Paradigm Shift

The butcher and I had been playing phone tag for a couple of weeks. Though a seemingly simple errand, I suppose that on top of my reintroduction into discussion leadership in BSF, touring possible new homes, preparing and maintaining my own home for open houses and showings, family gatherings and small group activities, not to mention the day-to-day, hour-to-hour pace demanded by my dear babes, a 30-minute drive in a fuel-inefficient vehicle with aforementioned ankle biters was something my sloshing, swirling brain rejected as a catalyst for certain disaster. (In other words, if placed into Sarah's life, I would surely and miserably fail.) But yesterday was the day. After leaving the children at my parents' place in Zeeland, I found my way through town to a familiar route to Allendale. If I'd been in my old Civic, it might have driven itself to Old Chicago Drive, after routinely stopping at the 7-Eleven for a Dr. Pepper Super Big Gulp, beef jerky, and a pack of Camel Lights. (I remind myself of this diet and my survival in spite of it when freaking out that my sour cream is not organic.)

I was about halfway there when I decided to stop by Calder. A description of the ten-years-later tour would be similar to anyone else's: this was the same, this was different. (I suppose I should mention here that Calder is the art building at Grand Valley where I spent five years painting, drawing, printmaking, and computer-designing myself into oblivion.) I heard two faculty discussing an installation project and walked past students sitting and sketching on the floor. I overheard a crit in an illustration classroom as I examined drawing exercises tacked to the hallway wall with T pins. I explored the new wing, housing an expanded painting department and a gallery space, but I saved the best for last: I walked into the back hall and breathed deeply the wonderful carcinogenic scents of linseed oil, vine black pigment, mineral spirits, dutch mordant acid baths, hard ground, copper plates, Brasso polish: printmaking. Class was going pretty much the same way classes went when I was among the students, and twenty-year-old printmakers were burnishing plates and etching though grounds when I poked my head in to inhale the fumes of a former life. I was able to chat for ten minutes with Dellas before heading back out again, now ready to get on with the task of the afternoon: pick up and load my chest freezer with a quarter of a grass-fed cow.

The changes in our diet have come about gradually , beginning when Eden's tender palate was first exposed to solid foods by a mother determined not to defile her pure little system. What began with YoBaby organic yogurt led to reading and researching about antibiotics, growth hormones, pesticides, and other inedibles that I've been blindly pumping my body full of for years. If I wouldn't give it to my child, why would I eat it myself?

Hypocrisy Spoiler: YES I still eat fast food, YES I still drink pop, and YES my child dips dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets into ketchup and ranch dressing. Like I said, the changes are gradual, and I figure making conscienscious choices at the grocery store on meat, dairy, and "dirty dozen" fruits and vegetables buys me a trip to the drive thru windows here and there. Everything in moderation, right?

Which takes me to a dirt road in Allendale.

Mike of Mike's Processing gave me detailed directions to get to his shop, but I needed only to follow the neatly stenciled signs for deer processing. The land was idyllic, the day was straight out of a boarding school coming-of-age movie, and I found the place without any problem. A house, a barn. Goats, chickens, sweet old dogs. I walked into the unassuming outbuilding and was struck immediately by the smell I encountered upon entry: it wasn't a bad smell, but one my sister's midwife might describe as "earthy." I later pinpointed it as the scent of the inside of a body. Because, well... the food we eat is often A BODY. And no, I don't think about it often, and no, I don't LIKE to think about it. But I feel it's imPORtant to think about it, because I and we have gotten so far away from the food we eat, and I really believe it's to our detriment. I carried the weight of a quarter of a grassfed cow down to my freezer to feed my family this winter. It was the flesh of a cow that was chomping grass and squinting in the sun this summer. I am okay with this, but it is important to me that I follow the thinking all the way through. It is important that I really realize that beef (and pork and chicken and whatever) is not just a neatly packaged cold red cube shrink-wrapped in cellophane created for me to cook into a casserole. There is a sacrifice here. And at the risk of being pegged as, heck, whatever negative label you've got, I want to respect that sacrifice.

If anyone is interested, our cow was raised by Lubbers Family Farm out of Grand Rapids.

Also, I'll have a nice light post in the next couple of days. :)