Spiders, Panic Attacks, and My On-Going Love Affair with Food

I'm afraid that all the while I'm writing this and you're reading this, there's going to be an elephant in the room, and that's because I don't want to talk about the tour.  I really don't.  And I won't until my contract officially ends with the — — Players.  But I will take this moment to officially announce to my friends and family that last Friday I delivered my 17 days notice.  I'm coming home early.  And yes, I see this as a very good thing.  I am counting the days with desperate longing.  As I jokingly said in a facebook status lately, "I am so over any city in this country that isn't Chicago."


So for now, I am simply biding my time.  The past few weeks have been particularly stressful, and they have been having an interesting effect on me.  Not unlike my bouts with depression in the past, I find that I am unable to sleep well and exhausted all the time.  I occasionally find it difficult to keep my eyes open, even in the middle of a performance, and when I do sleep, it has been only to return to familiar nightmares of long ago, of being trapped inside my own body, unable to move, unable to scream or cry for help, paralyzed and helpless and painfully conscious of everything surrounding me.

Unfortunately the nightmares seep into my waking life as well.  I have begun having small panic attacks.  Yesterday morning, I was changing clothes in a bathroom stall at one of the schools, and all of a sudden an old memory came flooding back to me.  I remember when I was very young, about 6 or 7, my mother and grandmother and I went to a Mother/Daughter tea at our church.  I was wearing a pretty dress and purple nail polish that made my mother purse her lips.  And I excused myself to the ladies' room at some point.  Then, just as I was about to leave the stall, a group of women walked into the restroom, all of them talking very loudly—I couldn't tell you what about—and one of them stood in front of the door of my stall, not realizing she was trapping me in there.  No matter, the little me thought, they'll leave soon and then I can go.  Except that they didn't leave.  They stayed there.  And the longer they stayed there the more I irrationally felt that I couldn't just make my presence known.  Something in me felt like it would be bad manners, like they would think I had been hiding or listening in.  I remember starting to silently cry because that woman stayed standing in front of my stall for such a long time.  And then, to my horror, I heard someone else open the bathroom door.  My mother had come looking for me, worried because I had been gone so long.  I heard her ask if I was in there, and before I could answer, the women told her there was no one else there.   I remember feeling like I would never get out of there.  And I was scared because now I knew my mother was scared, and why didn't I just say something…anything!  Ages went by.  I don't know how long, but to my child-mind, it felt like hours, before my mother returned again, and finally I found my voice and managed a plaintive little, "Mom!"  Those poor women!  They were so shocked to realize I'd been trapped in there that whole time, and I was just so relieved when my mother got to me.  I felt awful.

So here I was nearly two decades later, hyperventilating in a bathroom stall because this memory had just washed over me so vividly I started to cry.  And naturally, as if summoned into occurrence by my memories, when I tried to open the door of the bathroom stall, the lock got stuck and I had to force it to get it open.  For one moment I was convinced that after all this time, it had come back to this: being trapped in a bathroom stall.  Of all the undignified messes to get oneself in.  God thinks He's so funny.

So to preserve my sanity I have begun distracting myself with new projects.  I am exploring Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, taking my own personal notes on how I would stage it and designing costumes, which has also led to experimenting with watercolor paints.  Which I simply love.

I'm trying to write, but I don't have the heart for my journal, and motivation for my novel is fleeting.  But I'll get back to that place soon enough.  I always do, one way or another.  It just might take being back in Chicago to get the words flowing.

In other news, I have found that being under constant emotional duress has had a positive effect on my bravery.  Many are aware of my crippling fear of spiders, whether they view this phobia with disdainful mockery or sympathetic understanding.  Either way, both sides can rest assured that in the past, I have been reduced to a huddled, sobbing mass in the fetal position of my apartment, rocking back and forth because a spider got in somehow.  Oh yes.  I'm talking about a legitimate phobia here, not just "Ew spiders are gross."

