We call Miro “fishface” when he’s hungry, because of his bulging eyes and gaping O-shaped mouth that opens and closes, but there’s something too of the desperation of the fish out of water, bucking terrified and helpless on the table. I feel panic radiate out from him, as if every time he’s hungry he fears he will never be fed. It’s raw and real but unlike most of the problems in the world it’s one I can fix instantly. I pull down my bra and scoop him into my arm where he knows what to do now; he finds the nipple easily and concern melts from his forehead. He drinks to excess, until he’s totally wasted. His limbs go slack and he struggles to see through heavy eyelids. He’s long past being able to hold his head up but even then he tries to refasten his lips for one more slurp. Finally he gives it up, snorting and keening in satisfaction, and splutters up a little that couldn’t fit into his packed belly. It makes me feel amazing. I have the power to make someone a perfect meal.
Our household these days runs to the rhythm of hunger - his and mine. We are comrades in the bottomlessness of our bellies. I’m not normally a very hungry person, so it takes me constantly by surprise. I wander into the kitchen to snack on a banana. Then I see that our kefir is ready so I decide to drink it. The snacks only seem to have awakened my appetite, so I heat up something someone brought, maybe a bowl of Natasha’s Italian lentils and a piece of the Saraghina sourdough that Jaime and Stan dropped off. I’m not full yet, though, so I decide to have a little carrot halwa, which Sonali made at my request with fried cashews and raisins and cardamom and a lot of ghee. Then, after all that, maybe another banana. With peanut butter.
Our hunger is delicious because it can be satisfied. I can’t begin to imagine what other parents are going through during this formula shortage. Looking into your baby’s gaping need and not knowing if you can fill it is too frightening a thought for me to contemplate. Even being pressured into nursing, assuming it’s physically possible, when you don’t have the time or support for it is a vicious non-option. The toll that it takes on me is enough, and I have no work right now other than to take care of him and me.
The power that I feel when I feed Miro is not an individualist power, but the confluence of rivers of support, from my family and Anthony and the legions of friends cooking for us and taking care of us. In this period of intentional seclusion, I have never felt more connected and reliant on others. Reaching out through the fog of early parenthood, there have been so many hands, giving us what we’ve asked for and what we didn’t know to, but always what we needed. “Raising children is not a private hobby, not an individual duty. It is a social responsibility, one that requires robust community support,” writes Angela Garbes in her new book Essential Labor: Mothering as Social Change. It’s the kind of thing I’ve understood in the abstract – it takes a village and all — and I like to write about the role of food in building community, but usually I position myself on the giving end where I feel useful and in control. Right now we’re on the receiving end of our community’s support and the whole concept of community feels less like an abstract ideal and so much more of a necessity.
In the gap between hunger and hunger satisfied, there’s everything. There’s wealth and power and inequality, an indifferent government, and jobs that take everything from you, and there’s friendship and care and so much generosity it makes your heart burst (and your fridge). I’ve never known hunger likes this, but that means I’ve never known satisfaction so complete as well. I know that I’m lucky but it shouldn’t be a matter of luck; every baby and parent should experience such fullness. All of us should know what I’m trying to teach Miro — that food and comfort are all around, whenever you choose to reach out for it.
What (my friends are) cooking
Miyeok Guk (seaweed soup)
This recipe is from my friend Hanbyul. Her soup was the first food drop we received after coming home from the hospital, and it was perfect as my digestion was getting back to full functioning and I just wanted something warm and tasty and nutritious that I could eat easily.
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A perfect meal . . . wow.