April | 2020 | Geneen Roth
New Thoughts
Published April 16, 2020

I’ve been noticing …

that I don’t want to do much these days. I keep reading and hearing about all the projects that people are undertaking during their sheltering in place. Cleaning out their closets! Cleaning out their kitchen drawers! Writing that long-forgotten book! Shredding all the papers that piled up for months! I think I am going to stop reading about all the industrious things a person can do because although

I think it’s great to clean out your closet and kitchen drawers, not to mention write a book, I notice that I don’t have the impulse to be industrious or creative or to deep clean anything but my own mind. Which, because of so much time, can wander into familiar but painful territory. And this does feel like the time to face those scary stories and thoughts and emotions they evoke. Because here I am. Here we are. Without the usual distractions. But with a tremendous amount of grief for those we know who have lost so much. And with huge gratitude for the people who are risking so much by walking into hospitals every day.

If we are at home, if we are sheltering in place (like I am. I haven’t really been out of the house in four weeks), it doesn’t have to mean we become hyper-active and industrious. It could also be a time to rest. So many of us are so tired from the pace we keep normally. From what we even consider “normal.” Instead of whirling into action and creating new, better ways to be industrious and possibly, distract ourselves, we could also slow down. Question what drives us that doesn’t nourish us.
Published April 10, 2020

I attended my first Zoom funeral today.

One of Matt’s closest friends, a man he met in high school, died yesterday of the coronavirus. He’d been sick at home for two weeks, his wife and son leaving food outside his closed door, and suddenly, on Sunday night, he couldn’t breathe and within a very short time, and before they could get him to the hospital, he died.

Death comes, even if it takes a long time, so suddenly. Someone is here and then, they’re not. The funeral was beautiful, as people recounting their love for a person, often is. (Mike’s wife, Muriel, told a story about how anxious she was when she was writing her PhD dissertation, and how Mike simply sat behind her with a hand on her back to help her get started. And so that she would be aware of comfort and love). 

And I find myself crying today, for Mike’s wife and children and for Matt who lost one of his best friends, but also, for the poignancy of this time. For the awareness of the preciousness of a human life. For living in ongoing uncertainty about how long this will last. A month? Six months? But also, for love. 

After the funeral ended, I looked closely at Matt’s face. Took in the glint in his eyes, the lines around his mouth. This man I have been with for 34 years. And I was reminded again of how much looking at that face reminds me of pure goodness (even if he has forgotten to rinse the knives before he put them in the dishwasher). 

And so, here we are. At a crossroads, where love can usurp fear. Where we can remember what we love, and remember also that we cannot ever fight death, which makes living even more precious. This moment. And now, this moment. Every moment we are alive. If this time can teach us anything that softens our hearts, it is about love and connection and how, in the face of illness and death, we become more and more aware of what really matters. 

One last thing: Matt tells a story about how, when they were roommates in Far Rockaway, Mike and he went out looking for dessert late one night and couldn’t find any ice cream parlors or stores open and so they returned home, scavenged their kitchen and could only find frozen lima beans. So they cooked those. And ate lima beans for dessert. And for the last forty years, have been threatening to treat their families to the great lima bean dessert cook-off, which had as much lift-off as a concrete boot. Godspeed, Mike Edelman. We walk the earth with more lightness and joy because you were on it.

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Published April 4, 2020

With sheltering in place …

and the vast amount of time most of us are spending at home in close proximity to the refrigerator, the question about how to manage our emotions and thoughts and therefore, our relationship with food keeps coming up. 

Here’s what I want to say: Treat yourself with utmost kindness. It’s really not any different than what I usually say, but all the ways we don’t do that are coming up loudly right now, so if there are ways you haven’t examined or questioned your relationship with food, those ways will be front and center as you walk through the impact of the coronavirus on your life. 

Utmost kindness is not the same thing as self-indulgence. It doesn’t mean snacking on foods all day that you ordinarily wouldn’t snack on because you deserve a treat. And the reason not to do that is not because it’s wrong or you’re wrong or you’re a failure or you are going to gain weight. The reason not to do that is because it’s kind for a second and then ripples into unease, being uncomfortable in your body, schlepping your belly around with you all day, as it walks in front of you and you lag behind. Kindness is asking your body what it actually wants. It’s so easy to turn to food for entertainment now. 

Overtime, for instance, I walk back into the house after being outside, my first thought (or my second thought, but definitely I’ve already had it by the fifth thought) is: What can I eat? When I don’t know what to do, eating gives me an activity. When I feel a bit at loose ends, eating gives me something to focus on. But I know, because I’ve been through this a hundred thousand times with myself, that it doesn’t fulfill its promise. It always doubles the confusion, the suffering, the lostness, the anxiety—it never ever lessens it, except for the few moments I’m focusing on what’s in my mouth (because then, I’m not focusing on or thinking about anything else).

When it’s over, though, and I’ve swallowed whatever it is, I’m back to living inside myself, inside this mind—and that’s where the real attention can be paid. What am I thinking that’s possible scaring me? Getting me angry or panicked or feeling sorry for myself. Or terrified. Naming (with utmost kindness, and not to nail myself) my thoughts, and watching the effect they have on my body. The collapse or the tightening belly or the sinking in my chest. It all begins with those thoughts. In naming them, I get to take a step away from them. I get to witness them and be aware of the part of me that isn’t my thoughts. That process is, in itself, calming because then I’m not drowning in the anger or panic or self-pity or terror. I’m who is noticing the anger, panic, self-pity or terror. That is such a relief. 

Notice how you are thinking about food right now—as that which comforts and soothes you? As that which you deserve to binge on because come on, this is hard. If there was ever a time you needed to treat your body with kindness, it’s now.