Let There Be Cake!

Dear Team Joy,

This past weekend I had the pleasure of traveling to Oxford, England to support one of my best friends, Dr. Rebecca Peters on her graduation from Oxford with her PhD. Impressive, I know.

Traveling internationally was a big deal for me, because I have significantly reduced my travel since my Crohn’s diagnosis two years ago.

I used to be on the road every week for work, and then sometimes flex traveling to see my friends in different cities on the weekends. But I have found grounding in routines in my home to be important for my overall well-being, so these days, I limit my travel to about once a month.

Another part of my hesitation towards travel is my new awareness of my long list of needs. Before I say yes to a trip, I have to ask myself if I will be able to take care of myself in the ways I need to, including access to healthy food, doctors (if necessary), substantial sleep, and a slower pace of travel that I can keep up with. I have to trust there will be enough flexibility and understanding, if I need to do things differently from the group.

Before Crohn’s, I used to only ask myself: can I afford it, and does it sound fun? Then once I was on the trip, I worried about getting my needs met… which sometimes worked out, and sometimes was a disaster. 🙃 Now I ask myself a different question:

Will this trip have the right conditions for me to thrive?

I now understand in a new way that I am responsible for getting my own needs met. Travel requires you to negotiate your needs with your travel partners— being considerate with each other while remaining attentive to ourselves. I don’t like having to advocate for my needs (and now I have a lot of them), so it often feels easier to stay home. No risk to the relationship, no running around a foreign city clamoring for a bathroom, no needing to go to sleep at 9pm and worrying that your friends will think you are lame… no risk of humiliation.

But I understood how important this trip was to Rebecca. And because she is one of my best friends, I wanted to show up for her. For this to happen, I would need to put new faith in myself and my friends. I would need to believe that I had both the logistical prowess to prepare for and the heightened communication skills to navigate my first significant international trip post diagnosis.

And you know what? I am really glad I went. My friendships deepened, and I got to see so many different sides to one of my favorite people; this type of history and context is impossible to understand without showing up for someone’s milestones. But what I didn’t expect was that this trip would remind me of something important about myself.

I love to travel. I love to learn, take in new cultures, chat with strangers, and observe different ways of being.

I experience an openness when I travel that feels easier to access when I am outside of my own routines (as long as the travel itinerary is not overly booked). There’s an edge to this openness—all of the things that could go wrong— but also an exhilaration.

It’s simple, and cliche for a reason: Travel shifts your perspective. It forces you out of your comfort zone, catapults you into new experiences, and requires you to be adaptable.

While Rebecca ran around preparing for graduation, I had the chance to slowly meander through Oxford. I found myself getting lost in the canals, marveling at a meadow near our Airbnb (unexpectedly filled with wild horses), and trying to figure out if I felt like I was in Harry Potter’s world because it was actually similar or merely because that was my primary British cultural reference.

I wanted the trip to feel slow, and having my phone only work with wifi aided my ability to be present. I got lost multiple times and found kind British strangers willing to help me navigate back to the main streets— once they were able to figure out where I was trying to go and had teased me for apparently butchering the pronunciation of english street names, of course.

As I wandered through Oxford I stumbled into various cafes, bookstores, and other shops that sold curios. Rebecca taught me this word, and it means a rare unusual or intriguing object. How very oxford. Meandering was how I discovered the unexpected delight of my trip:

British cake culture

It seems obvious to me now, with the country’s obsession with the Great British Bake Off, that the country loves cake. But I just naively assumed that the show’s contestants were anomalies and that cake was only consumed on special occasions just like it was here in the U.S.

Incorrect.

To my giddy amusement, I discovered Oxford is littered with beautiful cake shops that serve a selection of tea and pastries, to be consumed on any old afternoon. Not as a gift, not because it’s a significant occasion, just because it’s a Tuesday, and you like cake.

For the first ~18 months post-diagnosis I gave up gluten at the advisement of nutritionists helping me manage my Crohn’s symptoms. But I recently realized I was tired of trying to avoid a long list of broad categories (gluten, red meat, dairy, sugar, alcohol). It was making me feel really limited in my ability to enjoy food socially.

I had begun to believe that certain foods would hurt me, without any real evidence from my own experience. I decided I wanted to approach food with more nuance, paying closer attention to how I actually felt after eating different foods.

Approaching food with nuance, and less restriction, has encouraged me to actually pay closer to attention to myself, as well, and is allowing me to eat with less fear (and more enjoyment!). But even before diagnosis, dessert played a weird role in my life.

I come from a very healthy family, so I either was having dessert because it was a special occasion, or I was trying to sneak dessert behind my parents’ backs. As an adult, maybe I was scarfing down dessert at the end of a meal just because I wanted something yummy. But I didn’t have a lot of models for thoroughly, slowly, enjoying dessert without guilt.

I think it was precisely because food had become such a complicated entity in my life that experiencing cake culture in Oxford felt delicious to me on so many levels.

Here was the cake, intended to be accompanied by the ritual of a break, good company, and presence. The cake was not apologizing for itself, trying to rebrand as low sugar or low fat. It wasn’t wrapped in plastic designed to be consumed on-the-go. It wasn’t meant to celebrate someone’s birthday. It was there, unapologetic in its gourmet gloriousness, understanding that it was part of the balance of things. No one was supposed to scarf down a whole cake, and yet one could pause their day and enjoy a slice.

I found that this ritual of tea and cake was breaking the model of overconsumption or complete abstention down. To me, it was a small reminder that simple pleasures are good.

In the 4 days I was there, I had a slice of hummingbird cake, banana bread, carrot cake, and a hazelnut cream donut. I enjoyed it all. Thoroughly.

But it’s tough to communicate how wild a shift this was for me. To give myself permission to enjoy the cake, and to be able to be present enough in the moment to do so. To not feel guilt, shame, or fear around consuming dessert— to trust that I will not spiral into uncontrollable cake consumption and that one slice of cake won’t hurt me. To not feel rushed in eating it.

To know I am worthy of simple pleasures— that moderation, nuance, and pleasure are possible for me.

Eating cake slowly, laughing with my friends, taking in the moment, appreciating something made well. I want more of this.

So while the weekend was filled with brilliant intellectualism- I found myself in conversations about the deregulation of academic institutions, the role of legislatures, and the emerging trends in family office wealth transfer- my number one takeaway for living well from this trip was the power of giving ourselves permission to enjoy. I will continue to reflect on the power of creating real spaces and rituals around pleasure in our lives. It is part of my quest to have more experiences within my day where I can be and receive, instead of do and produce.

I encourage you to reflect on the last experience of pleasure you really enjoyed with limited guilt, shame, and fear— an experience you relished for all its deliciousness. How might you cultivate more of this in your life?

Much love,

Isabel