The prayer is for Ritz crackers.
The craving sneaks up on me at dinnertime.
I’m in the last throes of an unexpected sickness, and my belly is in a temper-tantrum of queasiness, but the tantalizing idea of a buttery gold, crunchy cracker has halted the sloshing stomach-storm.
This is the only thing I want.
No. This is the only thing I NEED.
Seized with the sudden snacking desire, I rummage through the miscellaneous palace of the kitchen drawers, stand tiptoe in the pantry to scan the highest shelf and desperately dig through the disgruntled, rustling plastic silverware left-over from take-outs.
I half-hope to be rewarded with a lone saltine packet. I won’t even complain if it’s been squished or even sat-on; I’ll eat those delectable crumbs with mighty relish and determined glee.
But no. There are no crackers in my kitchen, in the pantry, in the dark nooks and crannies of the kitchen drawers that seem to hold the contents of a little Best Buy.
Rumbling with disappointment, I add Ritz crackers to my growing mental list.
I squeeze it in at the top along with vegetable soups, ethically harvested sage, vitamin D, fizzy waters, cornbread fixings, and Epsom salts.
This is the list of items I wish I had stockpiled.
This sickness has thrown me for a complete loop, caught me when I was utterly unprepared.
I’m fresh out of food. I’m out of my arsenal of supplements and immune-boosting goods. I’m out of my cleansing sprays and energetic hygiene tools.
I’ve never been this sick and this alone in managing getting well.
Half of my family is out of town and the other half is in the same dizzying ship as me – riding their own waves of this illness. My sister and I swap turns ordering Panera’s from Doordash before collapsing on a nearby sofa to feverishly nap. We sluggishly haunt the house, outfitted in blankets, thick socks, and multiple sweaters. On one late evening, as we stretch out in a sullen stupor, my sister gazed at me quietly before whispering, “God, am I as pale as you?”
I am ghostly pale, and also, burning with a passion to become a new version of myself, a version that this sick is helping me to detox and develop.
In between dream-drenched naps where I am speaking French and nightly visitations of driving around deserts, I entertain a vision of being a better person, of having my life more together, of having a pantry prepared and bursting like the wellness aisle at Whole Foods. Elderberry shots and ginger root tonics, vitamin C packets, and Reishi mushroom gathered and tidily stored.
I will have mason jars brimmed with dried beans, lentils, curries, ALL the makings for delicious, nourishing soups. I will learn how to make soup!!
I will become skilled at how to stew a great big pot of nurturing, immune-igniting greens.
I will even learn how to juice!!
I will become an expert in homemade bread making… I will be the person who delivers soups to the home-bound and recovering. I will be thoughtful, responsive, and caring.
I’ll show up when people need me … but right now, the person who needs me is myself, and my sister. And perhaps, my dog, who has taken to going outside at 3am to wallow in the moonlight and has started to become an aggressive beggar for sweet potato skins and hardened baguettes from our Panera meals.
That future vision of myself will happen all in good time, but the woman I am here needs the medicine of my own kind acceptance, and gentle attention.
In between vivid dreams, the prayer is for help, support, assistance, to let my mind know peace so my body can heal, so my emotions can river and flow, and so I can be of true service to my inner child who misses her mother and needs my own mothering, and to be compassionately available to my sister, and my dog.
This is my present, and when I meet the present as is, I am awakened to the nudges to help me restore vitality. There’s a spaciousness within me that creates room for the beloved I-Am Presence to speak. And the voice offers fashion counsel.
I choose jeans over sweats. I pick a checkered evergreen flannel over the long, languishing sweater. I pull on boots. I dress for the day, expecting to stay indoors and to be visiting only the familiar sights of the kitchen table and the living room white couch.
And as I make my homely rounds, a gregarious family friend arrives at the front door with the gift of food. In the get-well basket, there’s apricot cookies, a curry casserole with artichokes and chicken, and… there are crackers! A roll of Ritz crackers tucked in beside the casserole, almost like a divined after-thought.
Elation! Euphoria! Exclamations of praise!
Christmas has come early – here in this roll of Ritz crackers. A prayer answered, a tummy finally soothed, a considerate gesture that taste like hope.
I devour those crackers with awe-struck gratitude. I eat them perfectly plain, pop those heavenly morsels straight into my mouth and splendidly gulp them down. They’re sublime. It’ll be one of the only things I can properly stomach – that and mugs of blueberries -- and it’ll be enough until my appetite robustly returns in full force.
But it’ll be the shifting point – a little spark of promise, a light flickering in the dark tunnel.
These days, these extreme times, we can all feel a bit out and lost in the choppiness of current waters, of our own emotional energies or the collective’s churning and ever-changing energetic tone.
We all may be feeling a bit queasy at our stomachs, in our solar plexus, our power center, as we navigate these ascension tides and remain sovereign and clear. There are small and significant kindnesses to remind us that we are heard, we are seen, that our prayers and desires do matter, and even when we feel alone, there generous workings of the universe are conspiring to leave food, soul-nourishment in the form of Ritz crackers, on our doorsteps, or the steps to our yearning and beautiful hearts.
These are the thoughts that keep me company while I wash dishes one night. I mindfully munch on a Ritz cracker or two, and look out the window to see one solitary star. She’s all I need to see. She’s shining persistently in the soon-to-be solstice night. One star, one sweet little light, but it is enough to keep my faith glowing and continuing forward.
That and one more crunchy Ritzy bite.