English Lessons

by Andrea Lucado

  I lived in this insanity all summer until it became my normal. I showed up at school that fall semester a smaller person and proud of it. I had learned to restrict my eating. My motto? EAT NOTHING YOU WILL REGRET LATER. And I stuck to it. Instead of eating until I was full, I ate until I was almost satisfied. If midbite I realized I was satisfied enough, I spit it out. I actually spit food out of my mouth. Sometimes I threw it away when no one was looking. I remember being outside with my family one night, looking at the stars. Everyone was eating these really delicious cranberry, white-chocolate-chip cookies. I ate half of mine and felt so guilty, I threw the other half in the bushes. My sister saw me.

  “What are you doing? I would have eaten that!” she said.

  My senior year of college, I thought about food and exercise most of the time. Sometimes I felt dizzy when I stood up, and sitting too long hurt my backside.

  I didn’t look like I had an eating disorder. I looked great, actually. Better than I’ve ever looked in my life. I began to like pictures of myself instead of cringing at them. I felt so victorious and in control of everything, not just my diet but my entire life. I felt like I had conquered food, something I thought I could never control. Though my body mass index would not have alarmed any doctors, my head, my heart, and my soul were trapped. It was a new type of bondage. The most dangerous type. The type you don’t even know you’re in when you’re in it and, therefore, make no attempts to escape.

  At school, I received compliments from others and comments about how great I looked. “You’ve lost weight!” I remember one friend saying after seeing me for the first time that fall.

  “I have!” I said and smiled. One point for me.

  I received compliments from everyone. Everyone but Ashley. Ashley had remained strangely quiet about the new me. This was irritating. All my friends had recognized my weight loss and thought I looked good, but Ashley didn’t address it. Not at all, not until the day we found ourselves on another road trip, on the very same road as before. This time in Ashley’s car with her in the driver’s seat and the Beast Between Us being my own weight.

  We were on our way back to school from Austin, where a group of us had traveled together for the weekend. By no accident at all, I ended up in Ashley’s car on the way home. I stared out the window this time, proud of my accomplishment, wanting my friend’s—this particular friend’s—approval and not receiving it. We passed Brady and Coleman and Santa Anna. I saw the landmarks I could have seen in my sleep. The sun was not near setting, and it lit the road ahead as it cut through the dryness.

  I decided to bring it up myself if she wasn’t going to.

  “So I lost a lot of weight this summer,” I said.

  “I know. I’ve noticed.”

  “You have?” I looked over at her in the driver’s seat. “You haven’t said anything about it. I’ve been wondering why you haven’t said anything.” It felt foolish to ask for affirmation, but I needed it.

  Ashley still didn’t compliment me, but she did begin to ask questions.

  “Has it been hard for you to do simple things?”

  “Um, no, not really—”

  “What are your thoughts like? Do you think about food a lot? Calories?”

  “Well, sometimes, I guess—”

  “Do you still have your period?”

  “Yes! I’m not that skinny.”

  “Well, I don’t know. You lost a lot of weight and fast too. That can happen.”

  I didn’t like this conversation. I wanted her to be impressed, like the others around me. Somehow I had completely forgotten our exchange in the car a year and a half ago. Somehow my weight loss was right while hers had been wrong.

  Ashley told me some hard things that day. The things she had worked through since the tables were turned. Things I didn’t want to hear about, like freedom and reason and health. She told me about a book her counselor had given her.

  “You should read it. I’ll make photocopies for you.”

  “Okay,” I said. But I didn’t want the photocopies. I didn’t want to read that book. I didn’t want my newly found sense of control to go away. I was afraid if I let go of my new healthy habits, everything, not just my weight, would fall apart.

  I ignored Ashley’s words that echoed in my head loudly, and I ignored them for as long as I could. In the car that day with the road endless ahead of us, freedom seemed a long way off. It would take a year or so, and it would take another stint in the British land of lushness and rain and gardens that grew free.

