recently, at a new friend’s house, i fell in love with a new game: madagascar solitaire. (see a pic here) you play by moving these big fat comforting marbles over each other, eliminating them one by one until only one marble is on the round wooden board. when i asked where i could get this, i was told, “madagascar”. right.
not to be deterred, i came home, searched online and found what appeared to be the game, and ordered it. my hands felt the desire for these big smooth warm marbles, to have this game in my house!
today, after a day of learning about somatics – wholeness and embodiment, awareness and sensation – i checked my mail and saw the small package, too small to be the game i wanted. i opened it up, and its a travel size madagascar solitaire. definitely a better fit for my studio, but missing some of the sensual appeal.
another package arrived, full of long-awaited dishes from japan, several of them broken in the journey. the right amount of dishes for me made it though, i am happy to have them, they are a beautiful step in the direction i think of up as Grown. i also got a real soup pot, the big kind with handles on either side. i am a lover of soup, soup as a place to bring together everything left in the fridge, soup as a way to get vegetables into my body under the trickery of seasoning, soup as a comfort through the winter – the dip for warm buttered bread.
bit by bit i am becoming a good cook. not a perfect cook who knows the right way to cut everything or the perfect order for cooking, but a good cook who knows how to make a really delicious breakfast, a really savory soup, good comfort food. i am creative in part because of the stuff i am allergic to – i replaced milk in a carrot ginger soup recipe with coconut butter and it was delightful. i replaced yogurt or sour cream in the soup with a peppercorn goat cheese – mmmmm. i have a few little super delicious recipes i have created, delectable and decadent and they don’t make me sick.
this, i have been told, is a massive step in being able to eat healthy and change my lifestyle: learning that i have the ability to create foods (and the next step would be to grow foods) that are healthy to me and taste good to me. i can and should do this in community, especially as food is the central common theme to all community time. so my mom helps by sending me this soup pot – thanks mom!!