Moody Foods

I want to greet the world with a smile that is gentle without saying to the world, you may treat me and those I love as though we are to be discarded and as though we do not have to contemplate daily the juxtapositions of this world. We are all in pain more times than we would like to admit. This world, this America, does not allow for the healing that would be necessary for that perpetual hurt to ease. We stand on our own plastic stools and pretend that we built them because we choose to ignore that the ground beneath is soft and we might stand together there. Sometimes it feels like we are nailed to these tiny, sad stools and even when we glimpse the possibility of soft Earth it is so far away and so foreign that we don’t know how to step down.

In college I used to wake up at an ungodly hour to serve people eggs and toast. Looking back, I don’t know how I was so regimented. I think it was because I was unhappy and the routine distracted me from my unhappy. I was fiery and angry. Determined I could be a senator or a human rights lawyer, as though those careers might bring me happy.

I worked with a man who had emigrated from Mexico where he had dreams of racing cars. We would have long conversations about the world and our place in it in the wee hours of the morning when barely anyone was ready to eat, before the crowds came in for their Dungeness crab omelettes and smoked salmon benedicts. He remained staunchly in the view that one could not do any positive change for the world until they had looked within and embodied what they believed in. I was avid that people had to think about the world outside of themselves, that it mattered less what you did for yourself and it was more important to write sweeping laws and advocate for big change than to be a good person in your day to day life.

He would tell me that what he missed the most about his home town of Mexico City was the sense of community. He told me that when someone got married, everyone in their community would pitch in for the wedding. Someone would buy the dress, another the flowers, a few families might pay for the venue or the food, one might bake the cake or make the decorations and so on. He said that was what it meant to be in community. That here, in America, people think its valuable to stand on your own but they don’t realize that standing on your own only serves to make everyone more lonely and most people have less of what they need let alone what they desire. Stuck to our tiny plastic stools.

I talked about equality and justice, of having responsibility to one another, but I did not digest the truth of what this meant as it pertained to my own community. I was willing to think abstractly about history and social constructions and how much disdain I had for this country without being willing to look within to see how I repeated these themes in my own life and ways of being.

I want to leave room for people to grow and come to terms with what it means for them to walk in their own truth, which might differ from my own. I also now find it, ironically, deeply uncomfortable to be around people who speak only about issues they are unable to fix while being hateful to those directly in front of them. I am saddened and disheartened that there are so many people who are so hierarchical in their understanding of the world that they refuse to place themselves within their scope of criticism. Maybe it would add a layer of understanding to their criticisms. Where, before, I only valued actions with measurable impact, I now value more dearly than anything the actions of those who strive to make their community feel seen and taken care of and loved. I want to be the kind of person that everyone knows will have your back, will cook for you and be there for you and listen when you need it. How do you measure for that? Can you? Should you?

The gift of kindness and conversation and willingness to think deeply about our world that this man gave to me during my time in college is one I will always remember. He never shamed me for my perspective or made me feel stupid for thinking the way that I did. He gently nudged me towards becoming the person that I am becoming. We encounter so many people in our lifetime. Be kind them. Beyond treating others how you want to be treated, treat others in a way that reflects how you want the world to look. Show up for your community.