Bread and the food of life

Art Journal Pages - "Charmed Life"

It's the simple things in life that can either bring the most joy or be our biggest challenge. Take food for example, we need it to live but too much of it and then it becomes a health issue. I have struggled all my life with my weight. I certainly know what healthy eating looks like, but for me food is more than energy, it can soothe my weary soul.

Reading can do that for me as well. When my brain is overflowing with thoughts, picking up a book can help me to escape the vortex that is building up inside. Sourdough or, Lois and Her Adventures in the Underground Market by Robin Sloan turned out to be a book that nourished my soul on a day that I needed comfort.

Lois a young programmer for a robotics company lives a very sheltered life in the bustling city of San Francisco. She follows the lead of several of her co-workers who are meeting their nutritional needs by drinking a product they refer to as Slurry. Lois begins to consume (because eating would be the wrong word here) it three times a day. On her doorstep she finds a flyer for a little takeout place offering spicy soup and bread. She orders. She gets hooked. But when the work visas for the operators of the business expire they must leave the country but not without giving her a parting gift - a crock of sourdough starter. Now her adventures really begin.

I've found myself reading a lot of stories in this same vein - character is living an unsatisfying life, event happens to upend the status quo, change happens leading to the discovery of a new way of living. I guess it is a sign that my life is not going the way I want it to. I read Sloan's book in the course of a day off from work. I needed to leave my life behind while I went with my mother into Boston for a visit with her oncologist. A day of tests and lots of waiting. A day filled with the unspoken worry "has the cancer come back?" The answer - no. Thank God.

Getting a medical diagnosis is one of those events that turns your world upside down. The worrying can consume you and you need to find a way to deal with it, or at least avoid it for a little while. Reading for me helps at times like these. I want to thank the authors who have helped me during the difficult times of life - you made it possible for me to survive them.