Finding It: And Finally Satisfying My Hunger for Life (13 page)

Following a brief examination, the doctor pronounced me sick. I raised an eyebrow at him, as if to say, “Oh really?” He said I had a chest infection and wrote me a prescription for antibiotics and cough medicine, which a nearby twenty-four hour pharmacy delivered to the hotel.

True confession: I happened to take too much cough medicine that night and in the morning, and codeine and I don’t mix. Later that morning, I had to do a book signing and I arrived a little dizzy. By the next day, though, I was at a Costco in New Jersey, doing another book signing, and I felt much better. I think it was the comfort of being surrounded by two of my passions, literature and food.

We ended up staying through the weekend, and by Sunday morning I felt back to myself. As always after recovering from a bout of something, I was incredibly grateful to have my health back. Tom and I went out for breakfast and took a walk afterward. It was a gorgeous day. The air was crisp and fresh, and that and the energy of the city itself brought me fully back to life.

It was the kind of day when I really love New York. The streets were coming alive. The sidewalks were filled with the delicious smells of food carts, including sizzling sausages and chicken ka-bobs on the grill. I saw a guy chomp down on a hot dog teeming with sauerkraut even though it was not yet noon. I envied him living on the edge like that—ha!

Tom and I walked past storefronts and down streets until we had gotten lost—lost in the way that the activity itself overtook us and we forgot our original destination, if we even had had one. But to paraphrase the writer Douglas Adams: you may set out for one place but you end up where you need to be. And so it was with us.

Tom needed a restroom. We walked a couple of blocks until we found a friendly store, Saks Fifth Avenue.

“Let’s go inside,” I said. “I’ll go to the makeup counter and have some fun.”

I did exactly that and was paying for some YSL cosmetics when Tom found me again. I gave him a look that said, “Don’t worry. I’m done. You aren’t going to have to wait around while I shop. We can leave.”

We went outside and debated which way to turn. We thought we might stroll through Central Park, a change of pace from the brisk walks we usually take through the lovely acreage whenever we visit. We headed north but only got about a half block before stopping in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. We stared up at the
neo-gothic towers, its nearly 160-year-old spires rising the length of a football field. I put my arm through Tom’s and said, “It’s freaking gorgeous, isn’t it?”

In all the times I had been to New York over the years, I had walked past the church a thousand times and never paused to admire its beauty. Tom suggested we go inside.

“I think it’s closed,” I said.

“But look, people are going in and out,” he said. “Let’s check it out.”

We walked up the stairs and went inside. I was wrong; it wasn’t closed. In fact, it was very much open for business. We were only a few steps in when we heard someone whisper that Mass was starting in five minutes. We looked at each other and decided to stay. We walked down the side aisle and took a seat near the front. We didn’t have a view of the priest or anything else going on in front, but that was all right with me. I was there for the ambiance—or so I said.

As I told Tom, I hadn’t been in a Catholic church for Mass since I’d taken part in my first Holy Communion in Delaware when I was seven years old. My mother sewed a beautiful dress for me that looked like a little white wedding gown. After putting it on, I felt so pretty that I wanted to wear it all the time.

Unlike me, Tom had grown up going to church every Sunday, and he continued through most of his adulthood. From the time we met, we talked about the Bible and God and spirituality in general. It was the first time that my life included the idea of faith and trust in God’s bigger picture, and I liked it. I didn’t all of a sudden embrace religion, but I felt a curiosity. It was kind of like having foie gras for the first time. I enjoyed the taste, but I didn’t have it
every day. Yet the next time I encountered it, I had another enjoyable taste.

Over time and through talks with Tom, I came to realize that I always had believed in God. But Tom and I had very different relationships with God. He accepted God without question. His belief had been cemented in childhood, and that feeling had not wavered through adulthood, even when he experienced some pretty tumultuous times. As he told me, that’s when he trusted God the most.

