Gray matter, no matter

These hours between school or work and bedtime are the most precious to me. They are when I see my husband; when we prepare and eat dinner together; and when I get a few scant hours of course reading in before I have to head off to bed. So I'll be brief here.

I have spent more hours than not lately studying my neuroscience textbook and pushing all other responsibilities out of the way. I have memorized the parts of the brain, figured out action potentials and neurotransmitters, and charted the effects of drugs on the body. The last two Saturdays I have spent cooped up in our apartment, a mug of tea in hand and Bach on the stereo, examining neuroanatomy slides and repeating, to myself, the names of ventricles and nuclei and tracts over and over again. Even though I feel tied to my chair, forced unnaturally to be studying on a weekend, I love the material. I love the sense of awe that I feel at understanding the origin of our thoughts and feelings, and the amazement at thinking that, some day, I could understand this field as well as I understand Spanish literature or cooking.

Behind my appreciation for neuroscience, I feel a sense of spiritual mooring. The body is our home, after all, and studying the brain makes me feel very close to my origins. I trace its contours and think this is me. Yes, this mass of spongy matter, this curving and branching and spliced, turned, fluid thing. This map to our center, this gray labyrinth of desire, this one mortal coil: you, and I, and all the rest.

How deep our science goes!

(Re)union

What about this move, and starting school, and returning to New York, has me yearning to do yoga again? I thought that I would be on my bike again as soon as I got back to the City, but somehow I can't stop thinking of my mat.

Yoga once occupied a similar space in my life as knitting and biking do now -- the sort of grounding, yet energizing activities that someone as riddled with anxiety as I am needs to stay sane -- but yoga has definitely fallen by the wayside in the past year or two. The spark went out sometime around the day when touching my toes was no longer an effort, when my scoliosis no longer plagued my lower back, and my shoulders, at last, shrugged their way out of their usual kurtosis. Yoga turned my tight, hard hamstrings -- knotted up from years of pounding the pavement day after day -- into painless, graceful limbs. Yoga forced me to sit still long enough for me to pay attention to the rumble underneath the surface, to hear my own body for the first time, and to emerge from an eating disorder.

But yoga now? Yoga this year? Staid. Uninspiring. Perhaps a tad repetitive, too, all of those Downward Dogs and Trikonasanas and Oms. After taking a course to be a yoga teacher a few years ago, I am spoiled when it comes to yoga classes: most instructors I can't stand, with their bottomless, blithe words of encouragement and their talk of bodily purity and otherworldly sanctity. I'd much rather be here, right now, in this damned body and this broken soul, thank you very much, than in the ones you think that I'm aspiring to. After my teacher training, the money that I have saved by not going to yoga classes and instead practicing on my own, may well exceed the cost of the course, which is a small satisfaction when I look back on it and wonder at my folly at spending so much to certify myself in a field where I'm no longer interested in being an expert.

Revisiting yoga has been, until now, a bit like staring at the books on the shelves in my childhood bedroom and remembering how important those volumes once were to me. Yoga had its place, to be sure, but like those things it has been supplanted in recent years by other interests. A little yoga in the morning, before work, to keep my body limber before going in to yet another day staring at the gray computer screen -- that has been enough for me this year. For spiritual insights, I find Zen more compelling; when it comes to physical activity, nothing, nothing, nothing does it like riding my bike. And still and yet and somehow, this week says yoga.

Om.

Waste not, want not

I have never been a follower of those self-help gurus who specialize in de-cluttering, the kind who try to convince you to throw away most of your frivolous belongings by reminding you that people in Bali use only one knife to do all of their cooking, butchering, and yardwork, and if you happen to think that your set of Wusthofs is absolutely necessary, well then, you'll have another think coming before long.

No, that kind of mentality, which smacks of deprivation and Noble Savagery at once, doesn't appeal to me. There are small luxuries that I take such pleasure in that they are worth the extra money and the extra bit of clutter around the house, such as my knitting supplies and, occasionally, a shelf of books. Objects well-worn and well-loved take on particular meanings, and it is difficult to let them go.

Despite all of this, during our move on Sunday it became clear to me that WE HAVE TOO MUCH STUFF. Or, at least too much stuff for a one-bedroom, New York City apartment -- and we're not even in the expensive neighborhoods that force people to live in closets! No, we're rather on the outskirts when it comes to Manhattan neighborhoods, and yet we still have too many belongings and too little space.

