Lesson 3: Try new foods

I ate an orange tonight for what I believe to be the first time in my life.

Not one of those delicious dark chocolate oranges. An orange orange. Alas, not a full one, just two wedges. Just enough to be an orange virgin no longer.

I have also tried clementines recently, so I was surprised to see the eyes of my girlfriend bulge out as her jaw dropped when I disclosed to her that it was, in fact, my first time.

"How have you lived your life without ever having eaten an orange?" she asked.

"By being very sneaky," I said, standing next to her. Over the years, I had learned how to turn down politely the food that was foreign to my palate. Saying "Sorry, I don't care for (fill in the blank)" may not have been the most socially outstanding phrase to utter at a party or gathering, but it worked; my taste buds were safe and sound.

"Why didn't you tell me? If you had told me before I gave it to you, I would have had you sit down," she said as she arched her arm toward the kitchen table chair.

"... and put on some music ... and dim the lights ..." I offered, laughing.

I love orange juice, and have loved it for years. But it had to be Tropicana and with NO pulp. Pulpy orange juice ruins the flavor worse than drinking OJ after brushing your teeth. So my logic was that an actual, honest-to-goodness orange would have more pulp, or at least just as much pulp, as pulpy OJ. So I didn't touch it.

And tonight, when my girlfriend offered me a wedge, I quickly brushed away the loose white fibers and bit the wedge in half. I did enjoy the feel of the carpel, as my tongue pressed it up against the palate, rupturing its sacs and providing me with a small pool of juice that I swooshed around my teeth. And after gnawing at the remaining fibers of the carpel shell with an exaggerated yuck-yuck face, I spat the wad out.

As a child, I would sit in front of my plate at dinner and stare at the steak or other icky thing that my mother slaved over, and after everyone was done and the table was cleaned, I was stuck in that seat. I could not leave the table until I was done. But I was a stubborn picky eater, and I held out. When my mother finished washing the dishes, she would heave a disgruntled sigh, pluck my plate and, before washing it, scrape the food into the dog bowl.

In my tween days, my family would eat a scrumptious dinner while I hovered around the toaster oven waiting for my two slices of toast with a lone slice of cheese bubbling on top. (Nowadays, I stay away from cheese because I believe I'm becoming intolerant to lactose.)

As I grew up, I did become a more adventurous eater. I didn't even try bacon until I was in college. Fruits and vegetables were not in my vocabulary for a sad, long time. The only fruit I ate growing up were apples, and the only vegetables were the good ol' Maine potato and corn.

"They don't count," my girlfriend said tonight. "Corn is just starch," and same goes for potatoes.

I didn't argue with that; years ago I heard someone at the church food pantry say corn was the least nutritious food there was. And I haven't had much of it lately either. From corn, I did branch out to green veggies, firstly broccoli, then zucchini and green beans. Kale is the latest.

My diet in college was the worst. I had such a high metabolism in high school that I could eat anything and still be thin, which meant I did not worry about my weight at all. It was far from my mind. I could wolf down a large pizza by myself and still have room for soda and breadsticks. I continued my blissful ignorance through college with Hamburger Helper, all-meat combo pizzas and huge salami subs. I weighed in at 210 pounds somewhere in late 1999, early 2000, and, based on pictures of me in 2002, I weighed even more then. I remember weighing 160 pounds in the tenth grade.

Luckily, exercise helps keep the weight down. For the better part of six years, dancing tango rigorously brought me perhaps to the lowest weight I'd been in a long time, at least according to all the "Gee, are you losing weight?" comments I received. I never weighed myself during that time, but after a year of not dancing, I'm hovering between 185 and 190.

Dating health-conscious women has kicked me into the right direction, too, of course. Two vegans in a row introduced me to a world greener than I ever imagined, and while some vegan meals were barely tolerable, others were pretty tasty.

In the last year, I've had roommates who surprisingly turned out to be courageous and/or adventurous cooks, and the variety among their ingredients were a pleasant surprise. Their panache encouraged me to be daring as well; I've come up with a few recipes of my own that probably should be left to myself. My (vegan-friendly) brownie/cake has become a recurring hit, and not just in my mouth but in others' as well.

