Author: Emily Fekkes

I was flying from Connecticut to Seattle the other day, coming home from a funeral. We left the east coast at 6pm, so we got to experience the most incredibly vibrant orange and pink sunset as we took off, then very soon darkness settled over us and I got a glimpse of the entire country over the next six hours, but only as a vast darkness, occasionally dotted with pinpricks of light. I wondered who those people were in those clusters of tiny lights. And I wondered where we were, what us was just below.

Why am I enthralled by little dots of light? Stars, lit up towns, city skyscrapers at night, lights on a tree or house at Christmas time. I know that light pollution is a significant problem and there’s lots that can and should be done to fix it, but somehow, I still love these little, tiny specks of light. Is it because in the vast abyss light is so rare that it becomes something precious? Is it so astonishing what a massive impact a tiny light can have in seemingly endless darkness? Maybe because it shows what a difference one tiny thing can make? I wonder if it has something to do with the idea of scarcity. Like when you’re given a box of specialty chocolates, you savor each one, wanting them to last. When you go to the effort to make a special pastry, you don’t just wolf them all down in one sitting, you make it a special breakfast where you can take your time. Last year in the nutrition class that Laura Conley taught, she talked about chewing your food. How important it is for your body’s digestion for you to take time, chew each bite, really taste it and think about what you are eating. The idea was not to practice scarcity, but by chewing and paying attention to what you are eating, it improves digestion, improves enjoyment, and reduces over consumption because you are aware when you are full. I think that in many senses, practicing scarcity is quite a valuable skill, for our food, resources, and time.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about minimalism, which is probably something my mother never thought I would say, if you take my 4th grade desk into account. I tend to be a little sentimental and for quite a while that manifested as keeping pretty much every scrap of paper and item I had found or made. However, it’s encouraging to know that we all grow and sometimes leave certain tendencies behind us, and in that vein, I’ve been thinking about, and (minimally) enacting minimalism in parts of my life. I’m not on the ‘mattress on a bare floor’ side of minimalism, but there’s a lot to be said for a little. I read about someone that has taken a minimalist approach to her life and, as a result, her entire life is less stressful. She has less items to dust, less devices to keep track of and update, her floors are easier to sweep and vacuum as there are more wide-open spaces. She appreciates the items that she has, not having to care for so much stuff. And I really think that all makes a lot of sense.

Tobin and I love to travel and over the last couple of years we’ve made a goal to only take carry-on items when going on a trip, no matter the length of the trip. If you manage to travel through Great Britain for three weeks in October with only a small carry-on suitcase and a backpack, you come home feeling like you can just get rid of most of your belongings. You’ve lived perfectly delightfully without them, haven’t you? Practicing minimal tendencies literally relieves the load. It frees up effort, energy, and time. And isn’t that the one commodity that most of us always want more of? 

 Now, I am still sentimental, and I still keep things, but on the whole, I am approaching minimalism incrementally. Perhaps we’ll call my approach ‘less-imalisim’. So, maybe the lights are beautiful because they are tiny, or we instinctively know that light is warmth and we crave that, but I think that some of why they are fascinating and beautiful, is because they are scarce. We cherish them in a way we don’t the lights in our home or the incredible light of the sun. So, maybe that worn out trope is true, but I’d like to propose a modification: maybe ‘less gives more’.

-Emily

What if when we shopped for food or went to a restaurant, we ordered exactly the items that we ate. I mean exactly. You would be asking for things like red dye 5, or thiamin mononitrate. Can you imagine saying those words out loud and not only saying them, asking for someone to bring it to you to eat?  I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a clue what is really in those products.

Why is it that as a society, we care about what we read or watch and are careful to regulate what our kids ingest visually and auditorily, we are careful about the rating of movies and shows they watch, or the words that our friends say around them, guarding their ears and eyes. But seemingly we don’t put as much thought and care about what goes in and literally becomes part of their bodies or our bodies, what we absorb as part of our cells, the literal make-up of who we are?

You ARE what you eat, but if you don’t know what you’re eating, how do you know what you are? How it’s functioning (or not functioning)? You should be the expert with your own body, but you’re letting other people control who you become, on a cellular, fully integrated level. In the book, The Kitchen Counter Cooking School, when addressing the additives in various cooking projects, the author says, “If it doesn’t exist in nature, how does my body know what to do with it?” And that’s a valid question. If we started feeding our pets a bunch of synthetic, man-made products and they started acting lethargic or irritable, or off, we would do everything we could to figure out what was wrong with them. People would find out what they were being fed and would be horrified that they were being put through that. But for ourselves, for our human bodies, we say it’s okay. We compromise on our own beings, for convenience or to keep our tastebuds happy or to keep up with what society keeps pushing into us.

We need to help people to stop believing the lie that cooking is hard, that you’re incompetent and that cooking isn’t a worthwhile way to spend your time. What is more worth your time than your health? The small amount of time spent cooking and preparing nourishing food now, could very likely reduce the time taking medications, sitting in doctors’ offices, and laying in a hospital bed later. And once again, The Princess Bride is right about one more thing, “If you haven’t got your health, you haven’t got anything.”

-Emily

Tobin and I have been thinking a lot about community lately. About what community really is and means. Sometimes it seems that word can be thrown around, just to make you believe that whatever they are doing is good, because they believe in ‘community’. But we’ve been thinking about, and also seeing, what community is. For us, it has shown itself as support, friends reaching out for coffee or a conversation, or just checking in; knowing that there are people you could call to come help you move a piano, and they would show up; people who want to know you and who want to be a part of your life; people who go out of their way to be part of your journey, and people who support one another, in every sense; people who want to do good things, together.

We are delighted that you are a part of this community, a community that supports one another. Your intentionality to support and encourage local producers has a deep impact on their lives and I would guess that their hard work, dedication, and integrity to pursue their work has a significant impact on yours. That is the community that we have a privilege to be a part of and we are so appreciative to participate in it.

We had the opportunity last fall to travel to the Netherlands and spend some time with Tobin’s family. We stayed with his cousin and had a wonderful few days sharing life with them. We talked a lot about family and travel and they shared stories and memories with us. This cousin speaks Dutch as her first language and flawless English as her second. However, there is one word that she can never say in English, not because she can’t pronounce it, but because there isn’t an English word for it, it just doesn’t exist. This word is ‘gezellig’ (huh-zell-ikh). It means cozy, pleasant, sociable, or a warm feeling of conviviality. When she was sharing about a particularly sweet memory or a wonderful holiday they had, she would say ‘It was really…’ she would pause, breathe in, smile, then say, ‘gezellig’. This word conveyed the memory of a feeling. It wasn’t just a word that could be simply translated to English, gezellig is an experience.

I think that what we have been experiencing in our lives, but in this year in particular, is gezellig, we just never had a word for it. It’s far beyond community; it’s a feeling and an experience that permeates our hearts and minds and something that changes us. Something that makes us pause, smile, and remember. Our community is more than just that, it’s gezellig.

We are grateful to be entering this new year bringing with us the gezellig of last year and watching for more moments of it in the coming days. We hope that you experience many moments of gezellig this year and thank you for being an integral part of a vibrant, supportive, incredible community.

Sincerely, Emily