Of Babies and Bath Water: Insistence on Another's Purity is a Losing Battle

I’ll admit it.

A most fervent wish of mine is that one bright morning, everyone will wake up refreshed, take a nice stretch, and right before breakfast, have a sort of mass epiphany. We could be in the shower, we could be walking the dog, we could be reading our morning affirmation, but in that singular, crystallized moment of our epiphany, people will recognize the fundamental injustice of deciding that we will use others as we wish because we can. We will understand that there’s really not any difference between a human and a fish when it comes to a desire to live free from harm. We will finally know deep in our marrow that because we legally can do something we desire, it does not confer a moral license to do it. Immediately after this epiphany, humanity will shake off our privileges of entitlement as if it were all just a bad dream and with a resolute clap of the hands a la Mary Poppins - “Chop chop!” - we would all move on. From that point on, we would all be vegan.

In this fantasy of mine, the human race would evolve in one giant, collective leap toward a consciousness of expansiveness and connection that would cut out all that unnecessary suffering that occurs before everyone’s fully on board. We could all go to the deli at the grocery store and not have to ask what’s in anything and we could buy birthday presents for each other without ever having to check for wool, leather or silk. We wouldn’t have to look for the rabbit symbol on shampoo or be ill at ease when we don’t know if the glycerine is of animal or plant origin. Everything would be easy, so free of stress. Our children wouldn’t have to avoid the McDonald’s Playland and they could keep all of their Halloween candy. There would be no need to stand outside shivering in the cold as we protest the circus in November. There would be no more time wasted giving dirty looks to people in fur coats. Life would be so easy.

God, just imagine what Thanksgiving would be like.

As much as I want people to adopt a new way of living because it is deeply wrong to ruin or take another’s life to indulge our fleeting, random pleasures, I have been vegan for long enough to realize that this wish is a luxury that is quite outside of my control. It is also rather, well, dictatorial for me to insist that unless others are motivated by my very same values, their reasons are unworthy. It is not enough that the rest of the world go vegan: they must do it for reasons that I approve of, damn it, or else it doesn’t count.

I have noticed a grumbling resentment and condescension towards those who “just” follow a vegan diet, even though that influences the most animals’ lives by far. Speaking hypothetically, what if a very influential person, say a former president of the United States, publicly credits a vegan diet with saving his life? Should we yell and scream and stomp our feet because he’s not vegan enough? Should we stare at his shoes, the same way people check out our shoes when they first hear that we’re vegan? Should we insist upon inspecting his medicine cabinet before we are willing to sign off on it? Or should we be damn grateful and elated for the fact that someone so prominent is normalizing a subject that many feel is inaccessible and beyond their reach? While we need that outer edge to be pushing society toward a new consciousness, we also need these people, human breadcrumbs in a sense, who draw others in and show them a path. Shouting on street corners or demanding personal purity as we sit on our self-built mountaintops of piety may feel good but if we are honest with ourselves, we will see that it’s not going to help the animals. If people think that giving up all animal products and familiar foods sounds radically unsettling – and it does to the vast majority - should we keep judging and nitpicking until they have given up on the notion altogether?

This has been a gradual evolution toward a middle path for me. For years I towed the party line that unless people adopted a vegan diet due to deep ethical convictions, that it was superficial, that it would never stick. I have also seen the contradiction of this idealistic notion many times. (To be fair, I have also seen it reinforced many times.) I have seen people come to veganism through the doorway of environmentalism and I have seen the lifestyle stick. I have seen others motivated primarily by their health, something ethical vegans look especially down upon probably because it smacks of flaky narcissism, but I have seen these same people become the most ardent, most persuasive and unequivocal advocates for vegan living over time.

