Always Too Much and Never Enough

by Jasmin Singer

  Grandma continued to address her pal. “You might want to reconsider ordering the omelet at the diner later. Did you know that male chicks born into the egg industry are killed at birth? Just like that?” I looked up at her, the corner of my mouth proudly inching up just slightly. “The boy birds are often killed through suffocation,” she continued. “The birds are suffocated, Florence! Suffocated!” she reiterated, multitasking as she bid two clubs. “It’s a travesty! Oy . . .”

  Florence stared briefly and blankly in Grandma’s direction, then eyeballed Grandma’s tattooed granddaughter—me—sitting in the corner. “Honey,” Florence said to me, ignoring the cards she had just been dealt, “can you be a doll and get me a glass of water?”

  When she wasn’t endearingly proselytizing to her friends, Grandma would busy herself scouring the New Jersey papers for any articles about animal rights, always making sure to cut them out for me. “Jazz,” she said, hurrying to an envelope she had placed on the kitchen table, as soon as I woke up from my slumber during that same weekend visit, “The Star Ledger had a vegan cupcake recipe today, and the Asbury Park Press has a dog adoption event on Sunday. I thought you’d want to know.”

  (Frequently, those envelopes with clippings about animal rights stories also had one or two articles about Patti LuPone or Bette Midler interspersed—Grandma knew me so well.)

  When she was eighty-six years old—three years before a benign but aggressive brain tumor finally claimed her life and, with it, a large part of my sense of safety in the world—Grandma stopped eating meat. Her decision had been looming for a few years, during which time she drastically lessened the amount of animal products she consumed, but what finally did it with her was a letter that Mariann had published in the New York Times. The letter was a response to a thoughtful article by journalist Charles Siebert, in which he ruminated about the impact on children of witnessing animal cruelty.

  Mariann’s letter compared that impact to the toll it must take on each of us to be in denial three times a day regarding what—or should I say whom—we choose to eat, and how that refusal to accept what we know to be true affects us as a culture. After reading Mariann’s letter, Grandma went from consuming very little meat to consuming none at all, and eventually she became more or less a vegan—except for a few candies that remained stocked in her cabinets. And at eighty-eight years old, she even wrote an article for the website of the nonprofit Mariann and I had founded together, Our Hen House, entitled “Never Too Late to Change the World,” providing me with the inspiration I needed—and continue to draw from—to remind myself that even old broads can change themselves and their perceptions. When it comes to any kind of change, there really is no such thing as too late.

  This is one of my favorite passages from Grandma’s article:

  That letter was, I see now, my last straw, the final step in making a decision regarding the path I must take. I declared myself a vegetarian, putting an important label on a behavior I realized I had already adopted. I now knew, without any doubt, why I could no longer eat meat. It was a declaration for my future, and for the future of the planet. Meat made me sick. At long last, there was simply no way I could continue to support the cruelty of animal production. The world evolves, and so do we.

  Just before she died, my grandmother, in a gravelly voice that was barely audible, told me that I had never looked better. Her eyes were hardly open, and yet they seemed to peer so deeply into me. She always knew how to see me, even at those times when I couldn’t see myself. I held her hand, failed at choking back tears, and told her that I loved her. She tried to talk again, but couldn’t—she was too weak. Instead, she squeezed my hand four very deliberate times. “I. Love. You. Too,” the squeezes said.

  “I heard that, Grandma.” I beamed. And she smiled, too, despite the weakness that was taking over her body limb by limb, organ by organ, minute by minute. It was truly a magnificent moment, one of the last we would share in this mortal life.

  —

  Ten days after I turned thirty-four my grandmother died. For months prior to her death, I would sit in my tiny Soho apartment starting at the large oak tree just outside the window, weeping, wondering how on earth that tree would continue to exist without my grandmother in the world. How would it be possible that life would go on? How would it be possible for me to go on? Grandma had always been the one person who got me. When she died, so did my biggest supporter and cheerleader. When she died, I lost my soul mate. I lost everything about the world that ever made any sense.