And yet, in spite of my self-respect-robbing fear, in the past month, I have killed 3—yes, count them, three—spiders of my own accord.  Maybe it took getting angry to get me there.  I'm not sure, but I think it's helped.  Mind you, I still have a mini-heart attack at the mere sight of one, and I have to spend the next twenty minutes recovering from the near-fatal encounter with these hideous beasties.  But the fact that I have actually been able to kill them, no matter how small, is progress nothing short of a miracle.  Let me tell you, there are few things more chill-inducing than being seated at a restaurant and having your entree delivered, then reaching for your fork, only to see an 8-legged murderer lowering itself from the ceiling directly in front of your nose.  God, I'm having convulsions just thinking about it.

But this brings me to the restaurant, which was a positive note in a currently bleak existence.  It was just a Carrabbas, but I sat by myself at the bar in front of the kitchen, where I got to watch the chefs work and was given a small sample of one of the pastas while I waited for my waitress.  I love food.  I really do.  I have a relationship with food.  And I know that people frown on that and tell me not to eat my emotions and "Oh, Lord, Rachel, you're going to end up so overweight," but I don't care.  Because you know what?  In spite of everything you've ever been told, food does make you feel better.

Now I'm not saying you should go crazy and eat ten pounds of blueberry pie.  No, no.  I'm saying that food…it has magic.  Think about it.  There isn't a bad situation that doesn't look better from the other end of a hot meal.  Food comforts, it reaches out, it stays with you in your memory so that you can't forget it.  Sometimes it even speaks to you.  Don't ask me what it was about, but I've had an entire dialogue with a particular Eggs Benedict recipe involving salmon.  I can't tell you how much joy I get out of cooking for other people, too.  You know I love you if I've baked for you.  I either love you, care about you, or want you to like me if I bake something specifically for you.  Which is probably why I once got so irrationally angry at someone who declined a cookie he didn't know I made for him.  Granted, there was a lot of other provocation leading up to that point, but the cookie was definitely the last straw.

And in spite of what some people seem to believe, giving into your food cravings does not mean you will eat nothing but marble cake and coconut macaroons.  I've found that by listening to exactly what my body is craving in a moment, even if it's not necessarily out of hunger, I often get something I really need.  I do, in fact, crave a salad sometimes, or a piece of fruit.  Or pickles.  I crave pickles all the time.  No idea why, except maybe that I don't get enough sodium in my diet and it's one of the few salty foods that I really like.  (I don't go for chips or salted nuts or even french fries most of the time.)  Cravings are not bad.  Cravings tell you what you need.  Comfort food does not have to come smothered in sauce.

Besides all of that, there is something intrinsically beautiful about seeing a recipe come to life.  About trying a new food for the first time and the way the flavor is unlike anything you have ever had before.  About the smell that fills your whole building when you do something as simple as place a pot-pie in the microwave.  Or just about the look of uninhibited delight in someone's expression when you surprise them with brownies.  Food sustains life, and I celebrate that.  It sustains life and friendship and love.

I have known many people who can't seem to let themselves truly enjoy food and I pity them.  I am all for being healthy, but if splurging on fettuccine Alfredo means spending the whole meal fretting about (or claiming not to fret about) the calories, then you are missing out on something.  I would be so sad if I felt I had to justify my right to eat something with, "Well, at least I worked out today."  Or God forbid I have more than my allotted number of calories per day.  Of course you should be careful not to overdo it, and I adamantly promote both healthy eating and activity—I mean, come on.  I work at a YMCA—but it should not come at the expense of having to think about it all the time.

I suppose I've been thinking about food so much recently because I'm not able to cook for myself lately, which is like being in college, which is like being in prison.  …okay, not quite that bad, but it does distress me when I can't manage a balanced diet and I can't get the foods that my body is craving.  For the past few weeks I have been daydreaming about all the wonderful food I want to make and shop for when I get home.  I've plotted the people I plan to bake for, and the excuses I will use to do so.  I positively salivate when I start thinking of Thanksgiving and sweet potato casserole, brussel sprouts, cranberry sauce, and smoked turkey.  This holiday cannot come fast enough for me, and not just because I will finally get to see my family.

And I guess that's all I needed to get off my chest at the moment.  I'm going to go to bed now, and try to dream of food instead of claustrophobic restroom stalls.  Then again, if I do dream of food, it will make it even more difficult to get up tomorrow and do my job.

Just a little longer.  Just a few more days…