  One of the most surprising differences between me and my female English peers was physical appearance. To me, at the time, American women had one look, or one desirable look: thin and put together. We had straight teeth. We exercised in order to be certain shapes, to have certain lines. We had flatirons and curling irons and things to tame our hair when it got unruly. Our clothes were pressed and matched fairly well. We were neat, ironed, big-smiled, exercising Americans. We did these things because of the standard of beauty in which we were raised. I knew what it took in America, and specifically in Texas, to be considered pretty. And the look was neat, streamlined, controlled.

  English girls were so different from us. At first I thought there were no trends or standards in England at all. They all seemed to wear whatever they wanted, whenever, and I couldn’t keep up. After a few weeks, though, I noticed some commonalities: big scarves, dresses and tights—no matter how cold or rainy it was—worn-in shoes or boots. Nothing looked new or perfectly ironed or pressed. Clothes looked as if they had been crinkled in the back of a drawer for years. I didn’t see as many English girls running like I did. Many of them wore less makeup too, or none at all, and they didn’t seem concerned with their hair when the rain and humidity turned it wavy and out of control. Instead of chastising it by pulling it back into a ponytail, they let it fall freely on their shoulders, untamed.

  I sensed a freedom in British women and grew thirsty for it. I thought they were delightfully different in the way they dressed and the way they ate and talked, or didn’t talk, about their bodies. I watched how they were. A part of me watched out of cultural curiosity. How do the English live? But a part of me watched as a girl who felt trapped by rules and ideals, a girl who secretly wanted out.

  Some of my English friends were wonderful cooks. They made spaghetti bolognese and baked chicken and vegetables on Sundays. They ate bread and carbs in all forms without whining and saying, “Ugh, I really should cut back on my carbs.” They enjoyed good food, which was a very novel idea for me at the time.

  They didn’t seem to obsess over their outfits or dress size. They didn’t fuss over their hair and makeup. They were a natural and relaxed I’m-going-to-cycle-to-this-party-even-though-it’s-raining-outside-and-my-hair-will-be-a-mess-by-the-time-I-get-there species, and I observed them as an objective anthropologist. In their natural habitat, they showed me, even though they didn’t know they were showing me, how other women lived in another part of the world. And I took notes furiously.

  I remember the turning point for me. It was during a weeknight church meeting at St. Aldate’s. Weeknight church meetings often included a meal cooked by the resident chef. On this night he served banoffee pie for dessert. Banoffee pie is an English dessert done right. Condensed milk and banana and toffee—hence “banoffee”—on piecrust, and maybe some whipped cream on top. And maybe chocolate drizzled on top too. There aren’t many foods I discovered in England that I wish were more prominent in the States, but this is one of them.

  I looked at the pie on the plate in front of me. I lifted my fork, and then I did something that a year before I would have never done. I ate the entire thing. Every grain of sugar. Each grain of all-purpose flour. Each ounce of butter. Each drop of condensed milk and each crunchy bite of toffee. I scraped up what was left on the plate with my finger and licked it off. I kept telling myself to have only one bite or to eat only half of it, or only three-quarters of it, but I couldn’t stop. I wanted all of it, and when I
put down my fork, I realized something important: I was okay. I didn’t feel a panic attack coming on. I didn’t feel overwhelmed by guilt or the need to go run six miles. I looked up from my empty plate and saw that the self-control I had been so proud of had been melting away over here in England without my even realizing it. And that was a very good thing for me.

