Well, tomorrow is International Women’s Day. I am going up to the WIBC show in Teulada to connect with all the other entrepreneurial ladies here on the Costa Blanca. What with the weather finally improving this weekend, it promises to be a fun and well-attended event. Kudos to Karla for starting it all and putting her money where her mouth is. A proud Canadian.
All the blogs and stories I’ve read about converting to the raw diet told me this: after a few weeks raw, try eating cooked food for one day and see how you feel. Well, yesterday was my daughter’s birthday party, so I had pasta, spanish omelette, cake, cookies. I didn’t overindulge by any means. But this morning I awoke with a puffy face, irritated and with an absolutely HORRID taste in my mouth. With a chancre on my tongue. If that’s not my body talking to me, I don’t know what is. Is this how I used to feel all the time?
So, last week we finally decided to send our lovely little daughter to nursery school a few mornings per week. There are pros and cons that I won’t bother discussing in detail here; we all know that kids need the company of other children, but that they also benefit from close attachment to their caring parents. But I must say that I was not quite prepared to have this enter my house quite so suddenly:
Nestle recommends AT LEAST 1/2 litre per day folks.
crap from nestle.
For those of you who don’t read Spanish, the label says “Grow healthily, for a balanced development. From one year onwards, it is recommended to take at least 1/2 litre daily of Nestle Crecimiento. ” (their bold type.) Can we discuss just who it is who recommends that anyone over one year old consume at least 1/2 litre daily of Nestle milk crap? Can we discuss the authoritative tone of this label? Can we discuss marketing this crap in my daughter’s daycare? I must say that I am apt to march down to the town council with the offending tetrapack and see what can be done to stop this insidiousness. Harrumph.
Yesterday morning I got irritated by my inability to express myself quickly and clearly in Spanish. Of course, I speak Spanish. But it’s not my mother tongue and never shall it be. I find myself describing things instead of naming them, for want of specific vocabulary. Yesterday, for example, I spent a couple of hours searching for our accounts book. I suddenly realised where I had put it – in the front of the the hanging file box. so I say to my guy “Hey, it’s in the blah bla bla” in spanish, not using the specific word “archivador” beacause, of course, I didn’t know that word. And he looks at me blankly… so I try again….”You know the blah blah blah”, but I get the colour wrong, saying black when it’s actually blue, and he gets even more confused thinking it’s the antique black strong box that we have in the living room and I just think “ARGH! If only I could speak in English!” Because, of course using the specific word “hanging file” or “strong box” immediately differentiates between the two, regardless of the colour. Sigh. Deep breath. It’s not a situation that’s going to change soon, and the only way to remedy it is to continually improve my spanish.
It made me think that really, I live with one foot in either world – the anglophone and hispanic worlds. I read online news and blog mostly in English, my clients are a mix of English and Spanish speakers, I read Spanish newspapers and hang out with Spanish speakers…but in my heart and in my head I will never lose my mother tongue. English is the language in which I dream.
Right now, I have either foot in separate worlds when it comes to raw eating. I am still eating high-raw, but not yet near 100%. I have decided to buy the necessary equipment – juicer, blender, dehydrator – and cannot wait for them to be delivered! Really, my little blender has done its job well but is no Blendtec or Vitamix. When is a orange juice, banana and strawberry smoothie not a smoothie? When it’s made in a 6-year-old food processor! Check out that lovely texture!
Not very smoothie
Anyway, it tasted lovely! So yeah, until I fully invest – both monetarily and mentally – in raw food, I cannot expect to achieve full success. With one foot in either world, I shall inevitably get out of sync. Watch this space…it’s in the works. I’ll let you know when my feet have lined themselves up.
Lately, I realise how fortunate I really am. With the “credit crunch” or “economic crisis” really biting in this already seasonal part of Spain, I am seeing friends flounder in the wake of the tidal wave of unemployment and downsizing. For me, things are going well. I have all my bases covered. In fact, I am still in the position of having too many things. Without really being aware of what I was doing, I have in the past few weeks lent my little Tascam cassette 4-track to a musician friend and my terribly old yet incredibly reliable Fujitsu Lifebook (10.4″ screen, 500Mhz Celeron processor, max 256Mb RAM, 18GB HD) to a photographer friend. Insodoing, I liberate myself a little more.
I admit residual attachment…I think that I expect to have these things returned. But I am sure that in the meantime something else will take their place and soon I shall wonder why I kept them so long. Admitedly the Fujitsu saved my butt a few times when my more powerful but less reliable Powerbook decided it needed a break. But now that I have two half-living Macs (one with the random sleep problem and a sticky keyboard, the other with one shot RAM slot), I have a backup in case either decides it can no longer mark the paces. But I digress. What I am thinking is this: it costs us little to give/lend useful things to those less fortunate, who can then make fuller use of them than we might. And it frees up a little of our precious space to allow new things to brook their entry. A good way to do it is with freecyle, but I am sure you can find people in your immediate surroundings to appreciate things you’ve outgrown.
One of the wadical and normally much-appweciated side-effects of adopting a waw diet is wapid weight loss. In my case, I have no idea how much I have lost in kgs or lbs, but I have certainly slimmed. The unwanted side-effect has to do with my clothes: my trousers are definitely looser, especially around the thighs and bottom. This means that they hang that little bit lower. As I wear mainly white when I work, it means that I now have unsightly dirty trouser bottoms a la teenager. My old trousers are a 42. The other day I bought a pair of jeans in size 38. I’ve been high-raw for 7 weeks.