I have also seen people become vegan for “the right reasons” – people I have felt a deep kinship with, people I have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with at protests - decide over time that they really miss cheese. Like really miss it a lot even though they know about dairy cows and veal calves and the whole bleak picture. They know it. They have read the books, they have watched the movies, and most important, they have felt it in their hearts. One day or over time, though, something just changes. They think, Is a little organic cheese so awful? Oh, and since they’re eating a little cheese anyway, would it be so terrible if they ate some free-range eggs, too? And if they’re already doing that, is it the worst thing in the world to eat a little wild-caught salmon? With the slippery slope fully rolled out before them, they then realize that consuming one is not much more or less justifiable than the rest and these once-ethical vegans become fully omnivorous.  I have heard and read the assertion many times that former vegans who start eating animal foods were probably never really committed to begin with and that is true sometimes but not always. Somewhere along the line, they switch off or detour. I have seen it with my own eyes. It threatens us to think that someone who has had a consciousness shift could renounce that and go more or less back to where they were before but it does happen.

While we need to unapologetically reinforce the very core ethical conviction of compassionate living that is at the root of veganism, I think we need to make space at the party for those who came in through a side door. We don’t have the luxury of veganism being an exclusive, members only club, not if we really want there to be less suffering in the world. We can create our little islands of vegan purity where only those with what we deem to possess the right attitudes can dwell, but we are deluding ourselves if we think that this kind of moral turf patrolling is really going to result in less suffering in the world. If someone is getting a foot in the door through the gateway of health, should we push them back out because we have taken out our moral checklists and they do not meet our standards? No, not unless we want to be isolated islands of angry but righteous vegan separatists. Instead, we should encourage people who are trying to get a foot in the door. We should support them. We should share our knowledge.

Ethics provide the strongest foundation of veganism, I have no doubt about that. While we are continually hacking away at the webs of disconnection humanity weaves, the stories people repeat to justify their privileges, we must keep the door open. The apple cart we are upsetting is a massive one culturally and historically but it is also a very personal inner-shift, one after the next, that is going to create the sea change. It is going to take time and it is going to take patience but we are well on our way: progress is happening every day in deep-seated and lasting ways. Until people are fully on board then, let’s throw out some lifelines.

I am going to hold on to my fantasy for now. It comforts me, makes me smile. It is just a fantasy, though. The real change will come from challenging our comfort zones, digging our hands into the mucky mess of it, being creative and giving up the notion that we can make others think the way we want them to think. The core convictions behind veganism are powerful beyond description. Let’s keep chipping away at the lies humanity tells and, most important, let’s keep the door open while we’re doing it.  

Soy will kill you DEAD.

I am buried under work this week so I'm offering this guest post until I can dive back into vegan feminist agitating. In an effort to prove that I am as fair and balanced as they come, I'm offering this article submitted by someone who wished to remain anonymous from the Weston A. Price Foundation’s Office of Soybean Literacy. I hope you enjoy it and find it enlightening.

Dear Vegans,

If you don’t value your own life, please at least care about the future of others. There is a looming green menace, a bean determined to wreak havoc any place where its roots can burrow into the ground like hungry, greedy tentacles. It is dire but it’s not too late: we must do our part now to uproot this vicious plant until it becomes fully indestructible and sends our planet on a collision course with obliteration. It is truly the Bad Bean. (The following footnoted article was peer-reviewed by the board of directors of the Weston A. Price Foundation.)

To put it bluntly, soy will kill you DEAD. ¹

Women, soy will turn your ovaries inside out before they shrink into themselves, drain down your legs and settle into your feet. This will eventually cripple you. This is a small matter because your muscles would have atrophied long before this due to Toxic Estrogenic-Legume Syndrome and your brain will have become porous with Tofu Spongiform Edamamepathy. Then you will die. ²

Men, exposure to soy will make you grow giant breasts sloshing with soymilk. It will make your genitalia shrink into petunia-shaped little nubs ³ as the steady drip-drip-drip of phytoestrogens into your bloodstream transforms you into a grotesque quasi-female freak-form come to life. Your breasts will keep growing until they eventually smother you and endanger your community. Then you will die. ⁴

Children, the soy your parents give you today will make bright pink hair sprout on your concave chests (females) and on your enormous breasts (males). At around age thirteen, boys will metamorphose into girls and girls will metamorphose into boys in a horrific live mutation. As the erstwhile girls morph into aggressive, pimply males and the former males transmute into screeching, hormone-mad girls, all ages from puberty onward are fraught with peril as you lurch into marauding delinquency. Then you will die. ⁵