  As a kid, when I couldn’t sleep, I would close my eyes and imagine my grandmother floating on clouds with me, sliding down rainbows with me. When the whole world made me feel like an outcast, my grandmother made me feel like I belonged. As the people around me started seeing me differently, looking me up and down with their mouths agape, Grandma’s gaze never left my eyes. She thought I looked good only when she knew I felt whole. She made me believe in my own beauty, but that went far, far beyond outer appearances. She saw me—not my pants size.

  Grandma did not leave this earth without a fight. She truly did not want to die, and when she finally did, her rebellion inspired me to tattoo my right arm with the line from Dylan Thomas’s poem “Do Not Go Gently”—the line being “Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” Wrapped around those words is a stunning butterfly with green and purple hues—Grandma’s colors. There is a starling there, too—an animal who is so inherently beautiful, yet considered such a nuisance by society, nothing more than a pest to be managed, nothing more than yet another individual to exterminate because she doesn’t fit in properly.

  When everyone else saw me as a pest, Grandma saw me as beautiful. And although she was indeed also kvelling when I lost the weight, Grandma’s concern wasn’t so much with my physical self; her pride was more related to the person I was becoming as I strengthened my voice and my resolve.

  Grandma’s love taught me how to fly. And when she left—grasping tight until the very last possible second, and trying to hold on even then—a huge chunk of my intuition, myself, and my understanding of the world fell eerily silent. Although there was a new dark place inside of me, in some ways it was for the better—Grandma was inside me now, a part of me that made me want to be exceptional.

  TWENTY-ONE

  my whole fat life

  The past few years have been filled with such earth-shattering realizations and changes that I have a hard time realizing that this is my life.

  I am thirty-six years old. I have been vegan for twelve glorious years, and it’s been four years since I shed the last of my extra weight. Juice fasting is a regular part of my and Mariann’s life, and the rest of the time, we try our best to consume a diet rich in whole foods. We remain vegan for the animals, but are always eager to discuss with others the health benefits we experienced once we ditched processed junk foods—not to mention meat, milk, and eggs.

  Despite these huge shifts, a lot remains the same as before. As always, nothing makes me more excited than food—talking about it, cooking it, and most importantly, eating it. My culinary life remains abundant and rich, and even despite my intermittent juice fasting and my commitment to consuming a mostly whole-foods, vegetable-centered diet, I enjoy diverse and decadent meals—and am by no means deprived. My life, in all its manifestations—including food—is full of abundance.

  It seems odd, these days, to meet people who have no idea that I was once a bullied, fat kid, and—just a few years ago—an obese adult. It feels very much like meeting someone at a party before I take my jacket off. We shake hands, make small talk, maybe share a friendly observation about how absurdly cold it’s been lately, how we’re so sick of winter. I remove my jacket, and: “Wow! I can’t believe all your tattoos! That’s a . . . surprise!” And suddenly, I’m that tattooed chick, and, with it, every preconceived notion that my new acquaintance has about people who have a lot of tattoos. My tattoos define me, at least in
that moment—just as my fatness always had.

  But now, of course, I could opt to keep my jacket on. I could keep the small talk small. And I could let them walk away without ever having the chance to superimpose their stereotypes of tattooed chicks onto me.

  Meeting people as a thin person is like never absolutely needing to take off my jacket and show them the real me; they never even need to know I was once “Fatso.” Back then, my body spoke for me before I was even able to—before everyone I met had an opportunity to peg me, figure me out, think they knew who I was and, for some, dismiss me, before I said a word. Now, I can choose when to leave my jacket zipped up, and when to leave my heart zipped up with it.

  Yet the question lingers: How will I be able to see others’ true colors if I don’t show them mine?