As a former picky eater, I can appreciate how daunting it might be for a new parent (or significant other) to cook for someone with a limited range. The adventure of trying new foods is a pleasure I wish my body had convinced my brain to explore much earlier. Essentially, it's all in the preparation. If kale still tastes stale, add olive oil and salt. If chicken breast doesn't work, you know why? Chicken thigh.

As an adult, I have tried many other cuisines, including Thai and Indian. I had sushi for the first time a few years ago in Providence. Gone are the days when I fall back on toast with cheese. My body is aching for more. More variety, more healthy, more flavors. I still don't know everything I'm missing out on, but there is enough ambition to cancel out the knee-jerk revulsion and have a taste.

So tonight I tried another clementine. I pierced the rind with my thumbnail. Picked off the strings of albedo. Peeled away the skin of the carpel, revealing the beautifully tender juice sacs in all their pulpy glory. My girlfriend joined me and tore apart her own fruit, having been able to peel off the carpel skin in one impressive translucent piece. She waxed poetic, and compared it to a jellyfish. She fished her finger around inside to get at the sacs, the juicy gems, she called them. She offered her now wet and sticky finger to my lips.

Trying new things can be so much fun. This time, I wasn't at the table for long.

Lesson 1: Speak up

Say something. Articulate.

We have evolved with the capability to communicate complicated thoughts and ideas, yet we struggle to grasp every day the idea that we can live happier lives if we only just say something, say anything, instead of stewing in despair.

They say life is suffering. So why do we continually make life more difficult for ourselves? Life is littered, cluttered, with the pains of people all around us, suffering. By your not speaking up, by your not articulating, by not using your voice to be heard, to be understood, to be helpful, to BE, you are forfeiting your responsibilities. You are relinquishing your life. You are abandoning your dreams. You are no longer a functioning half of a relationship. You no longer exist. You – who? – are forgotten.

They say, too, there is a way out of suffering.

Say something. Articulate. Proclaim your place in your own life. Reclaim the responsibilities beholden to you; make them work for you. Acclaim the rewards that you see.

Just be. Be yourself. Be helpful. Be understood, and speak until you are. Articulate. Choose your words carefully. Speak up. We're listening.

Luminary

My girlfriend and I went this past weekend to WaterFire in Providence, RI. If you have not seen this romantic display of art, music, energy and community, you must. This weekend's theme was Choose Peace.

New this year (I believe) was the Starry Starry Night feature, which allows people to craft a dedication message, accompanying a candlelit luminary along the canal embankment and nearby steps, for a lost love. How fitting to do this, as my father died 11 years ago today: Aug. 11, 1998. In life, he wasn't the brightest beacon of light out there, but today I continue to feel his presence and am nonetheless inspired to try to live my life the best way I know how.

Blog topic ideas

No, I'm still alive. I haven't updated my blog in a while, but that doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about it. In fact, I have many items buzzing around in this hollow head of mine. So as a teaser, I suppose, this post is the list of ideas I'm brewing to write about.

• 7 obscure things about me. I was tagged by my friend Kate (more than a month ago). I'm still thinking about it. That's a tough one. (link added 12/20/2008)
  
• TANGO with STANGO. A blog post about my story with Argentine tango. I already have a request for this, and to that person, I can probably guarantee some surprises.
• Trip to Texas. I visited my sister and her husband in Dallas over Thanksgiving, and then went to Austin to complete the weekend.
• Calexico. They're my new favorite band. I saw them in concert in November.
• "At the movies" -- Ask anyone close to me, and they'll make fun of the fact that I hardly watch any movies. Lately, I've been trying to change that.
• Craigie On Main. I developed this restaurant's new website, and learned a lot along the way.
  
• "Dealing with Loss" -- a title I thought of back in September that would track my (feeling of) transformation and all the stuff I was losing in the process.
• Impermanence and attachment. You may know I started meditating in the summer, and learned some principles of Buddhism along the way. These two concepts have still eluded my grasp to understand them. (As have the grasp of many other people, apparently, someone suggested to me recently.)
• Healthy eating. Almost every woman I either just liked or dated have been very health-conscious, even to the point of being vegan or becoming vegetarian. Being aware of this pattern is interesting and has affected my diet... slowly but steadily. (Please overlook my recipe for Crunchy Eggs Dinner for now.)
  
