My Paper Asylum

I am seduced by Tom Waits in a narrow storefront of dog-eared paperbacks, colored hardcovers and quiet strangers. I walk a carved path through tree-tall shelves of second hand knowledge. My emotions begin to ruffle amidst the clean clutter. I feel the woods. There are streaks and spilt glows of golden sunlight as if sent through treetops and music that engulfs me like headphones or a deep bath. I exhale and sink. It swallows me. The voice of Waits drapes the walls with cigarette-speckled tweed, his grand piano hanging from the rafters, his words, "I hope that I don't fall in love with you" reverberating through the bones of the books and the skin of my soul. This place feels like home, like a paper womb. There are plastic toys in staged poses and postcards and family photographs taped along the dark timber planks beneath stacks of philosophy anthologies by the door. Lamp-lit corners whisper a feeble, but capable luminescence. I walk to the old man where he stands beside his notebook of pencil markings from the day's sales. Softly I speak, afraid I might tear the ink-threaded air. I ask if he has the original children's book, The Boxcar Children. He lost a lot of this classic series to a small flood, but if he has any left they'd be here, he says to me pointing. I thought he might be a mean old man, but he's quite sweet with his sideways glance. I look for the book but don't find it. Instead I buy an old hardcover of Heidi and the picture book, Madeline. The total is $11. Do I have a $1 bill? He asks. No, I'm sorry. Just this $20. He takes out his floppy leather wallet and fingers through his green bills (soft, second-hand like the books they bought). He wants to hold onto his ones. He tells me. He'll charge me $10. Thank you. I say, kindly before saying something about the wonder of his place. Something about the magical maze of books.  Maybe he can't hear the awkwardness in my fidgeting. And how long have I lived just down the road without ever coming in? He asks, smiling. Not too long. I say. Just a year.      

On the sidewalk, I place the books and my purse in my bicycle basket. I take my small key and unlock my old blue bike from the tree where it leans. I sit on the seat and ride for home and as if my pockets are full of hummingbird feathers, I feel the warmth of my paper asylum fall from me to the wind. 

Man Made

Scott scolds my criticisms of the modern man. A scoff that slits the skin of my confidence and exposes the pink inside my white exterior. I press the sides together and hope for it to hold, but when I let go, it opens again and my silence bleeds out like a cloud. He's right.  

I wrote of powdered corn syrup, tin cans of tomatoes, sea salt crystals and apple cider vinegar as if they were sucked from the soul of Satan, packaged and sold to the sick. Sure, these industrialized products may not be the best for our bodies, but they are not the addictive poison I have previously implied. Certainly, most grocers are not mass murders. There is some goodness in today's American pantry because there is some goodness in progress. I myself am indebted to progress. For without it there would no veganism, feminism or democracy. I wouldn't have hand soap, folk music, movie theaters, paper, pencils and public libraries. 

I buy man-made materials so that I don't need to kill squirrels, sew their carcasses together and wear their fur in winter for warmth. I live in man-made buildings so that I don't need to concoct shelter from sticks, manure and mud. I buy cheap man-made shampoo and conditioner that come in big plastic bottles with pumps for my convenience. I keep them on the windowsill beside our porcelain bath sculpture, which has a spout that rains clean hot water onto my naked body every morning. I drive a car to work on cold and rainy days and listen to NPR and put on the seat heater and flip on the windshield wipers to get the bird poop off. I cross steal bridges and cement highways. I strap seat belts around my belly in the back of airplanes and stand like a skateboarder in the aisles of crowded metropolitan busses. I ride a bicycle with rubber brakes, metal spoked wheels and a cushy nylon seat. I wear boots with laces and zippers. I sit on toilets that magically flush my pee away. I sit at my computer beside a screaming, steaming radiator. I sit on our couch watching episodes of television shows, documentaries and films. I call my parents on the telephone and write letters that travel from me to Massachusetts. I wear polyester and plastic buttons and blue denim and wool gloves and soft, stretchy socks. I light scented candles and listen to music and dance and drink from cardboard cartons of organic orange juice. Man made me these conveniences. And I am grateful. I want to recede from my verbal assault on man. A moment of silence to listen and realize that it's gotten much better. Human life that is. And perhaps a big part of that is because of canned peaches, bakery baked bread and jars of jam. 

