Thoughts on Leaving the Small Island

I'm re-reading Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson. If you want to belly laugh, or have any interest at all in England, this book should top your reading list. I've been snorting and chuckling loudly on the rocking chair in my living room all evening.

The first time I read this book eleven months ago, I was chuckling much the same, but back then it was on the couch at Derek and Isobel's house, where I stayed for a week when I first arrived. The book filled me with wonder and excitement - already, some of the things Bryson writes about the British were resonating and I couldn't wait to see what else would in the months to come. I decided to re-read it at the end of the year, in a sort of parody of what Bryson himself does.

If you're not familiar with the premise of the book, Bryson sets out to recreate his own entry into Britain at the age of 22 (via a ferry from Calais to Dover) some twenty years later, and subsequently travels all across the United Kingdom by public transit, making wry and witty observations about this small island. In short, Bill Bryson makes a pilgrimage of his own design.

This very theme of pilgrimage returned to me again some eight months after my initial reading. I was at the York Minster back in the springtime, and discovered in the Undercroft Museum that there is an exhibit about pilgrimages. The theme has lingered in my mind ever since.

Now as I reread Bryson's book, the idea of pilgrimage remains just as present. My reading this time around is filled with both amusement and nostalgia. Reading this book reminds me of the self who lived before this year happened, who hadn't yet been changed by being a whole year away from home. I was at the start of my own pilgrimage. It reminds me of those first baby steps into the great adventure that has been my time here in Engand. It reminds me of the warmth of a summer of much change coming to a close, of the comfort of being on Derek and Isobel's couch, of blackberries and getting lost and cat trails and new smells.

Things I didn't catch last time now have me in stitches. And Bryson mentions things like The Big Issue, Skipton, the Settle-to-Carlisle line, navigating the London tube, the Malham wave, and countless other cultural linchpins that I now recognize from spending almost a year here.

One passage describes the exchange that Bill Bryson has with his cab driver taking him to his hotel in London. The cab driver can't just listen to Bryson tell him where it is; he has to jump in and guess where the hotel is and upon getting it wrong three times and finally being corrected, acting like he knew where it was all along and was helping Bryson. This time around, reading that passage, I was simultaneously laughing and cringing because I knew that feeling.

I also love the way he describes his affection for the country. He mentions how it is possible to find good humor and high culture all across Britain; as a country, they don't seem to need extravagance to enjoy an activity immensely. Cream teas, the BBC, going walking, and "days out" at National Trust properties are simple and utterly lovely staples of British life. Bryson sums it up well: "What a wondrous place this was - crazy as fuck, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree."

That is precisely how I feel; thank goodness for a writer who shares (and ably puts into words) my own astonishment at the idiosyncracies of a people who, among many other oddities, truly believe that a cup of tea will solve every ill. He shares my disdain for British seaside resort towns and my love of the Yorkshire Dales. He plunders through forgotten corners of England, Scotland, and Wales to hilariously capture the essence of an American living on this tiny island. 

Like Bryson, I love this country. Living in Britain, and doing service abroad, has felt incredibly satisfying this year in the broadest sense. Both have been two long-held goals of mine. If life were a to-do list, this would be a massive accomplishment - to have done both in my 25th year! Especially because I never in a million years thought that they could be combined.

But I don't like to get life done like that. I find to-do lists extremely helpful, but I've learned about myself is that sometimes, to-do lists just don't work. They seep the pleasure out of it all. To-do lists simply are not part of my pilgrimage.

All the same, here I am at the resolution of a year which has fulfilled two of my long-held goals. To say I am grateful just does not cut it. There is something exhilarating and divine about having achieved two dreams in one fell unplanned, flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants, thought-I-was-going-be-doing-the-Peace-Corps-in-Nicaragua-and-oops-here-I-am-in-England-for-a-year swoop. I had set both of these tasks for myself to achieve one far day down the line and the resolution of each so suddenly far exceeded my expectations. It wasn't my doing, but I am the humble, grateful recipient of this unplanned pilgrimage.

