More Cake?

*This piece was written on June 5th 2024 and was published on June 8th 2024 because I do not have an editor or a team. I am just one woman with a lot of emotions, grammatical errors and long winded sentences to work through. Enjoy. More Cake.

On the last day of my 43rd year, I went to my favorite coffee shop to watch the light reflection of the trees dance on the ground and the distressed concrete walls that enclose the patio space where I love to sit.  When I sit on this patio, I’m reminded of my father who dreamed of becoming a ballroom dance instructor. When I’m here, and music is playing, I can feel my father with me. I think it’s very true that we can always feel what’s in our hearts if we give ourselves, well, a chance to feel. This goes for feeling the presence of the people we love, to hearing our hearts and understanding why we have certain habits.

The trees and plants swayed to their own rhythm as I debated whether I would have a savory meal or a sweet. In the past I would order a salad just because I thought it was what I should do, but I’ve changed. It was 11:30am and, quite frankly, either savory or sweet food could be justified. Not like I need justification now because I have finally given myself permission to enjoy my choices and food. I thought about my father and how he would want both something savory and sweet. And, were he really to be with me, I am positive we would enter into a negotiation to share.

But, today, on my own, without my father, on the last day of my 43rd year, I decided to have more cake.

At this point I’m eating, on average, 1 piece of cake per week, and I want to normalize eating cake and eating the things that we love when we want them because we live in a culture that tells us to enjoy everything but then tells us to restrict ourselves. But learning that I could, that we can, have food that we like when we want it has been a process. Becoming a conscious eater has taken 22 years of work and it has been 22 years of work that really had very little to do with food and more to do with emotions and my own self-perception. It took 22 years of work to listen to my internal dialogue and understand that having cake doesn’t mean I’m going off the rails or that I am “bad.” Having cake doesn’t mean I have the license to eat anything I want all day long just because. Answering my hunger and meeting the needs of my mind, body and emotions - because emotional eating and addiction are something I have managed, not cured - is daily learning.

But society tells us eat the cake … Don’t eat the cake … But no one ever says, listen to yourself … Learn why you want xyz and how it will make you feel.

My father was and still is an emotional eater and, with dementia, his emotions and food desires are stronger than ever. I love him and I see myself in him. My heart, mind, bones and being ache for compassion as his mind slips away and what is left is man who eats to fill space and calls himself a lost boy. I have become conscious for him as he lives, some days, unconsciously. He is my reason. And while food was and is the heartbeat of our family, emotions make this relationship even more complicated. Unlike drugs, alcohol, sex or shopping - things we’d much rather live with than live without - we can actually manage without them. We can give up drugs, alcohol, sex and shopping. Food is a basic need, and I can’t give up food, quit eating or feeling. I have learned, and am still learning, to live in a delicate balance of understanding. I live in a delicate balance for my father, for my well being, for my freedom from food - to simply love it in an unattached way. 

Learning to trust myself enough to eat cake has taken years. Through trial, error, overeating, tears and throwing cake away - I’ve confronted my relationship to food. When I make food into an experience, when I cook, plate it, or go out to enjoy a meal it continues to heal me; and it is through this healing that I can eat in peace. I don’t eat cake everyday or without reason, I eat it when I actually want it. I do still eat from emotion, but the closer I get to understanding myself these days, the less that is actually occurring. Who knew yoga and two years of celibacy would shine a light on my emotions and why I was eating the way I did at times - even after losing 160 pounds on my own almost 23 years ago.

Thick with cinnamon whipped cream and fried banana chips, my mini loaf of banana bread with chocolate was presented to me. She arrived dressed for a birthday party with her sweet, slinky, dress of beige whipped cream. Who knew beige could be so sexy? Her delicate chip purse, elegant and stylish. Her loaf, a perfectly bronzed body that waited to be devoured. The shade I wished my own skin were every day of the year and, if I have it my way it will be. Her inside filled with semi sweet chocolate chunks and crude pieces of nuts, she’s a character. This banana bread, well, reminded me of me. I saw my reflection or a dream of me in this cake. I saw the color of my father’s skin, rich and brown. I saw his insides too, sweet, unexpected and funny.

Maybe it’s true that we are what we eat? Maybe it’s true that food is love? Maybe we can get to a place where we can understand this and free ourselves from misconceptions about cake?