From the open-mouthed, flat-eyed head curved the backbone in a snaky "s". It was an odd moment i was having. I had cooked this one fish for myself and wasn't dividing it with the rest of the family...
...so it was just Me and the Fish...
There was a direct awareness of transferrence of life. On the one hand, I felt the sadness of the reality of the loss of a life, and on the other, the inevitability of the reality of interdependance. A part of me recoiled from the taking of the life of the fish for myself. Another felt gratitude and humility.
As I looked at the Fish that gave its whole self just for me, I saw also the many pairs of hands that cooperated to bring it to my table. And I saw also the hands of my husband working at his desk, and the hands of a doctor holding the infant I was when I came from the pains and energies of my mother. I saw myself as the receiver of the life and energy of so many, as a person totally dependant on sacrifice from the moment of my first breath.
And now, on the sacrifice of this Fish.
I considered that, if I followed the feelings that mourned my part in the taking of life and chose not to eat even the meat of a fish, I might be making a noble choice. But I wondered if it could also be, in some ways, a dishonest one. It could be a nice feeling to be uninvolved in this cycle of feeding off of death, but perhaps that would be an imaginary comfort. Every opportunity, advantage and joy I have depends on the giving of others through no virtue or desire of my own. Recognizing the reality of that dependancy reveals my life as an extension of the efforts of many others, and my efforts to live it well as an affirmation of their sacrifices. It is equally an encouraging and obligating realization, a humbling and ennobling interconnection.
What is the best way, then, to express this gratitude?
I could refuse to take any more, and remove myself from the cycle as much as possible.
Or I can accept things as they are and seek my own ways to give as it has been given to me.
Maybe one way could be to put aside meat or to seek the most humane options, but whatever my response to the sightless gaze of the one I have now fed on, it should be a recognition of what has been given rather than a rejection of it.
