Lazarus.

Artist Credit: David Flores

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the motivation to put figurative pen to paper, or even figured I had anything worthwhile to talk about.

I forgot that blogging had a therapeutic element to it for me, a place where I can express my thoughts and feelings about the world in which I’m moving through where people can be drawn to if interested, or repelled away from because the sentiments in my writings are either lost on them or just a singular point of view that they don’t share.

I worry often when I write that I expose too much of my own naivety, my own insecurities – because so many people I encounter assume that the representation of me as a person in my professional life is someone who moves through the world self-assuredly, unapologetically and confidently.

Ironically, the aforementioned adjectives are not descriptive words that I would ever attribute to myself, at least not in my current state of existence.

If I had to translate my own self-valuation into words, I would use ‘awkward’, ‘inconsistent’ and ‘hot-headed’. This is not to say that I’m not trying to become the perception that some people have of me, it’s simply that these are the things that speak the loudest to me when I traverse the ugly parts of my personality, unwittingly. My brain often goes to these places in moments of quiet, of which I have allowed myself tonnes of in the last six months. For the purposes of my own survival through debilitating anxiety and depression, getting to know myself intimately has become necessity.

I think these thoughts have hampered my ability to do this thing that I love so much; write. I haven’t written music in years, convincing myself that I had nothing of note to offer the world poetically. I’ve had the beginnings of a fictional novel becoming less and less topical and relevant on my desktop for about 4 years, fearing that by self-publishing what I think is a decent piece of writing will be slammed relentlessly by the rest of the far-more-talented world. I convince myself constantly that all of these creative ventures I have attempted aren’t good enough by any stretch of the imagination, so I move on to Netflix marathons and Pinterest boards, packed full of DIY projects that I know I will never have the motivation to attempt or talent to complete, leaving most projects unfinished.

But, I digress. This is current me, all wrapped up in ill-fitting clothes. These are all things that I want to change about myself. I don’t know what it is about 2018, but I feel…different. Like the winds of change have come through and swept me up on their laurels, to push me violently into uncomfortable experiences and out of the status quo that is me.

The beginning of this year began tragically for my family, with the loss of my paternal uncle to MND and the end of mourning for my cousins’ son. A week prior, my youngest brother got married to his long time girlfriend and we got to celebrate the beginnings of the newest chapter of their lives together. My sister announced her long-awaited pregnancy at Christmas, elating my parents and siblings with the addition and extension of our family. Two colleagues lost their lives unexpectedly. I reunited with my mother, after an uncomfortable and extended silence.

The juxtaposition of these happenings and experiences speaks so much to the uncertainties of life as it exists for all of us. During all of this, I felt like a passive observer, on the outskirts of everything happening around me – unhelpful, more than anything. Useless. I think this may have been behind my significant desire to change how I move through the world, less aggressively and with the type of kindness that I have lacked in the last 30 years on the planet. Watching how quickly things can go from celebratory to grief-stricken has been so transformative, and made me want to be more thoughtful about how I interact with other people.

I want to start reading voraciously, like I did when I was a precocious child; I want to tell my friends every time that I think kind thoughts about them and share them, even at the expense of us both being uncomfortable; I want to watch awful gaming walk-throughs with my son and listen intently as he describes what is happening on-screen and see the joy in his face that Mum is taking an interest in his passions.

I just want so desperately to be better than I am today – I know that’s probably what every person wants whose not a complete narcissist, but I really can’t articulate that any better. So I guess this new attempt at keeping record of my life, this new blog, will be a place where I can come and explain my rationale for my decisions.

All I can hope is that my words, regardless of what they are, are received with the positive intent and love that I mean them to be.

x C

Preparation for D-Day

So, I started the weekend very well intended.

I was going to sit down and write out a concise meal plan for the upcoming fortnight in preparation for the beginning of the Vegan Challenge.

I was going to spend Saturday afternoon committed to household chores that I’ve been putting off for the last month.

I want to preface the story of what I actually did with the word ‘unfortunately’, however I feel like that would take the sheen off of what was an incredbily fulfilling weekend, despite the fact I did zero of any of the things I had planned to, being so very well intended.

It will be of no surprise to anyone that knows me well that the meal plan didn’t come to fruition. Instead, I spent Friday evening sitting on my porch with a group of my closest friends talking about – well, nothing – and eating barbecue.

For some reason, I’d convinced myself in the lead up to the Challenge that I was going to need to consume nothing but beef, chicken and pork over the weekend.

To be perfectly honest? The barbecue was underwhelming. I turned my meal into a sandwich and ate a sirloin steak stuffed bread roll whilst picking at a chicken kebab. I would go into great detail about the flavour, taste and texture – but seriously, it was nothing to write about.

The following day, we visited our friend Tucker at the Mount Albert Market. Tucker the Butcher is a larger than life character, a Welshman who pushes his Neat Meat wares of grass fed, free range, organic meats in a variety of cuts every Saturday at our local market, come rain or shine.

One of the many discussions my husband and I have had since we got married (3 months yesterday!), was around the commitment we have to building the foundations of our familial unit. Ethan, Christian & I have been a unit for six years, however in the last 12 months my primary focus shifted to organising, planning and funding our wedding. This unfortunately meant that our relationship as partners became more about business, financial transactions and managing timetables than about two people who were building a life together based on love, trust and friendship.

