Admissions Essay

Last year at this time, I was deep into the special hell that is doctoral applications. For most PhDs, this means evaluating writing and brushing up CVs. A DMA (Doctor of Musical Arts) in performance is... different. It's not that applying for it is harder, per se; it's just different. It's time consuming and nerve-wracking in a way that, for me, editing papers is not. I applied to seven schools, and each one of them had their own special application fee, audition requirements, and rep list. Some schools charged an extra fee to upload mp3s onto their website, and other schools wanted a labeled CD mailed to them along with the application. I made seven sets of audition material, learned a total of two hours of new music, and audio- and video-recorded pre-screenings (with a full-time job, without a teacher). I passed five pre-screenings, and flew to five different schools to play in person. It was hard, and I didn't really expect to get in anywhere. 

One school had an essay requirement, and the question was this:

My coping mechanism.
And also, my mom tells
me, the food she ate while
pregnant with me.
This explains so much.

If future generations of your family discovered a box of your most treasured possessions, what would they find inside?

I wrote an answer to the question, and at the time, it was the only thing I was remotely happy about in the entire DMA application process. I'm not sure I like it as much now, but I thought (since this was one of the schools where my floot skillz did not get me past the pre-screening) that I would share it here. So here it is, with some minor clean-ups, for your reading enjoyment or lack thereof.

If future generations of your family discovered a box of your most treasured possessions, what would they find inside? 

If my future family discovered a box that had been in my possession, it would be empty. I would be sorry if this was a disappointment, especially because I love the excitement of an historical treasure hunt, and have spent many happy hours digging through my own ancestors’ belongings. So if I were to leave nothing in my own time-capsule box, there would have to be a good reason.

Central Park in January.

I might have left my yoga mat in the box. I have spent life-changing hours on my mat, and I love its texture and smell. I can predict how it will stretch, and it has rarely let me lose my footing. Its calm green surface is torn up and missing pieces where my feet have landed over and over, and where my fingers have clawed in looking for a better grip. I love my yoga mat because it works well, and because it represents change and peace to me, but it would be wasted in a box. I would give it to someone without a mat, and hopefully they would pass it on too, until its life was used up. 

There would have been letters in the box as well- piles of letters in all shapes and colors of envelopes, some addressed in a business-like hand, others with the penmanship of a young child. I have been writing letters my whole life, and as much as email has simplified and quickened the communication process, I will always love pens, and paper, and envelopes. As time progresses, we will be able to talk to each other more easily. Contacting someone I love will only become faster and simpler. But the slow communication- the time-consuming letter, with enough pause to be able to think between each carefully written word- will still be special to me. The heaps of letters (from and to my grandfather, my fiancé, my middle-school pen pals) would have been in the box, if I hadn’t already passed them on to the next generation with the hope that they would understand the love of thoughtful communication.

Boulder in February.

And of course, my flute would have been there, cushioned on all sides by other possessions. Maybe not a specific instrument, but any of the flutes I’ve owned and played: my mom's dark silver-colored Yamaha from her high-school band days in Florida; an old but well-meaning Armstrong whose low register I loved; an open-holed Emerson bought from a catalog with years of birthday money; a Powell Sonaré that traveled with me through college and into graduate school. It might be my current instrument, a heavy-wall Muramatsu that I met during my master's program. It could be an instrument I haven’t found yet.

It was with the flute that I was able to express my individuality during my middle school years. It was the flute that was alternately a source of frustration and inspiration, a millstone around my neck, and the only goal I wanted to achieve.  The flute was my captor, dragging me to practice rooms late at night, and my companion, helping me sort through the issues of becoming an adult during long recording sessions. The flute would have been in the box because as seasons, friends, classes, colleges, jobs, and zip codes changed, my relationship with my flute remained my longest and most stable.

But the flute isn’t in the box either. The flute, like my yoga mat and collection of letters, won’t do any good in a box, waiting to be discovered.

