I promise I’m back, I just wanted to write in italics one more time.  I wrote this post yesterday on our flight home, the old-fashioned way with a “borrowed” ball point pen from the health food store and the backside of my lengthy grocery list.  I typed it up today, though, and included a recipe that we are enjoying with dinner tonight.  So here I am, out of italics and back to real life:

We are flying over the Pacific right now and I’m reflecting on our trip, a task made easier by the fact that I have a sleeping Lulu on my lap, praise Morgan Freeman.

Like we all do, I’m dreading our return home, and not only because it is rumored to have snowed last night, it has been confirmed that I have 116 pounds of luggage to unpack (including two tikis and a pink ukelele purchased under protest) and I’m sure to engage in a game of “Where Did the Hostile Cat Hide the Vengeful Hairball?” when I walk through the front door.  I’m actually hesitant to return to “the rules” of daily living, including taking my mulitvitamin (which I packed but “forgot to take”), only drinking one cup of coffee per day (I’m on my third cup this flight) and “no cocktails before noon” (okay, maybe that one’s a keeper).

This past week I really loosened up a lot of the ties that bind me, and I credit much of that to an article I read, tore out of this month’s Vogue and packed along with me (you can find a similar article here).

In the article, former model Sophie Dahl beautifully explained how she maintained her sanity in a career where she was called both “fat” and “anorexic” by her critics, and how now, as a cookbook author, wife and “normal woman,” she is at peace with food.  For her, food is not only a source of fuel, but without shame she allows it to also be a source of enjoyment.  The most touching story for me that Dahl relates involved her day of sailing off the coast of England with a group of friends, enjoying fresh caught oysters on a open grill with local bread and ending the day with a competive swim in the ocean, with the winner laying claim to a fudge brownie.

I put myself in Dahl’s shoes for our trip, thinking, “Am I going to turn down fresh fish for a salad I could get at home?  Am I going to pass on going for a swim because I’m self-conscious about my body and my hair?  Am I going to turn down a fudge brownie when I win the race?”

And then, I just didn’t.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t eating Spam on white rice, topped with brown gravy and fried eggs out of Styrofoam containers that I cast off onto the shoreline when I licked my platter clean.  My environmental conscience didn’t get left at home with my layers of winter clothing, but I did have a bite of Pea Daddy’s local ahi.  I did share cinnamon rolls with Kona coffee with a splash of real cream for breakfast.  I’m currently having an airborne dinner of a Larabar and Diet Coke.

I’m not using this story to have my own Eat, Pray, Love moment, or to announce that “I’m no longer vegan” and changing my approach to food, exercise and wellness.  But I do know that my most precious memories this week involved food and activities that I could have found a million reasons to avoid.

I’m not sure how long my running path was and I certainly wasn’t breaking any speed records, but it still was exhilarating each morning to take my time jogging along the seawalk.

I didn’t question whether my stomach was as flat as the woman’s on the towel next door at the beach, any bulge or cellulite didn’t make watching my girls play or spotting sea turtles on the beach any less amazing.

I didn’t pass on the gorgeous tofu stirfries, salads or mashed purple sweet potatoes at the luau because they might not be raw or vegan;

the stage show was without a doubt the highlight anyway.

Not to take away from those mashed sweet potatoes, though, and my at home replication:

  • 2 sweet potatoes, peeled, cubed and boiled until tender (use purple, if available)
  • 1 T. nutritional yeast
  • 1/2 t. fresh grated nutmeg
  • 2 T. hummus
  • 2 T. non dairy milk
  • 1 T. Earth Balance

Combine all ingredients with a hand mixer or blender until creamy and smooth.

The end result of my vacation, aside from an uneven tan, peeling pedicure and sand in my suitcase, is a new found goal to avoid labels. I won’t go by “vegan,” “former runner” or “high maintenance,” if you please.  Someday I may want to taste local fish or attempt another race (though it will be a 5K), and if I want to let my curls go the way of Troy Polamalu, a label (or a flat iron), isn’t going to stand in my way.

In the words of Sophie Dahl:

“…on the drive home…I realized I had never felt so free.  I wanted to gather up ever woman I knew and take that plunge all over again, dropping weightless into the sea, for every last one of us.”