state of the water (high current, horribly murky, zero vis) we realized that might not happen, but decided to give it a go. On a side note, this is an area of murky water known for Hammerhead sharks in a bay in which a cat food factory dumps fish gut chum. Im just saying. Anyway, we head to town to get gear that was last used in 1974 and haul it and tanks back on a rickety tuk-tuk. Dive #1: my air hose has a massive leak, spewing bubbles into the water. No dive for me. Dive #2 (new set-up): AGAIN, my hose has a massive air leak. No dive. That was the end of diving in Ecuador.
Next up: December winter diving in Hood Canal, Washington. Cameron and I had been diving here before and we figured we would get in a nice, cold dive before heading south to see the families for Christmas. Upon arriving in Hoodsport something looked terribly amiss in the water. What was that? Ice? Yes, the sea water had frozen solid. We waited it out one day hoping it would melt off, but after stories of regulator free flow (which happens at temperatures below freezing and is not a good thing) we decided to pack it in and head south early.
So, I have stored up within me many, many diving endorphins just waiting to be released.
Next question: where to??
Monday, March 22, 2010
Always something so literal, yet intangible about Wendell Berry's poems.
In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has, I know, gone long and far, and yet he is the same for the dead are changeless. They grow no older. It is I who have changed, grown strange to what I was. Yet I, the changed one, ask: "How you been?" He grins and looks at me. "I been eating peaches off some mighty fine trees."
I have found that I have been going hours, days without uttering a single sound. I hear only the constant click of the keys as I type.
Sometimes I find myself opening the curtains to look for other students on the sidewalks, convinced of the possibility that the world had come to some fiery end outside while I spent the day writing grants or outlining a dog burial typology. I think thoughts like, "That will be too bad if everyone is gone. Who will read my typology now?" I look out the window again.
After days of soundlessness you find even the most minute of noises bothersome and seemingly disturbing. The other night while lying in bed trying to sleep, with my eyes wide open, I stared at the dancing red dust I often see while staring into the dark. "Some blood vessel trick, some adjustment to the low light by my cornea" I told myself, but something wasnt right. This noise, this noise. grrrrrUK! grrrrrUK! Faint, but repeating, seemed to be far away, but close enough so that the sharp sting of its crescendo irked me. I searched. Where was it? Under my bed? I leaned over to look. grrrrUK! What the fuck. I leaned to the other side. grrrrUK. I sit straight up in bed, quickly. GRRRRUK! "OH. What an idiot" I think to myself as I realized that the springs of my bed made a creak that suspiciously corresponded with my every movement. I put in my earplugs and return to the calming silence.
The poet Jack Spicer writes about the desire to create poems without sound:
“I would like to make poems out of real objects. The lemon to be a lemon that the reader could cut or squeeze or taste—a real lemon like a newspaper in a collage is a real newspaper. I would like the moon in my poems to be a real moon, one which could be suddenly covered with a cloud that has nothing to do with the poem—a moon utterly independent of images. The imagination pictures the real. I would like to point to the real, to make a poem that has no sound in it but the pointing of a finger.”
Im really loving this blog lately. A city girl visits her small hometown. Meets a rugged cowboy. Falls in love. Marries said cowboy and lives a ranch life with him. True story! Sounds like a movie right? Apparently, it might be.
Not only is it a truly sweet love story, which she describes in detail, but she has really gorgeous photographs, good recipes and just plain entertaining blog posts. There is something undeniably fulfilling about country life and she captures it really well. Reading her blog makes me want to go work my grandparents farm in Kansas. Plow fields. Run cattle. Grow crops. Put in a hard day of work.
One of the great joys of being the only person to read my own blog is that I feel no apprehension posting about my minute obsessions with random objects.
It is not often that I take time from my busy dog burial research schedule (yes, I typed that with a straight face) to think about something else, but ever since I saw the new Jeffrey Campell Mary Rocks shoe six months ago it has been itching at me. Finally, bought! Sure, by the time it is shipped to me in mid-May I will have wished I spent that money on the research material I desperately need, but at least I will look good walking to the library.
Its the little things.
Also, tonight I am eating Khazak horse meat.
Friday, March 12, 2010
One of my favorites:
Not easy to state the change you made. If I'm alive now, then I was dead, Though, like a stone, unbothered by it, Staying put according to habit. You didn't just tow me an inch, no-- Nor leave me to set my small bald eye Skyward again, without hope, of course, Of apprehending blueness, or stars.
That wasn't it. I slept, say: a snake Masked among black rocks as a black rock In the white hiatus of winter-- Like my neighbors, taking no pleasure In the million perfectly-chisled Cheeks alighting each moment to melt My cheeks of basalt. They turned to tears, Angels weeping over dull natures, But didn't convince me. Those tears froze. Each dead head had a visor of ice.
And I slept on like a bent finger. The first thing I was was sheer air And the locked drops rising in dew Limpid as spirits. Many stones lay Dense and expressionless round about. I didn't know what to make of it. I shone, mice-scaled, and unfolded To pour myself out like a fluid Among bird feet and the stems of plants. I wasn't fooled. I knew you at once.
Tree and stone glittered, without shadows. My finger-length grew lucent as glass. I started to bud like a March twig: An arm and a leg, and arm, a leg. From stone to cloud, so I ascended. Now I resemble a sort of god Floating through the air in my soul-shift Pure as a pane of ice. It's a gift.
The intricacies of day-to-day life, a busy mind, flowing ideas, mental accuracy, the inability to clear thoughts. All this mixed with the created lifestyle we surround ourselves with can lead to severe problems, including insomnia. I have begun to consider how much better my sleep would be if I followed the lead of hunter-gatherers.
Eat well. Healthy, fresh foods. Solid, balanced meals without overfilling yourself or skipping meals. Also, meals eaten in a timely manner, not right before bed, but when it is light out, the light necessary for hunting your prey, then skinning and butchering it and preparing it for cooking.
A day full of physical activity, vibrancy, intensive thought involving complicated decisions. Strenuous activity leads to restful, solid, enjoyable sleep.
Waking up early and getting your day started off right. Sleeping too late in the hunter-gatherer world might lead to attack by neighboring groups, attack by animals, missing hunting opportunities, not enough time in the day to get all your tasks done. Must get up and get going!
Winding down in the evening towards bedtime. Letting your mind rest without the technological stimulation it has been enduring throughout the day. Dim light, soft sounds, the crackling and mesmerizing flame of a hunter-gatherer fire.
I imagine that an early-rising, well-exercised, well-fed, active hunter-gatherer must have gotten/must get an amazingly satisfying night of sleep.
Recently I have been obsessed with the thought of delicious foods made from surprising things. Im not sure if it has something to do with exposure to ingredients in the UK that I am not terribly familiar with or not. My latest idea has been sustaining the smells and tastes of events that make people happy (like Christmas) into unusual food combinations.
I give you: Christmas Pine Ice Cream!
Im not sure where I came up with this. Something about wanting the smell of Christmas when it is hot out in the summer. I cant find any recipe anywhere online for it, which I like. I figure if I get some pine needles or resin I can make this fairly easily.
On a side note, while searching for all things pine I came across this website which gives useful survival tips, including making pine needle tea if you are lost in the forest to stave off scurvy. Who knew?