I learned about Apāna (the act of letting go of things, from the body and from the self) on the yoga mat, but it applies equally well to letter-writing and music-making. When we write letters, we send a piece of our thoughts off into the world, and we may never get it back. When we play music, what we play might not be heard or understood; when we play flute, we may never completely recover the energy that we physically exhale into the instrument. Apāna is not the easiest concept to grasp; I feel that I have to re-learn it every day, but it is necessary. We send out things from ourselves because we have to, because it's healthy, and important, and scary, and makes life worthwhile. We risk giving because the greatest achievements are the riskiest. 

Seattle in March.

So it’s because of Apāna that I would let my time capsule sit empty, and instead let my most valuable possessions go to those who can continue to practice, whether their practice is yoga, penmanship, or music. And I hope that when my distant relatives open an empty box, they would be comforted by the knowledge that their world is a richer place because we pass things – like music – along, and are careful not to store them in a box.

Patience, myself

As I think I've mentioned before, one of the things I dislike about writing a blog about yoga and music and stuff is that it tends to come off as preachy. It's probably because of my writing style, but most of the time I think it would be really nice if I blogged about something I've figured out. Like, hey, look, I didn't used to be able to do a headstand but now I can and here is how I got there and you can do it too if you just have faith! Sadly, I've found life to be a little more complicated, and issues that I'm really working on are definitely more of the revolving door-type rather than open-and-shut.

Case in point: patience.

I used to be patient. Really, ask my mom (although maybe she remembers my childhood differently than I do). Here's an example: when we'd get a treat after dinner, say, an ice-cream cone, I would save mine until the kitchen was clean and all obligations for the evening were finished, climb with it to the top of the swingset, and consume it in the sunset while watching my shadow on the brick side of the house. Vivid, huh? I have great memories of Patient Me. I would do this with every aspect of my life. I happily worked on my (home)school work one page at a time, trusting that baby steps would produce some latent math genius in my own brain (hah). When I was sixteen I decided that I was too inflexible, so I started a persistent stretching routine that enabled me to touch my toes for the first time since I was in the womb. I had total faith that if I worked hard, a little bit at a time, I could be good at anything. And maybe that's true.

Then, I don't know what happened, but I grew up. And sometime between high-school and college and grad school, I started losing the calmness that I used to have about mastering a task. I started worrying that I wasn't "cut out" for the life I'd chosen, as if being a good flute player is a destiny rather than a lifetime of hard work. I assaulted people in my life with questions like "do you think I'll ever be good enough?" as if that was going to be determined by anybody but me.

I have no idea why I started worrying about predestination, but it ended up making me lazy. Looking back, I think I was testing myself, seeing if I could slide by on minimal practice because then I would "know" that I was "meant" to be a "flute player." I stopped working slowly and patiently, and started emulating my peers by procrastinating, cramming, and complaining when I was called out on my work not being up to snuff. And although the current university system fosters that kind of behavior (a blog post for another time?) it was nobody's fault but my own. I extended this negligence to other areas of my life: I stopped going to the gym and started "rewarding" myself with gobs of food, then complained when I gained weight. I stopped maintaining friendships and was surprised when I had fewer people to call. I stopped practicing yoga regularly and was upset when I lost flexibility and focus.

And this is the part where I should say, "but for $9.95 you can buy my book, and we'll throw in a free energy shot! You too can regain your motivation and the excellence for which patience is so necessary!" Well, sorry, I'm still figuring it out. Some days are better than others. Most of the time I have to keep reminding myself that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step (and is made up of millions of single steps) and not get too freaked out when I don't see the end right away. Here are some other things I've been telling myself:

Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's not worth doing.

Just because I don't succeed at something right away doesn't mean I wasn't meant to succeed.

People who are good at things often work really, really hard behind the scenes. They didn't magically get good.