• Truth. Truth, versions of truth, how people act and react around their own perceptions of truth.
• Trust and patience. I may need to rollover this one into 2009. haha.
  
• Hair, and perceptions. Hmm, I wrote this idea down one day. This could be either one or both of two concepts.
  
• Life is a traffic jam. I thought of this while in one, and wrote it down in a notebook I keep in my car.
• Life is a dream. I first read this in "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle and realized how true that can be. Strangely, it also made me think of the campfire scene in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. That then led me to realize that its widely regarded bad storyline had some interesting points.
• Changing "never enough" to "never IS enough". Similarly, "not good enough".
• Jealousy and fear of rejection. Ah, this old chestnut!
• Clarity and perspective. Related to truthiness (see above).
• My accomplishments of 2008. Because there are a lot of them?
  

Any other requests?

I hope to address some of these in the next couple of weeks. At least one of them!

On being 30

I've been staring at myself in the mirror for the last hour or so.

I've always had issues with looking people in the eye until one day a few years ago I read a random passage on the Web about how movie actors are trained to focus on the other person's eye, the eye farthest from the camera. Or is it closest to the camera? Either way, this trick nonetheless helped me focus on the person I'm facing.

And when you face yourself -- as in, look into the depths of your own soul -- for the first time in 30 years, you learn a few things.

1. When you're sad, it really shows.
2. When you're trying to put on a smile, you're not fooling anybody.
3. It's high time to get a haircut, especially with this excuse of a hairline.
4. Surprisingly, wiggling just your right ear is 100 times more difficult to do than wiggling your left.

Being 30 years old, at least within the year of being age 30, was challenging. I had just moved to the Boston area, primarily to focus on building a career. But it's been predominantly a journey of personal growth. Within this year, I have realized that, for most of my life, I have been unconscious. I was unaware of how I was living my life. I was becoming more aware of the lengths I would go to please people. My mind would get the better of me by worrying about things I could not control.

I found peace this summer when I learned insight meditation. As with many aspects of my life (writing fiction in high school, dancing Argentine tango for the past five years, etc.), when I am involved in something, I embrace it completely, and meditation was no exception. I became more aware of my true self, my life, and how I interacted with my surroundings. I kept describing to people how it felt like I was filling up, finally, this shell of a body. I felt like I mattered. I felt alive. Soon after, a woman, nearly a year younger than I, took notice. Being true to myself was not so bad after all.

In this heightened state of awareness, I felt transformed. I started looking at things differently. I started questioning things that I took for granted. Religion, philosophy, even tango. I've been dancing tango for more than five years. Why? It started as a social outlet, then I found out I really enjoyed it. I ended up dating three women I met through tango. What if I gave it up? I don't identify myself as being a dancer, even though I'm pretty good at it. If I stopped dancing, I'm still me. Right? I don't know; I haven't stopped dancing yet.

I've read more books this year than I have in recent memory, and my stack of books I intend to read is even larger. I'm soaking up information in my lifelong quest to learn more about the world and myself. The latest book is "A New Earth" by Eckhart Tolle, and this "spiritual teacher" is blowing my mind. He breaks down the walls of conventional, traditional and institutional thinking and gets to the heart of what IS. Who am I? No language has adequate words to describe who I am. Is that a cop-out? No. It means that however you may describe me, or however my mind may think of my own self, pales in comparison to who I am and who I am able to be. It is that part of me that is becoming more conscious.

And part of being conscious is being aware that I can get caught up in all this. Embracing, focusing on improving myself for the sake of self-improvement can rob me of the opportunities of enjoying life as it comes. It has also made me complacent, allowing me to think that I've evolved, that I've overcome trivial matters. Then suddenly the unexpected would happen, and I feel like I'm back at square one. And that's when I look myself in the eye and face up to the fact that I'm making my life too complicated.

Life is a gift, and I need to be more present. The time is now.

First trimester is over. It's past midnight, and I am no longer 30.

I am.

I love and appreciate women

This came to me as an e-mail forward, but it's good enough for me to share here.