Anyone who has planned a wedding on a shoestring knows how all-consuming this can be, and the hangover that occurs in the months after the actual event has taken place. My ‘hangover’ has been huge, meaning that the pursuit for happiness is something that I’ve had a serious focus on over the last 3 months. What that looks like? Fulfilment? Contentment? I have no idea, but I’ll be sure to share it with you in the event that I do unlock this wellkept secret.

We decided that in 2015, we would renew our commitment to our family unit and create rituals that would solidify our relationships with one another. One of these rituals is visiting the local market in our neighbourhood every Saturday morning together, to sample cheeses, drink coffee and hot chocolates and really and most importantly – just to speak to one another, without any outside influences. What this does is remind us all of how much we value one another. Christian is constantly surprising me with tidbits of knowledge and is a constant source of hilarity (but don’t tell him, I’ve got him and everyone else convinced I’m the funny one).

One of the rituals that exists for us and always has is sharing a meal together at the end of the day – I am a firm believer that this simple act is a surefire way to ensure a great relationship with your children or spouse. It has always been hugely important to me, however again something that fell by the wayside last year during wedding planning.

After stocking up on goodies from Tucker, Christian dropped Ethan & I at L’oeuf, our local cafe. I love living in the suburbs and feel like we are incredibly spoilt for choice in terms of palatable restaurants, cafes and eateries in Auckland – L’oeuf was named as one of Metro Magazines’ Top 50 Cafés in Auckland for 2014, no mean feat considering these guys have barely been open for an entire year but seem to have easily developed a borderline cult following with their very small bespoke, Vietnamese fusion inspired menu.
With a focus on fresh ingredients and turning their nose up at the kiwi cafe traditional Eggs Benedict, my absolute favourite L’oeuf dish is ‘The Hunter’, their own take on mushrooms on toast. Delicious! The menu option is I believe vegan, however can be ordered (which is often encouraged by the wait staff) with a soft poached egg and chorizo.

After a short wait for a takeout coffee, we ambled back through the neighbourhood, talking on life and all such things through the eyes of a nine year old boy (which isn’t as naive as one might assume).

My weekend was spent enjoying my family.
My weekend was spent enjoying the company of my closest friends.
My weekend was spent in the spirit of laughter, community and consciousness.
My weekend was spent being embraced by the ocean.

So, unfortunately?
No, there wasn’t an unfortunate thing about it. In the immortal words of Jill Scott, I’m living my life like it’s golden.

Blessed!

Love, Charli

Let the tofu onslaught begin!

After making the incredibly limiting decision to forgo my usual decaf latte during a late night visit to a cafe and drink a 20oz Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks instead, I lay listlessly awake at 1am and had a crazy idea.

It’s not a new idea, as a quick Google search will indeed tell you, but friends – it was new to me.

As a prolific and avid user of social media and with friends in various communities throughout the internet, I am constantly being bombarded by horrific images and statistics explaining the detrimental effects that the meat processing industry has on our eco-system, the disgusting practices of mass pork production, the horrors of caged hen farming – usually this information comes in the form of an article shared directly on my Facebook feed, coupled with a video or image of this poor practice – reddit is a huge source for statistical information and BuzzFeed is sure to give you a quickfire education.

I am acquainted with a large number of people who proclaim to be either vegan or octo-lacto vegetarians. Mostly, they’re passionate people who are concerned for the well being of animals. And, that is totally cool.

But sometimes, it gets a bit preachy. I suppose that is why I take a lackadaisical approach to explaining my decisions to consume meat, poultry and animal byproducts. There isn’t a reason as to why I eat meat; I choose to because I think it is delicious. I am a huge fan of beef. I’m the guy cooking an entire eye fillet on the barbecue in the Summertime.

I do try to alleviate my guilt as a meat eater though as an apologist for the mass production of meat for my consumption, by purchasing meat, eggs & poultry from ethical farmers, local businesses to help booster the economy…but, I digress.

This intrusive thought I had a 1am? Well, I thought it would be a great idea to accept the Animal Liberation’s challenge to commit to a vegan diet for a 30 day period.

I know, I know. The general consensus is that I’m crazy. Most people have not been able to understand my motivation or reasoning for deciding to take on this challenge. To be perfectly honest, I’m not even sure why I want to do it, other than to be able to view the world for a short period of time through the eyes of my animal activist friends.

A concern that was highlighted to me over the past week also after socialising the idea with a few colleagues was that I would starve. I will make it implicitly clear that I am for all intents and purposes overweight currently, so there are some significant and positive health benefits that could also be realised through this experiment.

I think that there is this huge misconception about vegans, with people who are not acquainted with this ‘fringe’ of society (if you will), that they’re are this glum group of folks who subsist merely on flavourless tofu, almond milk and lentils. Funnily, during my search for meal plan inspiration I came across some amazing foodie blogs written by vegans, which shows that they are as passionate about dining as we carnivores are about a cut of beef actually being served rested, medium rare – if not more so.

I’m excited to be sharing my experiences through this process with you all. As a meat eater, obviously I am not trying to sway anyone in any direction – however as a curious person, I figured I would do some research on why choosing a vegan diet is a positive change. Check out the infographic below sourced from PETA.org – it makes for some pretty compelling reading!

Peace, Love & Chicken Grease,

Charli x