Someone posed the question at my meeting yesterday: “Why do we immediately reach for food to feel happy? Why can’t we, I dunno, fill the void with bird-watching or something?”
An older lady in the back said, “I grew up in an Italian family, where food is love. When people are feeding you, and in turn when you are feeding others, it is an Event, where love is shared.”
And another lady said, “Feeding my kids was the only time we had the family together. I looked forward to every meal, every single day. I miss those times. But I have them back when I have food.”
I could have contributed, but I kind of make it a point not to talk during these meetings. Because I want to soak up everything I can from these people.
I grew up in a poor family. Two-bedroom rowhouse in the projects just outside Pittsburgh. Great-grandmother, grandmother, grandfather, mom and usually a wayward cousin with a kid. And whatever friend of my mom’s was in need of a hot meal. And my great-aunt and her daughter, too, were frequent guests.
All on my grandfather’s meager military pension. And my grandfather happily did without everything he ever needed to make sure his girls ate well and had a roof over our heads.
My grandmother is Italian and while I used to make fun of her cooking, I miss it. She could feed seven of us for pennies. Her “gravy” (red sauce, for those of you non-Italians) was the best in the country. Mom makes an incredible version herself and keeps the Italian side of our family alive. (It will die with her — I have no interest in cooking, unfortunately.)
Gram used to do roasts and “shit on the shingles” and other things that would make us all feel full. As I got older and saw how rich my friends were, I turned up my nose at pretty much everything. I hated being poor and I hated feeling poor. That my friends’ parents would spend $20 on a pizza (back in the ’80s) boggled my mind.
To this day, my mom cooks on a shoestring budget. It helps. We do big dinners out though, so it’s nice to have the balance between the cheap and the — well, I wouldn’t say lavish, but I’ll say the “full dining experience.”
And I will tell you, Mom does it better than any restaurant. Cheaper, healthier and I think more creatively, too.
We always joked that she makes my food with love. It is always the No. 1 ingredient. Even when she thinks dinner is a flop, she tried her best to make it special.
We get on each other’s nerves a lot. She’s very sickly and getting worse and frankly weakness frustrates me. Because I have to be the strong one. I have to keep the job or we’re out on the streets. I have to buy all the groceries and fix all the things and carry everything, physically and mentally.
Basically I can’t wear out. And when I do, the edges start to fray and guess who gets the brunt of it. Yes, poor mom.
But then, food. We get a nice dinner in front of us and everything changes in an instant. No tension, no scrapping, no anything but savoring every bite, every moment.
Food transforms.
So it’s only natural to want extra portions, or extra courses, or to eat more frequently. Food becomes the most-important thing, not the petty crap that can be put on hold and eventually forgotten.
So naturally it’s easy to get fat when we seek love and food is the fastest way to get it.
I hit a little milestone this week on the scale, getting below a point that’s been a bit of resistance for me. Mostly because that’s the area when I go down a bra size (sigh). But I figure I can get plastic surgery to fix that problem right up so down we go.
I still have about 20 pounds to go to hit my all-time low weight. Which for many is still too much, but this isn’t their journey. I gave up there for various reasons, not the least of which that I have a wonderful wardrobe that fits me at that weight.
That, and the way I got there was by giving up love of every kind, food and otherwise. This time, I’m hoping more love in my diet, food and otherwise, will be what gets me back there.
I just hope I can continue being gentle and forgiving with myself in the meantime, and continuing to find love in lower-calorie places.