  One thing I’ve noticed is that I have fewer friends than I used to. Perhaps that’s because my life has become busy—or maybe that’s just my excuse. Mariann suspects it might also be a common side effect of being in my thirties as opposed to my hypersocial twenties, but who knows? Seeing the world’s reaction to me shift so radically, so quickly, and so uniformly has left me skeptical. It’s not as though I am untrusting, but it takes me longer to get there than it used to. I realize that it might sound contradictory to say that, these days, even though the world treats me better than before, I have fewer friends. It’s not as though I don’t make new ones now, but I certainly don’t dive in headfirst anymore.

  One important thing that has shifted is that the guilt, the fear, and the despair about my relationship with food—feelings that dictated and defined my life for so many years—are so much better now. I wish I could say that these feelings are gone entirely, but they’re not.

  There are still some mornings when I wake up and, before even opening my eyes, move my hand down to my lumpy stomach—to my stubborn, loose skin—pinching and grabbing at it, willing it away. These moments are rare, and they always pass quickly—whereas before I used to get stuck in them like they were Super-Glued to my spirit. And though they are also infrequent, there are moments and days of feeling imbalanced with my food—as if I am completely unconscious about it, latching onto it as if it were my lifeline. There have been times—albeit rarely—when a half of a bagel turned into a whole one, and then a chocolate bar, and then a plate of fries . . .

  My reaching for that still-familiar comfort is, I guess, not that surprising. It’s driven by that same manic need to look up an old friend or lover on Facebook—these people are out of our lives for a reason, but having them just a click away is just too tempting sometimes. The kitchen cabinet is only a room away.

  Maybe these moments of self-doubt and weakness will never disappear entirely. Maybe they will always lurk just beneath my confidence. Maybe they will emerge for me at that very instant when I’m questioning the authenticity of the stranger holding the door open for me, the moments when I don’t trust.

  But, most notably, these moments, while they may occur, no longer rule my life—and neither does food.

  —

  No, food does not rule my life—but it does indeed color it. Food does not dictate my plans anymore, but as a vegan, it does inform my identity. It brings me closer to a community of do-gooders whose arms and hearts are open to me, to my cause, to my life’s mission—their cause and mission, too—and I feel safe with these folks. The discussions I have with my comrades—the strategy sessions, the reminiscing, the scheming, the despairing, the hoping—occur in nooks and crannies around New York City and in corners throughout the globe, and they’re almost always accompanied by food. As with so many other communities and subcultures, food brings us together, and the accessibility and deliciousness of vegan grub is—as Mariann likes to say—the single most effective way to change the world for animals.

  The difference is that in the old days, it was I who was ruled by food, not the other way around. A subtle shift, but a life-altering one, and perhaps a life-saving one. In other words (unlike how I feel about my extensive stuffed animal collection), I no longer assign too much importance to my meals. They are no longer the broken record of my brain—the ongoing loop of fries, froyo, and cheese crackers. While I still look forward to my occasional seitan piccata, and the accompanying peaceful ambience that Candle 79 provides, as my reservation nears, my anticipation is healthy. I get to eat a delectable dinner, one of the best around. The seitan piccata, however, will not get to eat me. I won’t allow that. I’m in charge of my food, and because of that, the food I choose to eat charges me, gives me strength, gives me me.

  Thinking of positivity as a strategy as opposed to as a given allows me to readily tap into it when I’m becoming too jaded for my own good (which, admittedly, is a daily occurrence). Remaining positive and hopeful, and encouraging the skeptic in me to take a hike, reminds me that I don’t have to be a naturally sunny person in order to see the bright side. I need to cultivate it, just as I do with my garden (which is probably a terrible analogy because I can basically look at a plant and it will start wilting, but you catch my drift). When I get too far down, too angry at the world, I challenge myself to remember the possibility and the goodness that’s everywhere—in people, in nature, in animals.

