How do I create home in my food?

I’ve been working on practically one meal a day for years now.

Waiting four hours to go to bed in fear of acid reflux is hard. I had boats and boats of routisserie chicken. I know it’s not good to eat so fast, and with no greens, but I felt like I couldn’t help it.

I shouldn’t have coffee but I’m tired. I’ll have baking soda before I do.

If I could find a way to feed myself without it feeling like an all-out event, and at the same time, maybe — yes, an event! A celebration.

I’m afraid of what the reflux is doing to my voice. I could do with the danger if I could just quiet the anxiety.

If I had my way I’d make it so my food and how I enjoy it borrowed from some of these traditions:

Afro-Maryland x Afro-Carolinian x alkaline x acid and mucis-free x vegan x clearing and cleansing + clearing and strength-building.

How do I do that?

I’ve known a lot of what I know about food for a while now. But it’s like Pope Pius XIII said in the Young Pope: the motivation is what changes the world. Without the right motivation, doing something good is just exhibitionism.

I think I learned young the belief that pleasure is a distraction. And that includes joy and relationships. So it manifested in my 20s when I saw my food as, well, not really mine. It wasn’t quite the same “belonging to each other” that I feel more often now. It was a very capital-driven approach. I’d use the food to stay functional as a machine. A lean machine.

When I got more curious about alkaline eating, it was still mostly about becoming more “optimal” — again, a reaching ahead and above and forward. I was never just alright and happy and in relationship because I didn’t know I could afford to be. With all this decluttering and making home for myself, I’m wondering how I can make it in this part of my life, too.

I’m not asking this question so I can optimize myself; I’m asking as a way to reroot.