Neil is always telling me I worry too much. Maybe he's right, or maybe he isn't; I'm never really sure... Actually, I think I just worry differently from most people. I do not worry about how my hair looks. I do not worry about my weight (although I'm amused when I gain a couple of pounds...). I don't worry about earthquakes, or wars, or whether I'll ever own a vehicle, or whether that vehicle will be an ugly piece of crap or not... I rarely worry about catching busses on time. I don't worry about seeing all the latest movies and having all the latest CDs and games and computer thingers. I don't worry about what people think of me if they see me doing something weird. Generally, with a few exceptions, I don't much give a shit what people think of me.
I do worry about a few things...
I worry about food and shelter and the physical and mental well-being of myself and my friends and family.
Neil is always telling me not to worry. Usually, it's because I'm worrying about one of the above. He tells me: "everything's gonna be okay; don't worry about it."
Usually, he's right.
It's not that I don't trust him. It's not that I don't trust the Powers That Be to provide food and shelter and well-being. But I don't trust that they EVER come easily, and I worry because I know that all of these can disappear very, very quickly. I worry because it sucks to be without them.
This week, I have been worried about food.
My housemates do not seem to share my anxiety. This is because one of them never eats, one of them can happily subsist on coffee (probably indefinitely), and one of them eats at work.
I can't do any of those things. I used to subsist mainly on coffee, orange juice, cigarettes, and chocolate bars, with cheeseburgers once or twice a week... But I can't do that anymore. First of all, my body just can't take it. Second, my baby's body REALLY can't take it. I've got to eat, and I've got to eat good. And if I don't, believe me, I hear about it.
Ohhh, what I wouldn't give for a candy bar and a yogurt...
My grandmother was raised on a farm in Minnesota, with about eight billion brothers and sisters. Now, my grandmother isn't ancient, but her stories of her childhood sound like they're straight out of the freakin' dark ages. She didn't know about flush toilets or toilet paper. They didn't have... hell, they didn't have anything at all. They wore their clothes until they were rags, and then they made things out of the rags. Nothing ever got thrown away.
Often, there wasn't any food, and so all eight billion kids went hungry. When times were desperate, they ate some pretty weird crap. Once, my grandmother's father shot and killed a beaver for the family to eat. She still winces with disgust when she remembers the taste of that beaver. She described it to me once as "so yukky!"
She said that she'd made herself a promise. Presumably, this was right around the time of the beaver incident, because she always mentioned the promise in conjunction with the beaver. It didn't matter, she told herself, if she were ever really rich. But someday, she would have enough for herself and for her family. They wouldn't ever be hungry.
On Sundays, my family used to eat over at her house. She'd cook these huge meals. They weren't always the greatest, but they were always good, and there were always leftovers. There were always snacks for the kids: bottles of apple juice, fruit slices, candies, gum... For dinner, there would be pot roast and carrots, peas or beans, rolls, and potatoes. For dessert, there was home-canned fruit, or applesauce. She put red food coloring in the applesauce so that it didn't look "anemic." A few people noticeably rolled their eyes at the bright pink applesauce, but it always tasted pretty good. Sometimes I would ask: "how come you always make so much food?" And she would tell me: "...once upon a time, when I was a little girl on the farm..." And she'd launch into a story about eating inedibles throughout much of her childhood.
My family never really lacked for food. We ate a lot of pasta, but we never went hungry. On special occasions, we had pork roasts. In keeping with the Minnesota philosophy of never throwing anything away, the pork roast leftovers were used to make an old Minnesota-Danish dish refered to as "lopscose." Basically, it's leftovers, mushed up onto a plate. But it's one of my favorite things in the world to eat. Mostly, my family ate kind of sparse meals. Noodles with butter and parmesan cheese: that was dinner. Homemade cheeseburgers with no bread. We didn't think to use bread. We used lots of ketchup to compensate for the fact that my dad always burned them in an effort to kill any lingering bacteria in them. We had BLTs without the tomatoes. French toast and omelettes. Pork chops with shitty gravy. Once in awhile, it was baked chicken with cheese and garlic on top. Those were the kinds of dinners we had. And sometimes, we'd get a pizza, or we'd grab some fast food shit and drive up to the old asylum and eat it in the car. Dinner always consisted of meat or pasta. I have difficulty conceiving of meals without one or the other, preferably both. Vegetarianism, to me, is a fancy politically correct word for starvation.
Breakfast was Cherrios with milk. Every single breakfast I remember from my childhood was Cheerios with milk. I'm sure there were other things too, but I'll be damned if I remember anything else. There must have been cinnamon toast, or scrambled eggs, or something, once in awhile... All I remember is the Cheerios.
But in any case, there was always something. There was always enough to keep us full for a few hours, at least.
I suppose this is where my worry comes from... Not that I'm going to starve. Not that I'm going to have to kill a beaver in order to feed my family. But that there won't be enough to keep everyone full for a few hours. The feeling of hunger is absolutely unacceptable to me. Rather, the feeling of hunger and the inability to do anything about it, is unacceptable to me. Perhaps it's genetic memory of the Minnesota farm. Maybe it's just that the stories of the crap they ate -- and the long, long time periods of eating nothing -- got to me. Maybe it's that I always sensed a little bit of fear in my family that maybe one day there wouldn't be enough. I've almost always had enough for myself, but that's never stopped me from remembering that vibe I got as a kid from my grandmother and my parents: what happens when we run out?
"I want to cook for you..." --Jerry Horne, "Twin Peaks," trying to woo a girl.
I told Neil once or twice that I wanted to cook for him. With a mock-glare, he said I was just trying to fatten him up. But that wasn't quite it. I couldn't quite explain what it was. Cooking for other people is a way, I suppose, of not letting them worry about food: about whether there's enough, and whether there will be enough for tomorrow, and whether it's filling enough... I like to see people eat. I like to see my loved ones eat. It means they're okay; it means they're not hungry; it means they're not wandering around Minnesota swamps with a rifle, waiting for a beaver... It means that their stomachs won't rumble for a little while...
I went to the food bank today. Nobody else seemed too particularly concerned about the few cups of milk, the last scrapings of margarine, the decided lack of anything meat-like, and the boxed dinners that can't be made without milk, margarine, and meat. I was concerned. So I went.
I carried a bunch of cans and things back up to our apartment and put them away. Everyone is still asleep, so they probably don't even know I've been out. Just as well. Then I'd have to explain how I woke up this morning thinking about breakfast, and that degenerated into a long, sad daydream about beavers, and then THAT ended up causing me to dress very quickly, race to the food bank before it closed, and grab some stuff that will, I hope, last for the next five or six days...
It doesn't even really make sense to me. I couldn't hope to explain it to anyone else.
But in any case, I'm less worried now.
I think there is just enough milk to mix up a box of pudding. I think there's a chocolate one left in the cupboard....... Hell yeah.
~Helena*