{"id":178,"date":"2007-12-29T12:37:06","date_gmt":"2007-12-29T18:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=178"},"modified":"2007-12-29T15:47:12","modified_gmt":"2007-12-29T21:47:12","slug":"the-stomach-has-its-desires","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/?p=178","title":{"rendered":"The Stomach Has Its Desires"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a022\u00a0 85%\u00a0 26%\u00a0 0mph\u00a0 NNE\u00a0 bar 29.97 falls\u00a0 YuleTide<\/h3>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Gibbous Cold Moon<\/h3>\n

\u00a0Excerpt of a poem by William Stafford, Choosing A Dog<\/font> <\/a><\/h3>\n

Your good dogs, some things that they hear
\nthey don’t really want you to know \u2014
\nit’s too grim or ethereal.<\/h3>\n

And sometimes when they look in the fire
\nthey see time going on and someone alone,
\nbut they don’t say anything.<\/h3>\n

Bill Schmidt sent this poem along from Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac.\u00a0 It is a touching work, especially for those who live\u00a0their lives in the\u00a0company of dogs.<\/h3>\n

A morning filled with errands.\u00a0 Took packages for New Years to the Anoka Post Office.\u00a0 It’s sure easier to mail stuff now than it was a week ago.\u00a0 Geez.\u00a0 Practically walked right up to the postal clerk.\u00a0 One clerk, on the other end of the counter, bald head and heroic biker beard, helped a man set up a General Delivery account.\u00a0 I looked at the man, fiftyish with black hair laid flat on his head.\u00a0 His used trench coat sagged with the bow of his shoulders.\u00a0 His pants looked polished from wear and the boots old.\u00a0 What had happened in his life?<\/h3>\n

At\u00a0the library I donated\u00a0several Teaching Company courses on audio tape.\u00a0 As I walked in with the sacks, I began to think about libraries, how important they’ve been to me at each stage of my life:\u00a0a refuge in an Indiana small town, a place of scholarship during college and my two post-grad degrees, sources of reading material when my funds were low and most recently a source of audio books.\u00a0 There are two places in this world where I’ve always felt comfortable:\u00a0 Catholic churches and libraries.\u00a0<\/h3>\n

Donating these courses made me consider charity.\u00a0 Charity always makes me think of Frank Broderick who seems to incarnate charity.\u00a0 I always feel less than in the presence of his generosity to others, less than because that’s\u00a0not what I do.\u00a0 Then I thought, wait a minute.\u00a0 I’m not Frank Broderick; I’m Charlie.\u00a0 Charlie’s generosity focuses on his passions:\u00a0 art, libraries, dogs, gardens and, for some reason I can’t quite define, water.\u00a0 These are the places where my volunteer energy, cash and other resources go.\u00a0 And that’s just fine.<\/h3>\n

After this, groceries, where my stomach spoke to me down each aisle.\u00a0 Each time I saw\u00a0an old food friend like cheese or chips or Kashi cereal my stomach growled and I felt deprived.\u00a0 The stomach has its desires, its attachments and communicates them; but, those are attachments learned over years of a certain kind of eating.\u00a0 The process I’m in now is one I’ve gone through before, reeducation.\u00a0 I’m reeducating my stomach to growl for lettuce, cucumbers, tomatoes.\u00a0 To speak to me of yogurt, right-sized portions and sourdough bread.<\/h3>\n

A morning full of errands, and, of learning more about myself.\u00a0 A good morning.<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a022\u00a0 85%\u00a0 26%\u00a0 0mph\u00a0 NNE\u00a0 bar 29.97 falls\u00a0 YuleTide \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Gibbous Cold Moon \u00a0Excerpt of a poem by William Stafford, Choosing A Dog Your good dogs, some things that they hear they don’t really want you to know \u2014 it’s too grim or ethereal. And sometimes when they look in the fire they see … Continue reading The Stomach Has Its Desires<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,1],"tags":[4347,214],"class_list":["post-178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-general","tag-dogs","tag-know-thyself"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ancientrails.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}