Into the Sandwich Womb

“Can I share with you my worldview? All of humankind has one thing in common: the sandwich. I believe that all anyone really wants in this life is to sit in peace and eat a sandwich.” –  Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

"And that is exactly what I plan to do on this day, National Sandwich Day. Sit in peace and eat my go-to sandwich: the T.B.M sandwich from Cosi. With only a mere three ingredients, this sandwich somehow speaks to my soul and brightens even the darkest of days (no thanks to you, Daylight Savings Time.) If this sandwich was a man, I’d be rolling around in bed with it right now. Hell, maybe I’ll do it anyway.

My love of sandwiches and my love of men run almost parallel to each other on the mathematical graph of my life, intersecting only at the moment someone lets me eat a sandwich and have sex at the same time. That’s the stuff dreams are made of."

So says Britanny, studying at the University of Richmond, in her illuminating Sandwich blog-post- she, apparently like the rest of humanity, wants to do nothing more than sit in peace, eating a sandwich, whilst having sex; this is her Nirvana, her good place, her Sandwich Womb.

She is not alone in her somewhat Freudian desire to return to the comfort of the womb. The Hippies at 'Reality Sandwich' are keen to return to the cosmic/galactic womb.

http://www.realitysandwich.com/cosmic_womb_video

http://www.realitysandwich.com/healing_galactic_womb

Indeed this desire, need, to find some kind of fundamental comfort back in the womb of mother nature can be seen to motivate the ill fated adventurings of the Messrs TIM- T in the Alaskan Bear Nature Womb, I in the Animal Sea Womb, and M in the Womb of the Southern Ocean. All three find their Nirvana, walking closer and closer towards the Mother Womb, until they can sleep in it for eternity, as it claims them in the death that they have been courting.


One can also see this womb-seeking behaviour in the tendencies of varying types of addicts and bingers- be it drink, drugs, or other forms of hedonistic and aesthetic addiction. Again the desire, the need, is to sink, and simultaneously rise, into a state in which the individual self, and the mind, is subsumed, absorbed, into the womb of the universe, or at least sensation. 

God, and religion, can also manifest this desire to dissolve, or to float, in the womb of Mother Church, to give oneself up to the womb of God herself- it is not so much patriarchal domination which this kind of theist seeks, but the comfort of the religious-womb; it is driven by a desire to belong, in the most fundamental, visceral sense.

Brittany, from Richmond University, desires nothing quite so extreme as this; and yet it is no accident that she desires, dreams of, peace, a sandwich, and sex, together as one; again we see the 3 structure emerging, a holy trinity of comfort; at peace, at rest, with a Sandwich in one hole and a penis in the other; here, she imagines, she may find the rest, the comfort, away from the difficulties of individuality, thought, and life in general.

Indeed, from the male perspective, there is something somewhat vaginal, inviting, comforting, about the Sandwich. If one considers the above picture it suggests both the male desire to be subsumed into Mother Sandwich, but it also suggests something of the lips of the female genitalia and all of the Freudian comforts which it offers- here again, we imagine, as we face the Sandwich/Vagina, we may find some rest, some visceral affinity, with the universe, with the other, and with ourselves, beyond the troubles and struggles of life and the mind; we face the above Sandwich, to eat at it, directly, and not to nibble at it from one end or corner, but to dive head first into it, into its Tri-Comforts.

We at Sandwich Theories are aware of this dangerous comfort of the Sandwich. Like Messrs TIM we could find ourselves creeping ever closer to the eternal Sandwich Womb, where it might claim us forever. And like the Sex addict, or sex dreamer, we might find ourselves with our head buried endlessly in the flaps of the Sandwich, literally and metaphorically. 

For us though the Sandwich is not a place, a thing, of comfort, but a grounding point, a lens, a valve, through which to explore the world. If the Sandwich were to become a womb for us, a place to snuggle up in away from the struggles of the mind, of our individuality, of life, then we would have to move on. Let it be known that we fear the Sandwich Womb, as we fear all Wombs. We may have developed in, been born from, a Womb. And it may have been a lovely place to hang out for a while, but there is no returning to it, however much in moments of weakness, anxiety and exhaustion we might desire it.