So, while my husband and I spent several hours this afternoon caught up in despair -- would everything ever fit here? -- we soon rallied around and prepared ourselves for the tough decisions. You know, the moment when you have to actually throw something away. For ever. Yes.

Deciding what stays and what goes becomes a lesson in values, a sign of what is really important. Two sets of small plates, or only one? One yoga mat, or two? How many notebooks and spatulas and printers do I really need for this next stage of life? The answer, this time, is only as many as will fit into these 600-some square feet, only as many as will support me in the days and years to come. Our sixth apartment together, I hope that this will be my husband's and my last landing pad for quite a while.

This move reminds me of every time I have packed my bags and left the U.S. for an extended visit, trying to fit my entire life into a pair of suitcases and failing miserably when it came to putting that same life back into the same suitcases when the time came around to leave again. In the interim, I had changed and my lifestuff overflowed its carrying case.

Now is another time to scale down, pare back, live with what is essential. Who would have guessed that we would have acquired so many things in the last two years? Or, alternatively, that New York would have been so generous to us, both then and now? -- For it is by some generous act that we are staying here in this small apartment for another five years, each of us poised to begin doctoral programs, eager and waiting and resigned and trembling, shedding off the old to let in the new.

Happiness is as happiness does

I have been reading a piece by Rachel Richardson called "Eating disorder inspires laughs" in the Disordered Times and thinking more about the mission of my blog (if I can even call it a mission).

I intentionally chose a light-hearted title for this blog, AVIDALEGRIA, which roughly means "eager happiness." When I began, I was hoping to write about the things that make me happy at a time when my job was not going well, my father was very ill, and my husband and I were facing some difficulty decisions regarding graduate school. Facing all of these stresses, I knew that I had to have something else to look forward to -- and so I cultivated my hobbies, devoted myself to my cooking and knitting and biking and friendship, and wrote about these things, to keep them with me and remind myself of all that was good and sunny and harmonious in my life.

You probably have these things, too, these pequenas alegrias (little joys) that soothe you when you are just about run ragged by everything else in the wide world. Your comforts may not be the culinary or fiber arts; you may be scornful of these things, or merely indifferent. And yet I venture a guess that you also know where to look when the bastards get you down; you also cultivate small worlds of delight and refuge. I wonder where they are, in what corners you hide when there are too many storms about.

From now on, you'll find me here, writing and snapping photos and composing blog entries, putting together bits of text and images in order to provide a counterweight to the darker moments of life. Because we need counterweights; we need joys to stand firm against our suffering, our fatigue, our despair. This is not to ignore the darker side of things, but to recognize that in order to give them a place in our lives -- to not run away or dull ourselves to those pains -- we also need what is light and precious and immutable, joyful and urgent and sublime. We need alegrias and rose water and beech trees, sea gulls and skyscrapers and tugboats, roosters and carafes and mountains.

Amen.

Medusa

A man who looks a Gorgon in the eyes is said to turn to stone. Medusa is a fitting goddess for women recovering from eating disorders, I think -- she stops the wandering eye in its path, protecting herself from anyone who would criticize her or look at her harshly.

The only problem is that Gorgons can turn the same harsh gaze upon themselves. Though I prefer not to think of it, because I like Medusa too much, I can’t forget that she conquered with a mirror in the end. Perseus held one up to her and, looking at her own reflection, Medusa turned to stone, not unlike the bronze statue that I came across in the Boboli Gardens in Florence.

Even frozen, there is something of the magnificent and daring in Medusa. She is a woman who stands alone, proud and wise; her vision cuts through the quick, spotting everything, revealing every secret, every flaw. I think of her as a goddess who won’t take any crap from anyone. She is honest -- honest unto death.

Studies have shown that people with depression don’t necessarily have distorted thoughts -- it’s just that they can’t maintain the usual rose-colored glasses that most of us carry around to convince ourselves that things really aren’t that bad. We prefer these small fibs to point-blank honesty; we’d rather believe that the glass is half-full than admit that there are only a few drops clinging to the bottom. People with depression often see things just as they are -- and so much honesty can hurt, like Medusa’s gaze turned upon herself.

