Leftovers

In early June, U and I made a pact that whoever gains more weight after  July will pay for our body massage at The Spa in Bonifacio High Street. We’re weighing in  on Saturday and I’m getting nervous! I don't think I could back out from a birthday dinner tomorrow night, and I’m gaining weight as I type this!

I've been eating nothing but salad, soup, a small portion of pasta or half a sandwich for lunch everyday and I still feel stuffed! I guess as we grow older, it isn’t so much about achieving our ideal weight but eating our favorite food without guilt! I skipped dinner last night, but at 2 am, I opened the fridge---another dead-of-the-night dining extravaganza for me! I ate the leftover coleslaw salad, some queso de bola…I reached for the leftover  cake but stopped myself. I enjoy my late night/early morning binges…everybody’s asleep except me, eating without rules. I like the quiet and comfort of my thoughts. I thought of leftovers, in their less visible form are called memories---stored in the fridge of the mind or in the cupboard of the heart.

A few of mine came up…hearty laughter shared with friends over pizza, the last embers of a bonfire by the beach, the long glance of love (from someone who used to love me) from across a room full of people, a long lost melody of a childhood song---Oh Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, from glen to glen and down the mountain side, that brought me to sleep in my father’s arms, and a chunk of poetry I learned in high school---Tiger, tiger burning bright/in the forests of the night/what immortal hand or eye/dared frame thy fearful symmetry?

I am not often aware that I am happy. But I often remember that I have been happy. Especially on nights when I sit eating leftovers, wrapped in an invisible patchwork quilt made of the best moments I had. I thought of you---where were you at this moment? Or some other people who might be at the same place in their kitchen at this very moment, hungering as I hunger, wondering as I wonder. King Solomon must also had been suffering from a sleep disorder and got hungry at 2 am when he wrote---'Strengthen me with raisins, refresh me with apples, for I am faint with love...'

 Posted for Nostalgic Marveling hosted by Rose