Ramblings

My Aunt proudly set the shining bowl of whipped cream on the table, just beside the warm pie.  Before the drool could even reach my lip, my father proclaimed, “Are you sure you want to set a member of the fluffy white food group directly in front of your niece?!”

Yes, I admit it.  The fluffy white food group is far and away my favourite.  Oh, I know, it’s not on Canada’s Food Guide.  But what do the politicians in Ottawa know about what makes a healthy life?  There is something to be said for the peaceful feeling that comes over you when your mouth is full of real whipped cream.

How many children would have only lousy camping memories if not for the ooey-gooey goodness of roasted marshmallows?

How much heartache has been soothed by a pint of Hagen Daas?

Okay, so most of the fluffy white food group isn’t great for our arteries or pancreas, but what about our mental health?  You can do all the yoga and meditation in the world and still not feel as calm as after a session on the couch with a jar of Fluff.  No amount of greens will be as satisfying as a big bowl of whipped potatoes.

Yes, yes – everything in moderation.  Use the 80/20 rule, the experts say.  Which makes this fifth food group perfect mathematical sense!  Eat from the other four food groups 80% of the time (20% each, totally do-able) and eat from the fluffy white food group 20% of the time.  Optimal balance for optimal health – mind, body and soul.

So go ahead. Whip up a batch of rice crispie squares.  Make a sundae with every topping and sprinkle you can find.  It’ll do you good!

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While performing my breast self exam the other day, I had to pause and wonder.  Just what would I do if I found a lump?  I feel certain I would shun chemotherapy and radiation.  I have witnessed too many long, slow, painful deaths at the end of that journey.  I have no wish to bear that myself, nor do I wish to force my family to bear witness to it.  I have no desire to become one of the multitudes swept up in the marketing campaigns of the ‘fight’.  Truly, if we threw as much money at making our terminal loved ones comfortable in their last days as we do at cancer research fewer people would fear death with such voracity.  The fight against cancer, and all other ‘marketable diseases’ for that matter, has become a business.  And no self-respecting business plan ends with a solution that rids the business of its customers.  If this research wasn’t so profitable, we’d have solved the problem long ago.

No, I think I would choose not to fight.  How could I fight either my Father God or my Mother Nature?  I am a part of a circle and I must move with it, no matter how big or small its circumference.

I wonder if this plague called cancer is simply the Earth’s arsenal against our insatiable population growth?  We have amassed so much technology that we now live lives of so-called luxury and this lack of hard work and the plundering of all the Earth’s food sources has made us soft and allows us to live for years beyond our natural expiry dates.  And yet, our quality of life has suffered in direct inverse proportion to its length.  Why should I choose an extra few decades of life in a world where ‘social media’ has everyone believing they have hundreds of friends when in fact they’re sitting home along with their laptop, eating bag after bag of Cheetos?

No, should a lump be found I believe I’ll embrace it and the quality time it will surely afford me.  I’ll work as long as I’m able and then sell my home and move in with loved ones…so that I can daily tell them so.  I’ll write down what wisdom I can pass on.  I’ll tell everyone what I really think of them.  I’ll slide on every slide my niece and I can find.  I’ll grow a new patch of beans.  And when the time comes, I’ll leave my family to spare them the sight of my final, pain medicated moments.

To the Earth I shall return.  Toxin-free.  And grateful.