I'm fat. Just sit with that information a moment and notice how comfortable or uncomfortable you feel about my revelation. Are you angry with me ("Why did she have to say that?? I don't want to read this crap!")? Do you want to give me a hug ("She looks so pretty! Why would she say that about herself?")? Are you wondering why the heck I'm talking about this right now ("Is she seriously going to talk about herself and being fat at a time like this??")?
Honestly, I was just being a bit cheeky with the title and an allusion to Garcia Marquez's gorgeous work. The titles have the same number of syllables and a similar, odd juxtapositioning of two concepts: fat/corona and love/cholera In this lifetime, I wouldn't compare myself to Garcia Marquez. I'm just a fangirl. But in the process of looking up what he meant by the book title, I learned some crazy stuff.
Garcia Marquez wrote Love in the Time of Cholera because he'd been inspired by Dafoe's 1722 novel A Journal of the Plague Year. Set in 1665, it's a journal of one man living in London during the bubonic plague. Yes, I went down that rabbit hole. Yes, it's available for free online - like, the whole book! Yes, I'm amazed that I bumped into this information about bubonic plague while researching something I thought was completely unrelated, while we ourselves are all going through....but I digress.
Fat. At nearly 54, I'm ok with most things about me. So I'm not writing about my weight to be exhorted to love myself nor hear inspiration to work out (I do both!). Nor am I fishing for compliments - I know I'm beautiful inside and out, blah, blah, blah. (I've been looking at myself on Zoom for four years. Not four months, four years. I'm captivating, adorable, thoughtful, and have a great smile). Thanks, though. I was married to a man who loved me and loved how I looked no matter what I weighed. What a true gift in a life partner.
No, see, food is in my head right now because I caught myself complaining about how all the snacks in my home taste like cardboard: Ak-mak crackers, gluten-free pretzels, Reduced Fat Wheat Thins and hummus, low-fat granola, and Vatana (peas) from the Indian store. Beyond lackluster snacks, I have a wide array of delectable, yet uber-healthy produce from the farmers' market: Cara-Cara Oranges, Gala apples, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, blueberries, strawberries... and all organic too. Truly a dietician's dream....but not 'fun' food!
While this is not true of every person, I am overweight because I live here and I have the money to purchase this food and consume more of it than my body needs or probably should have. Wow. The ultimate 'first world problem', huh? And food is also on my mind because I saw those images of food bank lines. People here in America need food. That simply astonishes me. Before the pandemic, I think the stat was something like 1 in 7 children in America went to bed hungry. Here in our country. I'm sure that stat is worse now.
Regardless of what we weigh, we can take a minute or two to help. Today, I'm going to visit the Second Harvest Food Bank website and make a donation. But next time I go to the store, I'll pick up some extra cans of beans or soup to donate. I have friends who volunteer at food banks every week and they report that donations are way down. I'll also be mindful when I sit down to my meals and be grateful for every bite.
*Note: in response to last week's post in which I whined about not having chocolate in the house, a very, very sweet high school classmate sent a beautiful box of chocolates from Olympia Candy Kitchen (a favorite spot from our youth). I'm so grateful for her thoughtfulness, the chocolate itself, and that she'd help a business, which we hold close in our hearts, to stay open. Wooo-hooo!
