Food

Bringing food into the body is essential.  We must eat to live.  We should eat well to have good health.  I know what food is beneficial for my body.  I know where to buy it, how to prepare it, even how to grow some of it.  But that doesn’t always matter.  Toss into three cups of leafy greens a box of busy day, three ounces of kids to please, a cup of tired, a pinch of running late, and a generous dollop of emotions on hand and watch a quick stop for milk become an ambush.  A smiling girl in a straw hat and blue plaid top proffering snack cakes gets a resounding, “Oh, yea.  That is the food to sate my rumbling, empty self because it is easy, cheap, fills some childhood happy spot, and incites my children to cheer.”

Dictionary.com offers the following first two entries for the noun, food.
1.  Any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.
2.  More or less solid nourishment, as distinguished from liquids

Eating food has a basis in biology for certain.  But it can be so much more.  Even the definition misses the mark in my opinion because there exists plenty to eat that is not at all nourishing!  Food can often be a spiritual thing as well as cellular.  It can become a hobby, an aversion, an addiction.

Through study of yoga and reading Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now I learned the concept of becoming the observer, the Self who watches the self.  When I cave to crappy eating I suspect it is a failure of maintaining myself as observer.  The garrulous, venerable Gary Taubes gathered all the science available and taught me everything I could ever need to know about good calories and bad ones.  I believe.  I know.  Sometimes I ignore.  Once my mind makes emotions my body may react and shove whatever I can in my mouth to shut it up.  It rarely really works.  The real solutions for me are my mat, my laptop, my quiet room. 

Sometimes real solutions feel hard to come by.  We can endeavor someday to have watched ourselves long enough, practiced long enough that we can more often truly not want empty food.

Sugar Seeking

a gauge goes directly from grumpy to gorging

foraging in the fridge, grab-nabbing icing straight

late night garbage dumping God knows what

into the gut to disguise growing empty that says

we are not okay. Eating away, old stale crust dusted

cold pepperoni and red sauce stinging bite of tongue

stung in heated chewing, gnawing thru banana bread

nothing said of ice cream and taco chips gathering

growing the pit of self-sacral seat screaming for pie

wondering why someone ate the last cinnamon bun

without caring about leaving an empty package sit

offering not even a bit of sticky sweet salvation