Five years I’ve eaten predominantly raw food and 95% vegan. The remaining non vegan 5% is what I put in my mouth and digested of the food I prepare for my children, the love of my life and in the restaurant I worked. During the yoga teacher training in Nepal two years ago, dinners consisted of cooked instead of raw vegetables. Other then that I discovered my body and health on a raw vegan food diet. When I started it, due to a kidney cleanse cure I set myself to years ago while on holiday in Ibiza, I thought I’d last three months. However interesting but what we think, what we think we are able to and what we expect in general is not what this is about. 

When people ask me why I was on a raw vegan diet, I would say: ‘out of curiosity, to see how my body reacts to no animal protein at all’. The curiosity a result of twenty years of vegetarianism which would incessantly cause people to exclaim:’but what about your protein?’

Vegetarian and vegan diets are challenging for me in a weird way. Because the number one rule if it comes to food for me, is: ‘deliciousness, taste, satisfying the senses’. So why the heck do I not throw in everything? 
I like to prepare a fulfilling meal from nothing but left overs and random fridge content

I like minimialism, less is more

I like real authentic stuff as opposed to pretensions and decadence
After five challenging and fulfilling years, I change now. I’ve learned how much energy is saved when I do not have to digest dead food. I’ve proven to live without animal protein and according to people’s comments, look fantastic at the age of fifty while not eating animals, gluten or refined sugar.

Why do I change? Because I am no longer afraid to sit still, to let myself go do nothing for a while but being content, happily digesting food and nothing else: Wu Wei. Stream like liquid, no blockages, let love come.
Last night’s dahl:
150 gr Red lentils

1 patato

1 white onion

Vegetable stock cube

1 tsp. turmeric

1 tsp. cumin seeds
Cook 20 minutes
Add sliced zucchinni, black and green olives, any green leave vegetable or cabbage, 

Cook for another 5 minutes

Garnish with olive oil, pepper, salt to taste and 1/2 cubed avocado
This morning’s smoothies (2 recipes): 

With handheld stick blender:

Primero

1 banana 

1 tbsp peanutbutter

Particles of half a grapefruit + juice

Secondo

1/2 avocado

1 tbsp peanutbutter

150 ml oat milk

Tsp turmeric

2 dried apricots

By The Sea – they call themselves ‘fresh fish kiosk’, it’s the best place we’ve been so far. Where? In Gozo. When did we arrive here? At the little island next to Malta’s main island, called Gozo. We’ve left Australia two months ago. Since a few days the feeling of having landed here at the island of Gozo, set in. When I fly, my physical body arrives at the destination at some point. My metaphysical self takes a few days more to catch up and re-enter my body. The further I fly, the more synchronized the two are. A twenty four hours flight from Europe into the Southern Hemisphere almost makes the two set foot on the ground in union. Two years ago I left Europe for Australia. Immigration into Australia had not really crossed my mind. Enchanted as I was, completely taken, blown away by meeting the love of my life. I experienced why we do not talk about finding or discovering love. It is falling in love, with the emphasis on falling. Falling deep, deeper, deepest until at some point resurrection sets in. Rebirth into a new form, a new shape, having shed off old skin like a snake, transforming from a caterpillar into a butterfly.I experienced emigration from an old existence as one thing and immigration into a new existence as something else. And surely it didn’t have anything to do with the immigration lawyers, the work permit and finding a house. As opposed to the emigration out of my old existence, immigration into Australia wasn’t successful. Immigration into a new existence however, is. Difficult to discern the difference between the two. At least for me it was. Didn’t failing a successful immigration process in Australia stand for failing the love of my life? How to Move Out of Love could have been the disastrous title of the ‘based on a true story’ novel that would have been published by me. Moving from one place to another, moving out of the country, moving as opposed to standing still and succumbing. If it weren’t for the victory of love. I am grateful without limits. I moved my physical existence from the Australian province called Victoria, to the main town of the little Mediterranean island Gozo, called Victoria. What? Yes my youngest daughter and I moved from Safety Beach at the Mornington peninsula, Victoria, Australia to the central town Victoria at the island of Gozo, part of the Maltese group of three islands. Lazy littlest waves glide rhythmically on shore, here at the Mediterranean inlet called By The Sea. A movie with Brat Pitt and Angelina Jolie is set and named after this place. However that doesn’t do it for me. The memory and resemblance with the calm littlest waves that glide on shore at the bay in Safety Beach, eighty kilometers South of Melbourne, our safe haven for half a year, does struck me. Seas and salty water, tanned boat people, silent fishermen, salt on my skin and reflections on a mirroring surface connecting me with an ancient yet never static place, somewhere beyond it all. Who thinks mindfulness is a nowadays invention? 

