Essay in Hippocampus Magazine: "Salisbury Steak Day"

[ahimsa]

I'm a bit late sharing this, since it was published on March 8, and I keep forgetting to post!

But I really enjoyed this essay written by @Michelle :

https://www.hippocampusmagazine.com/2021/03/salisbury-steak-day-by-michelle-strausbaugh/

They wake me up most days with a knock at the door. A blonde woman and her blonde daughter. A red-faced older gentleman. A man and woman in polyester suiting. A group of girls and their scout leader.

“Are you Michelle?” Surprised to see a woman in her early thirties in pigtails and pajamas. They hand me a warm Styrofoam clamshell. Consult a sheet of paper.

And then they are gone. Like handing meals out to prisoners in solitary.

This is so not what I thought Meals-on-Wheels would be like.

 

[Hutan]

There is no treatment that has survived the few clinical trials science has bothered to muster.

The one day I leave my apartment for a fucking doctor’s appointment and I miss the best Meals-on-Wheels day of all. Firm, lubricious pasta bursting with real ricotta. It will be six weeks or more until it comes again. I nearly weep from despair.

Lots of great lines and observations.

It's so perverse, isn't it - the people who most need really nourishing delicious food get 'Lemon gelatine' and varieties of brown slop with fanciful names. The food my daughter got while in hospital made me think the catering was a deliberate ploy to encourage patients to leave quickly, one way or another.

 

[Trish]

Really good, @Michelle. Keep writing when you can.

 

[Mfairma]

This is fantastic! You have a gift. Thank for sharing.

 

[Helene]

A wonderfully written piece @Michelle . Loved it.

 

[Michelle]

I feel a bit guilty as I was dithering about whether to post this here because technically the piece isn't about ME/CFS per se and I wasn't sure if I'd just look like I was shamelessly self-promoting. But @ahimsa finally did it for me. I'm glad you all enjoyed it!

Originally I didn't include anything about ME/CFS because it was meant to be a short piece (750 words or less) and it's very difficult to explain ME/CFS succinctly. But the editors wanted me to explain why I was homebound. In the back and forth between the editor and I while editing it, I realized that my typical short hand explanation that I used in the piece doesn't really work well (indeed, I think the paragraph on ME/CFS in this piece is the weakest part, not least because I was emerging from the worst crash ever when Hippocampus informed me that they wanted to publish my essay). The flu analogy works, but I realized the editor thought I was describing feeling jet lagged rather than the disordered sleep of jet lag. And the hung over analogy to describe the problems with sensory stimuli just doesn't work at all. For one thing, it's so much worse than a hang over! And yet, it's so outside the normal experience of non-PWME (or even people with mild ME/CFS) that it's difficult to find a suitable analogy.

It's so perverse, isn't it - the people who most need really nourishing delicious food get 'Lemon gelatine' and varieties of brown slop with fanciful names.

I know, right? I had such mixed feelings about Meals-on-Wheels. The food was mostly awful. And it didn't provide any of the companionship that I thought it would (alas, the editor cut a line I had about expecting it to be something like Tuesdays with Morrie -- lol). Yet, it was nice not having to think about cooking or even what to eat. And it did provide at least some human contact. Thankfully(???) I became sick enough by 2008 that I was eligible for Medicaid to pay for considerably more home care service, meaning I've had someone to cook for me since then. Which was a good thing as by 2010 my food intolerances were so bad I wouldn't have been able to eat much of what Meals-on-Wheels served.

 

[Michelle]

Just a little but exciting follow up to this thread: Hippocampus nominated this essay for a Pushcart Prize! Outside of the literary world, the Pushcart Prize is not well known, but within the field, it's sorta a big deal. It works a bit differently than "a" prize as it's actually about being included in a highly prestigious annual anthology.

While I don't think I'll actually win as the competition is beyond fierce (hundreds of literary magazines nominate up to 6 pieces from what they've published that year, so there are a 1000+ nominations), it is, as the cliche goes, an honor to be nominated. Hippocampus has published a lot of great pieces this year and it's quite exciting that they thought my piece was among their very best.

 

[oldtimer]

Congratulations @Michelle. I only just came across your essay. It's great

 

[NelliePledge]

Really good piece and good luck with the competition

 

[Michelle]

An update about this piece in case anyone is interested. Hippocampus just published an anthology of their 30 most memorable pieces over its 15 years of existence and included my piece! I'm amazed that it still resonated with them five years later. I just got my two free contributor copies in the mail today and it came with a very sweet note from the editors that they find the piece as moving now as they did when they first read it. One small step for ME/CFS awareness, perhaps.

I've got another piece about hope and having ME/CFS that is out on submission right now (or rather, it's about how T.S. Eliot, Emily Dickinson, and Lin Manuel-Miranda forced me to rethink hope in light of menopause and entering a #bake4mecfs contest). Fingers-crossed it gets accepted/published soon because I'm dying to share it with you all. I am unsure why, but over the last 18 months I've started being able to write again, which brought up all sorts of complicated feelings about hope. Alas, all the writing (and reading) means I've not been able to stop by every day as I used to. Thank goodness for the weekly review!

 

[Trish]

I have just re read your article, Michelle. It is so good. I think meals on wheels may not exist here any more, they just tell you to buy frozen microwave ready meals. Which I do.

 

[Michelle]

Aww, thank you! We still very much have Meals-on-Wheels here in Portland (though the current administration has been defunding federal support for it---nice! ) as I have a friend who volunteers with them (and is my friend because she read my piece and lives locally). The piece takes place twenty years ago and in 2008 I became ill enough that I needed more home care, which meant I had someone to cook for me. Which was good because my food intolerances got increasingly worse so that I wouldn't have been able to eat much of what they were serving. It sounds like increasingly Meals-on-Wheels is just glorified warmed up microwaved meals at this point. Everything enshittifies it seems.

While purchased microwave meals cost more money, at least there are a lot more options these days. I've also become partial to meals in a pouch. I'll cut up some pre-washed salad greens, add some pre-shredded mozzarella and it's an easy, healthy meal. Or make some rice or have some purchased naan to go with this.