i'm back

after a ridiculous divergence, i awoke this morning with aching joints and completely unrested.  wheat, sugar, and preservatives strike again....why do i let them?

that's for a WHOLE other post (or blog even).

but, i'm back to myself.

so, today begins the second challenge that i put forth for myself.

the goal of these next thirty days is to eat 100% primal.  again, this means: meats, eggs, nuts, a shit-ton of vegetables, and some fruit.  my one vice is chocolate.  i'm not going to punish myself by removing it, however, i will limit myself to the fantastic 99% superdark that i've found.  also in my goal: adding one raw salad a day and eating seaweed twice a week.  my major issue is having the food readily available.  i've got a couple tricks up my sleeve though and i'll tell you about them as i execute them.

eating well is not a vanity issue for me.  i've been thinner on really unhealthy foods, but i've never felt better than eating like a cave girl.  yet again, the point has been driven home that my body, the only me that there is, does not like eating any other way.

new breath

it's been getting deep around here!  i've kind of fallen off from the primal path.  it's making me verbose.

tomorrow will mark the beginning of my own 30 day challenge.  i will come up with a new one for myself every thirty days.  i bore easily and challenges do motivate me.  i'm competitive enough that increased health may not be sufficient.  i have to beat something.  stupid, i know, but i yam what i yam.

duality

there are two of me.  i think that this is probably true for everyone.  i certainly hope that it is.  there is the me of sunlight, loud laughter, and bubbling energy.  there is the other me; the me of the shadows.

strictly a human condition, duality can leave us (and those who love us) confused.

who will i be in the next five minutes?

it is this capacity for choice, this intelligence that can separate us from other animals.  to me, it is often a source of my depression.  the rejection of my shadow can make me one-dimensional.  i feel best in the sunlight, but is that only because i have can compare it to the shadow?

i think the idea of the dumb cave girl is a myth.  i believe that my ancestor was incredibly intelligent.  was her psychology far different from mine?  was there even a concept of a person's duality?  these are modern concepts, apparently.  it wasn't until freud  in a cocaine-induced frenzy came up with the theory that what makes us who we are is not what we see, but the mystery that lies underneath the visible.

maybe.

or maybe we just think too much.

is there a place for such self-indulgent thought processes when one is foraging with one's tribe? or building a shelter on a spontaneous field trip?  or when dancing around a fire?  or running really, really fast from a predator?  or dancing hard around a fire?  or having sex because it feels good?

we have moved from our bodies to our brains.  when i set up camp in my brain, sit back and let the thinking begin, i can pretty much guarantee that depression, and his brothers, anxiety and fear, will rapidly be joining me.  but, when i move deep into my muscles, feeling the strength of my thighs, the power of my arms, the stability of my torso, the wave of my spine, and the domed structure of my feet, like sinewy temples, i know that i move beyond emotions completely.  i have moved away from narrow psychology.  i have stepped into being.  i am an animal again.  i can channel my intelligence into movement and sensory exploration.  i no longer have to judge my shadow.  it doesn't need to be rejected.  it is just a different movement.

my shadow is the slow stretch.  it is the skin's reaching toward moonlight.

to be beautiful

i am at the ocean.  i'm watching the waves slam into the sand as i write this.  the sea is reflecting the sun as shimmers of light.  there is a steady rhythm that hypnotizes me, but awakens me at the same time.  it awakens an ancient part of me.  the part that is the most primal stretches out in the base of my neck and remembers.  i may not know why the caged bird sings, but i do know why the fish out of water gasps.

yesterday, paddling out on my board, the waves would rise up right in front of me, the light would pierce the mystery of the wave, and schools of fish were shown to me.  dozens, hundreds of little fish were surfing the waves.  early this morning, earlier than i can wake up in my landlocked life, the waves were crashing far off shore.  there were dolphin.  they were leaping out of the water, flipping, splashing.  then they were SURGING through the water, then they were one with the waves.  five, six at a time riding through the wave.  the wave would fill up, reach forward to the shore, and in its bulk were a half dozen dolphin actually surfing.

