Rediscovering Local

Local Foods Week in next week - and it really got me thinking about what local means and how that has evolved for me in the last few years. I grew up in Columbus and I remember when I was younger seeing my city as this place of 'started here' - Wendy's, White Castle, Donatos, Max and Erma's - that was my local. I thought eating at the Food Court in Lane Avenue and stopping at Graeter's was being a local. And, in some ways it was - I was in my community, supporting the businesses of my community but what I was not doing was appreciating the flavors and seasons that food so wonderfully offers.

I grew up in a big family - I am the oldest of seven - and we did not experiment a lot with food. Weekly budgets and the need to avoid waste (yeah, we mastered that one before it was 'in') made it difficult for my mom to bring food into the house that we would not eat, which meant there were a lot of things we were never exposed to growing up. Then I worked for Rax (anyone remember the local Arby's concept?) where I actually began to see some connection to fresh food and quality. I was the weekend salad prep person in high school - and they brought in cases of fresh fruits and vegetables - lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, cucumbers, cantaloupe to name a few - and I chopped them all. Seriously. Lettuce came in heads, not bags and I spent many hours getting fresh fruits and vegetables ready to serve. This started what turned into a career of working with food and seeing the practical, business side of food and not always embracing the emotional side of food.

So, fast forward to college in small-town Indiana, where I worked for the college food service - so many people thought everything came in pre-made and ready to heat (including me!) But, once I stepped into that kitchen and saw the work that went into trying to serve students meals that met their varied, and yet picky needs, on a budget, I started to think about stuff differently. Oh, and by the way, those cooks and chefs make way more than you think they do and they pour their hearts into their jobs. Now, in this town there were two options - fast food or local food. Can I tell you what a huge deal it was when the town got a super Wal-Mart and a Bob Evans right next to it? I mean the wait to get into there was like they were handing out $100 bills. So, you learned, consistent food meant fast food while the experiences (good and bad!) happened at the local joints.

Then came real life - life after college, life on my own, figuring out how to cook for one or two (especially when all my mom's recipes were for 8-10!) and understanding how to balance work with life. Throw a 50-mile commute (one way) into that mix and you can imagine how easy it was to stop and pick something up on the way home, thinking only about convenience and not much at all about taste or nutrition and certainly never stopping to think about what it took to get that food to me.

if I jump ahead to my move to Chicago, that starts my love affair with food. See, before, I liked eating but I did not enjoy food and I certainly did not have the love affair I have now. Sushi - really? Farmer's markets - what are those? Little Italy, Mexico and all the other ethnic streets/neighborhoods in Chicago - I mean, is it safe to go there? Yep, Chicago was the turning point for me - for the first time, I was really and truly on my own - living alone, forging my way in a new city, and a big city, and learning to take chances, something I had not really done up to that point. So, I checked out the city markets, I got on the train (and the bus) and went to Taylor Street, Chinatown, Little Mexico and the neighborhoods that celebrated Middle Eastern and European traditions and foods. I met chefs, I tried street food (often known as roach coaches then) and I learned that really, truly experiencing food was about so much more than the food. It was about the traditions and the flavors, it was community and the shared experiences. And, above all else, it was fun.

See, I think food had become function for me. I worked so much with food that I forgot to enjoy food. It was practical and it was my job, but I had not taken the time to learn it and love it. But once I did, it became part of me - trying new things, eating new foods, introducing others to new places, learning about the community and the places that bring the uniqueness to the city - that all happened starting in Chicago and has really started to blossom in my return to Columbus. Things like gardening, canning and preserving were foreign concepts to me - and now, I love the idea of figuring out how to make strawberry preserves without pectin (it can be done!) or trying to grow tomatoes that the squirrels don't eat (that is a little tougher). I love the way my hands smell after I work the dirt, or rub a tomato plant leaf and I love walking through the neighborhood and seeing the diversity of businesses that are opening and thriving, despite tougher economic times. Oh, and the friends I have made. That list keeps growing and filling up with people who are smart, funny, passionate, engaged, interesting, diverse and of course, food lovers.