How was I to know that I would come to meet and befriend some of the dearest people who changed my perspective on the world? How was I to know how much joy I could get from hours spent only in the company of myself and my journal in small coffee shops across Yorkshire, after train rides watching the countryside flash by? How was I to know how desperately lonely I would be and how much I would miss my loved ones? How was I to know that I would discover in myself such resilience and clarity and peace when faced with outer challenges? You cannot know these things when you pilgrimage. They simply happen, unplanned and unwritten.

I imagine that for years to come - perhaps until I can next visit or live in England - reading Notes From a Small Island will be colored with sadness along with the joy. England has been the setting for an immense amount of personal growth, and I feel like my spiritual and emotional selves have been turned inside out, wiped clean, rearranged, and put back again over the course of eleven months. I feel wholly different. This is what pilgrimage does. And if I'm being honest, as I near the end, it makes me anxious to think about relating to people I love with my new outlook, my changed self. How have I changed? How have they changed? What will it be like to go back to my old home, a new person, to an old home that has also become new in its own ways in my absence?

Yet it also makes me excited to go back and reacquaint myself with my friends, family, and home. I've missed them so very much and they truly make my life worthwhile. I feel hopeful that they will like this new self, and I will like who they have become while I've been gone.

To say I'm a mess of emotions is an understatement, like saying the British were disappointed when they lost to Croatia in the FIFA World Cup finals. Yes, they were disappointed but they were also thrilled they'd made it thus far, exhilarated as a nation to accomplish something so huge, and devastated that they didn't "Bring It Home!" (aka the World Cup). I'm anxious, excited, longing, yearning, sad, hesitant, and thrilled to be going back home.

If life were a to-do list, I wouldn't be able to check those two boxes, the volunteer-abroad box and the live-in-England box. I'm ready to be home, but that doesn't mean I still don't have the itch to do more service abroad. It also doesn't mean that I'm quite ready to let go of my lifelong dream to live in England. After all, there are countless other cities and towns to experience. I would love to one day come back to England for an extended period. Then again, maybe neither of these things will ever happen again - I just don't know, and that's OK.

So if I had a check-list with these two items on it, I would have to leave two big fat blanks. I don't think I'm quite ready to say I'm done with either box. Fortunately, life isn't a checklist, it's a pilgrimage. It is unwritten, unplanned, and beautifully unexpected. Who knows what wonderful adventures - at home and abroad - are yet to come?

I pray for you to have the same sense of hopeful wonder as you step along whatever pilgrimage you are on. Whether you stay in one geographic place or move all over the world, if you like to plan or leave it up to the wind to carry you, if you are crossing the terrain of your own heart and soul or the surface of many continents, may your heart and your hands be open.

I will leave you with Bill Bryson's wonderful closing paragraph in Notes from a Small Island. It sums up the strange pull I feel to this wacky, lovely, beautiful little country. Reading these words over and over again, as I have, never fails to fill me with the frisson of pure joy I get when I find words that are a perfect fit for my feelings.

"All of this came to me in the space of a lingering moment. I've said it before and I'll say it again. I like it here. I like it more than I can tell you. And then I turned from the gate and got in the car and knew without doubt that I would be back." 

Bill Bryson, Notes from a Small Island

The Best for Almost Last: Carecent

I guess I'm sort of saving the best for last, because I am finally writing about my time at Carecent. This continues to be one of my favorite elements of my year here in York. Every Monday since October I serve breakfast, along with five other volunteers, at a free cafe. It is based out of Central Methodist Church which is in the city centre of York. Our clientele is largely homeless people - street sleepers or those living in hostels - or those who are vulnerable in some way (mental health, physical health, lonely, isolated, etc). All are welcome.

Carecent was a God-nudge. After about two months in York, I had started to realize I wasn't going to get much support from anyone about what I was to do on a day-to-day basis. Fantastic, if you're fine with a year of binge-watching The Great British Bake-Off and long ambling walks around the city. Those things appeal to me, but not for forty hours a week. I wanted to do a year abroad to help serve people and make the world a better place, not to watch TV. (Maybe to watch a little more TV than I had been watching previously, though.)

