Cereal for the soul.

Last night I stood in the cereal aisle at Whole Foods for a full ten minutes to weigh my options. To be fair, this is not unusual for me. As soon as I was old enough to buy my own cereal, I have relished the freedom of making whichever cereal choice I desire. Knowing that I will probably buy a sensible, filling, low sugar, high fiber option, but can go full Captain Crunch if the mood strikes, has always tickled me. Like a monument to the freedoms of adulthood, I NEVER pass up the opportunity to stop by the cereal aisle and pay my respects. I take my time, I consider and appreciate each possible avenue, pondering what various choices would say about my current life state. On principle I know I can’t show up to the register with a box of Fruity Pebbles. At 41 years young, it screams personal crisis. But Muesli, the real kind, made by Swiss people who aren’t fucking around, would hold me accountable to a certain level of having my life in order-ness. So, I put my (predictably) already overloaded basket on the ground and admit that I’m going to be here a while.

During the last 9 months I’ve walked a delicate line with my choice of Peanut Butter Puffins. For those not in the know, this delicately crunchy, slightly sweet, peanut butter puff cereal, marketed towards the aspirationally healthy consumer (and most certainly given the eye roll by the All-Bran crowd), is both friendly and mildly satisfying. It’s cute, it’s benign, it’s the perfect emotional support cereal. As I stood in that cereal aisle and reached for the trusty box, imagining that first crunchy bite, like a peanut butter hug, I wondered, has my current emotional state outgrown Puffins? Was it time move on to something more serious, but maybe not Muesli serious, more like Flax Plus Pumpkin Raisin Crunch serious? Reading Tea leaves is for amateurs. The cereal aisle is where hungry people go to find out who they really are.

There was no breakfast option that could have prepared me for what 2022 had in store. This year was a BEAST that swallowed me like an invisible black hole in what appeared to be an otherwise peaceful universe. Floating through space, unprepared, it violently compressed and expanded me in ways I didn’t think compatible with human survival. My ears filled with a sound so loud, it was silent. My eyes blinked with confusion as this place, so void of light, made it impossible to tell if my eyes were open or closed. Dizzy and disoriented, the black hole ejected me back out into a parallel universe that looked the mirror image of my life but felt entirely foreign. Like a movie set, built to recreate the spaces and places that I previously occupied, I recognized my shoes, but they did not feel like my own. My almost decade as one half of a duo was suddenly over, as if it never existed at all. At one point I questioned if maybe I’d invented the whole story, but a storage unit packed floor to ceiling and an iCloud filled with photos and videos suggested otherwise. Alexa: party of one.

Reconciling an unrecognizable reality with thousands of memories, is like going though familiar photos found on the floor of a flooded basement. The once vibrant colors, unmistakable in their warmth and imagery, appear washed out and cold. An unforgettable sunny day, frozen in time, a memory so tangible you can feel the warmth is now shades of grey, blue, and green. The most memorable morning is now a questionable afternoon. I recall sun and smiles, but was it a day of rain and frustration? The images, concrete for so long, are now blurry and distorted. I am reminded why coming back to the same cereal time after time can be so…reassuring.

My world had changed. Not knowing what else to do, I slipped on the stranger’s shoes, tied the laces, and went for a walk. Sun on my face, stranger’s shoes on my feet, I stepped out into this familiar yet foreign world. My legs felt tired. For most of my life, cereal has been an extra snack, consumed at the intersection of boredom and pretend hunger. But in the spring of 2022, it was my triage food. I spent weeks barely being able to stomach one meal a day consisting of a single bowl of Kashi Organic Blueberry Clusters. My pants felt loose and I could not seem to get warm, but I needed to keep moving, I needed to keep walking. But which direction? How do you reorient yourself when your trusted compass has betrayed your internal North star? I struggled to find North again, and then questioned if I had ever really known it all. If I could so easily lose my sense of direction, how could I be sure that it was properly calibrated in the first place?

Doubt, like the fine particulate matter from wildfire smoke, once inhaled, lodges deep in the lungs. And there it remains, unseen, and maybe even forgotten, but not benign. No amount of reassurance or awareness can remove it. It’s a battle for peaceful coexistence. But doubt does not make for a great battle partner. She demands, she takes, she drains her victims in the stillness of night when no one is looking. I know her now. She was stealthy and silent. I did not even notice that she had been there, but she took what was once known, and planted a seed of uncertainty in its place. Like a shadow that leads from the front, sometimes I am fooled into thinking that we are one. She is me. And I, am her. I was not always this way.

You probably have no idea that you are reading words written by a well celebrated Dobbs Ferry Halloween window painting champion of the 1980s. Every year my mom entered me into the contest, and I would scope out my allotted window space with a level of seriousness that my contemporaries in the field did not seem to share. It was essential to make sure that I wasn’t working near anyone who would distract me or paint outside their lines, because I was going to win.

Halloween window painting seen in Dobbs Ferry this past year. (not done by me. I wish I was this cool.)

My mom tells me that year after year she tried to set my expectations, worried that this would be the year that I wouldn’t win. My response was always swift, certain, and without pause. “Why would I worry?” I asked, “I know I’m going to win.”. Where did that certainty come from? I was still very much a standard issue (not by choice) Cheerio girl. Maybe I didn’t know any better, perhaps this is the default setting. How do I get back to that?

I imagine somewhere deep in the mind, we all have a bundle of certainties that work like a keel for the boat of our existence. It enables us to make the necessary day to day assumptions about life that fly in the face of reality but keep us walking and waking. This keel, made up not of fiberglass, but of our memories, our convictions, and our faith, serves to reassure us that we will stay upright regardless of how much the winds of life pick up. But does the strength of this centering board transcend the power of life’s inevitable sea squalls? The water and wind are in our mind, the ship is in our heart. As my boat capsized, I had no choice but to jump in and pull down HARD on that keel, not believing until the moment the ship’s mast began to rise from the water, that I would make it. The boat was intact. My compass was not. I felt badly battered but knowing that the ship would sail to see yet another day left me almost euphoric. Small victories are best celebrated with bowl and spoon.

Back in the cereal aisle, I contemplate my next move. Kashi is giving me PTSD, but I could maybe do a raisin brain, if I can find the kind that doesn’t coat the raisins in sugar, like a powdered doughnut. Or I could completely transition to a granola, but $9 a bag in exchange for a daily stomachache and side of regret just doesn’t seem worth it. I fantasize about grabbing 10 boxes of an arousing little pillow type cereal apparently filled with a Nutella-like substance. I contemplate this choice for about 30 seconds before accepting that I can’t carry it over to the checkout AND keep my dignity. At this point I’ve been standing in the cereal aisle for well over 10 minutes and am starting to feel self-conscious. I’m also getting hungry. And I start to think about the challenges that 2023 will bring. Oh god. I need a hug. Who am I kidding? I grab the Peanut Butter Puffins and head for the milk aisle. You don’t even want to get me started on milk options these days.

Your reward for making it to the end: an unrelated video that I made this summer featuring our favorite cereal.