Thought Experiments and New Years Resolutions

It's been a good year for change.

My New Years resolution list was long but I've managed to make some of the changes stick. Healthier, cheaper eating has made its way into my life for good; I can't imagine going to the store and buying a loaf of bread now. I love my wheat rolls and the smell that fills my house on bread making day. Fruits are now the staple food in the house. I think the days I eat at home, I'm spending about US$ 3 a day, more or less. That's a dollar per meal. Not bad, not bad!

Another resolution was peace. Inner peace. Not stressing out about things. Being a compulsive list-maker and worrywart, this should have been difficult, but I've been in a state of zen-like-calm since I returned to Brazil. Part of it is perspective, but I think a lot of it has to do with two really important decisions I made:

--not allowing disrespectful actions to pass without comment. I can't change other people's behavior, but I can let them know that it is not appreciated and won't be tolerated (or at least, ignored). When I do so, I feel better. And they tend not to do it again.

--taking a stronger position about free time. I had been letting work duties encroach on my non-working hours, writing emails or so forth until the wee hours of the morning. No more. If something comes up on a weekend, or a holiday, it has to wait until the next real business day. My internet usage has fallen dramatically, and with it, my late nights. I now go to bed early and wake in time to see the sunrise. Sometimes.

Now I'm adding two more things to the list, "thought experiments" if you will:

-- Radical Honesty. (Note: strong language but interesting) Well, in a way. I don't want to be completely cut off from polite society! But I do notice, especially with working among the poor, that we are pulled into tiny lies to simplify life and relationships. It's really awkward to have to fend off questions about how much my plane tickets cost, or why I won't bring a new set of clothes for everyone on the streets, or why I won't let people use my cellphone to make calls. Why no one from the streets is going to live with me in my home, even though I live alone. And so forth. Sometimes, it's just easier to let a "maybe later" slide out of my mouth than it is to offer up a potential relationship-killing:

"No."

"I don't want to."

"That's not something you need to know."

I run into people on the street and they invite me to their churches for an all-night service or that kind of violent street evangelism I hate. Maybe they want me to teach English classes or voice lessons, bring something back from the United States or just make them a batch of brownies. I've found myself using "can't" (often a lie) instead of the more honest, "won't." So I'm trying to be more honest, even if sometimes it has to be brutal.

--Being a person with a mind that loves analysis and critical thought processes, I've recently been told that my critical tends to swerve way off course of being constructive. So I'm trying the "no complaining" experiment. But as that article (warning, some rough language there!) notes, we need to qualify our definitions of complaining. For me, that means that all frustrations or complaints or criticisms have to be followed up with a decision to change the current situation. That could be a decision to understand the other person's point of view and let the insult slide. It could be a decision to take steps to avoid the same thing happening in the future, or to confront the problem in the here and now.

Being radically honest with myself and others forces problems to the forefront, where they can be dealt with and placed in the past where they belong, which seriously impedes the momentum of criticism. At the same time, it encourages more vulnerability and openness with others, bringing even greater intimacy and strength to relationships. And hopefully, good transformative change, especially for my homeless friends. Because I love them, but I'm not going to do things that enable them to live the kinds of lives they live.

As the pastor said last night at church, one of the most important words in the Bible is "mas...but." It's an interjection of change, a tiny word that says,"things were this way and now they are going to be different." It's a critical word, but one imbued with the kind of criticism I'm working on. The kind that changes the landscape of reality.

"I was blind, BUT now I see."

Rather than being defeatist and static, such language tells the truth about the reality of our world, a world which is fluid, flexible and creative for those who are willing to see a little differently. Some might call this prophetic imagination, some might call it "believing six impossible things before breakfast," some might say it's foolish. I tend to think it's all of the above...but especially, that this kind of thinking is the best kind of foolishness there is!

