Seasonal turnip with its bountiful tops that gifted me a soup from it.
Within this time of confinement winter has rolled into spring, the bare branches that once stood before our balcony is now full of green leaves, and the immersive punctual 8 p.m. corona symphony of clapping and tapping pots and pans bring us out onto the balcony where daylight savings time has us springing ahead unveiling the dark curtains of winter to greet our neighbors hanging out by their window or standing on their balcony a block away waving at anyone who will wave back.
My kids have just entered their second week of Easter break and if you were to look up the term couch potato in the dictionary I’m pretty sure you would find a picture of them in there. Normally, I would be aghast but due to the circumstances I now wish I had a bigger couch.
The time we are often chasing down throughout the school year has surrendered to us and it seems to say “go ahead, what are you going to do to me?”
So I switched out the “optimize your time” parardigm of thinking to embrace “nothingness” and to celebrate simplicity. I like to think of it as an experiment. It may be considered something along the lines of mental cleansing, pressing the “off” button, or whatever you like.
With no warning I handed over the parental reigns to my husband to see if he’d pick them up. He did. You can call this bad faith on my part but I prefer to see it as authenticism. Before he picked up those reigns I found half my day was spent negotiating screen time with my childen on limiting or eliminating it from their schedule and then patrolling the apartment throughout the day to keep them off the screens as much as possible. Once the reigns were in hubby’s hands it was a mental unload even when I found the children on the screen longer than usual it somehow didn’t affect me. That pretty much freed up a whole lot of time to devote to nothingness.
Next, cooking when I feel like it and only out of necessity such as times when my stomach actually starts to growl—and not the way the French do it (like clockwork) nor when my family starts sniffing around in search for something to eat—turned out to be an eye opener. I would act upon my hunger calls and not anyone else’s. Try putting that into practice. It’s a tough conundrum for mums.
Since we aren’t supposed to be going out shopping for daily groceries during the confinement period we keep a small supply of dried and frozen goods. Pasta and burger patties are the easy go-to dishes that my husband and kids can make and seem to profess their love to so why not let them have their affair and eat their heart out? When their hunger calls they can answer for themselves. My time spent preparing, cooking, and educating them towards eating a balanced meal was now next to nil since I didn’t spend time over conscious choices. I call this letting go.
Velouté de fanes de navets just sounds fancier than turnip top soup.
With my bountiful turnip tops and swiss chard leaves all I could envison for it was a soup. Batches of it. This is all keeping in line with celebrating simplicty. I also found a bag of dried mung beans in the pantry and turned that into soup too, a Chinese dessert soup called Lu Dou Tang (綠豆湯) literally translated into “green bean soup “ in which you can add yams to. This is a classic Chinese soup that has cooling benefits so it is prepared mostly during the hot weathered months. When temperatures soar, tempers rise. Who knows, this may be beneficial in the process of keeping my cool and would sustain me for days too. With my soups all jarred up and ready to be reheated at my hunger’s beck and call I was free to devote myself to nothingness.
Chinese Lu Dou Tang (綠豆湯) soup with cooling benefits.
Lunch these days is starting to push back to 2:30 p.m. and dinner is closer to 9:00 p.m. On this particular Saturday this meant I could have a lie-in, go for a run, be back for a shower, take my time to head back out to pick up my AMAP (you can see a picture of where I collect my veggies every Saturday) vegetables, and not have to rush back to get a meal on the table. AMAP is a French equivalent of a commmunity supported agriculture (CSA).
This blows away the Saturdays from the last years when wake up call was at 8:15 a.m. and by 8:45 a.m. I was out the door accompanying my son to his tennis lesson, having a run along the canal during his lesson, picking up my AMAP veggies on the way home, washing the soil off the vegetables, preparing lunch, jumping into the shower, eating lunch together, cleaning up, and then back out again for Chinese classes that started at 1:30 p.m. and finished at 5 p.m. with my time alternating between both kids for that special one on one time while the other was in class. Don’t get me wrong, I love my one on one time with my children but the routine of it all—well, ya know. I think I can embrace nothingness pretty well.
Days of solace could be found by a trip to the sea and traveling wherever you wanted as long as it took you away. We could meet up with friends where support and cheer could be found. That’s all temporarily on hold. Now we must ease our minds within our isolated worlds.
I wake up earlier than usual these days. Eating less, running, and detaching myself from my smartphone has helped in my devotion to nothingness. I wake up clear-headed and light weighted sometimes with feelings of anxiety, anger, giddiness, calm, clarity, happiness, confusion. Basically it’s a mixed bag. I then quietly sit in a room to myself in half lotus position and wait for the light of dawn to shine upon me as I awaken to the day that lies before me ready to accept nothing as it is.
I leave you with this mantra by TIna Turner…