Love is all you need: Ruby Red Juice

I used to think that love is all you need. Love was enough, would fix anything, transform, nurture, save and secure. Love conquered, rescued, nursed, took care, listened, asked and held. Love could envelop, wrapping you in cotton wool while setting you free at the same time. What a magical world love lived in.

As a kid, I thought these things because it's what princes did in cartoons and Fred Astaire did for Ginger Rogers. I'd watch the longing and the bliss play out on screen as she carried out all the tap shift moves he did, only backwards. As a teenager, I read books about protagonists searching for something in themselves, in their lives, overcoming battles in their world and in their minds and understood that it was love for their beliefs, for another, for their country or for themselves that drove them beyond fear and into courage. I listened to music that stirred feelings in my soul of the joy and pain that love caused in and out of daily routines, how it led to Bon Iver hiding away in a forest for a year only to burst out of the woods reborn with a new voice, pain and joy hand in hand. I listened to JJ Cale and BB King and Nina Simone, Fleetwood Mac and The Frames. They all taught me the shifting waves and tides that were inherent in the concept of love.

I understood, even then, that love wasn't as simple as two red curves dipping to a sharp, singular and well directed point at its end. It wasn't soft, precise perfection. Love had folds, curves, hidden angles and unexpected lulls. And love hurt. I knew that it hurt the most when it was unrequited. I clearly remember studying a Shakespearean sonnet at school, aged fourteen and learning the word, though I already knew what it meant. Unreturned, unloved, uncared for. It's what all those blues songs I listened to were ever about. It's all I ever worried about.

My definition of love was always manifold but my definition always pertained to my perspective. You see, my definition was everything I was willing to give a person I loved. I give everything of myself to those I love because I don't know any other way. It comes naturally to me to be that loving and caring. I feel empty when I don't. The problem is when I give so much to others to the point where they start to think my reserves are everlasting, that the love I have to give to friends, family and a partner are limitless, the reserve magically ongoing. So it came as a surprise to many when I would simply shudder, stall and stop, like a tired old van. Stop interacting, feeling, giving, loving. I'd gather my resources quickly so I could continue to support, care, listen and help so that they would all feel incredibly loved again.

I repeated this pattern because I was proud to be all about the love. So why was the one thing that I did naturally, with enthusiasm, pride and great energy, slowly but surely bringing me down? I've floated the idea around in my murky mind a lot in the last few years and always swam up to the surface, out of breath and without any answers. Until last week.

Writing my post last week, admitting to myself and everyone I love the true details of my depression and anxiety gave me the answers I was looking for to the great blue debate going on in my head. For so long, everything was about fear. Fear of unrequited love, misunderstanding, lost friendships, isolation and loneliness. By clicking the publish button, I challenged my biggest fear of all; telling people I loved the true extent of my problem. This act transformed and elevated the level of love I have in my life. Friends, family, workmates and travel buddies got in touch from near and far, publicly and privately to tell me how much they loved me. I received one message, call and text after another and two words shone through each and every message: brave and love.

And then I realised. I understood what had been bringing me down. I had been ignoring two basic needs: to admit to my friends how much their voicing of their love to me was important and how much I had neglected to love and appreciate myself. I would listen to the black king on his throne residing in my mind; the voice of unreasonable and cruel reasoning who told me no matter how much love I sent out, it would be unrequited. No matter how much I created, it wouldn't be good enough. No matter how much I cared, it wouldn't make a difference and no matter how much I tried to truly believe that I was worthy, loved, appreciated, cared for and unique, I was not good enough.

There is no way that I would ever speak to another person I love the way I allow that voice to speak to me. I would defend a loved one with my life if another spoke to them in that way, with those words and those sentiments. So why would I not encourage such praise and love and respect to be directed at me? Why would I not put the same thought, energy and care into myself and the unique person I am? Why wouldn't I just be myself?

The beautiful words of love I received from all over kick-started something unexpected. I'd like to get to know myself again, to learn what animates me, makes me smile, sing and create. I'd like to become friends with myself. Love is not just about prince charming or your passions. Each love quote is not about the other man or woman in your life. It starts with you. I don't think it's about finding a man I can lose myself in when I look into his eyes for a sense of recognition, understanding and acceptance. It's about looking at myself in the mirror and recognizing and embracing the person looking back at me. The black and the white. The dark and the light.

Today's recipe is about embracing that love. Beetroot looks like a forbidding, hard and unwelcoming vegetable but when eaten fresh, it has the most beautiful and earthly sweet and fragrant taste. The juice always looks so vibrant and energizing. It's like the perfect mix of masculine sturdiness and feminine vibrancy. Before the frost arrived, I dug up the last of my beetroot from the garden. Dark, rustic, ruby red, covered in wholesome clay, all the growth and energy that they had absorbed from the damp clay and the sunshine of the summer was captured in each round. I made this juice to capture the last of the autumn and to remember that energy comes from the sun and the air but also from below the surface, in the darkness and when mixed, the combination is vibrant and electric. Something to remember.

