It’s Christmas and I am 10 years old. I want a tree. I want the twinkling lights, the angel at the top, the presents at the bottom. But my mother say no. We are Jewish and Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah, not Christmas. […]
My friend Molly told me about a fifty-year-old friend of hers who’d been a member of a sewing circle for ten years and was now dying of brain cancer. “I labored and sweated over my crooked stitches,” the friend said. […]
This morning in meditation, I heard and saw a presence — I couldn’t tell whether it was a woman or a glow of clear light — uttering the word “beloved.” […]
I have a friend who dreads summer because of what she calls the unveiling of her body. Peeling off her clothes, she says, reveals “the horror of it all.” The back fat. The cellulite. All the new cellulite that mysteriously appeared over the winter. […]
Ever since I first saw pictures and statues of Kuan-Yin, the Buddhist goddess of infinite compassion, I’ve wanted to be like her. Not only is she gorgeous — the kind of woman my 13-year-old nephew would call “a babe” — but she also manages to appear utterly casual while sporting a tiara. […]
I bought thirty-six peonies yesterday at Trader Joe’s. They were having a sale and although my grandmother would have disapproved—she wouldn’t buy flowers because “they always die”—I decided that staggering beauty was at least as important as Greek yogurt. [ …]
A few years ago, my husband gave me Team of Rivals — Doris Kearns Goodwin’ s book about Abraham Lincoln. […]
Until recently, I never used the word contentment; it seemed like asking too much. Also, the word itself seemed to imply smugness and being so satisfied with the way things were that there was no room for re aching or growing. Instead of contentment, I used the word happiness. But there was also a problem with that word as well. […]
When I first heard the Buddhist description of hungry ghosts — beings with stomachs as big as caves and throats as narrow as pins — I was positive I was going straight to hell as a hungry ghost. After all, this was an exact description of my experience with food. And not just with food, but also with life. […]
I did an interview recently about the ever-fraught subject of holiday eating. And I wanted you to see it, have it, and know that it’s possible to be kind to yourself in this upcoming period of family and food. It’s possible to delight in the food on your plate — why not? — and to be tender to yourself about what you need, when, and why. To act on your own behalf no matter who is sitting at the table with you. […]
I’ve been thinking about chocolate cake recently. To be precise, I’ve been thinking about what happens when a piece of bittersweet flourless Chocolate Decadence Cake arrives at a table where a few friends and I have agreed to share the dense, sweet dessert. Eyes light up. […]
When my husband and I eat at an outdoor restaurant these days, his meal always looks better than mine. I’m not sure why, since we don’t usually like the same kinds of food — but within three minutes, my fork finds its way to his side of the table. …
Night comes swiftly like “a great, dark, soft thing,” and for most of my life I’ve greeted it reluctantly, as if behind the darkness lurked terror and shattered hearts. My mother says, “You were a fast napper from the day you were born. Other kids went down for two hours. You slept for twenty minutes and were up for the rest of the day.” Even as an infant, I didn’t want to surrender to that dark, soft thing. […]
I am sitting at the kitchen table enraptured with a bowl of tomato soup. Not just any tomato soup: mine has crushed tomatoes, coconut milk, sea salt, parsley, a dash of coconut oil, and honey. (If you try it at home, blend to a thick consistency, add some thyme, pepper, and cloves.) I look down at the bowl: a nip, not even a spoonful, is left. Although I’m no longer hungry, I still want more. […]
A few years ago, my therapist of ten years said, “I think you’re done, Geneen. You’ve worked hard, and you can continue, but I think you’re done.” Done? I sputtered and spit up the spiced tea I was drinking on my new mustard-colored sweater. […]
A mother of an 8-year-old was desperate. “My daughter is gaining weight by the second,” she told me. “I am so afraid that I have passed on my troubles with food to her, and I don’t know whether to remove all candy from the house, take her to a doctor, or put her on a strict diet. Help!” […]
I was standing near the buffet at a party recently with two women I’d never met. One eyed the garlic mashed potatoes and said, “Oh God, it looks so good! But I promised myself I’d stay on a low-carb diet for at least three weeks, and this is only day two.” The other woman said, “I told myself I would lose weight this year, and I haven’t lost a pound. Diets never work for me, though. …
During the peak of my diet and binge days, hunger had nothing to do with how much I consumed — I ate because I was angry, sad, bored, lonely, or tired, or because I was celebrating, grieving, or getting ready to go on another diet. […]
My favorite bowl broke the other day. A friend was visiting and she mistakenly crashed into something which crashed into the bowl and that was that. After wanting (but deciding it was not a good idea) to blame her for being such a klutz — blame is always my first line of defense and a […]
A reporter interviewed me recently about what people can do to end their obsession with food. “Do you still binge?” she asked. “No,” I answered. “Does your weight vacillate from season to season?” “No again,” I said. “I’ve been at my natural weight for a few decades.” “So let me see if I’ve got this […]
