from The Globe and Mail, June 27, 2009: “The authentic soul of Canada is the wilderness … A Canadian is someone who knows how to have sex in a canoe… If you want to feel truly Canadian, you’ve got to get out there and learn to paddle a canoe.”

I don’t know if any of the above is true, but I do know from spending a brief week last summer in the far southwest corner of Canada, that identity is all tied up in the water and the wilderness and the vessels that can safely take you from one point to the next. I personally hate canoeing – but I have never really considered what exactly cements my identity.

Is there something symbolic, some food, some task, some color, some hobby?

Consider this, from David Grossman, “The Age of Genius,” which appeared in the New Yorker, June 8 & 15, 2009:

“When I first heard about the life cycle of salmon, I felt that there was something very Jewish about it: that inner signal which suddenly resonates in the consciousness of the fish, bidding them to return to the place where they were born, the place where they were formed as a group. (There may also be something very Jewish in the urge to leave that homeland and wander all over the world – that eternal journey.)”

And later, in Saveur, in a story about Sheila Lukins, coauthor of The Silver Palate Cookbook: “Sheila’s love of cooking and her belief in its ability to enrich lives not only got her through tough situations – it was contagious.”

Food as a transmitter of identity, of experience, of relationship, of love – that’s not a novel concept but it is a true and powerful one. In feeding someone, in preparing a meal together and savoring the flavors, we are nourishing our souls.

Dana Goodyear wrote in “The Scavenger,” a New Yorker article from November 9, 2009, “Interesting cuisine often comes out of poverty…serve some actual hunger people have, rather than something they tell themselves they must have.”

It’s no secret that culture and identity are conveyed through the foods we eat. Our lifelong preferences harken back to our earliest days. Our tendencies, our proclivities, our choices – they all represent deep-seated feelings and desires, the desire to be ok, the desire to be loved, the desire to be a part of something significant.

When I was in college and in love with John, we’d banter back and forth about identity and faith. “How can you be so Jewish if you don’t know anything about it?” he challenged one day in his rented room with shaggy brown carpet. Queensryche ballads played on the stereo. His electric guitar stood at repose under the bunkbed.

But it was not an honest question. I mean it was, but there is so much more to who we are than what we know.

And the food part of this – in children’s books, the greatest punishment a parent can bestow is to send a child to bed without supper. Why? Because there is no possibility of withholding love or money or sex, all the things we as adults toy with in an effort toward control and power. Children are pure and innocent and simple – and their need to receive love, and to give it, is vast.

My children have said simple things in moments of crisis. When I’ve felt sad or angry or frustrated or self-doubting, one of them will say, “Well then why are you fill-in-the-blank, Mommy? Do something else, befriend someone else, go somewhere else.” Simple. And true.

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Sometimes, all I want is to make a lot of money and put it away in a safe place. Maybe a shoebox under my bed. My bed is large. It’s very hard to get to the middle point underneath it unless you squeeze yourself and take a chance.

But other times, all I want is to live a life of meaning and of joy. Of pure, sheer bliss and appreciation for the sunshine and the fresh air on my skin and my three children sleeping in solemn repose in rooms around me every night.

 Read this. I couldn’t have said it better myself. I agree with every single word and the way it was delivered. And I think I am going to start focusing on these simple words. Immediately.

How do you find meaning? Give me a shout. I’d love to hear about it.

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In everyday speech, I don’t always choose my words carefully. Sure, I think about what I’m saying and reach into the depths of my intellect for powerhouse articulation, but sometimes, it’s all I can do to roll the thoughts off my tongue as quickly as they come to mind.

There was a man once who taught me about the power of language. Glen Gearhart, my high school English teacher. I think I took every class he taught in the Advanced Placement track. I graduated from North Farmington High School in 1989 and ever since, when I come across a “Gearhart word” – hoary, querulous – that’s exactly how I think of it. A word given to me by Mr. Gearhart.

His vocabulary tests were legendarily easy. Mr. Gearhart chose a list of 10 or 20 words, many of which held similar definitions. And then in the brilliance that was his and his alone, he assigned a one-word definition – often the SAME word – to explain what it meant. Easy to remember. Easy to get right.

Mr. Gearhart taught me that learning did not have to be an uphill climb and gaining knowledge didn’t have to come with obstacles or barriers or pages upon pages of hard-to-penetrate language and configurations. When I got to college at the University of Michigan and took a poetry class, I bristled when the professor told me my understanding of a poem was wrong. How could it be wrong if it was how I read it? Mr. Gearhart would never stand for that!

I ended up with an MFA in Poetry you know. Mr. Gearhart was right.

I never saw him after 1989 and every so often, I’d wonder where Mr. Gearhart was, what he was doing, whether he was wearing his gorgeous suits somewhere else in the world. I had fun in his classes. Once, when I was trying to get my parents to let me go to Cedar Point with friends, unchaperoned, Mr. Gearhart helped me write a compelling speech that considered my parents’ perspective but was ultimately so persuasive that they had to let me go.

They didn’t. But before my mother said her definitive NO, she said, “That was a great speech!”

And so, when I read in the newspaper a few weeks ago that Mr. Gearhart had passed, I felt a pang in my chest – of memories, of mourning, of profound impact.