You see, I have a whole new perspective on this city since I have returned. To be sure, the city has evolved and changed a ton since I left for college almost 20 years ago but I am looking at it all differently too. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I do not shun corporate America and I certainly think there is a place for everything but the vibrant businesses and entrepreneurs that are helping put Columbus on the map - with food, art, education, business, science, research, community and innovation - they are the ones that define local for me. When I am at Target, I don't think people shopping there are bad for local business (clearly I am there too!) but I do know that I much more likely to strike up a conversation with someone at a local restaurant or the great boutique shop in the Short North, deepening my connection, and hopefully theirs, to this great city. For me, it is about finding ways to blend practical, functional needs with community engagement.

So, as we embark on local foods week in Columbus next week - I challenge you to think beyond your food, and think about your community, think about the connections you are making, think about how you can show your support for local and tell your story. Make it personal. Make it meaningful. Make it matter. At the end of the day, it is the people in the community that are going to make the difference.

Oh, and did I mention that, while I did come back home, I never thought I would fall in love? Well, I did. I just hope that Columbus gets as much out of me as I get out of her.

Finding my voice...again

So, tonight I read a friend's blog about Local Foods week (thanks John!) and it inspired me to take to the keyboard. It has been a few months - I wish I had a great reason why, like I was traveling the world or I was doing something of significance, but it was mostly that I just lost my voice. It started with work - the place that I continue to swear about, promising that my job does not define me, it is just a job. I was recruited to interview, pushed to get out of my zone and go for a position that people told me repeatedly I had to go for. Well, I went for it and I did not get it. Second time in less than 12 months that it happened to me and I gotta say - second time around does not get easier! So, I got stuck in a range of 'feel sorry for myself' emotions and hovered there for a bit. Then I got a new boss and my world changed again. As the organization asked me to step into a new role, and as I tried to not see the request as further chinks to my armor, I found myself losing me in all of it. And, I realized the worst had happened, I was allowing myself to be defined by my job. Ugh.

So, I started stepping back, not working like crazy, telling people no and setting new boundaries for work. Awesome, right? Well, then I realized that in the wake of all this work shit, I had lost me in the shuffle. So, I started back down the road of finding me. I mean, what happened to the girl who would get up with a smile (okay, maybe not at 6 am!), seeing the world through her glass half-full perspective? Where was the girl who loved adventure and was always looking for new ways to engage? And, the one I was most missing, the girl who loved meeting new people and creating new connections in this great city? Oh, she was there, just buried under a pile of self-doubt and paralysis. I mean, where does one start when it feels like there are more things to fix than things that are right? Well, I think I am stumbling into the 'one thing at a time' approach.

Which leads me to the initial thought I had while reading John's blog tonight - new connections and this great community. I have met some amazing people in this city - through local organizations (shout out to Local Matters and Slow Food Columbus), Twitter (yep, I am talking to you Twixlen, Jarsloth, Hungry Woolf, Michael Coyote, Highland Estates, EmZeeGee, JimEaton, DrElena, HeatherFidler and so many others...) and at fun events (hello, Columbus Food Adventures, House Wine and Columbus Underground Happy Hours!) or restaurants (I mean, if you know me, you know I have met a person or two at Basi!) The great thing is that these people have become part of my life, some in person, some I am still looking forward to actually meeting, making me laugh, making me think and making me want to do and be more. So, I jumped on to my blog, my completely neglected and underutilized blog, to share my thoughts on finding my voice and how the local community, in all its various forms, has been the start of me rediscovering me.

So, there you have it - the start of me finding me again. I think this is going to be fun...

