I slipped a bit of seaweed on my tongue and went out to Stanley Park where I walked and jogged, spoke with Americans and Australians, touched the seven majestic sister stumps and smelled the most beautiful fragrant yellow roses. After two hours of communing with nature, I arrived home and had my second breakfast: miso soup with dandelions, tofu and green onions, a nutritional supplement shake, and water. Yummy, satisfying and just right.

Raw Food has come to mind, but I’m not sure if it’s for me.

This one act of taking the time to seek out quality nourishment in a practice of yoga, exercise and fresh vegetables completely shifted my state well-being to one lighter and less worrisome than when I had left the house.

I brought the new ingredients home and made a delicious variation of Kim’s Red Radish Tabouleh. It was beautiful to look at and delicious to chew. My version used limes instead of lemon, green onion in place of scallions and I added a bit of heat with a sliced jalapeno pepper. Healthy for mind, body and wallet!

I was so excited to share this meal and my accomplishment of having made it, that I did a video chat with a friend as I prepared and ate my dinner. After showing off my bowl of tabouleh, I asked him to help me get over a communication breakdown that I am experiencing with a co-worker. In short, we (let’s call the other person, “A”) were working together, and then it became difficult as we learned of our differences of opinions and modes of productivity, at which point we decided that it would be best not to work together. Person (A) then started working with someone else (B), and I shifted my focus to continue working solo. A few weeks pass and then recently, I was approached by person B requesting that I return to working with person A. My friend listened to a longer version of this summary and he asked me some fundamental questions which I reluctantly considered. And then he made the statement that brings me to write half of this article, “So basically,” he speaks with a low and deliberate tone, “we’re talking about you doing something that you don’t want to do, to get to where you want to go.” I want to work with person B, but working with person A is part of that package.

And so I started thinking about how this also applies to making fundamental lifestyle choices that are difficult to change, like what we eat. We want to be healthy and vibrant and physically fit, but are we willing to do the things we do not want to do in order to create the desired results? We do not want to get cancer, but are we willing to make the lifestyle choices that will prevent us from doing so? Most people want clean drinking water and green spaces to play and a balanced eco-system, and just as many people do not want to make the changes that will sustain those precious things. And denial, by it’s nature, has no awareness of its danger or power. So how will change occur? A few optimistic and brave people begin to try new things, or try old things with a new perspective. In my case, the old thing I’m trying with a new perspective is a meat and dairy free diet. And with a bit help, reaching deep down for humility and grace, new possibilities may emerge with peoples A & B. Experience tells me that I can try again.

I have been a vegetarian before and I found that it was difficult to sustain due to my tendency towards iron deficiency. This time around, I am using Isagenix nutritional supplements and cleansing products so I feel confident that I am getting all my minerals and nutrients. I think the Isagenix supplements are helping with my cravings, making it easier to stay on track and feel satiated with less food, because my body is getting all it needs for balanced nutrition.

Today I bought one of my favourite fruits in three different variations: the bright green Italian figs, the deeply purple Turkish figs, and the third has escaped my memory at the moment. In addition to a few pieces of figs, my late afternoon munch consisted of almonds, pistachios and sesame wild rice sticks, all from the bulk section of the Whole Foods Market on Cambie. Yum!

However, I confess an impurity in today’s intake. Just before noon, I was at my brother’s house where the nanny of his children offered me fried rice. I had just mentioned as an update of latest news that I am not eating meat or dairy. There was pizza out and she offered this to me. I explained that I can’t because it has cheese on it. Keeping with the filipino custom or never taking no for an answer when feeding a guest, she offered an alternative, “Do you want fried rice?” as she put out cauliflower and broccoli for me. “Does it have meat in it?” I asked. “Just smoked sausage.” I smiled and so appreciate how the amount of meat can be translated into meaning that a dish has no meat. So I made a choice to eat a small portion of the rice, leaving out the sausage bits. I did this partly because I just really like fried rice and I was hungry, and also because I have a really hard time rejecting food offerings from Filipino women. When I have turned down a food offering in a Filipino home, it’s often been followed by insistence that lasts hours, or criticism of my weight alluding a risk of malnutrition, or guilt elicited simply by the tone of the voice when the reply is, “Oooh Kaay,” paired with averting eyes and an immediate distraction, followed by another offer of some other type of food 5 minutes later.

While I like nuts and beans, the pull to eat familiar foods from childhood is strong!

A compelling feeling that I will eliminate meat from my daily intake first emerged when I sat down in a Vegan eatery called Loving Hut on Broadway near Cambie. I tasted the Ocean Love pizza, my first slice of vegan pizza! While I chewed the delicious pesto on crispy crust with melted cassava cheese, I looked at the wall of pictures featuring famous vegetarians and felt a compelling urge to join them. I thought, if people like Ghandi, Einstein and Edison considered it important to keep meat off their plates, there must be many good reasons to do so. I had been thinking of making this change for quite some time and have previously been on a plant-based diet 15 years ago. The most difficult times that I can remember was confronting the social gatherings with family and friends. Fortunately, I now associate with more vegetarians and people who appreciate my choice to eat plants.