So I was feeling frustrated and annoyed that my questions and interest in supporting the church community were being met with lots of "nos" and "laters". There seemed to be no plan in place for this random American Time for God volunteer and the more I tried to help out, the more annoyed church members seemed to get at me.

Not much has changed, frankly, some ten months later, but I've learned a lot along the way, the main things being to know whom to ask when I want a yes, and when to simply go ahead and do things without permission. (Oh and how not to CARE.)

Anyway, I don't like to sit around too much, so I took matters into my own hands. I was messing around online looking at different organizations in York to volunteer at and looked up Carecent, which I'd heard a few things about. I checked the clock - it was closing in just half an hour! I raced over to St. Saviourgate and in my haste to introduce myself to someone in charge and inquire about opportunities to help out, I accidentally interrupted a conversation between Nicky and the Lord Mayor. (No social skills. Just none.)

Thank God Nicky didn't think I was super annoying (or maybe she did, and she's pretended really well ever since then because she's very kind to me). It was providence, she explained, because one of their Monday team had just decided to leave for health reasons. I was requested to come the following week at 7.45 am to start learning the ropes. (Funny story - I've mentioned how small York is - the man who left for health reasons happens to be the husband of Issy, who ran the Days for Girls workshop at St. Columba's, and it was during this time that I first met Issy and heard about DfG.)

Part of the reason I was excited about Carecent was that I had recently started to notice the immense issue of homelessness and rough sleeping in York. One man, Anthony, whom I befriended, had made his home not far from my house. It broke my heart to pass by him each night, the evenings getting progressively darker and colder. I wanted to do something sustainable to help people like Anthony and the other street-sleepers I was meeting on my daily walks.

So it was the following Monday that I was formally introduced to the five women who have made such a big impact on my year. Angela, Uschi, Gill, Katherine, and Doreen are my fellow Mondayers. I can't say enough great things about them - generous, kind, thoughtful, and interesting women. They've all had full lives and jobs and still make time to serve breakfast. Getting to know Nicky, the project manager who fortunately doesn't think I'm crazy with no social skills, has also been wonderful.

St. Columba's has been a challenging church for me. Perhaps other volunteers would settle in well, but I never felt like things entirely meshed for me there. I did my job, I made some friends, but when it came to feeling like I was truly serving the community alongside the fellowship, it didn't feel like a natural connection.

But I feel this at Carecent. Carecent has been my comfort place, my home-base, and the place where I feel that I am truly serving and growing as part of a community.

Every week, the volunteers show how dedicated they are to helping the clients who walk through our doors. I learned from how the women had ongoing relationships with our guests and asked after their jobs, health, relationships, and well-being. I modeled my own behavior on theirs. I saw how they treated each person with dignity and kindness, even when that person might be difficult or ornery back at them.

Carecent has been my first direct experience working with the homeless population. While I gained some knowledge of this at Paul's Place, Carecent has truly taught me much more about this. Some of my favorite relationships are the jokey ones. One man always asks (in an obnoxiously American accent) how "Baltimore" (meaning me) is doing. Another man, who has severe mental health issues, still remembers that I have a boyfriend and occasionally asks me how he's doing.

In return, I try to remember details about their lives and I always try to spend part of each morning, when we're not busy at the counter, just chatting and catching up with people. When I'm behind the counter, I'm helping make breakfasts or clean. My fave thing to make is a Full English breakfast - which is really not, because it would traditionally have eggs and bacon and sausage and stuff, and ours has spam and corned beef and hot dogs.

I tend to see lots of our clients out and about, too, and it deepens the meaning of our work at Carecent. One of our guests has a permanently broken ankle. He had a wheelchair for a while but he seems not to want to more help, and he just uses crutches now. He can be sometimes rude to some of our staff (including me), but watching him walk along on his jagged, broken foot, it's not hard to see why. I'm in a bad mood when I'm hungry, much less when my ankle has been broken for literally months without proper care and rest. I ran into him one day on a walk, over by Museum Gardens, and helped him carry his heavy backpack to a bench where we sat and chatted for a while. It was humanizing for both of us.