two nights ago, i lay in bed feeling the numbness of too much fatigue and too much sadness.  my nerves were so overcharged from those two stressors, that i felt nothing.  the tall man mentioned my sister being gone and the switch was flipped.  the tears poured down into the pockets of my ears.  my ears filled with the sadness and it leaked out onto the pillow.  i could feel him caressing my arm as if in a faraway place and could barely hear anything over my sobs.  when i was calm enough to speak again, he asked me what it was that i needed.  what i needed.  what i needed.

when i saw the fish rising up as a unit, the dolphin playing like children in the waves, i knew what i needed.  what i need is to be in my environment with people that i love.

now i am here.  salt crystals are flaking on my skin.  the tall man and the medium boy are here.  i try not to focus on my sister who is missing from here.  i know that she is present in a dry place near the rio grande.  i do believe in blossoming where one is planted.  reach always for the sun and dig your roots deep.  but, it's decidedly harder to bloom in ground that is not ideal.  blue-green saltwater on my skin, sand between my toes, sun on my neck warming my reptilian brain, and the rhythm of the water is where i open up most easily.  my limbs stretch out in every direction seeking out the sun.  my colors deepen to their most vibrant.  i am as beautiful as nature intended me to be.

take a break

cave girl and the city: part 2

in haiti, i have two dear friends that saw the change in me since i went back to living like a cave girl.  "you look so happy!"  "i can see how healthy you feel in your smile!"  "you practically shine!"  "wow, you're able to life such heavy things!"  "you beat me and the elevator by going up the stairs?  you are so fast!"

then, i came back to the states: "have you lost weight?"  "you look like you've lost weight!"  "you're looking thinner!"  "wow, you've lost weight!"

i've gone back and forth with diets all my life.  my mother was overweight and her example was one crazy diet after another.  there was the nothing but boiled chicken diet, the diet coke diet, the cabbage soup diet, the grapefruit diet, the leave-in acupuncture ear needles diet, etc.

i started dancing when i was twelve and felt the pressure to be smaller and smaller.  luckily, i danced folklore (like african dance, but with a lot more booty-shaking) as well as ballet.  folklore required that i be strong, not ballet fragile.

when i went to college, i flirted with eating disorders.  to my advantage, puking grosses me out and i can never go very long without food.  BUT, overeating?  THAT sounds like fun!  and pack it away, i could!

i stopped dancing.  i started "working out" in the way that americans do.  an hour on the treadmill, aerobics classes...nothing that was enjoyable, but things that were "necessary".

and so my body became my enemy.  it was something that needed fed all the time.  eating the carb-heavy american diet put me on a crazy roller-coaster of hungry and overfull.  doing "workouts" instead of moving to the music or playing on the field stuck me in front of the mirror with a lot of criticism.

there is still a epidemic confusion that skinny means healthy.  there is still the misconception that the slender girl is the happy girl.  we've all been sold a bill of goods that says if we can just lose 15 pounds, life will be everything that we wish it was.

i've been losing my way lately.  my eating has gotten erratic, movement has become something of a chore.  my recent desire has been to keep the weight loss going.  this is very anti-cave girl.  it's hard to rise up against the crushing tide of different priorities.  and my core priorities are very different than those of society.

when i move from health based living to wanting to lose weight, certain damaging behaviors raise their ugly little heads.  losing weight, being thin, as a goal is futile, fleeting, and potentially dangerous.  wanting to run faster, throw farther, sleep deeper, eat better, be stronger...these are things that one can have a greater measure of control, but most importantly, it is FUN.  it is PLAY.  remember being five years old?  that was when hopping was challenging.  that was when climbing a tree all by your big girl self was something that filled you with pride.  jumping rope was done to rhymes.  do you remember the way the inside of the house was cool and dark after the bright sun outside?  do you remember how red your face got when you were running as hard as you could?

