Pizza Mountains

A personal essay by Rebecca Workman

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions."
--Rainer Maria Rilke

It was 2019 and the warm summer air was a rebirth after the eternally cold and dark Lithuanian winter—like breathing existence back into my lungs. Fascinated by the movement, every car and every person, I did a panoramic intake of the life around me. New York City—a sacred place for me.

The variety was life-giving, the energy was uplifting, the smells, colors, and tastes were uniquely inspiring, and the people passing by were raw and unfiltered. On 92nd Street and Lexington, I walked alone. On my way to Central Park to sit under the Alexander Hamilton statue and stare at the sun, I realized something.
To someone else, this realization might seem small, strange, or insignificant, but to me it was monumental, life changing, and surreal. I was okay. I was happy. Surprised by this, I reflected on the piece of pizza from Marinara that I ate just after leaving the apartment.

Put it on a bumper sticker but I’ll say it honestly, New York Pizza changed my life. It was the first time in years that I didn’t get depressed and spiral into self-hate after eating a carbohydrate. Without noticing, I had somehow broken out of a dark prison-like mindset that had held me captive for over three years.

I cried.

* * *

The first time I made myself throw up was in my freshman housing at a place called Heritage Halls. It was August, 2016. I felt shame. I’d seen the videos in health classes warning against this behavior but I felt an even more overwhelming shame in my daily existence and I was desperate.

 

As a child when I’d get sick or nauseated, I’d lay perfectly still in fear that I would throw up. Terrified of the painfully uncomfortable process, I avoided it at all costs. But here I was, putting myself through it, on purpose. How did I get here? A question I was asking in tears, daily.

* * *

Nothing against food, truly. Food is one of the joys of life. Early 2020 I wrote this nostalgic poem:


A NECTARINE
From the tree I climb
Green leaves, sappy stump

RASPBERRIES
From our garden
Three in my mouth, one in the old ice cream bucket

CONCORD GRAPES
From the neighbor
On the tarp, in the banana chair, for juice with our lasagna months later

OTTER POPS
From the cooler
Ball park t-ball — fifty cents

STRAWBERRY TWIZZLERS AND SUNFLOWER SEEDS
From mom
Bleachers and the pang of the ball hitting the metal bat — childhood

CHEESE MELTS
From the microwave
Sheila, Tyler, and the way things used to be

NACHOS
From the stand
Sweatshirts and cold Friday night football

PRETZELS IN NACHO CHEESE — SNOW CONES IN FLIMSY PAPER
From Farmington pool
Chlorine, sunburns, bees

SEASONED, UNCOOKED RAMEN IN A BLUE CUP
From the fruit room
School is over — Nintendo 64, Nickelodeon, Disney Channel

CHIPS AND HOT SALSA
From El Matador
Special occasions

Though time exact violence to memories, THESE remain.

______________________________________________________________________________

 

I grew up in a personal garden of Eden, quite literally. The acre of land that we lived on was painted with fruit trees of all kinds—cherry, nectarine, peach, pear, green apple, red apple, apricot, and plum.

The fence that lined the property grew the most delicious green and purple grapes. Bees and spiders competed, but my young hand was happy on the search for grape clusters under the very large, dark green leaves that shielded the tender fruit from the sun.

There were raspberry bushes taller than I used to be. On summer nights, the family would go up the hill with our empty ice cream buckets to harvest raspberries for jam. I thought jam was a waste of fresh raspberries so I’d pick quickly, putting one berry in the bucket for every three in my mouth.

The garden that my dad worked so hard on produced tomatoes, squash, peppers, and melons of all kinds. Not to mention the flowerbeds and lilac bushes that my mother worked and weeded daily. This was my garden of Eden but that was not all, every other aspect of my life was provided for as well. Until I left my parents’ home at the age of eighteen, I had never struggled for anything. Never struggled for friendship, never struggled for affection, and never struggled to know exactly who I was and where I belonged.

 

* * *

The pure bliss I felt as a young child in that house was a far cry from the pains of my freshman dorm.

As often as I ate I was in a mental boxing match with myself—no winner. My evolution is telling me to eat, my anxiety is stressfully persuading me toward comfort food, my social sphere is telling me to eat as an activity.

The moment I consume food – specifically white bread and sugar—there’s a physical, chemical reaction. Depression, immediate regret, fuming anger and self-loathing, overwhelming insecurity. I felt and was under the illusion that the physical makeup of my body had literally changed. From one moment to the next I felt ten pounds heavier and imagined myself as a Michelin man or Pillsbury dough boy. Emotionally I changed from a solid, valuable woman to feeling quite literally like the excrement of a worm on a dark cave floor—disgusting and worthless. That was my reality on a daily basis. Black and white, I was either only drinking celery juice or I was worthless.