The affirming wave of conviction to go veggie washed over me while reading the first 30 pages of Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet. I am so inspired by her writing and excited to try all the recipes.
To kick start this exciting change, I’ve decided to write about my Vegetarian Adventures. Yes, I know…I’ve attempted something like this before when I set out to blog about learning how to swim last year. But here goes another try anyway, to try something new and write about my experiences and discoveries. I will set out to have my meat and dairy intake levels at zero for the next 30 days. God help me! I love ice cream and my mother’s cooking, which almost always involves pork, chicken or shrimp.

I realize this will take a great deal of effort and commitment ( two things I have demonstrated poorly as a blogger), but I am optimistic about overcoming these shortcomings along with the inevitable cravings for meat and diary because, the more I learn about their effects on the Earth and their connection to disease, the temporary pleasure at the plate quickly loses its appeal.

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This afternoon I was engaged in a very impassioned conversation with a friend and fellow artist about the state of the arts in Vancouver. This friend of mine, I’ll refer to her here as Tina, meets all sorts of people as a temp administrator in corporate offices and many of them claim not to know where to look to find arts and culture events in Vancouver. I speculated that those were excuses from people who simply had not made the effort to find out. Tina replied, “No, there was a person I worked with that had not ever heard about the Georgia Straight!” I find that difficult to believe but then all I have to do to be convinced is put myself into the lifestyle of someone whose priorities are focussed on many other things, other than the arts. And in this diversely rich city of Vancouver, there are many: hockey, outdoor sports, casinos, pubs, over-time at the office, outdoor sports, casinos, hockey! Being one whose career has revolved around the Arts, it’s a great challenge to imagine a lifestyle that does not involve being a patron of arts and culture. It’s a challenge to imagine it and sad that there are many for whom, this is their reality. Why do we not get excited about the theatre and other live performing arts in B.C. the way we get behind beer and hockey?! Again, here I’ll travel a little outside the lines….

I just attended the live tv recording of the Canadian Country Music Awards at GM Place and while yes, many more were able to view it at home on their personal televisions, there is nothing that will ever replace the experience of witnessing a live performance. Social online medias, tv, films, video recordings on mobile phones, even video conferencing; while all are extremely valuable and create opportunities to communicate at much higher rates of efficiency than a knock on the door or stage productions, they will never satisfy a basic human desire to be present with each other live! Eye to eye, voice to ear, hand to hand, energetic human vibrations!

As I’ve written this, I am in awe of the space that I have in this world via the internet and this website, to give voice to my thoughts. That is something incredibly powerful and amazing that humans have created this ability to access to ideas, thoughts, images and sounds globally, instantaneously. And the results of my words getting out into cyberspace, I cannot control nor fully know. And yet, it feels lonely still. Sure, one can reach a potentially wider audience using a television broadcast, making a film or adding faces on facebook, but when I look back on the experiences of my day, it was all the person to person experiences that were the most satisfying. When I sat in a venue filled with thousands of enthusiastic people cheering for the accomplishments of artists, when I sat across the table from a friend smiling and sharing stories over dinner, when I could hug my friend who made it possible for me to attend the music awards, and yell and poke (not a facebook poke!) him with excitement when my favourite artist came on to perform-these are moments unsurpassed and irreplaceable by technologies.

And so what was all this to express? Well, I guess I’m just reflecting upon the development of a habit to be passive when so much of technology affords us the convenience to be so. It is so easy not to make the effort to look someone in the eye because there is a text message to answer, or to gather with community, friends and family because facebook just updates us anyway, to go to live theatre because cable comes right into the home. I am reminding myself to spend time in-person and be present with people and places and other living creatures that I care for as often as I can, Today! The technology is meant to facilitate it, not give an excuse or distraction not to! Today was a nice balance.

A woman a few lockers away started to curse herself out because she forgot her runners. And she started to call herself stupid just for forgetting. I thought that was sad. I find that word offensive even when other people use it on themselves. When we were younger we weren’t scolded for using words like “fuck” or “shit”, but words like “idiot” and “stupid” were never to be used. They were considered the most cruel terms to lash at others. And this confused me because it seemed like the rest of the world (at the time, teachers and classmates) were okay with using “idiot” and “stupid”. From where I stand now, I see that my mom was right.

I had fun despite not going for a swim. I revisited the empty hardwood studio, which I so very much enjoy for movement. And as a result of my forgetfulness, I also discovered that I can do a headstand for about 30 seconds! I think I can probably go longer but there were others so close to me that I didn’t want to push my limit and hit anyone.