Nourished

A documented conversation I’m having with myself: linear, but liminal.

Intermittently throughout my life, the relationship I’ve had with food has been drastic. I’ve gone through stretches where every meal was a quantitative measurement in my head: portion size, caloric intake, the time between one snack and another. Other months I’ve frivolously disregarded my diet. I recognize that this behavior has been so harmful to the body I inhabit in numerous ways— primarily, leaking into my sense of self-reliancy, so I’m creating this document to liberate every meal, raking through old thought patterns, enjoying quality food, and in general, articulating my journey here.

Nourishment: What does it mean to be nourished? A word that came to me walking on an empty stomach.

To be full with natural ingredients, homemade meals. Bread as a health food

Sufficiently, just enough. Not overly indulged in; satiates

Soul-contentness. A good conversation. A finally digestible situation. Enough relationships that bring you life. To be a mentor and to be mentored.

To be supplied with information. To feel adept at. Some sort of developed prowess. Nourishment in your confidence/ability to do something well.

$120 worth of fresh produce and spices and pickling veggies. I promised a new habit to my weekly routine, cooking with my groceries every night of the week but one. Using the constraints of dwindling items to bolster my creativity, while making space for nourishment in the most common sense. The one excepted night will be dinner/drinks with a friend.

A full head of yellow cauliflower

White beans

Feta cheese

Olive oil, cinnamon, acv, cardamom, salt

“A meal that reminded me I could be sturdy.”

I might argue this morning that nourishment involves your finances. I shopped for the first time since quarantine and spent lavishly on clothing. As lovely as it is to have a wardrobe furnished with fine vintage garments, my wallet felt the absence of a couple big bills, and I felt a little less secure. After the splurge I caught myself having fits in my head about everywhere else my money needed to go. Nourishment seems to have taken on another facet for me. Spending extravagantly, or maybe just all at once, feels indulgent, wobbly, unsafe. Nourishment is stasis. Nourishment is just right. Nourishment is balance. Stewarding my money modestly and predictably seems to be harmonious with a life of being properly nourished.

Charred Eggplant

Grilled Lamb Satay

Evening with Micah; a meal and a conversation with marrow. Laudatory words that nourished some doubt I’ve been having, compliments that made soft spots firm. She and I bring each other clarity always. She sees what I can’t and inversely, so in lack of nourishment I walk around with bleary eyes.

Celery juice

Garlic herb tuna

Blue cheese stuffed olives

A diet of meat and greens and sun is all I need to flourish.

A bite into a ripe plum curbed my appetite. Later it was a crunchy bell pepper, sweet and watery. It trickled down my throat and left in me the harvest of another hot July day.