Free writing: This might work. It might not.

The Something, the Nothing

I haven’t been able to write lately because I have been seized in the jaws of outrage and fury. I can’t write about that because, in my day to day, I must function. I often write about nothing and try to make it into something, and today is one of those days when the drive to write is strong and the subject is off limits. So I am going to write about Nothing. Please understand, I am full-on possessed by the Something. I just don’t want to write about it.

So I was thinking about Rice-a-Roni this morning. Boxed rice/vermicelli mixes are a vice of mine. I discovered them when I was fifteen, and there was a certain herbed rice off-brand you could get four for a dollar. I can’t even remember what it was called (MJB Herb and Butter Rice?). So there I was in Yakima, fifteen years old and cooking dinner every night for my boyfriend, and that particular side dish made its way onto many a plate.

Rice-a-Roni, the San Francisco Treat, was more expensive. But there was a fried rice version with tiny almond chips that I could convert into something wonderful by adding sauteed onions, celery and mushrooms. I did that quite a bit. No one has ever liked this besides me, but that’s never stopped me from making it. The only thing that made me stop was nitrates. I was to avoid nitrates while pregnant, and I was pregnant or nursing for the majority of my twenties, so, no Rice-a-Roni.

I ate it this past week, which has been a comfort food extravaganza. We might as well be living in a flyover state, because it’s been baked ziti, macaroni and cheese, meatloaf, tuna casserole, and the aforementioned dolled up boxed stuff (now nut-free). I am desperately trying to calm myself, to comfort myself with this food. It is really not working. At all.

This morning, I was thinking about what my daughters couldn’t eat while pregnant. Rice-a-Roni (nitrates) and cold cuts (no idea why here) and sushi (again, no idea why, maybe mercury). I probably wasn’t supposed to eat sushi while I was pregnant, either, but this wasn’t an issue for me in the 1980s. Back then, I thought sushi was a prank, and that no one would ever eat it for any other reason than they thought it made them cool. Then I tried it in the 90s, and discovered that the reason millions of people eat sushi on the daily is because it’s delicious. Who knew? Millions and millions of people, that’s who.

Enduring What’s Bad For You

It’s snowing outside right now, which generally makes me feel cozy and safe. I watch through my dining room windows, snug and smug, grateful for my life. But nothing makes me cozy right now. Nothing can make me feel safe. I have to remind myself to be grateful for my life. That’s what my grandma Lucille preached: gratitude. She was grateful for everything, and it kept her so calm.

I could use some of her calm right now. I am a calm person by nature. Some might even call me stolid. I’m not calm these days, but I am frozen in panic. I suppose that might resemble calm. Sometimes I remind myself to take deep breaths. Like a woman does in labor. She is in so much pain that she forgets to breathe, so part of the Lamaze training I had in 1982 was about remembering to breathe. To provide oxygen a body requires to withstand giving birth.

Did you know that a woman uses the equivalent of a marathon runner’s calorie expenditure when she gives birth? She also experiences the same euphoric rush of endorphins when it’s all over. That’s why she can do it again–that endorphin reward. Nature’s little bonus, to keep us all popping out children. But for some women, once is enough.

I have a dear friend who ran a marathon. She trained for a year with her Border Collie beside her, and ran the whole thing. Her husband and sons were there, cheering her on. And when she finished, in the midst of her euphoric endorphin reward, she said something like, “That was amazing and I never have to do that again!” That’s exactly what my younger brother said after skydiving on his 18th birthday. That it was fantastic, and he never had to do it again.

Some impossible things have to be repeated, apparently. Giving birth is survivable. So is running a marathon. Jumping out of an airplane, too. Usually. There are mothers who don’t make it, marathoners who have heart attacks, and skydivers who die in the air, or when they land. I understand those who choose the singular experience. “I did it once, I made it through, that’s enough.” Other people are hooked on it. They thrive on the danger, the rush. They never stop.

How to Do It

I am not a risk taker. I am more of a shepherd; fiercely protective of my own safety and the safety of those in my charge. I understand the fragility of life, but don’t do enough to guard my own health. I should not be eating nitrates and casseroles if I want to extend my years on this planet. I think that’s all right. I matter a great deal to a few people, and nothing at all to the majority. This world will carry on just fine when I’m gone.

Sometimes I need to remind myself of that, my insignificance. I pull back and take a high look down on this world, this tiny rock in an infinite universe, the life that clings to it thanks to a fragile layer of hydrogen and oxygen. The world’s problems are so minute from that view. So small that they hardly exist.

But I live here, in this layer, on this rock. The far view might ease my pain for a moment, but I have to come back to my dining room table, where I sit at a computer, where the snow is still falling, soft and white outside my window. I watch it and wonder and wait. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I have three grandchildren.

I guess I’m waiting to see what the world will look like for them.