Whatever you give a woman, she's going to multiply.
If you give her sperm, she'll give you a baby.
If you give her a house, she'll give you a home.
If you give her groceries, she'll give you a meal.
If you give her a smile, she'll give you her heart.
She multiplies and enlarges what is given to her.

So - if you give her crap, you will receive a bucket full of shit.

Love and appreciate all the women in your life.

:-)

Dear Dad

Dear Dad,

Happy anniversary. Ten years ago today you stepped into something good in the great big dairy farm in the sky. How is it going? Are the cows healthy and well-fed? Do the milk tanks still have its divine shine, or have you been so successful that there's no denying the wear and tear?

I imagine you must be happy. I imagine you in overalls, shoveling shit and looking up at me with the proudest grin, from ear to ear.

It's been a decade since I last saw you. A decade. A DECADE.

I rarely think of you anymore, but because this is the big one-oh I've been thinking of writing you this letter. (Did you get the one I wrote a couple of years ago? I was planning to write a book about you, but... oh well. I got as far as writing two pages worth of memories, one for each line in my journal. Turns out, that was good enough for me at the time.)

So yeah. I rarely think of you anymore. That doesn't mean never, though. You were a tremendous influence on me, for better or for worse. I am always aware of how I am, how I react, how I overreact. I am aware how much of that had been molded by you, and how much I have grown on my own in the last 10 years.

A decade!

I remember how you often said that sometimes I need to get burned in order to learn a lesson. Not literally, of course. I need to experience life's joys -- and its consequences. (Yet, instead of following through on that philosophy, you continued to shield me, to protect me. I never understood that. Maybe I will when I become a parent.)

To be sure, I have grown a lot in the last year, and especially in the last few months. I realize I needed to experience both joys and its consequences in order to learn what I am capable of, how far I actually go to please people and how disastrous that can be.

I know you were unhappy the last seven years of your life (almost a decade). You're happier now, I hope. Unlike you, I choose not to free myself of self-doubt and pessimism by death. It's too bad you did not realize you could be happy with life while you had a life to live.

Because you see, it's not enough to hold on to a lifelong dream and be discouraged when things do not go your way or how you planned it. Sometimes disastrous consequences are not so dire when you step away from them. And when you step far enough away, you start to realize how unnecessary being caught up in the drama (that you create for yourself) really is, because all that you have to make yourself happy is within yourself. You don't have to travel the world, you don't have to seek sanctuary in others, you don't have to die first before you find true happiness.

Sometimes you need to let go, and go with the flow. ... Be happy you're still breathing in and out, be happy that people can be your friends if you let them, be happy that you alone have the ability to know what is right for you at any given moment, no matter what anyone else says or does. Be happy you're moving in the right direction.

Because sometimes, you do end up getting what you want.

Love,
STASIU

Graveyard shift

This week has gone by so fast, yet last Sunday, or even Monday, seems like it was on the other side of the universe.

Events that were once a supernova of negative energy are now just a small blip, a dim twinkle of light among many, something pleasing to appreciate and admire when a glance is thrown in that direction.

Nevertheless, the future is uncertain, and that can be scary.

When I told someone this week about an opportunity that had seemed to present itself, and my small twinge of anxiety surrounding it, the guy got excited. He gets that way when he is about to give sage advice.

"You know, that's fear," he said of my anxiety. Then he told me how he conquers fear.

Find a graveyard, a really old one. Find a really big gravestone that has a description of what the person was like, preferably a firefighter or officer or someone similar who was heroic or otherwise lost their life before his or her time. And then think, what would this person say of your troubles? What advice would this person give you?

"They would tell you that what you fear is so insignificant," he said. "They would tell you to live your life. You know, you look at their gravestone and think about what they accomplished. But they're dead now! They'd say, take those risks! Live your life!"

Interesting.

I live close to Mount Auburn Cemetery, so I decided to go there. It's a big cemetery, so at first I thought the burying ground on the intersection of Mount Auburn and Arlington streets in Watertown was part of it. I went there and soon realized it wasn't. It must be a family cemetery. A really old one, too. Not many BIG gravestones, other than one tall and proud one for the only Watertown soldier to have fallen in the Battle of Lexington. There were many old slabs from the 1700s, the 1600s and even the 1500s. So old that the typography of the letter "s" looked more like the letter "f", and abbreviations for some words were unfamiliar (although decipherable).

