About Gratitude, mostly.

I forgot to eat breakfast the other day. 

Gentle readers, you may also be in the position to occasionally forget to eat breakfast. The day gets suddenly busy, your routine deviates slightly from the norm, or you just have more to do than usual. And since your last meal was dinner the evening before, your cellular fuel stores are still stoked, and although you probably even feel hungry, it is in the back of your mind, and you don't really notice it. Your morning is busy enough that you don't realize you haven't eaten, because it's just part of your routine. Like toothbrushing or shaving. Or yoga. You think you've done it.

When 12 rolled around and I was picking my son up from pre-school, my stomach gave an uncharacteristically hollow yowl -- nothing so dignified as a growl for me -- and I realized I felt unusually ... depleted.  I thought for a moment, then realized I'd completely missed breakfast. This made me smile because it made me grateful. Grateful to live in a situation in which survival is so easy that it has become mundane and I don't even think about it. Grateful that my challenges don't include sustenance and shelter. Those are, quite simply, assumed (without making a you know what out of u and me). I pretty much take breakfast -- and every other meal I eat -- for granted.

Mising breakfast is unusual for me. I'm not usually a meal skipper. I'm definitely not a breakfast skipper. I don't necessarily buy into the idea that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I certainly believe in eating when I'm hungry, and usually, after 12 to 14 hours without eating, I am.

I've been thinking lately about food. Perhaps not a newsflash, since I do write a food blog, do nearly all our grocery shopping, cook all our food, and eat three times a day. But I've been thinking about the larger connotations of food.

Food has become so easy for most of us. We don't need to struggle to survive here in our warm homes, most of us any way. Most of us can take three squares for granted, and not even think about it. Most of us are drowning in a sea of excess -- not wasting away, desperately trying to find a few calories to shove into our offsprings' mouths.

My small son has never known hunger.

There are families the world over who exhaust themselves trying to eke out a living. There are families everywhere whose children languish despite their efforts. There are families down the street or around the corner who spend their welfare cheques on oreos, wonder bread, and ciggies. And here I sit on my voluptuous backside taking proper nutrition and whole foods for granted, feeling smug as my three year old demands sea weed for breakfast.

There are people who don't know where their next meal is coming from, and parents who are forced to watch their children cry from hunger.

We are so freaking lucky.  We eat when we are hungry. We eat when we are not hungry. We eat when we are happy or sad or to celebrate or to console. We are in the position of taking food for granted.

We have imbued food with powers of healing, love, celebration, comfort, so many things far beyond the simple nourishment it provides.

We are lucky enough that sometimes we can even forget to eat.

Just for a moment I will sit here feeling thankful that I can take food, shelter, and safety for granted. And then I will forget about them again and go about my busy day, so mundane have these things become for me.

Today I think I will bear my good fortune in mind and give food to the food bank and hope that others might be fortunate enough to forget to eat breakfast too.

Today I will think of the people world over who are starving, and maybe I will come up with a way to help them. Right now, I have no idea. I know it's an issue fraught with corruption and politics, and I have no idea what to do to help the starving babies.

The history of all societies is marked by times of strife, war, trial, famine, and then times of excess and success. Is it enough to just think about it, or can we actually do something to change the course of other people's lives?

I donate blood and give food and money to people who don't have in some small attempt to salve my guilt for having health and the means to earn a living when there are many who have not, or is it out of gratitude for having? Either way, does it make a difference? Are there people whose lives have been changed by what I've done, or is the biggest impact of my efforts only on me? Does it even matter?

I am trying to teach my child humility, pride, self-worth, and gratitude. I am trying to teach myself that.

I've read two books that changed the way food looks to me. I read 'In Defense of Food' and 'The Omnivores Dilemma' both by Michael Pollan. I had never considered the political ramifications of food before, the intrinsic greed and corruption of food production, and the importance of conscientious choice. After a while it's exhausting and overwhelming, keeping straight which food companies are actually owned by Big Tobacco and Big Pharma. I try to get everything I can directly from the farmers or their neighbours. That in itself is a political act, although I've never considered myself political.

In the end, it is simple. I am grateful that I can feed my family. I am grateful that my child has never known hunger, and probably never will.

I am grateful.

Now that survival has become so easy for us, we can focus our energies on other things. Acquisition of more wealth. Keeping up with the neighbours. Finding those perfect shoes. Or we can focus our competitive and spiritual energies on trying to make the world a better place not just for ourselves but for everyone around us. I won't pretend I know how to do that, and I'm not a believer in grand gestures. But I do think there is something to be said for baby steps, and taking opportunities where they arise.

And in the meantime I'm sending out warm wishes of happiness, health, serenity-- and of course gratitude -- to all of you and yours.

I am so freaking grateful.