This is such a strange question to ask a person – “How are you?”
This word ARE. How ARE you? The book tells me that ARE means “Second person singular and plural and first and third person plural present indicative of be”
Ok, that makes a lot of sense. About as clear as mud I think. And we have a lot of mud here at the moment. Especially down at the piglets shanty town. 
And I wonder why my international student farmers look at me – mystified – when I ask them how they are – How they be. To be. It is almost too personal to be asked. “How are you?”
Are you well? Well? Are you well? Don’t trip and fall down the well then, because well, for goodness sake, you will not be well at all then, if you fall down a well. Good grief.
GOOD GRIEF! Now what does that mean? How can grief be good? 
Txiki the Grumpy.
I love my international students but I have to admit a wee bit of relief to be finally back in my own English speaking kiwi head. They say English is hard to learn but I can think of harder languages. Part of the enjoyment of my visitors is a New Zealander teaching a French man how to speak English while living in America.
But How are You, really?
I’m good, thank you so very much for asking, a little anxious about Poppy who is close to farrowing but not too tired this week. Wondering when the buyer of the piglets will come before they sink right into the mud. Enjoying the rain on the last batch of new trees. The summer is over, I had good help but I and am enjoying these first few days of absolute quiet after saying good bye to my last summer farmer.
Today I begin my bi-annual colourful clean up diet. One has to every now and then. Celi’s colourful diet has no white food. No flour, no sugar, no rice, no potatoes. (Yes, bread is off the menu for some time now) Though of course all my cheeses are exempt though they are glossy white.
And 15,000 steps a day to begin.
My daughter is encouraging me to start slowly this year so this week it is no flour and no sugar. Just to begin.
And how are you? How do you BE? If you don’t mind me asking such a personal question – “How is your Being?”
I hope you have a lovely day.
Love celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
45 responses to “How Are you?”
a colorful diet sounds like my kind of diet! Is chocolate a good color? Have a super lovely day!
Chocolate is a BAD colour – Naughty.. It is just for a little while – just the season.. c
It’s not the ‘white’ as in milk or cauliflower that I avoid…..its the ‘white CARBS’ . I eat brown rice, sweet potatoes and yams, substitute Agave syrup for sugar.
Interesting discussion!!
I would love some yams – I have not had those since I was in New Zealand.. c
My answer to how are you usually is ” I’m alive” . As soon as I’m returning home, which is tomorrow , I’m cutting out all the whites most of the time.
Leaving sugar and flour out for a little while is a great way to re-balance your system. Once you get past the cravings.. c
How ya going? Good, thanks! Less personal than How are you, I always feel, since it’s enquiring about the progress of my life, day, or plans. And you can exchange “Good, thanks” with “Yeah, good… ” if it’s not going briliiantly, or “Shithouse, but thanks for asking” if it’s totally pants. Australian can be quite nuanced!
Couldn’t help but think, all the way through, how delighted Our Viv would have been with this post. Glad you be well!
Yes she would have had a few words to say about it that is for sure. She comes to my mind often too – especially when I struggle with a comma, or an apostrophe. c
And then there’s this: Don’t tell your friends about your indigestion/ “How are you’s” a greeting, not a question. I finally went to the doc after being sick for 8 days. Bronchitis. On antibiotics and anticipate returning to normal. When folks ask me how I am, I respond with a grade, i.e. B plus, etc. Much love, Your Gayle
In Australia ‘how are you’,at least to me, is a general greeting to which it oft IS hard to find an answer – my friends and others around are very used to ‘I won’t bore you, but thanks for asking !’ or ‘don’t ask – I just might tell’, both hopefully with a big smile whatever . . . Well, Celi’s diet’ tends to be mine all year and it foes not bear the name ‘diet’ of which I disapprove – no white flour and IKg raw sugar lasts two years 🙂 ! Eat a moderate amount of bread but all full of seeds and grains. Brown rice and sweet potatoes: small ordinary ones at times, but with skins on and steamed . . . suits me . . . !!!
Well. I be fine. Working much much much too hard so I WAS not happy enough, good enough, free enough to answer in a timely fashion. So here I am late, telling you that am better than before. Love the way your brain works and works without stopping. It be a glorious brain.
Even the Zulu greeting, which makes more sense, has a peculiarity. ‘S’bona’ (sub-awn-uh) is the short form of Siawubona, which takes the meaning of ‘I praise or salute you’. Only, it actually uses the royal ‘si’ (we) instead of ‘ngi’ (I) — thus, ‘We you praise’.
Even the formal, ‘How do you do’ seems to invite ‘How do I do what?’
I think ‘Hi’ has become a satisfactory, general, meaningless, greeting.
I hate the ‘I am good.’ response. I have not requested a report on virtue or behaviour!
My being is tangled and tense. Crunchy and crickety and off kilter. Tired and tuckered and oscillating between full to bursting with love and joy to anxiously battening down mental hatches.
I believe French and Spanish both do a variant of “what’s happening?”
Take care now, darling girl
I am doing well up here Celi. Just coming in from a full day out doing fix ups on the barns, building a guinea hen coop and cleaning up the paddocks. I love the fresh air of our fall. I am the ‘good kind of tired’ tonight! Made us decide we’d earned a good sized serving of apple crisp after dinner. No diets going on here today!
Loved it!
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