(I am writing along with Laura Lynn Brown’s summer blogging project at MakesYouMom.com. Join us?)
I owe—entirely—the fact that I’m cooking again at all, to Kristin Schell. When the stress got bad, I didn’t eat dinner for more than a year. After about 3 p.m. every day I got sick to my stomach. Kristin’s recipes gently nudged me back to life and showed me that I really enjoy chopping veggies while listening to music by Patty Griffin.
My biggest problem, as someone who started flirting with anorexia at age 6, is that I still have trouble feeding myself. When I feel hunger, my default is to ignore it. (What? You don’t do that? Weird!) Or I berate myself for feeling hunger in the first place—surely if I were a better person I wouldn’t need to eat all the time.
The fact that I go to the farmers market once a week and get excited about spending money on fruits and veggies is major progress. The fact that sometimes I buy something beyond fruits and veggies, like homemade goat cheese or Meyer lemon-infused olive oil, is miraculous.
I have made complete peace with breakfast. It’s the one meal of the day I’m always hungry for and never want to skip. While I eat, I read the selection from Every Day Poems. Maybe if I brought a poem to all my meals, it might help them go down a little easier on the tough days.
