I'm feeling rather stoic this morning because I took the time to make a salad from scratch and take it in a jar to work. Other than that, my food will be liquid today, and although that hardly makes it a true Ash Wednesday fast, it is significant enough for me. I hope to use the weeks of Lent to work toward spiritual freedom when it comes to food.
Growing food, preserving food, cooking food, and eating food were major components of my early life. Our family had little money, and I don't recall a single vacation taken away from home. But we feasted all the time. Food was our habit and solace, our celebration and creative work. I can't remember a time when eating was not an experience for me--whether I was living at home or abroad, alone in an apartment or sharing a house with others.
I believe that many women make shifts during middle age to compensate for lost sensuality. For many of us, there are no longer babies to cuddle and caress or small children to hold on laps, little-girl hair to brush and braid, afternoon projects involving cookie dough or clay or crayons. Our sex life has probably diminished, too, thanks to hormonal changes, health issues, relationships ending through death or divorce. For all the hottie middle-aged and senior models that smile across our TV and computer screens advertising sexual aids and dating sites for the mature, I see a lot more women in my age group who are in fact ill or tired or without sexual companionship.
But there's always food. At least, for those of us fortunate to have resources, there is lots of food. My nation is food-obsessed, with fast-food chains thinking up new ways every week to add one more layer of cheese or meat or sweet-salty sauce or fried bread-stuff. My husband and I made our first visit to the new Marianno's that opened on 95th St., and it was grand and clean and stocked to the rafters with everything imaginable. I stood there in awe but also horror. It is obscene how much food gets sold and bought and loaded by bagsful and then half-eaten or thrown away. It is somehow anti-justice how abundantly the food tumbles and flows in a country where so many starve for nutrition.
When you're in the middle of your life, or further in, and you have racked up many disappointments, and the worries are multiplying with the years, and you long for something to stimulate your whole self, a gourmet cupcake can provide a fantastic few moments, can it not? Bliss on a Wednesday afternoon that might help you be a little more hopeful through Thursday and Friday.
I am that woman too much of the time. I plan my week around where to find a scone and tea, or coffee and pecan roll, or a Turkish lunch or extravagant Whole Foods salad. There's the sweet on Friday after work, a reward for the week. There's the other sweet late one afternoon because it's been such a stressful, nonstop day. And could I sit through this week's episode of Downton Abbey without a pot of the best tea and something perfectly sweet to go with it? No, really, I couldn't.
I dare to wonder what aspects of abundant life I miss because I follow cravings for mere food. It's time to try to wrest myself from this spiritual yet physical kind of bondage. I don't expect to exit the Lenten season twenty pounds lighter (although that would be nice) or converted to veganism or liberated from my love of sweets. But I have to see where this goes. I will eat less of certain things, eat smaller portions of most things, and donate some of the money I save to Chicago Food Depository. It's a start.
No comments:
Post a Comment