i can't imagine cave girls wanting to grow up to be models.  i can't imagine cave girls worrying about an extra inch to pinch.  these girls were strong.  they were valued by what they could DO.  it was so much more important to be able to run away from a tiger carrying a toddler on your back than to fit into this year's loin cloth.

i'm trying to see myself, my body, as my tool.  it is my way to experience all the pleasures of this world: the breeze on my skin when i ride the bike, the tickle of grass under my feet as i run, the sun on my eyelids when i nap outside.  i am not an ornament or a statue.  i am dynamic.

to love a wild thing

i am different from other people.  the pat answers of parents, the church, society, and school have never been enough for me.  it has led me to search all my life for answers that are deeper, truer, and, possibly, harder to accept.

i have lived thirty-six years so far and i plan on living 2 more times that.  some of the things that i've learned so far are more like remembering things that i've always known, that my body has always known.

i do not believe in god.

i do not believe in societies' structures as truth.

i do not believe in eating things that were manufactured in a factory.

i do not believe in spandex.

i do not believe in "the family unit" as based on blood.

 i do not believe in doing something that makes one miserable just to pay the bills.

i do not believe in chasing the american dream.

i do not believe in farming as an industry.

i do not believe that surgically altering one's body increases beauty.

i do not believe that the fashion industry gets to dictate my self-worth.

i do not believe that inside the house is more valuable than outside the house.

i do not believe that progress is progress.

i do not believe in western medicine as preventative.

i do not believe that humans have been divinely endowed dominion over the earth and other creatures.

i do not believe in thong underwear.

i do not believe in polyester.

i do not believe in CNN.

i do not believe that food should have a shelf life.

i do believe in love.

cheesy, you say?  maybe.   all my life, i've believed in it as something pure, noble, and life-altering.  the problem with being a wild thing is that most people find wild things intimidating, unruly, and a tad frightening.  what happens to a wild thing that needs love but doesn't know how to find those willing to love a wild thing?  she quiets down.  she learns to laugh quietly so as not to disturb the peace.  she wears a thong and learns to smile through the discomfort.  she uses big words, reads a lot of books, and learns to wear pearls.  she blows her hair dry and covers her true face with "frosted cognac" lips and "mossy dream" eyes.  she stops eating when she's hungry.  she stops moving to the beat of her own drum.  she learns to walk in step.

until she can't anymore.  hunger for blood pushes her to eat to her fill.  the books get set down while she hears her own opinions, her own instincts flood through her mind.  she tosses the thong.  she laughs louder than anyone else in the room.  it's her roar, her power.

and she walks naked into the rain to bathe.

when the mid-summer morning sun shines through silver rain clouds, she rises from her sleep and hears the tickle of the drops on the tin roof.  she smells the earth-mineral-green of the water.  she gasps at how cold it is at it pricks her shoulder, her nipple, her nose. she breaks into a loud laugh.  the water cleanses her of sleep, of sheets, of inside air.  with her feet planted in the earth, her body touched by the wet, and her arms reaching for the sky, she is wild.  she knows who she is.

he watches her through the window, sipping coffee, and smiling.  he disappears for a minute.  he comes back with a towel that he sets wordlessly down near her.

a towel after the rain; that is how to love a wild thing.

how to know...

i've already written about how my body loves me when i eat a certain way (meat, vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, good fats), but is that enough to a cave girl make?

what else about me makes me know that i am just like those women who lived thousands of years ago?  if anyone has seen my feet, they'd know one very strong link.

also, being enclosed in modern society's institutions makes me sick and crazy.  seen a tiger in too small a cage pacing, pacing, pacing...that's me in a cubicle.  seriously, i did the corporate thing and my "team leader" had to call the ambulance three times in a year.  i see through the trappings of society for what they are.  they are traps.  living in step with society is de-humanizing.  it tames a person until there is no wildness left.  and wild, contrary to outdated victorian ideals, is a good thing.  darwin observed that the brains of wild animals were denser/heavier than the brains of domesticated animals.  make no mistake, we have all been domesticated.  it takes a strong person to stay wild inside.

