Day One...One Day

Yesterday was the first full day on the veggie train. In some respects it wasn't totally weird; I mean, you wouldn't know to look at me, but I don't eat meat every day. I tried to approach it like it was just one of those days where I didn't feel like eating meat. In other respects, it was strangely hard. I had thought about this day for years, but it was always reduced to "one day," meaning future day. And suddenly, it was here. I felt disconcerted.

For example, I woke up yesterday morning to the smell of bacon. I thought I had to be dreaming in meat smell! Is that even possible? To dream in smell? Was I so dreading the move to vegetarianism that I was hallucinating bacon smell?

To be honest, if I were to hallucinate a smell, frying bacon would definitely be at the top of my list.

But a few moments later, I also smelled waffles. It turned out that on yesterday's sixty-degree morning, my neighbors who never, never, never cook had opened their doors and windows and decided to make bacon and waffles.

And that is when I knew, the meat gods were going to make this very hard for me.

But breakfast, in spite of the scents of bacon and waffles wafting through my open windows, was easy because it was so...normal. Cereal, banana, orange juice. Pretty straightforward.

The rest of the day actually turned out to be a breeze, too. I was on campus early and wasn't able to leave until 5:00 pm to pick up some vegetarian delights made by my friend Easa at the Jerusalem Market on High Point Road in Greensboro. For dinner, he made me and my evening class rice-stuffed dolmathes, baba ghanouj and pita, hommus and pita, spinach pie, and pistachio baklava decorated with Jordan almonds. As is the standard at Jerusalem Market, it was excellent! The variety and flavors and freshness! And It was hard to conceive of it as vegetarian because nothing was omitted. The Mediterranean and Middle-eastern diet is so vegetarian friendly. I did not miss meat at all. In fact, I entirely forgot about it until this morning.

Day One Lesson: It's mostly psychological (at this point anyway), and it helps (A LOT) to have friends that can cook vegetarian meals without even thinking of it as being vegetarian.