It Feeds Me

The phrase was uttered quietly, that Thursday morning, without flourish. I am here, a fellow student told our class, because this is what feeds me.

That simple sentence has resonated all week. I am here because it feeds me.

The question started niggling around in my head as I ran, as I sorted laundry, as I spent an hour online. What feeds me?

I thought about McDonalds. I thought about how you can order an entire family's worth of food, have the crowd swarm around the table, stuffing french fries and picking breading off chicken nuggets and dripping Special Sauce from their chins and at the end of the meal feel ... unfed. I may feel bloated, greasy-fingered, maybe even full, but without fail, when I leave a table at a fast food restaurant I feel unfed.

Conversely, cooking does feed me. The act of sourcing ingredients, of methodically chopping the vegetables, of remembering that thyme tastes better in this soup than basil, of simmering beans and tomatoes and garlic and onions in a cast iron pot all day: this is feeding myself. The warmth of soup in my throat, the melting parmesan on top, the crusty bread to dip in, the appreciative humming of my companions: this is feeding my people.

Writing feeds me.

Cleaning does not.

My Thursday morning class feeds me.

Filing papers does not.

Teaching feeds me.

Running feeds me.

Sit-ups do not.

Connecting - genuinely connecting with people - it absolutely feeds me.

Funny: once I started asking the question, the answers came thick and fast. This feeds me, that does not. This feeds me, that........ meh.

Saturday morning dawned a beautiful autumn-y gold. There was so much on the schedule: tight timeframes, a lot of shuttling back & forth, parents juggling duties to fit it all in. I finally rolled up to the sidelines of the soccer pitch, coffee in hand, thinking This day won't feed me. It won't feed any of us. I said as much to Torbjorn.

So we ditched the day's agenda.

I made our apologies for unmet commitments, and we took off for the country, for a day in the fall sunshine. There was some time spent on our backs in a Virginia meadow watching clouds, there was some spiced cider and kettle corn, there was art and music and... simple. And there was soup at the end of the day.



Is it so much to ask, that your occupations will feed you? I'd argue that no, it isn't much to ask of your life, that you pursue those things that will make you full, sated, content. And yet easy, so easy, to navigate your days, mindlessly ordering the spiritual equivalent of Happy Meals, constantly 'consuming', and never ever feeling fed.

So let's do a little experiment, shall we? How 'bout you go through your day today and ask yourself what feeds you - ask if what you're doing feeds you, or if might be filling your life with psychic Big Macs.

I'd love to hear what feeds you.

Dinner Party

Nine adults, sitting around a table, chatting ... laughing. 

Our hosts have done this before - they move as a seamless team, offering chairs, filling water glasses, pulling chicken off the grill.

Stories are traded, jokes are made, gentle observations offered.

Watcher that I am, I listen carefully, and keep quieter than usual.  I enjoy the fact that no one is spilling milk, demanding their Lamby fork, or bolting their food so they can go biking. 

My husband makes an inadvertent joke that gets the biggest guffaws of the evening, and I catch his eye across the table.  I give him the smallest of winks, the one that says 'you make me laugh the most.'

I listen as two of the couples tell stories of their weddings - weddings that happened before I was born.  I watch as our host smiles at his wife's story - he doesn't let on if he's heard it before - the smile is almost internal.  Another couple laughs in the exact same spot in a story, and both shake their heads ruefully - they could be sharing the same thought bubbles if they were in a comic strip.

I am startled, all of the sudden, by the realization that I am watching these couples, these old friends, cement their relationship in the quotidien.  I see the map showing where a lifetime together will take you - to a friend's dinner table, where you will finish one of your husband's jokes, and laugh at another one, and sit quietly in the confidence of his arm around the back of your chair. 

I want that, the Watcher whispered to herself.  I want that, for my best friend and I.