  Not all at once, of course, but by the end of that year in Oxford, I didn’t think about food in the morning and at night anymore. I didn’t restrict my calories, and I hadn’t told myself EAT NOTHING YOU WILL REGRET LATER in a very long time. I ate what everyone else did. I ate banoffee pie and other desserts without sweating or experiencing chest pains. The internal dialogue typically caused by restaurant menus changed from What would be the least damaging? to What sounds best to me right now? None of it was intentional. I arrived in England still not fully aware of my issues with food, but something happened being around these people who were not desperate to control their surroundings, who shrugged their shoulders at the consecutive rainy days and mounted their bikes anyway. Who didn’t care that they showed up with rosy cheeks and windblown hair or that their boots would get muddy as they walked along the river. Who didn’t have to use a flatiron every single day or match their outfits perfectly. Who ate carbs and real food and didn’t bring up their diets in every conversation. Whose gardens weren’t groomed to perfection and who allowed their plants to grow wild and tall and poke out from behind fences. These people who just seemed to be able to let go and enjoy more. All of them, all of it, the wildness of the English countryside, the attention to the good, slow, and simple parts of life, the overall healthy attitude created this incubator for me that year. A safe place in which I could release a big, deep sigh.

  10

  River Conversations

  What is it about my running shoes and my feet hitting the pavement in a familiar pattern that gives my mind permission to wander so? My body is at home in the rhythm, and my brain is free to think of nothing practical or present. It wanders back and it wanders forward. It takes the beginning of an ache in my hips to pull me into the moment, as only pain can do.

  On a Sunday morning, just after the fog lifts, I leave my house in a T-shirt, a pair of running shorts I’ve owned for too many years, and my neon-green Mizunos, not knowing how far I will go this time. I head away from downtown Nashville, where I live, to an unknown destination.

  I’m thinking of Jisu while I run because it’s a safe place to dwell on him for a minute, to think about what he’s doing now and how he is. On this foggy morning, Jisu is a friend who lives in the haze of what-could-have-been. An almost kiss. A late night at the kebob truck. A bike ride with a headlamp on. Coffees, teas, pizza, and noodles.

  My mind runs to him and wonders.

  We spent the day together in London once. It was during our fuzzy time. Are we friends? People think we’re dating, so are we?

  The day in London was going well. We had caught an early bus and eaten croissants on the ride. We toured the National Gallery museum. We lifted our heads up in unison to stare at St. Paul’s Cathedral. He indulged my craving for a McDonald’s ice-cream cone.

  Yes, everything was going well, until the Tate.

  The Tate Modern is a large gallery of modern art, better appreciated by those who can understand the artistic value of an apple balancing on a stool or a ladder leaning against a wall, leading to nowhere. But it is very famous and, therefore, made its way onto our To Do in London list.

  Separating us from the Tate Modern was the Millennium Bridge, an impressive and expansive piece of architecture that crosses a very wide part of the Thames. Jisu and I happily began the trek across, but by the time we reached the other side, my mood had changed.

  Art museums are romantic. Maybe not to everyone, but they are to me. Taking in art is an intimate experience, and to be at a gallery with a man who was not my boyfriend but not exactly just my friend made me not know how to act. I didn’t want to be looking at different paintings in the same room, dispersing from each other and occasionally coming back together, only to brush shoulders and part again. I wanted to do the Tate together, holding hands as he led me around and we pulled each other in different directions to view different displays, side by side. Not as distant friends separated by a heavy question mark.

  After the Tate we ate at a burger place.

  “Are you okay?” Jisu asked me from across the table.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Why?”

  “You are being, I don’t know, quiet.”

  “I’m just tired.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  On the bus ride home, he asked again.

  “So nothing is wrong? You are fine?”

  “Yeah, really. I’m tired. I think I’m gonna try to sleep.” I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. I kept them closed the entire ride, but I never actually fell asleep. I only pretended to. I stayed like that until I felt the bus break at our stop on St. Clement’s Street in Oxford. I followed Jisu off, both of us sluggish from a full day of tourism. He lightly hugged me good-bye, and I said, “See you soon,” because Jisu and I always saw each other soon.

