Just keep swimming

As Dory the Blue Tang in Finding Nemo said, you just keep swimming. When shit hits the fan, just keep swimming. When the sky collapses on you, just keep swimming. Because you need to live. Because the world will not stop.

So to keep me from dwelling on the past, I just have to keep busy. Use my hands, occupy my brain, prevent myself from thinking.

Growing food from food scraps and seedlings. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I revived my derelict container garden that is growing vegetables from food scraps and seedlings.

Growing lettuce seedlings. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I had been recycling egg crates, Coke bottles, and milk cartons to grow vegetables. Because they require more work, I embraced recycling to the hilt. To keep me occupied.

My sad bird of paradise. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I neglected this bird of paradise the past month–because you know, I was hardly a nurturing creature that time. Good thing it didn’t completely die. Just half of its leaves dried out; good thing there’s a new leaf bud there and the sucker below isn’t completely dead and hollowed out.

Breakfast. Photo by CallMeCreation.com

I still get to cook on weekends. Weekday is just packed and I don’t have the strength to do it since I try to bike to UP every other day. Need to keep fit and lose weight. A lot of weight. To prove to the world I am so worth it and he is a fucking idiot. I may no longer be young but I am still so worth it.

So I just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. I need to drown out memories.

To still the violent seas

Oyakudon. Photo by Callmecreation.com

My insides are like the roiling seas during a violent storm. I needed to calm it before I explode.

To do that, I needed to revisit what I used to do to reach a zen-like state. So I returned to cooking.

I had abandoned it temporarily because cooking had hurt. I used to do that a lot for him, testing new recipes, learning dishes from his native country. I quit all that. Because I believed that a way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and love can be felt in the food that has been cooked with it. I used to accompany him while he ate, because that’s how you serve food with love, especially after a long hard day at work. Talk about how the day went, talk about politics, about ideas, about the future.

I cooked oyakudon again yesterday as I suddenly craved for something Japanese. Doing so gave me some kind of peace and purpose at the same time. To nourish my body and soul and that of my children.

To inspire me with beauty and stillness of home cooking and homemaking, I had been watching Girl in Calico and The Cottage Fairy on Youtube daily.

There is beauty somewhere even in the darkest night.