Ultimately a big part of me believes that some things are "meant to be," and that sometimes makes it hard to force my way through a difficult task while my brain screams "you weren't supposed to succeed!! It was determined at the beginning of time/your lunch hour!!" So that's another obstacle, and another thing with which I'm currently struggling.

But if there weren't any obstacles, how would we learn to be patient?

Spooky Spooky Spooooky

Last night, my dude surprised me with tickets that he somehow acquired (probs with his special powers) to the Book of Mormon, a musical we've been obsessing over since Christmas break, when we listened to the entire soundtrack while driving to Missouri. If you haven't heard of it, it's an irreverent and sometimes crass musical that parodies/explains/mocks/garners sympathy for two Mormon missionaries stationed in Uganda. Beneath the frequent profanity and artfully choreographed dance numbers, however, are some really interesting and deep themes- the "hero" of the story, the most prepared missionary who adheres to the rules, basically has nothing to show for it at the end. The fibs that one missionary pathologically tells end up painting a really interesting picture of the formation of syncretic religion, where the culture rejects the parts of the book that aren't useful to them, and holds on to the parts that make sense.

Basically, it's a really interesting work on a lot of levels, and I laughed until I cried. The dancing Starbucks cups in the Spooky Mormon Hell Dream were a stroke of genius.

But this whole musical had the potential to be ridiculously offensive and horrifying to audiences. We were talking on the walk home about the guts it takes to put out something like this for audiences, not knowing if you were going to be embraced or egged. Granted, this is something that the creators of South Park have a lot of experience with, but it's still a risky venture. It had to have been, on some level, scary.

This wasn't the first time that being scared has been on my mind in the last few months. Most of the time when something is new, either to me or to society, it's scary because it's unknown. The more I look around and see great things (works of art, pieces of music, performers, writers) the more I think that everything great comes with an element of fear, maybe of being misunderstood, or hurt for your actions, or shunned by people whom you love, or rejected in general. Failure is a big one for me. I'm afraid of putting myself out there and failing. I'm afraid of playing flute from my heart and playing badly with all my metaphorical guts exposed. I'm afraid of practicing yoga for seven million days in a row and still not being able to just pop into a headstand, or achieve a good savasana, or be a compassionate teacher. And, obviously, it's safer to play with an air of practiced detachment (and not in the good way, where you do cool stuff and stay detached from the results), and have a yoga practice that is not terribly consistent. Cuz then, failure is not as scary. It's even almost expected.

But one can usually be okay, or even good, safely. It's just greatness that requires fear. So that's the catch.

Here's some stuff I'm scared of!
- going to the bakery alone in France. I'm worried that I might say the wrong word, or pronounce the right word so wrong that it sounds like I'm swearing. Obvy if some French person was trying to talk to me in English and seemed nice but dropped forty f-bombs, I would think it was super cute. I try to keep this in mind just in case I actually do make some linguistic errors.
- getting super into road biking. What if I get run over by a car? Isn't it better for me to sit at home eating ice cream and watching Biggest Loser?
- being mediocre. Ha! Irony.
- failing at the flute.
- succeeding at the flute.
- calling people back, especially when "people" is a composer whose last flute concerto was premiered by James Galway. (I sucked it up and called him. Go me.)
- going to the gym for more than one hour. What if I become one of those crazy gym people who spend all their time at the gym and only talk about going to the gym? I would clearly rather spend my time complaining about how I never get off the couch and my diet on a given day was high in cheese with flurries of pretzels and mustard and chances of chocolate downpours later on in the evening.
- dancing Starbucks cups. I wasn't afraid of them yesterday, but now I am.
- writing this post. It would be weird if I was afraid of all that stuff and not afraid to write a post about being afraid of all that stuff.

I'm sure there's more, but that seems like plenty for now.

So are there people out there who are scared of everything? How do you make it stop, or do you just push through the scared?

Auditions and Deodorant. Unrelated? I think not.

