For weeks now, I've been meaning to write about my own personal path both toward and away from sustainability. In a recent conversation, with the father of a dear friend from high school, the idea of sustainability as representing a lack of growth, or "development," was discussed. My friend's dad honestly viewed sustainability through this lens and, therefore, did not perceive the endeavor as a positive one. Rather, in his mind, sustainability was equivalent and/or synonymous with stagnation - it was unchanging and unmoving. It was not industry, or industrious. And, yet, what I personally am referring to, when I use the word "sustainability", is as to how we - you/me/us, at our very core and in our deepest of hearts - are going to endure. In other words, "how are YOU going to live in the years to come?" It's a simple enough question, really.
So, I've finally become a saleswoman. I've never been much of a salesperson (ask my sister, she'll tell you) - not because I lacked skills, wherewithal or finesse. Rather, because I simply never believed in anything I had to sell. Certainly not the institution of education where monotony is beaten into our children; nor the synthetic materials made in China for an upper class, American outdoor enthusiast; or, even, rickety old, pedicab rides through downtown San Diego. Even dance I struggled with selling - because I don't want you to dance like me, or anyone else for that matter. I want YOU to BE YOU... in all of your glory and your madness. In your strength and your wisdom. In your beauty and your tragedy. But, that's another story for another time.
Today, I sell SOUL FOOD.
(Yes, I am reclaiming the term.)
When I first left San Diego County, for a college located six+hundred miles north, my soul was withered. My spirit was parched - already - and I was only 17. Although I have always been fortunate, privileged and lucky, by that time, my bodymind and soulspirit had already absorbed years, months, days, hours, minutes and seconds of: media watching, in which violence and sex are paraded as common entertainment; male and female adults resenting and disrespecting both themselves and each other; repressed emotion that resulted in volcanic eruptions of anger; heavy handed punishment for minor infractions; a forced obedience of "sit down, and shut-up," of "be seen and not heard;" and the energetic and emotional imbalance of a world dangerously teetering on a brink around me.
For too long, I looked outside of myself to have my very real human needs met -
"I have rolled it up and tried to smoke it,
I have peered into a bottle and tried to drink it,
I have kissed it wholeheartedly and made love to it on a bed of nails,
I have eaten it until my stomach felt close to bursting,
I have drank its wine and pissed its stench.
I have read about it, talked about it,
sat in parishes and prayed about it,
I have gotten down on my knees for it,
I have even jumped out of an airplane for it,"
all in a quest to discover what truly feeds my spirit.
For in the end, one question remains,
"How well did you live?"
HOW WELL DO YOU LIVE?!??!?!?!
