01 April 2012
food, chiles, skiing and the Bay Area
I am feeling a sense of calm in my life for the first time in a while. I'm not sure why, or what is different. I think its related to my feelings about my body and diet. When I am feeling positive about both, daily living seems easier. This happens when I'm not restrictive with my diet but when I have enough self-awareness to think about what I really want in the moment, acknowledging how I will feel later. When both these pieces are in place, I make good decisions and feel free. The tension around what I'm eating and not eating (and what I want to eat but don't allow myself) gives way to eating because its pleasurable. Food loses a Katherine-imposed label (carbs=sugar=bad; animal protein=good) and is consumed within a context. I've also noticed I like eating with other people more than eating alone. Eating is a social activity. As a species, we have always eaten with other people. The entire process of gathering, preparing and consuming food was a (macro or micro) community event. Living alone and spending my time in a variety of places each day means I eat alone during the week. I relish the weekends when I have someone to share food with.
March was a really busy month. I injured my lower back at the gym around the 1st of the month, and spent two days in severe pain. Then it phased away and I never learned what happened or why I healed so quickly. 10 days later I felt stable enough to ski at Taos, in New Mexico, with my family. The trip was wonderful, and I came back deeply missing the Southwest. I attempted to re-create Pork Stew with Chiles Verdes that I had on our last night, but it wasn't at all the same. It took a week back at home to shake off the persistent longing for the desert. I miss the space to breathe, the open sky, wide expanse. Seeing all the stars at night was such a treat. The trip also highlighted how awesome my family is and how lucky I am to have such great people for parents and siblings. We always have such a good time together. Will my future family be as lovely?
Two weeks after skiing, I went to Oakland for a work trip. We presented a workshop in downtown Oakland, in a beautiful conference room with a panoramic view of the entire city. Although I've spent a lot of time in Oakland as its Kevin's hometown, he and I have never gone into downtown Oakland, choosing to stay in yuppie Rockridge or venturing into Berkeley or San Francisco. I love Rockridge, but it was so exciting to be in a part of Oakland that feels like a true city. The downtown area gotten a lot safer over the past ten years. There is a fantastic free shuttle that goes up and down Broadway all day. We stayed in Jack London Square, near the Bay, and presented eight blocks up the street in the heart of downtown. The downtown Oakland BART station is right there. The streets are totally walkable, and there are so many small businesses. Several old, historic theaters have been renovated and re-opened. There is so much history. I was only there for 48 hours, and spent most of those hours working, but I did spend my one evening in San Francisco having dinner with George, an old friend, and a dessert/drink afterwards with Eva, my old roommate and even older friend from college who is in graduate program for nursing at USF. I love San Francisco too.
It was my first trip since I met Kevin where I was in the Bay Area without him. I first traveled to Berkeley during the summer of 2008 to visit my best friends from college who were enviously all in the same place for the summer, taking classes or working. I was interning at Mono Lake, having an amazing time, and the trip to Berkeley compounded the wonderful summer. It was on that warm summer trip that I fell in love with the Bay Area. Less than a year later I fell in love with a guy from the Bay Area, and spent most weekends there the following summer. But it had been so long since I was there alone, with my own agenda and desires and things I wanted to do. As shishi as it sounds, I love the culture there, and I don't mean the nightlife and restaurants. I can't afford to enjoy "the culture" that way. I mean the people who live there, and the values that are important to them. It was glorious not having a car. Between BART, the Muni bus system in San Francisco, the free Broadway shuttle and walking, it was easy to get around with public transit. (The only time I took a taxi was late Thursday night to get back to my hotel from a BART station, as we weren't staying in a super safe area for a woman to be walking alone after sundown.) This trip cemented the fact that it's important to me to have access to reliable public transit. I love taking BART to the city. As a geographic region, it's unbeatable. I love being so close to water, I love the hills and hiking. I love the diversity of the region, especially the East Bay (where Oakland and Berkeley are), the progressive efforts of the area to be environmentally friendly (even when it does come off as a little pretentious sometimes), and the benefits that come from having a highly educated population. I love how I feel when I'm there. It feels like home. But the revelatory part of the recent trip for work was how novel it felt to be there within an area I already know a certain way. I'd never been to downtown Oakland. I'd never lived life there as a professional. I'd never gotten coffee at 7am and taken the bus to work. All the times I've spent there with Kevin have been on holidays or long weekends, staying in his mom's quirky little house and within the realm of "his" Oakland: Hudson Bay Cafe, Diesel Bookstore, Bittersweet, the Trader Joes on College Avenue. (I must add that I first explored these places in 2008, before I met Kevin, because Alexis' family also lives in Rockridge.) This trip was beyond my area of familiarity, and thus was so exciting! Almost like being a tourist within your own city. And it was also significant because I was there by myself, doing my job. I was not part of a couple, or there because someone else was there. I can't wait to go back this summer several times to visit Kevin while he is interning at LinkedIn in the South Bay.
The third major event of March was that I finished my General Chemistry course! I had been enrolled in the self-paced course online through University of New England since mid-August 2011 when I was working full-time. It can be completed in up to 8 months, and I finished it in just over 7. Because I've been part-time since January, this year so far has been so busy. The weeks fly by like birds. I finished the coursework in early March, and then spent several weeks studying for the final. I took the 4-hour exam one week ago, earning an 89% and managed to pull an A- in the course! This is the second of eight courses I've completed this year (Microbiology was the first), and I've earned As in both. I can no longer think of my science-minded self in a negative light (which isn't healthy anyway), but I have the data to support the fact that I am actually a bit of a smartypants in science! One more self-imposed barrier knocked down. I'm now starting Anatomy & Physiology this week at UCLA, and Organic Chemistry through UNE online again. I'm excited for both! Learning on my own, for my own knowledge, is empowering. And the fact that each of these classes is a building block for my graduate education and future career is so exciting.
I really want to write here more. I have a lot of thoughts and feel better when I can get them out with words, rather than letting them swim around in my head for weeks.