being wild is generally more difficult than being domesticated, so i understand why so many people have      allowed themselves to be tamed and trained.  it is difficult to take full responsibility for your health.  it is difficult to learn to identify what real food is.  it is difficult to move like a wild beast, barefoot and free.  it is difficult to give up the "security" of a comfortable seat on the couch.  but, it is so simple.

being a wild animal means eating what you're meant to eat.  it means moving like you're meant to move. it means sleeping deep and often.  it means running with a pack that is like you.  it means using your brain regularly and being fully aware.

i was reading a book by andrew weil this morning.  he consults with a sleep expert.  the sleep expert tells him that we have "flatlined" in that there is not much difference in our levels of "awakeness" between day and night.  in other words, we sleepwalk through the day and stay on this edge of alertness in the night.

i've watched people, the tame and the trained.  they do things without questioning why they do them.  wake, work, eat, t.v., restless sleep...rinse...repeat.  where is the living?  where is the wild, awake beast?

one way that i knew that i was a cave girl was and is my need to be fully awake in my life countered by my need to be profoundly asleep in my nights.

watch a wild animal, or, a child before the animal has been trained out of her.  when they are awake, they are alert, using every sense to experience the world.  once asleep, they have completely left this dimension.

be awake.  be asleep.  just not at the same time.

how far we've come?

i was rootin' around one of my favorite places to root around (not for truffles under an oak tree by the way).    in a used bookstore i came across a book written by a Dr. Jarvis entitled Folk Medicine: A Vermont Doctor's Guide to Good Health.

And i quote:

"...in relation to chronic fatigue, let us think about the food intake with which we build and rebuild the body.  There are several foods you should avoid eating if you have a problem of chronic fatigue.  Here we may borrow the guidance from the animals.  For instance, birds will not eat wheat.  If a prepared bird food containing wheat is put out for them, they will separate out the wheat and eat the rest.  Farmers in Vermont tell me that if wheat is mixed in with scratch feed hens will not eat it at all or, if very hungry, will eat it last. If there is too much wheat in a cow's ration she will not eat it.  Animals seem to know instinctively that eating is for strength, not to produce weariness and weakness, and that if they eat wheat they will have weak offspring."(italics are mine.)

eating is for strength.  wow, what a concept.  cave girl knows this.  that is why we are to eat. we give the body what it needs to be strong and energized.  of course, food does so much more than that.

it strengthens relational bonds.  it makes someone feel nurtured, even loved.  it defines people groups.

the problem, is that somewhere in history...oh, i don't know...about 10,000 years ago, we started to eat things that produced weariness and weakness AND still had it meet all the other needs.  now, we confuse love with cheesecake.  we confuse relationships with chocolate.  we confuse culture with couscous.

the irony is that human "culture", the universal entity that is the same in northern michigan and southern bombay, western saskatchewan and eastern punta cana, has the same genetic source.  all of the people in the world have one way of eating that will maximize their health.  meat, vegetables, some fruit, some nuts, and healthy fats are the foods that the human animal has evolved to eat.

understand that a slim jim is NOT meat.  ketchup is NOT a vegetable.  calcium fortified orange juice is NOT a fruit.  peanut butter is NOT a nut.  anything hydrogenated is NOT a fat.

notice there are not any grains listed here.  we didn't start eating grains until we settled into cities.  until we began to stop being our "animal" selves.  what i mean by that is when we stopped living according to our nature, our genetics and started planting grasses that we started to eat.  we're not meant to eat cereals or grains (one of which is corn).  we're not ruminants.

