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| "Fare Thee Well, La Milpa" |
Last week, my own lack of energetic sustainability had me questioning just exactly what this word "sustainable" means. There I was, at thirty-three years of age, riding a single gear, beach cruiser up these slanted slopes of San Diego from Ocean Beach to North Park and back again. Humorously, I rode the lumbering piece of metal up to Jay Porter's new El Take It Easy, a self-ascribed gastro-cantina, to rub elbows, drink a few pints, and try some of Jay's infamous Tosti-Locos along with members of Green Drinks and Roots San Diego Sustainable Food Project. A dull headache throbbed in my right temple, noxiously highlighting my current case of painful judgment and criticism, of casting stones and pointing my two, index fingers in an outward direction. Last week was a sharp reminder that the contradiction of this being alive cuts both ways, for I was guilty - of being completely, totally and utterly fallible, imperfect and human.
The mere act of riding that bicycle alone was tell-tale proof that I am not leading a sustainable lifestyle. The energy it requires just to locomote that damn bike up any hill is not something any one person could sustainably commit to, day in and day out. Yet, there I was, once again, reveling in a livelihood of extremes, which has been par for course in my lifetime; up and down, good and bad, rich and poor, fat and thin, active and non-active, quiet and busy, et al. If there is some equalizing balance point where it all just seems to level out then I have yet to reach it. How about you?
So, I felt the pain of all of my own self-imposed bullshit caving in on me. Instead of trying to escape it, however, I simply sat in it - on the couch in a friend's beach-side apartment that I have been house-sitting for a few weeks now. I know you hear me when I say that for as fun and rockin' as this party is, it also hurts. It can be hard, tumultuous and suffering without any trying on our part. The beauty of this life now is bittersweet and I refuse to pretend otherwise. The shadow comes with the light ~ there just ain't no way around that.