Ingredients:
Serves 2
1 fresh beetroot
2 apples
1 large chunk fresh ginger
1 pear
1 lemon

Method:
Wash all the fruit, peel the beetroot and chop them into manageable sizes for your juicer. Juice, add ice, serve and relax.


To everyone that sent their love my way, thank you x

Portugal Take 3: Lost

I've faced this page, ideas screaming around in my head for about two months now. It seems my last post, organizing the video, setting up the profile on the Dispensary, thinking back to times of travelling and realizing how I badly wanted to get away, were all just too much. That's what I told myself. That I needed a break from social media and hours spent organizing a blog post. I told myself I spent too much time online. That I needed to spend more time in the sea, in nature, out of the city, out of the mind bashing dizziness of everyday reality. Stress was the reason I felt like this.

I took a two week holiday to Portugal to surf and rest but five weeks before I was due to go and take a break from my life I had a panic attack and it drove me to run away from everything I knew and loved, everything I had worked towards because my whole life felt like it had been built on quicksand. I handed in my notice at work, I called my landlord and dear friend to tell him I was leaving. I struggled to see two and a half years squashed into the back of a car and I made a decision that I would never live in Dublin again, probably not even Ireland. I wanted to run away from it all.

It came as a surprise to most that I was leaving work and life in Dublin so suddenly but for me it was a ten month delay. Despite the lunches on Friday paydays, the access to cinemas and cool little cafes, runs in the park with friends, nights out and great students, I was predominantly miserable and I couldn't hold it in anymore. Friends knew I was struggling with my mamma's illness and that it tired me out but I only told one how I wanted so badly to run away from the whole thing.

The night before I was due to fly out, we had a going away of sorts. A few drinks and some food in a great Korean place around the corner. I was so thankful to the people that made the effort to turn up. There were some great friends who could only make it for five minutes or half an hour but their love, hugs and kind words were immense. The whole night felt like I was experiencing it through two different versions of myself. There was the smiley, well traveled, curios Grace who would miss her friends but was looking for a new adventure. She did her best to shine through the hidden world of loneliness, confusion and despair that belonged to the Grace who had built a life full of brilliant people, events and opportunities but still had a gaping hole in her life. I'm not even sure if I managed to convince people that I was excited and full of energy about going away and this new chapter I had haphazardly created for myself. When one friend gave me a hug and said, "I hope you find whatever it is you're looking for", it took every bit of energy I had not to choke with tears. When I went home to one last night in my little cottage in North Strand, a small thought of not going trickled into my consciousness. I pushed it away and forced myself asleep.

When I got to Portugal, the weather hit me with one storm after another.  It was miserable. I couldn't understand why I wasn't enjoying it. I moved to another town, the stunning 'island' of Baleal. The sun came out, along with freckles all over my face and for the first time in months, I could breathe properly again. I surfed and smiled but I didn't want to get to know the new people that would arrive every few days. I felt like a hyperactive fraud every time I opened my mouth to speak. Each sunset and surfable wave calmed my nerves, until they got ratcheted back up by night time and I would hide away in my dorm. 

I stayed on for four weeks. I missed my mamma's 60th birthday. I talked that day to most of my family. When my big sister got on the phone, she laughed down the line. "How are you?". "Where are you?". I laughed it off, said I was enjoying not knowing. That night I couldn't sleep and when I woke up the next morning, I sobbed silently because if I had been truly honest with myself, I would have answered "I'm not ok" and "I don't know where I am: I'm lost".

Through texts and facebook messages, emails and phone calls, I spent the next two days explaining to my family that I wasn't ok and that I needed to come home. I spent over three hundred euro on a stupid Ryanair flight because I couldn't cope with having to stay a minute longer alone. 

That was three and a half weeks ago. In that time, I've slept, cried and been more up front about my depression and anxiety than I've ever been in my life because for the last eighteen years, I've felt like a fraud, an unsuccessful emotional fraud. Every single time I tried to 'get on with it', 'put a face on', 'cop on to myself', 'get over myself', 'stop being so sensitive all the time' or 'smile through it', I've only ever managed to do it for a few months before I burnt out and failed miserably at life again. I'd not only lose out on what I loved at the time but I always ran the risk of losing friends who thought I didn't care, a job, money, a place to live and always, always, a part of my true personality and my self worth.

