What Lunch Alone Taught Me

A Photo I Took on a Previous Trip to Thai Gourmet

Through no fault of my own, I had to eat out today. I say that because I had no plans to eat out. I planned to take my lunch, control the ingredients I ate, and save money. But, in a story too mundane to include, I ended up without lunch. So I went out.

It irritates me to have to eat out for necessity. I had wanted to eat here, today, with a friend. She had to cancel her plans. The meal feels like a consolation prize. Since I could not plan to have company, I have to go alone. Usually, if I have to lunch solo, I get takeout. If I eat in the restaurant, I am armed with technology so I never need to be bored. Today, I decided to eat at the restaurant, but when I got there realized I had left my phone at the office. The dreaded lone lunch, sitting like a spinster looking longingly at tables where people have friends. I almost ordered takeout. 

Instead, I remembered an article I shared on Facebook just minutes before leaving. It recommended lunch breaks, and as part of your lunch break, mindful eating. What if I turned my unexpected lone eating disappointment into a mindfulness exercise? 

I order hot tea. While I wait for it, I eavesdrop on the conversation in front of me. Two men, one older, one younger, discuss jewelry. The younger man is respectful of the older man, and seems to want to genuinely connect. The older man is less secure. He spends a lot of words describing the wildly expensive jewelry and gifts he has given his wife, being sure to make it clear spending such vast sums is nothing to him. I feel a kinship with this nervous man. I look out the window. The wind whips about, and the American flag at the daycare next door thrashes back and forth. People in the parking lot try to hold their hair as if that will save all the effort they took this morning with dryers and hair goo.

We spend a lot of time impressing others--with our words, our looks, the car we drive and the house we present to guests. I wondered if I still work as hard as the nervous man was working to prove I was worthy of the world's respect? How much time do I waste trying to be what I think others want instead of spending it being me? When we all rush from one activity to the next, we forget to consider. We accept the messages around us--money or looks or style or talent makes you worthwhile, and the look you present to the world is more important than the you that's actually inside. Taking a moment to look around with eyes and mind open, can bring you back to center, back to the value of a person because they exist.

My tea arrives. One thing I love about this restaurant is their decision to use limes instead of lemons in their tea. The lime slice is a vibrant, living green, perfectly blending tones of dark and light in the flesh and peel. The tea is its own green, a browner affair than the fruit, and lends a slight, grounding fragrance to the piquant lime. I begin to feel the calm of using all my senses to experience the cup in front of me. My neck and shoulders loosen, and my breathing deepens. I sip the liquid, and the just-too-warm temperature soothes the chill I see outside--a false chill, since the temperature is warm, but the gray sky and wind fool my mind.

So much of our modern life comes through our eyes. Computer lights, ticker windows on news stories, bright displays at stores. We don't use our other senses as often as we could. Even though I no longer have space for a garden, I try to buy real food. My fruit may sometimes be lumpy, but you can smell its freshness when you walk by the display at the organic market where I shop. I am fortunate to be able to drink raw milk, and you can smell the life in it when you open the jar. I make salves from coconut oil and rose essential oil. It is plain, with no color, but the scent is the exact smell of being pampered. Stopping to engage the other senses, especially the emotionally powerful sense of smell, is a  chance to slow down and let your body return to living in the natural world around it.

The two men leave (the older man insisting on paying the bill), and I sip my tea. Pots and pans bang around in the kitchen. Their sound is surprisingly soothing, since I also hear happy voices speaking what I assume is Thai back and forth. My food arrives, borne on a cart by a smiling young woman who recognizes me as a regular customer. She checks to be sure everything is as I wish, and I am alone with my food.

Even planning to be mindful, it is strange to just sit, me and my soup. I want to comment on how delicious it is--but my server is gone, and without my phone I can't proclaim deliciousness via Facebook. I must experience the meal, without the buffer of conversation.

I look at it. Panang curry with chicken. The soup is the most amazing color of orange--redder than the fruit of the same name, less red than curry. It warms me just looking at it. I study the vegetables, and am reminded of the versatility of green. The basil is dark green and wilted; the zucchini is a half-moon of lightening degrees of green from its center to peel. The green beans are almost the same shade as the zucchini flesh just beside the peel--but not quite. The greens sit together, and bring out the saffron of the soup as if chosen just for that purpose. I spoon some of the white, white, rice into the bowl. Red pepper slices lean against the rice mounds. They are just slipping from red to orange from their ordeal by heat, darker siblings to the lighter soup. And the chicken, in large, irregular slices, make the rice look darker, and warn me of impending spice with their flecks of red pepper. 

I have poor vision without contact lenses or glasses. I remember when I first got glasses. My parents were mortified. We drove down the road from the doctor's office, and I kept exclaiming "Mom, Dad--I can see the leaves on the trees! Each little leaf!" They had not taken two years' worth of notes from school about my vision seriously, believing my vision could not be too bad since I never complained of it. But I had not known the details that were out there to people who could see clearly. I love my contacts, but sometimes the simplicity of seeing in a blur of color is welcome. Instead of concrete items, seeing a swirl of colors, and studying them for clues to their meaning, is a mindful activity. My soup is a swirl of veggicolor, and observing it enhances my enjoyment.

I blow on the first sip, enjoying the scent. There is a muskiness to Thai food, whether from fish sauce or the nut butters sometimes used, or just the blend of spices, I don't know, but I love it. The basil adds a zing that reminds me of the lime in my tea. So I add a sip of tea. The restaurant is empty now, except for the woman who served me, moving from table to table, cleaning. I savor each bite, and the slight burning from my "mildly spicy" soup is invigorating but not unpleasant. The wind continues to whip about; my spoon clinks on the bowl. I slowly finish my lunch, savoring each bite.

The idea of mindfulness is best known as a Buddhist concept. In mindfulness you lose your worries about tomorrow as you concentrate on the present day. I am not a Buddhist, but I am a Christian, and gratitude is a foundational precept in my faith. I think about thanking often--since, like many, my prayers begin to rehash the same words over and over if I am not careful. Thank you, Father, for food. Thank you for shelter. Thank you that really bad things have not happened to me. Thank you for my husband (occasionally with the subtext "even though I don't much like him at the moment" when we fight). 

But I also read about etiquette. When you write a thank-you note, you don't write "thank you for the watch" if you want to write a note to really express your appreciation. Instead, you are specific: "Thank you for the watch. The large face makes it easy to read. And how did you ever remember I liked purple? The wristband is my favorite shade! Now I don't have to carry my phone around just to know what time it is. Thank you." Specific prayers are best to express heartfelt love to a loving Father. So today, I pray a prayer of thankfulness for my meal. For the greens of zucchini and beans and basil, for the orange of curry, for the tang of lime and the quiet tap of spoon to bowl. For the chance to walk in the misty rain to the restaurant, and the comforting feel that money has in my pocket, especially when I remember how hard its absence once was. As I reflect on the gifts my solo lunch has given me, I no longer resent my unexpected meal out. I treasure it with thanksgiving.