this is a tricky one...

Please proceed with caution.

“Once it happened, as I lay awake at night, that I suddenly spoke in verses, in verses so beautiful and strange that I did not venture to think of writing them down, and then in the morning they vanished; and yet they lay hidden within me like the hard kernel within an old brittle husk. Once it came to me while reading a poet, while pondering a thought of Descartes, of Pascal; again it shone out and drove its gold track far into the sky while I was in the presence of my beloved. Ah, but it is hard to find this track of the divine in the midst of this life we lead, in this besotted humdrum age of spiritual blindness, with its architecture, its business, its politics, its men! How could I fail to be a lone wolf, and an uncouth hermit, as I did not share one of its aims nor understand one of its pleasures? I cannot remain for long in either theater or picture-house. I can scarcely read a paper, seldom a modern book. I cannot understand what pleasures and joys they are that drive people to the overcrowded railways and hotels, into the packed cafes with the suffocating and oppressive music, to the Bars and variety entertainments to the World Exhibitions, to the Corsos. I cannot understand nor share these joys, though they are within my reach, for which thousands of others strive. On the other hand, what happens to me in my rare hours of joy, what for me is bliss and life and ecstasy and exaltation, the world in general seeks at most in imagination; in life it finds it absurd.” Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse

We have had such trouble lately and so much pain and with the heartache of trouble comes the reckoning with new ideas, new solutions to the same old problems.

I went to breakfast with Jackson yesterday. She said to the waiter, who is also the owner’s son and so not constrained by portion control, “I know this sounds absolutely ridiculous but can I have more gravy?” To which he responded, “That isn’t ridiculous, it’s just a little absurd.” And then his brother brought her a little bowl full of gravy. In the end, after he told us he wished all his customers could be like us, she poured most of the contents of that little bowl over the top of the already gravy-strewn sweet-yellow scrambled eggs, butter-grilled biscuits and slow-melting grated cheese. It had been a tough morning—hell, its been a tough year and yet I danced a little in my chair because in that moment she knew what she wanted, asked for it and then lavished it on herself, or at least her breakfast plate—and thoroughly. She scraped at the dredges with her teaspoon so nothing remained but a few stripes of gravy against the curve of the bowl.

She hadn’t meant to enjoy gravy, trust me on this one. In fact, she had only half expected that by some miracle she might enjoy maybe one little aspect of the breakfast and the gravy was nowhere near topping off that list. She really hadn’t thought it possible. She had needed the conversation but knew she didn’t need the gravy. And yet, somehow that gravy mattered like gravy had never mattered before.

God’s gift to a recovering anorexic like me comes in the form of women like Jackie who are not anorexic but it also sometimes comes in the knowing how gravy can spoil or redeem the meal, the day, the rest of your life but only if you ask for it. Only if you pour it over top of everything else like you give a damn.

The thing about those of us who often refuse to feed ourselves is that we know full well about food and what it does. We are not starving ourselves because we are stupid or ignorant. We think these things through; we concentrate on every lift of the jaw. Every grain of rice is a separate world, every pepper seed in a slice of pepperoni on a wedge of pizza is a private island exploding between the teeth, or at least that is the way my eating disorders and then reorders itself. Whether this is good or bad is simply not up for debate. In fact it is only dangerous when I try to label it with blacks and whites, goods or bads, to determine that lettuce is good, gravy is bad.

Food is more than food for us and you can think it is sad and pathetic if you want to. But I am alive because I am learning to deal with all the things that food can do to my body, or for it. I am still alive precisely because I am willing to live with my reality that bittersweet morsels and kernels of corn are more than proteins and fats for strengthening muscles and lubricating organs and yet also less than a heart attack waiting to happen or a gram of fat barely keeping me from death. I may have lost perspective on three squares a day, but I have found a way to connect with my desire for the way emptiness feels and the way fullness feels.

I may starve to death—we all might—but instead I am able to choose to face the fact that food is what it always has been for me: an emotional matter.

Think about it.

I’ll bet it’s the same way for you too.

Emotional eating is not uncommon… what I’m trying to tell you about is all the emotional not eating. I’m telling you about the deprivation that comes so surely to me. You seek the taste and texture of food in your mouth or the feeling of fullness in your belly while I am hoping to get by on a slice of toast. All I want is to will my digestive tract to be still and know. And it is not healthy, obviously, but all this noticing of nutritional components and digestive tracts is what it is, which is unavoidable on all accounts most of the time. It is possible to stop thinking of food like a crutch, stop resenting it, stop wondering if need is a weakness and start seeing intake and affectedness as a lovely opportunity.