So a big part of the reason I haven't been posting much is that I'm auditioning for doctoral programs in flute performance. Music performance in general, and flute specifically, is ridiculous. The stakes are high, wages are low, jobs are few, and admission is insane (one school to which I applied had around eighty applicants for the Doctorate in Musical Arts program... for one possible spot). When I started the process, I reassured myself smugly that I would be just fine if I didn't get in anywhere, but I'm not sure I actually believed that it was a possibility. I applied to seven schools, made it past the recorded pre-screening round at five of them, and spent my own hard-earned money to fly out and stay at each school; I took lessons with as many of the teachers I could, and prepared as much as my full-time job would allow.

And then this week (after a volley of family stuff that was intense in its own right) I found out that I didn't make the cut at one school. It's the first school that I've heard from as far as an actual admissions decision, and it wasn't my first choice. However, the fact that it was lower on my list almost made it sting more. So I spent the week trying to find my center again, and genuinely worrying, maybe for the first time since I started this process, that I actually wouldn't get in anywhere at all, and would face either another year of the expensive and heart-hurting audition process, or finally cutting the cord between me and my flute, my companion of almost twenty years. The prospect of any of those things having to happen hurts a lot, and will hurt a lot if it needs to be, but like my co-teacher reminded me, nobody signs up for music because it's easy. I do it because I love it, and it's a hard, abusive, soul-wrenching love that doesn't get any easier with time or experience.

So anyway, I was catatonic. It was getting to the point where my dude probably felt like he was talking to a wall. Plus, the toughest/scariest Friday audition was coming up, at the school that I couldn't even believe passed me on to the audition round.

Then I woke up Thursday morning, and it was like somebody had been whispering in my ear all night, "the worst thing they can say is no." Maybe it was my dude. I don't know. If it was, I feel totally bad because he stayed up all night whispering to his crazy me. But for some reason, it made sense, that they can say no, and it will hurt and might cause me to make some decisions about my life path, but it ultimately won't affect who I am at the very core of me, the place where I hold my values and my friends and family, and my love of music.

Hippie self-restoring deodorant!

So I decided that there was only one thing to do, and that thing was to make my own deodorant. Because how else do you solidify your sense of self?

I have been working on decreasing the chemicals in my personal products, and while the evidence about aluminum exposure from antiperspirants isn't conclusive, it is unsettling. Plus, it's a pain to run out of deodorant, and would be awesome to be able to just whip up a batch in the kitchen. I also believe that I should be able to eat the things that I put on my body, which is why I use coconut oil as lotion, rice for heating pads, and vinegar as a hair rinse. Apparently my body is a tropical Hoppin' John melange. (This only makes sense if you put vinegar on your Hoppin' John, which I recommend.)

And yes, this whole train of thought is weird, but in times of uncertainty, I've found that it's better for me to fall back on something that feels steady, like something I can do with my own hands (thank you Nick Offerman and my parents).

I used a recipe like this one, but altered it a little bit, thusly:

1/3 c. coconut oil
1/3 c. arrowroot powder
2 T. baking soda

My dude loves me this much.

Then I mixed it, wadded it up into a ball, and put it in a mason jar. I then proudly announced to the dude that my sense of self had been restored, and that no matter what happened at my audition, I had made my own deodorant. To his credit, he did not back slowly away like I expected.

The deodorant worked well for my audition day, which went okay. I'm still fairly convinced that I shouldn't have been allowed past the pre-screening round, but I'm reassured that no matter what, I'm still me. And I have a dude who loves me, food and warmth, and the ability to do something worthwhile with my life.

And I can make my own deodorant. Bam.

Yoga?

I had a very long talk with a very dear friend last night, who has been through a year so excruciating that I can't even start to imagine what it feels like.  She asked about yoga classes, and I started blabbing jibberish about doshas and vata times of year, and how she could take a class that would make her feel grounded.  And she very kindly said, "Uh, what's a dosha?" which made me realize that we can get so wrapped up in this yoga thing that it's almost like a different language.  There needs to be a back-to-basics guide.  There already is an Idiot's Guide to Yoga, and I'm sure it's way better than what I'm about to write, but I thought I'd throw out a few things that I've picked up.  Disclaimer: I'm writing totally out of my brain and there are no works cited, so if you see something that needs a correction (or is totally wrong) please let me know!

