Fricassee for today

Do you know the history of Fricassee, or much less, what it is? I learned that it is generally recognized as a French style stew. It most commonly is a white stew or thick sauce involving chicken. Wikipedia highlighted the fun fact that Abraham Lincoln found Fricassee to be one of his favorite meals. I didn't know Fricassee was a thing until today, and how amazing is that!

Today and Fricassee has really nothing to do with culinary vocabulary, but instead, it serves as a reminder of how surprising encountering newness can be, the blessing of novelty and the growing rarity in which we see it as we grow older. Just because we don't see or notice, however, does not mean that bright little buds of new and noteworthy are not present in our paths.

Often, I catch myself walking around tense, my mind filled with stress over what-ifs, which leaves little room for wonder, little time to explore, and a limited opportunity to step outside routine. When my mind slicks over sucking life's sweetness out of every moment and sticks instead to negotiating the fastest mode to race through checklists, it's in the hope that, at the end of it all, I'll have finally caught time to indulge in, to sit in, as if time was a tangible creature to catch up to, to trap and keep. In a totally backwards way, pushing through life in order to sit in a pool of time all leads back to the main goal of taking in life's sweetness second-to-second, of not taking the seemingly mundane for granted, and of letting beauty enter your experiential field.

In Girls, my late-night pleasure of a show, Shoshanna says " you have to enjoy life. You cannot rush a cherry blossom." The bits of life's magic are all around, so how do we expand our tunnel-vision to include the vibrant blooms of new opportunity on the trees in the periphery of the street we walk on?

On my way to writing this very piece, strolling in the rain and admiring the vastness of the open sky, an answer occurred. Then, I wondered why newness and realization had hit me at that very moment. It was the grand space of the sky that made me realize-- space was the way, clarity was the key. We must allow space for new ideas to come in. We must provide a clean ground for novel, unexpected opportunity to land on. In order to be open enough to experience and let something new jump in, the room of our mind has to be clear, uncluttered. Do you know that powerful calm and empty from a large exhale after holding tension? Try it now. That split second after release and ridding the tense clutter is like a clearing in a forrest, or raw blank room ready for growth, a stage awaiting action, decoration. That's the mental space needed to set the table for new dreams, new realizations, new things to notice, new questions to ask and new opportunity. Besides exhaling and breathing deeply all the time (which is a great thing to do, but less realistic) what can we do everyday to get into this clarity of mindspace?

1) Roll with life's pace, don't force your own

I used to indulge in mental exploration and allow myself to be a lot more curious a than I have been. I used to have time to let my mind roam in museums and fantasize at sh

ows in local music venues, even imagine narratives of people passing as I sat in the park all while attending school full-time and supporting a 20-hour work week, but somehow I felt less scattered. I credit the clarity and mental space for curiosity to punctuated slots of work, play, and relax. I'd go and go at one thing, then move on; go and go, then move on, which helped me realize more than time management, but also that life keeps moving and sets a stage of opportunity moment-to-moment for you to play a part in. Instead of getting caught up in the idea of life's non-stop vigor, stressing over missing out, keeping up or analyzing whether or not life being spent in the "right" way, just roll with the energy and pace that life is providing you at the time. You don't necessarily have to slow down to smell the roses, but ride the wave and the pace of life around you because its probably trying to lead you to the garden anyway. Trying to finish a business plan for a deadline, but can't find the buzz and excitement around you to work with the vigor you needed, for example? Ride the wave of life's energy and step back from trying. With the space to bloom, the answers may just present themselves. Do, love, work, play, chill, cry, have the time of your life and then continue on. Don't waste precious energy fighting it or forcing life's pace to fit your expectations, flow along to allow things to flow through and to you.

2) Let go, move on and make room for opportunity

Knowing when to switch gears and follow the momentum of life is also about gaining perspective and letting go of feelings that come from experiences, good or bad, to make way for the new. If you're constantly clinging to and rehashing 'should's' or 'maybe's,' and even 'next time's,' there will be no clear space for the magic of life to waltz in, no clarity of mind to be used to take in and notice the beauty around you, and it's less likely that those strange, yet oddly perfect occurrences that pop into life at just the right moment will present themselves to you.

3) Let down-time do its work

After taking in information I learned while working a new job, in class lectures or out exploring a new city, my mind needed to step back from the buzz. In that down period my once-working brain had time to water the newly planted forests of information and stimuli, to let it settle. The settling, like in Savasana, was when experience could sink in and allow a fresh foundation for realizations, bright ideas and viewpoints. Those moments of down-time were really when a lot of internal and mental space was cultivated.

My stepmom who works with horses as a positive reinforcement trainer uses down-time as a substantial tool in her teaching. She teaches in short, effective bursts and then leaves the horse to do its own thing as the lessons soak in. Neurobiologically, when we learn new information or process new behaviors, most of the actual "learning" takes root when we step away, let the info "sink in" on its own to allow new pathways between neurons to form and strengthen. An article in Huff Post named Here's How Study Breaks Boost Learning speaks to this very notion and explains that during periods of rest the mind has an automatic process of replaying what was just learned, strengthening the memory of it. On top of that, our memory storehouse "facilitates not just learning, but also perspective taking, imagination, creativity, future planning, reflection, and morality." Thus, downtime is key in laying out a space for new ideas and new ways of seeing the world to hit.

I'm not saying to relax and not do anything all the time-- if I did that my brain would work as well as a pile of mush and my body would mutually function in that way-- but allow for the space to let your mind grow its network of foundations. As mentioned above, the time of work and of having to do more will come, so live in the calm crests of the wave; allow calmness to do its work so that creativity will have space to bloom even more wildly.

4) Hang out with your mind, as if it were a friend

Just as you were super present while with your friend and listening to what she had to say, just as you've focused on projects at work, and even maybe just as you respected the need for down-time, make the effort to hang out with your mind. Our default when we wonder or imagine tends to be worst case scenarios or serious work and social possibilities, but what if you spent time with your kid self as if it were someone you care about or a piece of work you respect? What if you hung out with that open, care-free imagination as if it were a being that deserved your attention? What if you let your mind roam and just watched what happened while, for example, it watched the shapes of clouds change? Be with yourself, rather than thinking about yourself and you will discover space to wonder what other things, like Fricassee, you can learn about.