When Friendship Sits at the Table

On food and embodiment

“This long struggle to be at home / in the body, this difficult friendship.” —Jane Kenyon

This weekend at brunch, I ordered fried chicken and waffles, glued together with a slab of butter. I ordered them because I wanted to. Later that night, while at a jazz club that served supper, I ordered a steaming bowl of vegetables. Not to atone for anything, but because—again—I wanted to.

A handful of years ago, the thought of choosing something from a menu I did not painstakingly study beforehand like a Talmudic scholar would have sent my heart lurching through my ribs. I would have spent the brunch entirely distracted from the friends across from me, tucking chunks of chicken skin into my napkin and hoping no one noticed. I would have made at least two trips to the bathroom, missing the pianist and bassist playing together as if with one soul.

Back then, the crispness of hunger stung like a virtue. Like an oath I would keep at all costs, even if it meant lying to friends. Showing up late to avoid sitting in kitchens, claiming I already ate. Skipping birthday parties where I knew there’d be cake. Squishing bread into little marbles I would lift to my mouth, pretending to bite, only to flick to the floor instead. I knew how to make things disappear.

I was a terrible friend. When so much of friendship, of life, happens around the table—and the table, to you, feels like a terrifying landmine of hidden oils and unchecked carbs and caloric entrapment you must avoid at all costs—you miss out. You miss the hilarious tale as the salad is being passed. The belly laughs that hurt so good. You miss the confessions made when second glasses are poured and candles melt into nubs. You miss the small stories and life updates that, when accumulated, become a shelter covering those inside. You, shivering and alone with your whittled body and mind, stand always, always outside.

***

The first time I felt my body was in competition with a friend’s was in fifth grade, when I had my eye on a pair of lavender hip hugger jeans. My friend Hannah strutted the school hallways in her pair with such finesse, we called her Lizzie McGuire. (The highest compliment a pre-teen girl could pay you, circa 2004.) I shared my desire to buy the same pair with another friend, who promptly told me my thighs wouldn’t look as nice in them as Hannah’s. The pain was so sudden and sharp, it shimmered.

Not only had I never considered my own legs, but I certainly never knew other people were looking and critiquing. Up until this point, my body was for movement—feet for scootering and fingers for coloring and arms for swimming up and down the pool. I knew my body had limits, like when it got licked with spots and scabs and fevers, or when my shins bloodied and bruised. I just didn’t know others saw.

The summer before I turned fourteen, all my baby fat melted off, like gristle falling from bone. I ate burgers and milkshakes and Oreos, but still my spandex volleyball shorts fell down my hips. A few girls made comments about my protruding collarbone and the cheap rings that slid right off my knuckles. One friend mentioned through gritted teeth how annoyed she was that I had nothing to show for my bottomless eating. The competition had reversed, and I learned my body should be punished for its appetite.

By the end of high school, my frame found its equilibrium, right in time for some of my friends to make a game of losing weight. This started in the back corner of church choir practice (I never said I was cool), when a friend whispered how much she had lost after only eating fruit for lunch. Never one to back down from a challenge, I decided to do the same, determined to prove I could win by losing. After a few months of half-banana lunches and my night-job at a gym with free access to treadmills, I slunk off to college with a body so shrunk and cold, it turned violet.

It was friendship that brought me back to myself. College, with its dorm cafeteria hangs and late night Whataburger runs and parties with punch bowls frothing with sugar, proved more irresistible than the isolated game of calorie counting and waist clutching and retreating into shadows no one could find. Newfound indulgence flung my body back to center, and then some, and then some more, kicking off a pendulum that still swings and swings, back and forth, dizzying in its inability to stay still. To find home.

***

Lost at night in the teeth of wind, I stumbled into the first restaurant I saw. Seeking respite from the cold New York dark pressing in from all sides, I just wanted a chair and a bowl of something hot. Peeling the layers of wool off my body, I locked eyes with a dear friend, who, to my surprise, just happened to be sitting alone across the room. Our tables for one quickly became a table for two.

We had both wandered in, sagging beneath winter, and just wanted nearness to a candle we didn’t light ourselves. We decided to follow our hunger and order everything on the menu that looked nourishing—golden samosas dipped in tamarind chutney; shrimp curry drowning in ginger and tomato; chili cheese toast so spicy our mouths burned red. We clinked glasses brimming with lemon and almond, and shared stories of everything hard and lonely and good and terrible and hopeful. We ate until we were satisfied, and it mattered that we did it together. Two worn bodies in need of sustenance, finding it in so many ways.

My younger self might look at my current self and wonder if she let herself go. To her, I would say—maybe I have. I’ve let myself go from death-grip control into nourishment, into letting food be food. I’ve let myself go from binging chips in the closet, because now I want to serve my body good food like I would a guest in my home. I’ve released myself from using every passing glass window as a mirror, instead asking trusted friends to share what they actually see. I want to continue letting myself go into the body I need, the one that carries me through runs in Central Park and mornings in bed and nights when my husband and I cook steak foaming in rosemary butter because we want to feed ourselves something that sticks.

There is no version of my body I haven’t asked to become more or less. And there is no version of my body that at least one person hasn’t loved. The time wasted avoiding tables was really me not wanting to be seen. Now, gathering around a table might be my favorite thing, because you can’t hide when you’re splitting the burrata or passing ruby bottles from one hand to another. Eating together satisfies our most basic human needs, to be nourished and to be seen. It’s coming to the table weak and leaving together strong.

I used to hate when someone would whip out their camera at the table for a group photo. I hated it because I didn’t want to see how I looked. I’m getting better at this, at not seeing a picture and zooming in on every gummy smile and smushed arm and letting it ruin my week. In fact, I took a picture with the friend I ran into at the restaurant, wanting to remember the warmth and love of that night. I was not camera-ready and the lighting certainly did me no favors, but I forgot to care how I looked to the world. I smiled with the self-forgetfulness of one who knows she’s full, and that’s the look I care about—the look of joy, seated by a friend, the night outside burning bright. No past or future, only an infinite present.