On Feb 21, CBS broadcast a television program about lymphedema. Watch it here: http://cbs4.com/health/Lymphedema.breast.cancer.2.940345.html
I spent Saturday on my Yoga Teacher’s Training Course. Every time I go to class, I just feel so blessed to finally be putting into action all the years of work that I have done since first shyly slipping into the Sivananda Centre in London. All the pranayama, all the early mornings, the fasts, the dedication. I’ve not been a perfect student by any means, but I am dedicated and truthful in my search and I think that this is what matters most.
This weekend we lost a member of the group. We began with 12 and are now 10. It’s normal for this to happen. Even one weekend per month – plus plenty of homework I might add – is a heavy addition to some people’s already hectic lives. We all come with our baggage, and our perception of how well, or not, we might fare on a four-year-long course is coloured by all this. I remain surprised at how many of my fellow students still smoke – uh, what??? but, yeah, this is Spain – and how many have little experience of Yoga before committing to teacher training. As I working masseur, I know how hard it is to put into practice what you learn on these sorts of courses. I may be wrong, but I believe that of my graduating class of 20 proud masseurs back in July 2002, only I work full time in the field. So, as for the Yoga teachers, well, I wonder how many of us will get through all the course. I don’t mean to be smug by any means. I too may face unexpected circumstances and flounder and fail. But nothing is a failure if you’ve learnt something along the way and I have certainly learnt a lot so far.
This week we covered Ashtanga Yoga, book II of Patanjali’s Sutras, verses 28-end. We talked about Yamas, Niyamas, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, Samadhi. What they are? How can they be applied to daily life? How mastery of one leads naturally to the next. Of how small steps give way to tiny moments of clarity, increasingly long moments of concentration, paradigm shifts, sloughing off of the unnecessary. All very interesting, absorbing, philosophical and yet practical, just as is Yoga itself. I am recording everything on my new site alteayoga.com , but it’s all in Spanish. Sorry, but I don’t have time to make it bilingual for now! Anyway, I can’t wait for next month! But I’d better get my homework done this time…no sloping off on work placements and educational talks about MLD…for now!
One thing that everyone who blogs about the raw lifestyle and in particular the raw transition diet is that the lack of a raw community makes it tough going. I found myself isolated before on a vegetarian diet. In Spain, it’s not the norm to eschew meat. But now that I am trying to go raw, well, let’s just say it’s all gotten a little harder. I am lucky in that I mostly have the support of my dude, who does at least 50% of the food preparation. Here’s a example of a lovely lunch that we prepared together a few weeks ago (carpaccio of artichoke, papaya and raspberry salad with ground seeds and a big crunchy green salad)
Artichoke carpaccio, raspberry and papaya salad, green salad
Now, if that’s not support, I don’t know what is. I am not yet sure if he understands why I am doing this, but he supports me. But after a month-and-a-half, I am starting to waver a little. It’s so difficult…everything is baked, fried, cooked, steamed, broiled. It’s deceptively simple to eat raw but practically difficult. I miss snacking on biscuits and realise that I am abusing chocolate – and not even raw chocolate – instead. I don’t know if I need to eat more at mealtimes, or if I’m just nibbling because I like to nibble. I am humming and hawing about buying a Vitamix because it does seem like a very expensive appliance (I could nearly buy a new Mac with the money I’d spend on a blender…) and don’t yet have a dehydrator, nor a juicer capable of juicing leaves. I guess that I need to invest in kitchen equipment in order to feed myself properly, but with space an issue, and with three separate meals being prepared sometimes (partner, me, baby) it get complicated. I am totally firm in my resolve to raw-ify by summer. But, I am hitting the obstacles now – both in my own head and in the world around me – and need to hurtle over them rather than slink past them guiltily chewing a slice of bread.
I have been on a high-raw diet for 6 weeks now. I must admit that the changes are immediate and profound. The sudden sense of mental clarity is astounding: 7 weeks ago I struggled against afternoon fatigue constantly. I had dark circles under my eyes and a distinctly puffy jawline. Not to mention my hips…But after six weeks of raw-all-day followed by a lightly cooked supper I feel distinctly better.
I see it in photos: that is partly what convinced me that a change was due, the dark circles under my eyes. Now, my eyes are brighter, they feel more open, I see more, my mind is sharper and I am definitely more loving and more tolerant. I see already that people respond to me differently. I guess that love is always reciprocated, even unconsciously.
The other thing I find interesting is that this is the first time in my life I don’t feel like an imposter using the words joyful, or radiant, or peaceful. Before, I was calm on the outside and tormented on the inside. Like many people, I soldiered through the work day only to turn to jelly at home. Even when I changed jobs and began working with massage, a job I love and never intend to leave, I still found myself struggling to maintain inner harmony. No matter how much yoga I did – and I used to practice 6 days per week – I still found myself flaring up in anger at small things, or suffocating in a silence of shyness at crucial moments. But then, this long, long path I walk has led me here, to this place of joy, of peace, of certainty that what I am doing is the right thing to do, the right thing for me, for the people around me and for the world. And so the anxiety gap narrows, become but a crack, and I skip merrily across it, light as air, knowing that what I believe and what I do are now one and the same.