An image of me with the grilled cheese sandwich, smiling at the camera.
For so long, anything to do with food has been intrinsically tied to pain, discomfort, and fear for me. Even the premise of this blog, which was built upon silly yet sincere musings on different grilled cheese sandwiches, became a tension in my life as my health worsened over the last few years. How to continue eating grilled cheese sandwiches when I believed the ingredients of my favorite food was causing me such pain.
If my digestion — and therefore my relationship with food — has been a storm (just as a storm, my digestive system can be characterized by internal pressure, disturbance, and unusual activity), then what I experienced in Stockholm was the calm after the storm. We always reflect on the calm before the storm, but the calm after the storm — the easing of tension, the quiet in the air — gets less attention. My theory is that this is because after the storm is also imbued with trauma. Naturally — and rightly — our attention is focused on repairing the trauma from the storm and we either forget, or simply can’t, recognize the calm that comes afterwards too. The releasing of pressure. The dissipation of immediate fear.
It’s usually at this point in writing these posts — after I’ve gone on for two paragraphs trying to set up a metaphor — that I remember this is mostly supposed to be about a grilled cheese sandwich. What can I say, this is just how my brain works. Everything has a deeper meaning. But I promise (well, I hope) that this will all make sense in the end.
I wasn’t sure I would even have a grilled cheese on our trip to Stockholm. Surprisingly, my partner Orlando is often the one to research restaurants that specialize in grilled cheese sandwiches 1) because he’s amazing, 2) because I insist he’s better at finding these places than I am, and 3) because he’s very encouraging of these blog posts.
So, he did some research and realized there weren’t a ton of great options in Stockholm, at least not any that were easily accessible based on where we were planning to be in the city. And then by chance, we had just arrived and we’re on a bus from the airport to the city center when Orlando realized that if we got off the bus one stop early we would be really close to one of the grilled cheese places he had found.
Needless to say, we looked at each other, and then we got off the bus early.
The first thing that struck me about Stockholm was how quiet it was. We were walking towards the restaurant and while the streets were huge and wide and open, I felt like we were all alone for how quiet it was. But it wasn’t an eerie quiet. It was serene. It was calming.
An image of the menu at the restaurant.
We made it to the restaurant and the menu boasted only four items — one of which was, of course, a grilled cheese sandwich. What arrived is not what I expected, a sandwich oozing multiple cheeses and also covered in cheese.
This is where the metaphor comes back in. For a long while my stomach has felt like it’s in a perpetual state of storminess (which I’ve written about before, extensively) and a even the thought of eating a sandwich like this would set off a fear response. I might not have even ordered it in the first place. In fact, the grilled cheese I had in Iceland was the first I had had in a long time.
At the time of this trip, however, I found myself in a much better place thanks to a new medication treatment that actually seemed to be working. I was in the calm after the storm. I had so much less to worry about when it came to food, and traveling, and just generally living my life.
And while I still do have that trauma caused by the storm — a nervousness around certain foods based on years of believing those foods were harming me — I could focus on the calmness I felt as I ate that grilled cheese sandwich. The happiness.
Granted, this wasn’t my favorite grilled cheese sandwich I’ve ever had. I prefer simplicity in my food, I always have, and this sandwich contained four different, unfamiliar cheeses. On top of that, it was spicy. (I know, a grilled cheese being spicy? What can I say, I’m well-known for having a comically low spice tolerance). But still, I reveled in the ability to eat a sandwich like this (did I mention the four different cheeses? Unfathomable to Sara from a year ago who definitely believed she was lactose intolerant) and not feel panicked about leaving the close vicinity of a bathroom.
As we left the restaurant, Orlando said, “That was a grilled cheese that took itself seriously”, a phrase I loved so much that I kept repeating it for the rest of the trip. I thought it was funny, but I also thought it was true. And something about the sentiment resonated deep within me. I often think I’m too serious, too sincere (I mean, you don’t have to look farther than the start of this blog post, which is supposed to be about a grilled cheese sandwich and for some reason I start it talking about storms and trauma) but I can’t help it — I love thinking really deeply about my experiences and how I move through the world and what I want to leave behind, and I take my role as a person on this planet very seriously.
In the past year, I’ve also taken my health very seriously, and doing that hard work made it possibly for me to eat that serious sandwich in the first place.
So that was the very start to our trip in Stockholm and, as it continued, I continued to feel a calmness around me. As we walked about the city and found the smallest statue I’ve ever seen. As we sat on a boat for a two hour tour, with nothing more to do than listen and talk. As we ate fika in a warm café. As we stumbled upon a Swedish holiday celebration and basked in the warmth of a huge bonfire. As we we traversed into the heart of the city and still I heard nothing higher in pitch than a low thrum of noise around me.
I doubt the storm will be calm forever, but it is the feeling of this trip that I want to remember and strive for during future storms. It was how I felt eating that sandwich — a feeling of peace, of serenity, of quiet power — and the reminder that in taking my health so seriously I had given myself the agency to once again enjoy my favorite things in life. Starting with a sandwich.
