Out of Touch

Blair Marie Photography

I’m out of touch. Perhaps about a lot of things, but in particular (and for the purpose of today) I am writing about how I am out of touch about food. I realized today that it has been far too long since I have paid real attention to my food as I am eating it. Too often I am eating while doing a million other things. It almost seems unnatural now to simply sit and eat at the kitchen table in peace. Instead, I find myself eating while on the computer (case in point I sat down to write this while eating); eating at my desk; standing in the kitchen eating while preparing my family’s food; and even when I am AT the kitchen table, I am getting up to get somebody something so often that it feels like dinner is a blur. No wonder I don’t have much enthusiasm for cooking dinner these days – why would I look forward to spending so much time doing something I am not even enjoying in the end?? For me, eating now feels just like another task that has to get done during the day – such a shame.

I know this is an all too common sentiment these days in our busy lives, and I honestly don’t have the answer to it all. All I know is recognizing it is important. In large and small ways, I am trying to slow life down a bit and enjoy the moments that pass. Yesterday I was looking at a photo of my little girl who at the time must have been around a year old, and she looked so very tiny to me. It is hard to believe that time has passed so quickly (and so slowly in other ways). I know that in another few years that I will look back at photos of today and again, it will seem like the little girl I have now (today) will seem just as wee as the girl I saw in the photo yesterday.

I want to get back to really enjoying my food – actually tasting and recognizing flavours and textures. One of the smaller ways that I am going to slow things down is to turn off my Blackberry for a couple of hours every evening. I am constantly “in touch” and out of sheer habit am always on the damn phone. Who am I? The President of the United States? Do I need to have my phone with me at all times for fear that something so majorly important will not get through to me? Or that some important information will be tweeted out or put on some FaceBook status and I need to constantly be ‘standing by’ just in case? Seriously.

Anyway, as mothers, I know we all feel this busy-ness. I don’t believe that it’s at all possible to shut it down completely, but I feel that we may all be able to do better jobs of picking and choosing what is important – and what needs focus (and thus slowing down, and being able to be more present in whatever you doing – eating or otherwise). For me, cooking, eating well and enjoying food with my family is very important, and I am going to continue to make these small efforts towards doing more of that. Prepare to see more recipe experiments and photos of food. Coming soon ;)

On this theme, I would like to leave you all with a few photos taken by “Blair Marie Photography” of my daughter and I doing something we both love: baking cookies!