Still, I find her image helpful, when I’m confronted by lies and confusion around me, and can’t find the way. Those are the times when I want to be able to “say it like it is” and put a sharp wall between my own thoughts and feelings and those of the people around me. I haven’t had much need for such a stance lately, but stumbling upon this image of Medusa reminded me of all that it took for me to learn to see things with my own eyes, and honor my own visions of the world and myself. Goddess, you are great.

Moderation

I keep thinking about hunger, and want to write more (always more! -- that's what hunger is about, isn't it?). But for today, I'll focus on moderation, which caught the attention of the ancient Greeks and the Buddha, who both spoke of the value of moderation, or the middle path, for one's health and happiness and the practice of the good life.

The Buddha also said (and I don't know about the Greeks on this point) that his students shouldn't take his word for everything, and he encouraged them to try out his teachings for themselves, to see if they were valid. And so I have, in a sense.

These last four years have been an exercise for me in moderation of appetite. A rather successful experiment, by the look of things.

If hunger makes food taste all the better, then it has been the act of allowing hunger back into my life -- of not fearing an empty belly, of contenting myself with less -- that has allowed me to become an eater. I take more pleasure in food now than I ever did when I was worried about fat and calories and my size, and it's not because I've managed to pull a fast one on my own nervous mind to convince myself that those things don't matter. They still do matter, to some extent, but they matter less and less as I find other things to take their place.

Ironically, one thing that does take the place of food worries is learning to eat well. I cannot stuff myself silly if I have just spent three hours cooking a meal for my husband and friends. Nor can I wantonly waste food if I know how hard it was to procure and prepare, having done so myself. Putting more effort into my food and more attention, instead of less, has made all the difference for me.

Though all of these efforts around food (it's just food, after all) might seem immoderate, I think it is quite natural to spend our time worrying about the next meal. After all, it is what our ancestors spent most of their time doing. I am reminded of this point here in Italy, where almost every tree in our valley has been planted for food cultivation. Down any lane you'll find grape vines, olive trees, and any number of fruiting trees, such as apricots, plums, figs, and cherries. No tree seems ornamental or accidental -- every one has a purpose, and nine times out of ten that purpose is to produce food for humans. It surprised me at first to discover that trees here weren't just oversize hedgerows, but in fact occupy an important role in the local food economy and culture. Now it seems eminently sensible: keep your food near you, and you'll never have to depend on others for your daily bread.

I am from one of the world's great food-producing regions -- the corn belt of the U.S., where the abundant loam of the prairies has been turned into rich soil for the U.S. agro-economy. Yet this notion of a "farm" is so different from the Italian azienda as for them to be almost mutually unrecognizable. In Umbria, a farm isn't something that happens "out there," where the exurbs end: instead, fields and houses intermingle, and to surprisingly good effect. For example, we can't overlook our dinner when it comes from right beyond the door, as our chard and tomatoes did last night. Nor can we forget that there's a season to all things when we learn that yesterday's cherries won't be back for another year. Where's the immoderation in that? There's no excess here, only the simple acknowledgment that real food comes with an expiration date, and obeys greater cycles than those determined by the supermarket aisle.

It has only been in the last one hundred years, in the wealthier countries of the world, that people have had the luxury to devote most of their waking hours to activities not consisting of food gathering or food preparation. But is it really such a luxury, I ask, to be able to ignore one's food? If food is one of life's greatest pleasures, then might we not deny ourselves some aspect of that pleasure by outsourcing our food preparation to others? I am thinking, again, of the sort of pleasure that can be had from the crafts of cooking, hunting, gathering, and gardening, and moreover, the satisfaction to be found in these activities beyond the products that they bring to us. This is real work, with immediate and substantial effects that we can judge for ourselves and be proud of.

I venture a guess that, in isolating ourselves from this kind of work, we make it hard for ourselves to take any satisfaction in food that is not degustatory, and thus we set ourselves up for thinking that act of eating food -- and not its provenance or its purpose -- is the only thing that matters. I strive to tip the scale in the other direction, away from the act of eating and towards the acts of finding and preparing food. Oh, how much pleasure there is to be had in knowing that an olive tree can produce oil! -- or seeing one's beans boil away contentedly on the stove, or planning next week's supper before it even occurs. For me, these are the paths towards alimentary moderation.

