Everybody Has a Hungry Heart

Remember those 10 pounds that I lost when I first got the braces? Well, let's just say, I found them.

I was feeling a bit sorry for myself that I couldn't have the foods that I used to eat, and so I have been loitering in what I am now calling a "cupcake depression." That means I have eaten cupcakes every day for about 2 months. (It's a great way to find pounds that you've lost. They come a-runnin' right back home!) I find myself craving cake, soft breads, anything that is literally providing a form of cushioning, a soft place for me to bump up against, whether that means me, or my interior self.

What seemed like a good idea at the time is now, quite literally making me go soft. I'm getting fleshy and round. I used to be so smart and so sharp, but I feel like I'm dulled around the edges. I know I should simply stop eating the cupcakes--problem solved!--but I cannot stop.

Today, I finally asked my stomach "Are you truly hungry for a cupcake?" and the interior answer was a resounding "NO!" Believe it or not, this surprised me. I asked myself, again, "Really you're not hungry?" I realized I've been trying to feed something in me--a definitive hunger--but apparently not for sugar or treats or soft, easily chewed food.

I started to take stock of my body to see what was really hungry and I finally saw the places that were compensating for the braces. It appears that I'm growing teeth in all the areas within me that are hungry. My feet for example, have a full set of incisors, canines and molars. They are starving to move, to feel grass, sand and dirt underneath them. They'd even settle for a good uninterrupted stretch of concrete. They are just so tired of being still, obediently arranged side by side under my office desk when they want to move! They want to dance! They want to jump like pogo sticks and downward dog. That dog wants a bone to gnaw upon so very badly.

I realized that my heart is growing teeth too. The heart is so close to the stomach that when hunger is concerned it's so easy to get them confused. I think this is why so many who are lonely are comforted by moon pies and ice cream. We think our bellies are grumbly for food, so it makes sense to up the food intake. But after I ate a full farmer's breakfast with eggs and potatoes, basmati rice and saag paneer, a veritable ton of girl scout cookies, a dinner of spaghetti squash with roasted pine nuts and home made cranberry cake (2 slices!), I realized I was full to the gills and with not a stitch of room and I still wanted to keep eating.

It was then that I knew that teeth are popping out all over my body, rising to the surface of my limbs, my organs, trying to sink themselves in, anywhere, because the ones in my mouth cannot do it. They don't want to go soft. They want to sharpen themselves, and crunch and chew, take in experience, break it all down, and digest it, making it wholly a part of me. Perhaps this is the way I have to feed myself now, but it's so new and so strange. I am like an adolescent going through puberty, amazed, embarrassed by all the changes my body is going through. Maybe, if I just allow these new teeth--in my feet, my heart, my lungs--to tell me what they want to eat, I can finally be sated.

This reminds me of The Waking by Theodore Rothke. This passage in particular:

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know

What falls away is always. And is near

I wake to sleep and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.