"You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step." Martin Luther King 

I'm avoiding writing in my blog. I'm not sure why but part of my Zen practice is to commit to something, almost for the sake of seeing who you 'become' (what lesser known part of you appears) when you don't want to keep, or can't even remember (!) your commitment. I committed to the blog this last time to take note of the feelings that arise as I relinquish food and eating patterns to excess, and I can't say why I'm turning away today from writing about it.

I suppose there is a part of me that wants to think my urge to overeat doesn't exist when I'm not struggling with it, and of course in Zen practice that is absolutely the truth. Suffering cannot exist in the present because when we are present we are attending as fully as possible to our thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Though those might not always feel good or in sync, we are usually able to take them for what they are and not so much see them as an enemy tide sweeping us into whatever unpleasantness conditioned mind would have us lunge toward.

Wishing there were more food on my plate is not in and of itself a crisis. Believing I "deserve" more and that I can't resist the call toward more tips the balance of contentment and pain toward suffering. And the endless debate of "I know I shouldn't but I can't resist," is the ultimate stronghold for suffering because we can spend a lifetime believing that that debate is something other than a pointless sham, designed to pull us out of present awareness into an unresolvable, futile conversation-- a thinly veiled, if very compelling, "damned if you do, damned if you don't".

I now write down what I eat each day and email it to my sponsor. Some folks commit to what they are going to eat ahead of time and send or call that in to their sponsors. I chose the former because that seemed more do-able and it has the benefit of helping me really see what I eat and, even more illuminating how. Many things have been predictable, some have caught me by complete surprise. The revelation that I'm not in need of more than 3 meals a day is huge and strikes me as funny all at the same time. I was so sure I needed a snack between lunch and dinner but that snack was a small meal (!). I noticed instead that having an actual snack, in the form of an apple or the fruit, is more than sufficient to last until a dinner at most any hour.

The largest surprise has been the depth of what I am forced to call affection for food. I am at turns grateful for the realization and embarrassed that something inanimate and eventually deadly when abused can have become an object of adoration for me when I have so much love in my life and within myself. Seeing all of this clearly, without what's called a food fog, is more than anything joy producing because I no longer feel led down the garden path of delusion that eating out of control will solve some sort of emotional deprivation in my current or prior experience and that feels like the way out of emotional bondage. I suppose it's not unlike being in an abusive relationship and then 'one day' waking up to the knowledge that you do not have to keep participating and the future though not certain, is sure to be brighter than the past with this knowledge.

Avoiding writing these things down provides another decoy to really seeing, which of course is the path toward true freedom. Both my 12-step program and my Zen practice speak of 'the key' as willingness. While those keys abound, I figure I'm good.

"It is not my experience that we are here to fix the world, that we are here to change anything at all.  I think we are here so the world can change us.  And if part of that change is that the suffering of the world moves us compassion, to awareness, to sympathy, to love, that is a very good thing." Cheri Huber

Thanks for the fish

'There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable.
There is another theory which states that this has already happened.'
-Douglas Adams, Restaurant at the End of the Universe



I do not believe I read any Douglas Adams from which the title of this entry (Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy) comes, inspired the opening to today's entry. I didn't even know DA died at the much too young age of 49 until I searched his name moments ago.



One of the reasons I am slow to blogging is having read a few 'run of the mill' blog entries, I have noted that the contents are of most interest, most likely, to the reader and in many cases, few others. I decided to forge ahead in spite of this because, well, to state the obvious-- I can -- whereas I know I could not last one half of one half-day on Survivor. The closest I've come to that is sleeping in a tiny unheated cabin for one called a hermitage at my Zen teacher's monastery (And if you don't have a Zen teacher, you really should). At that I felt like Rocky climbing the stairs in the Philadelphia Art Museum the first time I used the out house on prem. (The requisite silence of the privileged environment precluded appropriate musical accompaniment regrettably.)



After I posted my maiden entry here on Sunday, and took childish delight in my comments and followers (thank you Dad!), it dawned on me that I won't even write a Christmas letter because I find it an impersonal way to communicate, (though I love to read each and every one we receive) yet here I am BLOGGING effusively and backwards sommersaulting in my mind because, among others, my dear friend BU said she was along for the ride all the way over there in Florida! And speaking of Dad, boy do I owe him an apology for his email accompaniments to his wonderful photographic submissions to friends and family (Dad, they're long winded I have said. That's fine with me, he has replied. And so he should.)



Even before I received word that my job had been eliminated, I interviewed for a wonderful writing job in another company and it seemed as if I got along famously with the team. The hiring manager delivered the feedback that 'there were some problems with your writing samples.' I'm sure anyone reading this can imagine that is like telling a Miss America contestant.... "Miss Minnesota? Your looks? That bathing suit? I don't think so.... " Though she said complimentary things about my personality, I was crushed because I so felt as if I hit it off with her. In fact, I think she did me the courtesy of explaining 'about my writing' because she did like me so well.



She spoke about the writing being multilayered and difficult to tease out that which was original from that which was overlay-- I am paraphrasing but that's what I walked away with. Have I justified my maintaining a blog with this explanation and will I let an HM read it? I don't really know but, as stated elsewhere, I'm in it to see what happens and couldn't be more flattered that my loved ones (and everyone who has responded to me is *definitely* in that crowd) want to read.



Ciao for now,



C

PS: RR- start your blog so *I* can read it!



While I admire the glass is half full type...I'm comfortable with the fact that my glass will always have a slow and steady leak. (author unknown)