Upcoming posts:
I Know It's Rude
and
Whose Fingernails Are These?
Motherhood. Food. Love. Health. Heartache. That shaky pendulum of ambivalence.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Cutting A Scone In Half
Cutting a scone in half is no easy task. A scone’s crumble capacity makes dividing it evenly particularly difficult. And you’re still debating whether or not you should consume any of it, let alone half, but the thing is, you’ve already ordered it along with your tall decaf Americano, paid for your order, and walked away with that mouth-watering scone in a brown paper pastry bag. Now you must find a way to cope with your ambivalence, and, more importantly, accurately count the calories you are about to consume.
Why did you choose this? Is it subconscious self-sabotage? This is not acceptable, part of your mind says: All this sugar, for breakfast. Your whole day will be sabotaged once you meddle with your blood sugar. That long walk you took mere hours ago will have been in vain. You need balance. And here is this scone, a seemingly benign baked triangular object, now threatening your very existence.
How could this be?
Why do you have to be so damn serious all the time?
Look around. People are noshing lemon pound cake, over-sized wild berry muffins and chocolate chip cookies, brownies. They bite and chew and talk and sip and they don’t think twice. But you, you hold this crinkly bag in your fist—the feel of it, the idea of it, the image of its contents gripping your lungs. Breathe, you think. For God’s sake, it’s a scone.
Clarification: It’s a mini-scone, one-third the size of a regular scone, and you’re plotting to dissect it. That’s nice. At least Starbucks now lists calorie content on all items. Yours is 140. Half is an awkward, but manageable, 70.
Bon appétit. Can you eat, enjoy, sans guilt? Any other way would be an oxymoron.
Why did you choose this? Is it subconscious self-sabotage? This is not acceptable, part of your mind says: All this sugar, for breakfast. Your whole day will be sabotaged once you meddle with your blood sugar. That long walk you took mere hours ago will have been in vain. You need balance. And here is this scone, a seemingly benign baked triangular object, now threatening your very existence.
How could this be?
Why do you have to be so damn serious all the time?
Look around. People are noshing lemon pound cake, over-sized wild berry muffins and chocolate chip cookies, brownies. They bite and chew and talk and sip and they don’t think twice. But you, you hold this crinkly bag in your fist—the feel of it, the idea of it, the image of its contents gripping your lungs. Breathe, you think. For God’s sake, it’s a scone.
Clarification: It’s a mini-scone, one-third the size of a regular scone, and you’re plotting to dissect it. That’s nice. At least Starbucks now lists calorie content on all items. Yours is 140. Half is an awkward, but manageable, 70.
Bon appétit. Can you eat, enjoy, sans guilt? Any other way would be an oxymoron.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
a fine line
There is a fine line between pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow, and, as an old friend reminded me, sunshine and rain...
ambivalence
Placing a label or diagnosis on a person or condition can sometimes prove faulty, even dangerous; often, though, a label provides clarity and propels us toward a point of acceptance. Such is the case with an ambivalent mind.
Recently, during an intense session, my therapist found it necessary to highlight my tendency toward ambivalence regarding nearly every aspect of my life. For a person who feels as scattered, confused, and overwhelmed as I typically do (my therapist might substitute another term here--"fragmented"), to regard myself instead as ambivalent felt enlightening. Not enlightening in the Eastern religion/philosophy sense of the word, but enlightening as if someone had shined a light upon a quality in myself that previously seemed like a flaw and a hindrance, but suddenly became the pinnacle of my healing process, a stepping stone toward self-acceptance.
If I can catch myself when I find I am swinging on that weighty pendulum of ambivalence, and understand that this is actually a popular position for the human mind, that I am in fact not so different from the whole of our species, I can, as paradoxical as it may seem, feel grounded in mid-air.
That is my goal for this blog, to feel grounded in mid-air. For even as I sit here and type the letters and words and sentences that form this post, and before that, when the concept of this blog entered my mind, I felt ambivalent. Should I blog, or not blog? What else could I be doing with my time? Will a decision to instead let this constant notion of ambivalence volley back and forth inside my own head trap me? Will the blog free me, or will it prove a waste of time? Could it advance my career as a writer (everyone says to get your start with a blog!) or will it side-track my progress toward the MFA degree I am pursuing? How will others regard the concept of this blog? Will they resent it, or embrace it? Does it matter what anyone else thinks?
On the one hand, no; I write, first and foremost, for myself; I write because I must write, because I need to write, because I want to write. On the other hand, most honest writers will admit that we also write to "touch" other people, to connect with the outside world.
Would it be more beneficial to clean and organize my apartment?
Most of these questions will remain unanswered, and that is perfectly (or imperfectly) okay. For now, I attempt to clean and organize my mind, ambivalently, with this project. And within this project, I plan to address all things ambivalent, while welcoming others' ideas, as well.
Recently, during an intense session, my therapist found it necessary to highlight my tendency toward ambivalence regarding nearly every aspect of my life. For a person who feels as scattered, confused, and overwhelmed as I typically do (my therapist might substitute another term here--"fragmented"), to regard myself instead as ambivalent felt enlightening. Not enlightening in the Eastern religion/philosophy sense of the word, but enlightening as if someone had shined a light upon a quality in myself that previously seemed like a flaw and a hindrance, but suddenly became the pinnacle of my healing process, a stepping stone toward self-acceptance.
If I can catch myself when I find I am swinging on that weighty pendulum of ambivalence, and understand that this is actually a popular position for the human mind, that I am in fact not so different from the whole of our species, I can, as paradoxical as it may seem, feel grounded in mid-air.
That is my goal for this blog, to feel grounded in mid-air. For even as I sit here and type the letters and words and sentences that form this post, and before that, when the concept of this blog entered my mind, I felt ambivalent. Should I blog, or not blog? What else could I be doing with my time? Will a decision to instead let this constant notion of ambivalence volley back and forth inside my own head trap me? Will the blog free me, or will it prove a waste of time? Could it advance my career as a writer (everyone says to get your start with a blog!) or will it side-track my progress toward the MFA degree I am pursuing? How will others regard the concept of this blog? Will they resent it, or embrace it? Does it matter what anyone else thinks?
On the one hand, no; I write, first and foremost, for myself; I write because I must write, because I need to write, because I want to write. On the other hand, most honest writers will admit that we also write to "touch" other people, to connect with the outside world.
Would it be more beneficial to clean and organize my apartment?
Most of these questions will remain unanswered, and that is perfectly (or imperfectly) okay. For now, I attempt to clean and organize my mind, ambivalently, with this project. And within this project, I plan to address all things ambivalent, while welcoming others' ideas, as well.
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