Besides, I don't want to feel like a hypocrite whenever I make myself a cup of herbal tea, steam a bag of frozen broccoli, dress my salad with salty tomato salsa, eat my mother's vegetable chili or take seconds of my mother-in-law's baked plantains. 

More

There was a joke on the radio about American literature being all junk, unworthy of the Nobel Prize. Memoir is all we have now, the joker told me. Autobiographies of the dissatisfied, spoiled Americans, miserable in their self-involved shiny lives. I don't want to be an American writer anymore. Sometimes I'd rather be an alien from the great blue space. So ashamed of the hypocritical bully we can be. Afraid the others will find our weapons and kill us dead, we are. We make fear in factories, mass produce it with our armies and news stations. I wonder when we'll blow ourselves up. When the history books will burn and God will decide to take a break for a long while before conjuring up a different kind of cell. A microscopic organism who will not turn on love, but will always turn to it. I will be more than a girl writing stories about being lonesome for home and upset over pimples, a broken bicycle and rent. I will be more.  

Here is now. Now is here.

Sometimes we must live far from home. 

In a place of cement and strangers, we walk our anxious dog in circles, picking up her poop with little plastic bags and feeding her treats to keep her from barking at small children who want to pet her, old crooked women who spook her and friendly folks who reach to touch her. Sometimes we must live far from home in a city of bricks and plaster, of stacked apartments, corner bodegas and carts of homemade Mexican food, of liquor stores and pharmacies. Sometimes we must live far from home because wanting to leave just isn't a good enough reason. Because we're adults now. And adults have to work. And when an opportunity arrises, sometimes we must stay simply for a line on a resume. 

I will start saving my change for a farm house. I will collect pictures I find of trees, farms, and wide planked kitchen floors. I may be a very old woman before I can lay in bed and listen to the sound of crying coyotes.       

marriage.

Scott puts up his hand for a high-five, his feather tattoo showing. I align my hand with his and slide my fingers between his long skinny bones. 

"You're a fuckin' weirdo... but I dig you." He says. 
"I am a weirdo." I say, implying the vast difference between our levels of normalcy. 
"Aaaaaand I am playing Pokemon. So...there's that." 

Beside him, the old Gameboy graphics blink blurrily on the screen of our flat screen desktop computer. Big block letters await his direction. He has muted the music. He isn't working in the morning and this is how he relaxes. I try not to judge his refusal to spend free time reading books about global warming, fruit or water depletion. If there aren't dragons, swordplay, magic or journeys on horseback, he isn't interested. Currently, he's waiting for the Star Wars book he ordered to arrive at our local libray. Until then, it's child's play. 

"When are we going to get our next tattoo?" I ask.
"I don't know. When we reach the next phase of our marriage. I think we're still in the feather phase."  He says. 
"So when the feather settles." 

Eden

I started eating a diet of raw fruit and vegetables last month and it makes me quite happy. It isn't just because I'm eating the food I crave and enjoy the most, but that I am physically happier. It must be some kind of sugar satiation of something--eating the food my body is biologically meant to consume---I don't know! But I'm happy every day. Scott has noticed. Strangers too. They talk to me all the time as if they can sense the smile I have suspended between my skull and skin. 

"Thatta wolf?" I hear. 

Three middle-aged men sit on the back steps of the Baptist church on Wilson Avenue where "JESUS DIED FOR OUR SINS" stands straight and stiff above them on the spire of the church. Below the cement steps they sit on, the door to the basement is propped open. There an older gentleman toils with a large standing fan. Upstairs, the 10 o'clock choir sings. These gentlemen are dawdling for donuts and coffee, I suspect.   

"No, she's a dog." I say, looking back. 
"How you doin' young lady?" One says. 
"Good, thank you." 