By contrast, I was filled with questions. I was one of those who said, “I believe in God, but…” Several times during my darkest years, I had gone looking for a spiritual connection, some sort of deeper understanding of a master plan that would enable me to make sense of my pain and misery. I went to church. I dabbled in Kabbalah. I meditated at the Self-Realization Fellowship. All of them offered something, but none of them felt completely right to me.

People have religious experiences in countless ways and places, from seeing the Virgin Mary on a moldy piece of bread to gazing at the world from the top of a mountain. Besides my grandmother’s soup, only one other thing had made a lasting impression on me as real and genuine and truly holy. The wafer I had tasted during communion when I was seven years old. It had been delicious.

“I can still remember the taste,” I told Tom. “Like the outside part of a
torrone
or nougat candy.”

“What is it with you?” he asked. “You remember your grandma’s soup and a wafer.”

“I don’t know,” I said, shrugging. “Maybe subconsciously I have always thought eating would get me closer to God.”

Hey, I wouldn’t have been the first Italian to think of a good
meal as a spiritual experience. Maybe that’s why my search for God had been so frustrating. I’d wanted a tangible, show-me type of spiritual moment that would let me
get it
. I’d wanted to see it, feel it, hold it, and taste it, like a life-changing meatball.

As we sat in St. Patrick’s, I glanced around the vast room and soaked up the serene atmosphere, marveling at the contrast between the hubbub outside on the street and the peace inside this sanctuary just several hundred yards away. Whether it was the Lord’s presence or a holiness that people ascribed to this place, something undeniably spiritual was in the air.

I didn’t follow the sermon as closely as Tom did. To me, it was like nice music playing; sometimes I listened, and sometimes I let it fade into the background while my mind drifted. I prayed for strength and guidance. I asked God to keep those I loved healthy. I asked for peace. And I requested a little bit of help watching over Wolfie since I had clearly slacked off.

At one point, I found myself thinking again about my grandmother’s cappelletti soup—not the actual soup as much as the feeling of warmth, comfort, peace, and okayness it inspired. I glanced over at Tom. His eyes were shut. He was communing with a higher power, and I was thinking of soup. I smiled. Maybe the two are different routes to the same place.

I was just glad to be on the path that would take me closer to God. Walking into St. Patrick’s was a baby step on a long journey that could take the rest of my life, but I was glad to have at least taken the first one. I sensed it was an important part of maintenance—and it is.

From the time I had begun my diet, I’d had faith that I could lose weight. I didn’t know where it came from, but I had it. Having reached my goal, I needed even more faith that I could keep it off.
Since maintenance was more complicated, I needed faith that I would find the strength and determination to meet the new challenges I faced. I needed faith that I was going in the right direction and would end up in a good and healthier place because, as I often say, I won’t know if I’ve succeeded until the day I die.

Ultimately, I knew such faith has to come from me, from deep inside, like “the little engine that could” in the children’s story, who said, “I think I can, I think I can….” Maybe church was like a drive-through, one among many places where I could stop when I felt my soul craving nourishment.

One thing I knew for sure: I was still hungry—as hungry as I had ever been. It was a different kind of hunger, though: one that I couldn’t satisfy with food—and had no desire to. It was the same yearning I had noticed in friends and other women around my age. All of us had reached a point where we had sought comfort or escape in food, drugs, alcohol, or shopping, learned they didn’t work, and now found ourselves wanting something deeper and more genuine, something that would provide our lives with meaning and substance.

The priest was talking about a part of the Bible that didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t tell if others were as lost as I was, though a discreet glance around made me think that most of them were paying better attention. Suddenly my stomach growled. It was a biggie, one of those loud gurgles that could be mistaken for old pipes rattling or a lion waking up. I guessed my stomach was still recovering from the night before. I looked around, hoping no one had heard, including Tom, who would have made a face asking what kind of monster was living inside me that I couldn’t tame. But he didn’t even flinch. He was scuba diving in the deep end of the
Holy Spirit. His eyes were closed, tears were sliding down his face, and he was praying to himself as if God were seated between us.

