“Rice Grandma”, fermented glutinous rice just like my own PoPo used to make, and in the background glutinous rice balls filled with black sesame paste. Both foods that bring me home.
What foods make you happy? Why?
In Disney’s 2007 film “Ratatouille”, the hostile food critic experiences an existential transformation after his first bite of the unsophisticated but sentimental title dish. His olfactory sense, the most primitive and tightly bound to long term memory of them all, triggers intense feelings of comfort, love, and security from childhood, when his mother served him ratatouille after he was hurt.
Sister and I bonded recently over the Asian food display at my local Costco. We found the pork sausage that Ma used to use in her fried rice, and egg yolk pies that we can almost never find in stores, even in Chinatown. When I gushed about it to a fellow East Asian friend, she pointed me to a new Chinese supermarket near me. Daughter and I went exploring today. …While I would not quite call my experience existential, it was intensely joyful, and our haul provided a unique satisfaction that moved me unexpectedly. I found myself texting photos to my parents, wishing they could be with us, recalling the flavors, sounds, and memories of growing up Chinese in white, suburban America.
I learned early in childhood not to bring food from home for lunch at school. Stares and disgusted facial expressions from classmates at the appearance or smell of my family’s cooking vaporized my appetite and made me unpleasantly self-conscious. It’s okay though, because I loved hot lunches at school—it was stuff I never got at home—overcooked green beans, spaghetti and meatballs served with an oversized ice cream scooper, and chicken fried steak—I had no idea what it was, but it tasted great—so different!
Authentic Chinese food was enjoyed at home only, especially the really weird stuff like preserved or salted duck eggs, fermented bean curd, and dried pork sung. Like most teens, I did not fully appreciate these foods at the time. In college I got to explore Japanese, Indian, Middle Eastern, and Thai food, all new to my naïve palate. But when I went home—when I go home still—Sunday mornings eating rice porridge with the small plates of colorful, multi-odorous, myriad-textured food really was (is!) comforting. Daughter saw today how giddy it all made me, and it excites her to try these foods for herself. Another generation bonded to cultural roots awaits its next awakening.
One of my goals this year is to live much more mindfully. This includes cooking more at home, and really appreciating and enjoying—savoring!—my food, rather than inhaling it while attending to a dozen other tasks or problems. My Chinese grocery acquisitions these last few weeks excite me more than I anticipated. Maybe I’ll start bringing leftovers for lunch again.
What lessons and mementos will you hold in front, what light guides you?
Tonight I consider the landscape and path ahead. What do I look forward to, and how do I want to be? How will I approach relationships, media, leadership, projects, and health? How will I challenge myself? On the last blog post of 2021, what do I want to look back and be able to write about what’s important to me in the year past?
Relationships: Always work to do here. Some will require more vulnerability, which is scary. In others I will work to overcome booth pride and self-doubt—maybe that is the ultimate paradox of imposter syndrome? At my best I exemplify curiosity, humility, generosity, honesty, and kindness. In the hardest moments I must cultivate non-judgment, empathy, and patience. I will scrutinize my inner narratives and assumptions, and look always to connect.
Media: Ask. More. Questions. What is the writer/reporter/source’s objective? What is their bias? What is mine? Where/how can I access primary data in full context? How should I be willing, and how willing should I be, to learn, change, and grow from what I take in? How will this make me better, and to what end? To practice thoughtful discernment—before, during, and after consumption—that’s the goal.
Leadership: What do people need from me, individually and as a group? How can I best also lead those who lead me? In 2020 I completed a 360 evaluation; the feedback has served me well, and I review it often. In 2021 I commit to stepping out of my default styles more often. I will nurture my I, S, T, and J sides and attune better to those who live at these frequencies. Goal: To help my people and organizations advance toward our full potential, always aligned with and in service of our deepest core values.
Projects: Assuming the invitations continue, this could be hard. Every new presentation, paper, group, conference, and class, in my mind, is another exciting opportunity to learn, synthesize, integrate, and connect! But I can’t do everything, and I must stop “screwing your future self,” as Ozan puts it, by overcommitting.
Health: Walk the talk. Sleep, Exercise, Nutrition, Stress Management, and Relationships. After all this time, defining health in terms of these five reciprocal domains continues to bring clarity and direction for both my patients and me. I’m learning about keystone habits, which I bet will help all of us in the coming year. Thankfully, not every domain goes to hell at the same time, and all behaviors are subject to change. Goal for 2021 is to fortify healthy habits in each domain, especially the weak ones, to make them less susceptible to derailers.
Coda – Some last thoughts for the year
Books: This week I started and finished Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights on Audible in about 36 hours. I don’t know if his hoots and whistles are written in the book, but they and he are a riot to hear on audio. What a master storyteller! And the life lessons are valuable, too, offered with humor and confident humility—highly recommend.
Since I shared my 2020 book list last week, friends have made myriad suggestions that are now in the queue for 2021:
The Naked Now by Richard Rohr
Upstream by Dan Heath
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
Who You Are: The Science of Connectedness by Michael J. Spivey
You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters by Kate Murphy
Thinking In Bets by Annie Duke
Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative by Ken Robinson
The Coddling of the American Mind by Greg Lukainoff and Johathan Haidt
The Long Game by Mitch McConnell
I’ve considered reading that last two for a few years now, and always avoided it. Didn’t want to be uncomfortable. In 2021 I commit to training in discomfort, to learn and broaden perspective.
Songs: A friend solicited a playlist to bridge what has been to what can be. Here are my contributions.
COVID Vaccine: I recommend it. After reassurance that my colleagues at higher risk than I who wanted it have gotten it, I got my first dose of the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine yesterday. 34 hours out now, I have minimal, focal, and superficial arm soreness at the injection site and no other symptoms. I did my usual HIIT workout tonight without limitation. Read this concise and user friendly guide to the mRNA vaccines by Pfizer/BioNtech and Moderna, with references to data on safety and efficacy. To see when you will likely be eligible to receive the vaccine, refer to this slide deck from the CDC, also concise and easy to read. There are many months yet ahead to stay vigilant and mindful, though. Cases and deaths will continue to rise before receding, especially with all of the people still traveling for the holidays. Please continue all of your best COVID exposure precautions, for all our sakes.
So much lies out of our control, friends. And yet we all still have all kinds of agency. We get to shape our future. Let us all use our personal power for good, shall we? At the end of each day may we look back and forward on myriad words and acts of kindness, generosity, humility, and connection, rather than judgment, ridicule, derision, and exclusion. That’s how we can make 2021 infinitely better than 2020.
Make sweeping delcarations/Qualify every statement
Wow. That’s kind of a lot, and pretty complex. And yet it’s so simple, so Zen.
Life is an exercise in holding space—physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and relationally—for all that feels like contradiction. We are here to reconcile it all, to dig it up in order to smooth it out, to make peace in the morass, to turn manure into fertilizer. The flexibility to hold mutually divergent ideas at the same time, and to move fluidly from one pole to its opposite and back again in dynamic balance—this is my most valuable lesson from this year.
In April I wrote about the best thing that could happen from this pandemic: Connection. It’s already happening, and I’m so grateful. I’m also inspired, empowered, and ambitious for more.
Healing Through Connection 