January/February
2004
Why?
By Nephyr Jacobsen
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“Why don’t you eat honey?” asks Anne
as I massage her scalp.
Normally I don’t converse with my clients as I work on them; I
like for them to relax as much as possible during their massage. But
sometimes Anne likes to talk, and today the path of discourse has wound
its way to this question. Here we are again. It is the same question
that I have been answering since I became a vegetarian at the age of
nine. Why don’t you eat meat? What about chicken? Why don’t
you drink milk? You don’t even eat cheese? Why not? They are
all the same question, and as any vegetarian can tell you, it is exhausting,
because it is a rare person who truly wants to listen to the answer.
Most people just want to challenge. The challenge, the rebuttal, the
insult, is forming before the answer is even made.
When I was younger, when my passion for compassion was still raw, I
would pour myself into the debate, meeting my challenger with statistics,
facts, gruesome images, and the angry sorrow of my soul. Inevitably,
even as I tore down the logic tossed at me in some odd attempt to prove
my life choices wrong, even as I demonstrated my superior understanding
of the subject, I would feel defeated and cheapened by the argument.
The basic problem would remain—that the person asking the question
had never been interested in the answer. And all of my statistics,
all
of my facts, were empty in the face of it. The question, ultimately,
becomes tiresome, with the exception of those rare times when someone
asks it sincerely.
Over the years, the reason why I am vegetarian, vegan actually, has
become more complex, or perhaps simpler. All of the old reasons are
still there: the animals, the environment, personal health, global health,
compassion, spirituality, politics, ethics. All of these reasons remain,
are in fact stronger than ever, but there is another reason that I am
vegetarian, a more pervasive reason. I just am. Where are the words
for this?
Vegetarianism is not something that I adorn myself in, it has sunk
deeper than that—it is me. Vegetarianism is not something that
I often analyze and contemplate; its place in my consciousness is more
embedded
than that. Thoughts of vegetarianism are not produced so much as they
just are, as all thoughts of self are. This is not to say that I cannot
have a new thought on the subject, but the subject itself is a quietly
existing constant. Why am I vegetarian? It is me, it is my joy, it
is
also my sorrow and my questioning path, but it is not the question.
It just simply is. I am vegetarian, as I am woman, because I cannot
fathom another way of being.
“Why don’t you eat honey?”
It’s odd, that after nearly 25 years of being vegetarian and
listening to this question in all of its forms, I do not have a stock
answer.
Each time I hear it something inside of me sighs before I try to decide
on the best answer for the moment. Of course, the problem is that there
is no best answer, for there is no one reason. Thousands overlap and
merge, wander into new territories, explore and expand until they weave
like the fibers of muscle, fascia, bone and skin to form something
that
cannot be taken apart and put into a simple sentence.
These days I look for an answer that is as bare bones as possible.
Something that gets to the heart of the matter quickly, something small
and simple
and honest and strong. Words that will honor the question without being
too open for pointless challenge yet open enough for the truly questioning
person. The worn down “I love animals,” or “for my
health,” are honest but predictable, their challenges pre-formed.
“Why don’t you eat honey?”
I say my answer softly. “Because I don’t believe in slavery.”
There is quiet. Then I add, “it takes a bee its entire lifetime
to make one half teaspoon of honey.” Just once I would like to
give my answer and have it be—not necessarily agreed with—but
absorbed and accepted.
“But the bees are given supplements, they don’t need the
honey,” says Anne.
I am loving this person who has hired me to nurture her body with therapeutic
touch. It is what I do. I can feel that a debate on the why of my vegetarianism
will not only be tiresome for me, but will not be nurturing for my client.
“The bees don’t make their honey for me, and I don’t
need it,” I say as gently as I can. And then, to end the discussion,
I say, “it is just my personal choice, my spirituality and my
ethics.” There is silence as I finish the massage and I know that
making my answer about me, and not so much about the bees, has succeeded
in taking away the fear of judgment that is at the heart of most questioners’
challenges. Still, there was that tiny moment of rebuttal and I realize
that the heart of why I am vegetarian, the “I just am” is
the one answer that would end the challenges. The problem is that while
it encompasses my vegetarianism, it does not convey all of the reasons
that have created this truth.
“Why don’t you eat honey?”
“I just don’t.”
Nephyr Jacobsen is a writer, massage therapist,
idealist and mom living in Portland, Oregon. She is currently writing
a vegan dessert cookbook and encourages you to contact her at loofa@pacifier.com
(especially if you are a publisher looking for a vegan dessert cookbook).
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