All posts tagged balance

I attended an Ignite Boulder speech months ago. Months ago and I still can’t, can’t, can’t get this speech-topic out of my head: How much negative space do you have in your life?

I return to the question and immediately notice the tension that flows, like coarse waves, over my narrow shoulders, pooling around my lower back, through my stomach and into my brain stem. I am tense, stressed, hot and bothered. And it’s not just me, I know many, many stress-balls. Everyone I meet seems to reflect this state of icky-being.

Life is bliss, I was told as a child. A disappointing non-reality, indeed.

Or is it…?

There are beloved moments where I am cleansed of all discomfort and return to that state, space, perception of who I am and the reality that is mine. Bliss. Pure, pure, pure happiness. Without reason, without end. Magical bliss.

It happens on Sunday mornings, over veggie-sausage dipped in maple syrup, in the eyes of my gorgeous James Dean. It happens 8 minutes into a 4-mile run—when that sticky, addicting stuff called adrenaline, pump-pump-pumps up the jam. It happens deep in a full belly-breath, through the shake of a yoga pose, sucking on the first bit of double chocolate ice cream. Little bits of whoa, noticed and enjoyed.

Bliss happens when I make time to experience it.

I forget, sometimes, about my bliss and how accessible it is. How many sources there are and how it is really (and always) up to me to make time for happiness, make time for “me-moments.” To make time for bliss.

Now I’m curious: In your busy everyday life, how do you strive for balance?

After 27 years of vegetarianism, I’ve started to eat red meat, one timid but determined bite at a time. It started with the serendipitous discovery of the Pizza Bianca:herbed ricotta, bresaola, arugula, truffle oil, grana padana. Ignorant of the four-legged ingredients, I ordered it while dining with my two best dude friends in early November. Matthew, the owner of the restaurant, sold me on the selection when I requested that he recommend something in the vegetarian/pizza category. The man knows his Italian cuisine, so I never bothered to double-check his suggestion. One major miscommunication later, it arrived, covered in air-dried salted beef, which looks more like pieces of folded purple ribbon rather than cow… anything.

I didn’t speak at first, just stared. Bresaola staring right back at me, like, Wadda you lookin’ at, Granola? Pinot Noir decanted, two endless friendships by my side, I held my wineglass by its upper stem, interrupted their conversation, and proposed a toast: To becoming a carnivore (at least for an evening). 

And so I ate a cow. Mentally blessed her with each chomp, for providing herself for my consumption. (And in such a fashion! And on such a day! And with such company!) I felt sudden, full-bodied gratitude for her benevolent life. For her sacrifice. For her purpose of living, only to be slaughtered, thinly sliced, salted, aged for months, and heaped on a thin-crusted pizza with the company of greens, and cheese, and truffle oil. Final resting place of this beloved cow? As a member of a flavor profile that would woo the gods to take human form. And did successfully woo me into red meat eatery.

Since the bresaola, I have swallowed sausage, twice, pancetta, bacon, ham, ground beef (in pasta sauce), and braised pork. I’d be lying if I said I enjoyed it all. I have no idea how you (religious meat eaters) intentionally, repeatedly consume braised pork, for example. And sausage? Oily and spicy= upset tummy for this girl. No go. But overall I dig the experience. Why? Because although I credit my vegetarianism and general healthy diet for my thin physique and overall good health, I believe, that yes, part of having balance IS NOT HAVING IT. Is moving intentionally to the (dreaded) other side of the spectrum. And playing there, with childlike innocence and perhaps even a small spark of naughtiness.

There seems to be ying and yang in all states of natural being: Darkness and light, sleeping and waking, growth and death. It would stand to reason, then, that for all matters of human behavior a little bit of everything is a formula worth betting on. To what degree? And in what precise ratio? Eh, those are the types of sophisticated questions ya’ll will have to answer for yourselves.

After all, I’m justa simple meat eatin’ foo…