Perpetual Notion

So curriculum,
has become my trip these days.
No sailing past it.

Living lesson plans
from one day to the next day.
Breathing by treading.

But I shall surface,
and climb onto familiar
ground that I may stand.

For so it has been,
that a dive into the thick,
will come out on top.

I was starting a response in the comments but then it just kept going… So here it is. If you have not yet read the comments to the Eat Local Challenge post, do so now. Then you may better understand the following post.

To comment from the very beginning of Manipadme’s critique, I am currently operating to my own disadvantage. I am not exercising the perfect solution to our system. Instead I am pushing my diet to an extreme so that when October rolls in, the challenge is over, and I can snap back to my regular eating habits… well, maybe I will not snap all the way back. With hope I will be finding a new balance.

If by religious you mean meditative, then yes. Perhaps I am making things more complex than need be, but I do spend a fair amount of time planning and preparing (meditating on) my meals. Cooking is far more an event than it was a week ago. I have begun to feel like an ancestor of long ago, where I spend hours of the day foraging for food. I have in fact spent hours on meals, and am fortunate to have a schedule that abides.

But by religious you probably mean the group-think aspect. In everyone I talk to about the challenge, I try my best to emphasize the personal approach. Folks can take on the local diet to the extent that they deem reasonable. For me to drink coffee I would only be “disloyal” to myself and my own goals. I am not a week in and I miss coffee. I do not dwell on my loss but instead think beyond coffee. What else can I have? Where else can I go?

The crutches have been kicked out: pasta, rice, oils, spices. I leaned quite heavily upon certain base ingredients. Now that they are purged from my diet I am teetering. I am off kilter and actively searching for replacements. Meals take so much more effort because in a way, I am starting from scratch. I made a salsa last Sunday based on pumpkin. It was good. I also made a more typical tomato salsa, but at least my mind is moving.

To clarify on Just Local Foods, yes they are a business. JLF is a sponsor of the challenge. Though the challenge did not stem from our local co-op, it sprouted in San Francisco. The idea was introduced by A Second Opinion Magazine to Just Local Foods, and they jumped on board. Why would they not? The challenge completely fits the niche that JLF works within. And to consider their partnership to be purely one of profit is a bit dark. Owning and operating a cooperative grocery store in Eau Claire is not a business move for the profit minded. It is a good business and they are ready to expand, but there are other far more lucrative avenues than an employee owned local and organic food shop. They do what they do because it allows them to sleep well at night. Their’s is a business of social growth, as well as profit.

To close this response up, this is an exercise in compromise. I do not foresee living out the rest of my life upon the diet of one hundred miles. The severity of this challenge is opening my eyes to things I otherwise may have never encountered. You mentioned the concept of balance. I am working toward a farther reaching balance than what I knew in August. Life until this month has been the thesis. Right now (Eat Local Challenge) I am operating within the Antithesis. October comes and I will hope to arrive at new understanding, a synthesis if you will.

Thank you Manipadme, for the thoughtful critique.

P.S. Bjorn is correct. I did at one time weigh out my options on the McDonald’s menu.

I first heard of the Eat Local Challenge last spring while attending the ground breaking ceremony for the UWEC Foodlums’ garden in the courtyard of Phillips Science Hall. After the speakers had their say, a lingering group of Foodlums remained to enjoy the sun, the grass, and the remnants of the donated local cuisine. Arwen Rasmussen of A Second Opinion magazine approached our patch of lawn, introduced herself, and proceeded to tell us of some bold San Franciscans called the Localvores. As the story goes, back in 2005 these West-Coasters decided to receive all of their dietary sustenance from within 100 miles for the month of August.

The Localvores have since worked to extend the success of their challenge beyond the bay area, and into local communities around the world. This year the Chippewa Valley is part of the effort slated for the month of September.

