A Place at the Table

We all want a place at the table-- the place to feel invited  and where good stories will be shared. Sometimes I'm surprised by where I have a seat and where I don't.

This week I had a seat at the table of a 3 star Japanese general and a 2 star Japanese general. It was a table set for 8 at an event held in honor of my battalion commander in appreciation for his partnership. I was invited because I do a lot of liaison work with the Japanese forces. My boss was awkward, telling stories about himself without asking any questions and trying to focus on American sports talk. The hosts were graciously accommodating to him. I asked the 2 star a couple of questions to break the ice and get people laughing. By rank, it wasn't a table I belonged at, but I had a place at the Japanese table I would never have at an American military table where it's unlikely I would eat with even the 1 star general who I escort on a regular basis.

Church. I grew up in the church where everyone is supposed to have a place at the table. I'm the wrong demographic for church now. I'm trying to find a church community group. I'm not a young couple or a couple with kids or a mom or a young single nor do I have "every man's battle." I emailed the contact for the group listed as "everyone welcome." I was told they are all families with young children.

People who do have a place for me at the table: A nice couple of married non-officer Marines I met who went to Explosive Ordnance Device school with a friend of mine from Basic Training. The wife got out and is now a bouncer. The husband is a bodybuilder. They are big, lusty people who give bear hugs and eat great piles of food with a lot of cheap beer.  I also met a nice Mormon girl with an LDS book club I'm trying to worm my way into.

A Study in Contrasts

I've been simultaneously reading two memoirs- Bread and Wine that is a memoir of a married woman who has a lot of friends she makes beautiful food for all the time and re-reading Craving Grace about a single girl who gives up eating sugar in a search to find God's grace and to let Him be her sweetness. So I'm studying the feaster and the faster. I can read about the feaster like a homey fairytale. Abundance of friends, full tables, joy discovered at every turn, great husband, perfect babies, involved parents, really useful recipes. But even though the faster tends to have a whiny tone and suck-y joyless life, I can relate to her craving. I'm trying to live in the middle.

I've tried to be a feaster-- thinking I could eat anything I wanted and making every day a celebration. That just leads futility to working out and a hunger for more. I've been a faster-- eating in crazy disordered ways, keeping to strictly slim fast and power bars while running 6 miles a day. That just leads to being really tired.  Both lead to jagged, unsatisfied emotions.

I'm back to where I land with the reality I keep forgetting. Paleo is what works for me. Gluten and dairy are not my friends. I went through 3 days of horrible sugar withdrawal and am back to looking better, feeling better, sleeping better. But this time I want to make it beautiful and enjoy it. So I make my own crackers today. I bought a spring form pan to craft a gluten-free, dairy-free cheesecake.

I'm supposed to have dinner tonight with a man I found out last night has a foot fetish from a friend whose roommate dated him. He wanted to suck on her toes. Yuck.  I'm pissed that this is my option. My boss this week made me find the regulation about earrings and uniforms when I forgot for the 1st time in over 2 years to take out earrings before PT. Then he wouldn't give me time off to take friend to the airport. My life is maybe a tad whiny and sucky. But until I become a musician, food is the beauty I can create, and I need to wield that towards the moderate feast.

egg with yolk

Yesterday I had the chance to attend a nutrition seminar with one of the top 15 female bodybuilders in the world. Surely 4 hours of nutrition talk would inspire to get beach-ready for the summer. She's a walking super hero with single digit bodyfat.  But I've come to the place of having a basic standard for nutrition information I embrace-- it's the egg yolk. In my fancy theology, the truest thing I believe about food is that if God wanted us to only eat the egg white, he never would have inserted a beautiful, sunny, very easy to cook yolk in its center.

I was tracking with Zoa the Great on packing 6 small meals a day. A former paleo-ite (paleosite?) I was grateful for permission to eat grains and had visions of the hills of oatmeal and couscous I would embrace. But when it came to the discussion of just buying eggs whites in a carton, I hit a wall.

So I will stay fat. I'll keep working out to feel good and have fun. I'll eat my vegetables. I will someday find another non-white man to date since they tend to be a whole lot less skinny-obsessed. But mark me down for now in the column of "not willing to make the sacrifice."

Wendy Darling

Early this morning I wrote the following to my friend and favorite playmate, my Peter Pan:
Next month when you leave the Island of the Lost Boys (Okinawa), I (Wendy Darling) will choose to grow up. I was feeling new resolution to tackle my issues of hesitancy. I would start investing. I would make responsible dating choices that could lead to marriage. I would want babies and not mind that fat, and the sleeplessness, and the noise, and the spills and the never being alone that accompany that choice. I felt very confident about my ability to walk through those doors. I told God I could do that stuff.

