East Grove Blues

I have started doing my paperwork for leaving Japan without burning any bridges on the way out. There are far to many papers, that are mostly confusing and are all very much making me worry. I hate doing paperwork, it seems like such a waste of time and yet I can see it’s need. (Pay check and whatnot) I am paranoid I will forget something important and/or not turn in everything on time and I won’t be able to leave when I want to. All in all it’s turned me into a mess this morning.

The worrying and paranoia started seeping into other area’s as well. I starting worrying about my internships and whether I will be able to do them. It then moved to diet and exercise and if it is all really worth it. it basically sent me into this downward spiral of idiocy. I know that I shouldn’t really bother about it and that everything will turn out all right in the end. I shouldn’t have a care in the world right now, but sometimes I can’t help myself.

I just have to ride the wave of emotion and hope for it to settle down. I try to look at it from an objective point of view, as if it isn’t happening to me, but to some other poor soul. I don’t think it makes it any easier, but it does give me some perspective and understanding. I know what is causing it and I know it will go away in time. I just have to be patient with myself. Writing things out generally helps my mood a bit, so I hope this gets it out of my system a little quicker.

I felt terrible on friday as well, but I bounced back and felt great several days after. Today I feel awful and fate willing I will be back on top for the rest of the week. Emotions are such strange things.

Side Note: (possible other cause of frustration) I slept poorly last night and my gums bled this morning. It may have been the school rice or the green tea or just about anything. I guess I won’t know anything for sure until I can just cook for myself everyday.

So after much reading and thought I have decided to give the so called ‘Paleo Diet’ a try. I figured that trying it for a month wouldn’t hurt me any and if it didn’t click then I would return to my ‘normal’ fare. I have talked to many people about food and what you should be eating, and so far the best answer is to just listen to your body and what it is telling you. Michael Pollan put out a new book that sums this up in a few simple words. Eat food, mostly plants, not to much.

I feel a bit like a hypocrite right now. I have been preaching the evils of meat for several years now and here I am eating a lot more meat than I have in a long time. My normal diet consists of mostly fruits and vegetables, but instead of eating carbs (usually rice or bread), I am now eating meat. I am probably still eating less than most Americans, but that doesn’t really make me feel any better. I am also avoiding normal cuts of meat. I have currently eaten random fish bits, oysters and other shell fish, liver and eggs. I’ll probably buy a heart sometime this week and try that out. Luckily I like organ meat a lot, and luckily it is recommended eating. (It’s also a lot cheaper. Eating meat in Japan is expensive)

A bigger change for me is cutting out as much salt as I can. No soy sauce and no miso at home. I have found that salt makes me a lot hungrier than I actually am. It keeps me eating when I should be done and it makes me pee a lot more than I would like to. It was strange eating the school lunch and being able to tell just how much salt they added to everything. It was almost over powering.

I realized instantly that eating a completely paleo diet in Japan is impossible unless you cook all your own food. I have cut down on eating out because of that, but I still have school lunch. I know I have complained about this before, but school lunches, while tasty, are really bad for any type of diet. It is mostly carbs and even veggies have been pickled in salt. I can’t help most of it, but I have been cutting my rice portions in half. Hopefully I will do a lot better when I get home and can completely control my diet.

The question comes up as to why I would keep trying out different diets. I see food as medicine and since last fall I have had some issues with inflammation. So I hit up the internet to find what foods might cause that and what foods might help. That brought me around to the paleo diet and the evidence that says it is anti-inflammatory. A lot of the people who were espousing its benefits said to give it a try, if you don’t get results try something else. I like that kind of attitude so I have decided to give it a try.

While I haven’t been hardcore about it I have still had some interesting effects already. Warning TMI follows! My gums stopped bleeding during brushing and overall tooth health has improved (yes that quickly). My bowel movements are more solid and more frequent. There is something about Japanese food that turns them into unpleasantness and this is correcting it. I am still hungry all the time, but I no longer feel lethargy along with it. My portion size has decreased, because I am feeling full a lot faster. Finally I am sleeping a lot better and I am not waking up nearly as much as I have been the last couple of months. I am really hoping for this trend to continue until I sleep the entire night through.

