An Ode to Ramen

“And into the forest I go, to lose my mind, and find my soul”

An often-quoted quote (if you will) by the likes of someone much wiser than I; but who’s name escapes me equally as often. A quote through which much of my sentiments are shared and growing more so poignant by the day. Not to grasp even further onto cliché life-preservers, but nonetheless, transition can be a bittersweet medicine when it rears its ugly head. You know it will help you, even cure you, but you also hope the doctor knows what the fuck they’re doing. You hope that all the right questions were asked, the right boxes were checked, and that something important wasn’t missed somewhere along the lines.

That’s the reality of transformation. You often cannot see a goddamn thing passed the darkness of the womb. You can feel your limbs and breath and you think your eyes are open, but you have almost no way of knowing for certain. Which way is up? Which way is forward? All you know is that you are somewhere dank, bleak, yet oddly comforting in a primordial sort of way. Like a rare opportunity to be as lost and muddled as you need to be as long as you stay alive. Sometimes that’s all we can ask for.

Yes, that all sounds dramatic and abstract for something as common as a breakup, but for someone who takes literally nothing at just face-value, it’s not too far fetched an analogy. For the past three years I have been swimming from one seemingly cosmically fucked up event to another. Like being forced to navigate an underwater labyrinth while all the other participants are actual fish and you’re this outside creature with wings that only learned how to swim out of sheer survival mode. Moving physically, mentally, and emotionally through this maze of submerged ruins and coral that is just as beautiful as it is terrifying. You know you’re being tested, and you see all the details of the maze up to this point, but you don’t know why!

As I approach the half-birthday of my 30th year (y’all remember half-birthdays? #millenialexistentialism), I feel a shift in the weight on my shoulders. I recognize a growing discernment in where I place my energy, but also an almost visceral sense of impending heaviness and simultaneous hollowness. What a time to be alive! As I leave the peak of my Saturn Return, some things become clearer and I can tell I am closing in on somewhere I can finally rest. I just get to do it a little heartbroken is all.

Romance is a tricky situation for some of us. I’m sure that for many, all the details of love and relationships aren’t as heavy as they have often been for myself; or at least I hope not. I know that my experience of relationships and other aspects of being human are likely more difficult than they may “have” to be, but I think that is just the gift of being neurodivergent. A recent discovery of sorts but one that continues to bring an interesting sense of clarity to my mental space. As I allow myself the luxury of admitting that, yes, my brain does indeed work at a different RPM than most, I am also allowing compassion to settle in deeper than before. Compassion for myself and compassion for others. Another cliché to add to the bunch, but I’m for real. Compassion and grace for others has never been much of a struggle for me; however, applying the same grace to myself I can’t say is much of something I’ve ever put into play. To the point that I don’t think I even realized there was an option for it, let alone that I was neglecting it!

It’s a quant feeling to recognize for the first time where you are allowed to “allow” yourself grace. To recognize amid nervous system dysregulation how you are regarding yourself and that you have a choice in the matter. To see the sides of yourself that are suffering and to choose to nurture yourself instead of defeat yourself. To find a break in the cycle of trigger, reaction, reprimand, repeat.

Also, a caveat to this whole paper on self-love or whatever it may turn out to be; as you can tell, this is not about to be the most professional article I’ve ever written. Not today. I don’t need that sort of pressure when I am literally just working to finish ANYTHING. Additionally, I began this paper over a week ago when I was in much deeper and darker spirits and today feel a small bit of reprieve from that murkiness. I began this paper as a sort of ode to my grief and the experience of fleeing the man I love in the middle of the night to drive 1200 miles from Phoenix to Portland. I now feel that, at least for today, I am writing an ode to the “truity” (bleeding heart flavored, if you know what I mean?) of self-love in all its analogies. But first, some context.