 
Maurice tells me he’s afraid of women. Women are different from men. Life is about being together. In a world where you can’t count on any thing physical, the interaction between humans becomes the only safeguard. There’s no money to acquire possesions. There’s no economy that cultivates produce. Getting your daily food and beverage is as much of a hazard as loving a woman is. Maurice lives by himself in a hut in a tiny little village some five hundred kilometres nord-east of Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo. He’s born in the capital and knows his way around. But he prefers to cater for his own sustenance at the country side rather then being dependent on others in the city.

On est ensemble Maurice repeats. If I can do something for you, I will do it. If you can do something for me, you do it. The context is Congolese Africa. There isn’t much secure in live. Fellow human beings can form a safe guard if they intent to. Loyalty becomes dominant in a place where hunger, governement corruption and sorcery rule. Food and beverage is to be shared rather then consumed. But mainly it’s about time spent together, being together. Even if there’s nothing to be shared but silence. Individual impressions, thoughts and emotions being processed sitting side by side in each others presence. 

We meet Maurice early in the morning in front of our basic room provided by the priests of a mission post not far from his village. He’s wearing dark shades, a long dress and a little red radio. The peaceful silence at the little monastery is overruled by African music radiating from his device. Maurice is talking philosophy. Sometimes his words are hard to follow. Which makes it even more compelling to listen to him. From the moment he comes to see us until days later, when we leave the country per speedboat crossing the Congo river, he and his little red radio accompany us. By expressing this words I might be able to make the experience everlasting. As if time and distance are relative. Which actually they are.

The shower water feels soft on my skin. The Maltese people I meet seem soft. Which is rather strong as opposed to weak or the opposite of brave. They come across as soft hearted, soft personalities and care-ful. My skin feels soft. There’s not much water pressure which makes the water sprinkle gently on my soft skin. The water is just a little too warm but I prefer to keep it that way. As if it intensifies the sensation I feel on my skin. I enjoy it. I need the gentleness. Soft because of the lack of pressure. It’s what I came to Malta for. Without knowing it. When people are not under pressure, they are soft and gentle. When people are under pressure they get edgy and hard. Senses that need to be sedated or distracted to not suffer from the pressure. Senses that crave to engage with the natural flow of growing plants, rolling waves and floating clouds. To escape the pressure. A slightly too warm soft sprinkling of fine water drops on my skin is today’s resolution.

Next to the Hotel Windsor I am sitting in the sun behind glass. It feels much like being at a Dutch beachcafe early in the season. Only some elderly people take or have time to drink a coffee in the first warm sunrays of the year. Well protected against Northern winds by glass window panes. Cafe Excello’s window panes are made of translucent heavy plastic. The sunlight that shines through has a golden lustre. This is down town city business centre Melbourne opposite the public transport hub Parliament Station. A brisk autumn clarity with the sun shining bright and the usual late morning hussle and buzzle. Which in down town Melbourne is almost as easy going and soothing as the sight of a sunflowerfield in Southern France. 

Another time, which now seems ages ago,  another life time even, I bided my time in the same cafe. It was during the last hours I had to spend by myself while waiting to go to the airport, to return to Amsterdam, where I still lived back then. While I write lived, I realize I wasn’t alive in Amsterdam. At least I wasn’t alive in the way I am alive here. Is that because my heart had moved here already and everything else was yet to follow? Or had I stopped living in Amsterdam way before I met the love of my life and before he enabled me to re-take life? Revisit it like I revisit Café Excello now. The transition that took off upon falling in love with him confronts me with a lot of unfamiliarity, with feelings of loss, being lost and a loneliness because of no longer being alone. Which seems to make no sense. But only because of the presence of a significent other one distinguishes what it is to be alone. I reckon new beginnings involve a lot of death and dying.  What isn’t aligned with my heart ceases to draw me in. No more compromising, no more compromises, all cards on my lucky number. In order to get started, to only get started with playing the game, with living life again. I engage. First with him. Then slowly to slowly with other things that form part of my life. I vibrate. Sometimes in terror and agony but more then that, I feel again. He allows me to. The moments I spend with the love of my life make up for the losses. It’s as devastating as it is a sumptuous release without precedent. It’s excellent.

I guess we suffer for love because love wants us to. True love really is too good to be true. So at least it needs some re-balancing by agony, hardship and warfare. Basically it demands unconditionally all we are able to throw in: the highest most exquisite pleasures versus the lowest darkest hours. I have started living again. Feelings of bliss, gratitude and falling completely to pieces alternate, making their way into homeostasis, the new balance, him and me. It’s the most satisfying and challenging journey I’ve been on, throughout my entire life.

