feeding the spirit

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the importance of feeding the spirit. It’s easy to go through the days of our lives caught up in the need to feed the body and its many cravings, whether we are the bold and the beautiful, or just the young and the restless, because as the world turns life has to be more than a soap opera, right? Don’t we yearn for more than dark shadows, somewhere away from the edge of night, seeking another world, a world that’s not filled with desperate housewives?!

What feeds your spirit? Yes, you, and please stop watching General Hospital for a moment. Just record it and watch it later. Or, better yet, let me give you the recap:

"Matt arrives at the free clinic to find Lucky and Harper talking to Nikolas and Nadine about Logan’s murder. Matt’s shocked and tells the cops he saw Logan and Maxie arguing at the docks. He neglects to mention that Logan was his counterfeit-drug supplier. Later, Matt tells a mysterious someone that Logan is dead and they need to move to Plan B. At the PCPD, Lucky tells Nikolas and Nadine that Jason is a suspect, but he thinks Logan was killed by a member of the Zacchara family. Nikolas doesn’t want Nadine caught up in this, but Nadine refuses to let someone get away with murder and cooperates with Lucky."

So there you have it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be anywhere near that hospital, or those people. I think Matt’s right, we need to move to Plan B. Now I’m not attacking the soaps, and I know a lot of folks are watching the Korean soaps these days, and if you’ve never turned the sound off and made your own dialogue (with or without your friends in front of the tube), you just have to try it. I believe it’s a useful exercise for fiction writers.

Here’s my Plan B. I seriously doubt that it’s the same as Matt’s. I’ll leave Matt to his issues because we need to feed our spirits. Lest they starve.

The excellent news, of course, is that there are so many ways to nourish the spirit. It’s a buffet, the rich and seemingly endless kind that you can never experience totally. You can only take some of this and some of that. Or, if you’re the kind that likes to specialize, take a whole lot of one thing. Some devote their lives to exploring the beauty of the natural world. For others it’s music, or poetry, or art, or books, or theatre, or film. Many of us select “all of the above,” which was always my favorite answer to multiple choice questions in school (my least favorite was “none of the above,” which seemed like a dirty trick, one that should have been outlawed).

I’m one of those who like to taste many of the offerings from the buffet. With film, and theatre, you can enjoy several dishes at once. Give me a good story with good music and I’m hooked. Or listen to your favorite music while you read or write. If there’s a mango tree outside your window at the same time, you’re lucky (for me it’s the neighbor’s Chinese grapefruit tree—I watch the heavy fruit hanging there and wonder if someone will pick it before it falls, and how it sounds when it falls).

Feed the spirit. We’ve only touched on the many wonders of the buffet. You probably have your own list of favorite ways to nourish the spirit. I haven’t even mentioned two of the great dishes that await us as we go down the line. You see them from a distance at a buffet table. The carving station, which has its own attendant waiting to serve you ... and beyond that ... the dessert table, so important it has its own area. Watch the eyes of those who survey the dessert table. These folks are serious.

So what corresponds to the carving station and the dessert table? I hope that somewhere on your list is that small word that makes the world go round. Love. Is there anything that nourishes our spirits so well as love? Giving and receiving. Loving and being loved. The world is brighter. Your spirit soars. All kinds of love, not just romantic love. But ah, romantic love. Cue the orchestra. Cue the chocolates. Release the endorphins! Release the romance writers! And maybe we can give Rhett and Scarlett some privacy for a while, as we enjoy the innocent and hopeful world of romantic comedy.

The other great dish that feeds the spirit is faith. What are we without faith? Without hope? The spirit yearns. It travels through this life on a journey that wanders along many paths, in search of a spiritual home, or perhaps it only yearns to return to its home. During this journey the spirit is fed by faith, by hope, by love. And by prayer, spoken or unspoken.

At this point we are a long way from the world of Lucky and Harper and Nikolas and Nadine and Matt’s Plan B and the late great Logan. But if you’re anxious to get back to General Hospital, and you’re worried that you missed some critical events, I have some disturbing news for you. I won’t sugarcoat it. Here it is:

"Maxie visits Spinelli, who tells her that Jason’s been arrested and he’s investigating the case. Maxie freaks out and “accidentally” spills soda all over Spinelli’s computer. Spinelli is suspicious when Maxie firmly declares that Jason didn’t murder Logan. In events totally unrelated to Logan’s death, the Scorpios and the Drakes have brunch."

How devastating, the tragic fate of Spinelli’s computer. And yet, in the midst of all this gloom, there remains a glimmer of hope. There’s always brunch! I know you will join me in wishing the Scorpios and the Drakes a truly bountiful and nourishing buffet.