Eating right isn't always an economic option

A friend and I were talking about the stress of single motherhood, our salaries, which lost pace with inflation years ago, the rising cost of gas, groceries, heat. We were leaving work. I was headed to the gym. She was going to the day care center to pick up her little one. It was a run-of-the-mill conversation and I assumed I’d forget about it as soon as I started up my car.  

Then she said this: “The thing is, eating healthy is just so expensive.” And whoosh, for me it’s twenty years ago. It blows my mind sometimes, how our brains work, how an off the cuff, innocuous jumble of words can come together in just the right way and get your stomach shaking and blood surging. 

Some of that feeling was and is rage because I know she’s right. It’s just plain wrong that we live in a land where it’s cheaper to buy a cellophane-wrapped bear claw made mainly from sugar, flour, and a dozen eight-syllable chemicals than it is to buy a bunch of grapes or an orange. I think it’s awful that three 900-calorie, 30 grams of fat Lunchables are cheaper than a loaf of decent bread. 

But her remark called up even more, because there are some things you never forget. It’s frightening, going to the grocery store with every penny you have, and leaving with barely enough for gas for the week. And it downright sucks when you’ve miscalculated and you have to ask the cashier to wait a sec while you go through your bags and decide what essentials need to be voided from that week’s shopping take. It’s even worse when there’s a line of impatient people behind you, rolling their eyes and making huge sighing noises and your little kids see all of this. 

That was my life when I first got separated. I was a freelance writer at the time making next to nothing, in grad school, waitressing nights, raising two tiny girls. My ex was paying a whopping $38 a week in child support and I could write reams about that, but then my blood pressure will skyrocket and I’ll lose focus. Plus, the paltry amount already says worlds about him as well as our joke of a court system, so I’ll leave that alone for now.    

I got really good at multi-tasking during shopping trips. I got to the point where I could estimate my grocery bill to within a couple of cents. I trained myself to always be under, and to always be ready to put items back just in case I miscalculated. Items that rarely made the cut: cereal other than Cheerios, light bulbs, crackers other than store brand Saltines, tissues.  

  

For me, one sign that I’ve made it through to the other side is that I’ve lost my sharp estimating edge. I don’t have to be as vigilant with my cash. I’ve got enough money now so it’s okay if I’m off a bit. It kills me that what I spend today just on me is more than what I used to spend to feed the three of us. One reason for that is because prices have gone up. The other reason I’m spending more? I’m eating better. Eating healthy is expensive. 

Way back during scary times, I mainly shopped the inner aisles. Our grocery bags would be filled with boxes and bottles. I rarely shopped the perimeter, where the more wholesome foods usually live. My girls and I survived primarily on homemade soups extended with starches: sale pasta, white bulk rice, egg noodles. 

As for protein? What red meat we ate was the cheapest, highest fat hamburger cooked into meatloaf and meatballs, or added to homemade minestrone. I’d buy sale chicken parts for chicken and vegetable soup. I never once stopped at the fish counter, though I’d stop at the deli counter for American cheese and shiny sodium-laden olive loaf or bologna. I stocked up on Starkist tuna whenever it was on sale because it was the only kind one daughter would eat. I’d buy bags of dry lentils and beans. I’d buy the largest jar of peanut butter that I could afford. I’m betting sugar was probably the main ingredient.  I bought huge loaves of fluffy white bread enriched with all sorts of lovely chemicals.

  

For fruit, it was rare if I ever bought anything other than a big bag of apples and a bunch of bananas.  I bought strawberries and blueberries only when they were on sale, which was usually just a few weeks in the summer. It never even entered my universe to consider buying expensive fruits like blackberries or raspberries. 

Our veggies were ones that could be thrown into a simmering broth. I’d buy what was on sale, usually broccoli, carrots, onions, cans of tomatoes. On rare occasions, when it was marked down a ton, I’d buy cauliflower, which was a favorite with the girls. But though they begged, I never bought celery, because the price was always ridiculous, even discounted. I usually avoided canned veggies. Too little bang for the buck. We only did salads in the summer time because that’s when the ingredients would be cheaper, when you could get a big head of iceberg lettuce for just thirty-three cents sometimes.  

