 | |
| The best gluten-free apple crisp I've made. In this lifetime anyway. |
I've been pondering identity lately. As in, am I the I writing this as Gluten-Free Goddess--- or am I a word-free, less defined kind of I that isn't actually I at all, but merely a spark in the collective energy source that is the great Mystery? Or Universe. Or Divine. Or whatever conceptual nomenclature you prefer.
Am I my thinking mind- or am I more of an essence, what we call soul, a truth beyond the assumed collection of thought patterns, personality traits, and personal history framed by a set of beliefs and separation known as the ego?
I do know I am not my disease.
One of the reasons I chose not to use the word celiac in my blog title was for just this very reason. I do not define myself as a celiac. In an identity sense. I do not identify with
Hello, my name is Karina. And I have screwed up villi.
But I am not my screwed up villi. Just as I am not my post-cataract lens implants. Or my mended broken hip. Or the silvery streaked hair that bristles like a squirrel on this prone-to-migraines head. I am also not this post-menopausal body that has brilliantly succumbed to a gravitational force superior than lunges and squats (in the end gravity wins, I am sorry to tell you).
The older I get, I find less and less comfort in defining myself at all- never mind defining myself by my various bodily quirks (not to mention, my southerly migrating butt). I derive no solace in my mental quirks either. My beliefs, or assumptions, or my random monkey thoughts. Even my skills are a poor capture of who I really am. I do not identify with how many paintings I've painted or sold, or how many likes I receive on Instagram. I do not crave recognition as a mirror. The alleged prize of fame and fortune remains less than compelling, my least urgent motivator.
I instead wander the hours of my days seeking answers that lead to more questions. Not answers that close the book. As in, subscribing to a system that has it all "figured out".
As Anne Lamott
likes to say, certainty is the opposite of faith.Certainty is finite.
The end of growth. It clips the wings of possibility- the bigger truth that exists beyond my small understanding. Closing the book on the question of Who am I, exactly? would be foolish. The Big Mystery is far greater and more full of awesome than I can ever attempt to imagine. And whatever micro-teeny part I play in this infinite universal system called Life, I intuitively know one aspect of it, thanks to five-plus decades of living. Whatever It is, It is fluid. Everything changes. Including time. The past, present and future. The Universe (it's expanding, you know, faster than they first calculated). My experiential perception of myself (also expanding). The I that does not exist, because the I is only ego. The nattering, unreliable voice in my head.
So if this I does not exist--- who is craving this apple crisp?
Perhaps the only sensible response is this.
Be one with the apple crisp.
Now that I can do.
Read more + get the recipe >>
Bisquick mix
) baked into what can only be described as yesterday's mashed potatoes. It didn't even try to turn golden. And it didn't melt in your mouth like a biscuit. It just sat there on your tongue. Flavorless. Bored. Expecting to be admired without effort. Like those fame junkies
who are famous for simply being famous. They haven't actually accomplished anything to garner their celebrity status. They just nurture a deeper narcissistic ambition than your average high school beauty queen. They expect adulation because they exist.
entities.
. And sure, I know. The argument is, It's all good. Any awareness is positive (even though the gluten-free diet may be in danger of losing street cred because of its faddish status with actresses who subscribe to its hyped promise of weight loss).
white rice flour and starch blend, perhaps?). G-free mixes and packaged foods use predominately refined white rice flour and inexpensive starches. A glut of empty calories.
and almond flour
. Gluten-free cornmeal
and buckwheat
. Our baking isn't dull or crumbly, dry, or without pizazz. Our flour choices reflect a preference for taste, texture and higher nutrition. And I think we're smarter than the average consumer.
advises). I'll focus on my own gluten-free flour blends and eating whole foods daily.
and organic bananas could have bought said Gluten-Free Goddess a lovely bottle of 
if I told you any gluten-free pie crust
I ever ate was worthy of the filling.
. Sometimes I make fruit crumbles in a glass pie plate
. This way, it even (sort of) resembles a pie. If you squint.
- makes this treat 
world I risk being labeled a dreaded double dipper. And I admit up front, it's true.
, though. Those carefree bungee jumping days are over, My Darlings.
