10-Minute Morning Musings

Right now I am enjoying the smell of clementines being peeled and eaten by the other ladies around our writing table. It makes me wonder why I never think to buy them at the store. Actually, I pretty much just cruise through the veggie and fruit section - everything is beautiful, colorful, shiny, tempting - but also intimidating. I love a still life with an artichoke but not sure why anyone would go to so much trouble to prepare something that is so difficult to eat. Food and difficult, that's why God made Hamburger Helper.

I also love the presentation of the multicolored peppers. Sometimes I buy a bag of the minis just because they're beautiful. Then I throw them in my veggie crisper bin, a.k.a. the veggie rotter, and forget about them until it's time to identify the mystery smell emanating from the fridge. This is always a fun game, which inevitably ends in the utterance of, "Ewwwwww!" I pick up the corner of the packaging with my two longest finger nails, holding it at a safe distance from my body and drop it into the trash. It is hard to believe that this semi-liquified brown slush could once have been tempting enough for me to add to my grocery cart.

Make no mistake. I do splurge on organic meats. I draw the line at antibiotics but figure the chemical names of the other food additives in my basket are safe - and nourishing. I know I've been duped but I did go through a health food craze back in the late 1990s when I learned to bake flax muffins and use honey and molasses. It was the year I learned to like asparagus and decided that if I had to learn to eat one thing, it should be broccoli. It was good information to learn. Now I can walk by the broccoli in the grocery store and give it a knowing nod, "Yea, you're all that," as I make my way over to the chicken-flavored Rice-A-Roni.


Diane Mattingly is a psychotherapist specializing in EMDR and trauma and lives in Richmond.

Diane takes classes with Valley.