Protein Deprivation

I've been functionally starving these last few days. Good thing my boyfriend took me to a meat extravaganza today. It's not that haven't had anything to eat, or that I was attempting not to eat solid meals. This heat just takes all the energy and hunger out of our bodies. More than once I've come home, drunk a liter of water and crashed under the fans. Dinner, at best, would be a peanut butter and banana sandwich.

Because of the ant swarm that inhabits the house, nothing can take advantage of the ambient heat, so all food preparation requires, at minimum, turning the stove on for a few minutes for defrosting purposes. Not a fun prospect when the inside temperature is so hot that thermometers left on the counter think they're measuring body temperatures and refuse to reset to "lo."

Since one of my New Year's resolutions was to severely limit my consumption of factory farmed meats (and in the process, all those hormones and who knows what), I've been eating very little animal protein at home. I'm trying to cook up proteins that store well in the freezer: black beans for soup and the classic Brazilian rice-n-beans, chickpea patties (falafel), lentils, peas and now, black bean burgers.

I'd been dreaming about burgers for ages but hadn't gotten up the willpower to make them. Tonight, though, I had some free time and it was raining, so I decided to take the plunge and turn on the stove. I thawed a loaf of honey-wheat bread I'd made last week (still need to work on my patience; the loaves are too heavy because I can't wait for them to rise sufficiently) while heating the oven. I pressure-cooked nearly a pound of dried black beans, which took about twenty minutes.

These babies are here to stay! The basic recipe is here, but I made a few changes. I made my dry mix out of some homemade English muffins that were a bit too hockey-puck for my tastes, along with whole oats and flax seed. It went in the blender for a few seconds to try to crack up the flax seeds. (Note to self: I need a better method!) Then I added salt, black pepper, chili powder, cumin and red pepper flakes to taste. The wet mix was: two eggs, a few cloves of garlic, half of a minced onion and a small carrot, grated. To this I added two cups of cooked black beans without liquid, well mashed. The texture was like a slightly wet cookie dough. Since I was planning on freezing them, I formed patties on greased baking sheets and put them in the oven for about 10 minutes on each side.

The one I ate tonight I then pan-fried with a hunk of homemade cheese--love it when it's browned--and ate with a wedge of bread and plenty of ketchup. If anything, I might have overcooked them...they'll tend toward dry if you're not careful.

Next week I won't be going hungry!

Tonight's Menu

Italian pop-opera ballads at high volume
Spirals of pasta smothered in olive oil and garlic vegetables
Real Parmesan cheese and homemade ricotta
A single glass of red wine in an empty Nutella jar
Pen and paper, Thomas Merton, e.e. cummings and Nikki Giovanni to keep me company
on this rainy evening.

Tonight, I am going to bed early, after poetry,
to listen to the storm batter the tiled roofs
and the potent jasmine trees.

Perfection.

Daily Occurences

On Saturday, my washing machine arrived, which was a beautiful and glorious thing. Especially in weather hot enough to make someone, perhaps me, want to throw my melting body into the wash water and just loll there, or maybe just sit up on the concrete wash board and agitate the dirt out with my feet. The washing machine is easier. The clothes come out cleaner, too.

I'm trying to do as little physical exertion as possible these days. It's got to easily be 100 degrees inside my house. Outside, I still have to wear sunblock at 5 pm.

But I'm not complaining about the weather. I'm here to share a happy experience. On Monday, after a long, long ride on the bus after our street ministry, I walked up my red steps to something I wasn't expecting. My porch was CLEAN. All the oodles and oodles of plastic and styrofoam washing machine packing, along with a big, nasty bag of trash that was sitting on my back porch, were gone. Someone took out the trash for me!!!

That just doesn't happen a lot when you live alone. Okay. Ever.

I'm guessing my trash angel was our "groundskeeper," if you can call him that. The man just sprays down the walkway and waters one potted plant...

Or maybe it was my new neighbor, who has already realized that I'm a bit forgetful about the trash pickup, usually having to hurtle myself along our corridor when I hear the truck's rumble.

I don't really care who my trash angel was. It made my night!