What IS a dosha?
Doshas are the elements: vata is wind/air, kapha is earth/water, and pitta is fire.  Your dosha is the most prominent of those elements in your body and mind.  Here's a handy-dandy dosha quiz.  Your job is to balance those three elements, and it's likely that your needs will change from year to year, and with the seasons.  If you are out of balance with lots of vata, for example, you will be all over the place mentally, and be cold and dry physically, neither of which is very fun.  So to balance that, you can go to yoga classes that are slow, methodical, and grounding, like a Yin Yoga class, or a restorative class, and you can sway your diet toward heavy, wet, and oily foods.  In my experience, cooking for your dosha is actually really fun, but you can really choose how much to delve into ayurveda (the Indian science behind doshas).  I ate for my dosha for a month when I was in teacher training, and I have to say that I felt great.

What is yoga?
This question is super complex.  Yoga means, as far as I know, "to yoke," so we focus on yoking the mind and the body.  If you want to get into the history of yoga, then yoga is an eight-fold path to samadhi, or enlightenment.

Yoga can happen anywhere.  Even on a mountain
with a big sweat-spot on your back.
(Please ignore the big sweat spot.)

(If you are curious, the eight "limbs" are yamas [stuff you shouldn't do: Ahimsa: nonviolence, Satya: truthfulness, Asteya: nonstealing, Brahmacharya: continence or sexual control, Aparigraha: noncovetousness], niyamas [stuff you should do: Saucha: cleanliness, Samtosa: contentment, Tapas: heat; spiritual austerities, Svadhyaya: study of the sacred scriptures and of one's self, Isvara pranidhana: surrender to the universal power], asana [the physical poses], pranayama [breathing], pratyahara [drawing your senses inside], dharana [concentration], dhyana [meditation], and samadhi [yay!].

In American-brand yoga, we pretty much focus on asana practice, or the physical stuff.  This makes sense, because the yamas and the niyamas can be dealt with relatively quickly.  The next thing on the path is getting your body in shape so that it helps you, instead of hindering you.

But what about yoga classes?

There are a million different kinds.

Hatha- the word "Hatha" refers to the oldest kind of yoga, so it's a little bit of a vague term.  I've heard "hatha" used to describe everything from Kundalini to Bikram.  Classes that are labeled "Hatha Yoga" typically are unheated, and focus on slow stretching and strength-building, tied in with breathing, meditation, and sometimes chanting.  I have my teacher training in Hatha, but I've taken some pretty extensive classes in all the kinds of yoga that I'm mentioning here.

Kundalini- these classes are mostly taught by Sikhs (a belief system from India- most Sikhs wear turbans. Sikhism is a very interesting and beautiful set of beliefs, but I won't do justice to it, so I won't get into it).  They focus on repetitive movements and chanting.

Vinyasa- Vinyasa means flow, so most of these classes involve some kind of constant movement, and are usually sun salutation-based.  They usually come in heated and non-heated forms.

Hot Yoga- Usually heated vinyasa, but sometimes Bikram.  These types of yoga require a lot of concentration, but they're typically popular because they promote weight loss.  For me, a room heated to about 95 degrees is delicious.  Anything above that feels like torture to me, but some people love it.  Be sure to ask the teacher what the peak temp will be.

Iyengar- This type of yoga is usually billed as paying extra attention to alignment in each pose.  I was afraid to take a class for years because I'm not typically the nitpicky type, but the Iyengar classes I've taken have 

been amazing.  I've learned more about anatomy, joints, and muscle groups from Iyengar classes than in any other class.