I posted on my Facebook page that he would be missed and immediately classmates posted their memorial replies:

from Susan Gartenberg, a NFHS parent: When did he pass away? We all loved him!

from Philip Siegel, class of 1990: Oh no! Truly one of the greatest teachers, both in and out of the classroom.

from Rachel Satz Robinson, class of 1988: He was my favorite teacher of all!

from Darcy Lockman Kingsley, class of 1990: Saw the obit in the Free Press online yesterday. Certain vocabulary words (garrulous and hoary, to name a couple) will always bring Mr. Gearhart to my mind. He was a lot of fun.

from Alicia Schlitz: Oh how sad! I loved Mr. Gearhart … him and his crazy vocab words.

And even a friend who did not know Mr. Gearhart read my post and said, “It made me think of my favorite teachers.”

I called Mr. Gearhart’s lovely widow to let her know how much he influenced my development as a person. I have been a professional writer for 20 years and I believe that in a large part, Mr. Gearhart’s teachings and leadership gave me the confidence to find my voice and carve out my own path.

Mrs. Gearhart invited me to say a few words at his memorial luncheon. I would have loved to attend but I will be scaling mountains in western Canada then. In a way, he taught me to do that, too.

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Please read this moving and poetic account of the awful events in Mumbai last week by a writer who knows and loves that city.

www.monicabhide.com

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I felt a cold coming on and knots in my back. The kids were away with their dad for the day, so I called the Nordstrom Spa, an occasional destination for a massage to ease my stress and tension, which lately had been high.

When Anita arrived to start her shift, I’d been waiting 15 minutes. She didn’t smile. Her nose ring glinted off the overhead lights and her dark frizzy hair, pulled back into a bun, was tight as the side of a ship.

She said nothing, just waved me back. “You can change in the restroom,” she said. “Someone’s still on the table.”

I pulled on the soft-soft robe and padded my way to the back of the spa for the routine foot soak. Again, no smile from Anita.

And when I hit the table, the room aglare in bright light, nothing ready, no dimmed ambience to help ease whatever voices I couldn’t banish from my head, she didn’t crack a grin. “I’ll adjust everything when you’re on the table.”

Nestled in, trying to shut out the light, I waited. When she finally returned, turned the lights down and touched her fingers to my bare skin, I cringed. She swiped her hands up and back againagainagain until I thought my skin would break into fire.

I asked three times to please slow down until finally, I sat up on the table and said, “This is not working for me.”

“Do you want to reschedule? You obviously don’t like my technique.”

Technique? Technique? Was not the job of a massage therapist to attend to the individual needs of the customer?

I’m not so old to say I remember better times but I do. I remember my mother pulling into the gas station and a young man with a smile filling her car with gas. I remember the credit card slip passed through an open window for her signature.

And I certainly remember the stock phrase, the customer is always right.

It’s something I try to keep in mind in my client dealings. Whether I’m writing an article for Better Homes and Gardens or AARP, or working on projects for Hiller’s or Yoga Shelter or Frameable Faces or other clients, if the client isn’t happy, they won’t send work my way again.

Is it so hard to crack a smile, swallow a reaction and just say, “I’ll try harder?”

“Why do people have to tell you who they’re voting for, Mommy?” Asher asked as we passed lawn sign after lawn sign proclaiming support for the Obama-Biden ticket.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t know.”

I am up to my eyeballs in political proselytizing this fall. Literally.

This election has hypnotized my relatives, people previously driven by a who-cares approach to politics. At holiday gatherings and casual get-togethers, they exhibit Obama-Biden lapel pins and wax passionate about what an idiot Sarah Palin is and how similar to W John McCain is.

When I jumped down from my fence seat and announced my support for the McCain-Palin ticket, my mother turned up her nose, narrowed her gaze and spat, “Well, that’s YOUR problem, Lynne.”

I was slicing hard tomatoes in her granite-counter kitchen and sipping Spanish wine. I make salad differently, but I didn’t feel the need to say so.

Look. I don’t care who anyone votes for. It’s every American’s right and responibility to cast a ballot. And it’s none of my business what reasoning drives that choice.

Apparently, I am one of the few Americans who see good and bad on both sides. The people I know with lawn signs and lapel pins declare Obama as THE ANSWER TO EVERY PROBLEM. They’re being naive.

A just-out-of-the-starting-gate senator – albeit one who has infinite charisma and great speaking abilities when he knows what he’s talking about – is no more or less poised to lead than a veteran with experience negotiating across party lines. And an in-the-trenches governor who won’t take sass and juggles a family and public office is more equipped to offer insight, direction and answers than a white guy from the tiniest state in the Union.

But I digress.

This economic crisis was a long time in coming and there are many to blame for it – including each one of us. No one person will resolve it overnight.

And if you’re going to talk about change, please be specific. You see, except for Sarah Palin, whom I adore, they’re all dancing around vaguaries and big words. No one’s saying anything of worth.

(The next time someone tells me they don’t want a soccer mom in high office, I just might slap them. Even though I loved Tina Fey’s impressions.)

Vote for your candidate of choice. Be passionate about your beliefs. But please don’t preach to me.

And put your damn lawn signs away.

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“What is not yet done is only what we have not yet attempted to do.”

– Alexis de Tocqueville

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