Back in Café Excello after two years. My heart manages to get things aligned. It does need more time to get it all done. Meaning more hope, expectations and set backs to live through, but I trust the process. I just listened to a talk about trust. I didn’t agree with the speaker. It’s about finance and ethics, organised by the Dutch Chamber of Commerce in Melbourne, hosted in The Windsor Hotel. We were less then thirty people. I did feel maybe for one of the first times in my adult life, part of an association, of a group, having recently signed up as a member of the Dutch Chamber of Commerce in Australia. There’s no commitments or responsabilities involved. It’s just because I am, here to stay. After I followed my heart. Which is enabled and allowed by the love of my life. Bringing forth feelings of intense gratitude. Revisiting Café Excello leads to the awareness of a spark of excellence, with golden beams of sunlight reflected in an empty waterglass at the table in front of me, stricking beauty of life, of love and of the magnificent power of the heart.

What’s an agreement and why does it take time and sometimes effort to reach an agreement? Is an agreement basically a compromise? I like red. You like white. Is the agreement we drink rosé? No. That is a compromise. If I don’t get what I want you also should not get what you want. Both maneageable unhappy is what we call a compromise. A compromise makes us survive. As opposed to truly live, be happy, be angry and reach agreements out of disagreements. It seems to me we tend to focus on compromises. Today the ‘flow of things’ is important and should not be obstructed, at least not completely. In our personal relationships we say yes to what ‘the other’ wants in order for the other to say yes to what we want ourselves. The constant deliberating, debating and dealing becomes the dynamic of the relationship. We find it more important to be heard and our wishes and desires to be taken into account, then that they are being met. We compromise ourselves eagerly. Dealing, debating, arguing, resolving matters is a dynamic and to me it seems one of the most common forms of relationships between individuals, governements and most important, couples. If you say yes, you agree. If you say no, you disagree. Disagreement calls for war or desertion into the dessert of one’s own self. Are you comfortable being alone with yourself in disagreement with the world outside you and/or with  your significant ‘other’ ? During puberty we are. After that we are supposed to no longer (be) like that. So we compromise. We compromise our wishes and desires, we compromise with each other, we compromise the past, the future and the present. It goes without notice, no yelling, no tears. So much better then reaching an agreement over things you don’t agree upon. Or is it maybe worthwhile to sweat, cry and express yourself, to retain your sanity through confrontation, to wade through mud, master dragons and suffocate in order to reach the destination of The Agreement as the defenite and purposeful ending or resolving of the habitual disagreement. We’ve all got our own agendas, fortunately. Like humanity got into a spur because of differentation of professions, we might want to adhere to our differences of opinion rather then forging them into badly fitting merges by way of compromising. 

– soft whispering in the background: 

Soft and snappy: ‘This is so not peaceful’

Esoteric and melodious: ‘It goes entirely against the flow’

With a sigh: ‘Unheard of’

Further away: ‘Indeed! Unheard of…’

-until the mumbling fades 

It took a long time before I could surrender to the yoga practice. This monday morning where the world is grey, at peace and beautiful. ‘Why did I not ask you what is the matter? Surely something is, otherwise you wouldn’t have called me’.When I manage to let go, I am surprised by how agile my body is. Mind and body manifest the same tightness. When the one breaks loose, the other does the same. It does needs a mental breakdown during the practice right after you’d called me and I’d hung up on you, to make me aware of it.

Before I realize it my thoughts become agressively imposing: ‘Reina, he’s simply looking for distance, you also need to hold back’. ‘No, you’re just saying that because you didn’t see him yesterday and will see him only for a small amount of time today’.’You better move to New Zealand Reina. His whole divorce thing is going to take at least another year. You better use that time wisely. And if he eventually pulls it around and comes along, be happy. You can’t depend or rely on him now. He’s far too worried and preoccupied himself now’. Terminating the train of thought with: ‘We will not have breakfasts together, we will not go out together, we will not spend time making a new life together anywhere soon’. My body stretches furiously, seeking to expand, become one with the surrounding space, tapping into the group energy. Meanwhile I find myself in a semi-continuous state of being on the verge of crying. Until three oms finish it off and I step outside the world of body and mind.

I don’t want to let go of it as yet, deciding once more to visit a massage salon. To relief pain in the neck caused by a serious car accident I got me and my two daughters into some weeks ago. But each time I let myself be distracted, thinking it’s not important enough to pay attention to and so I didn’t make it to the recovery table yet. I am heading for The Vigorous Thai, passing a promising Turkish grocery store. The produce on show make me happy. I let myself be lured in, ordering Bulgarian sheep cheese, medjoul dates and kalamati olives. When I pick mint and cilantro out of a cooled show case, the owner stops me and asks me to follow him to the back. We enter a large dark and cool space right behind the store that looks like a giant mechanic place more then the storage of a foodshop. From card board wholesale boxes on the concrete floor, he pulls out freshly delivered neatly binded herbs and hands them to me. The scent is lovely. Then he quickly sends me back into the store: ‘Hush, before you give me a heart attack’. I laugh and thank him. ‘I not only sell you the ingredients, I’d cook them for you too. Just to keep you here’. He follows me back into the shop, uttering more compliments: ‘ridiculous, you should be forbidden’. His words energize me. Leaving the shop, I have forgotten about the massage and I finally sit down to text you.