It is now known that soy shot Abraham Lincoln and the Archduke Ferdinand. 6 Soy insurgents caused the Spanish-American War and the Nicaraguan Civil war. ⁷

Further, it is well established that soy caused the Great Chicago Fire, the San Francisco Earthquake, the Dust Bowl and the Irish Potato Famine. ⁸

Soy returns movies late. Soy parks like an idiot. Soy plays horrible music too loud. Soy drunk dials. Soy leaves the faucet running. Soy never offers to pay. Soy is a sloppy drunk. Soy does not vacate its seat for the elderly or disabled on buses. Soy laughs at inappropriate times. Soy sends texts during movies. Soy eats loudly and with its mouth open. Soy relieves itself on your front yard. ⁹

Soy will know just what to say. Soy will make you think that you’re the only one. Soy will charm your pants off and then soy will never call again. You will run into soy on the street or at a party some time later and it will smirk at you in a way that makes you feel like dirt. ¹⁰

It gets worse.

Soy peers into your windows at night. Soy makes you feel uncomfortable on public transit. Soy stands too close to you in the checkout lane. Soy loiters on playgrounds. Soy makes your normally confident dog whimper then run and hide in the closet. Whenever soy appears, a foreboding storm rolls in out of nowhere. Soy drives by slowly, staring at you with a menacing look that sends chills down your spine. ¹¹

Soy is watching you. Soy is not pleased. ¹²

Soy was engineered in an underground secret government laboratory with DNA from Darth Vader, Voldemort and Freddy Krueger and then one terrible night, soy overpowered the researchers and the evening watchman and got loose, running into the pitch-black night. ¹³

So please, if not for your own sake, if not for the sake of others, if not for the sake of everything decent and natural and good, please join us in this ultimate battle against the legume of death if only for the future of the planet. Once eradicated, we can celebrate over pureed organ meats, bone broth and unpasteurized milk. ¹⁴ Until that day, we must not rest! We must fight the green menace with all of our force.

Footnotes

1.     McKibble, Susan. “Soy, the Legume of Certain Painful Death” The Journal of Soya Conspiracies (August 2005)

2.     Keith, Frances. “Emerging Speculative Soy-Borne Diseases of the Dystopian Future,” The Daily Sun and Mail, 1 May 2008, sec. 2, p. 17.  

3.     Kellis, Mark. Penises Into Petunias: the Tofuification of Masculinity. Self-published, 1999.

4.     O’Connor, Mary. “Population Under Threat,” The Journal of Soya Conspiracies (June 2003)

5.     Keith, Frances. “Children: Soy’s Most Innocent Casualty,” The Daily Sun and Mail, 17 June 2004, sec. 2, p. 9.

6.     Kellis, Mark. The Secret History of the World’s Most Violent Legume. Self-published, 2001.  

7.     Ferdin, Josephine. “The Soybean Wars: Violence, Famine, Plagues, Disasters and the Plant that Caused Them All, Part One.” The Journal of Fringe Theories (September 2007)

8.     Ferdin, Josephine. “The Soybean Wars: Violence, Famine, Plagues, Disasters and the Plant that Caused Them All, Part Two.” The Journal of Fringe Theories (September 2008)

9.     Keith, Frances. “Soy, the World’s Worst Neighbor,” The Daily Sun and Mail, 15 October 2010, sec. 2, p. 11.

10.  Fawkes, Lisa. “The Misogyny of Soy: From Swaggering Tofu to Sadistic Tempeh,” The Nourishing Traditions Feminist Journal (April 2009).

11.   Rich, Carol. “The Coming Apocalypse: Soybeans as Lucifer.” The Weston A. Price Foundation Journal of Non-Secular Thought. (October 2010)

12.  Ferdin, Josephine. “The Soybean Wars: Violence, Famine, Plagues, Disasters and the Plant that Caused Them All, Part Three.” The Journal of Fringe Theories (September 2009)

13.  Polonis, Toby. “The True Story of Soy: From Experiment to Modern Day Horror Story.” The Journal of Fringe Theories (November 2003)

14.  O’Fairon, Fiona. Long Live Liver! The Weston A. Price Foundation’s Party Food for Nourishing Traditions. The Weston A. Price Foundation Press, 2005.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

I wish I could say that I traveled more. I didn’t. I wish I could say that I used the time to become fluent in French or German, but that would be a lie. I didn't learn how to play chess, either.  