I stared at him in amazement. I wondered what the heck he had heard the priest say that I apparently had missed.

I would have been surprised but I wouldn’t have complained, if this service had reshaped every one of my sixty-four-and-a-half inches, from the tippy top of my head to the ticklish bottom of my toes. I would have walked out of the church thinking it was meant to be. But nothing happened—not until the priest offered communion to anyone who wanted to accept the body of Christ.

All of a sudden I felt something inside me wake up—my stomach. I nudged Tom.

“I want to taste the cookie,” I whispered.

“It’s not a cookie,” he said. “It’s a wafer.”

“Fine,” I said. “I want to taste it.”

“I don’t know if you should.”

“He said whoever wants it can go up there.”

Tom took a deep breath. He didn’t want to be embarrassed. He pointed out that you were only supposed to take communion if you had gone to confession. Neither of us had gone. I didn’t care. We debated the issue. I argued that since we confessed our sins to each other every day, in voices easily audible to God, we were on safe ground.

“So you say,” Tom said.

I fixed my eyes squarely and firmly on his. My jaw was clenched in that look he knew very well.

“I want the cookie,” I said.

“Wafer,” he corrected.

I looked toward the front, where people had lined up. Then I looked at Tom. It was double-dare-you time.

“I’ll go if you go,” he said.

I was already on my feet and walking toward the line. A few moments later, I accepted the wafer, then Tom did the same and we returned to our seats. Tom immediately saw the disappointment on my face. The wafer hadn’t melted on my tongue like the one I remembered in Delaware. It tasted different. From what I could tell, I was the only one frowning at the taste of Christ.

I knew that my disappointment in the communion wafer didn’t mean that I had any less love for Jesus than before. In fact, I may have had a little more affection for Him. But I was quite sure that if Jesus were alive and knew the variety of cookies available in your average grocery store, He would demand a better cookie be used than the tasteless wafer. A Nilla wafer at the least. But I could also envision Him wanting to treat his worshippers to double-stuffed Oreos, jam-filled pogens, or my mom’s pizzelles.

As Tom lost himself again in prayer after we’d returned to our seats, I thought about using pizzelles instead of wafers. I imagined record crowds turning out for Mass if those pizzelles were cut up in little squares and served warm, with melted butter on top. I could see people skipping IHOP for church. Even better: Sara Lee coffee cake. I mean, put the two side by side, a wafer and coffee cake. Which would Jesus choose?

It dawned on me that my disappointment with the wafer was unreasonable. What had tasted good to me at seven wouldn’t necessarily taste the same at forty-eight. Tastes, like nearly everything else in life, change. I figured the important thing was that the taste had stayed with me through all those years: vivid, pure, and sweet, the way that God might have reached out in an age-appropriate manner.

Now I had to find something else. I had to look around and be patient and open, mindful that God works on everyone, whether by providing a wonderful-tasting cookie, a beautiful piece of music, a hillside exploding with wild flowers, the unexpected kindness of a friend, or a challenging situation that makes you a better, stronger, and wiser person for having faced them. All of this defines maintenance—otherwise known as the rest of my life.

I was gazing at the stained glass windows as the service finally wound down to a solemn and (for Tom) satisfying conclusion. My eyes lingered on the shafts of light full of color as they entered the cathedral through the stained glass windows; I followed them upward to the ceiling, which was dirty—as if the smirches and sins that had been left in this church had collected up there like dirt in an air-conditioning filter. My eyes wandered across the ceiling until I saw one little patch that had been cleaned right above me. Compared to the rest of the ceiling, it sparkled. It was like a window. Inside that square, I thought I saw a flower. I stared at it until Tom put his arm around me and asked if that was my stomach growling.

“Are you hungry?” he asked.

I nodded.