Wearing a face mask to social distance from your fridge?

Excerpted from Newsletter 4.20.20 Find yourself rooting around the kitchen more often these days? You’re not alone. Let me tell you a story . . . When I was very young and in the throes of my eating disorder, sugar addiction and exercise bulimia – which I had no idea had a name – I used to make myself speed walk the 3 miles to my waitressing job where I would race about for a frenetic 3-hour lunch shift logging more miles while shamefully scarfing stolen french fries, delivering food and bussing tables. I would then force my bedraggled body to speed walk the entire 3 miles home rain or snow, get out my aerobics step and torture myself for another hour in case the calories hadn’t all been burned off yet – before rushing off to teach ballroom dance that night.  I was living in my own personal hell.  But here’s the clincher: On my way in to work I’d always route myself to stop at my favorite bakery named Benevolence. I’d stare up at that big beautiful word painted boldly in all capitals over the cookie counter as I helplessly ordered my 2 or 3 fresh baked cookies. The owner loved me – they all did, all those bakery and ice cream store and yogurt shop owners – and so she’d stash a few (or more) extra cookies into the bag and send me on my way. I’d then helplessly eat every single one no matter how many, cursing myself for my crushing lack of willpower; hopelessly reflecting on the irony of that word Benevolence attached to the despair of my uncontrollable self-defeating behavior. 30 years later – 22 of them in active recovery for my disordered relationship with food and exercise – I’ve made living amends to myself by re-appropriating the word into something truly benevolent for the benefit of us all: a deeply loving and nourishing conscious community providing spiritual sustenance for the soul . . .