6. Reflections on a Gift of India
The appetite of a writer
Today is day 51 of my 63-day Retreat. Thus far I have had two (minor) nervous collapses, enjoyably blogged, 'stood up' in my current novel in a way I have never done before in my previous writing life and written 39 poems.
My mind moves toward October 5th onward when I will be back in the Big Smoke. I am considering now which parts of this experience are transferable. The truth is I am actually going for much.
I learnt something fundamental whilst being here and as I move forward knowing it will be of huge help. I knew it before to some extent but this time around it is calibrated, it is literally in my bones. What I learnt is called good nutrition and three meals a day. I also get why John Steinbeck produced such great work (we share a birthday and I have always felt close) and I think also of my father (much less prolific as a writer but in my annals still great) who was happily chained to his desk bar mealtimes.
Both men had women who fed them and this is a cornerstone to doing great work. The feeding part - and perhaps also to some extent the women. I broke with tradition this time around at Chamundi Hill Palace Ayurvedic Resort and asked please if I could eat my meals alone. I said mealtime and post-mealtime were a highly creative time for myself (this is true) and I preferred to be solo on my balcony. I have family status here to some extent and so it was arranged.
This means that three times a day two beautiful Indian girls (apologies but in this culture 'girls' is what young women prefer to be called) bring me a tray of delicious offerings and whatever I am doing I just stop. I hit Ctrl Save, turn off my computer and switch my head. Then I am presented with something glorious such as the meal below. Below is a standard lunch and every mouthful is beautiful.
In the UK I have a fair-sized list of what I do not eat. This is not the same thing as good nutrition. Also I initially had some idea that my writing - once the wellspring bubbled up - might be a bit like toothpaste or willpower. It might squeeze and then run out. Not so - the writing seems to have a sustainable flow and good nutrition appears to help. What this means is that stopping to eat mid-flow is do-able.
I am writing fictionalised memoir and I am writing about my life. There is a decanting going on and I'm asking myself for a lot of recall. I want everything to ring true if possible and I don't mind exposure or being honest in a way that demands something of myself. It does mean however that when I do break off I am sometimes processing a lot of memory and feeling.
As a child I favoured chocolate donuts, as a teenager I couldn't keep or not keep peanut butter in the house and even as recently as post-Barbados I was sitting down and eating two bowls of healthy popcorn in 10 minutes. This is emotional hunger. Emotional hunger is understandable and human but none of the above foods work. The chocolate donuts spiked my 8-year old sugar and probably contributed to some of the mayhem that took place. The peanut butter - also sugared - had to be eaten in secret because by then I lived with other equally unpredictable kids. Most of the teenagers I lived with - as odd as myself - were actively on the lookout for other people's weird and secret behaviour.
Popcorn I enjoy but for my dosha or constitution it is dead wrong. It is light and dry and takes me higher rather than bringing me down. I need to be eating soups and stews - in moderation. So India with her perfect rice (boiled in extra water and strained so the sugar is gone) and her exquisite curries, served warm and delicately spice, is my idea of food heaven. The other thing I understand about being served is that my food choices are taken away and for me the de-stress effect this has is beautiful.
Mostly though I feel the prana of what I am eating and I feel my increased appetite come up in me like a surge of joy just before I take a bite. My wise acupuncturist has been talking to me about this for years. Good nutrition acting as sunshine for the soul and an increase in appetite being a sign of a healthy constitution. I can contrast this with points in my life when my appetite was suppressed or when I was trying to eat but not too much and portion control was my over-riding mission.
My Indian way of eating is different.
I am eating and I am eating to feed my digestive fire. In terms of my past eating there is no need for remorse - we always do our best wherever we are in our food story - but this whole 63-day Indian Ayurvedic feast can be seen as a kind of rounding off. The sweetest of apologies for limiting myself to chocolate donuts and peanut butter and popcorn.
Chocolate donuts are so historic for me now I am always a bit surprised when I see them in the shop. I associate them with Loblaws' Supermarket, North Toronto circa 1970 and other constellations long past. I don't even remember what it is to crave a chocolate donut.
Peanut butter and popcorn do still interest my kid. For this reason I will continue to weave them into my menu. Something bigger though has moved in with this act of eating to greet my digestive fire. The feel-good factor of doing it and then my ensuing creativity make everything great. The writer in me - rice-fed and full of zing - is stepping forward. I will reconjure as much of India as I can do wherever I next live. Look for me spice shopping in Brick Lane and I may be there.
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