The Comfort of Toast

College dining halls are less glamorous than how ever low you're thinking right now.  Within in my first semester and two weeks into my second dining at college, both a screw and maggot have been found in meals of girls in my very own grade alone.  It's a taunting thought honestly, the idea that one second you could be fooling yourself into being satisfied with meals like every other day, the next second your day is genuinely ruined, and likely the dining hall is completely ruined for you as well (as if just ruining your day wasn't enough, as underclassmen you have literally no other option for your meals than to return to the same dining hall three times a day).

As a fellow eater at the hall, I try to push these memories out of my head whenever I am thinking of or going to eat there.  I also try to stick to salads and oatmeal as ninety-nine percent of meals*.  I figure these meals to be healthy options, as well as safe.  The only meat I eat here is stir fried chicken or (likely extremely processed) chicken patties, with the exception of turkey everyone once in a long while.  Oatmeal is so straightforward and simple, I figure no one can mess it up that much.

I was late into another day of my little routine, grabbing some lettuce to put into one of the dining hall's weird plate bowls, and then topping it with craisins and cucumbers per usual as I waited for my chicken to cook at the stir fry station.  Once it was done, I topped off the chicken with buffalo sauce and enjoyed my meal as if it was the first time I was eating it.  Really.  The mixture of craisins with lettuce and buffalo has been a long time favorite, and realizing I could consistently make my chicken buffalo chicken was a big time game changer.

Alas the salad was done, and now I was stuck.  See, every since I was a little one I have had a major sweet tooth.  Chocolate, caramel, cinnamon, vanilla, and basically any other sweet flavor you can image, I likely enjoy to an alarming extent.  And I detest the feeling of my palette after meals if the last thing I have eaten isn't something at least somewhat sweet.  This is not that big of a problem, even in the reality that is my dining hall.  There is always yogurt and granola out, and some fruit (which may or may not be edible depending on its ripeness), I also have granola, graham crackers, and gum in my dorm, if extreme measures must be taken.

My friends contemplated if they were going to get ice cream, I contemplated if I was going to get yogurt.  But yogurt didn't seem to want to hit the spot for me; for starters, I had eaten it the night before and secondly I didn't want to hold up my friends from continuing on with their nights just so I could eat some yogurt that I didn't really want.  I walked back up to the food and figured I might get some toast with peanut butter and honey on it, but then realized the flavors of peanut butter and buffalo would go well for my palette either.  Just honey? Too drippy to not eat sitting down.  I realized then what I needed to do.  It was going to be a jam and butter on toast type of night.  A rare night, a night that has not yet happened this whole school year, or likely last year school year.  My friend asked me what I was getting and when I told her she scrunched up her nose and said she was putting peanut butter on hers.  But I stayed true to my decision and on my way out, did not regret it in the least.

I took a bite of the toast, the crunch of a toast that had been through the dining hall's toaster two times through filled my ears.  The taste was sweet, and the mix of bread and sweetness reminded me of some random summer memories.  It took me back to the days of my sleep-away summer camp, where the food was so bad that my cousin and I literally chose to eat this for a minimum of two of our three meals a day, every day, for two weeks during the summer.  I had never eaten it before I went to that camp with her, but seeing that she was escaping the gross mashed potatoes and pasta, I took to her vice.  Jam with butter on toast became our lifeline.  It was our comfort food.  And now, it was my comfort food, when I didn't even realize I needed comforting.  I have truly never enjoyed two pieces of toast more.


J






*The two foods the screw and maggot were found in were both said to be from the burrito station.  Oatmeal and salads have not been known to be contaminated in any unappetizing way.

A Small Saving Grace

I stepped out of my dorm building, my winter jacket open, as the weather said it would be in the forties today, and black sneakers on my feet to celebrate the warmth after four consecutive days of my nose freezing as soon as the air from outside hit it.  My choice of footwear quickly turned into a regret as I stepped into a puddle as my first step onto the pavement. I glanced ahead at the path I had to take to get to the dining hall, a massive puddle blocking my way. The choice to go upstairs and change was not really tempting; at eight am I had no desire to walk up the four flights of stairs I just bounded down, and with only one class, I figured I could get through it.  

The puddle was outline with a mixture of slush and snow and ice, a very typical combination for the walkways around campus.  That crust of ice was clearly my only way to get across to the other side without soaking my sneakers. I tiptoed onto it, carefully placing my feet to on sturdy looking parts to not slip.  Glancing around, I thankfully saw that know one was there to see me encounter this goofy looking obstacle course.

Though I made it without slipping to dining hall that breakfast, the rest of the day continued with a monotone grey filling the sky for the fifth day in a row.  Getting out of the class was another elongated process filled with the question of why I chose sneakers. I trudged back to my door and laid down in my bed momentarily before finding the strength to make a fresh coffee.  In hopes of bringing some color into my life, I chose my pristine white mug with a floral ‘J’ on it and a gold colored handle. Though my favorite mug, unfortunately also had the worst memories attached to it as my ex gave it to me.  But I use it all the time, figuring if college life gets the best of me (a reasonable and quite relevant thought at the moment) and for whatever reason it breaks, well it was just another gift from my ex that I wouldn’t have to feel unsettled about having. The steam the mug wafted the smell of French Vanilla coffee into my nose.  I packed my backpack with the Bible and the third edition of “The Christian Theological Tradition” (the essential books for my Christianity history class) and headed out the door, this time in Bean Boots and a hot mug of coffee in hand. I stepped out of the dorm and once looked out at the pouring rain from the steps.  Against the grey of my campus, the cleanness of the mug stood out. There was a burst of happiness in seeing the little object of such appreciation against the dreariness of the day. It brought a sliver of sunshine to my day. The mug, with its tiny flowers and gold trim was a small saving grace, a tiny reminder that spring was indeed real and the campus wouldn’t always be filled with only one color.  The thought pushed me forward with the tiniest amount of motivation to take the first few steps out from under the covered landing of my dorm. I quickly came to the first puddle of many on my walk, but this time, I splashed right through in my boots, enjoying the satisfaction of walking through water without getting wet.

Sending my wishes of warmth,

                                                  J

Renew

And that was it.  A wrap of 2018, and now we're twenty days in.  It always feels like when one year is about to end that we're on the verge of something amazing, something new and different.  But we're not.  We fool ourselves time in and time out.

And why?  Well for starters, there's obviously not anything wrong with this.  And we are stuck in this cycle of one year ending and another following, so why not be optimistic about what's to come, right?  Being hopeful is always the best policy.  In this case, almost the only policy, because we make a habit of it.  We love the idea of things changing after end comes to pass, despite that not always being a case.  And we see that everywhere, in breakups, in finishing books, completing workout goals.  We love the idea of visible change, when in actuality the change is accumulative.  Things aren't just going to change or take shape because something happened that was out of our control.  Because that's really what we are in the tradition of attempting to do.  We all just want to renew ourselves in whatever way we think to be suitable and best.  It's truly a noble thing, because it's difficult, and hard to take initiative and acknowledge the things that you want to change.  It's special because of its rarity as well.

This blog post is a direct result of this.  One of my new year's resolutions being to write more, and I haven't written in over a month.  It's addicting to do nothing.  But it's also addicting to do things.  Sometimes you just need a little kick to begin.  So here is a short and sweet welcome to 2019, twenty days late.



J