I spent the summer trying to get a working computer. My old one gave one final, dyspeptic “pfft” the week before my son got out of school and the day before my son returned to school, I finally had a working one. I am guessing that this was serendipity in disguise, designed to keep me present, enjoying time with my boy. Aside from occasionally having a breakdown in the middle of the night due to my limited technology and waking my husband up with my anxiety-fueled, three-in-the-morning fear-fulminations, I did enjoy my son. And my summer.

Also, I saw friends.

I pickled and fermented. In June, I read a book on sauerkraut for the fun of it. Right now I’m reading Plimpton’s oral history of Truman Capote, which seems like the perfect coda.

I ate at Native Foods.

I facilitated play-dates. I also pondered whether the term “play-date” is goofy for a nine-year-old and concluded that, yes, it is.

My son had a birthday and we stormed the Field Museum with our giant cake that was supposed to be a shaped and acting as a sarcophagus but I ultimately had to concede that I lacked the essential pastry skills-patience combination to tackle. It was just a layer cake with candy “jewels” inside. You know, like a sarcophagus’s treasures. Whatever. It was still cake. 

We adopted a dog, the sweetest dog ever. Ever! His name is Romeo and he is a Precious Moments poodle mix come to life with a kaboom of sassy curls on top of his head. The dog-shaped hole in my heart has been filled. When I think of him, little cartoon hearts rise and pop like bubbles around me. [I'm thinking about him now. Little cartoon hearts...]

I wrote articles on my husband’s laptop while my son was breathing down my neck to fight aliens or whatever it is he does on Lego.com and I sent those articles off. In a few months, I project that I will be pleasantly surprised when the articles arrive in my mailbox.

Of course my brain buzzed and swarmed with vegan revolutions, feminist uprisings, agitating notions.  Now that I have a working computer, I am eager to return to my regular programming.

Oh, and I have big plans. Really big ones that also kind of make my stomach queasy in the best possible way.

I’m glad to be back.

Unplanned vacation...

Hey, friends -

I will be taking a little hiatus from vegan feminist agitatin' until we can get a new (used) computer after our old one died a slow, torturous death by a thousand cuts. I can write on my man's shmancy MacBook Pro but that's only in the evenings and when I can keep my son's mitts off it. In any case, I'm hopeful that the situation will be remedied soon, and then I'll be back with a vengeance!

xo -

Marla

An Open Letter to Summer

Hi, Everyone!

How are you? Summer’s practically here, isn’t it? I love this time of year. I love the berries and days at the beach and camp outs and fireflies and general kumbaya-like vibe of the whole thing. In Chicago, summer means that you really survived something – especially this year when I was wearing my winter coat until the last week of May – so we savor the heck out of it. Summer makes me remember that last day of school, that last bell of the season, and a whole expanse of lovely days ahead of me.

We’re all in this summer thing together. That being said, here are a few things that might make the warm months ahead go a little more enjoyable for all parties.

To my son:

    1. When it’s hot out, please don’t lean on me. I love you more than I could ever express, but your silky (and SEARING) flesh against mine feels like a red-hot poker being pressed against me. Please don’t take offense if you touch my arm and I jump away like you just branded me with an iron. Let’s all just keep to our personal space bubbles, though, ‘kay?
    2. Stepping on a Lego is a plague for all seasons but hopping on one foot in pain when I’m already overheated is just not a lot of fun.
    3. “In or out? Am I paying to cool off the rest of the block?!” All those clichés that I swore I’d never say, well, I’m saying them. Shut. The. Door.

