Food, Food, More Glorious Food

Eve quit asking Adam if he liked lunch. He did not seem to notice, though once she did ask him, but it was about a brand of something he was eating, that she did not eat. It was a fairly easy habit to break, though Eve did not think she had gotten to the root of cooking and liking and not liking. A Course in Miracles suggested her fixation on food was a false idol, that food as pleasure was looking for salvation in the wrong place. Since Eve cooked, she could not quite comprehend what A Course was saying to her.

Then she found these Robert Smith videos though someone else's blog.

She listened to the weight loss videos first. She discovered acupressure and emotional triggers and began tapping, tapping away the feelings of pain, sadness, trauma, guilt, doubt, inadequacy, abandoment. Though she did not feel that she had gone very deeply, she discovered food was the one source that never disappointed her, where pleasure was permitted.

Robert Smith said, over and over, food is just food. It would never be love, approval, accomplishment, happiness.

Eve began tapping. One morning as she walked the dogs she began craving a fried egg sandwich, only she did not have good bread. She noticed a panicked feeling, as if she were being deprived of something she had to have. Immediately she recognized she had invested food with emotion. Food is just food, she remembered, and began tapping away the feelings that surfaced because she had not bread. She ate fried chicken instead.

Then she remembered her family reunion, one of the few occasions in America where people bring real food made by real people. She couldn't eat a taste of everything, dishes came and went because she just couldn't eat it all. The day of the big dinner, the day everyone cooked the vegetables and salads and meats of her growing-up years, she didn't eat breakfast, so she could have some of everything. She filled her first plate, many casseroles, all the desserts still to taste. After the first plate of a bite of this and that and that and thatthatthat she wanted to weep. She was full, so many foods uneaten.

Eve suspected that for her, food was not just food. It was everything.

So she tapped. She tapped away the past. She tapped in the knowledge that food could not love her or fix her. Food was just food.

Immediately Eve quit chasing food. She quit grazing through the day. She stopped eating when she was full. She still fried her chicken, but realized when she was ready, she could tap that away. She started dropping pounds.

Adam and Eve ate out once on the week-end. Eve looked forward to it, to the one day she didn't cook, she didn't have to worry about what she and Adam would eat. About what Adam would eat if she didn't want to eat. Understand, this was Eve's notion, that she was responsible for Adam and making sure he had healthier choices than canned croissants and soysage. And, as it has been said, Eve didn't feel competent at it. Adam liked canned croissants and soysage. But Adam went out five days a week to earn money, and Eve's day job was providing meals, even if she did it half-assed much of the time. But on Saturday or Sunday, Eve didn't have to think meals. She only had to decide which day of food freedom she wanted.

She was working on redoing the upstairs. By herself. She decided she wanted to eat out on Sunday. On Saturday she would work and they would eat leftovers--rice salad. Which hadn't been real good, but wasn't real bad, either. She told Adam. He said he woud eat croissants and soysage.

Eve felt betrayed. How could he? I'll just throw the rice away, she said.

Why, Adam asked.

Because, and yada yada yada. Eve to herself Eve sounded crazy, but the reason was this. She cooked for Adam and if she didn't throw the rice away she would have to eat the rice herself, and she DIDN'T LIKE IT THAT MUCH.

I'll eat the damned rice, Adam said, the only logical thing he could say.

No, Eve said, no, this makes no sense.

Adam agreed.

Eve thought about what she would like to eat. Cantaloupe. And fresh squash and maybe some peas. Tomorrow, not today.

She could throw the rice away. It was just food, nothing sacred. That's when she realized that Adam had always thought food was just food. She thought it was a sacrament, a holy duty, a rite of worthiness. A false idol.

She tapped. And for the rest of the day, she ate when she was hungry. She stopped when she wasn't. And food became just food, neither a burden nor salvation.