  I think of my grandma, and I hear her beautiful voice with her perfect pitch belting out, “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative, latch on to the affirmative . . .” or, “Smile though your heart is breaking . . . smile even though it’s aching . . .” I once asked Grandma how she managed to get through the death of so many important people in her life, including two husbands. “I don’t think, I lost them,” she replied. “I think, I had them.”

  Every day I remind myself that I don’t have to be a cynical bitch, even when the world perplexes me. I admit that I don’t always succeed, but the more I allow myself to let go, the more fulfillment I find. And just as with the weight I wore on my stomach, the emotional weight that goes with hanging on to anger doesn’t serve me, even though it protects me, or rather, gives the illusion of protecting me.

  So if food does not rule my life, what does? I could be codependent and say that my marriage does, but that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. My marriage to Mariann gives me companionship, camaraderie, and a quirky and brilliant compatriot with whom I can explore this world and this life. My marriage does not rule me, though. I would venture to guess that if it did, it would be a pretty lackluster partnership.

  And though it’s frequently the reason I jump out of bed in the morning, my awareness of animal suffering does not define or rule my life, either. It gives me an important reason to stay focused, to stay passionate, and it allows me the great gift of having a much-bigger-than-me purpose. But it doesn’t rule me.

  What rules me is possibility. What rules me is the knowledge, firsthand, that people change, that society as a whole shifts, and that empathy is perhaps innate—even though it often becomes misplaced, or snowed under. What rules me is the awareness that even though I feel I have gravitated toward compassion in ways that were once so foreign to me, there are so many other forms of oppression that I don’t yet know about, and it humbles me to think that I’m still evolving. I will always be evolving. I wonder what’s next. I wonder how my life will change as new truths become clear to me. (And I wonder what my hair will look like then.)

  It’s easy to get complacent and ignore the issues in this world . . . or . . . we can do whatever is in our power to change it. For me, that shift was not fully possible until I first changed myself. I needed to find my truth.

  I needed to find my juicer.

  —

  Mariann and I are headed out to the theater. Tonight, we are going to see the revival of Cabaret, one of Mariann’s favorites—she has always had a fondness for theatrical productions with political themes. It’s past seven—so we are officially running late.

  “Honey, we’ve gotta go,” says Mariann, as she roams throughout the apartment,
searching in various corners for her black pleather oxfords. (Between the two of us, we have quite a collection of these, and lucky for us, we wear the same shoe size. #lesbianperks)

  I look up at the mirror, adjust my necklace, press my lips together to even out my gloss. And even though we are going to be late and I really don’t have time for this, I linger for an extra few moments on my reflection.

  “Hello,” I say to the woman staring back at me in the mirror. “It’s nice to meet you.” A moment later I add, “I’m Jazz.”

  “Did you say something?” asks Mariann from the bedroom.

  “Nope,” I lie, continuing to look at this veritable stranger in front of me and inside of me.

  The woman in the mirror stares back. I question her motives and squint my eyes a little. “What do you want?” I asked quietly, wondering if I have finally fallen off my rocker.

  What do I want?

  The ultimate irony is staring me in the face: When I was fat, in many ways I knew exactly who I was—I was used to the girl, then the woman, in the mirror staring back. While it was true that I wasn’t comfortable in my body, it turned out I was very comfortable in my character. I knew my talents and I felt solid in my strengths. When I lost the weight, and my physical appearance became something I was recognized for—and not in a negative way, for the first time in my life—everything became a bit off-kilter, and for a long time I struggled, unable to find inner balance.

  Once I started to recognize that I was suddenly reaping the benefits of arbitrary perks—and it concurrently sank in that these perks were the flip side of the bullying and invalidation I had been living with my whole fat life—I began to second-guess everybody’s motives. If somebody asked me to tell them about my work, for example, a part of me wondered if they would have bothered inquiring had I been a hundred pounds heavier. I would reply, of course, but there was all too often now a jaded cynicism underlying my perfectly polite response.