This old orality business...
Reading over these entires and realizing I have no concrete plans for cooking beyond sauteeing or roasting during the cleanse (assuming I'd go mostly raw) has made me realize what a bizarre, skewed and inimical relationship to food I've developed over the past decade. As a child I ate normally, that is, as a dog would: only when I was hungry, stopping when I was full or distracted. I became overweight in preadolescence, then something turned when I was 14: I realized how easily I could shed the excess weight by eating lightly or not at all. Soooo.... food (or the deprivation thereof) quickly became an emotional repository. My food intake became a mood barometer (the inverse was true, also, as I felt better about life when I ate little) as starvation was a means to stanch overwhelming emotion or impose a system of order on what otherwise would've pulled me asunder, a scramble for purchase on the slippery cline of adolesence. I was (purposefully) an outcast so I never felt external pressures to be thin. Sometimes it was just like a game I played with myself, seeing how far I could carry it... Adolescence blows for almost everybody, I know, but unfortunately I happened to develop this all too common mechanism for mediating it. I won't bore anybody with the specifics of my saga with food and weight but I think I speak for anyone with a history of disordered eating when I say I wish I could just stop THINKING about food and enjoy it... instead of keeping this constant tally in my head of input / output, of cost/ compensation. Of course, this sort of incessant neurotic hum has far diminished, sometimes even been silenced since my teenage years, and yoga has hugely helped me to enjoy my body rather than concern myself with its perceived inadequacies. ALSO to realize it's a losing game, the physical body. And yet still I will sometimes revert to strange, compulsive eating behaviors, or go through phases where I quite literally forget to eat until my stomach reminds me it's time to 'fill 'er up' and I wish I could eradicate the digestive process entirely because it seems like such a bothersome, not to mention messy and, in the end (ha!), malodorous waste of time. My dog, Gene Hackman, a street-wise wily little stray who showed up on my neighbor's doorstep a year ago and ended up with me, is totally bereft of self-awareness and so gorges himself as quickly as possible on whatever I set in front of him. Not that I advocate speed-eating, but there is something liberating in the way he eats, the natural and childlike attitude toward it that's become perverted in me through vanity, ego and stifled emotions.
I suppose I've gotten a little off-topic here huh? I didn't start writing with the intention of anthologizing my eating neuroses but I hope at least somebody can relate. This is just a bit of the psychological plaque I've carried around for awhile, food as antagonist rather than nourisher. Though it's been depleted I hope this cleanse will help me to flush the last of it out for good.
posted by Ashley @ 8:50 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Thank you for sharing, Ashley, and please do not worry about boring anyone, asking to much of our attention, etc. One of the great things about blogging is that if someone doesn't want to read it, they don't have to!
I've had many more female friendships than male ones, and so I've become fairly comfortable discussing this issue over the years . . . perhaps even to the point where it rubbed off on me and I focus on it to much. Food is fundamental, though, and in any non-information culture, it is the focus of life. Perhaps not thinking about it, but putting in the work it takes to obtain it, prepare it, and eat it together is what most humans have done on this planet from the start, so there is no shame in investigating it. We are the food-body. I once had a teacher say to me "Eating itself is a disorder, but no more than life on earth is a disorder."
The thing about dogs is, they have such a short digestive tract, they can eat a meat-based diet and it passes through them with no time stagnate. And their hearts beat really fast and they have short little lives. Humans have a long digestive tract, much more complicated and with more room for error.
I dedicated several years of my life to the constant guardianship of a girl who had truly severe eating-issues, among other issues, and who hated and sought to destroy the food-body. Her way of eventually righting her relationship with nourishment was to turn her wound into a gift; she is now a personal raw food chef, and makes her living teaching others to nourish and tend to the food-body. And I think food is a very worthwhile thing to spend life on, as we owe our lives to it. Being artists, it can feel a little distracting and burdensome at times, when we would rather ignore the body and focus on our art, but I feel that at this time in history it is time for artists to move toward the body, rather than away from it, as this is the medicine that our culture needs. Getting more and more into the art of food is always helpful for me, as is finding communities who are into taking the time to eat meals together, supporting each-other in remaining grateful for the privilege of walking this strange, beautiful planet and eating and sharing it's body.
You are not alone in this, I can relate, and I'm sure that plenty of others can too, though they may not know what to say about it. That's all I have for now, I must go get some sleep, that other human mystery.
Ashley, I would love to find a way to introduce you to the artistic side of cooking. For me it's a creative outlet. You learn a few things, much like one might learn scales or notes in music, and then you can let your creativity run wild and make jazz in the kitchen. Then eating it is a lot like listening to your own music or reading what you've written or standing back and looking at your painting. Sometimes it's fantastic! And sometimes not so much but I do think it's a waste of the food this earth provides us to not enjoy playing with it. To me it's the equivalent of ignoring color in nature! And, I'll tell you another thing that shifts your perspective towards food - feed others! I think as a general rule with quantity, we should be eating the right amount to support our lives. So someone like Jeff that goes on 5000 calorie marathon bike rides needs to eat a lot. And someone whose interests are more stationary needs to eat less. But not matter what, we should be eating delicious, beautiful food prepared with love. I hope someday I can help and show you a few scales!
Thank you so very much, Oliver & Gina... Perhaps it's my 'issues' with food that have caused me, if subconsciously, to develop an aversion to learning to cook, to simply never exert the effort toward the very thing that could heal all the negativity I harbor surrounding food. I've often read or heard it said that food prepared without love or with negative vibrations might as well be poison... I think the way I frequently regard food, as something to quiet my stomach (or, at my worst, as not even food but caloric content to be fret over) rather than something to be savored and enjoyed as a gift, is certainly a poisoned attitude. I did make a sort of steamed vegetable dish yesterday and I just bought some cilantro, tomatoes & onions to make fresh pico de gallo, so I'm starting small but at least starting.
I can so relate to you Ashley. I think it's somewhat of a societal issue in America where women are not supposed to be seen in public consuming or even enjoying mass quantities of food. The last thing we want to look like is glutonous or over-indulged. It's sick and twisted and I fight it with friends who don't want men to see them enjoy a meal, but then pig out with their girlfriends.
Food has always been a big deal to me. I will try just about anything and love to cook and eat out. It's a struggle for me because I've never been willowy...always tending to be more athletic and solid (which in some circles is thought of as fat!) For me too, body image has always been as issue. Yoga has helped me not only accept, but love my body in a way that doesn't come from looking hot in jeans, but in a way that is unique, special, and gracious.
It's funny to explain the cleanse to some of my friends. They can't understand why one would "waste their time" doing something this rigid that doesn't make you lose 10 lbs. They obviously have a long way to go in understanding how to treat their bodies. (Although, I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't mind shedding some poundage too!)
I think we might all treat our bodies differently if we could physically "see" our livers and kidneys like we do our stomach and thighs. It's so easy to focus on what's in front of your face that we forget the effects on our internal bodies.
Post a Comment
<< Home