Local Envy

Lately, my thoughts have been circling around an idea that I have labeled ‘local envy’. You see, I live in a great city; one that offers a vibrant local community of artists, culinarians, creatives, innovators, entrepreneurs and people who are passionate about everything. My challenge is that because of my day job, I miss opportunities to truly be part of the local community, hence my local envy. It kicked into high gear when I was in town recently and volunteered for the Local Matters open house – a great event at their new location where 200 people came out to show their support for local food and education. There were so many opportunities to engage with people and feed my passion for interacting and building relationships and yet I still feel like I cannot fully engage because I am not consistent. I may go several weeks without traveling but then it will be weeks on the road, where home becomes a place to do laundry and repack my suitcase! And, the longer I live here, the more I crave real connections to people and the community, relationships that are rooted in our common passions but filled with celebrations of our unique perspectives and differences.

As I see the ways in which community is built, informal get-togethers, regular meet-ups and organized events, I am envious of people who get up in the morning and head out the door to their office or business, or even the local coffee shop to start their day. My home office begins to feel like the black hole of connecting – no one to talk to, interact with or share the highs and lows of the work day with. And, while I have no problem grabbing a drink by myself on the road, it seems awfully lonely to grab after-work drinks with myself when I am home. I know, I am starting to wallow in my local envy and it is not pretty. I think it is time for a new perspective.

So, how do I embrace this passion I have for community and localness, when I am not around long enough to build strong roots, heading back out on the road before I can get firmly planted? First, acknowledge that envy can be ugly so I need to channel those emotions in a positive direction. Second, there have to be people and places that I can engage with to start laying roots, or at least planting seeds. Third, in my longing to be a local, I have so many ideas and so many paths that I can pursue but I have to focus – being scattered and all over the place is not the way to start. Similar to how I have started new in so many cities and jobs, I must step back and assess where it is best to focus all this energy and passion.

As I begin the month of May, my personal goal is to create a plan for myself – one that focuses my energy and lays a clear path to changing my envy into action. After an informal research study on Facebook by a friend of mine, we have determined that Virgos tend to spreadsheet everything so I suspect that my plan will make its way into an excel document, with target groups, dates and events all mapped out – hey, I have to channel all this envy somehow, right? In all seriousness, my ‘Year of Molly’ is taking a new twist, one that is destined to be about so much more than me.

One last note to close on: as I continue my quest to get rid of my local envy and find ways to connect, I have to give a shout-out to the Basi Italia team – Johnny, Trish, Ryan, Jen (fondly known as Trixie in my world), Kaitlin (who I continue to call Katie), Johnny the bartender (who we were not sure Johnny the owner would find humor in him being called Johnny Jr.) and all the other great people who work there who make me feel like a local – I just might be putting down my first real roots at the end of our street with great food, great wine and, best of all, a great community of people who love this city as much as I do (and maybe even a little more)!

I'm out but have you seen my closet?

This week was our company's annual Diversity Summit - it is a great opportunity to network, see friends that I don't get to see enough and spend some time developing new skills. Obviously, as a diversity summit, there is a lot of conversation and learning around diversity initiatives. As I was attending different sessions, I started thinking about my own diversity experience and how it has impacted me, professionally and personally. Then, I had the opportunity to attend a learning lab about 'Bringing Your Whole Self to Work'. Now, I have been to this class before but it had been awhile so I thought it would be good to go through it again. As I sat in the class, thankful that I have such accepting and supporting friends, family and colleagues, I couldn't help but think about the challenges that still exist. And I as I heard people talk about how hard it was to be out at work, or even outside of work, I started thinking about the experiences I had been though and how I had managed them.

As I thought more about being "out" and what that means I realized that while I am out, I still find myself keeping quite a bit in the closet. As I started really thinking about it, it began to feel like the storage closet you have at home - while it may be overflowing with things you need to throw away, it is full of things you just cannot bear to let go of. Simple things like holding my girlfriend's hand in public or not having to think about her "title" before I introduce her to others. More complex things like standing up to someone when they say I have it easier because people don't assume I am gay or thinking about where our legal documents are in case I actually needed them in an emergency. And, just like that closet at home, it starts out organized and logical until you keep adding to it and it becomes a jumbled, mixed up mess that you have to sort through just so you can find what you actually need.

