Not So Fast
Jul. 11th, 2005 06:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
talktoolooseSnake is into fasting. He first got into it when he was a refugee from Communist Hungary living in a refugee camp in Austria. At that point it was all part of a new approach to spirituality and mind/body stuff. He's revisted fasting several times since then and has a renewed interest in it now.
I've even joined him on a couple of recent fasts, one being an oatmeal fast and one being an apple fast. They lasted from the time we woke up until dinnertime at which point we broke the fast with a simple vegetarian dinner to ease our systems back into food.
I found those fasts instructive about how I deal with food and how I take it for granted. It was also an interesting experience to ride the waves of hunger and fatigue and then watch them go away without eating to relieve them.
Snake is doing an apple fast today and I just phoned home to say I'm on my way and to discuss dinner plans. He told me that he is continuing the fast. "For how long," I asked, trying to keep whatever emotions I was feeling out of my voice. "At least another day," he said.
Wow, that bothers me! Most of this emotion is the Jewish mother in me that says that anytime you don't eat it is necessarily worse and more dangerous than any time you do. I realize how much I want to break his fast with him (even though I didn't participate this time). I would feel a visceral enjoyment (appropriately) out of watching nourishment enter his body.
I love feeding people and knowing they are fed. I worry disproportionately when they are not. This is not necessarily a completely healthy response to food and a good argument for occassionally re-evaluating its role in one's life.
My mother once got a great insight into the Eastern European Jewish mindset of food as salvation. When my brother was a baby, he fell and started crying. My mother picked him up, made sure he was physically okay and then comforted him with hugs and gentle words. My grandmother was almost hysterical, pleading with my mother, "Feed him! Feed him!"
I've even joined him on a couple of recent fasts, one being an oatmeal fast and one being an apple fast. They lasted from the time we woke up until dinnertime at which point we broke the fast with a simple vegetarian dinner to ease our systems back into food.
I found those fasts instructive about how I deal with food and how I take it for granted. It was also an interesting experience to ride the waves of hunger and fatigue and then watch them go away without eating to relieve them.
Snake is doing an apple fast today and I just phoned home to say I'm on my way and to discuss dinner plans. He told me that he is continuing the fast. "For how long," I asked, trying to keep whatever emotions I was feeling out of my voice. "At least another day," he said.
Wow, that bothers me! Most of this emotion is the Jewish mother in me that says that anytime you don't eat it is necessarily worse and more dangerous than any time you do. I realize how much I want to break his fast with him (even though I didn't participate this time). I would feel a visceral enjoyment (appropriately) out of watching nourishment enter his body.
I love feeding people and knowing they are fed. I worry disproportionately when they are not. This is not necessarily a completely healthy response to food and a good argument for occassionally re-evaluating its role in one's life.
My mother once got a great insight into the Eastern European Jewish mindset of food as salvation. When my brother was a baby, he fell and started crying. My mother picked him up, made sure he was physically okay and then comforted him with hugs and gentle words. My grandmother was almost hysterical, pleading with my mother, "Feed him! Feed him!"
