choosing and picking.

I stir my brownies with a spoon. 

I knead my bread with my hands. 

I built the shelf in my room, instead of buying one. 

I left the world of mass produced convenience coffee for the world of hand tamping and attentive steaming. 

I cut my butter into my flour mixture with a pastry cutter, no food processor around. 

My favorite pair of earrings were assembled with my hands. 

The most enjoyable part of my collegiate endeavor, in relation to my major, was staining the rectangular pieces of wood that would display the digital designs I spent most hours of my day clicking at. I am currently neglecting my major, the source of all that clicking. 

The part of Korea that I long for most? My long walks home, in which I would be passed a few times over by bus three, the one that could have easily and cheaply taken me home. 

I like knowing the why, the backstory, the because, so that I can be more present.

I enjoy the experience, the process, and don't usually cling to an easier, more convenient way to do things. 

I was asked to bring guacamole to a friends' house for dinner a few nights ago, an hour before the dinner was to begin. I thoroughly enjoy making homemade guacamole. I love mashing the avocados, chopping the cilantro. It brings me great joy to dice the tomatoes into just the right squareness...the squeezing of the lime, the tears from the onion. Since it was an impromptu invitation, and therefore an impromptu request, I had little time to prepare. I went to the grocery store, found the isle with the pre-made stuff they try to pass off as guacamole that includes both avocados and monosodium glutamate, and then I just stood there and stared. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't buy it. I couldn't bring it with me, while completely neglecting the produce section, and then expect to sleep well that night. I found some already mashed avocados for too much money, bought a few fresh myself...some cilantro and tomato, and made my way out to the car. When I arrived at my destination, I borrowed a knife and a fork, and threw it together in a tupperware bowl. My heart felt settled. 

So why, I ask myself, a lover of the process of things, do I try at every possible turn, to distract myself from facing the intangible difficulties?  Why do I want to flee when I think about how I might be wasting my potential? Why am I tempted to work myself to death when I think about the possibility of never attaining meaningful things I truly desire? Why is the solution of escaping the general not-quite-enough moments of life moving to another state? Why do I throw my physical and mental capacities into the scrubbing out of the bathtub on an evening alone at home, in hopes that the bleach I am using on the white ceramic surface will also dissolve away the rock of disappointment that is currently resting in my gut?

These are the questions I am asking myself today, on the sweater worthy, cool and rainy autumn day I have been waiting for. Upon walking into the door of a local coffee establishment in search of a Costa Rican cup of coffee this morning, I was greeted by a beautiful little baby girl, being held gently and attentively by her mother. I sat sipping my cup at a table, looking dazedly out the window, and viewed a wife affectionately grab the butt of her husband as he hugged her, simultaneously unlocking and opening her door. I left the establishment to meet my mother at the house of my one-hundred and three year old great-grandmother, who is currently feeling the physical pain of her long life ending, breathing deeply while the vital organs of her body struggle, with family around and a nurse too, nestled in a hospital bed, in the bedroom of the house that she has lived in for the past fifty years...The house where she loved her husband, who remained the love of her life long after he was gone...Where she raised five kids with little money, but lots of love and humor and wisdom. 

I don't know the answers. I am just gonna try to be present in the process, even when the process involves pain.