I don’t know if I would recommend this diet to anyone, but it has shown some interesting side effects already. It is a little hard, mostly because you can’t eat any grains, which means no beer. sigh… Oh well, like I said, I haven’t been a hundred percent about it yet. I’ll keep updating about it as the next few weeks go on. Who knows what might happen at this point.

Since about this time last year I have been visiting a Buddhist sect called Shinnyo en. They are a modern sect of an older form of esoteric Buddhism. Like many Buddhist orders they claim a direct line to this darma or that. I can never keep tract of all the names or what they mean. Not to seem like a dick, but I really I don’t care a whole lot.

I originally started to go to see what it was and what it was like. I generally am interested in anything religious and my curiosity got the best of me. They also have a special form of meditation called (excuse my spelling) Sheshin training. They have a spiritual medium help you through your meditation. Seeing that I had a chance to try all this out and see what it was like, I decided to give it go.

Here are some things that I like: They have a very solid community of very eager and helpful people. They are great with volunteer work and they keep the place very clean. They do a wide variety of different ceremonies that are usually interesting the first time around. The head of the order is a women and she has a quiet but commanding presence. The first head of the order gave up a lot and went through some rigorous training before finding his own middle way.

Things I don’t like: The temple is like an office building, far to ‘modern’ for my tastes. They video tape everything, which is kind of creepy, but they also replay old video’s of previous sermons, which can be alright. They are almost to happy and smiley, it seems like an effort and less natural. You have to pay for meditation training (BOOOO!!!!!), and they have a book store which sells expensive watches.

The weirdest thing for me is that they say that the two dead sons of the founder are spiritual guides (in the spirit realm) for the sect. They pray to them for guidance. I don’t want to make the opinion of this being good or bad, but for me personally it gives me a weird vibe that has permeated the whole experience. I just can’t get over it. Inside the temple they have these cast heads of the two young sons, and their parents, the founders of the sect. Maybe it’s because I went to Eureka College where they have a scary bust of Ronald Reagan in the middle of campus, but those gold cast heads freak me out. Not a fan.

Today, after a year of going on and off I finally hit the right time to do the meditation training. I was supposed to feel spiritual energy coming from the spirit realm through my spiritual guide and into me. ( I didn’t) He was then supposed to give me special words to contemplate before my next training. (the special words seemed a bit general) I felt a bit uncomfortable for most of it and rather empty at the end of it and not in a good way.  I don’t like organized religions in general, but I find them fascinating. This was no different. It was interesting, but I didn’t get what I was ’supposed’ to get out of it.

So what did I take away from the experience? Sitting meditation is just not me thing. Being there today reminded me that almost all of my meditation breakthroughs have come from walking meditation. I feel like my form is best when I am walking and I find it much easier to clear my mind when I have to keep stepping. I had forgotten a lot of that because I have been focusing on sitting meditations for probably over a year now. To be honest it is also cold and I have been lazy. I made it out tonight though, and it was a lovely time, as meditation goes. I am glad to have gone to the training if for no other reason that to connect with what really works for me.

Perhaps one of these days I will get to what good meditation feels like to me. I will wait to go into the weirdness of that for another time.

So earlier this week I decided I was spending far to much time on the internet. Mostly I would have little I needed to do and instead of being productive in music or stretching I would waste my time cruising the internet. I came to the conclusion that I just needed to turn the stupid thing off and do something else.

Well my wish came true. My internet is down and I am not really sure why. I came home yesterday and my dsl line just won’t connect. I am pretty sure I have paid all my bills so I don’t know why this would turn off. I tried everything that I knew and nothing is working. I have waited and still no results. As much as I waste my time on the internet I also do some productive things there as well. Case in point: I can’t check my e-mail to know what I am doing for work. That is really bad! I checked my mail yesterday night on a friend’s ipod and thought I had my schedule. It seems the file had many layers that I couldn’t see or know how to check. I came into the school today with the wrong day’s lessons planned. I have been able to wing most of it, but the day isn’t over yet, so who knows how well it will go.

I didn’t realize how frustrated I would be by not checking my e-mail and other typical internet sites. I have gone from too much to too little. I hope I can get it working again today, otherwise I will be without e-mail indefinitely. The only reason I can update now is because my schools server hasn’t blocked my website.