To whoever used the last ice cubes or drank the last iced tea:

    1. You wouldn’t think of leaving that empty, now, would you?

To my community:

    1. Must you drive with the bass turned up to eleven? It makes my head feel like it’s going to explode. If that happens, I’m totally aiming for your car.
    2. I get that most of you are not vegetarians. I totally understand that you enjoy barbecuing various animal parts. I just so don’t want to smell it, though, or walk through a ground-level ash cloud of it. While I’m at it, I also do not want to see discarded chicken leg bones on the ground as I make my way through life. It’s totally sad and gross. Could you kind of keep that stuff to yourself more?
    3. Ice cream trucks, don’t you think “Turkey in the Straw” (a.k.a. the “Do your ears hang low” song) is a little overdone? Plus when I was in camp, we changed the lyrics of that particular song from “ears” to “boobs” and so that’s always what is going through my head when I hear you. I’d rather not think of sweaty boobs right now, okay? Do you take requests? How about Für Elise? That’s pretty and it doesn’t make me think of sweaty boobs.
    4. To those who cannot leave their homes without a big puffy cloud of perfume all around your person, please know that this seriously makes my temples throb. In the summer, it’s like you’re surrounded by an ozone of magazine perfume samples. Can’t we just do a little spritz and call it a day?
    5. To the homeowners who aim your sprinklers so that they spray the sidewalk with water: all things told, is this the most considerate thing you could do? Should people have to walk on the street to avoid getting wet so that your grass can be Technicolor green? Somehow I think you are the same people who don’t shovel your sidewalks in the winter or do a half-assed job of it. This summer, I am going to take note of where you live and test this idea.
        a. If I find out it’s true, I’m totally going to give you a dirty look should we ever cross paths.
    6. To people who comment on my pale skin and tell me to get some sun: and muck up my meticulously maintained ghostly pallor? Millions of goth kids would kill for my Morticia-like epidermis, Besides, my skin will thank me for all my studious years of sun avoidance as I get older. Will yours? 

To movie theater managers:

    1. Please mellow out with the air conditioning. It feels good for about 10 seconds on a really hot day but after that my teeth are chattering, I’ve got goose bumps and I’m shivering uncontrollably. Seriously, I beg of you. I am dying over here. I should not have to put “pack a blanket along” on my mental checklist every time I see a movie in the summer.

To the mosquitoes:

    1. I am non-violent but you thirsty little bloodsuckers are totally pushing it.

To businesses:
    1. I get so depressed when I see back-to-school specials next to the Fourth of July displays. Come on! Talk about a buzz-kill. It would be nifty if you could all have a pact to wait until August to roll out the spiral notebooks. That’s all I’m saying.
    2. Please see what I requested of movie theater managers two points up.

To my sunglasses:

    1. Why must you be in my way on rainy days and get lost as soon as it’s sunny? What is it about you?

To my family:

    1. Please remind me when I am ready to really, really lose my temper about something silly and minor to just drink a little ice water. Better yet, get it for me. A little slice of lemon or lime will let me know that you really care. I’m just saying.

Okay, I’m ready for summer. Let’s do it, people!

Love,

Marla

Urban Woman: From Dirt Bike Wheels to Vegan Heels

To get this post, you'll have to be familiar with Ree Drummond, a.k.a., The Pioneer Woman. Oh, man - I mean, boy howdy! - is she ripe for satire. I cannot bring myself to link to her. Her website gets like 80 million visitors in the time it takes me to put on my shoes. My shoes are slip ons, too.

Basically, her Pioneer Woman empire is based on pure wish/fantasy fulfillment. Her story is so predictable as to be banal, something one would expect to find in the middle of the shush pile over at Harlequin Romance headquarters, yet somehow it is devoured by the masses. The story goes like this: The Pioneer Woman was a girl who grew up on a golf course fairway in an affluent suburb of Tulsa. She couldn't wait to leave this boring town so as soon as she could so she headed for LA to go to the university there and then to work. She loved the restaurants, the nightlife, the shops, the cafes, and, sweet Jesus, the sushi. How she loved the sushi!

The sushi is a symbol of her upwardly mobile, inwardly crumbling lifestyle. She had a laidback, drippy surfer for a boyfriend and they ate sushi together until she just couldn't take it anymore. She headed back for her parent's home in Oklahoma to sort out her feelings and plan for the future. She planned to go to law school in Chicago.

