A return to blogging...

I have been feeling an itch lately - undefined, back-of-my-brain, peripheral dissatisfaction with the way things are. It has been hard to pin down, and not just because its appearance like ghostly images in the corner of my eye... but also because there are so many things in my life that are going well - my friends, my job, my hobbies... though I definitely could be practicing my new mandolin more, I'm pretty sure that is not what is causing this nebulous worry. I'd let my online reading languish, my To Be Read pile has grown, while I've buried myself in comfort reads, revisiting old favorites; and indulging in new brain candy in the form of "The Big Bang Theory" - an all-six-seasons binge. And while these pass-times are enjoyable - who doesn't love a good "bazinga", they have, ultimately, not been satisfying.

So today I did the dishes I'd been ignoring in the sink, cleaned out my reader, and caught up on blogs - the physical housecleaning morphing into a mental one. And I was led to this quote:

“I am one of the searchers. There are, I believe, millions of us. We are not unhappy, but neither are we really content. We continue to explore life, hoping to uncover its ultimate secret. We continue to explore ourselves, hoping to understand. We like to walk along the beach, we are drawn by the ocean, taken by its power, its unceasing motion, its mystery and unspeakable beauty. We like forests and mountains, deserts and hidden rivers, and the lonely cities as well. Our sadness is as much a part of our lives as is our laughter. To share our sadness with one we love is perhaps as great a joy as we can know - unless it be to share our laughter. 

We searchers are ambitious only for life itself, for everything beautiful it can provide. Most of all we love and want to be loved. We want to live in a relationship that will not impede our wandering, nor prevent our search, nor lock us in prison walls; that will take us for what little we have to give. We do not want to prove ourselves to another or compete for love.  

For wanderers, dreamers, and lovers, for lonely men and women who dare to ask of life everything good and beautiful. It is for those who are too gentle to live among wolves.”  

~James Kavanaugh- "There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves"

It so neatly sums up my own discontent, not new to me, but recently quite strongly felt... I have been ignoring my inner searcher, burying it under the minutiae of daily life. And this is not an acceptable state of being. Not for me.

And this lead to the further realization that I missed writing. Not the writing I've been playing at with a novel idea, nor the more serious writing of a kitchen memoir, but this kind of writing - brief, topical, get-it-out-of-my-head-and-into-the-world kind of writing. And while I've never been the most loyal of bloggers, I do think I'm happier for the effort. So, we'll see how a return to blogging goes...

Eccentric...

So, I have a post that is almost ready on some of my Korean adventures, but in the meantime I have been musing on this... as an Aquarian I totally own my eccentricity, but according to this week's horoscope now it's apparently time for everyone else to experience it more fully, as well.

"AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Right now you have license to make pretty much everything bigger and funnier and wickeder. Good fortune is likely to flow your way as you seek out experiences that are extra interesting and colorful and thought-provoking. This is no time for you to be shy about asking for what you want or timid about stirring up adventure. Be louder and prouder than usual. Be bolder and brighter, nosier and cozier, weirder and more whimsical. The world needs your very best idiosyncrasies and eccentricities!"

So, how about it? Which of my eccentricities does the world need to see more of...? My obsession with useless trivia? My fascination with cookbooks and food traditions? My deep enjoyment of romance novels? My tendency to interrupt with whatever bizarre path my brain has taken, regardless of the conversation's current path? My deep and somewhat irritating love for ellipses...?

List: Things that make me happy...

• Eve Dallas
• Lady Antebellum
• bizarre, yet tasty, Korean pizza
• colored pens
• new notebooks
• jasmine green tea
• clean dishes
• my stuffed frog, Natasha

A new adventure...

Much has happened since last we spoke (or really, I wrote at you), my loyal readers. In that time I have applied for and achieved a job teaching overseas, visited my sisters, seen a city that was new to me, moved my things, and I am now staying with my sisters (first G, then M) until it's time to fly. Whew! That's a lot.

So, for the news that is probably of most interest to those of you who read here... Teaching overseas. I will be English teaching in Korea, in a city just outside of Seoul. There are things about the job that make me nervous - no Korean language experience, young children - but for the most part I am overwhelmingly excited to begin. I am excited for the new place and the experiences, hopefully good experiences. This will be an opportunity for me to expand my teaching experience, and at the same time I might be able to save a little money and pay down some of my student loan debt.

This doesn't mean that I am done with academia - I am still following along on the internet, keeping track of what is going on in my various realms of interest. But I am taking this time to figure out what it is I want to pursue - food, medieval lit, popular romance studies - and how it is best to pursue that primary interest once I figure it out. I am pretty sure food will be involved, but how and in what combination of ideas I don't yet know. My teaching schedule should give me a fair amount of writing time, as well. Which I hope to use not only for the aforementioned figuring, but also to work on projects and papers I've started but have not ever thought through and written out. Perhaps in the process of finishing, I will also be figuring. I am also going to spend a lot of time reading - my reading list I never finished, new philosophers I've stumbled across, food memoirs I've added to my list, my auto-buy authors that I can get my hands on in Korea. I've been stocking up on eBooks, as I only get two suitcases. And also because I love the format.

I am not sure what this move will mean for me on the cooking front. It's my understanding that most of the eating in Korea is done out, in a very tasty and inexpensive way. This is exciting for the cuisine I will get to taste, but disturbing that I won't have the comforts of my accustomed kitchen or the excitement of learning new techniques and dishes. However it happens, though, I am looking forward to exploring the cuisine.

I will report more as the adventure unfolds...

Simple abundance...

My recent move has inspired much introspection, contemplation, and perhaps even angst...

Among the topics, foremost after only the perennial what-am-I-doing-with-my-life, was, and is I suppose, the idea of simplification. This is a subject that always accompanies the hated moving process - where did I get all this stuff? Why do I have so much of it? Do I really need it all? The questioning accompanying this particular move was compounded by others in my world tackling simplification for various reasons - dear friends moving to Korea to teach, another friend's blog posts focusing on the simplification process, my sister cleaning out her clutter, books where the heroines end up traveling with no luggage and are fine... there were other less easily referenced moments, as well. All of these make me want to pare down the things that I own, reduce the volume of possessions cluttering up my life (or stored in my sister's apartment).

Questions of simplification are difficult for me - I have a nester personality. I miss my pretty nick-nacks. Objects are comforting to me. Clutter is cosy. I am predisposed to collect - books, art, cooking supplies. Having to move, and leave so much of my stuff - those books, dust-catchers, kitchen equipment - in storage for now, has created a cognitive dissonance between my desire for my missing objects, my attachment to the objects that surround me, and the appeal of a simplified life.

So, how do I find that balance point?

Another complicating factor is that move coincided with my purchase (finally) of an eReader, and my subsequent discovery that I love it - I love the experience of reading on it, I love the fact that I can have literally hundreds of books with me at any given time, I love the space it saves. And yet... I also love my paper books. How do I pick and choose in which format I want to keep a given title? Cookbooks are easy - they are still better in paper, though if I do get an iPad, who knows if that will change - but for now, I'm keeping the paper. Poetry I am also keeping the paper - the form matters in poetry, and the formatting of ebooks is not yet at a place where the form is well and consistently preserved, so they stay, too. But I have hundreds and hundreds of novels, mostly genre fiction, well-loved and well-read, many of which I now also have in ebook form. And I enjoy reading them that way. How do I choose which to keep, which to pare away? I feel almost as if I have to choose which friends I get to keep and which ones I have to say goodbye to. Due to the issue of storage distance, it is a decision that I don't yet have to make, but it is looming, and occupying my thoughts to the point of minor obsession.

Why can't simple also be easy?