Eating Lettuce

Out here in Seattle I've had more time to just focus on good eating, so I've been trying to do that. Protein, vegetables, whole grains, water--that sort of thing. I subtly have noticed that I am generally more agile and I am sure the good eating is a big part of that.

But there is something particular about eating a lot of lettuce. When I take a great big wad of lettuce onto my fork, smush it into my mouth, and chew, I just feel so...animalistic. Like a giraffe biting a huge chunk off a tree and chewing away for the next hour or so. I mean essentailly eating lettuce is just eating leaves, right? And it just another one of those reminders that we are, in fact,...animals.

I just always think its funny when I notice this part of myself. Whether while eating, showering, sleeping. The part of myself that just needs what it physically needs and that's all there is to it. I feel like a big kid looking down at his little brother with a sweet, knowing smile, or a parent looking at an infant, like one day you'll grow up and realize there is more to life, kid, but in the meantime you are cute and happy to just be enjoying the rudimentary pleasures of life. My mind watches my body and I remember the lion, eagle, hippopotamus within me, stretching out their limbs into the morning sun.

Camp Letter from Seattle

Everyone has been graciously asking how Seattle is. Thanks everyone for the interest! Though I generally find these types of writings kind of dry, I guess a new city warrants at least one camp letter style post. The food is _______. The weather is _______. So, Seattle is...wonderful so far. As I've been telling everyone, it's good to be somewhere new, and the best words I can think of to describe Seattle are clean, green (in both senses), and spacious. From the second I touched down at the airport I was impressed by the spaciousness...the bathroom had about a mile between the stalls and sinks...I guess there just a lot more...space outside of NYC. The Northwest is also home to a beautiful, expansive sky (I don't understand how the sky appears different in different places but it looks wider here) and on a clear day it is a magnificent blue with Mount Rainier in the backdrop (visible only 60 days a year apparently). The sun practically has to be begged to set (the sun always was that overeager servant), so it's basically always light, and when it does set it's a kind of burnish yellow-brown, different from the pastel sunsets of NY. Of course, it's Seattle, so there's a lot of grey, mist, drizzle, and some straight up rain, but I don't mind. More often then not the weather is some kind of strange unpredictable mix...a clear sky with huge grey clouds in its midst or the like.

To NYC though, so it shouldn't get jealous: Seattle may win for natural beauty, but it doesn't hold a candle in terms of nightlife and bustling-ness. As I am a huge nightlife partier, this is a huge disappointment...:) But regardless, I have to say, I was a bit surprised! Seattle is a big American city known for its live music scene and hipster culture, but there is no "midtown" or "village" equivalent...not even close. I went downtown last night around 11 and it was basically empty...the occasional open place but mostly sketchy people roaming around and lots of empty darkness. Not the late night concentration of restaurants, bars, theater, clubs, people and light open I am used to from NY.  It's good for me, though, I think I feel cooler here because there is not the big nightlife scene to feel less cool than?

I am living with 2 college students right off the University of Washington campus who are very sweet. Everyone I met has been friendly and the Jewihs community in particular has taken me in with warmth for Sabbaths and otherwise. The city's reputation for coffee, high-techness, and calm is well deserved and felt. As I don't want to post very long posts, I will sign off for now on the Seattle de-brief, but warm regards to everyone reading, and more to come on less dry topics!

Signing out
DK

First Post

This blog is named for the verse "Azamrah Leilokai Bi'odee," Psalms 104. It means  "I will sing to my Lord with my "od".  I always loved this. "Od" means "more," or "still", so literally the verse reads "I will sing to my Lord with my more," or something like that. I guess this could be interpreted in a bunch of ways. The two I can think of are "I will sing with my abundance/with that which overflows from me," or "I will sing with what is left/what still remains of me." One reading is burgeoning, the other precious, numbered, scarce. Either way,  the Psalmist manages to spin his amoebic "od" into melody. If the "od" is robust, as in the first reading, I imagine a third grade choir teacher orchestrating crazy children to sing something for the parents, or a novice in the kitchen throwing in everything but the kitchen sink. If it is limited, I think of women bubbling up whole meals from grass, Itzak Pearlman's, "make music from what remains," symphonic lives when we know "im bigvurot shmonim shana," even the strong ones live only to eighty. 

I thought this was an appropriate sentiment for beginnings, in this case the beginning of a blog and Seattle life and whatever after (I have just moved out to Seattle after leaving my job in NYC.)  I don't know what I will write. I don't know exactly what I will do in the coming months. To some extent this is the only way any of us can ever feel about our futures. I do know, though, that time chisels our "ods", the both scarce and flourishing, into definition, and when we look back, we can see something. We can hear something. I just hope...however I fashion my own mass of self...AZAMRAH...let it be a song.

Please harmonize with comments anytime. I much prefer if this would be a discussion forum as opposed to unilateral writing.