Have you ever watched a little kid eat... I mean really? Ever had the pleasure of trying to talk a kid into eating something that they are just NOT interested in? I have...and for WAY TOO LONG I took it as a challenge...get the kid to eat...and MAKE him/her eat at least some of this, and that, etc.

Did you know that children are born able to listen to their bodies, a skill that most of us adults have long since lost? The studies have been done... the data collected... given a healthy variety of foods, a child will naturally eat a balanced diet in a few days time. Not at every meal. In a few days time. Given a healthy variety of food. Not "McD's or hotdogs?"

I've been working on "conscious eating" for a few months now. Eat what you want, when you want it, and stop when you have had enough. It's such a simple concept that I'm sure MANY would want to argue "It won't work!" Well... I'm keeping my head up, and my hopes too... because I believe that if I give up control long enough, I will regain what I had as a child. Regain the ability for not only my body to know what I need, but the ability for my mind to hear it.

I have been plagued recently with thoughts about the diet industry in America and here in Latvia. While my boyfriend thinks I am beautiful, and is happy with what he's got in me... he told me the other day that a woman we saw on tv who was so skinny you could count her ribs was beautiful. Now, I'm not arguing... she had a pretty face. But her body was a tortured being. No normal well fed adult woman has ribs like that poking out of her sides. Sorry, I don't believe it. And I know this. So, why did I get a sinking feeling in my stomach, and a frown on my face, if I KNOW that this is not a healthy way to be?

Well DS and I discussed today... we're pretty sure we're past "fixing" when it comes to our own attitudes. It's been ingrained in us to feel like we also need to be like this. We're not sure if we can change that now... if we can ever get rid of that little voice... at this point, the fight is to quiet it, to appreciate other things, and hope that that voice will just leave you alone.

My head is a-jumble with thoughts on this subject... the why's and the who's and how come's. Like, even for money, why would corporations want to create a whole world of people who will hate themselves? Who decided in recent history that skin and bones skinny was pretty... and who conceded that it was true? And why, didn't someone, anyone along the way, let me know it was all a lie?

And you know what is worse... the women, we are the ones who suffer about all this... but the men... they have been affected too... when instead of actually seeing beauty where natural beauty lies, men see a bag of bones (sometimes even blown up in select spots with other substances, and colored so many colors of the rainbow) and think, yup, that's pretty.

We've all been lied to. Told that our bodies are dangerous. Ravenous. Not to be trusted. Out to harm us. Work against us. That they are imperfect. Stupid.

Bodies, that WITHOUT intervention can create and sustain life, are too stupid to know what and when and how much to eat. Imagine that.

I for one, am giving the power back to MY BODY. This amazing being that carries me about my daily life... that lets me feel, and experience. I believe in it. I believe in my body's strength to fight against all the harm I have caused it over the years... not just all the crap that I have continually shoveled into it, but also all the hateful words that I have slung at it, hoping that they would change something. I believe in my bodies ability to heal. To show me, that even after great pain and suffering, there is regrowth, renewal, healing. My body knows. My body is willing to share. I am ready to listen.

The meaning of life

It's been four months, only four, since GS and I started spending time together. We just counted the other day. When I said, "It seems like it's been longer", he answered with, "A lifetime already." This he said in that loving, caring, I would be happy to know you for a life time way, not the when will it end way. So when things are going so swimmingly, one (me) is left to wonder what the hell else is going on...

It's been almost 6 months since I wrote my last seething words to the one who came before. Our last conversations and emails were so full of hate and hurt and disappointment... So why, in this time of apparent happiness, am I left wondering what HG is up to these days?

Is it natural when the pain, and hurt and anger have finally worn off, to start wondering what your ex's are up to? To start remembering the days when you actually had fun together? The days when I love you's were expressed with nearly every breath? The days before it all went wrong?

I wouldn't go back. As I sit and listen to GS strum a made up tune on his guitar (in a new home for now, MY home) I am happy. I sometimes still stop and think, "Is this real?" I look at him and squeeze him, and whisper words into his ear... "Es tevi milu." "Wo ai ni." And he looks back at me, and before he lands a sweet kiss on my lips, he whispers them back. Life is good.

I just read in the book I am reading (Expecting Adam by Martha Beck), "The meaning of life is not what happens to people. The meaning of life is what happens between people."

Maybe it is natural to wonder, to think about someone from the past... wonder if they ever wonder about you... and maybe even to think about how else it could have happened, when else it could have ended, how that would have changed me, or him. In the end, it ended the way it did, and there is nothing to do about that now except learn from it...and continue to hold dear the moments that were once dear...

In any case, there is a love song sounding out from the guitar now... and its calling me away from this here computer... calling me to enjoy the things that happen between people in small moments like these. Moments, that I will hopefully be able to cherish forever, no matter how or when or if it ends.

Home...

I remember how in college we used to say "going home" and "going home home". Going home meant going back to the dorm, or the apartment you were living in at the time. But home home was where your parents lived, where you had grown up, where most of us still had a room full of our stuff.