Satisfaction and satiety

Often, after a long and wonderful meal, I wish that I could just keep eating -- that fullness would never overtake me, that my hunger would last and last. But alas, my belly swells, satiety looms, and I retire for bed, satisfied and yet not so, wishing that I could have sampled another flavor or pioneered another combination of wine and food.

This is something of how I feel, too, when I look on a beautiful sunset over the ocean, or listen to Maria Callas arias, as we did in the car this afternoon, or get lost in the rhythm of my knitting or the spell of a good book. What is this desire to lose myself in such fullness, while fearing the consequent satiety? Why do I want to always leave some room left for more -- more colors, more tastes, more sunlight hours? Where does my satisfaction lie, if not in the present?

These desires for more have gotten me into trouble at times, but even when tamed, I'm not wholly ashamed of them, for they signal to something of the searcher in me, the restless malcontent who, in failing to find satisfaction in the everyday, will necessarily seek out the exotic, the inexpressible, the divine. As a result, I have learned new languages and lived in far-off places, toured the highest mountains and the ends of the earth, and come back to tell of it. I won't give up these urges for more, yet still they trouble me when my searches take on less concrete forms, and emerge as a kind of irreconcilable longing for possession and consumption at the same time -- but I can't have my cake and eat it too, I know.

The sacred appears to me as the limit to my searching: that which I cannot contain, the absolute beyond any notion of what I might consider as absolute. Against that limit, I must stop, surrender myself, and be resigned my small satisfactions. The bounds of my body, my arms gathered in meditative union, are other sites of slight contentment against the urges of the hungry mind. Sitting, breathing, my desire is not extinguished, but recognized -- and thus stilled, at least temporarily.

Last week we visited this pre-Christian temple in Perugia, pictured above: circular in form, illuminated by skylights overhead, it became a giant womb and holding-space for all my inquietudes, longings, and endless puzzling over what next. I want to keep this place within me, to preserve its still image on my computer screen and within my imagination as a refuge in hurried times. Here, if anywhere, this is just this, and enough is enough.

Amen.

The good life

Today I spent nearly the entire afternoon sitting in the shade under the wisteria arbor, listening to a LibriVox recording of Moll Flanders, knitting various pieces, and reveling in the rare opportunity to do exactly as I pleased.

Yet I know that if I let too many days pass this way -- long lunches followed by a nap and knitting -- I'll soon feel restless. The voices in my head, perhaps some remnant of Puritan duty, will scold me for enjoying myself too much, as if there should be a limit to pleasure. Should there be?-- when my pleasure consists of such simple, honest things, like books and music and fiber and food and, lastly, bicycles? Where is the wrong in these things? Where else should my duty lie, in these fallow moments, if not in seeking such pleasures, the better now than later, when more somber responsibilities might indeed call?

I began this web-log to write about the things that make me happy; to write about my avid and eager search for happiness in the face of external burdens that, at times, made life almost unbearable this spring. Yet, now relieved of some of these concerns, I feel almost guilty in taking my pleasure today, as if I only deserved it when there was real hardship in other areas of my life.

Perhaps the guilt that I feel is the only truly Puritan part of this dilemma, for ancient philosophers had something to say on the matter of happiness as well. Aristotle, for example, believed that though the end of life was happiness, happiness did not come from the possession of material goods (as is so often presumed), but from living a life of virtue, and practicing moderation in all things. This notion is sometimes referred to as "the good life," and was a principal concern of Thomas Jefferson as well, who made sure to write it into the Declaration of Independence, changing John Locke's right to "life, liberty, and property" into the inalienable right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."Gautama Buddha talked more of ending suffering than of finding happiness, but what is the path to enlightenment if not a middle road between the two, another way of stating Aristotle's principle of moderation?

I already know that I am not after money or property in my pursuit of the good life. I also know that, having seen more than my share of suffering in these short 25 years, and having emerged from my sorrows mostly unscathed, I wish to help others out of theirs. But still I am searching for that "happy medium" in my own life, a way to balance the good with the bad, the joy with the pain, and to not err too much towards excess in any direction. Thus, this space, these words. Avid happiness, happy life: A V I D A L E G R I A.