I just sip the sizzurp
How did I go through the last six weeks without anyone, until today, making a reference to Kanye’s Through the Wire? (Thank you, Chris, for stepping up.) The more important question may be, for all the times I’ve listened to it, how did I not know until today that the song is not only about his own broken jaw, but that he wrote and recorded it WHILE wired?
And I was just proud of myself for leaving the house every once in a while.
Better late than never, with apologies to Kanye West, sipping the sizzurp* is an apt description for how I’ve been eating. The past few days I have been able to spoon things into my mouth so not everything has to go through the straw, yet I’m still unable to chew. I have had to cultivate a few strategies for eating through this stage, most of which involve slurping a modified version of whatever someone else is having. By all accounts, it will be about another month of baby steps, from becoming fully metal-free to regaining normal motion and chewing capacity.
The easiest approach is to keep on keepin’ on with the straw — smoothies, juice boxes, and shakes are still definite staples. Last Thursday I miscalculated my intake and went to a party without eating enough; after several hours of a staring contest with the spread of cheeses and dips and cakes, the chocolate peanut butter milkshake I picked up on the way home was like manna from heaven.
Now that I’m physically able to get food with some texture in my mouth, blending beyond recognition is intolerable. But the blender still has to…help me chew. There’s a reason this post has no pictures. Pulsing the blender just enough has allowed me to eat the insides of a falafel pita without the pita (falafel, tabouleh, hummus, and hot sauce) and stir fry, without the rice, but full of marinated tofu and fresh vegetables like Napa cabbage, kohlrabi leaves, zucchini, and even some corn, which I thought I’d be missing out on entirely this summer. Last night I attempted some overcooked cappellini, drenched in sauce, although the noodles were surprisingly difficult to eat. Aside from this rejection of carbs, as though my mouth is on its own evil version of the Atkins diet, it is amazing to be tasting food again. In fact, the best meal of all required no blending. On Saturday night, I slurped away at the mush of lentils, spinach, and tikka masala sauce that Dan picked up for dinner from an amazing Indian take out place in Curry Hill. It seemed like the most wonderfully flavorful thing I had ever tasted.
I’m reluctant to call what I’m doing “eating” now that, even more deeply than before, I understand that to be a process beyond just getting calories from point A (plate) to point B (stomach). More connected to food than I’ve probably ever been in my life, the plan is to keep tasting all the tastes I’ve missed, and prepare for a wonderful meal, not too far into the future, when I will truly eat again.
*for the non-Kanye fans, that’s sucking syrup through a straw because someone has cruelly ordered pancakes in front of you while your jaw is wired shut.