I now look at the world and how I live in it, differently. No longer do I allow the logical, plotted reasoning of my head to dominate and suffocate my heart. I look at everyone I pass now, no longer fearing they will ask me for money or directions or help. I think we human creatures have become so conquered by our creations that we often forget parts of us we were born with like instinctual compassion. For before we built cities, before printed paychecks, before there were mortgages and banks and governments and car accidents, before police officers and dictators, gas chambers and air conditioners, before there were beds and lawyers and Wall Street and nightly news stations and zoos and nursing homes, before all that, there were people who lived primarily on their instincts. Before we mixed cement and built skyscrapers, we came together and lived, traveled and survived together. Before we wrote the word, "love", we loved. Before there were pornographic magazines, online dating sites and pub crawls, we discovered pleasure through procreation, through love and food. We picked and we provided. But now we compassionate creatures are stuck in the steel and concrete world rich men calculated into budgets of labor costs, real estate mogul fees and state tax percentages. Now we must work something called jobs or we go hungry because food is no longer free. We have left the jungle behind, returning only to cut it down for wood, fuel and cattle grazing. Cowardly, we hide from our destruction and pollution within sealed glass windows, painted plaster and bricks,---breathing our filtered air, drinking our filtered water and eating our pre-packaged filtered food. We are like astronauts. We are like pampered babies with perpetual colic, lying upon our perfectly stuffed cow skin couches as we complain about tummy aches, indigestion and constipation. The news anchors tell us what to do and who to trust. Trust no one. Humans are terrible creatures, they say. We should hide in our locked homes and never emerge. The president is out of control. The illegal immigrants are stealing our jobs. There are countless countries pointing nuclear weapons at defenseless civilians somewhere. We are curious creatures indeed and in need of intellectual stimulation, but the tricks of the media have possessed the masses. We have forgotten the sun and the trees. We have forgotten the ocean water. Instead we sit at desks and order our smoked salmon sandwiches with chips and chocolate cake and discuss how else we can control the environment for our financial gain. As I walk in a summer storm, wind bursting through branches above, I can't help but laugh as Mother Nature proves her power to those below running from her rain. 

A man sits sweating on the sidewalk in front of McDonald's. He says hello and asks for change. I tell him I don't have any. In my fanny pack all I have is brass keys, a sandy tennis ball, plastic poop bags, a broken watch and a couple handfuls of kibble. 

"What kinda dog is that?" He asks. 
"She's a Shepard Keeshond mix, we think." I say. 
"And a poodle!" He says. 
"A poodle?" I ask. "You think?"
He nods his head and I chuckle because I'm not sure if he's making a joke or not. 
"Have a nice weekend." He says as I walk away. 
"You too. Try to stay cool." 

Today, I sit on my mattress eating half a watermelon. My sheet and quilt hang in the bathroom drying, while underwear, towels and handkerchiefs tumble in the rumbling dryer in the basement below. Sticking my silver spoon into the pink, it crunches like snow. I twist and lift up hunks of juicy fruit, chewing briefly before it coasts down my throat to fill my belly like a swollen water balloon pressed to a garden hose. With both hands, I lift the green and yellow patterned bowl and drink the rosy rainwater. 

