I’m pleased to share an essay by novelist JoAnna Novak. She
is the author of I Must Have You (Skyhorse Publishing, 2017)
and also Noirmania (forthcoming from Inside the Castle 2018). I’m thrilled that she has contributed to Make Peace With Food. Here’s a peek into our conversation about her work.
Dr. Nina: JoAnna, can you share what inspired you
to write this essay?
JoAnna: I attended an orientation
recently–it was a morning thing–and the host brought bagels. That reminded me
how much pressure even the presence of food can create for someone with an
eating disorder.
The more I thought about this, the more I realized
that I’d skipped many, many, many orientations just to avoid negotiating this
particular stress.
It’s a stress that always makes me
feel guilty, too, because of course many people would be grateful to be
given food; that guilt sort of exacerbates the stress, which is
really what I was trying to capture in this essay.
Dr. Nina: I think a lot of readers on this blog
can relate to those feelings of guilt and stress over food. Please tell
us about your new book.
JoAnna: I Must Have You is a
novel, a coming-of-age story set in 1999, in the aftermath of the heroin
chic craze, long before anyone was talking body positivity.
Chronicling three women’s interconnected eating
disorders, the book is about middle school, girl crushes, anorexia, drugs,
first kisses, and hunger–hunger for friendship, hunger for solvency, hunger
for a firm grasp of one’s self.
Dr. Nina: Thanks, JoAnna. That
hunger for connection to self and others is something that so many people try
to fill or express with food. What I appreciate about your essay is that it’s a
rare glimpse into the actual experience of dealing with food: thinking about it, ruminating, obsessing and
perseverating. It’s a powerful piece
and I think it will resonate with lots of people.
TRIGGER WARNING! This essay describes food in detail and may be triggering.
The Tyranny Of Free Food
I don’t want the mini Danish with its gluey bull’s
eye. The bready, pre-sliced bagel, cut-side shining its hole up at the
fluorescent lights, ringing a tub of cream cheese flanked by plastic knives.
I don’t want to do communal fruit, a spree of
honeydew, the jelly packets, Welch’s or Smuckers or Sysco, the butter bonnets,
the honey sticks, even the coffee poses questions: decaf or regular, the
organic regular or the fair trade regular, cream or milk or soy, sugar, raw
sugar, splenda, the green one, the blue one, the stirrer, the scald of exposure
when there are no lids and the person standing next to me, a familiar face who,
in this context, wobbles like a hologram of a visitor from another dimension,
remarks, “Huh. You take it black.”
You warrior, you, I tell myself. You tough.
But are you ninja enough to navigate free
lunch? More pinwheels than a 1950s block party, wrap after wrap, salmon pink
means tomato and mossy green means spinach and that undercooked graham cracker
tone is whole wheat, a matte wrap rainbow to distract you from the fact that,
whole, every one of those tortillas is calories-enough for a decent meal, and
now here they are, the wraps, halved or quartered, or maybe they’re in thirds,
and they sprout toothpicks wearing Christmas-light bright cellophane, which
makes the whole affair a little trippy, not to mention fatty, what with the
roast beef and the ham and the American and Swiss, slices thin as blotting
papers in the roll-ups, which you must pick up with indelicate, ineffective,
ridiculously gilt silver serving tongs.
The iceberg salad. The spinach salad, dicey with
turds of goat cheese. The fun-size chips and their fun-size bags and their
fun-size crunch, an aural tattoo, marking you as a chip-eater, indulgent, fun,
when they’re the only thing with a nutrition label in the room.
You could take a brownie, but it would need salt,
and if you salt your brownie you call attention to yourself, the incongruity of
your meal, which, if it includes a brownie can’t include “real food.” You could
take a cookie and pick out the chocolate chips or the macadamia nuts, but see
“you could take a brownie.” See “coffee: you take it black.”
Free food is supposed to be a gift, a grace,
a sign that the world is not all business. It’s in the classroom, the
boardroom, the backroom at funerals, at picnic tables, served poolside, in
homes and offices.
You are supposed to be thankful. You are supposed
to be tickled. You are an employee or a poor grad student subsisting on the
myth of subsisting on ramen or a mourner or a daughter or a son or a boss or a
volunteer at the literacy center downtown or an idle shopper at Whole Foods on
Local Foods Friday.
“Wanna try
Spicy Mo’s Jalapeno Jack on a cracker?”
The only thing lonelier than navigating the
minefield of free food is overhearing the way eaters demonstrate they are
pleased by it. Their voices bounce with the enthusiasm of precocious child
actors. “Mm, this is actually delicious!” “The vegetarian wrap is really
good!” “I do love pesto!” “I have to have a cookie—ok, one more! It’s here, so
I’m eating!”
You are supposed to appreciate the gesture. Have
seconds. Take home leftovers. Fill up. If the food is free, it’s also
over-ordered.
Because isn’t there always someone like you, like
me? Someone who hears that the first hour of an event is going to be group
breakfast—and skips that first hour? Someone who invents conference calls or
urgent emails so they can postpone grabbing a plate? Someone with jumpy eyes,
whose smile keeps wobbling into a frown? What’s the worst part? Skipping the
meal and being alone as you sit and watch people eat? Taking the plunge and
eating yourself?
That’s what no one tells you about free food: it’s
not free. It’s not free of calories and, if you’ve had an eating disorder, it’s
not free of stress. Because free food asks the eater to perform their diet. Who
do you want to be to your colleagues, your new classmates, your fellow
grievers? You eat nothing and stamp your hungry foot, plead some unseen meal
that’s filling you up, say you’re not hungry.
You gobble a heap, the whole spread, and
field comments about your appetite, your metabolism, your body, where do you
put it, your sweet tooth.
You build a plate by meal plan, feel the
hollowness of scant portions at a table of the ravenous, the regular, the
relaxed.
You excuse yourself after and puke even if
you haven’t puked after anything in years. You try to meditate in plain sight.
You make space for your mind to run laps
around the dining room while everyone doubles up on dessert.
JoAnna Novak is the author of I
Must Have You (Skyhorse Publishing 2017) and Noirmania (forthcoming
from Inside the Castle 2018). She has written fiction, essays, poetry, and
criticism for publications including Salon, Guernica, BOMB, The
Rumpus, Conjunctions, and Joyland. She received her
MFA in fiction from Washington University and her MFA in poetry from University
of Massachusetts Amherst. She is a co-founder of the literary journal and
chapbook publisher, Tammy. She lives in Los Angeles. Find out more at www.joannanovak.com