A few other guests have been involved at Crafts with a Cause, and I've invited others to pop into St. Columba's if they like. Because I interact with our guests and my fellow volunteers outside Carecent sometimes, it feels like an undercurrent of my year, a comforting community. As I was walking to meet my roommate at Pride, I ran into yet another guest and we talked for an hour as we meandered towards the festival.

I had seen her just two days prior when I'd been at Carecent on a Thursday to help set up our new space, and it meant that she began to trust me and we opened up to each other. Presence is important - Nicky has really shown me this, as she is so present and supportive in all of our guests' and volunteers' lives. I see a number of our guests at the library regularly (that's where I'm writing this right now!) and I always make a point to say hi.

Working with the homeless population is also hard. Sometimes it's in the obvious ways. Some of our guests shoot up in the bathroom. Sometimes there are fights. I got screamed at by one of our guests for refusing to give him more toiletries than were his share during the Winter Support Bags program that I ran through St. Columba's. The entire room turned to watch the spectacle, so you can imagine I really enjoyed that.

I also have some fabulously funny stories from working at Carecent. My jaw dropped two weeks ago when I witnessed Man Number 1 accidentally nudge Man Number 2 without noticing he had done it. Man Number 2 was holding a cereal bowl, and a small bit of his milk slopped over the side and onto the floor. Man Number 2 yelled incoherently in fury at this perceived slight and threw the entire cereal bowl into the back of Man Number 1's head. As Man Number 1 turned around in surprise, Man Number 2 began yelling and eventually grabbed his arm and tried to start a fight. After the volunteers had calmed things down, Man Number 2 went outside (the police were called) and Man Number 1 continued dreamily on his way, not seeming particularly upset that he had milk all over his back and cereal dripping from his hair.

I've grown a lot from the way I used to feel personally disappointed by the behavior of guests I've developed relationships with. For instance, one man who used to attend Crafts with a Cause became enraged that another member had shared something about her personal crafting activities - she wanted the group to join in. A harmless presentation turned into his excuse for no longer coming to the group, even though he'd been a regular for months.

This kind of experience has taught me so much. It's taught me NOT to get personally disappointed by peoples' behavior. The less personally disappointed I get, and the more I take things lightly, the better it is. It doesn't mean I'm not happy to hear successes. A couple who come sometimes have told me all about their struggles with drugs and how they're working hard to be clean now and getting jobs - I am genuinely thrilled for them.

Even though I don't want to take things personally, I still care a lot. It's just the difference between serving/helping for my ego - because it makes me feel good about MYSELF - and serving/helping because it's the right thing to do. Part of it "being the right thing to do" is my faith and also my sense of social/personal justice. Everyone deserves care. This is why Carecent means so much to me. When I'm having a bad day,  I can look at my volunteers and see their example. They show love to people who otherwise feel invisible and uncared for.

They show that same love to me. When I was facing my first Christmas alone, my Carecent family got me a Christmas Survival Bag. It was genuinely one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. They're always available when I'm having a rough time and after I showed up and burst into tears about how chronically ill I'd been all year, they took me to coffee after volunteering. Angela and her husband took me on a fantastic daytrip to Kiplin Hall (home of the founder of the state of Maryland!).

Carecent has truly been a host community for me, and it has taught me so much. Recently, during a Tuesday coffee morning, the worship leader asked us to think of someone who had deeply influenced me. This list is honestly endless for me - how blessed I am that this is true - but the first people who popped into my head was my Carecent family. Even though it's taken me all year to write about it, I think that's partially because it's a piece of my year that is so deeply special to me and I wasn't ready to process it yet. I will miss Carecent - the people, the tasks - the most out of all my various activities here. It was just as much a home for me as it is for the people we're meant to be serving. How lucky I am.