* * *

February 11, 2018:

“I feel like I live in a kitchen. The walls would love to close in on me if it weren’t for the good engineering. Inside of me is this terrible feeling, a terrible something personified that is me. I don’t recognize myself and at the same time I see myself clearly. I have no control. Sounds dramatic huh? It’s true, you try it. Without your basic strength, without your own governance. I’m reaching for Jesus. But my hand reaches for a flippin’ fifteenth piece of bread instead. When is this over? I’m tired of this roller coaster. AH. They’re taunting me. The cookies, the chocolates, not to mention the people in my head who represent the future despisers. I NEED HELP, GOD. PLEASE. They’ll hate me and that makes me hate me.

Love, Sister Workman.”

This was a letter I wrote one evening sitting near my mission companion in our apartment in Vilnius, Lithuania. She did not know. I folded it up tight and taped it inside my journal because even I didn’t want to read it ever again. When I found it about two years later, I remembered the pain I felt in that moment and I taped it up again. Too soon.

        

My time in Lithuania brought the obvious challenges of missionary work and in addition, the challenges I carried with me to the country. Every day for eighteen months I preached a God that turns our weaknesses into strengths. I witnessed so many incredible, divine moments during that time and I witnessed some of the worst that mortality and humanity has to offer.

I returned home with a degree of PTSD from some of the things that I saw but I also returned with a relationship with God that I hadn’t had. I returned with healing and strength from some facets of my life and new scars in others. There were many days when all I could offer God was my smile because everything else was spent.

So with all of the hurt, hatred, and humiliation I was feeling underneath, I smiled. No one the wiser. Being responsible to lead and care for the other sisters in the country (as completely imperfectly as I did) didn’t leave room for me to get help with my own needs. 

 * * *

The first and only time I talked to anyone about how I was feeling (until years later) was in April, 2017. Sitting in Brother Gibbon’s (Missionary Training Center) counseling office—after passing my bishop and stake president interviews with flying colors and no (admitted) mental health issues—I finally opened up.

I was not okay. I was not happy. I told him how I’d left my parents’ house, the neighborhood I’d always lived in, the school I knew, and the friends I relied on, to take on a new home, a new city, a new school, and new friends. I told him about the day she died. The way it felt to have the walls cave in. How I didn’t stop crying for days. I told him about the months that followed and the thoughts I had.

He talked about the inversion. The way the dirty air gets trapped in by the cold Utah air each winter. We talked about the way it made things feel dull. We talked about drives we had both taken up mountain canyon roads to surpass the inversion for a clear view of blue skies. We talked about how beautiful the mountains are and he asked me this question. “When the inversion makes the mountains look flat and grey, have the mountains themselves changed?” He told me that the way I view myself doesn’t change what’s actually there—who I am and what I’m worth.

AUNT SHEILA

I remember her feet on the kitchen floor, when she'd laugh she'd spread her toes and rock back and forth on her feet. They were really dry and crusty little toes but I loved that she did that. She was a real southern woman from Alabama. Every day she had her Dr. Pepper and Iced Tea. It was her hugs and her laugh that made people fall in love with her. A joyful laugh. A long, tight hug. Even though she's gone, I still feel her arms around me.

* * *

It's not over but it does get better.

Written April 18, 2020: Thoughts on Provo Mountains

“The mountain outside my window is always there. Constant. It’s like my mountain at home, just bigger. This mountain towers over me every day making me feel small—but somehow powerful. I remember being on the mountain, looking down at where I am now. Out of breath but feeling tall and strong. I remember the perspective I had up there.

Now it’s covered in snow. The trees look black. They were green. The rocks are in vibrant contrast with the white blanket. Those rocks, which all year blend in with each other and the colors of the dirt and bush around them, now stand out in the cold. They are defined by the layers of ice and seem firmer in the frozen air.

My mountain at home was perfect for me. It was quaint and rolling like a foothill but still empowering. Since those days, I’ve moved on to bigger mountains. My mountain and this one are connected by valleys and canyons. The valleys and canyons are necessary for the mountain to be, the way opposition is necessary for me—to rise.

The mountain stays there every day, at the mercy of the weather and the traffic of animals, insects, and people. I guess the mountain and I have that in common. For the time being, we are here and at the mercy of our surroundings. Changing slowly.

The mountain lets the trees grow on it. Breaking it apart slowly as their roots lengthen. The mountain lets living creatures dwell on and in it. They will use it up. The mountain lets the sun shine on it against its blue sky backdrop. One night, I looked at the mountain and the sunset reflecting its snow—shimmering, glowing, glorious. The mountain makes my life beautiful just by being there. Constant.

I want to be like the mountain. Stoic, useful, beautiful, and patient. The mountain gets used by everyone. It faces everyone. For all to see, to admire, to criticize. It never moves.

In awe of the mountain—the way it lifts me—I want to be stoic, useful, beautiful and patient. I want to let people grow from what I give them, even if they break me apart.

I want people to live with me and be happy, even if they use up everything I have—like the foothill that raised me, this giant who inspires me, and all of my mountains yet to climb.”