CRISTY IN THE CITY

Where Gaillardias bloom

Hello, January.

The city teaches her how to live with noise—
not just the kind outside the window,
but the quieter kind that asks her to keep moving,
to be visible, to be more.

Some evenings, she chooses softness instead.

A guitar waits in the corner of the room.
The lamp is low.
Streetlight slips through thin curtains.
A cup cools on the table.
A cat curls nearby, already at rest.

She doesn’t play to be heard.
There is no audience here, no need to impress.
Mistakes are allowed.
Pauses are welcome.

When she plays, time loosens.
Breath finds its rhythm.
Each chord holds what the day could not.

In a world that asks women to be polished and pleasing,
creating something only for herself
is quietly brave.

The solace isn’t in sounding good.
It’s in staying.

And when she plays for herself,
she steps out of the city
and gently,
back into herself.

Final Thought

You don’t need to change your life to make it beautiful.

Sometimes, all it takes is learning how to see it differently.

I can't believe that I'll be turning half a century next year. Any Gen-X woman who has lived through the halcyon days of the 80's and 90's is probably amazed at how fast time flies. We definitely have come a long way since the days of black and white TV, Flinstone chewable vitamins, Rainbow Brite and rotary landline phones. Now that the retirement years seem visible on the horizon (eek!), I can't help but wonder where the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness has taken me. Maybe it’s time to calibrate my happiness meter.

Despite the pesky patches of grey hair that graze my hairline and occasional knee pain that jolts me as I alight from a bus commute, I come upon the realization that the meaning of happiness takes on a different shape when one grows older. I have become a version of my grandma who was known for loving the shallow pond of happiness (mababa ang kaligayahan). 

I'm out of the rat race and just living life on my own terms. Hence, I no longer see any sense in becoming happy only when certain conditions are present--when I get that dream vacation or when I purchase that fancy, big ticket item. Happiness doesn't have to cost much, or it can even be free. 
The joy in mundane things. This is the small but certain happiness that Haruki Murakami describes in his collection of essays, Afternoon in the Islets of Langerhans. Happiness is a pile of freshly ironed laundry or an ice-cold pitcher of Cherry Kool-aid. Happiness is being able to pay your bills on time. Happiness is a cat fed on time. 

Until then, may happiness, small and big find you when you least expect it.

The new year is all about manifesting and living a healthier lifestyle and embracing the medicinal power of clean eating. In a world dominated by fast, inflammatory foods, it is necessary to rethink our diet choices if we want a healthier and more resilient body and mind many years down the road.  It's not too late to eat healthy. Get inspiration from my Manila based college bestie who was able to heal her body through the power of plant-based eating. Read on and enjoy this guest post! Happy and healthy new year everyone!

by Ava the Gardener

When my niece said she was going to stay with us for a week to give eating healthy a try, my husband and I welcomed her with open arms. Little did she know, however, that there was more to our daily regimen than eating plants.  

An incoming college junior, the first lesson we taught her is that food is the body’s fuel. It provides the body with the energy it needs to function. Without food, the body cannot regenerate cells, synthesize hormones, produce antibodies or enzymes, and everything else it does to keep us alive. Our bodies convert any food we eat into sugar, combining it with water and oxygen to transform it into the energy we need to breathe, regulate our heartbeat, digest our food, and function. The pancreas then secretes insulin to control the absorption and release of sugar. Any excess sugar that overburdens the pancreas is stored as fat either in our liver or beneath the skin around our bodies.

Her second lesson is that the closer food is to its natural state, the greater the likelihood it is a complex carbohydrate. Our bodies work harder to digest the chemical structure and fibers in complex carbohydrates and the energy from such food is released over a longer period of time. Natural and whole foods like fresh vegetables have higher water, fiber, and nutrient contents. They also have lower glycemic indexes, which naturally stimulate our metabolism and make us feel full with lesser calories. The Glycemic Index (GI) is a measure of how much a particular food raises our blood sugar levels once our bodies absorb it.

Simple carbohydrates, meanwhile, are composed of smaller sugar molecules that our bodies quickly absorb. They come from processed food that have been stripped of their natural nutrients and fiber. Though edible, they are low in fiber and nutrients yet have high glycemic indexes, which results in higher blood sugar levels that make us feel tired. If not used immediately, the sugar from these empty calories is converted into fat.

Complex carbohydrates provide a slower and more sustained release of energy, thus contributing to long-term health, appetite control, and sustained energy levels. This understanding is necessary in applying the third lesson: preparing and eating meals from fresh vegetables, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes— similar to those our Filipino ancestors ate—to combat obesity, diabetes, and decrease the chance of chronic illness.