Back in the summers of late high school through early college, I worked at the local church doing maintenance, including burying people. A backhoe would remove the earth and place it on a pile close to the grave on the morning of, or the day before, the funeral. A concrete box would be lowered in, to house the casket. After the funeral, my supervisor and I would shovel back in the dirt, packing it in as much as possible. Somehow, more often than not, all the dirt impossibly fit back in place.

And here, in this family plot, where there were no concrete blocks, these slabs were commemorating those who had not lived for 300 to 500 years. They were dead. They were no more. They were dust.

But I am not. I am alive. Upon reflection, the anxiety I had was just laughable. It really was insignificant. Had I let it get the better of me, I would have continued to rot in pessimism. Because I shifted my perspective and was able to shrug the anxiety off, I was able to enjoy the rest of the week. And take a risk. And live.

Busy month

I wish I could say I was on an actual vacation for most of this month. I haven't actually written a real post here for most of July, as I've been unusually busy. Not really with busy work here and there, but I feel I'm occupying my time, for the most part, more wisely. There is a better sense of purpose. So here, I will try to do a brief (haha) synopsis of my month, picking up where I last left off.

My weekend getaway.
On July 4, I saw my friend and his wife, and caught up on life over the past year. I have grown so much in the time since we had last met, at their wedding, and it was good to hang out. Then it was off to an undisclosed location, which, by a number of readers of my blog had figured out from my photos, was in Rockland, Maine. I had hoped for a beach to lay out and just vegetate, but I ended up getting a ripe red farmer's tan (burn) just walking from my motel to the Rockland Breakwater, and beach time lasted only nearly two hours, tops. I got a free four-day three-night stay at the motel for resisting buying one of their timeshares after taking a tour of one of their condos. I decided to drive back to Massachusetts via Route 1, but after four hours and STILL in Maine, I hopped onto I-95, which ended up having worse holiday traffic. Six hours later, I landed in my neck of the woods and went straight to the last hour of the Cambridge tango practica, before heading home. All in all, it was a good trip, but I realized I could really do with a two-week vacation, which I haven't done since my trip to the U.K. over eight years ago during spring break of 2000.

Staples | Corporate Express acquisition (I mean, integration) website
Just before going to Maine I started work on the integration website of Staples and Corporate Express. And when I came back, I was working full-throttle on getting it done. One week I actually got an hour of overtime. It took me and a number of people on my team (I'm currently a contract web developer at Staples headquarters, for those who don't know) the better part of three or so weeks to get done what normally would have been months of work, according to one higher-up who applauded our efforts once we were done. I did most of the HTML, CSS, javascript and a dash of ASP (someone else did the Flash and design). I had some help on the javascript part from one former contractor who has gone full time. The Staples Corporate Express site is now live, but you need to have login access.

Then it is on to a new, big project, which I am knee deep in now. And once that's done, my duties will completely change. Sounds like good job security for now.

Life is a one-man play on a stage
One evening earlier this month, a friend of mine from New Hampshire and I went to the New Rep Theatre in Watertown to see "According to Tip", a one-man play performed by Broadway and TV star Ken Howard. I don't know anything about Broadway, or Tip O'Neill, but my friend is a political junkie. And because the New Reperatory Theatre is in my neighborhood, and because I am interested in the arts (even though I haven't done much with it), I thought what the hell. Ken Howard was great. Because he sang a handful of Irish drinking songs, does it count as a musical?

Howard has been around for a long time, and apparently he is sometimes in the U.S. version of "The Office," and he was in the (fantastic) movie "Michael Clayton," which starred George Clooney. I'm the type of person who can't do movie quotes to save my life, and therefore I cannot remember who Howard was in the movie. I'd have to watch it again.

Life is a one-man play on a stage, Part 2
The same night as "According to Tip" there was an Argentine tango milonga in Brookline. The play was done at 10:30pm-ish, and the milonga still had at least two hours left, so I decided to go. That was the most interesting two hours at a milonga I've had in a long time, if not ever. And that's putting it lightly. I saw my ex arrive there with a guy friend of hers, and I (apparently?) jumped to conclusions and had to step outside for a while to clear my head (see more about meditation, below). I stepped back inside and ended up having incredible dances with some of my favorite dancers, and with those I haven't danced with before (they were added to my list of favorites).

