The year was 1990. There was floral wallpaper on the ceiling. We sat eating Chinese takeout on brown floor tile from the 1970s. It’s been about a quarter-century since that childhood memory was made with my parents after they closed on a fixer-upper center hall colonial in Freehold, New Jersey. Even so, I still have a strong association with Chinese takeout as a panacea for confusion — one that is effective, even at 28. Most days I go through with a decent amount of self-confidence and initiative. But I have this soft underbelly that I haven’t done away with but, rather, around which I erected armor and learned how not to have to be vulnerable. I trust myself, but not so much others without a bit of proof that a person is likely to be trustworthy. In carrying out this practice, I’m at odds with an instinct to believe the best about others. The world is uncertain, and sometimes one appreciates a special embrace, a hackneyed but needed platitude intended to reassure, or an especially pleasant surprise. Being an only child and therefore often on my own, I learned that a pint of wonton soup or lo mein is sometimes a helpful comfort. In relying on myself for these things, my first reaction tends to be to order Chinese takeout than to discuss states of emotional flux. When I perceive a threat to my emotional equanimity, I retreat, kind of like a turtle going into its shell, and I crave Chinese food. I don’t really even like Chinese food that much, especially now that I haven’t lived in the tri-state area for years, but it represents stability and a sense of home. This spring, when my closing date threatened to be delayed and there were so many boxes and my cats were freaked out and I felt somewhat without a footing, I ordered Chinese takeout. A few days after my father died, my mother and I ate Chinese food together. When a temperamental playwright decided he wanted to pull his play from a short play festival because he disliked my being chosen for a role, I felt a visceral craving well up. Chinese food isn’t for everyday. I eat it at poignant times, probably because it reminds me I can be sure of something, and that I will, indeed, move forward again, too, as I have many times before. My gut reactions are often to indulge in ritualistic habits embedded deeply as indications that flux doesn’t mean there isn’t something of which I can be sure. These days I have some incisive abilities I didn’t have in so practiced a form when I was younger, so when I crave Chinese food I just think, “All right, so what’s really going on here?” If I’m able to figure it out, I’ll typically just order Thai instead. Thai food is winning: It suits my tastes better than Chinese, represents having overcome something, and doesn’t remind me of the smell of vinegar from when my parents removed the wallpaper throughout that Freehold center hall colonial. Plus, the Chinese food in Asheville isn’t quite awesome.