DAY 65 A Four-Day Hiatus

After five days of poor eating initiatives—a persistent storm of consuming coffee (4-5 cups of decaf with cream and sugar), leftover chocolate mints that I’d resisted at Thanksgiving, turkey hash with curried rice, sweet braided bread that a friend brought from a Swedish bakery in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood, coffee, cookies and panini at the weekend fair where I was selling my lavender sachets, lots of cheese and crackers—I awoke this morning with a dull headache and flatulence.

The latter always reminds me of my Grandmother, a tiny lady who lived with severe osteoporosis and a stronger faith.   One Christmas when she was in her early nineties, after an enormous meal, all the uncles and aunts and parents and children—some sixteen, if I recall correctly—were seated around a blazing fire in the cavernous stone fireplace in our living room.  After a while, she excused herself, walked slowly to the library, and closed the door.   Even amidst several conversations, everybody could hear what happened next; it sounded as though cannons were being fired in the library.  In a few minutes, she slid the door open and walked back to her seat by the fire, a little smile on her face.  The rest of us struggled to contain our laughter.  Nobody said a word!

Back to the present: my dull headache persists.  OK, makes no sense to wallow in this self-imposed misery.  Before starting the day, I’ll drink a glass of water with powdered greens, thank Grandmother Ferris for showing me the results of poor eating choices as well as some pretty good things to do—her love of the Biblical phrase, “Be still, and know that I am God” was the basis for my off-again, on-again attempts at meditation and prayer—and live in hope that I’ll return to eating alkaline again  today.

What caused my storm of poor eating choices?  Certainly the ways I chose to respond to the stresses of an extra-busy week had a lot to do with it, which points  me once again  toward meditation as the best way out of stress; wasn’t doing much of that this past week either.   On my kitchen bulletin board is an aphorism, its source long-forgotten: “Argue for your limitations, and they’re yours; argue for your possibilities and they’re yours too.”  It is just possible that I’ll be able to respond differently to stress today.  Tomorrow will take care of itself.