I moved to Portland May 25, 2022 after gathering my belongings in both Arizona and California and then staying with my grandmother for three weeks in my hometown of Lake Tahoe. From May 5th till basically yesterday (June something or another) I had done my best to comfort my heart with alcohol and other ways of avoiding being home. I searched for a new home in Oregon all day everyday for the three weeks I spent with my family and did my best to organize what I was about to embark on. After getting to Oregon, I have gone out almost every night to different restaurants, different bars, and different trails in an attempt to get acquainted with my new home outside of my actual one. Also, in an attempt to drink away my rumination over what I just went through. It worked in ways and triggered in others and yesterday I acknowledged my need to rest because I had become sick. Not Covid sick, but sick enough to cancel plans and spend all weekend in a ponytail and eating the only three pieces of groceries I had kept at my apartment in the case of a “night in”. Shout out to Pho and Curry for holding my hand through this whole experience. You the real MVP.

While I worked on perfecting my version of the ultimate broth, I worked on becoming settled in myself. Settled in my new home, settled in my body, settled in the kitchen where I was forced to retrain my brain to think of my soups as something for my spirit and not something I shared with my ex-partner. I didn’t realize when I started this article that this would become an analogy for soup and my love life, but I’m here for it! An unintended correlation between the primordial soup of a creature not yet born and the soup you hope to come home to with the person who felt more like home than your favorite sweater. Not that my last relationship was in anyway that deeply held sense of “home” because I realize everyday how earnestly incompatible we likely were; but it was close enough for me to still be grieving. But for now, back to the soup!

Indulge me if you will, the chance to ask you all, what does soup represent to you? I’m sure for many who read this it may mean nothing. Just a reminder of the days in childhood where the only soup you experienced was Ramen. The poor student in their early twenties kind of ramen; not the kind we discover in our early thirties that changes our lives and makes us write stupid heartbreak prose in honor of it. The “Tap” kind. Then there’s some of us that had that soup but also the condensed version of chicken noodle soup that was tastier, but still residing in the upper mediocre region of soup potential. Then for some of us still, soup stands for something you spent building with your favorite grandparent on cold nights in winter. It is the epitome of “home” and perhaps was something passed down through the generations of your family if you’re lucky. It can manifest in so many ways and for most of my life I didn’t give a shit about it. It was literally Ramen or tomato from a can without the luxury of knowing how to pair it with basil yet. Side note, I think basil is the secret ingredient to anything; just saying.

As I go on to discover what exactly this article is trying to convey, I like the idea of using Ramen as my centerpiece. I had originally thought Pho would make a suitable star, but after googling what the difference between the two are I decided Ramen was the more poetic of the two. Pho being “a light Vietnamese noodle dish with herbal broth and rice noodles, and ramen is a Japanese noodle dish with hearty broth and wheat noodles.” I think a hearty broth is the only thing that can heal certain things. Strong yet ultimately adaptable, leaves room for hundreds of ingredients and diversity, and can be as complex or as simple as we need it to be. There’s a broth for everything. As I said above, I’m working on perfecting my broth. My personal manifestation of the perfect broth and whom to share it with. I cherish the nights spent at home making soup with my partner. The experimentation that held the space between laughs and kisses. The routine and almost tradition building ingredients that grew to be our favorites over and over. The quality time that was lighting the candles in the living room for us to sit at the couch and drink our tea and eat “our soup”.

I cherish those nights and borderline crave to have them back, but two months and 1200 miles later, there is no returning. There is only up and forward as the bleakness of the womb becomes slowly illuminated as the rays of light trickle in. As the days go on and I have more nights left alone with “my soup” I can find a sense of home in the new, spicier flavors I get to choose from because why the hell not! No one to cook for but no one to compromise for! As much garlic as I want, more rice noodles than I’d like to publicly admit, and probably a couple too many ingredients that only confuse the palate because I had a bit too much wine in the process. THAT is my perfect soup and I look forward to the day I get to share it with someone that can appreciate it.

I’m here for it.