Month: January 2016

The Backdrop

It’s January.

It’s so damned cold in January.

Is it cold that I hate so much?

Or is it the lifeless, colorless backdrop in which I’m still expected to function?

My husband and I met in January. It was during a snow storm.

I still remember crawling into my car and starting it, turning the defrosters on, then blow on my own hands to warm them. He chased me out to my car to get my phone number, and I knew right then that he was worth keeping around.

Why was it in January?

I suppose I’m grateful because it gave us something to celebrate.

Two years later, we were married, in a snow storm.

Not in January.

But still, in a snow storm…

Four years after the night we met (almost to the day), our first daughter was born… in January.

Another something to celebrate.

It’s been 10 years since Scott and I first met in January.

Sophia will be seven on the 26th of January.

And I thank God that He gave me such beautiful gifts, in what used to be the worst month of the year for me: January.

Food for Thought

I believe in food.

I believe food heals.

I believe the power of food is greatly underestimated.

For, food is what every living being wakes up for. It’s what they work for. Often, it’s what they go to bed at night, wondering where its source will come from (for many humans, this is still the case.)

Tonight, my husband and I cooked a meal. Shrimp stir fry.

 He cut the tails off of the shrimp, while I prepped the veggies and other ingredients. During this time, we discussed our day. We decided what should happen with our youngest daughter. We even lightly touched base about opening our own business someday.

I had waited all day to see him, and he, I.

And this meal was our couple’s therapy. It was the mediator of our conversation.

“Can you hand me that cup?” One would ask, as if it were the punctuation of our sentences…

Food heals.

For us tonight, it brought two people, who each had separate days, living near separate lives, together.

I love food.

I could have never declared that 10 years ago.

Oh, the shame for a 20 year old girl to say she loves food. Especially, the chocolate I would eat in secrecy. The fast food. The foods whose big, shiny advertisements brought me to the local grocer like a zombie looking for a brain.

*Must. have. Oreos.*

But that’s not food.

I understand that now.

Oreos and other substances that deem themselves “food” are addictive and deadly. They are not what I love.

Food heals.

Things with shiny, advertisements often do not heal.

Our skin should glow! Our hearts should fill with vigor! Our veins should coarse with energy not diabetes.

You can’t have the conversation we had, when you’re eating a bag of cookies in the dark. To eat this meal that was made with love and feel its nutrients making you stronger, you must know that another, flashier meal won’t do the same for you – when even the ants will not consume it.

When did food become devalued in our world? What kind of organism purposely poisons itself? What other mammal on God’s green earth does not spend their time looking for sustenance.

Because in our world, sustenance of food is also sustenance of soul.

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