Yummy yummy tofu (etc.)

Hah! I've learned so much about cooking tofu since becoming a vegetarian--it can be tricky stuff. Yesterday, I made some great tofu burrito filling--just crumbled extra-firm tofu, sauteed with tomato paste and spices. That was a very-fun project, and it has inspired me. I've been cooking all day today, mostly baking breads. My nature writing class went out to Big City Bread for lunch today, and the restaurant was very quaint and the food delicious. Grilled vegetable wrap, including eggplant, zucchini, portabellas, red peppers, spinach, feta, and tzatziki sauce. Yum! But the thing that really got to me at the restaurant today was the bread selection--never, except in a Parisian boulangerie have I seen more wonderful things. So I immediately came home and made whole wheat oatmeal bread. Later tonight, I made cherry-walnut banana bread from the Fatfree Vegan Blog, of which I am a frequenter. One thing I've always wanted to do is bring the taste of French bread to the U.S.--something that has never, that I am aware, been successfully done. French bread in the U.S. tastes not even remotely like the French bread in *gasp* France--even at such gourmet locations as Panera Bread and the Atlanta Bread Company. Somehow, I have to learn the secret to making authentic French bread. I start with handcrafting and kneading my own loaves--I know that makes a difference. One day, I will produce a baguette reminiscent of French breakfasts (and lunches, and dinners, and all in between...) and that may very well be the happiest day of my life.

It was so cool out today! The wind was very strong and chilling--I had to break out the long sleeves again. It was overcast most of the day but never rained, so on the whole today was my favorite kind of day. I remember watching storms approach when I was a kid--playing outside in the summertime, when suddenly you notice the sky growing dark and a wind coming in (usually from the east, sweeping off the ocean). Breathing in that pre-thunderstorm air is always envigorating, as if you are inhaling the very electricity and excitement of the storm itself. Those electrons brush your nerve endings and then... The storm is inside you, in all its grace and wonder. That's what today reminded me of--sitting at the table outside Big City Bread, the tiny white lights in the trees overhead were the brightest visible light source. The leaves rustled in the wind and let go of their branches, and suddenly we would look down to find our salads replenished with new leaves. I held my coffee mug tightly between the palms of my hands as the chill bumps formed up my arms to the opening of my three-quarter sleeves. But the rain never came. Not today.

It would have been a glorious day for a run, and indeed I planned on it, but this afternoon I came down with a headache/stomachache/sore throat. So I decided not to push my body too far. Perhaps this weather will linger into tomorrow.

Could it be...?

After all the hard work of the last two or three weeks, all the numbness and the foggy-mindedness and the general unpleasantness that accompanies being a master's accounting student in the last weeks of the semester... After all that wrapped up today at 5:00 PM, with the exception of two final exams, it is hard to know how to react to a moment of rest. I have oscillated so much recently on my opinion of accounting, of school, even of my very life--but now, now that it is all a memory, I am reminded that there is nothing that lasts forever in this lifetime. Nothing hard will endure for very long, because life is not very long anyway. And I feel silly for having worried so much.

But sometimes, you have to worry. Not worry as in feel anxious, but worry as in give a care. I can't not care about school, about my grades or just my general performance. I can't sleep well at night with things hanging over my head that must be done and done well. These past weeks, I've had to worry. I've had to care, had to work harder than I ever thought I could work. And now I know it's all okay. Two finals, and then some exam grading. That's all that's left for me, until I begin my internship in late May.

The rain last night really cooled the weather. I think the earth was parched, dehydrated, overheated. Sometimes I think I can hear the earth panting, here in Georgia in the summertime. And the rain refreshes it like a cold sip of water on a sticky, swollen tongue. The rain refreshed me last night--Bob and I walked through it on the way to the Wesley Foundation, and the misty spray in my hair and over the lenses of my glasses helped me feel alive to the world again. I mean really alive, life that pierces through you. I've really felt numb, dead, like my spirit was a vegetable and I've just been dragging it behind me to all my classes and meetings. But wind and rain on your face--that will wake you up, sure enough. It did for me, at least.

