Anxious people shouldn’t chew gum

...and other preachy maxims to live by this week

Anxious people shouldn’t chew gum. I can’t remember when or where I first heard this preachy maxim, but I think about it every time the anxiety’s at 11 and I’m chomping on gum. Yesterday I chewed a small wad almost to a powder. But being a woman painfully aware of the atrocity of being seen with white gunk at the mouth corners—even when alone in the house but for my husband upstairs (the male gaze!)—I snapped to and spit out the gumpowder.

Anxious people shouldn’t drink coffee. I didn’t heed this yesterday either, pits ripe and palms drenched, eyes darting between a story I was writing and my inbox. From: The New York Times, Subject line: Tr*mp….. DELETE NOT ARCHIVE! The vigilance and speed seemed to help. I thanked the coffee and made a second pot.

Anxious people might find relief from repetitive, small tasks. For me, this usually includes making a grocery list, shopping, cooking. As a woman with no hobbies to speak of that aren’t food related who’s simmering in a rage-stew of nausea and helplessness, I felt in a slight bind. I abandoned the shopping list and heated up leftover lentils for lunch. I chopped two radishes and a small pile of herbs into the leftover raita. Making garnish is a repetitive, small task that also offers a sense of control. Look, I’ve gilded this sustenance! I’m still a person. An hour later, I noticed a dried-up drip of starchy lentil liquid on my sweatshirt the color of Exorcist vomit.

On the eve of Election Day, my husband decided to bake chocolate chip cookies to ease the nerves. We were a little disorganized and don’t have a microwave, so I softened the butter on top of the preheating stove. Most of our bowls were dirty so Sean measured the dry ingredients into a decorative soup bowl.

“Do you think turbinado sugar will work instead of granulated?” he asked.

Anxious people don’t do well with adversity.

Using our only clean wooden spoon—a sushi paddle—I vigorously creamed together the grainy turbinado and molassesy brown sugars with melty-edged butter that was still hard in the middle in an oversized, garish-red serving bowl.

Anxious people should engage in regular physical activity.

The dough seemed stiff so I dribbled in a little water. It felt good to say, “Maybe the larger granules don’t absorb the moisture as well,” out loud. I’m still capable of light deduction!

The first batch baked up pale, probably because we accidentally turned off the oven when the timer went off. I thought they were underdone. Sean was casually steadfast, as he is every time he bakes cookies. We bagged them and froze all but six, which we left on the counter.

In the morning, on Election Day, a few of them had cracked right down the middle. But they still tasted good.