Struggling with a cold for a few days has brought me closer to a few truths. The first one being that I do not like being laid up and dependent on someone’s kindness to get on. The other is that I actually can expect the kids to take care of themselves for hours together and even try to help their mom out. The third is that I do nothing to get myself closer to my dream of writing and it weighs on me a little more each day.
Some people are born nurses in the sense that if someone is unwell they can, almost magically feel their loved one’s discomfort and alleviate it or even anticipate needs. I am a good, albeit reluctant nurse myself. My husband does care but has no idea about what to do when I am ill and can only at most follow instructions inadequately though in a normal situation he is the epitome of efficiency. My mother thinks boiling water for soup is too difficult half the time so she is nurturing only when her son is ill and thinks daughters are made of hardier stuff. So I end up dragging myself to the kitchen to make soup which everyone else loves to drink but no one thinks to make for the cold-infected patient.
The pleasant feeling one gets when one realises that indeed the children are not as dependent as they were a while ago is hard to explain. They get by with minimum supervision and actually worry over why I’m in bed and even think to bring in biscuits to make me feel better. I cannot recall when the little ones changed from needing constant care to achieving a measure of independence that really makes sickness a lot less scary than it used to be.
My inertia in following my dream fills me with anxiety that attacks when I am not actively doing something or in the dead of the night. So being unable to read or go online was the perfect circumstance for my ever-present-in-the-background anxiety to kick in. The years I spent dodging this fear would have seen me as an established writer had I actually taken the trouble to face things head-on. But I continue to slither sideways like some exotic desert snake waiting for a more perfect time or place or situation before plunging in. What sort of a spineless coward does that make me, I wonder?
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Food phobias
I love to hate food. Its been that way ever since I could eat solids. Perhaps the reason I find eating tedious and a task to be undertaken only when one’s stomach rebels mightily, is that I was forced to eat as a child – apparently my skinny frame was a source of displeasure to my very stout father whose other children were reassuringly well-rounded. My younger brother grew to huge proportions fed on a diet that had little or no nutrition and was heavy on taste and my sister enjoyed eating while making it a point not to appear so. I felt left out in the family where food was God.
I remember the early days when I would cry at the sight of a plate of rice, curry, vegetables and fish or meat all mixed up and rolled into balls to facilitate eating. I would sit before the plate and escape to my dream world where eating was banished and let the rice balls curl up and dry before my mother would give me a sound scolding and get me started on the food. If there was delicious kheema, I would ask for green beans. If there was platters of fried fish of a special variety, I would complain that it smelt of petrol (it really did bother me). If there was yoghurt in any form, I would eat that – I detested rice and still am not fond of it after so many years.
Another reason I disliked food is the large numbers of people who would arrive during the weekend at our tiny flat, just to eat food. They would pig out and then loll around the place giving us girls little or no privacy. My parents were always in the kitchen. I do not recall family outings or educational trips or just going out to a nice restaurant once in a while. The family’s focus was food nearly all the time. I never understood the reason my father felt like feeding 20 people every week for the ten years that we were in the Gulf.
My father lost his mother at a tender age and his father was never there for the dozen children that he co-created. So their childhood was hard and they often had to forgo meals. I suppose in his mind, food gained utmost importance and the idea of parenting was tied up in it. Thus I longed for books and got food. I longed to go and see places and got food instead. I longed for dance lessons and didn’t have the courage to say that fearing I would hear the refrain “we can’t afford it” and then be given some ‘treat’ to reassure me. I associate and overabundance of food with waste and hate leftovers with a passion.
I am sure everyone else thought I was an ungrateful creature who should have been thanking my parents on bended knees for providing lavish fare everyday but they did not understand that everyone’s needs are not alike. I craved intellectual stimulation more than food but I was sadly in the minority in a family that would rather watch TV than actually read anything .Therefore what seemed like a dream existence to some strangely turned out to be a childhood I did not cherish and thus I continue to dislike eating except when warranted.
I remember the early days when I would cry at the sight of a plate of rice, curry, vegetables and fish or meat all mixed up and rolled into balls to facilitate eating. I would sit before the plate and escape to my dream world where eating was banished and let the rice balls curl up and dry before my mother would give me a sound scolding and get me started on the food. If there was delicious kheema, I would ask for green beans. If there was platters of fried fish of a special variety, I would complain that it smelt of petrol (it really did bother me). If there was yoghurt in any form, I would eat that – I detested rice and still am not fond of it after so many years.
Another reason I disliked food is the large numbers of people who would arrive during the weekend at our tiny flat, just to eat food. They would pig out and then loll around the place giving us girls little or no privacy. My parents were always in the kitchen. I do not recall family outings or educational trips or just going out to a nice restaurant once in a while. The family’s focus was food nearly all the time. I never understood the reason my father felt like feeding 20 people every week for the ten years that we were in the Gulf.
My father lost his mother at a tender age and his father was never there for the dozen children that he co-created. So their childhood was hard and they often had to forgo meals. I suppose in his mind, food gained utmost importance and the idea of parenting was tied up in it. Thus I longed for books and got food. I longed to go and see places and got food instead. I longed for dance lessons and didn’t have the courage to say that fearing I would hear the refrain “we can’t afford it” and then be given some ‘treat’ to reassure me. I associate and overabundance of food with waste and hate leftovers with a passion.
I am sure everyone else thought I was an ungrateful creature who should have been thanking my parents on bended knees for providing lavish fare everyday but they did not understand that everyone’s needs are not alike. I craved intellectual stimulation more than food but I was sadly in the minority in a family that would rather watch TV than actually read anything .Therefore what seemed like a dream existence to some strangely turned out to be a childhood I did not cherish and thus I continue to dislike eating except when warranted.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)