After suffering the concussion I mentioned in my first post, a lot of depression and anxiety creeped into my life. It’s not uncommon. For me, it was for three reasons.
First, because I was sitting around, doing nothing while I healed up, I felt guilty that I was unable to do a lot of the things for myself and for my family that I was used to doing. I felt like I was letting them down, even though it wasn’t my fault. Aside from not being more careful at work. Though, allowing myself to feel that way over an injury, is a topic from another entry.
Second, but related to the first, is the fact that I had no focus. My hobbies and enjoyments suffered. When I went back to work, I felt like I wasn’t able to do as good of a job as I could have. I couldn’t pay attention as well when people were telling me long stories (Which is a biggie, I love listening to long stories.) I couldn’t read or write very well, and I found myself having to take notes on everything. My short term memory was blasted away. And I have always been more of a long-term memory kind of guy.
Third, there is something called “persistent post-concussive symptoms,” which I and my doctor believe I am suffering from. This means, that some of the concussion symptoms keep being there, and also can come and go periodically for up to one year. Lack of concentration is what I hate the most from my concussion, and unfortunately this means that is still going on, months later. Which depresses me. On top of that, this syndrome comes with its own symptom of depression, compounding it all. This syndrome is most common in women, but to my bad luck, I get it anyway. It’s not uncommon, just less common in men.
Fourth, I have had situational depression and anxiety in my life that I don’t wish to yet discuss in this format. I will get there. My plan is to be more open with it publicly as that is overcome. Right now, shame is preventing me from being open about it. But as the situations I have are overcome, and there are multiple, there is no shame in spouting it to the world if it’s something in the past, something you have beat. At that point, you can be proud to spout it to the world, because you can say with pride that it’s over, done, and this is how I did it.
What does this have to do with cooking healing the mind, soul, and heart? I sure you know where I am going with this, but I will tell you anyway.
Of course, cooking, if you eat it afterwards, heals the body. So that has been important to my recover from both my concussive symptoms as well as the other things in life related and unrelated that have been brought me down recently. But thinking back, it’s the one activity that I have been able to do throughout this time of ordeal and distress that I can stay somewhat focused on. Of course, I have cooked things “low and slow” as my mother, who taught me to cook, always said. Aside from helping meat to be more tinder it gives me a chance to take a smoke break or break on the couch to see what my wife is up to as she winds down for the evening.
I’ve always enjoyed cooking. It always makes me feel happy and energized, and even a little artistic. I love spices, spicy hot food, garlic, and herbs. So I like experimenting, and coming up with somewhat new flavors. My family doesn’t like their food spicy hot, though, so I must be careful these days. I love cooking with earbuds in, to some good jazz music or bluegrass, and dancing a bit while cooking when people aren’t looking. I’m a horrible dancer, but sometimes I shake my own ass just for myself. It puts me in a good mood, and my anxiety diminishes quickly, which then helps my depression. And when my family enjoys the food I make, it makes me feel good about myself, and happy that I was able to do something nice for my family. I just have to have the expectation that my daughter is going to spit out the meat 90% of the time. She is going through a phase in which she hates meat and loves veggies. I’m not sure if that’s because vegetarianism is preached so much in our liberal school system, and kind of a “fad,” or maybe she just doesn’t like it. I don’t know. But that doesn’t bother me too much anymore because it’s just her, and although it worries me, I love her for who she is, the way she is.
Cooking is very nostalgic to me. A lot of things are. I have always used cast iron, and everything I make, almost, no matter what it is, starts off with olive oil and a healthy pad of butter melting in the center. It’s a ritual. Then once the olive oil gets hot, the garlic powder. I love the sizzle when I add the garlic powder. And that’s all before the food ever hits the skillet. I remember when I drank, before I was alcoholic and switched to more fowl and evil forms of alcohol, I always drank a glass of wine as I cooked, and I’d splash a bit of it in to every skillet. I miss that. Certainly not the drinking, as that is something that won’t ever happen again, but the wine in the skillet. I need to look for inexpensive non-alcoholic cooking wines, or see if my wife and I can come up with a way in which she trusts me to have wine in the kitchen for cooking only. I’m still early in my sobriety. (Also, another story, for another day.)
As I add the food and prepare it, I think about the day, think about how to spend time with my wife after dinner while still taking care of our daughter, and wind my mind down, and organize my thoughts. During this phase I am also exercising my favorite sense, smell. It brings back so many memories. Not just of food, or cooking that meal other times, but memories in which I smelled those same smells other times in life, and what I was doing, who I was with, where I was…my sense of smell is a roadmap to my past. Only good smells of course. This part is what sooths my soul, mind, and heart the most. Knowing I have a lot of life experiences, being glad for them, and being thankful that they brought me to where I am today.
At this point, I am feeling how I need to feel.