Comfort Food. Comfort Art.

We've all heard of comfort food. That favorite dish. The one that reminds us of home. Mom's chicken pot pie. Grandma's Beef Brisket. A simple Google search leads to hundreds of recipes, cookbooks, Yelp reviews and more. It's a thing. Can't be denied.


I have my comfort foods. Friday as I dealt with some holiday and seasonal blues, I made a ham and scalloped potatoes. It was great. It didn't do the trick. Lately I have found that my Comfort Art has been more effective. Comfort Art? What in the world is that?

For me, music, movies, books and entertainment are more comfort than food. It feels weird. Elvis Costello doesn't have the carbohydrates. Elmore Leonard doesn't contain alcohol or caffeine.White House Down doesn't give me a sugar high.  But if I am honest. Those things do so much more.

Last week I lay on a bean bag in my basement drinking Surge and listening to Elvis Costello on vinyl. It filled me more than any carbohydrate loaded meal. Even if it wasn't my favorite album. Even if it was just the mix of nostalgia and music. It worked. It filled me up. Each line and note connected with me deep down.

Saturday night after a long day at work and plenty of self created stress, I found myself holding Elmore Leonard's Out of Sight. A book I haven't read in probably 15 years. I got about 25 pages in before finally sleep took over. Somewhere between discussion of prison gun towers and planned bank robberies. The words, the world, the characters were more intoxicating than any lager or rum. Oddly, the dreams weren't the worst I had last week. Sometimes I need to give my mind a place to run. Or it picks its own.

Tonight, after a stressful, hectic and snow filled Monday after a holiday, I just needed distraction. The day was fine. I got things done. I have plenty of work to do this week. But when the work day ended, I was a ball of nerves. I felt the stress. In my gut. In my neck. In that little spot right between my eyes on the top of my nose. Tense and worn out. I needed a sugar high. So I put in the Channing Tatum action opus White House Down. Yeah. It's silly. It's over the top. It's one beautiful man saving his precocious daughter, the President and probably the entire country. It's sugar pop action. And it's exactly what I needed. I won't even get to the end of the movie. I don't need to. You know how sometimes you only need have the Snicker's bar? It's like that. I've got my pop sugar buzz. It broke the stress.

Sometimes we talk about guilty pleasures in media or music. For me it's Comfort Art. Just the nostalgia or pop sugar or literary intoxication I need. Some people might mock when you need to rock out to N'sync or just watch a favorite movie yet another time. Or maybe not understand why you have watched the entire series of Firefly on a yearly basis. Screw them.

Let's fight for our Comfort Art the same way we would fight for Grandma's brisket. Because sometimes it's exactly what we need.