ALL YOU CAN EAT

The Canadian side

I stood before Niagara Falls the day before what some call Independence Day. To be free of King George. Could this be what is meant? To know hot dogs and watermelons in the middle of summer. To know fireworks. To not be sure in this moment how I might relate yesterday to healing the soil or self or the earth.

The Canadians wear red. The Americans blue. In the boats that go close to the falls this is how you differentiate from above. And what might be growing in this space where people come from around the world? Did we find anything?

We found pizza and we found Indian food. The pizza led to the need for more, and had we had more pizza, there would have been need for a nap. The Indian food was made of fresh ingredients, of what felt like fuel for the body. In this wasteland of all you can eat buffets, there remained this vestige of taste, a place where those who entered and left seemed skinnier than the rest, a place where the scents were more than just addiction.

How is it that ice cream adds to majesty? Is this the difference between an espresso and an Americano, the way hot water makes one feel like he is getting more? I consider the ways sugar, salt, and fat reach out to me. I consider the way bright lights and amusements grip a child, the way a father pulls the arm and drags a kid, the way children look as if somebody should step in and stop them from eating all of these chemicals.

This has turned into false independence, of the line that maybe Robert Hunter wrote, of the idea that too much of everything is just enough. I wonder what emotions remain blocked by a cupful of Dippin’ dots, how as a kid I was sold the excitement of this by astronauts. I know the thoughts of the CEOs pushing sugar onto the all too willing. I know the lives of these men and their families. I know they are not feeding their children what they push onto ours. The same as those who developed what keeps us focussed on a screen are not allowing their children unlimited time on this.

Sometimes I find myself reaching for imitations of food. Sometimes from fear and sometimes from desire, but if I can sit with and try to be silent, I will see that there is a disturbance inside of me. There is a reason. When food is anything other than fuel this need to shovel must be examined.

Did I mention the falls? The way pink roses climbed the concrete wall. The presence in the constant falling and explosion of white foam. Did I mention the way they turned me away from Canada in 2010? Two drunk drivings as a teenager and numerous other infractions before getting sober in July of 2008. 

It was days before the canoe trip that would take me down the Ohio River. I ate the lowest stems of cattails, wild mint, and soaked lentils in a peanut butter jar. Before leaving I researched eating fish from this thousand mile long river. The recommendation was that you could safely eat one fish a month.

I wonder how to fit within this. I know my plane ride to Canada contributes to the pollution of the Ohio River. Maybe not directly, but as I have said before, one thing affects everything. I never thought I would get to Canada. I never thought I would be on a balcony, typing and listening to Farhad while a beautiful woman meditates inside. 

Love opens doors. And love acknowledges the need to connect, to heal all of what needs healed, to see just what it is to sit with the emotions that are blocked by fudge on a holiday to see one of the wonders of the world, to see the happiness buried inside beneath corn dogs and bright lights, to know that real food cannot be found in the places proclaiming ALL YOU CAN EAT.