There are the types of good dancers who are so pre-occupied with doing a particular move RIGHT, as in pointing the foot at the correct angle to floor and juxtaposed to the leg blah blah blah, and there are the types of good dancers who move with feeling -- it may not be 100% correct but it FEELS goooood. I lean toward the latter, and I love dancing with those types of dancers too. For a while, I lost sight of that, and I'm comfortable with where I am. (I do know that if you combine both of those types of good dancers, the precise with the feeling, then your eyes roll back into your head with bliss. Been there, done that. That happens when the stars are aligned just perfectly.)

Hosting practica
In other tango news, I had been asked to be host to the Sunday practica in Cambridge. I was host on July 13, and will be host this Sunday. Basically, all this means is that I'm responsible for bringing water for everyone, ensuring that the vibe of practica remains friendly, be welcoming and dancing with new faces on the scene. I have no control over how freaking hot and muggy it gets in there, even when all three air conditioners and industrial fans are on at full blast. Thankfully, I don't need to mop up the drops of sweat on the floor. But I am responsible for having enough money to cover the rent.

Creative writing update
I haven't done much writing this month, other than writing prolific late-night (into early morning) entries in my journal after a long day (see "Life is a one-man play," parts 1 and 2, above, for example). Other than that, I have submitted a very small slice-of-life story as an entry to Grub Street's new literary magazine, the Rag Mag, which will debut Sept. 1. The story is labeled as fiction, although it's definitely based on a true story. In fact, I wrote it during a Grub Street writing class in early June, and it became one of my early blog entries, The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster. I hope it will be published in the Mag in one way or another. So far, I know that two people in my life have read it and that they loved it. I hope the rest of you do, too.

Crowning achievement
I finally got my second crown put in. This time porcelain instead of gold. I waited awhile to get it done, and therefore there were slight complications. I was under nitrous oxide (laughing gas) for about three long hours, and coming out of that consious yet coma-like state was rough. I had to sit down and drink some water to let my convulsing body iron out the shakes. Really weird.

Think twice about asking me to fix your computer
I messed up my computer bad. It actually happened the end of last month, and I let my computer whiz-kid friend up in Maine make a diagnosis. Yup, I lost all my files. Had I actually looked for my Windows XP setup CD, instead of using the PC Recovery Disc, I would have been A-OK. But the PC Recovery Disc reverted my computer as if I had just bought it this morning, taking me through the tour of Windows. Bizarrely, all my programs were fine, even Firefox 3, which I had downloaded a week before my computer wouldn't load. All the files that were stored in the My Documents folder? GONE. All the free videos I got from Amazon Unbox that were stored in a separate shared folder, videos I downloaded but don't have time to watch, and probably never will, were SAVED. Family and friends' photos? Gone. Budget spreadsheet I painstakingly built over the last year? Gone. Website source files for my previous clients? Gone. It's high time I invest in an external hard drive to back all my shit up. Now I'm re-building my budget with Google Docs (read: online).

Meditation and mindfulness
In many ways this should be first on this list. This has been one of the most important things I have done in a long while. It has been occupying most of my free time, when it's not spent dancing Argentine tango, surfing the Web, or taking walks. So because this section deserves more attention, and rightly so has turned from a brief synopsis on the list to a lengthy description of where I am at, "meditation and mindfulness" has become its own blog post.

One more week
There's still one more week to go for July. What more could possibly be in store for me?

Breaking in the Birkenstocks

My Birkenstocks arrived on Thursday. I had ordered Milano sandals online, and yesterday afternoon I decided to break them in. I decided to walk down to Watertown Square and back. These were my first pair of Birkenstocks ever. I had tried on a pair at a store recently, with those weird little nylon footie things that the shoe store requires you to wear when trying on shoes with no socks on. Doing a brief jaunt around the stack of shoes didn't prepare me for the pain I would soon suffer late last night.

