How easy it is to lose track of the days of the week when there isn't a school or work schedule before you! Is it Wednesday? Does it matter? For me, what stands out is that I have a free day -- the absolutely last one for the next three weeks! -- and I'm still pulling myself out of the flu that struck me right after the holidays. I am almost back to normal, but of course, I've not moved much and that physical lethargy is starting to feel stiffening! Once the sun comes out, I'll head out. For now? When it's cold and gray? My big outings for today are an early walk to the barn, and a trip to the grocery store.
We eat a staggered breakfast: first me, alone, because I'm sure Ed wont wind down his Zoom call anytime soon...
... and then he does come down, and I do sit with him, just because he's giddy with excitement over his project and though I am a poor audience for his enthusiastic explanations of all that he has managed to accomplish in just in the last few days (I understand so little of it!), nonetheless I am an audience and he'll settle for me over staying silent and keeping it all in his head.
After the grocery run, I settle in to read. About eating. No, not the type where you look forward to preparing a meal for the family. Eating, or more accurately not eating, as a result of severe mental health issues. (A very good article about this appeared in the NYTimes today.)
I don't know many women my age who have never once thought themselves to be chained to the ups and downs of eating, and overeating, and worrying about eating. At this time of the year, the resolutions about "eating" resound all around me. As if all of humanity (that part which isn't starving in war torn or drought ravaged regions of this world) wants nothing more than the impossible: exercise more, eat less. The article isn't really about the likes of us, it's about people who have serious and life threatening eating disorders, and yet it really had me look back on my own youth and young adult years and wonder why I, too, was pushed down that road of worrying constantly about food and overeating. (And all that worry got me right where I did not want to be: I gained a lot of weight when I moved to the US at age 19.)
It's no secret that I love to eat. A yeasty bread or a croissant, with a milky coffee -- these are heaven on earth to me. A runny cheese with crusty bread -- mmmm. At the same time I was raised in the era of everyone commenting on a woman's "good figure." At home, among friends -- everyone. Growing up, the message was clear: I should aim to have a good figure. Good legs too. As if I could walk into a shop and exchange anything that I was born with for something more attractive to the passerby. In response, once I moved to my own apartment, my dinner would often consist of a carton of ice cream with goopy caramel inside.
Now, at 70, I worry not at all about such stuff as a "good figure", except as it pertains to my health. I mean, I stopped coloring my hair because Ed thought it was silly. I never "get my nails done." Yet I can't shake those thoughts about food and how strong the push was and is to limit our intake. I get why we should eat healthily, but the conversation too often is loudest about how food impacts our appearance. Why do we allow ourselves to be so chained to that discourse?
And with that in my mind, I heat up the last of the chili, make a salad, and take out the box of chocolates that I'm working through in the New Year. Here's hoping that we learn from decades of mistakes in our conversations about food, about eating, and learn to love the healthy, and not fault ourselves for the inevitable unhealthy lapses. I haven't exercised for five days, I've eaten nothing but sweet breads and cookies for lunch for weeks now. I will survive.
with love...
