Mindful Eating and the Internet Ruined Lunch
Mindful eating on a chair that wobbles
I used to eat to disappear for twenty minutes. Now I eat to prove I’m alive. Stupid proof. My bowl steamed. My phone glowed. Mindful eating sounded like a pamphlet from HR, and I wanted to mock it. I needed silence I didn’t have to fight for.
Back corner of a Vietnamese bakery in Woolloongabba. The air felt wet and stubborn. Bins humming. A plastic chair that wobbled if you breathed wrong. I parked it and told myself I would eat and only eat. No scroll. No pretending headlines were company. That held for maybe thirty seconds. A notification snapped its fingers. I came running like a dog.
The soup looked patient. Pho with a slick of oil drawing small maps on top. Basil already sweating. Bean sprouts clean and harsh. Lime smelling like a dare. I thought about the old milk bar near school, four bucks for chips, blue tongues from the slushie, no photos, no audience, just salt and burned fingertips. Lunch used to be a break. Not a broadcast.
I lie to myself. That I am too busy to sit still. That boredom is risky. That mindful eating is for people who have time to narrate their feelings. Then I taste the broth and the lies go quiet. Not gone. Quiet. Star anise. Smoke from bones. Pepper catching at the back of the throat. Someone stood over a pot and cared for hours. I can spare ten minutes. I can try.
Phone down. Face to the table. That is the rule. I forget the rule. I pick it up without thinking and check a message about a meeting that could be an email that could be nothing. Doomscrolling feels like work because it makes you tired. That is the trick. I set the phone down again. I do not touch it. I count five breaths. I lose track and start over. It is clumsy. That is also the point.
A tradie in hi vis sits next to me. Pork roll the size of his forearm. Mayo at the corner of his mouth. The man eats like it matters. No camera. No pause to plate it prettier. Bite, chew, look at the birds, bite again. I get jealous. I want his quiet. Not the roll, though I want that too. The quiet that does not ask for an audience.
I add chilli. Too much. It hits fast. Eyes water. Good. I need the slap. Noodles slippery as hell, beef thin and soft, broth turning sweet as it cools. I stop trying to think about anything important. I worked the bowl. Chopsticks, then the spoon. Warmth up the nose. People here say no worries a lot. The jaw tells a different story.
A kid whines for a sausage roll. The baker laughs in that tired way that says they have seen the day already and it is not kind. Cars punch through the light on Ipswich Road. Somewhere a siren. The city keeps going. My bowl asks one thing. Pay attention. That is all mindful eating becomes when you strip the brochures. Pay attention to the thing that keeps you alive.
I mess it up again. I check the phone. An old mate sends a reel about some boss who wakes at four and eats ice baths for breakfast. Good for him. I am trying to eat soup without lying. I lock the screen. I put the phone under my thigh like I am hiding contraband from a teacher. Class clown tricks. Whatever works.
Second half of the bowl is better. Heat softens into a low hum. The basil goes dark. Sprouts relax. The broth turns honest, like a bloke after two beers. I let it happen. Ten breaths. Then a few more. My shoulders stop hitching. I notice the metal taste from the spoon that says the sink water was hot and a bit hard. Small thing. Human thing. It steadies me. Odd, I know.
I think about the servo pie that once split my lip and how I loved it for that. Pain you can point to. Now it is soft pain. The kind you carry from tab to tab. Mindful eating is not a cure. It is a truce. I can keep the world waiting while I finish what someone cooked with care. I do not have to be entertaining. Or correct. Or seen.
Mindful eating is a small promise, not a sermon
Fourteen dollars for soup. I want my fourteen dollars of time. Not content. Time. I want to watch the oil bloom, then fade, like weather in a cup. I want to make a mess of the napkin and not explain it. I want to leave the lime husk shining like a small trophy for showing up.
I finish slow. The chair gives one last creak. The phone is still under my thigh, warm, sulking. When I finally look, nothing is different. Of course. It rarely is. The only change is mine, and it is modest. I ate lunch and I was there for it. Tomorrow I will probably forget and chew through a sandwich while the feed chews through me. Then I will remember again. Ten breaths. That is the deal.
Walking back into the arvo, I catch my reflection in the dark glass of a shopfront. I look ordinary. Good. I am full in the regular way. Not inspired. Not optimised. Fed. Which is all mindful eating ever promised me once I stopped trying to turn it into a brand. A bowl. A chair that wobbles. Ten breaths. That will do.
And if the world wants me, it can wait until I swallow.