Then I showed up to women's small group tonight at church. It was a dinner, so I stopped and bought pizzas. I was exhausted and hungry and eager to share deep insights. I was not expecting that all the women would bring their kids, because that wasn't the plan. And dinner was very delayed. The women kept talking about dependent things-- medical testing and stop bouncing that ball and look how pregnant you are amidst the shrieking toddlers. I slipped out the back, came home to prepare a healthy dinner, ate 2 bites and then fed my soul with a little chocolate bunny and coffee.

Wendy Darling must eventually grow up and leave the Island of the Lost Boys, but right now all the brightness of Tinker Bell and the bad ass-edness of Tiger Lily are pulling her back to a world where people fly.

Easter Island

This morning for Easter I awoke to early typhoon season giant rain. Being from Chicago, I find the rain cheering, but it put a damper on plans as one friend I was planning to spend Easter with texted to say she was too sick (meaning hung over) and the other didn't want to venture out in the rain (she lives 3 min from church). Feeling defeated at the prospect of church alone, I packed up my chocolate bunnies intended for friends,  added my rain boots to my little nightie, and threw on a rain jacket sure I would see no one at 0830 during a storm. I was going chocolate bunny delivering to neighbors' doors to add an element of mystery and creepiness to their lives since I wouldn't see friends. As soon as I stepped outside, I discovered three guys next door out smoking. I pretended not to see them and continued on to my friend Brett's. No sooner had I bent to leave a bunny, than the door swung out, scared the bejeezus out of me, and Brett stepped out with his dog.

He was up early and planned to go to Easter service with me. He is Jewish. He doesn't do church. But he was up and looking sharp because he thought it was important to me. He gamely sat out the hymns and bad sermon without complaint.

Then my favorite hedonist told me he was making me dinner and even humoring me by including vegetables. He doesn't eat vegetables. This because Easter is important to me.

So this has been a dry season for me with girlfriend and with Christian friends. But when I'm about to lose heart, these two guys show up and save the day. They are the ones who helped me move. They are the ones who came over to drink vodka and smoke with me when they diagnosed that my "give a damn was broken."

It's God in His infinite weirdness resurrecting things that actually need it.

Rest

I've never been that comfortable with rest. Growing up with Southern Baptist parents, I was strong-armed into it on Sundays growing up. Rest become synonymous with ideas of "bed rest" which pretty much means house arrest.  I realized I had the issue when my small group looked at Psalm 23.  Being made to lie down near still waters would never be my vacation agenda. I prefer motion and excitement and change.

Unfortunately, I now having a running injury and the sucky Air Force doctor recommends rest. That seems like a terrible idea in the Army, and I think he doesn't understand the importance of running for my career. But the pain is forcing me to rest anyway. Further, I feel like I'm in social rest mode. Boyfriend PCSed, best playmate is about to leave the island, and I feel completely uninspired to hang out with anyone else. I'm resting socially and surrounding myself with books and my imaginary friendships with Miranda, Carrie, Charlotte, and Samantha. And I'm missing the diversion of long runs.

A goal for me this year has been training to try for a female cultural support team. I know I can't go to selection with an injury. So it's forced rest. And this means resting my body and my goals. I'm waiting for another goal to occur to me, but in my meantime I'm being made to lie down and hoping restoration feels like a life improvement instead of a band aid.

Dancing and Fighting

Happiness Project month #1 is complete. I trained for a triathlon and enjoyed it. I did feel satisfaction marking daily progress on a calendar and pushing myself to swim and run farther, and as most of these experiments show, I am more capable than the level to which I usually push myself.

Now on to the next project. This week I heard a speaker talking about having a bucket list. I don't have one of these. Mainly because I do what I want in the season. My preferences and goals change when the wind blows, and I tend to follow those impulses where they lead me. I have jumped out a plane, worked at a ranch, learned to white water kayak, and gotten my nose pierced. I was surprised when I did try to write a list at what my subconscious pushed me towards-- learn how to fight, learn how to dance. In that order.

I have skill at neither since they both require coordination. And they seem to go together in complementary opposition. Two kinds of embrace. Two physical exersions. Both paralleling human struggles and relation. I looked up ballroom dance lessons today. I have a connection in the jiu jitsu scene. I'm mentally preparing to be humbled.