Even with my niece asleep on the sofa, my husband and I kept the daily rhythm of our lives. We woke up at 4:30 am to pray the rosary and novena for the dead before preparing breakfast. I bought fresh produce from the wet market after 6:00 am mass while my husband walked the dogs around the neighborhood. We would then have breakfast together before he left for work. Of her own volition, my niece quickly adapted to our schedule. She particularly enjoyed walking her canine cousins and meeting their friends.

For breakfast on weekdays, we would prepare something quick yet filling like avocado on wholegrain toast. We also made scrambled omelette from chickpea flour, often sauteed with garlic, onion, tomato, and mushroom. Sometimes we had wholegrain oats, muesli, and nuts. We also made French toast and pancakes from the same chickpea batter. Rice meals during breakfast were served on weekends or on any day that we knew would be particularly hectic. On such days unpolished rice was made into champorado with unsweetened chocolate or sinangag that was paired with a chickpea scramble, store-bought vegan sausage, or a tomato bean stew. At breakfast, my niece chose from several unsweetened warm beverages: brewed coffee, hot chocolate made with tablea, or rice coffee “kapeng bigas” (unpolished rice dry roasted in a pan).

Except for my husband who usually had a packed lunch, my niece and I seldom ate at noon, engrossed as we were in household chores, working from home, writing, reading, or drawing. We kept breakfast light and fasted for lunch, but dinner was usually a feast centered around eat-all-you-can servings of unpolished rice and vegetables. Preparing for dinner usually began as early as 4:00 pm, when unpolished rice was left to soak while the vegetables bought from the market that morning were washed, peeled, sliced, and diced. To keep the body in balance, dishes constituting different fresh vegetables—sprouts, fruit vegetables, leafy greens, root crops, and beans—should be eaten at each meal to strengthen the body’s major organs.

For instance, to strengthen the weak lungs that my niece has struggled with since birth, we fed her beans by cooking monggo, French beans with carrots and mushrooms, or kalabasa with sigarilyas simmered in coconut cream. “I can eat tokwa every day, I like it even if it’s not fried,” she says. Though beans are a daily staple in our household, neither my husband or I have gout. My niece was also able to walk the dogs daily despite eating beans often. The digestion of beans leads to uric acid buildup in joints only in the presence of excess animal protein and sugar.

When my niece decided to extend her stay for another ten days, my husband and I secretly wept for joy. She has kept in touch and continues to cook and eat healthy upon her return to university, with her landlady and housemates serving as eager guinea pigs for her kitchen experiments: tofu sisig, stir-fried togue with tokwa, beans, and carrots; sauteed vegetables with mushrooms; soy-garlic tofu sandwich with tomato, onions, and cucumber;  kalabasa-kamote mac and cheese.

“They all say my cooking tastes good,” she says.

Her staycation with us has led my niece to discover for herself that beyond serving as fuel for the body, creating healthy home-cooked meals is a sharing of self with family of one’s choosing.   

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Ava and her husband have kept the daily practice of cooking and eating local whole grains and vegetables for the past sixteen years. She learned how to do so at the Kitchen Klinik to manage Stevens-Johnson’s Syndrome, a rare autoimmune disorder she was diagnosed with in 2009. Ava’s dissertation on the successful use of plant-based food as medicine received a Highest Distinction merit and earned her a Ph.D. in Applied Cosmic Anthropology.

Autumn's remembrance lingers like a sweet daydream. Imagine russet maple leaves framing a sunset sky and soft breezes rustling through golden gingko trees. Imagine filling your lungs with pine-scented chilly air, soaking in the view of trees and foliage in peak autumn color. That is my autumn memory from last year's November trip to one of Tokyo's parks and temples. I don't know why I am so drawn to this dark, melancholic season that preludes winter. There is just something about nature's last hurrah-a strange explosion of color before it closes shop for the season. The hibernation that follows has a beauty all of its own. As a midlife woman, I feel a special kinship to autumn more than ever. It's amazing how our physical age mirrors that of nature and we are invited to embrace change in a cyclical kind of way. Yes, midlife is autumn and I am loving it.

Just as sakura or cherry blossoms symbolize spring, the foliage of  maple (Japanese maple in particular) and gingko trees celebrate traditional autumnal beauty. The shape of maple and the gingko find their way into ceramic arts, handmade crafts, home decor and seasonal lore.

Autumn will always mesmerize us with her mystery. All we have to do is look up to that deep blue autumn sky and embrace our own kind of magic as we transition through the seasons.

Suman rice bday cupcake

It's also my last year in my 40's era so I'm feeling grateful and nervous of what the next decade will bring. Sometimes I don't feel as young  as I used to but I  try to keep my inner child happy and free.

I'm grateful and blessed for this life. The best is yet to come.