When I was young, food was home and mother and friend to me. The pantry was a place of refuge from a world with so many sharp edges.
The kitchen was where I went to be fed, to be enfolded in a buttery, sweet, creamy hug in a bowl. Chocolate chip cookies were the most welcoming lap I knew.
Thick peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches filled up my empty crevices, my hollow hungry heart. Potato chips were always there for me, with no reproach. I never met a pizza that didn’t like me.
My brain hard-wired the synapses encoded “if you want love, have cake.”
All the considerable information published about healthy eating and lifestyle has not resulted in persistently healthy choices for so many of us. What we know to be correct has not matched our habitual action, our compulsions, our off-and-on craziness about food, our avoidance of exercise.
62.2% of Americans are overweight or obese, derailed from the track to health. We do it with food, and sloth. Eat too much of the wrong stuff, and repeat. And sit in recliners, with food. Maybe we’re better for awhile, and then off-track again. Better again, and then…. Well, you might know the pattern, and the diet statistics.
I was thinking about all this, and addiction to sugar and fat, in or out of remission.
And also thinking about the characters in this novel I’m writing. (I promise you, I didn’t just change the subject.) There’s a character named Dolores, about whom my first readers keep saying, “I just hate her so much!” and “when can I see another chapter?” She does move the story along!
Dolores is a skinny, tightly-wound woman. She thinks her three children demand too much of her. She’s resentful. There are reasons she’s so brittle, but she is who she is. She smokes a lot, and she likes her cocktails. A woman of contradictions, she is also seen cooking bountiful meals, catering to her husband. She makes: fried chicken, brownies, meat loaf, mashed potatoes, homemade pie. She is the designated source of nourishment in the family. Possibly triggering a few small food issues.
Here are pieces of an excerpt from my manuscript, in the voice of Dolores/Mother:
“I had to get past this big Christmas dinner Mickey expected. The turkey had gone into the oven first thing, before we opened packages…. I basted the turkey and worked on the side dishes…. I was up to my elbows in the stuffing, which was more than its share of trouble to make. Holidays meals were such a production…” [Here’s the martyr, simultaneously laying out a sumptuous holiday meal and also blaming the family who want it from her.]
[Now she talks about her daughter Kathleen.] “….The new house was just a few blocks farther away from school and the benefit of a few more calories she could burn walking, easy peasy. ….it was never too early to put her in the habit of watching her figure, since it was clear she did not take after me in that department. It would do her good to swim some laps…” [Her stream-of-consciousness while preparing homemade piecrust.]
“….I noticed as she walked away that she had put on the stretch pants I gave her for Christmas. Dammit, they were tight on her already. Tomorrow I would stop at the hardware store for sure. Mickey could install a lock on the cabinet where I kept the snacks. Apparently, they were too much of a temptation without me supervising. That girl would be a porker just like Ma if I didn’t take her in hand.”
“…So just a tiny sliver of pie for Kathleen. Or better still, just none for her, since I was making it for Mickey anyway. She would get used to it, and she didn’t have to like it.” [The daughter is eight years old. Think she might end up with an eating disorder?]
Savory casseroles and stews, flaky biscuits, juicy sizzling steak, crispy-chewy cookies oozing warm chocolate—the fleeting bliss of crisp and buttery and sweet on the tongue. Could overindulgence in calories suppress a craving for something less accessible?
What happens when calories are abundantly available, but love is rationed? When emptiness can be eased by the sleepy calm of a full stomach, but the heart still isn’t fed? How hungry are we to be loved? That would be the very antithesis of hard edges, sharp criticisms, deprivations of care, withheld approval.
Are soft bellies deal-breakers for love? Do they disqualify us for the imagined prince whose rescuing arms bring a life without risk, without pain? Happily ever after? We’re just talking about fantasies here.
She has such a pretty face, if only she’d lose weight. But what a beautiful heart she has!
We’re looking for love in all the wrong places. It’s already here.
The thing is, I’m lovable just this way. <3