Bikram- I've only taken one Bikram class, so this is based on limited experience.  The room is heated to 105 degrees, the poses are all standing or seated, and every class is the same.  This means limited demonstration from the teacher, and a predictable class with no surprises.  There are no "transition" poses- instead, there is a pause between each pose.  Bikram is very popular, but very controversial. I've always had a problem with the attempt to copyright 4,000-year-old poses, and I didn't like taking the class at all.

Anusara- Anusara is another attempt to copyright yoga, this time by an American (John Friend).  The classes that I've taken have been great- they focus on alignment, opening the heart (or the front of the body), and meditation.  I once spent a blissed-out twenty minutes in a handstand that I had previously thought I was incapable of.  That having been said, John Friend has fallen hard lately, and Anusara has had a lot of fallout to deal with.

Dahn- Dahn yoga was founded by a Korean teacher, and I have it on good authority that it is a cult.  Once you establish a regular practice, you may be pressured to involve yourself, emotionally, physically, and financially.  My advice, based on first-hand stories, would be to stay away.

Gentle- Gentle yoga is great for people with injuries, those who are just starting a workout regimen, or anybody who needs to catch a break.  In my experience, good gentle yoga teachers are very well-versed in anatomy, and are great at making students feel accepted and comfortable.

Restorative- This is the next step above, or below, gentle yoga.  Real restorative yoga only has a few poses, and all of them involve the practitioner to be on the floor, draped over some assortment of pillows and blankets, sometimes with sandbags stacked on top of you.  The idea is that your body can truly relax and heal itself if you can allow it to relax completely, so the class involves quiet talking or occasional visualizations lead by the teacher, and long stretches of silence.  

I'm not totally sold on all the spiritual stuff- especially all the words with weird spellings.

The great thing about American yoga is that you can really customize your level of spiritual involvement.  If you want a lower level of meditation, chanting, and Sanskrit words, try a vinyasa or hot yoga class.  Kundalini, Hatha, Anusara, and Dahn seems to be the most spiritually oriented of what I have listed here.  If you want chanting, but not any creepy cultey stuff, just check out your studio carefully.  Eventually you'll find a practice that you like, and it's all downhill from there.

What if I hate yoga?

Tiny little arms!

I mean, it has to be possible that some people weren't cut out for yoga at all.  And, there are a lot of things that yoga won't do.  Yoga won't heal everything for everyone, and yoga teachers aren't trained, in most cases, to be physical therapists, doctors, or mental health professionals (although there are notable and awesome exceptions).

That being said, there is such a wide variation of yoga practices (the difference between Bikram and restorative, for instance, is huge) that I believe there has to be something for everyone.  But don't stop after one class!  If you hate the practice, try a different type of class.  If you love the poses but not the teacher, try another teacher.  Try another studio.  

Yoga is a different experience for everybody, and everybody needs different things from yoga.  Don't be afraid to be idealistic and take your hopes into the studio with you.  Give each practice a fair shot, but be picky about what you want and who you want to work with.  Life is a journey, and I think it pays to take the time to delve into the American yoga experience and find what works for your body, for your mind.

Limbs. Made of embochures.

On Saturday I took a lesson with a wonderful flutist in Boston. She was kind enough to invite me into her home on a weekend, and the lesson ran over an hour. I tried to soak up all the information as best as I could, since I left the memory for the recording device lodged in my computer (fail). I played the Faure as awesomely as I could, because I figure if I play as well as I can in a lesson, I free up the teacher to tell me what I really need to work on. In this case, it was embochure.

I'm no stranger to changing my embochure. I did it over the summer in 2005ish, and it was awful, and here I am, 2012, heading back into it.

Paul Taffanel: great embochure, or just
correctly shaped facial hair?