What if the bible is right? What if the Garden of Eden, when humanity lived in the jungle, was truly a time before sin. A time when people had all they needed and wanted. A time when all desires were met. A time of peace. World peace. Imagine that, John Lennon. Imagine living in a society free of jealousy, spite, vengeance and greed. A society without violence. Without murder and wars. A time before armies and kings and palaces and slaves. A time before weapons. Is it true we left the place where we were meant to be? I wonder, for look what we have become. We praise the progress of technology, medicine, and of corporations, but still so many are dying. Dictators conduct mass murders cowardly behind chemical warfare. Gang initiations lead to random drive-bys in cities all over the world. School shootings shock, sadden and frighten us all. Drug-addicted bank robbers kill witnesses so that they can continue to pollute the body they take for granted, the life they've failed to fix. Drunk-driving vehicular homicides. Arson. Bombs. Factories falling down. An obesity epidemic. So many unsatisfied people in this world looking for relief through acts or lifestyles which only perpetuate their in-satiation and perplexed inner-turmoil. People justify, reason, even preach from dinner table pulpits why they believe what they believe. But maybe heart disease and heart attacks are a sign. PAY ATTENTION TO ME! The heart cries through chest pains and left arm tinglings. But we don't always listen. Instead we tell ourselves to leave it to the brain. The doctors will cure me. The surgeons will mend me. The occupational therapists will teach me to walk again. Scientific studies in the news warn us what to do with ourselves. As if we aren't all experts! We all should know how to make ourselves happy and healthy, but we doubt all we know instinctually because "they" know better. If they say red wine, whiskey and chicken are ok, then it must be! Hooray! But we are animals. We are. Animals meant to find our food, animals meant to procreate, shit and run. Animals meant to laugh, hide, carry heavy things and swim. We are animals, perfect animals in fact when we live the way we are meant to live. When I listen to my body and give it what it needs, I believe in God. I believe in Science too. This is not a contradiction. To me, God was the first Scientist. 

I want to take a voyage to the jungle. I couldn't move there. My heart wouldn't allow it. I have a life here in modern society and would not abandon it for any other--no matter how sweet. But to know where I come from helps me understand where I want to be. And this piece of history--this ancient human piece--- may never be repeated again. But perhaps after the end arrives, we will be given another chance to try existence over all again. I think my soul might be quite old. For I think it knows, deep down in the DNA of my spirit, that everything is a circle: a perpetual pattern of fresh beginnings and bitter ends. 

Quiet

Scott's bicycle was stolen last month. He had it locked to a street sign outside. His parents mailed him an early birthday present though: money for a new used bicycle. 

One Tuesday night, we walk to the storefront on Broadway where his name and telephone number are written on masking tape and stuck to the duck beak-shaped seat of a tall Raleigh bicycle with handlebars like antelope horns and a golden mustard frame. He test rides it in a park, but messes with the gears somehow and must walk it back to be fixed. I lay on the patchy grass of a little league outfield, watching the clouds fly in clusters across the sky. I hold Penny's leash. She sporadically sprints toward squirrels and pigeons, making me feel like a fallen maypole. Scott pedals back through the park moments later, churning the greased chain, and wobbling slightly. A little later, my sweet skinny husband buys the bicycle. Later we walk side-by-side along the narrow sidewalk of Irving Park Avenue——he with his spokes spinning, me with our pup's claws clicking. Soon Chicago's warm summer streets will feel the treads of our black rubber tires together again. My bike is in the kitchen leaning against the wall. 

I like our little apartment. It is plain, white and small by American standards. Never to grace the recycled paper pages of any hip urban magazine or appear in the filtered digital photographs of any chic design blog, but that doesn't matter to me. A cozy, cluttered little cupboard——a cotton-curtained nook——it is our hiding place. Our home. 

This was Scott's third bicycle to be stolen. Two in Boston. One in Chicago. There is something overpowering about cities, isn't there?  Almost like a cancerous mole, spreading in the sun. Every person multiplying, moving and making noise. So many people in one place, a chaos controlled by faltering morality and written laws. 

There are experiences and people here in the city we do not have in the country. And for these opportunities, we are grateful. They busy us. Proof is on the pages of the notebook beside where we lay our keys at night. Scribbled notes of our schedules, along with capital letter proclamations of love. When we feel most confined and confused within our narrow existences of work and sleep, we allow our cravings of quiet to silently torment us. After making plans and verbal pacts, we put it in a pot and place it on the back burner where the tea pot once sat. Set to simmer, we occasionally lift the lid to let some of the steam out. We are waiting for our spoonful in September and our supper one year from now.   

Traipsing away now from the crowded, crooked, potholed path of the unaccomplished artist, I feel happy relief. I've found an occupation that I feel inspired and passionate about pursuing. This is why I cannot yet fill a moving truck and race it to Massachusetts.  I've been accepted to a year-long training program to become a Montessori teacher. Classes started in June seven miles north in Evanston, Illinois. 