What happens when this room full of stuff ceases to exist, but you've yet to establish a new one?

In the three or four years since we graduated from collge, a couple of my friends have already gone the route of marrying, buying a house, establishing what is THEIRS. I don't doubt that they have any trouble defining the word home.

I, on the other hand, do.

I have "home" where I live... where I keep my stuff, eat, return to after a long day, and sleep. A place I feel safe... and where most of the time, I can walk around naked if I want. Maybe, just maybe, this place feels like home a little more, because this is where I have my cat, and this is where I spend most of my time with GS. Home is after all, where the heart is, right?

What was that 80's song that went something along the lines of "searching, trying to find my place in this world..."???

Yes, the world is large, and without any direct ties keeping me in one place, it is all at my fingertips... I can go, work, live just about anywhere I want to. How, just how, do I figure out, WHERE is the right place?

Robbie Williams in Gothenburg, Sweden

On July 1 I got to go to my first (and admittedly, probably only) Robbie Williams concert. I went with my two cousins and the one cousin's fiance. Cousin #1 is a HUGE fan... going to 4 concerts this tour, all in different European cities. While I didn't even know that much of Robbie's music before the concert, I can now call myself a fan. We waited in line and in crazy mobs for hours, all in the blazing hot sun, to get good standing spots. We ended up with only two rows of people in front of us. The stadium was packed with 60,000 people. It was a sold out show. Robbie put on quite a performance...admitting that he was "fu*king gutted" that England had just lost in the World Cup, only brought on more love from the audience, which in turn seemed to fuel his own desire to be real and have fun. Here I've posted some of the pics that Cousin #1 snapped during the show. Oh, and lest I forget, Basement Jaxx opened for Robbie... and they were GREAT! I knew a lot of their music, and it was a huge bonus (since I didn't even know) that they were playing! Now, people in the States, catch on... this guy's good! :)

Intimate sadness

Being a woman is a blessing. I know this. Experiencing being a woman can be hard.

Since I was 12, I have been having a period on an almost monthly basis. There were the years pre-birth control when they came according to no schedule, the many years on birth control when they came like clock work, every fourth Tuesday morning... and now there are the months post birth conrtol, when they are once again coming as they seem to please. The good news is that at this age, I am more in touch with my body, and can read the signs that a period might be in the works... even if it's taking more than a "usual" amount of time to come.

Sunday, after almost two months, cleansing started again. But with this period, came a feeling I had never experienced before. I felt, much to my own surprise, extreme sadness at what this period meant. I'm not pregnant.

I'm not trying to get pregnant. While GS and I have been happily dating since March, and are now fully into the misty eyes and I love you's phase of the relationship, we are NO WHERE near being ready to have a child. Basically, I'm not married, I'm not sure that I have even met the right man, I have a job, a good job, but have trouble managing my money to make my own ends meet...and let's face it... I live a carefree life of doing whatever the heck I please, because I don't have anyone else to answer to. Despite all of this... I was sad, extremely sad, that I was not pregnant. I realized that since I have been having regular (good, satisfying, loving) protected sex, that I must have been hoping a condom would break somewhere along the line.

For months now, I have been in the throes of trying to figure out how I can possibly be wanting so very much to get pregnant, when it would probably only serve to complicate my life in ways that I cannot imagine. I have come to no conclusions. I am still very confused on the subject. But my reaction at that moment when I realized that my body was again cleansing, and preparing for another cycle, rather than already actually growing anything forced me to realize that this is something I need to take seriously. That is, I need to take myself seriously on this matter. I don't know when and how I will be able to figure anything out... writing, thinking, talking so far have gotten me no where.

People keep saying that I need to just listen to my heart... that if having a child right now is the right thing, I will hear it, feel it, know it. I guess there are too many voices inside competing with my true voice. It doesn't seem that I can hear any kind of clarity.

Bearing a child, raising him or her, watching them grow is an experience that I consider an integral part of being a woman. It is a blessing that I hope to experience, probably sooner than later. I can only hope that as I continue on this path of investigating what will be right for my life, that sooner or later I will be able to decipher which is my voice, which is the true one, and then pray that life grants me the blessings for which I long.

Today... Tuesday, July 11

It's been a while in the making... I've been thinking about starting one of these...

It seems the easiest way to go, seeing as I have so much to say and all...

Here you'll find me... as I change from day to day... which is really how it goes...

I'll try to document my travels, my experiences, notes frome the classroom, my struggles, my loves, and there are sure to be more than one whining notes about life abroad. But so it goes.

Today, as it may be, is a Tuesday. I'm just about one month into summer break. Ah, the joys of being a teacher. Today is the second day of summer break that I have done absolutely nothing. It feels great. This is the kind of relaxing that probably not that many people get to do... but also the kind that is, in my opinion, absolutely vital to teachers.

I guess there isn't that much to share on a a second day of doing nothing... but surely, tomorrow, will be a new day and a new me. And tomorrow, there might be something more. ;)