Daily 5 - Year 3, Day 195

To be honest, this week kind of beat up on me a bit.  The first week after reading break wasn't as smooth as it has been some years.  A rough midterm, not enough sleep, my ongoing struggle to balance my introversion with the demands of twenty hours a week of intense group work - none of these did me any favors this week.  That said, it's weeks like this that remind me why it's so important for me to count reasons to smile - to list the things I'm thankful for - at the end of each day.

So, here's today's Daily 5:

1. Friday - that moment when I get to turn off the 5:30 alarm clock and know it's not going on again until Tuesday
2. Wearing a dress, leggings, a cute scarf and boots to school today
3. sitting in companionable silence with a friend over lunch
4. Vietnamese noodles
5. choosing honest expression (speak truth even if your voice shakes - and mine was)
6. feeling really stretched in my thinking around personal values and tolerance - but not feeling as threatened by that stretching as I might have, and being able to identify the emotions that I was feeling, to name and add humor to those thoughts by composing phrases like "All this teaching on tolerance is starting to make me feel intolerant"
7. friends who cared enough to check in
8. getting a skype date on the schedule with a friend I've been badly missing
9. arriving home to quiet
10. good bus connections
11. pouring myself into some mindless and soul cleansing tasks like vacuuming, laundry, and taking out the recycling
12. washing dishes - until I decided enough was enough with my living situation and started eating something besides microwave meals in disposable containers, I'd forgotten how soothing it can be to wash dishes at times.  I'd also never believed that something as simple as washing your own dishes could feel empowering, but it is given the situation in which I've lived for the last two years.
13. really good leftover chicken, vegetables and goat cheese risotto from dinner out at an Italian place with a friend earlier this week
14. feeling the reality of exercise in my muscles
15. putting on pajamas still warm from the dryer
16. watching the season premiere of the newest "America's Next Top Model" cycle.  This time it pitts 7 British girls against 7 American girls.  I'm betraying my American heritage and cheering for the Brits (which, by the way, deeply embraces my Canadian heritage, not only because the Queen is also our head of state, but because it's very Canadian to cheer for anything that isn't American!)  The show was exactly the right mix of humour, mindless, and catty to mitigate the events of my day.  It did however remind me that I was mocking a friend's slightly similar viewing choice earlier today, by telling her that every time she watched it, a book committed suicide!
17. collapsing into quiet for most of the evening
18. word games (Words with Friends and Scramble with Friends) on my iphone (add me if you play either of these - should be under my full name from Facebook, or if you need a user name, email me!)
19. the catharsis of writing a long overdue email to one of my best friends, and knowing I could humoursly rant and she'd exactly understand both me, and the situations I was conveying, and empathize since she's experiencing similar things at the moment
20. chocolate.  any day that ends with chocolate has to be at least a little bit good.

Friday Reflections, March 2, 2012

Given that yesterday I shared in greater depth about my journey with food and eating disorders, it seems somehow appropriate to share some reflections from Henri Nouwen on the spiritual value of sharing a meal today.  Nouwen's thoughts on this subject have shaped some of my passion for sharing meals with friends, and for cooking, and fit nicely into the themes I seem to be exploring in this space lately.


The Meal That Makes Us Family and Friends

We all need to eat and drink to stay alive. But having a meal is more than eating and drinking. It is celebrating the gifts of life we share. A meal together is one of the most intimate and sacred human events. Around the table we become vulnerable, filling one another's plates and cups and encouraging one another to eat and drink. Much more happens at a meal than satisfying hunger and quenching thirst. Around the table we become family, friends, community, yes, a body.

That is why it is so important to "set" the table. Flowers, candles, colorful napkins all help us to say to one another, "This is a very special time for us, let's enjoy it!"