I am a TV watcher - not ashamed to admit that my DVR stays full of shows that I like to watch so I often have analogies from those many shows. So bear with me - I do have a point in this! Remember on 'Friends' when Chandler and Monica move in together and she has the secret closet that he thinks has presents in it but it is really her secret messy closet? See, Monica wanted everyone to believe the outward part of her - organized (some might even say obsessive - 17 categories of towels!?!) and neat. But despite wanting to be that all the time, she still has a closet full of chaos and pack-rat behavior that she couldn't let go of!

Or in the movie, 'Sex and the City' when Carrie says to Big (when he asks if she wants a ring): 'no, just get me a really big closet' and then we see all sorts of references to her life and closets throughout the movie, like shoving her wedding dress (and her feelings) to the back of her closet or the single pair of shoes waiting for company in that big, huge closet. I guess my point is that while the GLBT community may have dibs on the term 'coming out of the closet', we all struggle with parts of ourselves that are sometimes easier left in the closet, or at least stored on a shelf for a bit.

See, once I came out of the closet, I thought "whew, I did it"...until I realized (very quickly!) that coming out is something you do again and again and it takes as much energy and courage each time as it did the first time. So, for me, the storage closet became a convenient little place to manage the different aspects of being out - tell people that I have a partner (out of the closet) but don't talk about our life together (storage).

So, I have decided to start cleaning out that closet - start throwing out those things that I just don't need to hang onto anymore and taking those things I really do cherish and value and stop shoving them into a closet...call it spring cleaning for my soul. Sounds great, right? Well, just like that closet at home, it is much easier to think about tackling it and how it will be so much more open and spacious when you are done but then reality sets in. Where do I start? How can I throw this out? Do I have room for this somewhere other than the closet? Isn't this more valuable than being stuck in the closet? And, along the way, I think I might just stumble upon one or two things that had been forgotten and be glad that I discovered them again.

Just like my coming out experience, I think the closet cleaning will be more of a journey than a one-time event - I mean, who doesn't end up filling back up that newly clean and organized space with stuff again? But, I think this time I will fill it up with stuff that is okay to be in there instead of hiding stuff that I should be proud to have out.

2010 - The Year of Molly

I know that I am late in posting this - I had all intentions of having this done and posted at the beginning of 2010 but then, well, 2010 happened. So here I am, into March already, just getting the post written. I decided that 2010 is my year - my year for health, balance and growth. Big goals but, broken down, they feel much more manageable. I have never been big on New Year's resolutions - I find that the thought of trying to accomplish something over the course of a year ends up being ambiguous and easy to get distracted from achieving it. So, in 2010 I have set monthly goals for myself - each month focusing on starting something, stopping something and trying something new.

My health is my number one priority this year - not just losing weight or eating better - but truly focusing on my total well-being.

January started with the challenge of start working out 3x's a week, stop eating fried foods and drinking soda and try meditation. I was on the road the entire month of January so I knew that this was a big challenge to start the year but remember, it is the Year of Molly! I successfully stopped eating fried foods and drinking soda and tried meditation (which I am continuing because my sleep is greatly improved from it). While I did not get to 3x's a week with work outs, I did get at least 2 workouts a week in and continue to push myself to reach 3x's by the end of March.

While many of the challenges are directly related to my health - better eating, exercise, etc., I am also focused on some new growth and new opportunities - like meeting 10 new people, trying new classes at the gym, taking a cooking class or investing in a new fund. See, what I realized as life was breezing by was that I was forgetting to have some fun with it, take care of me and find a way to balance my professional and personal goals with one another. Don't get me wrong - this past week, too much work, not enough sleep, some not great food choices, some great food choices and a little exercise is still not the perfect Year of Molly, but knowing where I want to go, and having some fun goals to challenge my along the way, sure makes it all more fun!

So, I will try and post some more updates about the challenges - March includes starting spinning back up at the gym and playing racquetball with Christy - lots of activity! And, if the weather keeps up an actual bike ride may happen too!

Here's to the Year of Molly - and that it is as much fun as it can be!

