The Weight of Sustenance
It is 3:17 am. The house is quiet, but my stomach is hollow, a reminder that the body has needs the mind tries to ignore during the day. We spend so much time performing, pretending that we are made of ideas and ambitions, when really, we are just fragile things that require fuel to keep the pulse steady. There is a strange intimacy in the act of eating alone in the dark. It is a quiet admission of vulnerability. To feed oneself is to acknowledge that you are still here, still tethered to the earth, still needing to be mended by the simplest of things. We look for grand meanings in our lives, but sometimes the most profound truth is just the necessity of being kept alive. We are all just trying to fill the gaps, one small piece at a time, hoping the hunger doesn’t return before the sun rises to demand more of us. Is there anything more honest than the way we reach for what keeps us whole?
Adriaan Pretorius has captured this quiet necessity in his work titled A Wholesome Snack. It reminds me that even the most basic rituals hold a certain grace when we stop to look at them. Does this image make you feel the weight of your own hunger?
