i had to laugh when i walked into my mom's kitchen the other day. on the fridge is an old collage i did. the paper is brittle. the images are faded. it was an exercise in one of my group therapy sessions. (ah, depression!) one side of the collage was who i was then, with my destructive habits. the other was who i wanted to be, with new, nurturing habits. i had folded the collage so that only the "new me" was exposed. focusing on the good and all that crap.
smack dab in the middle of the images that were going to save me was a cave man. tall, fit, hairy, carrying a big stick, he was dressed in the skin of his last meal.
when i was a little girl, i would sit at the kitchen table after school. i would crouch on a chair like a little bird as my dad cut up steak, tossed it into hot oil for a couple seconds, then toss it onto my plate. it was hot, seared on the outside, and still almost mooing on the inside. i loved it.
i also loved mounds of chard in butter, parsleyed carrots, salads, fish, and cow tongue.
i was a strange child.
i loved food. but, specifically, meat and vegetables. i hated peanuts.
growing up, i read books. i read all the health books, all the weight loss books. it wasn't until i started following these diet programs that i started to gain weight. it wasn't until i started working out twice a day that i started to have all sorts of body aches. when i was in college, i became a vegetarian and gained 20 pounds. later, i became a vegan and gained 10 more.
i also discovered the self-improvement section at the bookstore. wow, did i ever have a long way to go before i could be an acceptable human being. i didn't realize how wrong i was about everything until the experts told me i was.
all my life, i've been a seeker. of course, i became a seeker around the time i learned that i didn't know things. i became a seeker when i was introduced to the concept of "the expert". people that had never met me, didn't know my story, had never known it was even possible for a haitian girl to have white skin (see how very little the experts know?), didn't know what i loved, and how i loved it, were experts about me. and i, the only person that has been consistently around me since there has been a me to be around, knew nothing.
it has been a process, but little things over time have brought me back to myself. oh, dorothy, it was inside you all along....the person that i was at 4 years old DID know everything. she is the cave girl to whose knowledge i defer. and this is what she knew:
1. meat (the bloodier the better), vegetables, soups, some fruit, and almonds (preferably cracked open herself near the roots of the tree) was really good food
2. playing was the best way to get anything done
3. it's fun to run around and get really sweaty while laughing and wearing pretty dresses and the wind feels best when you're not wearing anything at all
4. dancing is the best way to tell a story
5. it is physically impossible to be sad at the beach
6. hugs and kisses are better than dollar bills
7. god only exists because we have awesome imaginations that can create all sorts of other things, too
8. sleep after playing hard all day is especially sweet
9. catching a fish yourself makes it taste better
10. boys are great playmates
these things, and others have started to gel into something of a "philosophy". i've found many very helpful sources on how to live like a cave man and what it can do for your health. i'm very interested in what my primal self, my true self has to say about the rest of living as well.
this blog will touch on all aspects of living true to our oldest selves, the selves that we were in perfect communication with before society cut us off. my four year old self and my 40,000 year old self are in perfect communion, i do believe.
