83:To taste again

Coming back to Orcas Island in mid January

Tonguing along in life

We have tongues. Talk with them. Taste with them.

And in both eating and talking: we have a hard time staying present.

Oh, well.

This book is about going about life in a whole lot of fun ways that open possibilities of learning and loving life again as we did when we were young.

And when we were young, food was bliss.

The strawberry, bliss.

The banana, bliss.

The celery with peanut butter in it, bliss.

The slice of orange, the carrot, even the spinach if it was real from a garden and the adult who was cooking knew how to steam it lightly and put some nice rich spring butter on it.

Yes, bliss and then more bliss.


And then the rules came along, no elbows on the table, no playing with your food, have to eat everything even the stuff the adults have ruined by overcooking or buying it too old. Or we just don’t like it, have to eat it.

Time comes along, the clock world, hurry and eat, and eat and hurry, and it’s no fun a lot of the time.

And guess what?

We aren’t children any more.

We can take our time, it’s our time, our time is our life.

We can take our time and wrap our tongue around our food, and chew it slowly and savor every bite.


This is today’s job: to return to the soul of the soil’s gift to us, our food. Slow down, chew. Breathe while we eat. Breathe while we taste. Don’t talk or read or watch the tube while we eat. Just eat.

And when not eating today, as much as you “can” sense and enjoy sensing, your tongue.