Monday and Tuesday were a little rough for me. Not anything especially bad, but a sluggishness that wouldn’t go away. I felt heavy and tired all the time, which is terrible if your trying to motivate yourself to get outside and workout a bit. I am not sure what brought it on. Perhaps it was because of the fast, or perhaps it was because I started eating again. I am not really sure yet what it was. I felt pretty good during the fast, even energetic at times. Even with the sluggishness I did work out a bit the last two days, but I couldn’t really push myself. I couldn’t go above and beyond the relatively simple. It was frustrating to no end.

As always Yoga helped. After Yoga yesterday I was starving, even though I had eaten a large dinner. I decided to go ahead and eat again, and then again. I couldn’t seem to fill my belly. It was like my system finally kicked into gear. I only got about six hours of sleep last night but I woke up relatively rested. I felt good this morning shoveling my drive way at five in the morning and I felt good skiing with my kids at elementary school. I felt strong again after a short workout in the gym and I feel alive right now after running barefoot on sub-0 pavement outside my house. I even did a couple of sprints to really get the blood moving. It is so much fun jumping over ice and dodging rocks while I run. I have to pay attention to every movement or I end up with sharp pains from rocks in my feet. When I run barefoot it is no longer a strait line, but a curvy line that is ever so much more fun. Even with paying attention and even though I have only been running short distances, I still have managed to get a blister or two. Nothing to keep me off my feet or even from being mostly barefoot all the time.

I was browsing through the Daily Show website and saw a link to the Colbert Report about an upcoming guest that does the Paleo Diet. It’s really interesting and I might even try it. I remember my friend Tom mentioning it to me a while ago but I brushed it off because I was assuredly thinking I was already on the best diet. I still get on my high horse and ride it, something I need to work on.

Anyway the diet is similar to mine except more meat and no grains. I already like to eat mostly fresh fruit and veggies, so all I would do is get rid of the grain. Not eating bread would be hard, because I really like bread, in all its forms!  Most everything else I am already doing; spend as much time outside as you can, run barefoot, be active and fast. I have to thank Tom again for some idea’s on fasting, he has been doing it for ages. The whole point of the diet, even though I would consider it more of a lifestyle, is to go back to what we are designed to do. We are good at several things: running, eating and having sex. Those are in fact what we are programmed to do and it is hard to fight programming. A lot of times we have to go a long period, some longer than others, without one of those things. Surprisingly though, we are as good at not doing as we are at doing, but now I am loosing myself.

So I don’t know yet whether I will try the Paleo diet. It would be hard seeing that I eat rice almost everyday at school. Here is a website with a bunch of links if you are interested. http://paleodiet.com/

I have stated before my dislike of labels, especially ones that I try to put on myself. I generally don’t like being labeled in one group or another by other people as well. It annoys me to only be considered by one name or attribute.

They say to name something is to make it.
Is it also true to name something is to destroy it?

I have been called many things in my life. Some of them have made me feel good and others made me feel awful. Most of those awful ones were deserved, which made me feel even worse. Yes I know I am terrible sometimes. We all can be, unless you believe Jesus was perfect. But even he was a dick sometimes. (Read the books and tell me otherwise!) I don’t want to use the ‘everyone else is too’ excuse, because that is lame. I am not perfect and I know it. I know it better than anyone else. Every time I hurt someone I feel the pain as well, and I tend to carry that pain for a while.

One name that has been given to me, from several people, I never really thought about much before. I didn’t feel sad or happy about it. It was more like, “huh? Really? Maybe…” The name/title/label has come back to me and it makes me think. Here is were you insert the silly title; some people call me a Dreamer. I will admit that I tend to day dream a lot. I did in high school and college, but didn’t everyone? Do I do it that much more? I spend a lot of time staring off into space and thinking, is that the same? Has people calling me that caused it to manifest itself into truthfulness? Should I dare pick up that mantle of dreamer?

I’ll be honest, at the moment I like the sound of it, and I like the idea behind it. Dreams are a surprisingly large part of my life right now. I fear though, if I flat out and say I am something, I will automatically destroy it. Even if it is a name I didn’t take on myself, but was given to me, if I take it for myself I will be condemning myself to inevitable failure. How do you fail at being a dreamer though?

