Words by Stephen Mack
Art by Kathy Lee
Content Warning: Discussion of mental health struggles
My Year at Wholefoods
It would have been about this time last year when I first walked into Wholefoods. Nineteen years old, six months deep into therapy, one foot out of the closet, and equipped with little more than an unfilled prescription for antidepressants and the anxiety-driven ambition to get a life and maybe, just maybe finally get around to making some friends.
I’m now twenty, eighteen months deep into therapy, one leg out of the closet, and equipped with a fair bit more than antidepressants, a life, and – yes! – friends.
I know. I was surprised too.
Volunteering at Wholefoods was a suggestion from my therapist at first, to put myself out there and to challenge my social anxiety after spending half of my first year at uni trying and failing to work up the courage to go to anything outside of classes. The other half I spent locked down in my studio apartment.
For those of you who, like me a year ago, don’t know about Wholefoods, it’s the weird vegan cafe upstairs in the campus centre. Just look for the cardboard decorations and the eclectic and gaudy couches. You can’t miss it.
It’s definitely one of the more unique places on campus, and I’m sorry if my description of the place doesn’t sound very appealing, but, as I learned last year, it certainly has a charm of its own – a charm I don’t quite have the words to describe.
What was once the weird vegan cafe became something so much more than just a place to me.
These days, I know our brownie recipe off by heart and could probably make our lasagne in my sleep. I can make a drinkable coffee and cut carrots into the tiniest little pieces you’ve ever seen. I go to meetings, too – lots of them – with all sorts of different people, sit on hiring panels, and help with budgets, events, and advertising.
I can’t say I could do any of that a year ago.
I won’t lie – I don’t love all of it. I find meetings to be equal parts frustrating, beleaguering, and terrifying. I hate crowds, and I will probably cry if anyone expresses any amount of anger in my vague direction. But I do it for good reason.
You give to Wholefoods, and Wholefoods gives back. It’s very rewarding like that.
If you go to Wholefoods and talk to anybody behind the counter – and no doubt some of them in front of it – about what Wholefoods means to them, they’ll talk about how it’s welcoming, and supportive, and how the people are so friendly and the vibes are good and how they made so many friends there.
That’s my story, too, but I think it goes deeper than that.
At great risk of sounding unbearably pretentious, Wholefoods is my passion, in both senses of the word: the suffering and the sentimental significance.
It’s about a sense of belonging and purpose. It’s about being able to do things for the place and the people, if not for yourself. It’s about contributing something, anything, no matter how small or insignificant, to something greater than yourself.
You do it because you’re part of a community. You do it because you’re part of a 45-year history. You do it because you want others to have the experience that you did – to find their place, their friends, their purpose, and their community.
This past year hasn’t been easy, but if there’s anything that my twenty years have taught me, it’s that nothing important in life ever comes easy.
But that doesn’t mean that nothing in life is ever satisfying.
Someone once told me that Jesus can’t make churches come alive, only people can. Ever since then, I’ve been intrigued by places of spirituality, where people congregate and communities form.
Maybe Wholefoods is my church, then, and maybe you too can be its beating heart.
And if that’s not enough – we play Taylor Swift sometimes, too.