the cave girl way of eating was my favorite way to eat as a child.  it was what felt right to me.  breakfast was a huge vegetable omelette or a bowl of vegetable and beef stew.  lunch was usually skipped because i wasn't hungry.  dinner was meat and more vegetables.  on special days, there was a huge fruit salad for dessert.  culturally, we ate rice and beans.  i did that.  but, it didn't give me pleasure.  eating whatever animal that had been converted to a delicacy through the magic of fire gave me pleasure.

i would spend long saturday mornings eating the fruit around an almond and then crushing open the pod with a rock to get to the nutty meat.  i could polish off seven coconuts by the time i was eight years old.  when we would go the sea, the fishermen would bring their catch up to a bonfire and grill it in banana leaves.  figuring new ways to cut an orange to get to the biggest slices in the quickest way was a fun challenge.  mango season turned me into a mangovore.  avocado season found me eating avocado at every meal.  it wasn't turned into guacamole (i'd never heard of that stuff.).  it was just sliced and eaten in its buttery simplicity.  my father's family in the province would send homemade butter from their goats or cows in large jars.  it was white, densely creamy, and melted down my throat with a coffee chaser.

my father taught me to eat butter like a cheese.  hunks of it set on my tongue and allowed to melt.

i ate watercress fresh from the stream.  lime from the prickled tree was squeezed onto mirliton (chayote peppers).  leeks recently freed from the earth would be washed of their dirt in large muddy puddles in the sink and turned into soup.  garlic was added to everything after being creamed into a paste in the wooden mortar and pestle.

i grew up loving food.  i could recognize food.  it was not wrapped in plastic or from a box.  it came from the earth or ate the grass the sprouted from it.

i don't really remember bread until my dad brought home a baguette from the bakery one day when i was about nine or so.  it was a special occasion kind of treat.  but only good if it was barely recognizable underneath a mask of butter.

then, they started to import foods from the states.  farmers and their stands receded into a faded background until they were gone completely.  there was no more butter from the provincial relatives.  there was margarine.  there was chef boyardee pizza.  does anyone else remember that stuff?  the box that you added water to the powder, squirted a sweet red sauce onto it, then shook a cardboard-y "cheese" on top?  i can remember my sister and me begging my mom to buy that happy looking box.  THEN i would be popular and the kids would want to come to my house.  pizza was so foreign, exotic.  doing it all from a box was such an independent notion.  cooking didn't have to be a communal, all day affair.  it would just take twenty minutes and any kid could do it.

except, it wasn't food.  it was something else altogether.  it didn't make me strong or energized.

the cave girl would not know what to do with cardboard or styrofoam trays or plastic boxes.  i don't really know either.   not instinctively, not with my gut.  i know what to do with those things because i've been brainwashed, i've been "educated", i am a modern girl who others think is cool.  but, i am weak and weary when i eat food twice removed.  i want direct contact.  i want to wash the dirt from it.  i want to look the animal in the eyes as it dies so that i can thank it, so that i can understand the true price of being an animal myself who wants to thrive.  i want to watch the fruit ripen on the tree, growing fuller, juicier each day as i walk by it until it falls into my outstretched hand.  it has worked out a trade with me.  i eat it.  its seeds are freed to reproduce.

then, one day, i want to be planted into the ground and return the favor to the plants that feed the animals that feed us.  that is what it means to eat food.  it is to realize that we are food ourselves.  that we do not stand above this earth and its other inhabitants.  to eat is to take part in the death and the life that coexist in everything that eats food and is food.  to eat is to live.  to live is to convert that into strength, into energy.

food is supposed to create strength.  if we eat according to our cave selves, we will create that strength cooperatively with the whole world.

wierd science

so in the interest of science, i ate a slice of turtle cheesecake.  i know, i know...i sacrifice myself for the truth.  i've been feeling so amazing since i've been eating like a cave girl(which, coincidentally, is the way that i instinctively ate as a child).  i figured that my newfound health  would give me free license to indulge a little bit.  well, not really "indulge", this was all done as a serious experiment, you know.