Lessons Learned from Friends International

Friends International is a conversation and activities group for international students and young people. There are chapters across England - you can read about it here. I joined back in September. The York group meets Mondays in the Spurriergate Center (a local church-turned-community-center) that is conveniently ten minutes from my house. The first half hour is tea and chatting, and then there's a presentation/activities and discussion. It's loose, casual, and designed to be friendly to be those who are non-English speakers.

The volunteers (mostly older folks) engage us in light activities relating to a weekly theme. There was an Easter Egg decorating week. A few weeks ago was the Royal Wedding. We celebrated Christmas activities. We did a Bonfire Night back in November. 

I used to say Friends was an occasional activity, but I realized to my surprise this week that I've been going on and off since September. Here and there I had a few pauses, but after watching the end-of-year slideshow, I realized I'd attended many of the weeks pictured. I also realized that I myself have not taken many pictures, hence the lack of photos in this post.

We get free tea. I like this. (I always get redbush, also known as rooibos.) But that's not the only reason I go. I actually like being a part of it, and I've learned a lot from Mondays at Friends Intl. 

Read on. I swear, that was just the boring intro and it gets better.

Sometimes you need to socialize even when you hate it: This year, I've learned over and over again that it is far better to force myself to socialize than to sit alone in my room. As a natural introvert, I needed an outlet that was not my job in which I could *attempt* to make friends.

It's not always easy to get myself geared up to go. Like the introvert in me is just not a fan of it. Throughout the year, I've had a Monday routine. I wake up early for Carecent. I come home. I start on other work. I usually remember it's Friends International Night throughout the afternoon. I think, I REALLY DON'T WANT TO GO. I grumble to myself about it all day, and think, why would I go to this weird little Christian group? I def have enough church time as it is. I'm not a non-native English speaker so it's not really for me. [substitute other excuses here].

I should add I don't feel this way about most things, just some things. I don't know why, and I won't bore you with psychoanalyzing myself on this front.

Anyway, it hits 6.30 pm and I start to think, I really need to have more friends. It hits 7 pm, and I think, I could still make it. 7.10 pm rolls around and I scarf down dinner, throw on a coat, and roll out the door. I always come home glad that I went. 

Temporary friends are better than no friends: In the vein of wanting to be more social, I've adopted a new motto with gusto this last month, thanks to a helpful point from Shantonu: temporary friends are better than none. This applies to lots of other activities and situations, but Friends International is a prime example. I highly doubt I'll stay in touch with the vast majority of people from the group, but that's OK. It gets me out of the house/socializing on a Monday night.

While they might not be as long-term as relationships back home, I do have ongoing friendships with some fellow participants too, particularly some of the volunteers. Derrick and I bonded over a mutual interesting in fairtrade; Stuart is a garulous retired pastor who likes to talk to me about Lutheranism; and David and Mandy (I've mentioned them previously) have hosted Chantal and me for lunch and activities.

My values don't have to match up with other peoples' exactly, and that's OK: Friends Intl is a super Christian group, and completely honestly, I'm aware that some of their goal is to secretly evangelize to heathens from other countries (I'm being a little sarcastic here, don't worry). At first the proselytizing potential bothered me. I really don't like evangelism and I really really don't like the assumption that Christianity is "the way" for everyone.

But the thing is, people there are really kind and easy to talk to. And in a year where I've felt particularly isolated, lonely, and socially driftless, I am extraordinarily appreciative of a group who opens their doors every single week for me to come and just be. And, luckily, I actually have barely seen evangelizing; the group just has a very Christian flavor to it. So all that helps.

And anyway,  I know this fact about them. I'm not dumb enough to let it be a surprise, and therefore I can't let it upset me if I choose to attend.

York is a small place, and Christian York even more so: We had our last Friends International meeting this Monday. Again, I surprised myself by being kind of nostalgic about this. We carpooled out to a local village for dinner at the home of two of the volunteers, and took a mini-tour to learn about the history of the area.