I remember being at a family member’s house for dinner once and they served a salad of romaine lettuce, gorgonzola, and walnuts. The cost of the ingredients for that one salad could feed myself and my girls for two days. I remarked on how much tastier romaine was than our standard iceberg lettuce. The family member said I should buy romaine instead if I liked it better. He added what I already knew, that darker vegetables have more nutrients. 

“But it’s so much more expensive,” I said. 

He laughed at that and said something like, “What’s a couple of cents?” 

I smiled politely and thought, “You don’t have a clue.”  I knew how the real world worked. A couple of cents saved here and there gives you what you need to buy something else you’d maybe been putting off, like a book of stamps or a pack of garbage bags, or shampoo because you probably shouldn’t add any more water to the one bottle you’ve been nursing for weeks now.  

  

Today my grocery cart is full of stuff from the outer aisles: broccoli, strawberries, kale, spinach, avocados, carrots, peppers in all sorts of crayon colors. I still buy bananas and apples, but I buy them because I like them, not because they’re my only option. I buy blackberries now, but only on sale, because they’re still stupidly expensive.  

Sometimes, I hit the fish counter for salmon or shrimp. I buy the 96 percent lean ground beef, and still make it into meatloaf. I like meatloaf.  I stay away from cheap deli meats, and in fact make it a point to avoid deli products. I stock up on whole grain pasta and brown rice, but only eat those when I’m carbing up for long runs. These days I’m more of a baked sweet potato fan anyhow. 

I buy Greek yogurt, and occasionally buy eggs though I usually throw out the yolks and eat only the whites. I buy lots of frozen fruits and veggies. I buy small jars of organic peanut butter, no added sugar whatsoever. 

My work friend’s words brought back volumes. I eat better now than I did back when I raised my girls. I hate that sentence but it’s historical fact and sadly, my economic truth. I know this is true for some of you too.

Setting is character? Setting as character? Setting makes character?

Here’s where my head has been the last few days: setting as character.  I googled that phrase to validate and reinforce what I already knew. 

"It's a reflection of the characters. It acts on the characters. It provides an almost inexhaustible source of details that can help you tell your story more vividly or give you an entirely new set of ideas." (absolutewrite.com)

"Bharti (Kirchner)says that you know you've achieved it if you take the story and set it in a another city and then examine it. Is it the same story? If the story no longer works, then you know you've made setting a character." (navigatingtheslushpile.blogspot.com)

"Setting can actually serve a dual role in that it can be not only the backdrop for your story, but it can also serve characterization through symbol." (warriorwriters.wordpress.com)

Why am I stuck on setting as character? Because my setting, my hometown, makes me crazy. I love it. I hate it. I wish I could move far away, yet when I think about the nuts and bolts of everyday life, I can’t imagine living anywhere else. I think, “What kind of writer can I hope to become if I can’t see even that much?” Then my brain shouts back that Emily Dickinson never lived anywhere but Amherst and maybe I’m selling myself short and it’s not my location holding me back. Maybe my limitations are self-imposed. Ouch.

  

Here are some notes on setting that have been bubbling inside me the last week or so. 

For two decades, I’ve been driving the same four-mile route to and from work: mostly quiet streets, two traffic lights, one rotary. One day last week, one of the quietest, prettiest streets was lined with rattling television news trucks chugging exhaust, rude spewing critters. Satellite dishes bloomed on spiky towers, cables slithered everywhere. No one cared that we drivers were trying to move from one end of the road to the other. All eyes were focused on a squat beige duplex with a No Trespassing sign nailed to the deck off the side yard. 

The most recent renter of the back apartment had just that day been sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison. He is a child pornographer and a child molester/cannibal in training. There’s a torture chamber in the cellar of that little house, a home I never thought twice about in the 10,000 times I’ve driven past it and the thousand or more times I’ve run by it. But I know others on the street. The house one down is a pretty brick mini-mansion I once fantasized about owning. The house across the street is home to a teacher I know. A gym friend lives four lots away. My daughter’s viola instructor’s house, wide shingled porch with rhododendrons all about, is just over the hill. 

