poetry at the breakfast table

For breakfast I broiled two grapefruit halves with a smattering of turbinado sugar on top. I read from Mary Oliver while I waited for the fruit to cool. Eating the grapefruit was like having the warm taste of summer in my mouth. Little bullets of tart juice bursting on my tongue. Is grapefruit a winter season fruit? Seems to be. If so, the bitter aftertaste is just a sharp reminder that summer is yet months away.

Currently reading Mary Oliver's 'House of Light.' Mary Oliver is to poetry as Annie Dillard is to prose. I can only take them in small doses, otherwise I become lost in the density of language and so much crushing, heartbreaking beauty of nature. The inevitable resolution of predator and prey spun into macabre, yet true, ballet. And finding parallels to human nature and myself in the lines. The same wings that bring an eagle to soar with magnificence enable it to swoop to capture field mouse or rabbit to feed. It is not wrong for the eagle to take prey for sustenance or to soar with perceived grandeur. To paraphrase a Native American quote, we hold the power to both create and destroy. To deny one is to deny both, I think, and so the challenge, as a human being, is to not cause unnecessary harm.

B4 and After

At left are my workboots prior to the first day on the new job at the beginning of this year. These heavy duty puppies have steel toes and steel shanks, though the steel shanks have not kept me immune to the effects of stepping on nails. It took three incidents in the first two months of work for me to finally pay some close attention to where I stepped. Fortunately, only one nail (the last, of course) punctured a load bearing part of my foot. After that, I had a pretty good streak of avoiding nails until the day before Jack's Generic triathlon. I was prepared to walk the run portion if it was too painful to run. Not to worry. I fell off my bike during my dismount at transition, and the pain from my bloodied knee made me forget all about the silly puncture in my foot. My knee only hurt for the first quarter mile of the race, otherwise I would have stopped, right?

At left are my workboots from about three months ago, though they looked like this since the first week on the job. Notice the nail stuck in the sole. These were retired in late September. My feet hurt so much it was painful to walk barefoot. Apparently I wore out the soles. The new boots have been awesome, and will definitely carry me through the end of the year.

too fast for me

Been having food and mild depression issues lately, plus, I've been wanting to fast, but the physicality of my job this year has precluded it. However, with only 44 hours left to work over two weeks (read: 4 and 5 day weekends), I decided rather spontaneously that this weekend would be a good opportunity to try an extended fast. By extended, I mean greater than 24 hours. I've done "liquid fasts" before. Actually, quite some time ago, when I thought a Dr. Pepper a day was a reasonable source of nutrition while fasting. How things change. I've never fasted for more than 24 hours, and I'm not committing to more than 72 for this one. It'll be interesting to see how things go after the first day. I completed my last meal around 1:30pm today, and have had nothing but water since. My blood sugar dropped around 3pm, but stabilized by 4pm. Part of my goal is to see if this helps clear my symptoms of depression. Therapy has been pretty productive for me lately, and this feels like a positive step in getting more clarity and awareness. The other goal is to examine and recalibrate my relationship with food. Since my big race in May, I've continued to eat like I'm training, but I've cut back my athletic activity considerably. I have a theory that my eating habits are contributing to my depression. We'll see what the next few days hold.

Tomorrow's schedule includes at least one yoga class, literal and figurative housecleaning, a second opinion on my car (which I learned today is living on borrowed time), getting the motorcycle running again, some cooking, a nap, and lots of water.