To write, to write... I'll write this weekend. I have things to say. Thoughts like bats, flying haphazardly around, fill my mind right now and bang on the inside of my skull, asking to be let out. Open up, they say, admit to us. I've not been trying to hide my thoughts--I've not even had writer's block. I've simply had other things on my mind that were more pressing.

More pressing than my ultimate calling in this life--amazing thought. Distressing thought. I don't strive for much, but I should really learn to strive for less.

Vote with your fork?

When we go grocery shopping we have to make a choice--either we may buy the cheap, pesticide-laden produce that comes to us at the expense of farmland, the environment in general, and our own health--or we may vote against it. Buy organic. In other countries people pay very dear prices for their food, up to 1/3 of their annual incomes. In America? We spend less than 10% of our incomes on food, when we're the nation in all the world with the best chance to do something better.

I came across a blog entry today based on a speech, "The Cornification of America," delivered by a well-respected and talented nature writer/journalist named Michael Pollan. I read the blog, and was reminded of how strongly I feel about these things. I would say more, but that would be taking away from the power of his message. Read it for yourself.

Prioritizing...

I decided today that I'm not going to let my body and my sense of self to take backseat to my school responsibilities. This may seem like a rather obvious conclusion to have come to, but truthfully, I have struggled nearly all my life with putting too much importance on grades and on excelling in school. When I know that no one cares about your GPA in graduate school, why am I so fixated on As, trembling at the very thought of staining my track record with a B in an accounting class? Long after I have graduated and gotten a job and probably moved on to something else, when my grades are long forgotten and many of the technical skills I had once mastered have become dull and rusted, my body and my self-worth, and yes, my God, these things will remain. And while I know that God will have grace with me even in all the time that I do not give to Him (not that this justifies living in a way that less than glorifies Him), my body will constantly remind me how it was neglected and forgotten during my college years. I'm 22--at the peak of my physical shape. I don't want to spend my twenties overwhelmed to the point that I cannot physically exert myself and enjoy breathing so hard my lungs want to burst, or my eyes stinging with perspiration that rolls down my forehead.

I went on a run this evening, a beautiful spring (though practically summer) twilight. I hadn't run in about a week and a half, but before that it had been at least six weeks. Though my run tonight was short--only about 2 miles--it felt so wonderful to get moving and out in the fresh air. Lately I have had it in my head that I was developing a vitamin D deficiency (completely fabricated in my own mind--it would be really hard to shut yourself away from the sun to that degree), and it was a healing experience to be out in the fading light of day, running beneath the honeysuckle that creeps over the sidewalks, through sprinklers and past dads sitting on their front porches with their young daughters playing in the front yard. And I decided that nothing, nothing, not even an A in my advanced accounting class, is worth forgetting and forsaking the exhilaration of working your body. I know that the dividends will be much greater... and I know that I am preserving not only my health and well-being for myself, but am also preserving my body as a temple, a sanctuary to honor the Lord.

As I was walking home from class today, I saw something intriguing--a bright red Jeep Grand Cherokee, pollen-dipped, and on the back of the Jeep a spider web, the most prototypical concentric, undamaged, possibly, that I have ever seen. I think about the times when I have taken note of spider webs in nature... Beneath my mom's climbing jasmine, along infrequently traveled trails through the woods, places serene and inviting to a spider seeking to set its wily trap. But never, in all my experience, on the back of a Jeep. The golden-brown grains of white oak blossoms, which litter the sidewalks all over campus, lay suspended in the adhesive fibers of the web, alongside the salmon-colored, teardrop-shaped wings of maple seeds. The most prominent symbols of the birth and growth embodied in spring, but not a single insect. Nor did I see the spider. Perhaps she built another web elsewhere, not putting much faith in the power of one built upon a brightly painted hunk of metal sitting in a parking lot. I hope she did.

