casual snacks

i ate posho and beans almost exclusively for four or five months at the beginning of this year. in the afternoons i would make tea and snack on some sort of soul-restoring treat--some leftover chapati, or maybe some sandwich cookies that i had brought back on my last visit to the big city (be it gulu or kitgum or kampala). it wasn't like snacking back home. there was no overwhelming multiplicity of options. there was no way to run to the store and pick up whatever i didn't have that sounded good. i had one option, perhaps two, and it was rationed. the time was set apart for the special purpose of refreshing my body and mind. it was costly and life-giving.

i typically went to mass on sundays when i was in karenga. as i am not catholic, i didn't take communion. i didn't think of it as such at the time, but afternoon tea took on almost a sacramental role. as mentioned above, it was soul-restoring, a treat, set apart, special, refreshing, and life-giving. there was a weight to it--perhaps it could even be called holy.

i delight in the options available to me now that i'm back in the states. i brought peanut-butter stuffed pretzels and dried apricots on a hike on monday. i occasionally may or may not have quantities of ice cream in my freezer that could be measured in gallons. chocolate. everywhere. it's all very nice. but i overeat fairly often, and there isn't anything that i eat that feels distinctly unique or set apart, even if it's something that i don't eat very often.

there are endless options that somebody else did the work to create. i can eat them at any time. freedom and unbounded options limit my sense of anticipation. my limited sense of anticipation limits my imagination--perhaps not necessarily, but at least in matter of present fact. i would very much like to supplement the trite casual snacks of plenty with the creative holy feasts of simplicity.

Ben Tyler lit a pipe that i gave him. Melanie Shaffer, Jennifer Campbell, Nicole Hiller, Jonathan Hiller, Summer Webb, and i hiked the devils thumb loop in the indian peaks wilderness. my parents and sister came and we stalked deer, crawling belly-to-earth through the brush of betasso preserve. Melanie and Summer and i hiked up longs peak.