Cabbage and Roasted Jesus

You know, many strange things happen when you work where I do. Profound insights brought on by cabbage and of course, Roasted Jesus.

Remember, I work in a milieu type setting, so I basically "live" here too, when I'm on shift. I eat with the residents and hang out with them along with assisting with skills of daily living and basic counseling. Of course you build relationships, and they are different from those of a one to one therapist/client relationship. More boundaries in that, less disclosure. But here, disclosure sometimes is part of the interaction. Our clients may not know a lot but I'm willing to share far more than I would with a private practice type of client.

Take my fire dancing video. Which you can see here. I showed that to one of my primary residents (we all closely follow two - four residents, almost like a case manager, during their stay) because we were talking about building practice poi. She was very moved, almost to tears. One might say curiously enough but I wouldn't. This is a woman who is struggling to find passion in her life and if there's one thing about fire that I have learned in my life (never mind me being an Aries and all), it's that it is the epitome of passion. Symbolically.

She and I have a pretty good rapport and she impishly said, "Heather, you lied to me!", totally outraged (kidding, which she is very good at). I blinked and said, "What did I lie about?" She says, "You told me you didn't smoke!!" and we both laughed and I followed up with "Well, I would only smoke if I caught myself on fire and I don't plan on getting roasted." She blinks and says, "Jesus." I shook my head and said, "Roasted Jesus." And really, I don't know why. It is not upon me to question why these things come into my mind during my time at a rehabilitation house for the severely mentally ill. But, we just started to howl. Especially after I started singing "Plastic Jesus" with a little... ahem, poetic license. "Long as I have my Roasted Jesus, riding on the dashboard of my car." I'm telling you, working here temporarily affects the brain.

Of course, my husband probably would say... "Temporarily??"

The intern therapist was here, Melissa, and present for the unveiling of the Roasted Jesus and really, it's not all me and one resident because she thought it was funny too. It only got worse after the resident said, "Well, Goddamn, that's funny." and I made the interpretation that Goddamn is basically Roasted Jesus in a different form. God=Jesus, Damn=Hell=Roasted. Okay. I'm fairly certain it's one of those things you... had to be there for.

So onwards to cabbage, with a helping of Roasted Jesus. At dinner, I was sitting with this same resident and Melissa and we were cracking up over the Roasted Jesus quite frequently. I was eating the dinner salad (all food is prepared by the residents, different pair for each day of the week, part of that whole daily living skills thing), which had raw cabbage in it. I like cabbage as well as the next odd person out and I was noting its presence. I must have been taken by the spirit of the Roasted Jesus because I was in a contemplative mood on one of my bites and notice the subtle flavor of the cabbage, which, really was pleasant. No, I mean it.

As I sat there chewing, I went through a common process (for me) called non-linear thought. Well, it might have some linearity to it. So, I'm sitting there and suddenly have the thought of "Wow, this is pretty good." "Hey, animals eat food." "Animals find food all around them. Like cabbage. And so do we." "The Earth made this to feed animals. And us." "Isn't that amazing!! It's like no plan we could ever organize and implement. It's perfect." "What the HELL are we doing? Look at all that processed food when we could be eating cabbage!"

And suddenly, I experienced this deep disgust for humankind's mark upon the world of food. It was like I could see the entire history of processed food laid out before me and I felt the echoes of rage stirring within. Years and years falling away before my eyes, layers and layers of experimentation, factory production, commercial capitalism. It was almost visual, conveyor belts carrying Twinkies and boxed foods. All of this in the midst of Roasted Jesus laughter.

I really was disgusted. How did we get to this point where cabbage became the Devil? I've been reading The Mood Cure by Julia Ross, a book about using nutrition to, well, cure emotional moods rather than using synthetic medications. It may be a high possibility that we can blame the Devilizing of cabbage on sugar and white simple carbohydrate starches. Did you know sugar used to be considered a drug when it was first brought over to Europe and locked carefully away in the apothecary? And it was called "crack" in France in the Sixteenth century. Wow. She calls it the most addictive substance in the history of mankind. And apparently messes with us just as much as the things we call "crack" now.

Now, I imagine I won't forgo processed foods and sugar from this point on but it was an interesting moment in time. The experience itself was brief although still lingers a little bit. Not that I might not allow myself to enter my experience in a more permanent fashion. Especially it so plays into my issues around body image. Which is next post since it's three am and I'm not sure what I'm even writing anymore.

Oh, and who knew the "Plastic Jesus" song was crazy long like this???? And errr... I say to the lyrics... WTF??!! (What The Fuck??!!)