A few months ago, while at the intersection where the expressway meets Montrose Avenue, I stand waiting for the walk signal when the idea, "I think I'd like to be an elementary school teacher" wafts into my mind with the wind off the lake. This thought is followed immediately by, "maybe Montessori." I must say that at this point, I know nearly nothing of Montessori, and yet this moment of stillness on the sidewalk feels divine. I walk home, plunk down on the couch and begin researching. 

A grainy black and white photograph of Maria Montessori appears to the right of the screen. An old woman in a dark patterned hat and long fur coat. She looks like my Nana's mother. A soft jaw line, white hair, dark eyes and a gentle smile. Maria, I learn, was the first female doctor to graduate from the University of Rome and as valedictorian of her class nonetheless. Later, through years of research, she began developing schools. Schools for young children, who were taught in an environment made specifically for their curious minds and ever-developing bodies. A place where they learned how to live. How to wash their hands, tie their shoes, read, write, water the garden, draw pictures, do math equations, care for animals and wash dishes. Where they were supervised and taught, but left to explore, experiment and make errors. Where they were not applauded with stickers and presents, nor spanked, given time outs or humiliated with dunce caps and ruler whippings, but taught peace and independence. Maria Montessori developed schools where children learned how to be good people.   

I've been a nanny for the last few years. And I can say now that I was perplexed much of the time. I remember telling my mother that it felt like all I did was tell the children not to do things: Don't touch that! Don't climb on that. You can't play with that! Stop screaming! Stop whining. But children don't know. As I wrote in my application essay, I had to constantly remind myself that these children I was caring for were brand new humans. Knowing this was wise——for I think many people forget that children are brand new to the world——however I didn't fully understand what being new truly meant. I didn't realize that little ones want to touch and handle everything around them so that they can more fully understand their environment. That of course their instinct is curiosity! Who wouldn't want to explore a foreign place? They want to know the weight of things, the feel and smell and touch of the materials around them. They are new to language, new to emotion, new to their little bodies. New! This means that it's up to us adults to guide them. What a responsibility! One I want to learn how to do well because I tried with my uneducated instincts and didn't always get the best results. 

My future has evolved into a vision of a little schoolhouse where I can find the obscurity I shunned for so long. I was so naive. I believed everything my generation told me. Anyone can be an actor and fame is all that matters. Fame is money, confidence and popularity——therefore, fame is happiness. But happiness is not a one-size fits all state of being.   

I wasn't living out my own ideas. I couldn't. I couldn't hear them. For they had become an unintelligible murmur smothered by the bombastic cacophony of doing what I thought others would recommend I do——rather than what I actually wanted to do. I am a good actor, I told myself, so I should pursue a career as an actor. But nowhere along the way did I fully acknowledge the logic of statistics and the fact that I would hate the life of an actor. I do love to act, yes, but much more than that, I want to settle in the country and make babies, grow vegetables, hike and write. I want quiet, which is a desire I've always felt, but whenever I was close to it, I'd soon pack up and move to some new clamorous city, suppressing again the life I feared was too boring. Not boring for me, but boring when broken down into the descriptive words of my life (boring for party talk and social media posts). I admit it! I wanted impressive things to report to all my online friends. I wanted to compete in the game of life. Look at me! I'm a success! I wanted to boast through posts and photographs. Then one day I decided to stop——truly stop——caring what others thought I should do. I withdrew from the screen of my cell phone and quit facebook. And when I did this, I honestly started to make a lot of interesting decisions and self-realizations. 

