Touching The Bodies of Plants and Animals
covered in this writing: goma ae, doubt, and spiritual friendship
Last night I made goma ae for the first time. It’s Japanese spinach salad with sesame. It’s something I’ve loved to eat for ages, but have never made because it didn’t even occur to me that I could. It’s quite easy to make, I found, and I got to use the mortar and pestle I got for my birthday last year, because I keep wanting to go further back to the origins of things, the deeper context. I notice when I choose “convenience” something is lost. Something is also gained. I’m experimenting with choosing “inconvenience” in many aspects of life and seeing what happens. In this instance, magic happened. (Not sure I can call it inconvenience anymore then hahaha.)
I got to put sesame seeds into my cast iron and heat them up and watch them start to pop out. How funny and alive they appeared! I also got to use the mortar and pestle to mash them into a paste and the most most thing of all was smelling the sesame seeds freshly mashed up. I want to give this smell to you. It smells like earth itself. By “earth” I mean the occurrence of earth that is humans and plants giving each other new lives and new forms. I yelled at each of my roommates to smell it, and they loved it too, even if they didn’t all eat it. When I cook lately I keep thinking, who was the first person to grind up sesame seeds? Who was the first person to put sesame seeds and spinach in their mouth at the same time? Who was the first person to put heat to sesame seeds and watch what happens? I feel the touching and changing the bodies of plants and animals also called cooking puts me in touch with the origins of things. It’s the most alive thing I could do, it feels, right now. And to think, I sometimes feel it is a burden! Wow. Life is strange af.I intended to write about doubt this spring, because it’s been such a big part of my life and it seems to be a big part of others’ lives too. One interesting place I’ve felt doubt arise lately is with my writing. A new kind of doubt. A doubt about how to express joy in writing. It feels there are more obstacles to transmitting joy than suffering in writing.*** I feel (or maybe felt, can’t tell if it’s past or present tense yet) I was suspicious of writing that only expresses joy. Like, what’s up with this person? Are they delusional? Maybe you are thinking that about me, and of course, you would be right, because every mind is delusional plenty, I think.
So far in most of my newsletter writing I have focused in the “I.” I write about myself and my life. This is so I don’t get into the delusional territory of advice giving. However, when I write about “I” when there’s a lot of joy involved, it can be offputting, or somehow the “I” can get in the way of the sharing of the joy. So doubt arises. I don’t experience it as stressful, it’s more like a puzzle. What language can hold what I want to share these days? What language offers the least obstacles to sharing? Is it even language? Is it some other form? We will see!
One more thing I’ll share about this doubt is that perhaps before I would have experienced it as scary, or overwhelming. I actually do experience a feeling of overwhelm sometimes lately, but it’s not negative. It’s a feeling of sitting here, and feeling a massive amount of energy coursing through my body, and wondering where it will go, or what it might become, if anything. I feel my job is to listen, and not rush, and not get too hectic about it. Then sometimes I get too hectic about it and then I remember and come back and relax into the question again. Something like that. Doubt! Another color in the rainbow of human experience! What a miracle to get to experience it, among them all.Finally — something I don’t experience doubt about! Being with you in our bodies in the same space-time! There’s this person Casey, and she has been answering the call to bring the weirdos together so we can find each other, for years. Her magic is manyfold, and I’m in awe at the devotion she expresses through the intensive logistical labor that is bringing a group of mystical humans to the same location on the same day for communing. One of these events is happening SUNDAY MAY 3, and I will be there to be with you and everyone else. Come visit, get a reading from me or not, but please do say hi if you come. Most of my work life is being in my home office alone which makes in person times that much sweeter! What this (existing together) is about for me, more than anything else, is spiritual friendship. Which is just friendship, because friendship is spiritual no matter what.
***Ross Gay’s joy writing is virtually obstacle-free, icymi.