I am currently reading about six things. Two stand out in particular.
The first is titled Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program that Works. It's about learning to listen to what your body wants and needs, instead of jacking it around with diets.
(sorry, that picture cracks me up)
The second book is Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and The Meaning of Things. "For all of us with complicated relationships to our things, Stuff answers the question of what happens when our stuff starts to own us." (No, I don't watch that Hoarders show. It gives me the serious creeps! which goes back to the effect this book has on me...sigh.)
Here's what's notable about these two books: both of them are having a specific impact on me. I keep having the feeling something like that Proust had when he ate the madeleine: these books are reminding me of something. There is a particular truth buried in them that I can't quite discern.
Yes, I am relieved to lay down the idea of "dieting" which, the more I try to do it lately, drives me ever crazier. (And I do mean crazy, y'all.)
And while I'm not a hoarder to the extent that the people in the book are...I definitely have keeping problems. And organizing issues. And trouble staying tidy. Etc. I have a family history of the same. In the stories of these pathological keepers, I do perceive some wisps, some threads, of something that describes me. (May I say, I don't much like that!)
I read, and then I shake my head, trying to catch onto the edges of what the lesson is. What I am supposed to be learning. It's not particularly pleasant, but I think it may be particularly important.
It's a shame that what I really want to eat right now is not madeleines. I could so neatly close up this post, if it were.