Summer, Delicious Summer!

It’s that wonderful time of year again!  The beautiful veggies from Geauga Family Farms CSA are making me jump up and down with glee this week.

There is nothing like fresh, local, organic produce that I can feel so good about eating on a physical AND spiritual level.

“In the eye of the cook or the gardener or the farmer who grew it, this food reveals itself for what it is: no mere thing but a web of relationships among a great many living beings, some of them human, some not, but each of them dependent on the other, and all of them ultimately rooted in soil and nourished by sunlight.”
– Michael Pollan, In Defense of Food: An Eaters Manifesto

Pollan also writes, “To shop at a farmers’ market or sign up with a CSA is to join a short food chain and that has several implications for your health.  Local produce is typically picked ripe and is fresher than supermarket produce, and for those reasons it should be tastier and more nutritious.”

It’s true!  I made my delicious Spaghetti with Roasted Tomatoes and Herbs and now it’s finally summer!  I even cut up the garlic scapes (those curly green things in the picture – they are the tops of garlic and are milder) and added them with parsley and basil.  It was delicious!

The Power of a Purple Skirt

Suddenly, I noticed the slew of questions I’ve always asked before getting dressed each day: “What will others be wearing?” “What is appropriate for this event/this place?” “What will I be expected to wear?”  This lulled me into wearing the standby black pants haunting me from my corporate attire nearly everywhere.  I would throw on the same rotating outfits for the past – wow – probably 5 years.  I actually thought that I was thinking about what I wanted to wear.

Yesterday was a wardrobe revolution filled with new questions: I asked my body how it wanted to be draped, inquired what would make my spirit soar.  Putting on my beautiful, flowing purple skirt with a t-shirt, I set out for work and for the day. 

My purple skirt twirled me through the day and wrapped me in joy.  Living in each moment, I breathed in spring blossom trees everywhere, plopped down in the grass on a blanket with a book, felt the soft skirt against my legs while it danced in the breeze.

I’d never before noticed this internal dialogue and the way it was limiting me.  From now on, I am asking ME what to wear.  I will consider more than color, more than black cotton pants or jeans? The last time I dressed authentically on a regular basis was in 5th grade, resulting in lots of fluorescent colors and mismatching, ruffles and skirts with tennis shoes.  Look out world, my creative spirit is in charge of my wardrobe again!