I don’t know where this guy came from or how he got to be who he is. That’s one thing I noticed in the stories. No one was quoted saying, “I knew so and so back in high school when we were in the senior play together.” Or, “He used to pick his nose in fourth grade.”  No reference to a childhood, no history, in my city at least, which is a city where we greet each other by playing our local version of the six degrees of Kevin Bacon game: Where did you go to high school? Did your uncle live on Vernon Hill? Did your parents own that grocery store on Grafton Street? Did you go to Holy Name or St. Peter’s? Ever been to Moynihan’s?

Here’s what I mean. I walk into a local restaurant where I’m meeting my parents for dinner. I don’t walk into the restaurant and describe what my parents look like. Cindy the hostess greets me by name and asks how I’m doing and before I can get a word out starts leading me to my parents, talking the whole time about her summer – she spent a lot of time down the Cape -- and asking about mine. Our kids went to school together. She and I used to work together.  We’ve known each other over a generation, but we haven’t seen each other since June so we have a lot of catching up to do, which we do with my mom and dad joining in too, until Cindy gets called back to work. 

A day later, I’m at the gym and I need to get a balance ball from off the rack. There’s an older gent in the way, arranging his glasses, so I need to wait a few seconds. He moves slowly. His fingers tremble. He hangs the glasses from a thin PVC pipe, then changes his mind and places them on a shelf. He’s wearing a T-shirt from my college, the T-shirt every alum gets for attending the reunions.  

He finally notices me and apologizes for being in the way. I shake my head. He’s not inconveniencing me. His shoulders are stooped. He’s thin and about my height. I notice his blue eyes are watery and faded almost to grey, like my dad’s. 

“What year did you graduate?” I point to his shirt and tell him my year. 

He smiles at me. “Was supposed to be ’47 but ’49 because of the war.”

I wondered if he knew my dad, who didn’t go to the same school but is near enough in age. So I ask where he went to high school. The answer is not my dad’s high school but we continue talking. He went to St. Stephen’s until grade eight, and so did my dad. 

No he doesn’t know my dad but he asks if I’m related to a guy who happens to be my uncle Arthur who passed away twenty years ago. That means he knows my mother too. We talk about my family. We talk about our hills, Vernon and Grafton. We talk a little about college. 

I say I’m seeing my parents later that day and could I ask his name so I can tell my mom he said hi. Turns out the gent I’ve been talking with for fifteen minutes now is my old pediatrician. 

“Do you remember me? I had braids? I was fat?” 

He shakes his head no. He laughs and says he was fat back then too.

When we finally finish talking, I go to the mats to do some weights and the doctor returns to his workout. Out of the corner of my eye I watch him do wall push-ups and stretches. I remember I was never afraid of going to see Dr. R. He was a gentle man. He was also the fattest man I’d ever seen. I remember he wore white shirts and black ties. He smoked. 

The doctor started to leave and the guy at the other end of the mats stops him. He says he couldn’t help but overhear our conversation. 

“You were my pediatrician too,” he says. “You remember me?”

The doctor grins and taps his head and says something about old age and forgetting. 

The guy says he doubts the issue is forgetfulness or age. He’s sixty now, so he’s changed quite a bit since the last time Dr. R saw him. Plus, he didn’t have the full beard back then. 

When I go visit my parents that night I tell them I met Dr. R. I say I almost told him the story of the prescription. My mother frowns and asks what I mean. When I explain, she corrects my story.

It didn’t involve him at all, she says. It didn't involve prescriptions. It was about over-the-counter vitamins. 

I was two. We were snowed in -- nor'easter. We lived halfway down a steep street, on the second floor of a three-decker on Vernon Hill. Even in good weather, the street was treacherous. My mother had run out of cigarettes, Kent 100s. I remember the carton, glossy white with gold trim, because once I was old enough to walk the four blocks to the store by myself – I was probably five – I was sent out for cigarettes once a week or more.

  

I imagine windows shaking in their frames. Snow is piling up outside, making streets and sidewalks impassible. There’s no way she can get out. In a panic, my mother called our neighborhood drug store, Oscar’s. She explained her dilemma: the baby, her one and only precious child, needed her vitamins. Could someone please deliver them? 

The owner’s son explained he was the only one in the store. Plus, the weather was awful. My mother begged. She probably said I was sick. Or that I was cranky. I don’t really know. The story changes a bit each time she tells it. Finally, she broke him down and he agreed to close the store and trudge through heavy snow and gale winds so that I could have my vitamins. 