The answer to this problem of trying to hold still, or limp along on a peanut butter spoon and a leaf of lettuce is to value all that I can do on a full tank. When I am thinking healthy thoughts about food, the gravies of the world are evidence that if I were to put that in my body I might find that I am alive and moving around. My need for food is followed by the desire for a specific food and then the acquisition and enjoyment of that food. It is probably the same for you.

It sounds like a long journey…like going around your ass to get to your elbow, cloying--I know. I’m sure most of you skip all that and just stuff a Ritz cracker into your mouth without ever worrying over it. But I am telling you there is so much more to this mess of mine. I require more than food that is food; I require something that will nourish my being, especially if I am going to go to all the work it takes to want it, get it, chew it, ingest it. And though I have never been proud of needing anything I am beginning to see that if I want more it isn’t the wanting that is aggravating, it is what I do with it that matters. Qnd what I am doing with the tiny desires for two bites of brownie and one wedge of your roasted red potatoes is keeping me alive, healthy, writing poetry and singing, praying, dancing, laughing and all those other great things I can do when I offer myself a few fat chow fun noodles and a splash of half and half.

I require complex recipes and in copious amounts. I am not just eating to fill an emptiness, I am eating to satisfy a desire; this is not just mechanics (I am not a machine), this is a real reckoning of my body with its greatest potential and it begins with knowing what I want. When I eat the butt of that zucchini bread or drink that glass of champagne it matters because I am able to think, choose, ask and receive; to taste, enjoy and be in and of (not merely about) the delight I am meant to yield.

So you see, food isn’t just a problem for the not-eating or over-eating among us, it is a riddle for all of us. When you shake hands with the bunch of bananas or roll the lime against the counter; when you suck on the caramel or stick your mustache into the head off a Guinness, when you crack a walnut against the table or lick the icing off the cupcake you are doing so much more than eating. Its no wonder the idea of putting food in my mouth is overwhelming at times. Dear God! We are supposed to do this three times a day?!

Americans are like that, though: putting things in, without giving it a second thought. And if we are among the best fed, we ought to start acting like it. We ought to remember that all this food at our disposal, all these choices and gratifications are our lot in life. Gratitude then becomes more than mere drudgery; food becomes more than a drug and more than a problem of local farms and organic materials (whatever that means these days).

These are the absurd, if not ridiculous requests we make every day for a candy bar, a decaf latte, a bag of chips or baked potato. So we had better embrace them, let them matter so much more than they might have yesterday. Like the Steppenwolf knows too well these were not absurdities when we imagined them, when we first desired them. They are only perceived as absurd in real life, not in our imaginations. We are in such denial about high levels of delight that we pretend gravy is just gravy, a coffee bean is just a coffee bean and we grind it up or pour it down the throat and never even think to taste it.

"More, more, more..!" we think. Put more in, Moron! That will make me full, that will satisfy! when really it is the passing it all off as absurd and meaningless that is so hazardous to your health. And even though it is absurd to bring another bit of gravy over, it is not absolutely ridiculous. Is it any real danger to enjoy it like Jackson did, to savor it the way a rare jewel is taken in: one facet at a time rather than glanced at and swallowed whole?

Good grief I just don’t understand you with your handfuls of chocolate chips because one is enough for me. Perhaps it is a kind of sick deprivation, but that is only a perhaps afterall. What I know for sure is that I am the recovering anorexic among you which means I can’t measure the cup of sugar the way you do—I measure sugar with gusto and probably always will. I can’t buy the value pack of boneless skinless without feeling a little skeptical and I definitely can’t butter bread the way you do because to me the way the pat slides melting into the cracks is more lovely like Niagara Falls and ought to be respected as a force of nature. But what I can do is imagine it, one bite at a time and on a good day, when I am not overwhelmed by the extremes—all this gluttony and starvation--I am sure of myself, rather than sure of the machinery I might be and I can think only of the pleasure it is to crunch one greasy bite of hashbrowns or salt and salsa one tortilla chip.

So if you see me agonizing over one shot of espresso or the last bite of a brownie remember that I am in love with the possibility it holds: by its very existence and the miracle of what it could do. Or if you catch me denying myself the slice of cheese I wanted with that apple wedge you will sigh and know that I simply couldn’t work it out just now but if we’re supposed to do this three times a day perhaps I’ll get it right later tonight.