wheat

"so, you should cut out gluten," says my doctor, smiling. "try it for a few months... well, six months, and we'll see how it goes." she says this with a smile on her face that suggests i'll survive this experiment but will wish i hadn't. and i smile right back. because in my own mind i do not see myself as a great consumer of bready things. burgers. sandwiches. toast. donuts. these are not things i seek out. i am not all that worried. but as i clomp down the six flights of stairs i have time to think about the eight mile walk from brooklyn that took me on foot over the manhattan bridge and i consider that my body may be turning on me, slowly. system by system.

i have played tina to my brain's ike for more than twenty years. anything but nice and easy. and my lungs, sitting there safe in the cradle of my ribcage, those things have been moving my chair when my back is turned since i was very small. and now this whole stupid gastrointestinal system coils around inside me, monstrous, several times taller than i really am, wreaking havoc. and i remember in fourth grade sitting in the nurse's office at school, listening to her call my mom on the phone. she spoke in soothing tones even to adults and i could hear her say "nervous stomach", which conjured up images in my head of my stomach biting its nails and chainsmoking. i shoved my own ragged claws under my knees and worried, which i was then concerned would be transmitted to my poor, anxious stomach the way i knew cigarette smoke and alcohol somehow got themselves into unsuspecting babies floating around in reckless pregnant women. this was my fourth grade life.

so there has always been an uneasy peace there on the inside of me. i think ugly thoughts about my eyes which required a lens in front of each of them in my kindergarten photo. i cast an inward glance at my ears which have been ringing in time to my heartbeat for the last four or five years. certainly this is a plot. but i think of my bones, lovely things i've fed with all the cheese they could ever want. not a single one has ever bent or broken. and my dear little heart which tolerates daily anxiety from my ugly brain and continues to beat bravely. even there on the bridge when i was sure it would simply stop beating, it did not. and finally my skin, wrapping around me and keeping all of me together, keeping the rest of the world out. perhaps if i coddle those miles of coils waiting like snakes inside me my insides will stay put.

and so it begins. i explain to the sweetie that he will need to be helpful. generally, he is a naturally helpful person and i should have left it at that. because when the sweetie is presented with an opportunity for what we will call here impishness he will take it. we cruise up and down aisles piled high with good things, most of which might as well have big skulls and crossbones plastered across them. the sweetie begins naming things my stomach will never see again. pies. all kinds. not just peach and lemon and chocolate cream, but also pot pies, the wonderful tidbits from the folks down the street at dub pies, spanakopita. over the two days he's had to think about how wheat and i are now enemies he's tossed out plenty. onion rings. fried chicken. pasta. his placid nature has all this time hidden pure evil. he has stored up every bad thing i've ever done somewhere in his cruel mind and is now repaying each one with the name of food that is no longer mine. he tosses a box of cereal into the basket and smiles. "for me," he says.

and you are thinking this is fair because you've been reading long enough to know this man tolerates a great deal from me, that it's fine for him to enjoy himself a little. he asks about beer, knowing quite well beer and i now officially hate each other. he asks so he can watch my face, for the third time, as i pine for a thick pint of guinness the way young girls used to pine for boys who had gone off to war. and still you are fine with this. it is only fair. he is very funny. he is lightening the mood.

but then when we get home he says he has forgotten a few things at the store and decides to return. says he'll be back with a roll of paper towels and some milk to go with my newly discovered gluten-free cookies. nearly forty minutes later he pulls into the driveway from a store just a mile from here. he has taken his time and has considered his options carefully. true to his word he has milk. he has even been good enough to bring back another package of those delicious cookies. i tear into the package but cannot tear through the cookie. my teeth feel like they are cramping. as i search the box for an expiration date the sweetie pulls ice cream from the bag. the cookies expired a while ago and i toss them, then go to hug this man who has brought our good pals ben and jerry over to visit. and the flavor he has chosen is a beautiful one. now, there are things i don't have to tell you. you know i love willie nelson. you know i love peach cobbler. these are things you know because you know how i was raised. and so when my good pals ben and jerry decided to honor my beloved willie nelson by making peach cobbler ice cream you couldn't have any questions about how i feel about such a decision. it is good. it is very good. it is also full of filthy, me-poisoning gluten. brought into my home by a man i have trusted all my life but who is clearly a monster. that's right. a monster.

the man i thought i knew stammers and fidgets and says he thought he'd get himself some ice cream since he got me those special cookies. cookies now living in the penthouse suite of our garbage can. and i am just about ready to smile and forgive him when i reach into the last grocery bag and pull out a tiny pie. a tiny, single serving lemon pie. the sweetie's face scrunches up. he looks very, very guilty. "i was going to eat that in the car!" he says, staring at the pie in my hand.