Next comes the punchline: "And as long as you’re coming, could you bring me a carton of cigarettes too? Thank you so much."

My mother always cackles when she gets to that part. She's quite the character. So is my city.

 

Reflection on rejection

A few weeks ago, I sent the first few chapters of my book out into the world, to some really kind agents I met awhile back. (They really were kind. I’m serious.) They responded fast, asking for more. 

I confess I couldn’t deliver the rest immediately. I needed to savor that in-between time, those precious seconds before you’re dealt the cold hard facts, that dreamy state when you can still believe that anything is possible, because there’s no evidence to the contrary, like those giddy moments – I’m so going to quit my job travel the world build a house twice as obnoxious as Tom Brady’s, just before they read someone else’s Powerball number.  

After three frenetic days and nights of dreaming, editing, doubting, more editing, I re-entered reality.  One morning, half-dressed, over-caffeinated, already late for work, I dashed off a quick email, attached the whole manuscript, and hit send. I turned off the computer, ran a comb through my hair, scooted off to my day job, and did my best to forget what I’d just done. I know about odds. I knew to not get my hopes up.  

I decided to tell no one what I’d done. I decided to take a week off from looking at my email. But I can’t keep my mouth shut and as for not checking email, well, how will I know what houses I can’t afford if I don’t get my daily update from realtor.com? 

  

A work colleague: “My friend so-and-so won the insert name of prestige writing award here and hasn’t been able to get a book published since. It’s tough out there. I will pray for you.” 

My parents: “That’s great. You probably won’t get published. Don’t think about it anymore. What else did you do this week?”

A friend: “They are going to love it. How could they not love your book?” 

I hit the gym a lot. Visited Barnes and Noble and picked up a few writing magazines that had stories on agents looking for submissions. 

This past Wednesday, I met an old friend for coffee. She is in my book. Well, parts of her are in my book. We’ve been friends since seventh grade. I told her I’d submitted my manuscript and that I hadn’t heard back yet. She said: “Of course you haven’t. They’re working out the details now on how much to offer you. Where are you going to have the book-signing party?” 

For a few seconds, I dared to imagine. I told her Union Station, which is one of the settings in my book.

 

Twenty-four hours later, I got the rejection.

 

I read it quickly, then breathed out in relief.  Relief?  Yup, relief, though I’m not sure why. Maybe because the waiting was over? Maybe because I’m not quite ready to imagine a life even slightly different from the one I have now?  

A few seconds later the stomach ache began.  I thought about pouring myself a big glass of wine and spending the rest of the day and night in front of the television. I mulled that over for a long time, while I clicked back and forth between Facebook, a couple of news sites, my email. My feet wouldn’t stop bouncing, and I realized that sitting still was not what I needed. I changed my clothes and went to the gym. 

I hopped on the elliptical and turned on my shuffle: Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Cutter” came on, a song about getting edited, and that frustration and anger that boils up sometimes. I’m “not just another drop in the ocean” either, I remember thinking. Next up was Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” Did I really want to become someone who was comfortable hiding “‘neath the covers and studying my pain?” 

Then came the Raspberries' “Go All the Way,” which is SO not about writing but got me through a 20-mile run just a week ago and a 20-miler two weeks before that, even though last year at this time I could barely make it through seven miles, and Jesus Christ God help me I might be unstoppable because I’ve got another 20-miler this weekend and then two marathons next month and then who knows what I’ll be tempted to conquer after that.

Endorphins highs are the best.

Last night I told my mom and dad I finally got that rejection letter I’d been somewhat expecting.

My mother asked if I was okay. I replied I was almost fine. After all, it was a long shot and I knew it.

My dad said, “You finished a book. That’s something. You’ve done more than most.”

“It’s not enough,” I said.

Later, I called my daughter and told her too. She asked me what I was going to do next. I told her that after I got home from the gym Thursday night I googled author rejections, and read all about tons of famous authors who got rejected multiple times before making it. I said my plan was to take a tiny break from the book just to get a little more editorial distance, then return strong. The agents had given me some gorgeous, concrete feedback and I wanted to work on revising some sections.   

My daughter said she was glad to hear I wasn’t giving up. I half-joked that I wouldn’t be a good role model if I gave up, right? She laughed. I did too, sort of.