Writing and Eating

I picked up Natalie Goldberg's newest book, The True Secret of Writing, on inner-library loan yesterday and am already devouring it, mesmerized by her personal and engaging words. Goldberg hosts Zen meditation retreats that include silent sits and walking as well as periods to write and share, as she feels that writing is a natural and important "meditation" to practice and ritualize in our lives. It is an act that, "helps to empty and settle the mind. We can then sink into a quiet pool, into silence, out of which all of these tumultuous thoughts were created in the first place." No discouraging or ignoring the numerous and often chaotic thoughts that appear in our minds, but to give them a place to bloom and take shape, birthed into the world as ink on paper. Annoyed at waking up each day and telling myself I need to write and meditate during Sam's morning nap and then not doing either, I started my day with a silent ten minutes of breath and a twenty minute release of words on paper. Content, I could then lie down and take a needed nap along with my little guy. Sam is starting to eat solids. And if four days of eating is any indication, this boy is going to put down some food in his lifetime. He voraciously attacks the spoon, slurping up the milky rice cereal as if he was starving (which judging by the size of his thighs, he is not). I love feeding him, watching his little tongue figure out how to take in the foreign spoon, how to receive, how to swallow. And he has learned so quickly! I am trying to remember as I eat my own food that we all had to be taught how to eat, that it is isn't something to be taken lightly, that the joy of taste can be rediscovered even in one's thirties. This week rice cereal and bananas. Next week sweet potatoes or apples. I love that Sam is embarking on this eating adventure at the time of year when fruits and veggies are fresh and local. What a way to start eating...