How to explain changing your embochure? It's not quite like speaking a new language- maybe like changing your accent to one that feels totally unknown. It affects every area of your playing. No note can be un-scrutinized, and passages that you were playing faster and faster with the metronome have to be slowed back down to the speed of a geriatric snail until you can play them in the right way. Then the fingers get confused because you're not focusing on them (for once). The face feels weird, you question whether you're doing it the right way. You question whether you should do it at all. This time around, the voice is much quieter than the first time I changed my embochure (I was younger and full of pride about my flute playing), but there's still a voice that says "maybe you are just supposed to play the way you did. Who cares if you're doing gymnastics with your face? You like your sharp upper register. What about the edgy lower notes? You're just going to let those go? What if your mouth isn't meant to play that way?"

So then it's a huge leap of faith even to start the process. Fifteen minutes here, then five more. Stop when you feel yourself slipping back into old habits. Only practice the right way, and don't give any more lip service (pun intended) to the old way.

In some ways, it's a giant allegory for practicing in general, or, you know, life. Every time I practice, in some way I'm walking out on a limb, having faith that I am doing the right thing by playing what I'm playing, by pursuing music in general. It's exhausting, and I think that's why I didn't practice for a year and a half after grad school: I ran out of faith. I could always be practicing a bad habit and not know it, or pursuing the wrong thing, only to find out about it later. Anyone could, in any aspect of life. We just don't know all the time. I think about this a lot.

So I'm walking out on three limbs this fall. I'm music-ing. I'm running in minimalist shoes. I'm changing my embochure. 

Vegan Week!

I've always been really nervous about taking the plunge and going vegan, even for a little bit of time, but after the airplane food on the way back from France, we decided to give it a shot for a week and see how it went. For quick substitutions (and to ease into the process), we went with non-soy Earth Balance instead of butter, Vegenaise instead of mayo, and rice cheese instead of normal-people cheese.  Verdict: E likes Earth Balance better than butter (and it seems to work fine in all our recipes, as an added bonus).  I like Vegenaise better than mayo, and the roasted garlic flavor is delish.  Rice cheese is good if you are expecting rice, but you are out of luck if you are expecting cheese.

The best discovery? These "meat"balls, which E found at The Vegan Stoner. Basically the gist is this: you take a can of black beans, drain, rinse, and mash. E made it the first time, but I heard his swearing as he tried to mash a can of beans with a fork, so when I made them again, I did it with my hands. This method worked great and was also fun and gooey. After that, you add a handful of oatmeal (we used quick oats) and some soy sauce. Then you can add whatever spices you want. E rolled them in bread crumbs and baked them, and afterward pan-fried them in some olive oil. They came out like so:

They don't taste like meatballs, but they're so good that we found ourselves surprised that we didn't care. They are easy, fun, and great on whole-wheat spaghetti with zucchini, as shown in the "before" picture.  The "after" picture doesn't exist because it was just an empty bowl and we didn't see the point of photographing it.

So then later in the week we were having two great friends over for a vegan We Made It feast, and we figured that we would use the same recipe. But then we decided to make soup, and thought "meat"balls and soup would be weird, unless it was Italian wedding soup, but these beans would not hold up to that kind of Italian soupness. So instead, we made them into sliders. I made buns from scratch (chock-full of flax seed), and we made a slider bar with tomatoes, onions cooked with mustard seed, the rest of the rice cheese, and very fancy garlic chipotle vegenaise made with the following recipe: add sriracha sauce to garlic vegenaise. Stir.

Today was the first day off of the vegan diet in a week, but we still ate vegan meals. The end result for me is that I feel better and lighter physically, which makes me feel more motivated to get outside and do stuff. To be fair, eating vegan meant that I couldn't snack like I normally do, so that might have something to do with it. I also found myself thinking less about what I put in my mouth- instead of thinking about whether I should eat something, it was just a matter of whether I could eat something. As long as something was vegan, I didn't worry about whether I should eat it, and that seemed to work fine (you'd be amazed how much stuff out there isn't vegan). I even got to work one day to find a big plate of cookies in the break room, and since I knew I couldn't eat them, I didn't waste time mentally agonizing over it.