it went down after a spinach salad with bacon, avocado, and hot bacon dressing.  for those of you keeping score at home, that's bacon on the salad dressed with more bacon.  give me a second...i think i need a smoke just thinking about it.

i was sitting with the tall man on the porch of a little restaurant overlooking a village lawn, boardwalk, and the ocean littered with sailboats puffing up in the breeze.  the sun was shining, doling out the vitamin D with a generosity that played no favorites.  the grass bristled in all of its greenness.  the water rippled like molasses being poured into a pool.  in other words, it was a moment of perfection.

enter cheesecake.  i mean, why not, right?  i feel great, the tall man is looking particularly handsome draped over the balcony (he tends to drape...he is tall, you understand), his hair crackled in the sunlight.  i felt my skin as a diaphanous border between me and everything else.  there's no better time to run a sugar experiment than when life is at its sweetest.

i ordered the turtle cheesecake.  they had one with strawberries but that was careening fairly close to being fruit and cheese and being "healthy".  oh no, i was going for it like i go for most things:  tubes to the tarmac.  the lovely waitress set the slice of creamy sugar and i could almost hear all the flies in a two mile radius change course as their little fly sensors sensed it.  since we are being scientific, the slice was about seven inches long and about three inches high and four inches wide at its widest.  it had a graham cracker crust (made with wheat and sugar...translation: sugar and sugar) with a chocolate layer (sugar) smothered in three inches of cream cheese and SUGAR, topped off with a caramel icing (caramel is made from milk and sugar...you know: sugar and sugar).  at the top end was about an inch border of pecans.  but, i didn't eat those.  they're mostly fat and lord knows that fat and sugar have a hard time occupying the same space.  i wasn't about to go against NATURE here.

about 45 seconds to 5 minutes (scientific accuracy) after finishing the slice of sugar, my arms grew very heavy.  i could feel the sugar pulsing through me like SOME people report marijuana or other highly illegal and inappropriate substances.  my head felt bigger and heavier and at the same time, tethered only by a floating neck as it rose up above me by a couple inches.  later, my speech increased to a velocity that was more squirrel than girl.  my limbs twitched.  the tall man grew concerned.  i had the beginnings of a migraine and my stomach ached.  it was difficult for me to fall asleep that night.  i did feel the crash about an hour and a half later.  i grew lethargic and anxious, lazy but finding it difficult to stay put.  the depression beast started nipping at my heels.  the next morning, it was not fun to poop.  (sorry, all the details...this is SCIENCE!)

that was monday.  it is now thursday.  i have stuck closer to the cave girl way of eating than my own skin.

so, sugar has been SCIENTIFICALLY proven to f$#*k me up!  it is, to me, a drug and a poison.  it now makes SO much sense why i felt so awful most of the time before cutting it out completely.

cave girl and the city: part 1

the cave girl has been unable to post lately.  i've been trying to do what we are most evolved to do as the human animal.  i've been adapting.  it is essential to step frequently out of one's comfort zone.  it is essential because there are so many parts of ourselves that can never grow unless challenged.  we humans need to experience as many different environments as we possibly can.  that is what makes us who we are.  humans can exist, can thrive, in nearly every corner of the earth.  i do feel the nomadic genes of my ancestors pulling me to travel from and to different places that i can call home.  on the flip side, i can also feel the pull of my genetics to stay where there is plenty.


the 30-day challenge thrown down by www.marksdailyapple.com was undertaken by me in haiti.  (it's in the caribbean.) it is where i grew up.  under the haitian sun is where i learned to seek shade from mango trees.  in the ocean that haiti floats in, i learned to swim, collect seaweed-covered rocks, felt the suction of a starfish as it would crawl up my hand, and discovered that sleeping to the lullaby of crashing waves was the surest path to the wildest dreams.  in the kitchens of haiti, i learned to eat up all the tastes that the cooks around me could imagine.  haitian food!  where spice and sauce and vegetables and meat undergo a metaphysical metamorphosis and becomes deep nourishment that nurtures the body and the soul.  the music of the country taught me how to dance to every other beat that i would ever encounter because the music of the country is pounded out on drums in the night.  drums, different heartbeats, that sank through the veil of my sleep until they could no longer be separated from my own.  and, of course, haiti is the home of my father.  the man who taught me how to eat nearly every part of the cow, how to crush the mango leaves to release the twin fragrance of that tree's particular fruit, how to turn every day into an adventurous celebration of life, and how to march proudly to the beat that is unique to me.  


