Winter Joy Retreat-Day 9: Food and Courage

I'm participating in an online writer's retreat, thanks to Nina Badzin's blog. The topic is "Edible Memories," so all the posts will be about food. I will try to post every day to keep up, but there are some I might come back to later, depending on my schedule and when inspiration strikes.

Due to Hanukkah and a busy week, I'm still behind, so please bear with me. Thanks!

Wednesday's topic:
What early messages did you imbibe about bodies? Where have you been courageous that you may take for granted? What is the story that would not even occur to you to tell? Tell us about a time when food and courage came together, like old friends so glad to see each other.

I can't really say I have any food issues, other than being a picky eater and having some weird hang-ups about how some things should be eaten. I've always loved to eat though. I never had an eating disorder or anything along those lines. Yes, it was encouraged to be thin, but my body is what it is and as long as I'm taking care of myself, I'm not too concerned.

When I think of courage and food coming together, I think of my move to New Jersey in 2007. It was a big move, halfway across the country after living in Illinois almost my entire life. I didn't really know anyone there, nor had I established any friendships. At the time, it was my husband, our 18 month-old son, our cat, and myself. (Guess who drove the cat in their car the entire trip? You're looking at her!) It was definitely hard to say goodbye to everyone and everything in Illinois, but we managed to pack up our home into two sedans and a moving truck (which we had some issues with after reaching our destination) and that was that.

I remember that we left in the middle of the night and it was snowing. In April. It was hard to see the road in front of me in the dark. Like flying through hyperspace! When the sun finally came up and we got into Indiana, we stopped for a hot breakfast. Pancakes! They gave me some energy for the next leg of the trip. Then we met up with my husband's aunt and uncle in Cleveland for lunch. I can't even remember what I ate though. Maybe a salad? Afterward, we drove on more until we reached Pennsylvania. We went to this Mexican restaurant in a little village out there. At the time, I was still eating non-Kosher chicken, so I got fajitas. Then, after getting lost several times, we found our hotel and caught up on sleep. The hotel had a breakfast buffet, which was pretty elaborate. Cereals, hot food, etc.

The rest of the drive to New Jersey wasn't too long, and we got there early in the afternoon. After we dropped off some stuff and checked out the house, we drove into the downtown area by our Northern NJ home. There was a Kosher dairy restaurant with a pareve bakery where we ended up for lunch. I had a grilled cheese, as I needed the comfort food! Afterward, we purchased a cake for the home where we'd be having our first Shabbat dinner in our new community. It had been raining out that day and was gloomy and overcast. I felt like it was an omen for what was ahead.

The house was a piece of work. Think of The Money Pit and you'll have a good idea of what it was like. We were renting it temporarily until we could find a house we'd want to settle down in. We did some unpacking in the afternoon and then my mother-in-law came out to see us and took us to a Kosher meat restaurant in a different downtown area. I had a hamburger there. It was good, but also tasted of the trepidation that came with living in a new place with a new set of social rules.

That Saturday, our house (since it was not yet furnished) was being used for a Bar Mitzvah kiddush lunch. This was something arranged before we were moving there and the parents were thankful that we didn't throw off their plans. They even gave us an air mattress for our first few nights there. They also let us have a lot of the leftovers from the luncheon. (Mostly deli meat, from what I remember.) If anything, it was a good way to meet a lot of the community at once! At one point, I was talking with a close friend of the Bar Mitzvah boy's mother. She was visiting from Texas and was very kind and easy to chat with. She made me feel somewhat better about embarking on this new chapter in my life.

Living in a new town and getting adjusted was not as easy as I had hoped. I made some friends, but I also felt like the rest of the community was doing their best to make us feel like outsiders. The president of our Shul was a perpetrator in this effort. It's a long story for another time, but it involves the money pit owned by the Shul. Also, I had a hard time finding a job. It took me 10 months to finally secure some work for myself. Thankfully, I liked the job a lot. We also rented a different house by then, with a nice and reasonable landlord this time. And some friends from the community moved next door to us. I even had my second child that spring. However, we still weren't happy in our community and looked at other Shuls and communities nearby in hopes of finding a better fit. (One of the hosts we stayed with made these delicious peanut butter balls and gave me the recipe. I made those and froze a bunch and they worked as a comfort food in some ways.) We didn't have much luck with this endeavor.

Then my husband's job took us to the DC area that November for a conference he had to attend. My sons and I walked all over the Capitol and I loved it so much that I felt we needed to move there. We visited a community the following February and were sold just on how friendly and welcoming everyone was. I also got a chocolate chip biscotti recipe that I made from time to time after that visit. We came back again that Spring to confirm our decision and then bought a house a few weeks later. While we were still in NJ, getting ready to say goodbye to everyone there, we were invited to a Bat Mitzvah party for the daughter of the family who hosted the Bar Mitzvah luncheon when we first moved in. The same friend from Texas was at this party, so I felt like I had come full circle seeing her again on my way out of the community. She and I hung out together the whole time at the party and she was still as sweet as I remembered. I remember eating steak at this party, as well as some fancy desserts.

I probably got off on a tangent, but I wanted to share about some of the food and experiences that went along with a time in my life where I had to display courage. Courage of facing the unknown. Courage to admit that I wasn't happy where I was living. Courage to make another huge move to another new community....the one that I now call home.