  Not long after the Tate, Jisu and I talked. He came over on a Sunday afternoon before the evening church service so we could walk there together, the long way. The river way. I was always up for a walk along the river, but I knew this one could get clumsy. I didn’t want to talk to Jisu because I knew we needed to discuss serious things about being friends and being something more than that. “Friends” did not stay up so late sitting on the couch with their arms pressed up against each other. The word friends had been slowly, and not surprisingly, disappearing from the types of words that could define our relationship. And now, we were taking the long way to church.

  I focused on the river at first. I was good at that. That particular part of the river nearest to my house had grown so familiar to me by now. The path beside it was muddy always, whether it had rained that day or not. My favorite part was where the trail gave way to the cow pastures and I ran on the uneven grass, feeling like I was trespassing. But in England, running on someone else’s cow pasture is not trespassing. They share land there. It’s a wonderful thought, so polite.

  And so we walked and talked a little about our days, and I looked into the water.

  “I didn’t wear a warm enough jacket,” I said.

  “Yeah, it is still very cold for springtime. You never seem to wear a warm enough jacket though,” he joked.

  “I know, but look, I’m wearing two pairs of leggings, and I’m still cold!”

  “Maybe we should not have walked beside the river. It is always colder here. Do you want to cut over to the street?”

  “No, no this is fine. I love the river. Let’s just keep going this way.”

  I liked Jisu. One recent night on my couch while we hovered over his laptop looking at something, I really wanted him to kiss me. I really wanted to be his girlfriend, and I really wanted him to hold my hand. But I also felt like I was in a state of limbo with him that I couldn’t escape, like a boat on the river that couldn’t quite make the dock.

  We neared the houseboats that had aligned themselves as a neighborhood—the official guardians of that section of the Thames. We chose a bench near this makeshift neighborhood of houseboats and sat down to begin the real part of our conversation. We did not sit close to each other. The question mark had wedged its way back between us now.

  “So,” he began, “friends have mentioned to me that they’ve noticed we’re spending a lot of time together.”

  “Yeah, we have been. I know how that starts to look to other people. My friends have been wondering too.”

  Jisu and I looked at the river. Back at each other. Back at the river. The water was brown, but not in a murky way, and the leaves, which had recently returned to the limbs of trees everywhere in Oxford, swept low and back and forth, threatening to break the surface of the water but just missing it each time. Around our feet small white flowers had begun to grow ou
t of foliage recently freed from hibernation. It didn’t feel like spring in this part of the world, but it definitely looked like it.

  “I have come to really respect you,” Jisu said, “and I enjoy spending time with you. I think you know how I am feeling?”

  I looked at the river and those leaves, wondering if they would get swept up by the current this time.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think I do know how you feel, but we haven’t really talked about it before, you know?”

  “I know. But I feel the need for this conversation now. Maybe it is finally time to talk about it.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was scanning my thoughts waiting for the exact right combination of words to reveal themselves to me.

  “I just don’t know how I feel,” I finally said. “I know I like being friends with you. Like the other night, when we were sitting on my couch.”

  “Yeah,” Jisu said, knowingly.

  “But, right now, I don’t know. I’m just not sure. Is it okay to not be sure?” I looked down. Jisu’s hand gripped the edge of the bench several inches from mine. The houseboats bobbed. We sat. Both of us still, afraid to move. Afraid of disturbing whatever it was we had.

  Behind our bench lay Christ Church college. Its buildings glowed more and more yellow as the sun slid lower and lower. Separating us from the campus was a long meadow bordered by a tree-lined path. The most perfect of places to say “I love you” was under those trees. To hold hands for the first time. To kiss. Nowhere else in Oxford would have been more perfect.

  “It’s okay to not be sure,” Jisu said finally. We turned toward each other.

  And that was when the Thames paused. It stopped rippling and turned and looked at us. It gave us the window of a moment to kiss and declare deeper feelings. It waited for a good long time, but eventually when it realized that wouldn’t be happening, it rippled on again and flowed quickly to catch up with itself.