One week out - musing on food

Aug 26, 2010

Changes. Big changes. It's not the losing 7-8 lbs in a week, that's the least of it. It's that the entire structure of my life has changed overnight and I'm reeling.

Food was woven through every moment of my day. Threads around food formed the very fabric my life is made of.

My day used to start with a coffee ritual, making a steamed latte with nice espresso beans and whole milk for my wife and me. I got through the mornings at my job looking forward to lunch at the very, very nice cafeteria we have at work (I know that sounds like an oxymoron, but I'm lucky enough to work in one of those Silicon Valley companies that provides high quality food at work as a perk). Mid afternoon, I'd ramble over to the break room and look around for a cookie or cake that someone else had brought in, or get a hot cocoa from our Starbucks vending machine... next it was home, where my wife, who is a brilliant cook, would have me taste things that were on the stove as we got dinner prepped.  We always eat healthy, but the food is a focus, we are "foodies" as they say, and the evening dinner is a big deal.. After a couple hours, it would be time for a Trader Joes freezer dessert, or a piece of chocolate.... Weekends include an entire morning devoted to browsing the local Farmers' market, sampling food and fruit at the food stalls.

And then of course, for fun, there were restaurant outings. In the South SF Bay, there's a vast array of food choices for dining out... we are huge fans of Asian food, so once or twice a week it would be sushi, or Korean, or Vietnamese... or a local grill.  Even travel was focused on food. A recent trip for business and vacation to Asia was all about eating in China, Korea, and Japan.

And now.. and now, I couldn't give a damn about any of those things. The things that, until a week ago, formed the entire universe of my enjoyment. The problem is, that if I don't care about any of those things any more, I don't have a good answer to: what DO I care about now? It feels like I woke up one morning and all of the furniture in my house was unfamiliar and didn't fit my body any more, and I don't even know what I need to replace it with - if that makes sense.

Of course, I have other things I like besides food - travel, reading news and politics, art, movies.. etc. But none of these are a constant interwoven thing in my life like food has been. The questions are: what to do now with all this unstructured time, this open emotional space which I would normally fill with anticipation of things to eat and taste, this basis for connection with my wife and family.. when all food seems alien and unfriendly.. and what to do later, when it starts its seductive music playing in my head as my stomach and body adjust to this new normal.

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