No Longer a Patient--Aftershocks, Heartstrings and Playing with Food

This is the first day for almost ten weeks that I'm not in treatment. Today is many other things too, but it's hard for me not to see it mostly in terms of that milestone--except for the fact that it's also the day I head over to PLU for my MFA program residency! How's that for a transition? From Foie Gras Farm to Sandwich Academy direct to my beloved MFA program...


I confess, although I've been eagerly counting the days until the squeezing of this constricting experience plunge me into the light and sound and freedom of regular existence, I have some apprehension as well. When I arrived here, straight from the desert isolation of Foie Gras Farm, it was like emerging into the light after being down a mine. Streets with cars driving them, buildings, the experience of going into a store, a new program organization to get the hang of--all these were overwhelming. But even here, we're not quite on the loose, and I suspect that being on my own cognizance around food, medication compliance, and various other issues, will offer some similar overwhelm if only to a lesser degree. And that's without the glad ecstatic overwhelm of being at Residency.


Add to the ambivalence the fact that, as always, it's the people that make the program. Because we had evenings and weekends free, and many people went home at those times, we didn't get quite as intensely close as at Foie Gras Farm, where we were all squished up against each other 24/7. But for those of us out-of-towners who stayed at the Annex, there was the opportunity to get to know one another better, and there were a couple of wonderful people I got to share space with there, with whom I'm looking forward to continuing friendship, and whom I'll be missing right in my heart these next days.


Am I ready to be out on my own cognizance? I hope so. I certainly have 'treatment fatigue.' There's little danger that I'll fail to take my meds, because I don't want to be crazy at the Residency and it would be a bad time to play doctor. The food? Granted that's always a challenge for me in this kind of situation, my intention is to take better care of myself in that area, including smarter shopping later today in preparation. My metabolism is chugging along right now, so there's no way I'll go back to my previous patterns.


Just a couple random thoughts about the food thing. I haven't been very forthcoming in my descriptions of what went on in the institutions where I've spent basically my whole summer, partly because there are some folks who read this that might draw adverse conclusions from what I say. However, there are going to be communal meals at the Residency, so let me say something about the associations there. The hardwood floors and black tables at the Sandwich Academy represent excellent planning, as both of them make any of the throwing food on the floor/trying to hide it on the table-type efforts instantly obvious and thus futile. On my first day, there was such a mess all around me, very obviously around me, not blending into anything--just embarrassing. However, those hardwood floors are also an excellent acoustic device for amplifying the clomp-clomp-clomp of feet in heels as the 'meal monitor' patrols the tables, alert to pounce on someone to correct their behavior. Behaviors deemed worthy of correction were not only things like hiding nuts in your leggings or attempting to purloin plastic cutlery with ill intent; there was also a strong emphasis on 'normalizing' food behavior, both choice of food and how it was eaten.


So, don't eat that with silverware; eat that with silverware; don't eat the bits that fell out of your sandwich--eat the sandwich first; no, you can't eat that open-face, you have to put the whole thing together, even though gluten free bread doesn't stay together and what's in there isn't typical sandwich fare and the whole thing's going to implode as soon as you pick it up; don't take two bites off of the spoon; don't eat that with the spoon; no, you can't have sauce with that rubbery tofu and dried-out rice: that's not normalized... Very frustrating, very stressful. There were days I'd break out in a sweat every time I heard feet clomping; times when every time someone made a move toward me, I'd jump, wondering what I'd done this time. My thought, of course, was that if their main concern was to get me to put the food inside me, they should let me do so in whatever way worked for me. Looking back, though, why was it that the person getting corrected for trying to lose excess food was also the person doing the 'wrong' things with her food? It's hard to find dignity in one's 30's and being corrected for table manners and sneakery.


Where that leaves me, going into a situation where we eat together a lot, is very self-conscious indeed. Relieved that there will be no clomping around and embarrassing correction in front of everyone; anxious as ever about seeming weird/not normalized if I bring some different food to a meal because of my allergies; worried about making sure I don't play with my food in weird ways or put weird things together; mortified to think of some of the weird ways I ate at Residency last year--one favorite lunch that I recall was salad drenched in hot sauce, covered with spirulina I'd brought from home, which stayed powdery and painted my face green because there was no dressing to damp it down. My face is red now!