Not a futile act, but an actual concerted effort toward change, the Eat Local Challenge stands to draw attention to what so often goes unnoticed. In this ever-increasingly developed world we have grown disconnected from something so simple as eating. There was an age that required our ancestors’ entire waking day just to find adequate nourishment. Today is a bit different. Now we pick up a phone, drive around to the window, or throw it in the microwave. We have become removed from this thing that is instrumental to our very existence.

We have become distanced from our food, both physically and mentally. Minds have moved on to other matters than the dinner plate. And our indifference has bred a far different place setting than that of our grandparents. If as individuals we are too busy to be concerned with our food, then whose job does it become? The task has been left to the hands of corporations – entities that are chiefly concerned with profit, and with quality only to the extent that it moves product. Yes product, today’s diet may as well be of plastic for how the business is run. The produce of the supermarket is engineered for quantity. High yields and a long shelf life to outlast the great distances of shipping. The meal of today travels on average well over 1,000 miles before we stick a fork in it.

The Eat Local Challenge operates at a personal level. Any interested individual is welcome to participate to whatever degree best befits their lifestyle. However, as it is a challenge, folks are asked to make some concessions to their daily routine. There are some who plan to attempt 100% local while others may try a couple meals a week. As little as one local meal a week can be an eye-opener to the array of goods available right here in our valley. The challenge is also intended to be doable. If you cannot go a month without your morning cup of coffee, then make an exception. Some of the common exceptions will be coffee, spices, and oils.

Personally I have resolved to approach the 100% mark as best I can. I do expect to miss my routine coffee and staple oil, so it goes. To lessen the individual burden, one friend proposed the forming of a Third Ward Neighborhood support group. We have spent a while going back and forth over the organizational format. Initial thoughts were to have a group of seven, each person having their specific cooking night. Further deliberation preferred more flexibility to the nightly menu. Not wanting to make a crutch of the support group, we are more apt to convene for dining a few nights a week as opposed to all. It just works that it is easier to manage family portions, and I will no doubt be trying some items that I otherwise would not. Besides, why not one more reason to socialize?

I may be out of luck for my daily coffee, but other sacrifices will have some more latitude. For my love of the fry pan, I can substitute butter for olive oil. Perhaps in a radical mood I may even try my vegetables raw. By default I will be eating out less, though I have been lobbying my favorite businesses to join the effort and tweak their menu.

If not by choice, then by force. Some of my friends are participating without their initially knowing. It happens on frequent occasion that I prepare meals with friends and roommates. For September these mealmates, when I am involved, will also be eating local. What better time than this harvest season to feed friends and allow them a new taste of their own region?

For the masses… a few of us intend to spread sign-up sheets around the town. Multipurpose of course, these documents will serve to measure the level of community participation, as well as create a contact list. Should another restaurant opt to add a 100 mile feature to their menu, then the word can be spread as simple as email. Feel free, as well as strongly encouraged, to sign-up and try one local meal a week. If you can commit to more, kudos, do it.

From my end, I can accept changing my lifestyle. That is, for a month anyway. I may find that a 100 mile diet is not to my taste. Though I figure I can wage these 30 days to make this personal discovery.

A blog for Chippewa Valley’s Eat Local Challenge can be found at www.asecondopinionmag.com, and includes local resource information from A Second Opinion Magazine, Just Local Food Co¬-op, and Native Bay Restaurant. Local farmers, producers, and challenge participants also contribute regularly.

…This article will be published in September issue of Progressive Outpost…

In recent years I have been growing ever more aware of my language usage, both spoken and written. I have been developing new habits while attempting to squash older ones. Not only focusing on the ideas that I present, but the presentation itself. We place much weight upon the words that carry our thoughts from Point A to Point B. And yet so often, we speak quickly and with little consideration. I prefer a more active role in my use of language.

I have a pocket-load of tactics to the benefit of greater participation in the English language. My arsenal grows, though is sporadic by measure of implementation. To rein in some focus, I will speak to one device that I encounter daily.

