(no subject)

I'm feeling small and maybe a touch weepy this morning; it's a morning of parting, again, in a week of new stresses, after not the most rejuvenating weekend. It's an aberration, I know, not the new pattern, but I'm very definitely missing the opportunity to relax in the most important presence, to renew with one another with little external intrusion or demand. I'm carrying a dearth of presence, and it weighs on me.

(no subject)

I went to a suburban mall on my lunch, to buy work clothing for a business trip the end of this week; none of this makes me happy, on several levels. Walking through the bustling, kids out of school holiday feel of once-exuberant consumerism, I felt short and choppy, coarse and very, very out of place. People were mobile objects or obstacles, every movement of mine had too much energy behind it, despite being tightly controlled. I was never still, always in a hurry, a tight ball of jagged energy. In the gut, everyone knew I was undomesticated and foreign. Eating was mechanical, food chosen for nutrition and absorption; even the children avoided me. I wonder if this was a brief glimpse into sociopathology.

dead baby bird and diet

I just moved a dead baby bird from the middle of our driveway to the base of one of my favorite trees, with a shovel and a quiet, but still heartfelt, "I'm sorry, little one". A distant part of my mind wondered what my neighbors would think if I started crying, but it was safely at arm's reach.

Strangely, this got me to thinking about food, about my relationship with what I eat. I ate chicken today for lunch, but almost wept at the sight of a still fuzzy dead bird in my driveway. I don't think it's just proximity, that it was my home, and I don't think it's detached compartmentalization (despite the very careful work of most of the food industry to distance omnivores from the source of their meat).

There is an entire class of animals I won't eat because they come uncomfortably close to my understanding of human intelligence (octopus, pig, crow, squid, monkey, elephant, dolphin, whale, etc); there is the class of animals I won't eat because of safety (cow, too much fish or sea bugs); animals I won't eat, or eat less of, for environmental reasons (red meat, fish again, caged chicken). All of these feel like valid reasons for me, and I'm pretty OK with my stance there. It's when I get into thinking about not eating some or all animals out of compassion that I stumble.

I think, unless it was a matter of simple survival, if my choice was killing an animal myself or eating greens, I'd be a vegetarian in a quick second, but I'm not sure that's just about compassion; I'm strangely prissy about things, particularly about things that should be inside bodies being outside. It's not that I'm not compassionate, I don't think. But, if that becomes an important criteria, where does that leave me, exactly? I have very warm, personal feelings for many plants, and this only grows with time. If I let that guide me, my sense of connection, empathy and compassion to living things, I wouldn't be able to eat anything. I don't say this as a justification for the meat industry (which I really dislike, but of which I still decreasingly partake), or to excuse my own taste for certain foods (I gave up pulled pork, for gods' sake), but as a genuine sticking point in my own ethics and diet. If anyone's experienced similar, I'd be keen to hear it.