Stay Hungry, Part 1

(Note: This is the 1st entry in a 4-part series.)

I have recently enjoyed the book “Eat Pray Love,” and, although one of my friends warns that you must be at least 47 years old to read it and I am only 29, I have found a burst of inspiration which will, I think, give a good angle on our wild and woolly winter break. In her memoir, Elizabeth Gilbert has an entire four months to pursue pleasure for its own sake across the landscape of Italy. She wrote so engagingly of these experiences that I wanted to do the same thing, albeit on a much smaller scale (3 weeks to her 12) and a less provocative one (2 weeks of frost-bitten tundra as opposed to, well, ITALY.) Still, to be fair, we did make it to Greece, plus I was not compelled to give up sex like she was, so I guess we’re even.

First off, pleasure of pleasures, my brother Rory has spent the last three weeks with us and, as I write this, is hovering somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, hopefully on a comfortable chair which is also in an airplane which is also flying. We are already missing him enormously. (To comfort ourselves, we have been yawning loudly, and then following it up with an apathetic “shit,” just to feel like he’s still here.)

Secondly, on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we were surrounded by the love and warmth of new friends: our endlessly hospitable neighbor and friend Geri (who makes a mean pot of soup, coffee, eggnog, spiced wine, and probably anything else that comes in a pot) and a few other groovy women from the university (who despite their youth can bake like uber-grannies). Thanks to them and to Rory’s visit, our Lithuanian Christmas actually felt like Christmas. The bad part was that, because it felt just like Christmas, I did what I do every Christmas: I gorged myself within an inch of participating as a blimp in the New Year’s Day Parade. Only I would not be a floating blimp. I would be a tipsy blimp that gets dragged behind the truck and eventually explodes like a garbage bag full of vegetable soup.

I don’t know why I do this, but I think it has something to do with a misplaced pursuit of pleasure. The problem is, it doesn’t please me; it makes me miserable. It could be that Christmas brings with it so many idealized expectations-love and peace and joy and the hope that, for one day at least, we will all experience a sense of rest and fulfillment. I guess as a recovering fundamentalist and Midwesterner, I take the “fulfillment” part too literally and promptly belly up to the 24-hour saturated sugar-salt-fat buffet. But it’s more than that. I think it has to do with the dualistic nature of my thinking.

It’s a pretty common phenomenon to separate our concepts into two columns: hate vs. love, black vs. white, right vs. wrong, etc. It’s a quick and easy way of stating one’s views and coming to a fragile understanding on a subject. The problem is, of course, that reality is not that simple. Case in point: me listlessly devouring a Christmas feast (and Christmas cocktails) for four, then realizing how horrible I felt, and then continuing. You see, sometimes I still struggle to understand that there are options beyond asceticism vs. libertinism, binge vs. purge, and tee totaling vs. walking into doorjambs and making embarrassing jokes that I will regret later in a hazy reminiscence. (Note to concerned parental figures: I am not, nor ever will be, either bulimic or alcoholic.)

This dichotomizing happens most notably with my concepts of work and leisure. Now, first I should say that I adore my work, especially the work that I am doing here in Lithuania. However, I still have this nagging belief that because work is challenging, difficult, unpleasant, and rigid (even though it’s not), vacation should be the opposite: an effortless, easy, pleasure-filled free-for-all. Unfortunately, this usually translates to me force-feeding all of the lesser parts of my nature until I end up resembling a skinny female Jabba the Hutt who takes up her fleshy residence on the couch and refuses to budge.

Having realized this tendency once again, I resolved to do things differently this vacation. Rather than surrender to a 3-week-long state of collapse, I would seek that evasive middle road that I usually only encounter in passing, while I am ricocheting from one extreme to another.

Rory’s visit helped. Despite the ice and snowdrifts and bitter, bitter wind, he was determined to take in everything he possibly could during his time here, and I, his loving sister and hostess, necessarily took part as well. Together we wandered through the outdoor sculpture park snapping photos until we lost all feeling in our appendages. One day we rose at 6 to take a 7 am ferry across the lagoon and hop a freezing bus down to Nida, a quaint fishing village near Kaliningrad. We attended a show at the Dolphinarium on the spit. We traveled to Palanga and visited the Amber Museum, then walked the streets with steaming cups of hot beer and wine. We sampled all of the other Lithuanian delights as well: kepta duona (fried rye bread with cheese, mayonnaise, and garlic), cepelinai (meat-stuffed potato dumplings), Svyturys Baltas (the local beer), koldunai (yet another meat-stuffed dumpling creation), karstas sokoladas (Lithuanian hot chocolate, which is like a cup straight from Willy Wonka’s chocolate river), and smoked piggy ears, which I would not recommend even to my mortal enemy.

During our outdoor adventures, I was struck chiefly by one thought: I AM COLD. And I mean COLD. We don’t have a car, and bus stops are far apart, so even if you use public transportation, you still have to walk a lot. Also, many places, especially buses, are poorly heated, so when you are inside them, you can still see your breath freeze. Your frozen fingers and toes only go from numb to aching, never from numb to warm.

In our walk through the sculpture park, Rory mentioned the phrase “stay hungry,” which I mistakenly attributed to a German philosopher instead of its true source: a Twisted Sister album with a demented man on the cover profanely licking a giant bone. (Sorry, Grandma.)



I’m glad that I didn’t know about this album cover because this phrase, for me anyway, does hold some wisdom. It reminds me that living fully (i.e. pleasurably) demands a certain level of discomfort. It also reminds me that we disengage from life when we invest all of our time and resources in avoiding any such discomfort. Children know this instinctively when they freeze their little butts off in the snow for the sheer joy of play, but as adults we often forget. Despite the impending frostbite, I repeated this phrase over and over to myself, making it my new mantra. “Stay hungry, stay cold. Stay hungry, stay cold.” Of course, I was hoping that, once we made it to Greece, pleasure would flow in brimming rivers of milk and honey. As usual, I was the slightest bit off.