After the dinner, I realized how overlapping Friends Intl is with so many things in my life here, even though I've only lived in York for ten months so far. David (as in David and Mandy) is also the accountant for The Island, where I volunteer. Helen, who runs Friends International, is the wife of my landlord, and they both attend the church next door to where I live. Derrick is a member of the Fairtrade Forum, a group I connected with during Fairtrade Fortnight; the leader of this group also happens to be a woman I've emailed and chatted with all year long because she is also the leader of the choir that practices at St. Columba's on Wednesday nights.

I met my friend Chantal, an au pair in York, thanks to Friends International. Recently, she went back to Germany. I can't get on board with seemingly the rest of the YAGM universe, who all seem to feel that the year has simply flown by and they're so sad to leave their sites and they're going to miss their jobs/host communities oh so very much.

Um no, it hasn't. This year has felt extremely long. Interesting, enjoyable, worthwhile, growth-filled, meaningful, and SUPER FREAKING LONG.

But as Chantal and I reminisced over our activities together on our final walk through King's Square, where we would always meet up to commence time spent together drinking hot chocolate or sight-seeing, it did indeed feel like the year had gone quickly (that feeling was brief and fleeting, fyi). I just wished we'd had more time to explore and get to know one another, even though we had almost a whole year. Our friendship was a light and joyous piece of my time year and I hope our paths cross again.

I started out skeptical of Friends Intl; I did not anticipate that I'd still be attending all the way in June. But as with so much this year, I've surprised myself (and sometimes other people have surprised me, too). For Chantal's friendship, for the privilege of meeting people from all over the world who have come to tiny little York, for a calm place to attempt to socialize on a Monday evening, and for free rooibos tea, I'm grateful to have been a part of Friends International. 

Breaking Bread in Britain, Part 2

The best food experiences I have had here in Britain are with others. I've hosted members of the fellowship and friends over to eat at my house on numerous occasions. I think food is a way of showing love and gratitude, so I especially like to host those people who have made my year particularly special - such as my Carecent volunteering friends, my piano teacher and her husband, and my friend Rachel. 

I got to attend a barbecue with my friend Jack, his wife Jacky, and their family. It was such a lovely experience because they made me feel so welcome. Jack is a wine connoisseur, and gave me a Wine Tasting 101 experience.  Jack has also generously taken me out to lunch pretty regularly this year - he's one of my closest friends in the fellowship and we have fun chatting.

I shared the most fun British fancy tea at Betty's with my friend Rachel. Bettty's is a York classic - everyone told me I had to go at least once. I was like NAHHH, because it's crazy expensive for tea and a bunch of scones. But my (wonderful) boyfriend had a little birdy (his lovely cousin) who told him that Betty's was THE York cream tea to have...so for my birthday he gave me two vouchers. And thus I did indeed get to have a proper Betty's experience. Totally worth it - the ambience was delightful, the treats and sandwiches were tasty, and I had about six cups of tea.

My roommate Emily is a fantastic cook. She loves to try new things and it's inspiring to watch her get creative in the kitchen. We were having people over for lunch so we collaborated on a Indian-inspired meal - I roasted a curried chicken with potatoes, peppers, and sweet potatoes, and she made homemade coconut-stuffed naan. It was fab.

I made my roommates their first (real) tacos! They were pork carnitas (a life-changing taco for me, because that's the taco I ate the night I went from being a vegetarian to a not-vegetarian) with radishes, arugula, and onion.

Below are another favorite type of taco - cauliflower! Roasted cauliflower with spices/hot sauce with avocado crema and cabbage in tacos is the besssst.

Following along that theme, dinner at Rachel's house one night was this yummy Mexican burrito bowl, followed by delicious chocolate lava cake.

Meals with fellow YAGMs are some of my favorite memories from the year - here we are at one of our dinners when we all got together for New Year's Eve.

We all agreed this was a top-notch dessert from our March YAGM retreat - waffles and whipped cream.

