Eating My Feelings

 This week at work, I spent considerable time reading Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America by Michael Harriot.  My nails disappeared.  Most were mostly gone almost immediately. Yet somehow, I found a way to rip a bit more skin or get just a bit further down into the layer that wasn’t quite nail on the tip of my finger.  The ‘during’ discomfort rested between my stomach and my heart.

What's next?  Throbbing.  It remained with me.  It was especially bad when I washed my hands.  The sensation made me second guess flossing my teeth.

Yet, this time, it made sense, seemed appropriate, that there was a reason. I decided that reason was for unknown time after closing the book, the words remained.  I should have to sit with history, with my discomfort.  The texture of the pages echoed in my hands, my tool with which to act, as a sharpness, an enforced penance.  Which action do I choose? This question had relevance because I always, I bit my nails voraciously, incessantly, while I read.  Yet, I had not been able to identify good reasons for doing so.

On Saturday, I started my summer Young Adult reading for a review panel, and continued the reflection around anxiety and eating. I always loved reading so why the emotional reaction?  Previously, I told myself it was the worry that the books I wrote would never be published, or that I would not succeed in bridging into the world of literary agency to elevate someone else’s story.  Still, these seemed not good enough reasons. I stared at my hands.  I sensed the anxiety spike.  I needed to be careful.  Regrettably, despite taking care, I had left drops of blood on new book pages before.  Unintended harm.  Snacks could substitute for fingernails.  I preferred spiced tortilla chips, but I mindlessly chomped pretzels since they wouldn’t leave marks on the book pages.  I had been determined to work through 25 books in one sitting.

I must be hungry for something.  It could not be a coincidence that I made notes about the titles connecting narrative style and tone to food.  Flavored comments as a kind of grocery list.

The Color of a Lie by Kim Johnson. . .soft, warm, honey

Looking for Smoke by K.A. Cobell. . . salt. . . cinnamon. . .punctuated and conflicted flavor

This Book Won’t Burn by Samira Ahmed. . . rich and layered. . .spiced, roasted seeds

Every Time You Hear That Song by Jenna Voris. . . quippy and quick, raspberry that you embrace the tang on your tongue

Chronically Dolores by Maya Van Wagenen. . . fun and deep, chocolate and chilé

On Sunday, I rewarded myself.  Amid all the YA holds for the award committee work was my copy of Anguish and Anarchy, the long awaited third book in Tomi Adeyemi's Legacy of Orisha series.  I laid back and allowed my eyes to surf the pages.  I'm reminded of the joy in long awaited endings in books, but also the way my emotions vibrated. I admitted the narrative and I consumed each other. Finding the titles and then finishing them was a false way to mark both action and accomplishment. And, I was also, as always, eating my feelings. If something was over, something else would inherently come. The thing I wanted. The me I wanted. Even if I didn't know what it was.

Once upon a time this experience was mostly of the sugary variety:  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows mailed to me in Guatemala.  One day.  I finished the Twilight series over maybe a week after I completed my Masters’s coursework.  These were the equivalent of chocolate ice cream eaten to the bottom of the tub.  Laying on the futon surrounded by summer, it was indulgence, connections made that she intended, perhaps some she didn't.  Too, the oppressing heat let loose by Harriot’s work.  Now final pages needed to mean beginnings.

Monday morning through a round about urge, I found the words.  “I'm going to make cookies,” I told a coworker.  “I need to eat my feelings.”

Words or calories, sugar or keratin, enjoyment or anxiety all cause the same result.  Wondering why and ache. Lethargy.  Nausea.  Books and food alleviate the sensation of stagnancy. Emptiness to excess and excess to emptiness.

As an answer, I skimmed articles about "How to Stop Stress Eating"

Increase your awareness

Do a brain-to-belly scan

Establish a support system

Enjoy but with purpose

I had one eligible book aside, Margarita Engle's Wild Dreamers.  Poetry.  The ease of playful and artistic spaces.  Margarita Engle had introduced me to novels in verse.  I used to savor them and now I read them the fastest of all. Ironically this book centered food.  I promised to return with intention to the intersection of identity that tightened and released in the spaces between her words.  Afterall, LatinoLand was also waiting on my desk at work, another version of a tapping, inhaling and mixing of instructions on who to be and what to make.  Action and perceived action. An experience to savor with raw ingredients seeking combination versus checking processed foods in boxes.