Sanity in Mind and Body

The Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh says that "the sanity of the body is the sanity of the mind." That would be a pretty good mantra. Today after we got back from school I told Ules I needed a nap. He gave me a hug and a kiss and rubbed my back between the shoulder blades just the way I had done for him when he had a nose bleed on Sunday. It was very sweet and tender and good for my sanity.

For those of us who had babies in 2000, the real turn of the decade for us will be on our child's tenth birthday. This will mark the halfway point to their adulthood. The last ten years have been marred by paranoia, fear-mongering and hatred on a grand scale, but when it comes to the home front we tried our best to foster affection, loyalty, patience, and passion in our personal and *familial relationships. Locavores of lurve. I think what has really marked the decade for me is a kind of weird nostalgia for off-battlefield WWII-- the old "mucking in and helping each other in the blitz" kind of spirit. Victory Gardens are all the rage, and a local shop here sells tea towels and aprons with WWII slogans: "MEND AND MAKE DO," and "KEEP CALM AND CARRY ON." The growing awareness of global warming has made us think about thrift and courage at home as well as the preservation and mending of the fragile environment which shelters, clothes, and feeds us.

This was a decade I really became rooted in domesticity in spite of my wanderlust and foolish dreams. An artist who saw me at a party the other day sneered at me and said, "I thought you were still barefoot and pregnant."
"Uh, no. But at least I'm not a sorry prick like you," I thought. I have been typecast as a mommy, and I might as well enjoy the role and settle in for the long haul. So I am volunteering for my son's school any opportunity I can and that has lead me to develop relationships with some very cool people, including many artists and creative people who are mothers.

This was the decade I fully explored a passion in food and wine and have ended up sated, saftig, and back to eating very simple foods. Last night we had crab, rice, and salad. No sauce, just good ingredients, like the chefs say. Last week I went out for an eggs benny and was surprised to find fresh imported fruit on my plate in the middle of winter. It felt wrong and unappealing. Mushy melon and tasteless strawberries don't do it for me at all. I mean, if you are going to go to all the trouble to import fruit from somewhere, at least import native fruit that is in season from the country you imported it from!

This was the decade I fell in love with UBC Farm and discovered my passion for gardening and teaching. I am very grateful for that and for the dedicated group of people who meet weekly to keep the pressure on the university to save the farm. It is through my relationship to the farm that Vancouver is starting to feel like my home, even after more than a decade of living here. This decade has been marked by a taming of my restlessness, my fernweh. I would love to do more work as an artist, travel more as an artist, but I have commitments at home that I need to attend to. This year I am really going to delve deep into my psyche and ask myself what kind of artist I am developing into and why do I make art at all. What's the point, Alfie? Is it to keep myself from destroying myself or to actually contribute something to society? (I've always felt it was more the former than the latter.) Sometimes asking yourself the question is what makes you crazy. Anyway, I will just have to take that risk. See you at the funny farm.

*I saw a sign the other day that said "Forgive quickly and kiss slowly." I think that's a good one. Maybe we need to make a version of it to hang on our wall, especially since our family can be quite volatile at times. Ahem.