Food with visitors tends to be eaten out more, which is so incredibly pleasurable because it means I don't have to wash dishes. (Dishwashers aren't common here like in the States - I will never take mine for granted again!) When my family came we enjoyed a delicious meal at Derek and Isobel's flat!

Rachel and I had a really fun day out in Thirsk one weekend in late May. For lunch, we each got a classic Yorkshire picnic platter for lunch. Cheese, coleslaw, salad, and bread.

Each month our church hosts a community lunch. This is me with some delicious apple pie and custard at the first I attended. YUM. It's normal to want pictures with food you like, right?

One of our community lunches was an American-themed Thanksgiving that I cooked. I prepped all of the food, but luckily on the day of Chantal and our friend Aline also helped me! It was my first experience making a whole turkey. It was terrifying. Thank God for my friend Jack (yes, same as above) who took me grocery shopping for the 25 lb turkey. And thank goodness I realized I had to defrost it prior to cooking it. And thank goodness I borrowed a meat thermometer from Derek and Isobel so I didn't accidentally give 25 people food poisoning. (Although it will be a cool story for the future to say I cooked my first Thanksgiving for people - in Britain.)

All that to say, I was so glad when it was over. (Everyone really liked the meal, too!)

Right after the Community Lunch, I hopped on a train to Manchester to share Thanksgiving 2.0 with my YAGM pals! We had such fun cooking and bonding. Those memories - the ones with my fellow YAGMs - are some of the most precious from this year.

The super yum birthday cake my roommate Emily made me back in September :)

I help prepare diners (called "tea" here) for the Island's Youth Clubs every Wednesday. One time I attempted to make American pancakes (fluffy, flavorful, delicious) for Pancake Day (aka Shrove Tuesday). They ended up being British pancakes (flat, lifeless crepe-like things topped with weird things like lemon and sugar). But the kids really liked when I made sloppy joes - they'd never had them before! (Literally just crumbled pork sausage cooked with ketchup/barbecue sauce. Very fancy.)

Of course, I drink a lot of tea here....

As well as indulging this winter in many delicious cups of cocoa!

Molly and I shared fab burritos when she came to visit, and had so much fun cooking together.

And when I visited Grace in February we treated ourselves to Five Guys! (It soothed our inner American.)

Eating alone is inevitable and common for me, as my roommates have pretty different schedules. As I eat, I often read a book. Yes, I do know there's a lot of literature out there about not reading while you eat, but it's been a pleasurable activity since as early as I could read, so I'm doing it. (One bad habit I actively try to avoid, however, is eating whilst looking at my phone - that's bad! also messy!)

However, my treat night is on Thursdays, the start of my weekend, when I will often indulge in a weekly Netflix-and-dinner date with myself.

Sometimes I talk to people on the phone or Skype with them while I eat. This might be gross for them (lol SORRYYYY), but for me it feels like I'm having an actual lunch- or dinner-date. It's not feasible for people who live alone to always be sharing meals, but it is possible to make each mealtime a happy, peaceful experience.

And this is the key - a joyous mealtime. Because to me, food is about love and sharing. It's about a profound appreciation for the the privilege of eating what we want, when we want it. It's about the tactile sensations, the colors, vibrant flavors. Each meal is a communion, even when we are alone. 

Breaking Bread in Britain, Part 1

The stereotype of British food is that it is not very good. Dry boiled veg as a side to a slab of overcooked meat; this is what some people have told me that they think of as English cuisine. Much like the stereotype that British people are cold and unfeeling, it's not entirely accurate but it's definitely rooted in truth. But food in this country, fortunately, has come on a self-improvement journey that far surpasses that of its citizenry.

I LOVE to eat and cook good food, and I know a lot of you out there also feel similarly! It's always fun for me to here what people ate and drank when they traveled, so I thought it would be fun to share more about my British food experiences.

So let's start by looking at some pictures of favorite British meals....

One British classic is the jacket potato. It's basically a baked potato with all kinds of fillings. You can have a jacket potato with chili con carne, baked beans, tuna and cheese, coronation chicken, and myriad other fillings. Usually there will be coleslaw or a small salad on the side.

