So(u)l Food

I sat down to write this post on New Food (again, today’s post is part of a blog challenge I have accepted for December). The challenge has been great for my writing, as it forces me to sit down and write each morning, something I have been finding hard to do as I painfully contract through the birthing of my book.

Blogging is such a great practice because it forces you to let go of so many of the normal strategies of resistance. Especially blogging every day. When you are committed to getting it out there, you do it, but the life-cycle is short enough to learn the discipline to do so. At least for me. At least so far.

So my process of writing for this challenge has been to look at the prompt the night before, go to bed with it in my consciousness, wake up, make my tea, sit down to write, and stare out the window at the dawning of the day over the hills of Tilden park. We live, literally, across the street from this beauty. It is food for my soul, this green beauty before me. Ah, there it is. Food. Back to the topic at hand. Food. New Food.

What new food did I find in 2009 that I hadn’t know about before? As I consider this, I think of Sol Food, a great place in San Rafael that serves up the most delicious Puerto Rican Cuisine. You gotta check out their web site just for the fun interface, great music and beautifully detailed descriptions of their food. I opened the site and have the music playing in the background. It’s a mixture of music and kitchen sounds from the restaurant.

But, I knew about Sol Food in 2007, so it doesn’t count (if I stay true to the challenge).

In fact, I didn’t discover any new food in 2009. Not in the traditional sense of food. However, (if you read my blog regularly, you’ll know I had to go here), I did discover, more deeply, a new food for the soul (emphasis on more deeply).

Food for the soul. Just as important as food for the body. My new food for the soul is Silence. Yes, Silence. For some reason, actually not for any reason at all, Silence has grown to be a staple in my diet for my soul. Like my body craving chocolate, my soul craves silence. Anywhere I can find it. Silence. Beautiful deep, rich, dark silence. The kind of silence that pulls you into its center, your center.

I gobble this silence up. When I sit gazing out our window at the park. When I hold my grandbabies while they sleep. When I lie in Savasana. When I meditate.

Now, I actually found silence, before 2009, too. Obviously. But, silence is so much more than we think it is. I have come to experience is the deep, rich, dark silence that is at the center of everything smack in the middle of noise. And life. And chaos. That is the new food of 2009. This delicious manna for the soul that nourishes me to the deep center of my heart.

I experience this silence in dance at the height of chaos. While driving down the most gnarly highway in the Bay Area, 880. While changing the dirtiest diapers ever smelled. While standing in the grocery store check-out – okay, this one is a little harder to get. And, even while eating at Sol Food – one of the nosiest restaurants around.

Silence is here all the time. Just tune in to it. Feel it. You are swimming in it. Let it hold you. I find this food for the soul to be the most nourishing of all.

ps if you are still reading, something really funny just happened. I JUST NOW (at the bottom of this post) realized the pun inherent here. Sol Food. Soul Food. I just now got it. I think this joke is on me! As I went to title this post, I noticed I had started with the title Sol Food, thinking I would write simply on that. Then, as always happens, the post wrote itself, circling back to the beginning. Love it when that happens!

This post is part of Gwen Bell’s Best of 2009 Blog Challenge

Day 12: New food.