Before, I had secretly convinced myself that a housewife was all I wanted to be. This was fear and self-doubt, I know now. Fear of a future career I didn't think would ever happen and severe doubt that I was smart enough to do anything but ring groceries, waitress and babysit. So I imagined playing house——with a baby on my hip, wooden spoon in my hand and full baskets of warm laundry at my feet. The problem was, my fear manifested into judgement toward women who worked and sent their kids to daycare or left them with nannies. I will never do that! I said to myself. But this was because I personally didn't want to be working. I wanted instead to hide in a house. The passive introvert side of me, the part afraid of strangers and responsibilities, started to creep in and take control. Hiding at home for years sounded like a retreat, easy and safe. I'd be in the garden picking dinner when my husband came home from his 9-5 career, his top button open, tie crooked and loose. But now I see, really see, that every person needs a purpose. We all need work of some kind, preferably meaningful work where we help others. And part of that can be parenting, but I see now that it must be more than that. 

As I've grown, my future became heavy with maybes. Maybe I could run a little Bed and Breakfast. Maybe I could write a book...or a screenplay! Maybe I could suddenly be discovered doing something, make a bunch of money and then buy a house and hide out playing with my children. But I am smart and I have a lot of love. Love I want to share. And I want to not be afraid anymore, because I'm fine once I get out there. Once I'm with other people, sharing my ideas, building something. I am worthy of work. Real work. Work that requires education, intellect, heart and will. Yes I am a woman. Maybe becoming a Montessori teacher sounds like a "girl job" or a job where I will play with little children all day, but I know that isn't true. I want to teach because society requires teachers, for without strong well-rounded education, our society will never progress at the rate our world needs. 

I just had a much needed talk with my good friend, Amy. She's in Canada working toward a doctorate in biology with a specialty in salmon. It's hard for me still that she's there and will be there for some time. But she's really happy and talking to her today made me feel so exhilarated. She's found what she wants to do and she's doing it and she hasn't let the fact that she's a woman scare her away. She's very intelligent, confident and has more guts than the fish she studies. She's an inspiration because she's not just waiting for her life to take care of her, instead she's making sure to take care of her life. I understand now. We're both learning how to make our own decisions. Do what we want to do and not what we think others would expect of us or hope for us. As we age, people tend to apply labels to our skin (as we do to them), like push pinned sticky notes. Over time it hard to see ourselves from beneath the potpourri of paper. We encourage our children to be unique and to think for themselves. But if they do these things, we criticize them for going against the norm. We tease their choices and even guilt them into doing what everyone else is doing because they're asking too many questions——which causes us to ask too many questions and we don't want any questions! WE DON'T WANT TO HAVE TO CHANGE. Or worse, we don't want to feel guilty or negligent when we outright REFUSE to change. Don't make me question authority, we plead through poking fun. PLEASE! Don't make me question my entire life. That's too hard. I have too many other things to juggle: work, cars, kids, pets, possessions. The lawn mower is broken again. The snow blower needs gas. The vacuum isn't sucking and the dishwasher has a leak. The cars need oil changes, brake pads and blinker bulbs. And I really want to buy a seventh pair of sneakers. We juggle too much. Too many scheduled activities and appointments. So busy multitasking (an overused word and endeavor), we do not have the time nor the energy to face the most basic matters with the attention they deserve. It's just easier to do it ourselves, we say, tying the shoes on our seven-year-old's feet and carrying our diaper-wearing four-year-old. We don't have the time right now! There is never enough time. Food comes from some other place, some factory where a stranger chops the meat and vegetables into microwave-safe containers. And instead of facing the real reasons we are depressed or lonely, we "treat" ourselves with gluttony, new clothes, espressos, and liquor. Then when we don't fit into our pants, we fill the pantry with "diet food" that's been chemically manufactured by scientists——not farmers, not even cooks——but scientists with beakers of bubbling preservatives, sweeteners and artificial flavors. We want our food fast, preferably pre-cooked with instructions and dried sacs of seasoning. Then we tell the doctor we don't feel well and they send us to the pharmacy where white coats behind walls of condoms and cough drops fill bottles of more chemicals. We are walking chemistry experiments. What combination of chemicals will keep our bowels regular, our moods moderate, our eyes open and our weight down? I hate chemistry. I never liked it in high school. My experiments never turned out the way they were supposed to.