A plate full of Yorkshire delicacies - Wensleydale cheese, bloomer bread (brown), chutney, and coleslaw, and cabbages.

Sausages and mash (bangers and mash, as you'll see sometimes).

Cornflake treats (pictured below) and flapjacks are typical English dessert-snacks. It's the same premise. The cereal is mixed together with a bunch of liquified sugar and baked.

This is a classic British breakfast. So. Much. Meat.

This is a Scottish-specific classic - haggis, neeps, and tatties! Yes...some people think it's disgusting. But I like things like scrapple, so I don't. I think it's great. It's basically animal innards. Neeps and tatties is a mash of turnips and potato.

Ok, asian fusion is definitely not classic British...or is it? After they colonized like basically the entire world, Britain "adopted" (read: co-opted for their own financial/cultural benefit) the flavors of countries around the world. Really, just the like the United States has done. Anyway, Wagamama is one of those sinfully amazing places that came out of this. It's like all the asian flavors/food combos under one roof with BOMB.COM food. I'm a lil bit obsessed. I dragged most of my visitors this year to Wags for wagamama ramen (highly recommend), teriyaki donburi, and yasai itame, as well as their amazing juices and FREE green tea.

The aforementioned food appropriation is actually a thing, by the way. It's something I've started to care more about since an experience I had a few months ago, which no doubt only happened because I have too much time on my hands to think/care too much nowadays. But anyway, it led me to do a little reading about the idea of food appropriation and this article pretty much sums it up way better than I ever could. It basically explores the concept of privilege (monetary, social) in relationship with food.

Kale salad - a very nouveau bourgeois food, if you ask me!

Grocery shopping this year is another area in which I think a lot about food privilege. This was the crux of why I became an AmeriCorps VISTA at Paul's Place last year. The Farmers' Market was started by my supervisor, Charlotte, in response to the fact that Pigtown is a food desert and kids at Paul's Place (which serves the Pigtown area) were experiencing high levels of obesity, high BMI, and other poor health indicators.

I'm privileged in that there are loads of grocery stores around me, and when I asked around, everyone had their opinions about where I should go. People at my church who apparently had no concept of how little I make told me just to shop at M&S or Sainsbury Local, because they're close to my house. They're also super pricey! Others said go to Aldi, which is a forty-minute walk each way. No, thank you, not carrying groceries back all that way. They must also have thought I was mule.

While it was a completely privileged version of the problem, I recognized in my experience a small seed of what I had learned through working in food justice/access for the preceding three years.

Carrying groceries a long way is physically challenging and sometimes actually painful (as I learned when I bought a huge thing of olive oil/tomato sauce/a pineapple all in one shopping trip DON'T DO THAT PLZ) but shopping somewhere close-by is pricey. This is exactly what people who live in food deserts face all the time, and it makes cooking and eating non-processed foods very hard.

These are my FAVE type of chips (crisps) found here.

Anyway, to wind up this long-winded story time, I settled on mostly shopping at Morrison's, which is a chain of shops known for having very good prices and isn't terribly far from my house. I mainly get my produce now at the Shambles Market. The Market is one of my favorite things about York. It is year-round, outdoor, and sells fruits, vegetables, cheeses, and other minimally prepared foods.

I want a year-round everyday market like this in Baltimore!, is my thought almost every single time I shop there (so like once a week or every ten days or so). But we do have great farmers' markets in Baltimore (see the aforementioned Pigtown Community Farmers Market ;)). Our urban and suburban planning in most of the US, is quite different though; most places aren't designed for a walkable, year-round Market to serve a small geographic area with a high human density.

Regardless, the beautiful thing about living in another place for a year is the endless possibilities things to take back home and adapt. For me, that includes the insights I've gained about food and food systems.

So for now, I'll just soak up the quaintness of walking fifteen minutes into the city centre, past medieval houses and over bridges, to buy farm-fresh vegetables. Like so many other things this year, I'm looking on it as a little gift from the universe to have such sweet small everyday experiences like this.