The trek to Watertown Square was OK. It took me a while to get used to the fit: It's basically a flat sole with a cork top. I doubt that anyone with flat feet would be able to wear something like this, as the cork curves up where the arch of your feet are, which is an unpleasant feeling: Not until now has the arch of my foot needed to press against anything. The website where I bought it says it has a shock-absorbing EVA sole. I'm not sure what EVA stands for (as I was sold on the shock-absorbing part), but it probably means the sole is an Extra Vigilant Annoyance. Every time I took a step it felt like I was bouncing, with the reverberations going up my legs.

I walked down to the New York Diner, where I've had many late-night breakfasts, and tightened up the straps. The walk back home was better, I thought, because in that direction the ground has a slight incline. So, while walking downhill to the square I felt as if my toes were not touching the cork surface at all, going on an incline had the opposite effect. I could feel my toes push into the cork with each step, and that made it more satisfying. The bouncing and reverberations were gone. I had heard that the cork eventually molds itself to the feet it's supporting, so all the griping aside, I had high hopes for my new sandals.

I found that walk to be a good exercise, so I treated myself to a fudge popsicle when I got home.

Later that night, around 11:30pm, I had to get out of the house to clear my head. I actually have been doing a lot of walking lately. Not every day, not marathon distances, but healthy doses nonetheless. And it's a lot for me, as I'm not the athletic type. Sometimes I clear my head, sometimes not. Last night's was a wash.

In the past, I walked to Watertown Square a bunch of times. A week after I broke up (on my birthday) with an ex last October, I walked six miles, basically walking to the Cambridge border then hugging the Watertown/Belmont line until hooking around the Square and returning home. When I saw my family earlier this month, I decided to step away and take a walk. An hour-and-a-half into it, after finally turning around, a worried sister called, wondering where I was and if I was all right. I was fine; when I got back three hours after I left, I learned I had done eight miles. Last month I found out about bike paths around Fresh Pond in Cambridge. Early morning on Memorial Day, I walked there and did three loops around the pond, and then back home. That trek, with an hour resting with a book, took four hours and eight miles total. Fresh Pond seems to have become my favorite place, as I've gone there to walk more than a handful of times since.

I admit that in all of those walks I had to clear my head from "residual relationship thoughts" (or RRT). And last night was no different. I decided not to go to Fresh Pond yet another time, but to take a different route. I decided to walk to Harvard Square.

It was late, and there were hardly any life signs at all in Watertown. I passed by a rabbit, probably a wild one, on the intersection of Fresh Pond Parkway and Mt. Auburn Street. Finally, 45 minutes after I started, I arrived at Harvard Square, which was teeming with life: dressed-up preppie college kids, one or two homeless people and a few drunks. Here I was with my water bottle, shorts, a slightly sweaty undershirt and my brand new Birkenstocks. At least I wasn't wearing my Sketchers and white quarter crews like I had done before. I was surprised to find that many restaurants were open; it goes to show that I haven't really gone out much for other than tango in the near-year that I've lived around here.

I continued up Mt. Auburn and made my way to Arrow Street, via Bow Street. At Zero Arrow Theatre, where Arrow Street intersects with Mass. Ave., and where last year's Boston Tango Festival was held, I circled around the Square and then took a shortcut back home via Brattle Street. (Looking at a map now, I realize that is actually quite a longer way to get back home.)

At that point my Birkenstocks were killing me. The support under my arches were pressing into my feet. The straps dug into my skin. Pepples and sand left on the sidewalks from last winter had flown into the crevices, poking into the ball of my foot. I finally stopped to take off one sandal to brush away the debris, noticed a tiny new blister, and I moved on.

I saw another rabbit on the intersection with Sparks Street, and wondered if it was the same one as before. I crossed the Craigie Street turn and stopped to look at it. The brown bunny had stopped, too, and it appeared to be evaluating me, too. Then it turned, waited for traffic to pass by, and dotted across Brattle into a wooded area on the other side. Life goes on.