Little did Ree know, though, that an impossibly (and I mean impossibly) handsome, strong but sensitive, Adonis-meets-Gary Cooper-esque freaking cowboy would sweep her high heels out from under her, make her knees go continually wobbly and make her swoon like no one has swooned since at least 1953. The love of a simple cowboy coaxed the sushi-eating Ree into becoming the Pioneer Woman she is today, a rancher's wife who loves red meat and therefore real men with big, all American penises. (She refers to herself as a former vegetarian, though she refers to eating fish during her supposed vegetarian phase. Whatever.) She calls her husband, apparently without irony, Marlboro Man. Marlboro Man has since married Ree, taken her to his cattle ranch, impregnated her no fewer than four times and so forth. The Pioneer Woman spends her days homeschooling their children and taking a lot of photos of Marlboro Man's behind. There are layers and layers of loamy subtext here, dressed up in chaps and resting on a hammock in a mythical landscape. Naturally, my thoughts turned to satire.

Meet Urban Woman, the Pioneer Woman's counterpart. This is the first installment.

I was raised next door to a city. When I was growing up with a giant metropolis and all that came with it (crowds, sooty snow and honking cars) within easy access, I used to spend much of my time locked away in my room, daydreaming about living in the boondocks. I was a misfit, a suburban girl who couldn’t wait to ditch my black skirts and high heels for jeans or even overalls and sensible shoes. Instead of listening to bands with guys with spiky hair and eyeliner, I rebelled, turning to Hank Williams and Merle Haggard instead. My parents shook their heads at me in dismay, sighed every time I consulted the Farmer’s Almanac instead of just checking the weather forecast like a normal girl. Their efforts to raise an urban, edgy and sophisticated daughter seemed to be in vain: I was determined to leave the sky rises, shops and museums behind and head off to the uninterrupted, serene landscape I was certain was just beyond it. My above-it-all attitude was obvious to everyone.

At eighteen, I graduated from high school and my parents could no longer contain me. They warned me that there’d be no culture in the country, that I’d become adrift. They felt betrayed that I rejected their values. My mother wrung her hands over where she’d gone wrong; my father paced at night, worrying of what would become of me in the country. My urban friends patronized me and said that it was a phase, that I’d come running back when I found there were generally no great Thai restaurants along rural routes. Nothing anyone said had any effect. I packed my bags, kissed my parents goodbye and never expected to come back to the city except for holidays.

I was off chasing my dream: I had my plans together. I couldn’t wait to leave all the trappings of my urbanity behind: the mini-skirts, the dark nail polish, the progressive politics, the diversity. I would head for the tractors and cornfields. I was determined that there was a mobile home community somewhere for me where I could sip Mike’s Hard Lemonade, watch the butterflies flit around and make idle chitchat with the neighbors. I would find a simple job - maybe as a cashier at a local grocery store with no more than three aisles or putting together arrangements at the flower shop. I’d meet a townie every bit as sheltered and boring as the man of my dreams and we’d spend a couple of years together aimlessly floating on inner-tubes in the local river, shaking flags at Independence Day parades on folding chairs, holding hands outside our starter mobile home as the grasshoppers chirped. Then we’d get married in an adorable church and have a few adorable blond children. That would be my life. No one could stand in my way.

Four years later, I was well on my way with my plan. I found my idyllic small town with just the right Mayberry-esque qualities, including a bumbling deputy sheriff named Bo. I set my sites on him right away and he returned my interest. When he wasn’t accidentally locking himself out of his police vehicle or unintentionally discharging his gun at inopportune times (is there ever an opportune time?), he was a catch. A little dangerous at times, but still a catch. Bo was cute but in retrospect, something nagged at me that he wasn’t right for me. I ignored that inner-voice, though, because he was by far the hottest commodity in our town of 650. I was determined to live the dream and he was part of the dream. My parents hated him, of course. They met him twice and my mother just cried.