I've recently lost weight, close to twenty pounds. My skin is clearing up and all the other little things wrong with me are beginning to finally mend. Candida is what I've had for the past few years. When I quit the clutter of useless information a few months ago, I had the focus to figure it out. It seems I got it from being on the pill and/or antibiotics. Chemicals. Now, with raw fruit and vegetables, I am working to undo the damage the doctors long ago prescribed me. 

These last few months I've been so angry whenever I let my thoughts loose onto the computer keys. Angry that the world won't change with me. Even now, above, I've ranted about the way others live. My words cannot reverse our society's obsessions, addictions, or general way of life. I am the one who needs to accept that this is the time in which I live. And I can stand alone on the wall and fill notebooks of scribbled grievances or I can walk to the center of the floor and dance. Isn't individualism fantastic? I don't have to be like everyone else nor do they have to be like me. Therefore, I should put my pointer fingers in my pockets or better yet, I should thrust them into the air, poking imaginary bubbles to the beat of not the pop music most everyone else is bouncing to, but to the original song I myself am belting.

Last Wednesday, I drive my dog and I 17 hours to my parents' house. There my father and I paint outside while listening to an oldies Cape Cod radio station. My mother and I walk our dogs the 5-mile "loop." On the television, the Red Sox play and Everybody Loves Raymond makes us chuckle. Long talks, family party preparations and shopping for "teacher clothes." I stay a week and weep like a baby when my father and I say goodbye. He's going to drive to Sears to get a new car battery and so he follows me on the highway. I sob, checking my rear view mirror as much as it's safe to. Before his exit, he pulls up beside me and blows me a big kiss. My bloodshot eyes run behind my $5 sunglasses. I hate living so far from them. While home, I realized how similar I am to my father. I had always credited my passionate manner to my Scorpio birthday, but this past week I understood for the first time that it isn't the sway of the stars, but my father who I take after. We both become somewhat fanatical from the books we read and the documentaries and news sources we watch or listen to. And everyone who doesn't agree or understand us is ignorant to the real truth, we believe. My father is this way with conservative politics and The Civil War. I am this way with food. My mother said to me that my father's fervent ideals can make her feel isolated. That was it for me. I realized then that I must not subject myself to such submersion anymore. I can have my beliefs and read my biased books, but I need to be careful not to fall into the deep end of extremes, obsessively googling videos, buying vegan magazine subscriptions and ordering anti-meat tee-shirts. I've already come close to drowning. Maybe I've even hypothetically died. How unbearable it is to not have those close to me as passionate about the environment and animal rights as me, I'd silently scowl to myself. But what about their suffering? What I've missed entirely is how incredibly unbearable it must have been to have a loved one who tries to convert you to their cause every day. Well, I don't want to isolate anyone I love anymore. And I don't think I will. For as long as I continue to eat this way and feel as happy and energized as I feel, I won't be urged to carry my soapbox to every family event or dinner table. I stopped feeling so defensive about veganism. I think that is because I truly believe for the first time that this way of living and eating really does work...for me. I've been on a long exploration to find the food that makes me feel physically and emotionally well. I can't, nor do I want, to force anyone else to believe what I believe. Only when one is interested will I tell them the story of my wayward path and present euphoria. For now, I will happily sip my banana smoothie, while savoring mango season and planning for apple picking.        

When we moved to New York City after graduating college, my brother made me a mix CD called, Home for Now. Years later, we have had many homes for now. Currently, Chicago is our home for now. Here the trees on either side of our apartment hold green umbrellas like a distant St. Patrick's Day parade in the rain. Here the buildings are close, but they could be closer. There is some space. Enough, anyhow, for the breeze to squeeze in and sift through the window screens like a long cool exhale, shaking the green papers I have potted in plastic pots and organic soil on the sills. One day we will have a home for now and later, today and tomorrow, next year and even several years after that. It will have a compost pile, clean air, and in the summer, rows of ripening tomatoes and crisp romaine lettuce. A structure of little painted bedrooms, bookshelves and second hand furniture, it will stand near an apple orchard, a berry farm and a mountain range. One day, we will live in this home and we will allow ourselves to be boring--oh so blissfully boring!