A perfect evening

Everything in Moderation

Especially Moderation.

So, it's Tuesday, the day of nothing in particular and we decided to go to our local vegetarian restaurant. How lucky is that? To have a local vegetarian restaurant. It's our first trip there and it was really good, very reasonable and a nice atmosphere. It is called 'Govinda' and is tucked away in the back streets of Nakano near a dusty shrine and Shimachu the legendary garden centre and mecca of Japanese DIY/garden lust.

http://www.krishna.jp/english/GovindaRestaurant.html

Good luck with finding it - but it is well worth it, because the back streets of Nakano are charming and the food is great. Simple curry but full of flavor and cooked with love. I had a vegetable curry with half genmai (brown rice) and half carrot rice (still not sure if it was rice made of carrots or rice with carrots or rice that looks like carrot) but it was all good and served with a sprout side-salad and a popadom. Cinammon and Apple tea followed. It was my first fully cooked dinner for 2 months. It tasted lovely, especially since my taste buds are so open to flavors just now. I am bloated and I'm fully OK with having a well-loved cooked dinner every now and then. I tend to eat how I feel OK to eat. I started eating fish again about 10 years ago because I stopped feeling so bad about eating it. Now I am having a new feeling, which I anticipate won't last too long, but for now is my gut reaction. Fish is OK, dairy is not. Am I a fegan? a Chegan (cheating vegan)? I prefer to look at myself as a megan. And eater of the things. Doing it my way. Like Frank and Sid.

Then after the Govinda, I was ready for a quick snifter so we shot into my new favorite bar The Sidney Foch. It is 1 minute walk from our house and run by a lovely couple - English man and Japanese lady. It opened in November, but we only went for the first time about 2 months ago. I love it. It is a magical den of fun. with a small library, a rolling art display - currently showing the photographs of the Tokyo photographic club, birds, a lot of birds, holiday kitsch galore, fabulous service, no seating charge and well priced drinks. I love it. GO.

http://the-sidney-foch.atspace.com/

view from the living room

the view from my kitchen

Raw Revelations

Well. I have signed up to lots of raw websites, mailing lists and suchlike and today I received a mail from 'Raw Celebrity' Matt Monarch of Raw Food World and I read this:

"Automatically, my body started breathing deeper during this time and my lungs started expanding. It felt like my body was pushing harder to get food (prana/energy) from the air. My emotional health felt like the BEST it has ever been. My mind was sharp as a pin and I have never felt so intensely connected to the Universe. I automatically and continually went into meditation, as it felt so easy with this flowing spiritual bliss I was experiencing."

I was stoked, because I experienced something very similar last month in about week 3 of my raw month. I wrote it in my journal and talked about it to my coaches.
I took the deepest breath I have ever taken. I had had an incredibly relaxing weekend, eating wonderful raw recipes, sharing raw food and sitting in the sun. Then I had a lie down in the afternoon - a decadent rest and I took the deepest breath I have ever taken. It was wild. It never ended. I have never in yoga or any activity experienced such an open breath. That was the pinnacle of that part of my raw journey so far. For a day or so after, I experienced incredibly deep breathing then it slowly ebbed away.
Of course, I made a connection between my new lifelstyle and the deep breath and it is great to see it mirrored in someone else's experience.

I realise now that the honeymoon period is over and that the work begins here. So here are a few things I want to achieve in the next 3 months:

Bum clean - I would like to have a colonic as soon as possible
Wardrobe detox - I am gong to enlist the services of my good friend and style smart sensei Jeanette to do a wardrobe detox with me. Things need altering, thrown, used creatively and resurrected. Also my closet space is a mess, so I could do with a bit of a buddy to hep me sort it into something manageable and ask the question "Are you sure you need that?" (set of broken fairy lights, for example)
Online order - A lot of raw food produce to keep me going
Online order - organic skin care

Thank you for the messages of support and advice on the last post. It is really helpful.

I need to go get ten minutes of sunshine.
Thank you for being so great.

My Bento

I am no domestic goddess, so I am very proud at this pre-made bento for tomorrow.
raw rice - cashews, zucchini, coriander, salt and a little agave syrup, aubergine, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, orange pepper. Can't wait to cover it in orange miso dressing and enjoy it!

What can I report? I have been feeling pretty crappy this week. I am not 100 percent raw right now. The exercise has slipped away and some old familiar feelings of sadness and despondency have replaced some of the more optimistic and hopeful feelings as well as fabulous energy, which has in turn added some disappointment into the mix. I don't suffer feelings of guilt or anxiety about having a bit of fish or a few glasses of wine. However I am not sure how to manage the huge contrast between feeling really really well and not. Which means - not drinking at all and eating as close to 100 percent raw as I can. Which in turn means lifestyle changes.

I have a coaching session this week and hope to explore this a bit.

There are a few external factors also amplifying these blues. My job. While things are certainly not as bad as they were, I still very much stuck in a rut. One of the reasons this Blog stopped was because I lost all enthusiasm for it, with less time on my hands and why would I blog about a life I was starting to think was an exercise in mediocrity.

I'm not sure what I want to do next. I feel exhausted and lacking passion - unlike 2 years ago when I was exhausted but had a lot of passion, variety and dreams and plans and goals. Holidays, flexibility. I work in Japanese company where 'the nail that sticks out will be hammered down.' and boy have I allowed myself to be hammered down. Also I am very much influenced by the energy of those around me, which has an impact on everything else. There are two voices - the 'you're lucky to have a job in the economic crisis, don't give it up' and the 'Go for your dreams, take the chance, take the risk, take the leap of faith, jump and the net will appear'. Guess which one appeals the most?

Well it's the second one - but somehow I am allowing myself to be persuaded by the voices of those people, influential in my life, who give this safety advice without really thinking about who I am or what I want. I like starts and finishes. Always have. I can hang in there and stick with things - I am loyal and hardworking, I'll give myself that, but I end up dissatisfied. And lagging behind my peers who move onwards and upwards and outwards.

I want to be the one moving onwards upwards and outwards and living out my dreams in passion...
If I could just remember what they are...

Now, I weighed up whether to post this or not, because it is quite revealing - but fuck it! I'll take the risk, put myself out there and see what happens.
I've always thought that life is like a box of chocolates - no wait, that's not me - that's Forrest Gump.

FISH, scoff and quaff

I ate two whole fish last night! Hoke. I cooked dinner for my friend's family and ate a heap of salad, but after they had left, I tucked in to a little bit of fish then promptly scoffed 2 full ones! They were great.

I stayed up until 3 or so because I was really in teh mood for mooching, researching and getting back on track. So this morning and last night I had hot baths and cols showers to stimulate my ciruclation and renewal process and now I am about to eat my first food of the day - it is 1pm, I decided to let my body keep digesting the fish and drinking water to also help get rid of the generous portions of wine quaffed since Thursday night.

Now, just hope my husband will get out of his barking orders bad mood!