A Life That Got In The Way

copyright 2011 Danise Codekas

I am reading about food in SF restaurants. Chocolate cake covered with chocolate, coconut ice cream. Long noodles and shrimp, grilled to perfection from a favorite restaurant over near South Beach. What is it about summer, that starts the taste buds dreaming,even though surrounded by fresh strawberries and Dulce De Leche covered alfajores, on this warm summer's day? Could it be that my life got in the way, and I forgot about those tastes which have led me to some amazing places for food, around the world?

I once spent an entire 3 weeks chasing and eating ice cream by driving down the Wailua Canyon Road to Kappa for a nightly, taste orgasm, for scoops of  Lappert's White Chocolate Macadamia Nut. I spent this weekend visiting a goat farm to meet the goats and meet the cheese making family,  because I fell in love with their family-made dill goat cheese. I am planning on spending a weekend learning how to make cheese, and get to taste different local wines, with fresh French bread spread with creamery butter which is made by a relocated Parisian baker, from the Marais district in Paris.

A friend has signaled me to join he and his new love, in San Fran, for a few days in order to partake of some food events that they will attend from SF to Mendocino. I asked him, why me, when they have all those rapid foodies jumping up from the mushroom patches, up and down the coast. He said that I make the most appreciative sounds when I eat or drink something superb. He said I look like I had really good sex and they can always tell when food is good, through the moans I make.

Yes, I moan when I eat. I come from a family of food connoisseurs. Chocolate and ice cream makers whose stores and restaurants, on the east coast made dentists very rich and happy. We owned cookie companies, too. My mother and father, in their travels around the planet, chose the best wines and ingredients for meals, which we still beg for on our birthdays. I have eaten on 5 continents, and remember meals, or drinks, finished under a rising sun, waning moon with a satiated smile.

I have eaten in places recommended by food editors, only to be sadly disappointed, since the one or two dishes reviewed, did not include the Chicken Dijon, which proved to be yuk. Yuk is a good word for ill-prepared, dry chicken that cost 45 Euros. Cheap, I know by some Arles standards, however, it was my dinner. The bad dinner garnered an invitation, to a local, family-owned gastronomical wonder, who prepared one of the best roast goat, cooked with pears and apples, ever tasted in Southern France. This dish jump started moans and beatific facial expressions for an evening, which earned me a wonderful, perfect creme brulee.

Sometime life does get in the way.You find out there was something it was leading you to, that you would have missed, had you not been disappointed, which led you to get all fired up about finding that perfect meal, or perfect word. Life is supposed to get in the way. How else do you know you are alive? I see a lot of women complaining about men who are breaking up with them.

The women fake light-heartedness, joy, and cop an attitude that it was a wonderful experience, and so much learned, and we are going to be such good friends and keep doing tai chi together. Then, a few weeks later, the break down occurs and they start making the guy feel guilty so he might re-start with her, and save her from her lonely, sad self. Of course, a lot of men do go back and then after a year or so, it all erupts again.

I think they are fools, since the reasons they broke up were always evident. They chose not to look at them because of the high they were both experiencing with bragging to all their friends on Twitter, or lots of sex, or glowing in feeling like a power couple. They crash and burn so fast. They were never in love and simply in love with the idea of love and not being alone. It takes a really strong man to admit he made a mistake and back out of an engagement, when he realizes the truth about the woman.

Realizing it is not love, is just as hard as knowing when it is. The trick is to understand you can make a mistake with the old paradigms in your head, and a woman can walk around with a fairy tale prince ideal for her entire life. She will adore you, give her identity up, to lure you into marriage, and then if all else fails, post bikini shots on her web page, tell people you weren't ready, and act like she never had those insights into the fact that the relationship was not working from the get go, especially after having 4 or 5 repeat performances, with you, across the years.

Do men just get tired of looking for the right woman, for them, and give in to anyone who will close their eyes to the discordant notes of the relationship? Maybe men do get tired and just settle. God, you could be with someone who settled for you because he was too tired to go after exactly the woman he wanted and be happy. I have screwed up relationships.

I am a human, remember. I cannot imagine choosing someone because he was rich and famous and good in bed. True, I would be a fool, not to, however, it all comes down to that real connection stuff, that no money, fame or sex buys. That moment of looking in someone's eyes and making that connection from the pit of your existence.Does that happen anymore? Or are we so excited about how cool it is to be read by so many people, on our web pages, which attracts some pretty cool people, who may be highly interested in meeting and hooking up, for a while, that we forget that it really does have to be human touch. There has to be a meeting and a standing in front of, in order to know if the energy is real between the two of us. Doesn't there??

A Life Got In The Way of mine, many times. We were drawn to one another for various reasons, attractions, needs. Those lives which got in the way of mine were there to help me get to here. I stopped and spent time with them for a while, and cannot say I regret those stops along the way, because they do not matter any more. It was just an experience which my life needed in order to grow, bend, stretch, dissolve and renew. Just like a yoga pose.

Here in the first position, then bend my flesh around my bones and bring more breath into my lungs and heart, and feel pain somewhere I cannot touch, and release a breath, relax and take in an entire new gulp of air molecules which blast me into the heavens. Kind of like a taste of Gracias Madre's perfect Chocolate Cake with cacao-cinnamon sauce and toasted coconut ice cream.


It all looks good, tastes delicious, however, sometimes you need to sample each part separately and see how it all fits together. I have made some great choices in my life, too. I like to remember them. I am glad a life got in the way, so that my taste refined, my body drew towards true attraction of a man, and there is one less sad woman's blog, stating "it was his fault he was not ready" crawling around the internet.

If a life gets in your way, well, you stopped at that cross road, on the road you chose to meet that life on. Quit blaming someone else, who did not love you the way you needed to be loved. It was your game that produced the results.