I loved my life there, though. Aside for the frequent drunken arguments at the trailer court and Def Leppard being blasted at three in the morning, things were peaceful.  Once in a while the local water sanitation system would be faulty or the town’s supply of firecrackers would get stolen and ignited by pack of teen ne’er-do-wells, but generally my little town helped to keep me in a state of perpetual boredom.

Meanwhile, I worked as a cashier at the Rexall two towns over and continued reaching my goals with my plan of downward mobility. I slept no fewer than ten hours a night, my career trajectory was stagnant at best. I harbored no illusions of grandeur, no desire to leave my mark on the world. My life was developing exactly as I’d planned it out as a young girl. I was on pace to being married to the guy I thought would bring me years of predictability  – he’d proposed to me one night but I don’t remember much about it – and we were looking at houses together. My life was rote and exhilaratingly stable. I was on the path I’d laid out for myself years before.

Then I got the call that changed my life.

My mother had to have surgery on her knee: it was nothing serious but she would be out-of-commission for a few weeks. Could I come back home and help around the split-level?  As much as I hated the idea of going back near the city – and the fact that this would mean missing probably at least two fish boils – I felt I needed to go. I also looked forward to getting out of town to plot out my ten-year plan with Bo, the optimal spacing of our future children, the eventual cessation of my job. I was nervous to come back and interact with the people who felt I was a snob when I’d abandoned their values: how would they accept me and my new downward lifestyle, my preference for one stoplight towns over bustling cities?  I was wary but I also knew that going back to the big city was what I needed to do, at least for a few weeks.

I have to admit, in retrospect, I got a pleasant little rush and butterflies in my stomach as I drove through the city and looked at the high rises and skyscrapers all lit up against the skyline. I tried to deny the excitement I felt as if that would make it disappear. “I’m a country girl now,” I reminded myself. “I am on the slow track.” I got goose bumps seeing the outdoor cafés, though, the posters for foreign films, the multiculturalism, the fashion that considered both form and function. I buried myself in helping out at my parent’s house. I understand now that I felt if I could just distract myself with caring for my mom, I could ignore the pangs that kept burbling up and return to the life I insisted that I wanted, the one I’d created for myself with Bo in the country, the one I had more-or-less ambled toward my whole life.

We talked, predictable like clock work, at 6:45 every evening before Bo’s programs came on and hung up by 6:58. Bo was insecure about me being near the city. “Don’t find yourself getting swept away by some city slicker in black,” he told me, half-jokingly. “I need you and your child-bearing hips back here where they belong.” I reassured him that I would be back as soon as things were in order. He would talk to me more about his day and I would use the time to take a little catnap. He told me about the traffic violations ha almost issued tickets for that day, the cars he pushed out of ditches. I tried to sound interested but I was distracted. I told myself that it was just the fast pace of urban living that was wearing me out, that once I was back home, everything would return to normal. The truth was, though, that the thought of returning made me feel a little ball of dread in the pit of my belly. I labeled this as nerves and I kept myself busy.

A week before I was to return, though, I got a call from a childhood friend of mine, Suzanne. I’d been putting her off all week but she was insistent that I go to a bar with her and some friends Friday night. “You need to get out,” she told me. “You deserve to have a little fun.” Finally, Suzanne wore down my resolve. As stubborn as I was, I could still see that she was right, that I could use a little lift. I agreed. I would go out.

Friday night rolled around and I tried to get out of it. I called Suzanne and told her that I was tired, that I didn’t feel well. It was as though I sensed that my life was about to change and I was making a last ditch effort to circumvent that. Suzanne wouldn’t hear of it, though. She threatened that she would come and pick me up herself if I tried to get out of it. “Okay, okay,” I laughed. I picked out my one remaining black mini-skirt, my black heels for special occasions (none had really come up since I’d moved), a cute little top and fire engine red lipstick. It was as though after all these years, it all intuitively came back to me. My parents could scarcely hide their delight, standing in the foyer as I went out for the night. 

“I’ll be home early,” I said. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

Little did I know that two hours later, I would be head-over-heels in love with a vegan graphic artist-stud with long, flaxen hair, ripped up jeans and a bike-toned backside who lived in a Wicker Park loft. All my aspirations of a peaceful country life on the slow-track would be shattered in one fateful night.

