My plan for today was to write a post about eating local. I did a segment on NBC Friday night, with Chuck Scarborough, about going local and locavores for NBC’s Green Week. I was going to tell you about it and post the video clip from the segment. And it’s not that I don’t have convincing reasons why everyone should eat local foods and support local farmers but I’ll save that for another day. Today, I want to write about something even more local, something that happened in my own office.
My husband always jokes “don’t people know what to eat” and my reply is “you tell me, do you know what to eat? And do you always eat it?” The truth is, most of us know what to eat until life gets in the way. I have a longtime client, who of course will remain nameless for this post, we’ll call her C. C first came to me when I had a luxurious (wink wink), subterranean office at a fitness club we’ll call E. My memory tells me it was around 2000, though it could have been 1999. Over the years, C and I have talked a lot about food journals and calories but we’ve also laughed (negotiating the number of margaritas she could have on a New Mexico vacation) and cried a lot too.
C has known me through 2 pregnancies, the opening of Foodtrainers and the loss of my father. In the time I’ve known C she has bravely battled breast cancer, purchased a new home and devoted more and more time to her painting. One thing that’s been steady, over these past 9 or 10 years, has been C’s employment at a large company (that, you guess it, will remain nameless too). That is, it was steady until October of this year when I received an email from C asking for an early appointment, she didn’t need to work late because she was let go.
I can remember where I was (on Columbus Avenue outside the shop Greenstones) when I talked to C about her breast cancer and I remember staring at my computer screen, frozen, when I read the news about C’s work. Even in the midst of all of this C had her humor “the good news” she wrote “is that I’m too nauseous to eat.” It took me a few hours to muster up a, far from eloquent, reply but I know I wrote something about her focusing on her painting and some other comments trying to cushion the blow.
Today C showed up for her 1pm appointment. I rushed to the waiting room to find out about the mammogram she had earlier today (it was clean!!) but she was preoccupied with a package she was holding “I have a present for you, I was cleaning out my office, you can open it but WE’RE NOT CRYING TODAY, OK?” I unwrapped the present and saw the most beautiful painting and my new favorite, local apples. With Thanksgiving a few days away, I want to say that I’m thankful for C. and thankful for all of my clients. Clients often come in to talk about food and nutrition but end up sharing so much more. So thank you C from the bottom of my heart.
And if any of you are still interested in hearing a bit about local foods, here is the video clip.
http://showroom.multivisioninc.com/clips/list.do?folder=9132&col=postdate&order=desc&total=199&rows=10&page=1
What are you thankful for?
I'm thankful for family, friends, good health and inspirational stories from the heart that help keep me focused on all that is truly important in life. Thank YOU for sharing.
ReplyDeleteI'm the C that Lauren wrote about.
ReplyDeleteI walked into my appt yesterday thinking that I wasn't going to be able to step outside of my current situation to get a grip with my eating. Food has been my emotional go-to for a very, very long time.
But after talking with Lauren something about what she said made sense and clicked. I started to feel better and got thru the night having my meal and going thru about a pound of string beans. I woke up feeling more positive about taking care of myself and not letting the feelings "eat" me which I haven't been able to do til now.
I'm thankful to still be cancer-free, for all the wonderful friends/family who support me and for realizing that I need to keep my eye on the prize - remaining healthy.