We eat white bread in my house. I feel a little bad about that. Shouldn’t we eat some kind of whole grain or darker bread? I grew up on Roman Meal.

Being “white bread” is an insult. It’s meant to imply being an unquestioning consumer, someone who takes what they are given and does not have their own personality or culture.

It’s true that most grocery store have a massive selection of several types of mass produced white bread. American bread is a very specific product. Germany, France, Africa and Russia have a very different understanding of bread.

I remember when my friend from Russia was looking through by cupboard and found the Poulsbo bread. She argued with me, very sincerely, that it was cake. And Poulsbo had whole sunflower seeds in it!

In the 19^th century, most American households consumed bread made in the home. It was the woman’s job to take the bread from dough, through rising and kneading and baking and then to the table.

At that time, food safety was still a big issue. Food got transported around, and you bought at your own risk.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair described a horrific environment where animals were slaughtered and butchered to be sold as meat. They described sick and infected animals being slaughtered in one scene, and even described how one of the workers fell into the sausage machine and no one stopped production.

I’m pretty sure it was exaggerated, but after it was published in 1906 people were horrified. And that is how the Food and Drug Administration was born.

At this point in our lives, we feel confident that the grocery store will provide us edible food. We all eat a lot of it! But at the turn of the 20^th century, that was not the case. When people saw dark bread, not only were they afraid of insects being part of the food (EWWW!) but there was the issue of mold.

A particularly nasty kind of mold on rye bread could kill you.

So. White bread became a symbol of health and purity.

Look! It’s white. You can see for yourself if it’s pure.

It was a big deal when wrapped bread was presented to the buying public. The loaves that previously were only trusted if they were made in your own home? Well, you could trust these loaves of bread. They are pure white, and no one has even TOUCHED them. See? They are wrapped and sanitary.

Wait for it…

THEN in 1928 they invented sliced bread. And boy was that great! Sliced bread still stands as a waterline for great achievements.

What could be better than pure white, wrapped and SLICED bread?

Women were freed from the tedious chore of making bread. Their families could eat and be healthy.

People could live their lives. And right then in history, their lives were all about the Great Depression and then World War 2.

With all that excitement, the fantastic achievement of pure white wholesome food lost its power. They had become part of the landscape.

And the landscape was changing. Counterculture was a thing. They beatniks and their disciples the Hippies despised white bread.

If you had any kind of personality, if you were woke at all you wouldn’t eat that plastic mass-produced Wonder Bread. Make your own! Use whole wheat!

Then then new movement was for more natural foods, and Silent Spring made everyone aware of pesticides.

So, the pure while food movement was superseded by a new green and brown food movement.

But the societal awareness and resulting government oversight of food safety and handling is what led us to be able to confidently demand new types of food.

My friend recently drank a Naked Juice from a convenience store and got food poisoning. Poor thing, but how ironic!

I can laugh about it because I don’t have to worry about her dying from this. In America, we have created a marketplace for food that is safe and secure. People die very seldom from food they buy

That might be a better invention than sliced bread.

It’s been a crazy couple of years.

New year’s day is approaching and it makes me look back. Last year at this time I was signing the 5th job offer in 2 and a half years. 6 jobs in 3 years were far more than I had planned for.

Which meant that I had gone into a lot of new work places and had to figure out the lay of the land. And all of them were new kinds of jobs I’d never done before.

The first of the five was especially tough. I remember after the few months sitting in a meeting (nearly identical to a dozen previous meetings) and being terrified that I didn’t know what I was doing.

I was pretty sure that I would fail publicly and spectacularly.

Heart pounding, empty minded terrified.

So in those meetings, when the same words and arguments were being said, I was on fire. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t see a way to the job done. And I didn’t see a way to get support from my boss.

Since nothing was happening in the meeting, I flipped my notebook to the back page and started making new notes:

I approve of myself. I deeply and completely love myself.

This was the antidote to the terror.

A slow antidote to be sure. But I was convinced that everyone at my new job thought I was a failure. I was totally ready to agree with them.

Even before they said it.

That sense of failure was like an eclipse over productive thought. How could I possibly get any thoughtful work done with this terror taking up all the brain cycles?

So even stuff that I knew I could do, I couldn’t seem to get started on because I was so overwhelmed.

Until I found that antidote. Loosen the python and declare that no matter what happened I had my own back. I didn’t believe it at first, that I approved of myself. I filled paged with that sentence before it sank in a bit.

What amazed me was that once I loosened the stranglehold that this terror had on me, I could do my job better. I could think again, and had a better chance of succeeding.
There is such a thing as a self-fulfilling prophecy. It wasn’t until I changed the script that I could start a different story.

The script before had been that I was an imposter and a failure. The new script was that I was a worthwhile human being. It was a step up from failure, not a big jump but one that I could believe in.

And changing the story let the sun in. Once I found something more positive to say to myself, I could see where I could make some progress.

Like I said, it’s been a crazy last few years. And as I look forward to what’s ahead, I am remembering what I learned then. Choosing my story is a really good thing to remember.

I want to pick a good one.

Last year, after the last pageant practice, Veronica and I set off in search of a cat.

I had been wanting a cat for a few years. My previous cat had been dead for more than 5 years, and I knew it was time. I didn’t have a job, and that scared me.

When I didn’t have a job, should I really take on the new responsibility of a new pet?

And yet, maybe that was the best time. Veronica was SURE we should get a cat.

So we set off. We looked at and petted kitties, but Veronica had a spec: “I want an orange kitty.”

What about this cuddly calico?

Mmmm….. no. Isn’t there an orange kitty?

We found the last orange kitty in the surrounding area, a tiny starved kitten with a meow that would fill an auditorium.

Simon was the last of his brothers to get adopted. He was born in a shelter. And his little bones were so prominent, I learned more about the skeletal structure of a cat than I’d ever realized before.

He came to us with bite wounds that opened and bled for several months.

But he LOVED us. We fed him regularly, and he wanted to be next to us all the time. When I wake up in the morning, and I go to the bathroom first thing, this little orange cat would trot up and leap onto my lap while I’m on the toilet. He could not bear to be separated. He would lean into the pettings and scratchings.

Until he turned his teeth on me.

I could imagine him thinking “I love you! I love you!” until he suddenly thought, “I could kill you!”

He is after all a cat equipped with sharp teeth and claws.

And this cat had an affectionate and appreciative heart.

He would flip very unexpectedly from enthusiastic affection to bites that would leave teeth marks on our arms and hands.

If I wanted to anthropomorphize him, I would assume that his tough beginning with mean brothers (I assume it was his brothers, maybe it was his mom) who bit him when he was a helpless kitten.

He was traumatized, and learned some terrible habits of what love meant and what he needed to do to protect himself.

Then again, do cats have that same understanding as we do of psychological norms?

Undoubtedly not.

My invented narrative of why my cat behaves this way could be utterly nonsensical to him.

Pets are often the carriers of invented narratives from their people. We like to interpret their body language and likes and dislikes from our own perspectives.

Simon the Christmas cat has been given an invented story.

And often times friends and family who we meet around Christmas time get narratives assigned to them too. I will try to make a story to understand behavior that seems foreign to me.

But I could be entirely wrong. No doubt I am wrong in some percentage of my assumptions.

I would like to make room for these other friends and relations the way I make room for my kitty’s foibles. With love, and making room for what he lets me know he needs.

I like that strategy for promoting peace on earth.