It all seems so silly. Why on earth should I worry about such things? I will be who I am and that is unlikely to change. I think it’s best to let others make up their minds while I try to do the best that I can at what ever it is that I am doing at the moment. Yet, here I am debating myself over something I know will only frustrate me, for no other reason than that is what I was thinking about for the last few days. I think I need to stare at a candle for an hour or so.

So I successfully managed to not eat for two days. Now considering poverty and world hunger this is no great feat, but for me it was quite the challenge. After doing two days I think I would like to try even more. The most I could do in Japan is three days, unless I get a long weekend. It was hard and definitely more of a mental challenge than anything. For some reason we have got this idea that we have to eat.

I never knew how addicted to food I am. I realized this when it was my normal meal times. I was hungry during the entire fast, but I would be starving to the point of craziness during meal times. For about two hours I would have to fight my brain and body telling me it was time to eat. Most of the time it was manageable, but not then.

My energy level never really dropped at all. My head felt strange because of the hunger, but I was able to walk in the park and around my house without feeling terrible. I cleaned my entire house (excluding my shower, which is tomorrow morning’s work) while I was hungry and it didn’t effect me at all.The only time I felt a little woozy was during Onsen. The hot water made my head spin, but I recovered quickly after a few minutes of rest.

The weirdest point was last night. I had been ravenous on the way home from Onsen, but when I got home and drank some tea my hunger disappeared for about an hour and a half. The tea was enough to confuse my brain into thinking I had ate. The hunger came back as the night ebbed on, but for a while there was nothing but normal feelings all around. It was so strange and it was very nice.

I’ve been told that the first two days of fasting are the hardest. Once you get past them the hunger disappears for a few days. I would love to try a five day fast, but that will have to wait until I get home from Japan. I will probably drink juice during a longer fast. Five days without anything sounds tough.

Dinner tonight was amazing. I had simple, mostly uncooked food; spinach, salmon sashimi, chestnuts, mikans, olives and bread with olive oil. The spinach was to die for. The stems were actually sweet, with an earthy taste to the leaves. The bread melted in my mouth and the chestnuts were sweet, but not overly so. If you ever want your food to taste good than try fasting for a few days.

So today is a full moon, the second since the winter solstice. I am hoping for clear skies tonight so I can stare at it and wonder how I got to the place I am in. This time of year is known for several festivals. Imbolc, Ground Hogs Day, and even Valentines Day is just around the corner. We are about halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The Sun is coming back and the days will (hopefully) get warmer as we inch our way towards springtime.

I am taking this weekend as a holiday of my own. I call it Spring Cleaning! I am cleaning almost the whole of my house today and tomorrow. I have about half done already and I am contemplating starting the other here in a little bit. It is so nice to have a clean house, and I mean really clean. I usually do a decent job of keeping my house in order, but I don’t dust very often, especially behind my books. So I am trying to get everything as clean as I can. I have also thrown out a lot of papers from school and random mail that I get. My office area is the cleanest it’s been in ages. I doubt it will stay that way, but it will be pleasant for the next few days.

Besides cleaning my house I am also cleaning myself. I started my ‘holiday’ last night with a trip to Onsen after Yoga. I scrubbed everything I could, including the extra dead skin on my feet. I do bathe regularly, but I don’t usually rub my skin to near rawness, nor do I scrape my scalp of all its dry flaky bits. I am also fasting right now. My last meal was Friday night and I (hopefully) won’t eat again until Sunday night. I did some 24 hour fasts last week and I surprisingly enjoyed them. So this weekend I am going for 48 hours. I am drinking water and tea only. I had some green tea for lunch and I will have some rose hip tea for dinner.

I like the idea of fasting, but I have never been good at it. I have tried it several times before only to fail miserably a few hours later. I associate the feeling of hunger and anxiousness together. I am not sure why this is, but I feel them both in the put of my stomach. It is not a feeling I generally enjoy, but I am starting to tell the difference between the two. I just had to get past the mental barrier that linked the two together. I have to remember that I am not anxious, that it is only hunger, and that it will go away with time. Its a test of mental strength and will power.

I have two types of dreams. One I’ll label as a Dream and the other as just dream. This might not seem like a big difference, but it is to me. I will write down a Dream and it is unlikely that I will forget it. I have Dreams from my childhood that I remember better than some memories. A Dream sticks with me, and a dream is forgotten. I have had thousands of dreams and can’t remember even a small percentage of them. They can have meaning as well, but not with the force of a Dream.

