new rhythms

As the seasons change, we find ourselves settling into a different kind of rhythm.  The whole house is opened up to the fresh air, and the breeze carries with it the promise of colder months to come.  Leaves change colors, and I pull out sweaters, slippers, and quilts.  Time seems to move more slowly, and we find renewed appreciation for late evening meals filled with the flavors that only the earthiness of fall can bring.

With all this change, our love remains simple.  A board spread over two stools, layered with vintage tablecloths, lit with candles, becomes our table tonight, and hopefully, for many nights to come.  I am grateful for the ease of knowing a partner so well that even when the seasons change, our love stays.  It is an evolving love to be sure, and it feels new at every turn, but it is also so simple.  We eat, we laugh, we savor the moments over food.  We are ourselves, together.

choices

We spent the last two weeks with my family, and many conversations came up over food—the choices we’ve made in our small partnership about what to eat and what not to eat, how we’ve come down this path, and why we’ve decided to embark on this journey in the first place.  The old adage of “ignorance is bliss” certainly has some truth to it, but knowing where one’s food comes from has much greater significance for me, and I would very willing give up any sense of bliss when eating for the sake of knowing where my food comes from, who grew it, and its “life” along the way.  Somewhere along the way we’ve lost a lot of the skills about growing and eating food that has made it so that it really isn’t much of a choice any more what we eat.  Relatively few corporations control our meat and produce production, and plastic-covered meat and shiny out of season produce is what we’ve come to expect when we go to the supermarket.  But in these conversations with my family, I realized we do have a choice.  As soon as we ask the question “where did this food come from?” we have begun to make a choice, an informed choice, about what we put in our mouths.  So we have chosen to embark on the journey of relearning all we can about food because choice is an important part of our humanity, and choice is a legacy we want for our children.