I must confess to what amounts to a rather unhealthy relationship to food, and I don’t just mean that in the most literal sense of my physical health, although that’s by no means a minor matter. But I’m talking mostly about the strange combination of obsessiveness and mindlessness with which I tend to regard the food I eat. On the one hand, I think about food a lot on a very superficial level. It’s the white noise in the background of my every waking thought – meaning that I think about food a lot but I don’t think deeply about food – and I tend to think about it the most when I have to wait for it or when I’m disappointed by it. And like bulimics, I think I sometimes use food as a means to feel like I am in better control of my crazy life than in fact I am. There’s something about the rhythmic precision with which I grab meals on the run that gives me a sense of orderliness, of having life well in hand, even if my life in fact is an inch or two away from flying right off of its tracks. There is something immensely reassuring about that familiar Taco Bell drive thru and the ease with which I toss off my order. (Not that I order the same thing every time- but I have my favorite combinations and even know how much some of them cost before the total has even been rung up.) Meals are a much appreciated pleasure for me, even if the meal is grabbed through a drive thru and eaten while en route to my next destination.
But whether seated at the table or at my car’s steering wheel, I always eat too quickly – which is just one component of the mindlessness with which I tend to consume food. I tend not to savor it the way I should. Nor do I know enough about the food I consume or its effect on my physical and mental well being. I think very little about where my food comes from. And on the most basic level, I tend to pay scant attention to exactly what food I eat in a given day – or how much. Food is all around us, and if I’m feeling the slightest pangs of hunger, I grab whatever is handy. Going hungry is typically an unthinkable option for me. And my focus on food dates back a long time. As a student in elementary school and junior high, I would routinely stop off at the Ben Franklin store on my way home and buy TEN Nestle Crunch Bars or TEN Kit Kat Bars or TEN of something else (never mixing or matching them) and eat them all on the way home. And I somehow remained skinny as a rail. And in college, I became infamous on Nordic Choir tours when the bus would stop at one of those interstate exits with multiple places to eat, and I would visit two or even three of them in the space of a single meal …. just because I couldn’t bear the thought of doing without whatever delicious options were available across the street. And somehow I still remained skinny as a rail! So obviously I’ve seen hunger as an unpleasant adversary for most of my life…. which is one reason why I’m no longer skinny as a rail, and haven’t been for quite some time!
Which is what made Monday, September 30th such an extraordinary day for me. This was the day before my first colonoscopy, and for 24 hours I was on a liquid diet ….. jello, broth, clear soda, water. Period. And because the diet forbade anything red, I had to be lemon or lime jello – and without fruit or dessert topping or anything else to make it seem like anything besides the kind of food that gets served in nursing homes. But the jello was better than the broth I had for supper, just because broth feels so wrong…. it’s soup without the stuff that makes soup so much fun. As I was sipping my chicken broth all I could think of was what was missing …. the rice, the slices of carrot and celery, the chunks of chicken. After awhile, it just felt like brown hot water, and I couldn’t wait to be done with it. It was something to endure. And it was all I could think about. True, I managed to watch some TV and did a little light reading. But I realized how hunger tends to steal our focus and prevent us from thinking about much else – until the whole matter of running to the bathroom every ten minutes started kicking in, which made thinking deep thoughts even more impossible! which made me so glad to have Kathy there … not only as the preparer of jello and broth, but as companion and cheerleader. And never once did she admonish me to “snap out of it!” or “get a grip!” She knew it was a long, hard day for me and was willing to be there with me through all of the unpleasantness.
It was also nice to have Facebook as a vehicle for venting frustration and cracking jokes- and to receive all kinds of encouragement and advice, especially from people who had been down this very same road before. Amidst the snappy comments and one-liners, which really helped my spirits – plus the comic moment when I likened myself to Scarlett O’Hara in that famous scene where she vows never to be hungry again – against all that, one especially important pearl of wisdom came from my friend Kathy Fischer who said Now imagine feeling hungry like that all the time. Kind of puts things in perspective. She was SO right. The hunger I was experiencing was a choice I was making, in order to have an important medical procedure. It was an entirely temporary hunger I knew would come to an end within minutes after the colonoscopy was finished. And it was. On our way home from Aurora, we stopped at Panera, where I feasted on a generous helping of their splendid Macaroni and Cheese and a heaping bowl of their Chicken and Wild Rice Soup. And for supper, we had my favorite of all meals: pot roast, potatoes and carrots, with chocolate cream pie for dessert, all lovingly prepared by Kathy. And I somehow felt that I had earned all that for having survived a single day on a Liquid Diet – as if that were some ordeal. But what about the perpetually hungry among us? Or what about those people who suffer from one malady or another which prevents them from eating what they would like to eat? By comparison, my day of jello and broth is not even worth mentioning… except that it gave me a rare and valuable reminder of what it means to be hungry… even if it was a brief, temporary taste of it.
By the way, the procedure went off without a hitch. Going into it, I was most nervous about something the nurse said: that it was possible that I might briefly reawaken for a few seconds now and then but that it was nothing to worry about. Well that was the last thing I wanted to have happen, and I am very grateful that I seem to have been out like a light for the entire procedure. And when I awoke, the first thing I saw was my wife’s smiling face – and the first words I heard her say was that it was all over and had gone just fine. Only later at home, when I pressed her for details, did she tell me what I said as I was first coming out of the anesthesia. As my eyes first fluttered open, the nurse said something about how I needed to pass gas. (Evidently that’s a good thing to have happen in this particular scenario. I suppose it helps to kick start the colon into fully functioning again.) And a few seconds later, that’s exactly what I did- at which point I apparently announced to everyone in the room “I f-a-r-t-e-d!” Kathy said later that I was the only person she could think of who would, in a semi-coma, choose to spell an off-color word rather than say it out loud!
I’m glad we found reason to smile and laugh …. but I hope I do not let go of the important lessons to be learned in this experience: 1) that abundant food is a great blessing which we should not take for granted. 2) that those systems of the human body which allow us to consume food, process it, and be nourished by it should also not be taken for granted. 3) that a little hunger is a healthy thing, and I need to allow myself to experience it a lot more often. And perhaps most important of all: 4) that you can endure just about anything- no matter how unpleasant- when you know that you aren’t enduring it alone, and that it isn’t forever. After all, as Scarlett O’Hara says, “tomorrow is another day.”
pictured above: This is part of the sumptuous buffet served after my 25th anniversary concert at Holy Communion back in May. A member of the congregation, Marianne Jensen, coordinated this as only she could.