Breathless

I've been so busy and my energy so sapped with all the things I have to do, I don't know how to make it through the next few weeks until the end of school. It's so close, but I can't even think of how close it is because all I can think of is what I have to get done this minute... and that minute...

I wish I could take care of my body better. I want to run. I want to walk. I want to be in the sun. I want to eat more fresh vegetables. But I can't do any of those things like I should, because I cannot invest the time. I feel like I'm losing these days and months of my life. It makes me so sad. I wish I could spend more time with my friends... Especially those who are graduating soon and moving away. I'll look around one day and they'll be gone, and I will have missed their departure, trapped in the cloud of my own breathless life. I wish I would write more, and on my time. Deadlines are sneaking up faster than I can crank out even mildly acceptable junk to turn in, and I cannot do anything that I feel enhances me as a person. I wish I could spend more time in prayer and meditation. When I sit down to seek God intensely, my mind will not leave behind all the things of the day, and all the things coming up for tomorrow. It will not let go of the wishes and dreams that I am constantly having to put on hold, and it will not let go of my sadness and my overwhelmedness.

Excuse me, but I have to go to yet another meeting... Maybe you'll hear from me again sometime in the next month.

Reconciliation

I'm silly. I let myself get beaten down by things that are not important in the end, and that I get little enjoyment from along the way. I tend to exaggerate my worries as well, so that something whose consequences are probably are not dire becomes something of utmost importance to me, and thus a source of fear and regret. All along, I know that those feelings are not rewarding; at the same time I know I am doing my very best in everything I attempt, I have been a good steward of all that has been entrusted to me, as in the parable of the talents. Even if the return is not as great as I hope or expect from myself, the point is that I invest in the things that I should and I am faithful in them, to the end.

The accountant side of me always looks to be busy and to be efficient, and to excel in what I do. If I fail myself, then I have to live with that for the rest of my life, even if I hurt no one else in the wake. I have learned how to manage my time and how to be efficient; I have learned a satisfying work ethic that usually rewards me in the end with a good grade or a sense of accomplishment or a feeling that I am doing something that will have far-reaching influence.

But the artist side of me finds satisfaction more in the side streets along the way--an amazing conversation with this person, a newly-established, deep connection with that person, a wonderful sense of aesthetic pleasure as I stop every few steps and look around me and breathe in the atmosphere of a world that still has much to teach me and many new places to take me. In this vein, I revel in the slowness and the solitude that is found when you step away from all the things I otherwise work so hard to achieve.

Some people find it difficult to reconcile the two ways of being. Can one person be type A and type B all at once? There are times when even I (perhaps especially I) wonder if the parts of who I am are at all compatible. But when I look hard into it all, I come up with the conclusion that all I really want to do is be the best person I can be, live the most fulfilling life I can live. (To put it from a spiritual perspective, to become more Christlike each day of my life.) Sometimes that involves a lot of hard work. I don't mind that; to the contrary, I really love fulfilling my responsibilities and feeling like I have done something good and productive. On the other hand, sometimes living the right life means slowing down to realize what truly is meaningful--to think about the things that have eternal significance. Does accounting have eternal significance? Sometimes--but it's easy to get caught up in the workload and lose sight of the higher goal. Does writing have eternal significance? Usually, I find--but not when I try to force it upon myself as a relaxer, as a tool to unwind. When it comes naturally, when my mind is clear and open to the inspiration that must always precede anything aesthetically pleasing, then I feel the significance of it. Then I feel like I am fulfilling my purpose in this life.

Each of us has many purposes to fulfill, don't we? If you were put here on earth for one reason and one reason only, then wouldn't your life become remarkably dull? But thankfully, most of us have many giftings and many things that move us and change us and fulfill us. The challenge for me is not deciding what my "one great purpose" on earth is, but how to balance my smaller purposes, to finally create a large mosaic of all the different small pieces of glass that I bring to the world. Sometimes, I get out-of-balance; right now, I think I am beginning to find my way back to the right path again.