The rapidly-heating water bubbled tauntingly around the slices of onion in the pan; splashes playfully flicking off grains of pepper and salt before subsiding into oblivion. Mindlessly, I picked at the onion slices with a fork, each one perfectly round and consisting of so many perfect concentric circles. Ring by ring, I transformed the precise structures into a tumbled, chaotic beauty.
This must be the hundredth time I'd made squash and onions. Always the process was the same. Cut the onions and saute them for a couple minutes, softening the stiffness before adding the zucchini and squash slices. A fork tine caught one of the loops still wrapped around an ever-decreasing collection of onion rings.
Funny. I don't ever remember the onions looking like this. All round and ring-y.
An idea struck with revelatory force. Over those hundreds of times preparing this dish, not once had I ever cut the onions in circles... always wedges or longitudinal slices. But why? Why had I never cut them in circular slices? Not an over-important question, but one which grabbed my attention (a task at which the squash had failed).
It simply had never occurred to me.
So simple an answer, but stunning. How many things do I do out of pure, mindless habit? What changes and interesting worlds am I missing because I never stopped to evaluate the "why" behind what I do.
For me, this was the third day on the VeryStupidDiet, known to many as the Cabbage Soup Diet. The previous two days had been spent in the most unrelenting of tortures and drowning in the screams of dying sugars inside me. My head pounded non-stop for 60 hours, every sound was torture, daylight had a dark tinge, and overpowering all faculties of reason was the compelling desire to eat. something. sweet. Anything sweet. More specifically these nasty Kirkland Peanut Butter Cups.
I came to understand the meaning of the phrase, "I would kill for a [insert craved food here]" - even one Ghirardelli 60% bittersweet chocolate chip would have sufficed. Dude, I was even on the verge of jumping the diet because I so desperately wanted to eat HMR pre-packaged meal replacements! I cried. I barely restrained myself from throwing things. I pouted. I screamed so loudly inside, I feared it would actually come out.
...and then I started praying.
And in that moment, I realized my focus was horribly, horribly wrong. I was a thirty-year-old with emotions which would rival the most terrifying of two-year-olds. Nothing could help in that darkest of moments. No word, no kind gesture, no loving deed (and Jason did try).
For so many years, I have mindlessly plugged various holes in my life with food. Feeling overwhelmed? Starbucks always did the trick. Unexpectedly pregnant? A soothing bunch of Snickers bars. Bored at the computer? A fix of Ghirardelli chips. Didn't want to make dinner? Activate eight cell phone buttons to summon Pizza Hut. Sad because I gained back so much of the weight I'd lost? Fountain Pepsi was the appropriate balm. Filled with self-hate and self-loathing at seeing recent pictures? The only fix was a full-out Outback or Olive Garden feast.
Habits die hard and food habits die hardest.
Then and there, head about to explode with pain, I admitted to God I had a problem... a problem with gluttony, and even that was just a symptom. I was filling emotional holes with food instead of Him. Within minutes, the massive headache faded to a not-as-bad-but-still-bad railroad spike behind my eyeball and my attitude started to change.
Day Three dawned with no headache, increased energy... and food was not the focus any more. It was a chaotic day. Such an one in the past would have required lots of chocolate and soothing drinkies, plus a pizza and movie at the end of the day. Yet, as the day drew to a close with no emotional, food-related outbursts, I realized (again) I wouldn't actually breakdown or become incapacitated without junk food; it didn't have to be a habitual response to every thing happening around me.
And so I continued picking at the circular onion slices, marveling at their pure simplicity and the lesson they held... habits can be changed and realizing there is a habit to be changed is the first step.
How will you slice your onions?
photo courtesy of kateiredale. typepad. com