Finding My Right Path

I have been thinking about writing this post for awhile and kept getting side-tracked as life happened around me. Fall is my favorite time of year for so many reasons, college football, my birthday, which always signals a new year for me, the change of season, with gorgeous fall colors and cooler weather and the start of school. Because I consider this time of year my annual fresh start, I have been spending a lot of time assessing where I am and what is my right path. Two months later, I am finally finding time to stop, catch my breath and capture my thoughts.

I got turned down for two jobs in October, yep TWO jobs. Despite knowing that the right job is still out there, and that I currently have a job I love, it was a blow to my ego. I have been asked why I was looking if I love my job and there is no simple answer, but it was an opportunity that I needed to put my name in the hat for if I want to achieve the career plan I have for myself. I know I would have been fantastic in either position but I also know that I have to trust that my path is still being created so this was not the end of it, just a detour. So, after a night or two or feeling sorry for myself, I got up and decided that I would get back to finding my path. I started by asking myself why the job was such a blow to my ego - I mean, my whole identity is not wrapped up in my career, is it? Maybe it was time for some introspection...

When I stepped back a little, I realized that, for me, finding my right path might come outside of my career - not that I can't find great opportunities in my career but my personal path should be about so much more than that. Then, I had the chance to do two things last month: plan an event for Read for the Record at the YWCA Family Center and attend the YWCA's annual Woman to Woman luncheon. Suddenly, I realized what I needed to get on my right path and it meant going back to my passion for service and volunteerism. Reading to 23 small children and seeing the sheer joy and excitement in their faces as we read the story, created our own antennae and made collages was one of those moments you can only truly appreciate if you are in it.

So, my career path is still there and I am not ready to let it get overgrown from lack of care and attention, but I think I am closer to finding my right path, right here in my community. I am taking my first steps down this path and I cannot wait to see where it leads. No matter what, I know that this path will bring me new challenges and personal growth, and hopefully some new friends and mentors along the way.

Personal Downsizing

With the economic picture still continuing to present challenges to many of us, I began thinking about the idea of downsizing and how it relates to me personally. Downsizing is often used when the circumstances have forced it, like a company that must lay off employees to avoid going out of business or a couple that must move from their home to avoid foreclosure. The idea of downsizing always seems to have a negative connotation to it and I started thinking about how that could change if we started proactively downsizing, starting with our personal lives. Do I really need three TVs in the house? What about two cars to drive? Could Christy and I manage our lives with one car to share? Would we be able to handle the planning and and forethought that might have to occur, no more jumping in a car at a moment's notice to run to the store or grab a bite to eat? I started a mental inventory of all the places where personal downsizing could happen in my life and what the net impact would be. I started thinking about how much nicer it might be to open a closet or drawer and not feel it precariously stuffed and filled, with a single wrong move possibly bringing the whole thing down. Would it really bother me to wear the same several tops to work meetings? Would anyone I work with even notice? (Disclaimer: I do work with mostly men on a regular basis! So, I began the process of assessing what we could downsize.

Decision One: company car. I am no longer driving enough miles to warrant a company car, which meant we would have to buy another car or live with one?

Decision: downsize, one car.

Decision Two: what can we live without? This is a longer process, going through closets, noticing items that have not been used in months, streamlining our home life. We did accomplish a big part of this when we moved, but the accumulation seemed to start all over in the new house. Do we need all this stuff? I took a first step in this area when I chose to check out the public library and discovered that it is a great resource for books (and much easier on the budget too!) but now it is time to go to the next level with it.

Decision: room to streamline, finding motivation to do it.

Decision Three: keep chaos at bay. I find that when organization fails, accumulation starts. So, the motivation will have to reach beyond cleaning and purging and lead all the way to implementing a new process for organization.

Decision: organization at home is coming...

So, that is the start of my personal downsizing - it also includes some lifestyle downsizing, trimming the excess and finding the fun and value in simplicity. I think that this idea of personal downsizing is going to be an adventure, challenging me to think about my choices and to keep asking myself, need or want? And, while there will still be some indulging the wants, I think that being thoughtful about them will make me appreciate them even more. Now, off to work on organizing and cleaning (and hopefully purging!) in the house...