Measuring up.

You wake up Saturday morning and listen to the news; it’s going to be sunny, 75 F, with a gentle breeze. You lace up your trainers and go for a run. 5 solid miles and then some stretching before you hop on the scale to see that you have stayed inside your ideal 6 pound range. You shower. You eat your favorite breakfast of yogurt, granola, and fruit, which contains approximately 500 calories, 16 grams of fiber, 14 grams of protein, and a 100% of a bunch of daily vitamins to boot. Later in the afternoon, you go to the movies with a friend and buy a matinee ticket for $7, popcorn and coke for $6 (you usually don’t splurge on the expensive snacks, but you’re treating yourself today cause yesterday, your professor (or boss) gave you a 95% mark on some recent accomplishment), and you watch George Clooney be handsome for a couple hours.

Switch gears. You wake up Saturday in South Africa. It’s going to be a sunny 35 C. You gear up and run 5 hilly kilometers. The bathroom scale reads in kilos. Your favorite breakfast with muesli has 1,060 kJ per 100 grams. The yoghurt has pimarcin in it: you don’t know what that means, and you can’t decipher the daily values. At the movies, you spend R90 and watch George Clooney who is handsome as all get out. The snacks seem a bit overpriced, but you're not sure, and you can’t justify the splurge with the %70 mark you got the day before, cause you are not sure what the grade means.

Which day is better? Can you tell? Is there a measure?

I realized soon after arriving in South Africa that if I was to evaluate life the way I habitually do, then I’d need to learn all the new measures first. It was kind of annoying not to know the nutritional breakdown of every bite of food. Not to know whether the day’s high temperature exceeded the equivalent of my personal death-heat limit, 95 F. Not to know whether my grades in class were poor, average or excellent (refer to last blog). Plus, when you don’t know whether something fits your preconceived notion of good or bad, you can’t very easily categorize it as such. Nice day, awful day? Good Anna, Bad Anna?
After sitting with the irritating discomfort a few times, I felt something else--something a bit edgy, challenging. If you can’t objectively measure things up, you’ve gotta rely on something entirely different to direct your thoughts and actions. Presence, maybe?

If I’m feeling too hot to study, for example, but don’t know whether the actual temperature has surpassed my personal limit (thereby allowing me to take a break), then I’ve gotta pay attention to and trust my sensations, perceptions, and the world around me that informs them. More often than I’m accustomed to, I end up letting myself nap.

I decided about a month ago--in spite of my judgmental, perfectionist tendencies--to intentionally ignore the unessential conversion formulas for as long as possible. This is a good challenge for me, this not being able to measure myself and my surroundings against some standard of merit or demerit. I still don’t know much about my grades, the weather, or the nutritional density of my food. Well, besides that I’m working hard in my classes, I sweat a whole lot and drink gallons (glugs and glugs) of water, and that I’ve been eatin’ good.

I learned a long time ago not to step on a scale. For my own sanity, I look the other way at the Doctor’s office. Instead of relying on a number to tell me how to feel about myself, I’d rather feel how I feel and be with that. What that is teaching me (what all this teaches) is that there’s only one standard which holds up. One thing to which everything else is relative. All the ups, downs, goods, bads, hots, colds, yes’s, no’s, 100%’s .001%’s, etc are held in equanimity by this:

You know what I’m getting at.

You know where I’m headed.

Love.

There’s a poem in one of my favorite religious mystic collections that says something like: “Look what happens when love holds the scale. The scale stops working.”

Surely you’ve heard me quote this poem before. I forget and remember it as I forget and relearn--often by way of frustration, sadness, disappointment--to let love hold me and presence guide me.

It’s beautiful here. A verdant veritable tropic haven. The haw-de-daw birds are big and loud. The sun is oppressive. Beach-goers are back inside by 9 am.

I have a test this week, lots of reading, and couple big papers coming up (one on Bolivia, one on basic economics). I’ve spoken with the academic coordinator for Development Studies and he says that since I’m focusing on the 1st world for my thesis, it makes sense that I do the research and writing at home next winter (which means I might be able to complete a masters after all!).

If you want to send me something, send me traditional medicinals teas, letters, and your prayers. I love you.