Now, at almost thirty years of age, my mind has had enough. It's as though there's a part of my personality, the inner part of me that hates the anxiety and depression has had enough of me and my decision to try and wash over it once the fitness or good food or counselling has kicked in. I realized that I can't keep crawling on my hands and knees emotionally. I've written about my depression and anxiety before but more along the lines of an anecdote but I can't take it anymore.

I'm fed up. I'm tired of feeling like this, of wondering when, if ever, happiness will extend to a majority in my mind and in my life. More importantly, I'm tired of pretending to the point where the pretense is beyond obvious. I've known that I'm obviously not the only one who suffers from mental health issues but I've never known anyone to admit it openly, to stop hiding. Then I read a book.

I stepped into a tiny bookshop and stared at the cover for a long time, my eye settling on the word 'demons'. I'd read about how Bressie had opened up about his mental health and anxiety disorder before. Then I judged. A rugby player, boyfriend to a model, professional musician, wealthy, respected. How could my anxiety possibly be related to his? I was enthralled. He felt the same about Mullingar, the schooling system, college life and relationships. Most importantly, he had lost sight of his values, of himself as an individual, of what was truly important to him. He had sacrificed his values for others, each time redefining his personality in their eyes. I just wanted to be good, to be loved, to be valued. I was willing to change everything about my personality to fit other people's expectations and my anxiety and depression were the painful repercussions of that habit. Toxic environments, stress, going against my opinions to be liked were all part of my life growing up. 

Then I would run away. I told myself I was travelling, trying out a new job, exploring other possibilities but in reality, I was running away from myself, my anxiety and depression. Afterwards, I would feel entirely alone and think that friends would now hate me, thinking I didn't care about them. Employers would think I was a waster. Teachers and lecturers would deem me a waste of time. My family would think of me as an overly sensitive, wayward and melodramatic child. These are the horrible thoughts that go through my head and for the last ten months, they've rolled on repeat. 

I read Bressie's book and last night, I watched Iron Mind. Watching another man from Mullingar talk about how if he could work through his mental anguish, he would be a different person jabbed me. He said he would be happier and less tired, instead of going to bed weary with tiredness. I knew what weariness felt like. A woman my age, beautiful and smiling with ebony hair, couldn't calm her mind even when she tried and another woman stared off into the distance as she spoke because there was so much pain there, she was numb. 

Coming home from Portugal, admitting to my family completely what was wrong, reading that book and watching Iron Mind all culminated last night in a decision. This will be the final time that I allow myself to be mentally so fatigued that I can't function. This is the last time I will devalue myself into burnt out, shy away from being completely frank about my mental health, live a balancing act of putting on a front when really I am numb. This is the last time I am running away from this part of myself. My mental health is worth more than some stop-start quick fix. If I'm to finally have a happy life and live the life I want, I need to accept that my mental health needs to be a priority. Just like a diabetic or asthmatic needs to monitor their health, I need to be open, honest and proactive about my mental medical needs. Even if that means facing my fear head on.

I feel like I'll scare people away, that friends will think I'm "too much", others will feel uncomfortable, maybe people I worked with or went to school with will wonder who the hell am I to write with such over the top honesty about something that should be kept private. I'm sorry if you feel that way. I'm writing all this because I can't stare at another blank blog post page, creativity blocked each and everyday because I can't cook, eat or photograph with even the remotest emotional energy for as long as I keep all this locked inside. Because the more that I ignore this pain, the deeper it becomes and the more havoc it causes in every aspect of the things that make me even slightly happy. Because if I'm to be brave enough to live with my mental health in a positive and nurturing away I have to stop being so afraid to share, to be so fearful of what everyone else thinks and how I will be judged. I have to start to realize that there are several beautiful friends and family who love me and who will read this and get in touch out of love. I have to stop being so damn scared all the time. And maybe, by writing this so publicly, other people who read this, who are going through the same agony, won't feel so alone.

Busylittlefoodie will still feature food, foraging, gardening, travel, people, places and recipes but I would feel like a fraud writing happily about blackberry jam or pasteis de nata in Portugal, accompanied by sunshine filled photos, if I didn't write all this first. I can't keep smiling for the sake of it. Hopefully this journey will be different from the last two and a half years of putting a band aid on a broken leg. I hope you'll stick with me.

Love, love, love

BLF x

20 little things

I'm not one to write short blog posts. Anyone who knows me understands my inability for conciseness and limitations when it comes to my writing or expressing myself. A good friend Mark's most well worn phrase with me is "the short version Grace".

I still have a yummy chocolate recipe that's going up tomorrow but I had to write this post in the meantime. I met the wonderful Clare from The Life of Clare eleven years ago on a remote island off the coast of West Cork. She was travelling on a one year gap year, coming all the way from Australia. Her backpack was bigger than she was. She was nerdy about farming and we instantly clicked. We kept in touch on and off over the years, facebook styly, but it wasn't until we both started taking foodblogging and instagram seriously that the friendship was rekindled. Thanks to instagram, our lives have become acquainted with each other again and it's magnificent.