Last night is a good example of both.

My Dream; Some folks and I are on a ship, either on a sea or in space, and we are waiting for a sign. We walk around and talk, but there is something ominous coming. I am the first one to feel its presence. I tell the others that it’s coming and quickly. We all drink poison and hope that we die before the thing comes. It comes, it looks like a human and talks like a man, but it is neither. It is angry at us for killing ourselves. We took away some of its fun. That doesn’t really stop it though. It has the power to move cells any way it pleases. It can bring life or kill in the same fashion. It is horribly powerful and evilly curious. It brings some of my ship mates back to life and turns them into dogs. It takes others and molds them alive into the ship. It manipulates all life with its hands. Eventually it gets bored. I feel remorse in the Dream, and I can’t tell if it’s me or of it’s coming from the God like creature.

My dream; I am in Japan and I have been chosen to be part of a group of people that will show some Sumo wrestlers around. I am assigned Hakaho (A really famous Sumo). We are on the bus, he throws up after eating some weird powder. For some reason he also speaks English. (He is Mongolian) In the afternoon another group takes over. I talk to them about Hakaho later.

So how can I tell the difference? In the dream I am in a place I live and there are people from all over my past. High School friends and any number of others. I just got done watching a Sumo tournament and I am always surprised by the amount of people that speak English in this world. I would normally forget this type of dream within a few hours, but I had the other Dream before it so I wrote them both down this morning.

In the Dream I am with people I have never met, or have not yet met. I am in a place I have never been before and I am facing a problem or a situation that has never happened to me before. There is a certain weight to the Dream. I wake up knowing that I need to remember what happened because it will be important later.

Here is an interesting example. In college I once dreamed I was in a factory, surrounded by tall shelves. There were creatures flying around in the factory. After college I was working in a paper factory and a bat flew by me while I was working. I had to stop and catch my breath because it was the same as the dream I had had years before. I have had dejavu like this several times, but this is the best example.

Sometimes I can’t tell the difference between a Dream and a real memory. Did it actually happen or do I think it happened. I don’t know what my Dream last night was about, or what it means for my future. I can tell you that it’s important and I won’t forget it. This is one of those Dreams I would rather not become prophetic.

With the new year comes new things for me in running. I started running regularly about two years ago. Before that I had run on and off, but never as consistently as I have in the last couple of years. My running has definitely changed along the way. At first I was into the big clunky things they call running shoes. These are fine if your running on a nice soft grass trail through the timber. They are not so nice on the hard pavement of Japanese roads. After a few months of being in Japan, and training for my first half-marathon, my knees were very angry.

So last year I switched my shoes and my running style. I went to lighter shoe with a lot less tread and I went from a heel-toe strike to a middle of the foot strike. This saved my knees but caused its own problems at times. Because I still can’t feel the ground I have a hard time placing my foot at times. I end up torquing the leg slightly, which leads to shin splints. If you have ever had them you know how painful they can make running. I only get them when I have been running long distances consistantly. I ran my second half-marathon last year without any knee pain and only a little from my shins.

This year I am evolving again, or devolving if you will. This year I am forgoing the shoe. This will be a slow build up. At first I have to build up the calluses that protect my feet from nasty little rocks. Large rocks are easy to avoid, little tiny ones hurt more and get stuck in the foot. This is a small price to pay for the feeling of barefoot running. It is exhilarating. You feel free. I absolutely love it. I have started walking barefoot outside. Right now the cold hurts far more than the rocks. I am taking it slow. When I want to run I head to the school gym. The floors are cold, but not too bad. It isn’t as exciting as running outside, but it is a start. I have to rebuild the muscles in my leg to support myself when I run. It’s amazing how quickly your body will change. It won’t be long before I am running three to four miles, and this time without shoes and without pain.

Another fun thing is the reaction I get from people. I always get double takes if they notice my feet. I wish I had enough Japanese to explain to them that humans went without shoes for a couple of million years and they seemed to do just fine. Shoes are a recent invention, and while they protect your feet, they also cause their own problems, most of which aren’t worth it. I wish I could go barefoot at school. That isn’t a line I am willing to cross yet.