Stay tuned for my next installment 0f Urban Woman.

This Artisan Life

 

The other day, I saw a sign on North Avenue promoting the “hand-pattied” hamburgers a restaurant offered and something clicked in the back of my mind. Later that day, it really sunk in when I saw an ad referring to an ice cream shop with hand-scooped cones. As it could be both tricky and unhygienic to scoop ice cream with one’s feet or elbows, this is an important detail to bring to a potential customer’s attention. I also realized that restaurants and artisan food merchants alike are quick to point out all the handmade, personal touches they bring to their work. Why don’t I? I don’t give myself nearly enough credit for all the things I do in this life of mine. I create countless artisan, handcrafted moments every single day.

The above paragraph, for example, was self-punctuated as are all the sentences that follow. Every word I select will always be crafted with my own synapses and typed by my own hands in-house: they have not turned over to an impersonal third party in any part of their journey to the screen. As I write, I am also sipping hand-poured local water prepared with house-made ice cubes that were produced in small batches in a glass that I choose myself among many others for how its form fits my unique hand. On that topic, machine generated, commercial ice cubes lack that certain flair, don’t you think, one looking exactly like the next? I would just as soon put toxic sludge in my glass than I would outsource my ice cubes. My ice cubes are as individualized as snowflakes. I honor them and I grieve when they are selected to chill my beverages. I do not take these things lightly. As a side note, if you are to drink chilled beverages, I suggest that you have the courage to hand-prepare and select your own ice cubes. If you cannot do this, I suggest that you please ask your ice merchants the process that went into making the cubed frozen water they sell. It could be an eye-opening experience.

Making my own ice cubes is one small commitment I make in order to create a detail-driven, handmade life. Let’s look at a typical but utterly organic day in my life…

After arising, I make my own bed, and, as I do every day, I hand-smooth the sheets and I self-fold the top of the comforter back just so. When I get dressed, my clothes - previously folded and sorted by hand - are chosen based on the temperature and my activities of the day and only then are they placed on my body. By hand, of course. When I exercise, I self-lift all my own weights and am responsible for generating my own motion. The sweat, of course, issues from my own pores that have been exfoliated by hand. My dental care, face cleaning, shower and house-prepared blended drink, of course, are done with myself and replete with this same spirit of autonomy and exquisitely rigorous attention to detail.

It is exhausting to think about, I know, and I haven’t even tied my own shoelaces with my singular bow (secured in the middle with two loops and the ends hanging loose) and walked my naturally conceived, self-gestated, and then umbilically-, mammory-, hand- and then finally self-nourished son to school. While my partially-free-range son is at school - in the district of the house that we selected after personally touring many others by foot, of course – more thoughtfully handcrafted work needs to be undertaken.

My day continues with more self-constructed sentences and the occasional personally guided Internet expedition for research and entertainment purposes. Micro- and house-brewed homemade iced tea produced with local water is also replenished throughout the day and lunch is foraged from my own kitchen and self-tended garden, comprised usually of personally selected, hand-washed, -peeled and –prepared local organic produce. Then it is back to writing again, except when I need to personally compose messages to send to my correspondences. It is not easy but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

When my son returns from school, I continue his education by reviewing his homework and home-schooling him until it is complete. Snacks are prepared and plated by hand, of course, and based on whatever items are available that day. Juice is locally purchased, home- and hand-poured.

Dinner. So much handcraftedness, all prepared in small batches, too exhausting to detail…

After dinner, the table is cleared off by hand and the dishes are hand-rinsed and -loaded into the dishwasher. The floor is then swept by hand and items that have been carried elsewhere are placed back into their designated areas. The cat’s litter box is hand-scooped. As we are a family that prioritizes the DIY philosophy, we do our own dental care, maintain our own skin and so forth in house. At bedtime, we turn back our own sheets, read to ourselves and/or to each other, and then cease sensory activity for the day and pursue a state of reduced consciousness. We do this all on our own. Although it is not easy, we wouldn’t have it any other way. It is the way of the artisan, after all.

How have you handcrafted your life today, friends?