In my thirties, when a lot of my friends did a lot of traveling, I generally stayed put.

The reasons were mostly practical; I had a prolonged period of grad school, which put limitations on budget and time.

Sometimes it’s easier to tell ourselves that we don’t want something we can’t have. I’ve always had this tendency, and it has led me to tell myself a lot of stories that aren’t true, or which don’t stay true for long.

I spent those years convincing myself that travel was overrated (!). It’s funny to even put that in writing now, because it’s so antithetical to what I think and feel.

I told myself that I could have many of the same experiences I might gain from traveling at home in New York. This had the ring of truth, because I live in a place with pretty rich cultural diversity, varied places to eat, and lots of visual art to behold.

But it wasn’t actually true in that there’s no substitute for being physically transported. It’s unique to be immersed in the lived experience of another place, a place that isn’t home.

Another defensive thing that I used to tell myself is that frequent travel could easily become a form of running away. “Wherever you go, there you are,” quipped thirty-something me.

I’m on a summer trip right now, and I can tell you that being away from home has revealed to me the very opposite. It has shown me how often and in how many ways I run away from myself when I’m going about my everyday life.

This isn’t a revelation. I know that I find ways to avoid myself, or scary things in life, with overwork, too much TV, nervous over-planning and unnecessary over-scheduling, or the the opposite, self-isolating.

Still, it’s helpful to observe these forms of hiding from afar.

And this—distance, or perspective—is another one of those gifts that comes with a change in surroundings.

In the past few years, as I’ve worked to make travel a more regular reality in my life, I’ve found that traveling often feels as though I’m running away to myself, rather than away from myself.

When I’m in a new place, figuring things out, taking in fresh sights and sounds and meals and experiences, I’m forced to rely on my instincts and judgment and curiosity.

The sense of self-sufficiency that results from all of this is good for me. It shows me that I’m not as broken as I sometimes think that I am.

It reminds me of my own spiritedness, my knack for planning, my resourcefulness and excitement.

It would be tempting to say that this is the “real” me, which is revealed when I uproot myself from routine and plant myself someplace new.

Of course I wish that I were always as adaptable and lively as I am when I’m away.

But the truth is that the more vulnerable me, the one who was sitting on the floor packing at the last minute (as usual) on Thursday, is also me.

That person, with her foibles and missteps, her resistance to learning certain lessons in any fashion other than the hard way, is the very same person who’s navigating confidently around a foreign place right now.

It’s important for me to remember this.

It’s important for me to see continuity in the other direction, too. Today, thousands of miles from home, I found myself slipping into familiar ways of avoiding myself, avoiding presence, avoiding peace.

I noticed, and in writing this post, I’ve given myself a chance to begin again.

Here’s to maintaining a sense of home within ourselves—our whole selves, messily and wonderfully integrated—no matter where we wake up in the morning.

Happy Sunday, friends. Here are some recipes and reads.

Recipes

1. I’d love to pile this spicy tofu scramble with tomato and ginger over rice for breakfast.

2. I had some pureed red lentil soup with lunch yesterday, and it was so good. May have to make this recipe when I get home.

3. I’d serve Erin’s harissa cauliflower with rice, quinoa, a big kale salad, pita breads—basically, anything and everything.

4. I keep saying that this is going to be my year of mastering homemade seitan, and now that the year is halfway over, it’s time to get serious! Lisa’s seitan steaks are at the top of my list for recipes to practice with.

5. How lovely do these pistachio cookies look?

Reads

1. I didn’t know that there is such a thing as a death doula, but there is. Meg Bernhard has completed training for this growing vocation, and she reflects on that training—as well as the question of what constitutes a good death—in this essay.

2. Krista Diamond’s reflections on how mountaineering has taught her to eat intuitively are so real and, I think, relatable for those who have recovered from disordered eating and body obsession.

I can remember revelatory moments of intentionally choosing previously forbidden foods, or giving myself permission to finish something I’d only ever allowed myself half of.

Diamond describes similar moments. In her case, intuitive eating was first made possible by intense physicality and unforgiving, if majestic, landscapes. She describes these mountainous conditions as vividly as she does her hard-won taste of food freedom.

3. I’m never not collecting wisdom about how to combat burnout. This article is a good one.

4. A new study suggests a link between plant-based, ultra-processed foods (UPF) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, as well as risk from CVD mortality.

What’s notable about the study is that it’s one of the first to focus specifically on plant-based, or vegan, UPF. Such a link has already been elucidated when it comes to conventional UPF.

As often happens with nutrition research, media reporting on the study was a little misleading. At least two articles focused on “vegan fake meats” as the source of the findings.

Actually, vegan meats accounted for only 0.2% of the UPF consumed. The category also included bigger percentages of regular sodas, commercial sweets, including Twinkies and snack cakes, and potato chips. These UPF have an already established association with CVD.

Given that vegan meats only accounted for 0.2% of the category, it’s hard to say whether the study reveals much about their connection to health.

It’s also worth saying that tofu and tempeh were lumped together with vegan meats. I’d argue that these foods, which have been part of human diets around the world for centuries, are not “ultra” processed, but rather foods that have undergone some alteration. Many foods that are known to be healthful fall into the latter category.

Meanwhile, a new meta-analysis indicates that plant-based meats might have a beneficial impact on cardiovascular risk factors.

My takeaways from all of this:

• There are meaningful distinctions between plant-based meats and other types of UPF
• Plant-based meats vary in their relative degrees of processing
• Plant-based meats can make meaningful, beneficial contributions to protein intake for plant-based eaters
• Certain plant-based meats may offer less saturated fat than certain animal proteins, which explains why they’ve been associated with reduced CVD risk in some study findings
• Try to choose plant-based meats that have minimal coconut or palm oil, as both are rich in saturated fat, and check sodium content of plant-based meats if you need to limit salt in your diet
• As always, give as much or more focus to dietary patterns and habits as to specific foods

5. A friend of mine once told me about a conversation she’d had with her therapist about the passage of time. Her therapist noted that the reason time seems to move so much more quickly as we get older is that we have fewer novel experiences. When something is new, our experience of it feels prolonged.

This article essentially says the same thing. It suggests novel hobbies and intentional new experiences as an antidote to the sensation of time flying by.

I like this advice, and I’ve been doing what I can to heed it.

Speaking of that, I’m heading out to take in some new sights. I’ll be checking in this week!

xo