in haiti, being a cave girl isn't labelled or identified as something special.  at least, for me, it never was.  i've always been a wild thing that thrives like a worm wriggling in red meat.  the only thing that was different was my special attention to not eating grains or legumes.  oh my goddess, this was only difficult when the endless parade of different rice and bean dishes were carried out from the kitchen under my nose.  the spice-scented steam hitting the part of my brain that is nearly as strong as my primal one...the one of habit, the one of culture.  


other than that, haiti is a place where the sun still dictates the day.  when it rises, so does everyone else.  i got most of my "work" accomplished before nine in the morning.  relationships are the salve that heals the other hardships of living.  the food is fresh.  with no reliable or consistent refrigeration, it has to be.  that goat was butchered today, or yesterday at the earliest.  there was a coconut tree in the yard from which i picked my daily milk.  there was also a mango tree, an avocado tree, orange trees, lemongrass bushes, edible, nourishing vines, etc.  the yard was large and invited me to play.  the house is at the base of a mountain, so walking up the street is a hike.  sleeping and eating is understood by everyone as vital to one's happiness, so time is allotted for each.  and one can luxuriate over a two hour nap or a three hour lunch with no strange looks.


and the ocean.  outside of haiti, the only place that i see that color, that depth, that level of healing, is in the tall man's eyes.  when i see that ocean, the oldest parts of my DNA, the oldest little mitochondria, positively vibrate with pleasure.  it is no stretch at all to know, with certitude, that i rose up from the sea once upon a time.  that all life began in the ocean is just too obvious to even have to be stated.  millions of years later, i am me.  still wild and only tame enough to endure an hour of socially approved conversation over a proper meal.  


but these past few weeks, i've been back in the states.  in another place that i call home.  but there has not yet been enough time to let it sink deep into my bones as part of me.  of course, individuals don't evolve, groups do.  so maybe, i never will accept this place into my core.  but, i am adapting.  i may even be starting to love it.  it is just the journey that we all undergo when there is something new.  first comes the elation of newness, then, the shock of differentness, then the familiarity of knowing, then the love as it becomes important.


so, i'm trying to bring the elements from my cave girl existence here to the city while still allowing the city to offer me the things that make it so special.


here's a partial list:


1. the tall man lives here (waddaya gonna do?)
2. i can ride my bike everywhere
3. there are patches of wildness where medicine grows as weeds
4. CROSSFIT!!!  woohoo! (of course, if my performance in crossfit really were necessary to track down a mammoth, lets just say i'd be a very hungry cave girl.)  
5. water, water everywhere!  marshes and rivers and oceans, oh my!  i NEED this like others need...hmmm...i don't even know what other's need that i can compare to this.
6. sashimi tuna at the market...like any day of the week people!
7. my dog, my familiar, my primal inspiration is here
8. libraries and bookstores....the one modern convenience that i drool over.  the smell of ink on paper makes me HIGH!  (i'm not even kidding!  i'm a cheap date.)
9. quiet and privacy.  these are two luxuries that no one can afford in haiti.
10. hippies.  there aren't really any of these in haiti and their trail blazing makes me so comfortable walking down the street barefoot or knowing that i can always find a place where a drum circle is underway.


i am still working out the kinks to living primally, but authentically.  it isn't a gimmick to me.  it is my life that someone else has helped label.  now, i need to live my life with as much honesty as i can.