I look forward to her photo updates and recipes on an almost daily basis now. She had a beautiful son a year ago now and her and her husband's style of parenting and living is beautiful. Clare is always coming up new and beautiful ways to spread her blogging wings and this morning, she came up with a post on instagram of 20 honest things about her. I haven't been able to stop thinking about it all day. In the last few months, I seem to have gotten more and more interest in busylittlefoodie and I feel privileged.  Even though I have an honest 'about' page, I never thought to share more about my own personality. I have a strong and growing sense of who I am and what's important to me but I rarely vocalise or share it as succinctly as Clare did today on instagram. I thought it would be too much about me and I didn't want to come across as self centred. I worry about what other people think of me. Not as much as I used to but still enough that it's noteworthy. Clare's post was so beautifully honest and interesting though that I had to give it a go. That's what this post is about. A little about me. Don't forget to check out the chocolate treats tomorrow and happy reading!


1. I'm really uncomfortable being the centre of attention. I'm a teacher and have no problem standing in front of a crowd of 300 if I have to but when it comes to my personality being under the spotlight, I shy away. Many people find this contrast difficult to understand.

2. There are several years from my teenage and young adult life where there are no photos of me or my face. I used to be self conscious beyond belief. I have very few regrets in life, this is one of them. Now I try to embrace photos of myself.

3. I love being barefoot. It is one of the things that makes me happiest in life. Being shoeless or in flipflops in the garden, kitchen, on the beach or in a field is pure bliss. Last year I got a maori tattoo on the side of my foot to remind me of this

4. As a kid, I never wanted to BE anything, I just wanted to be happy, loved and to send love out to others. I still feel the same way. When people ask me what I do, I don't say I'm a teacher. I tell them I do lots of things. Teaching just happens to be the way I make my money for now

5. I get great satisfaction out of being frugal. Charity shops, flea markets and traditional markets are like treasure troves for the soul.

6. I was born and grew up in the midlands, far from the sea but ever since I was a kid, I've had a overwhelming love for the sea, surf and spirals. When I see the west coast waves, I feel I'm home.

7. I move house a lot. In the last 4 years, I've moved house 10 times. I once lived in a bell tent. My dream home is a self built one by the sea with a big veggie garden where friends can stay, eat and play

8. My dream car is a VW van. I plan to get one in the next few years, revamp the inside and travel from one beach town to another, volunteering at farms and selling jewellery and preserves at markets along the way

9. Photography makes me very happy. If I see that I've taken lots of colourful photos during the week, I know it's been a good one. I would love to sell my photos but my main reason for doing it is seeing through a lens brings out my childlike curiosity about the world.

10. My ideal man doesn't need to be rich. I don't really care if he has long hair or a shaved head. Beards, blue eyes and a kind heart make me swoon. As does the attitude of a man who loves to learn about himself and others and finds the fact that I can do pretty much anything he can do beautiful rather than threatening. I have yet to find him.

11. I love summer dresses and flip flops but will happily wear the same pair of mucky jeans for a week when I'm in the garden or doing DIY. I'm a bit of a tom boy and love sanding, painting and general diy

12. When I'm old, I want to be known as a valued, loving, caring, vibrant member of my community with long grey hair and loads of turquise rings on my fingers.

13. Since I moved when I was a teenager, I never really felt at home in the town I grew up in. I lived in Raglan, Nz for a year and realised last year that that is my home town, the place where everyone knows my name.

14. My idea of success is a pantry with wall to floor preserves and a big open space to play, sing, eat, talk, read and love, by the sea with people I love.

15. Anytime I've travelled, I've travelled solo. It took me a few years but I now relish my own company and value my alone time

16. I would love to write a novel and a cookbook. I'm in the process of writing both

17. I love to sing but rarely ever do in public. I used to sing sean nós as a kid. 5 years ago I sang at an open mike night. I haven't had the nerve to do it since

18. I live in the city and teach, two things I didn't imagine myself doing when I was 18 but I love it. I have great friends, love my job and have a beautiful home. I know this isn't forever since I intend to live in a small beach community in a few years so I'm making the most of it all now.

19. My family, friends and dogs are immensely important to me. Awesome was a word made for them

20. Money is not important to me, as long as I have enough to live. My ambitions don't include big houses and new cars. My dream all along has been a home, to be a loving person and surround myself with loving people and incredible experiences. As a kid, I would say I want to swim with whales, make jewellery, write, grow food. Adults would say I wanted to be a journalist, teacher, farmer, marine biologist. It took me until only a few years ago to realise that it was the beautiful experiences I longed for. That's what I focus on in my life now