Speech has come to be second nature, so that we think very little of it. We become lazy in our vocabulary selection and sentence structure. I am no less guilty of these things. We have even found a means to take two words and make them one, a contraction. In this, my age of growing linguistic consciousness, I have harvested an animosity for contractions.

The use of contraction is a time saver. It suggests that I do not have time to say or write both words. I have not the time to utilize my native language, and I therefore must give you the condensed version.

Contractions are also used to increase the fluidity of a sentence. Words are blended together for the creation of a more whole and solid sound. The results roll off of the tongue. To do otherwise would be jarring and awkward for both the individual speaking and listening.

As 2006 came to a close, I was fumbling for a resolution. The ball came closer to dropping, and I was strongly considering the termination of my contraction usage. I did not go that route for resolution, for I thought it too difficult to acceptably implement. Though I have since gone to lengths to address and curb my contraction usage.

I have challenged myself to not use contractions whenever possible. I do not have so little time that I should slice two words to be one. Avoiding conversational contractions appears to me as a symptom that I do have time to be here, with you, talking about this. And in recognizing that symptom, I convince myself that I do indeed have the time. This then results in my further engagement to the conversation.

To speak against the fluidity of contractions, we have become too comfortable in our word choices. The smooth sounding phrases that we share daily are light on the tongue and soft in the ear. They are efficient and the idea comes across, but search in to the meaning goes little beyond the surface. Speaking sans contraction, as stated previous, is both jarring and awkward. We have come so far down this path leaning on the crutch of contraction, that to kick it out, one can not help but wobble. The experience is not normal. It feels uncomfortable. And thus, we mislabel it as bad.

This unsettlement is good. It shakes us from our daily routine. Unfamiliar patterns of speech invite added interpretation of the exchange. The listener is rattled, and thus forced to step back and think even further into what was just said. This holds true now because forgoing contractions is abnormal. Though if we were to make the shift to a non-contraction using language, the results would lose clout. For now it is different, and therefore effective.

To discontinue contractions in my daily exchange is difficult. The effort has made me actively more aware of what I say. Instead of passive interaction, quitting contractions has added a triggering device to my speech. I may catch myself before saying a contraction and redirect my language path to state the non-contracted phrase. Or I may catch myself just afterwards and backpedal to correct myself, or log a mental note for next time. Either way, the process of avoidance makes me more present in the conversation and my use of language.

I do still use contractions, though less and less. It would be too much to wipe them out all together. Instead, I will make the grandiose endeavor and be content in where I land. Contractions are not entirely bad, nor are they my enemy. I see an end result of well thought out and finely utilized language, and I have chosen this as one means of getting there.

Nineteen years with the wise hand of public education on my shoulder. Nudging me along. Sometimes gently, other times with a substantial shove. Harvesting the thought crop. And in time reining me and my ideas into some region of acceptability. I graduated. Two years ago now. And here I still hold to that which I had claimed then, “The best thing that I ever did was to go to college. The worst was to graduate.” A year of assorted work, and life with the folks has landed my existence back in my college town. At no point have I been surprised by this end. Something in the academic air that calls me in. Something different than whatever calls in the dude with the Camaro hanging out near the high school. Apparently we have both come back for something we want, and I will not judge. But, the authorities may question such behaviors. His of course. Mine are on the up and up. But I digress…

Unless I do the graduate school thing (not ruled out), I am on my own for academic pursuits. And of them I am far from done. I may have ceased my chase after the carrot degree hung before my nose, though I do not have to cease the chase all together. As I am a very goal oriented person, I have begun to develop a Life Degree. A loose concept, that if nothing else will keep me on the balls of my feet.

The Life Degree will serve as a list of goals new and old that I feel will better round out my life experience. Deeply steeped in the notion that we never stop learning, I am going after the true liberal arts compilation. I post my proposed degree as its own page on this site. Rather brief at this point, but goals/criteria can be added as they arise. To “complete” the degree would be amazing, though unnecessary. Some of it I expect to accomplish, others… well, I am not ruling them out. I am here for the chase.

What is on your Life Degree?