I couldn't help but realize, even as I was walking at 1am this morning, that it had become a symbolic journey. Although it was an ex who suggested getting Birkenstocks (it will help with posture, etc.), it didn't matter, as I was enjoying the fact I was wearing sandals again. For whatever reason, I hadn't worn sandals since I was a kid. And despite that, apparently, wearing Birkenstocks will be painful for a while as I get used to the new feelings, I just need to plod through and get used to it. As much as the feet felt the brunt of the new sensations, most of the pain was in my head anyway. I can move past that. A new day is coming.

As I was writing the end of this, Paolo Nutini started playing in my mind.

Hey, I put some new shoes on,
And suddenly everything is right,
...
And I made my way to the kitchen,
But I had to stop from the shock of what I found,
A room full of all of my friends dancing round and round,
And I thought hello new shoes,
Bye bye them blues.

Life will be fine, eventually. Just gotta walk it off, so to speak. Stone to stone, I'll take it on.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines

I intend not to clutter this blog with relationship woes, other than now to say it has been a hard two weeks for me.

Before last week, I thought I had moved on. We were doing the friends thing, and everything was fine. I had even bought a book of poems, Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda, after I heard a female friend say that reading Neruda made her weak in the knees. What a nice way to woo the next woman in my life, by reading her poetry, I thought. (I know, call me old-fashioned.)

Of the 20 poems, I was struck by the title of the penultimate entry, "Tonight I Can Write." As writing had just returned in my life, I chose to read that one first. I was standing in my bedroom, and as I read the poem on the page, I thought, huh, that was pretty good. I mindlessly flipped the page and realized I had only read the first half. And as I finished, a feeling of despair came over me.

I had to sit down. Apparently not only were my own knees weak, my whole body ached (a feeling that has yet to subside) as I was taken by surprise how accurately Neruda's feelings matched my own.

I longed for the love of my life, someone who had been with me every day, whether by my side or on the phone, for the better part of a year. And now she is not. And now she may be with someone else, as she has moved on. Henceforth I can call her only my first love, nothing more. Maybe someday I will be at peace with that, but today is not that day.

For now, here is the poem that has better captured how I feel.

Tonight I Can Write
by Pablo Neruda

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

Thank you for indulging me. I hope the last line of the poem will ring true for me.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines. Tomorrow, or hopefully soon, I can move on.

The revenge of the mysterious green plate monster

The following is an exercise in writing fiction that I did at a Grub Street workshop this month. That day was the first time I had written fiction in years, and to be honest, this is more like an embellished "based on a true story." Actually, a lot of what I wrote that day was not really fiction. I felt rusty and out of practice. I did not read this out loud to the class, but I let my friend read it soon after and she loved it. Hopefully, it's not only because it's about her. Please comment if you wish.

She was excited to eat at this vegetarian restaurant, and as I was tasting the edamame for the first time, and the rubbery blocks of tofu squishing between my teeth, I asked myself, what had I gotten myself into?

I wanted to impress her by being adventurous, but being a meat-and-potatoes and sometimes-junk-food kind of guy, this felt more like I was jumping off a cliff and reaching for anything resembling food. I suppose I did grab a branch or something, because the next foreign object I had cautiously put in my mouth had all the flavor and texture of a twig.

I toyed with the generous pile of green leaves on my plate. It wasn’t lettuce or kale, but it was stringy, sticking to each other and the cubes of tofu and chick peas. I picked at the green monster, imagining myself as the little kid in the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, in which his food comes to life and begins to orate the Hamlet soliloquy. I start wrapping the sticky, stringy green mess around my fork like I do with spaghetti. I held it up to my nose and steal a whiff. I was hoping for some redemption, some essence of hope that perhaps it only LOOKED horrible and that the smell would offer a hint of delectable bliss that I had yet to encounter. Instead, it was a neutral-to-pale scent that conjured up images of steamed broccoli and my laundry basket. I sighed, and looked at the rest of my plate. Eyes of quinoa were staring at me, pleading with me to run away and take them with me.

I had no option but to taste it. I stuffed it into my mouth and squirmed. I closed my eyes until it was successfully down the hatch.

I looked at her. She was all smiles and looked content. She looked at me, rolled her eyes and pointed her fork at her plate of the same concoction.

“This,” she said, “is the best I’ve ever had. I’m really glad we chose this place.”

Hmm, I said, and poked my finger into the tofu. It bounced back.