I Have No Idea

Part 43

I really don’t. The more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.

I have to confess to something. I was in Bridgewater the other day after dropping off products in Mahone Bay. I went to the Bulk Barn to stock up on nuts, seeds, dates and a few spices. I see people in the Bulk Barn when I’m there (usually the one in Yarmouth), heading straight for all the bins of candies and sweets. I don’t touch that stuff. It does nothing for my health and I remember distinctly how it makes me feel.

I checked out the one antiques place that I love, knowing I wasn’t in the market for anything and found red material at the Salvation Army to make more puppets. It was a full day. Productive and tiring. I was hungry as it was dinner time, and though I had good food at home waiting for me, it would be a couple of hours before I would be there to heat it up. I had nuts and seeds to keep me from getting hypoglycemic, but I just wasn’t in the mood for them. Pulling out of the Salvation Army, I found myself pulling up to the drive-thru of McDonald’s across the parking lot. I have not been to McDonald’s or any fast food restaurants in about 10 years or more. I don’t put that shit into my body. I’ve only been out to eat at restaurants here in Nova Scotia a couple of times, both times berating myself afterwards for putting so much grease and fried crap into my body, and not a vegetable in sight save for the green mush they call coleslaw… I just can’t do it anymore.

I’m sure you’ve seen the photos of the McDonald’s hamburger and french fries from years ago when Sally Davies in New York City did an experiment to see what would happen to them if she left them out. Well, they didn’t rot as you would expect of food left out. They looked the same after 6 months as they did the day they were bought. They looked the same after 2 YEARS. Even after 6 years… The hamburger and french fries turned 11 in 2021.

Here is her flicker site with photos

Other people have since done the same experiment with chicken nuggets and other fast food with the same results.Can you imagine what that does to the insides of our bodies? It doesn’t feed our cells, for sure, and what is not eliminated is absorbed. Foreign particles of preservatives and grease, clogging arteries. Moving through the bloodstream and causing an immune response as the white blood cells come to attack the invaders. Imagine if you ate this way all the time? The constant immune reaction! The lack of any beneficial nutrients to build the body! There would be a lot of chronic illness.

So like a junkie who hasn’t had a fix for too long, I stopped at the Mcdrivethru speaker at and said shamefully, ” Just a McChicken please.” It tasted just as I remembered. Sweet and salty, just the right chewing texture. I devoured it and the one white piece of iceberg lettuce before I got to the gas station at Hebbville. And then I wondered why I’d done it.

If I had an addiction, it would be to sadness. An addiction is supposed to offer instant gratification and relief or numbness to life and current situations in a way that is ultimately deleterious. I think sadness meets that criteria. How can it be different from any other thing we do that hurts us? There is a relief in going to that comfortable, familiar place. As dark and lonely as it can be. The more you allow yourself to go there, and the deeper into grief you allow yourself to go, the harder it is to see the light that guides you out.

Like a good addict, I put limits on my grief. Sometimes the wave comes and crashes into you before you have a chance to take a breath or turn the other way. In those times, the key is to have built a beautiful relationship with your Self.

The Self that sits outside your thinking and feels your existence. The one that has been with you, unchanging since you were a child and recognized your separateness from your physical self.

I see this self-consciousness tends to happen at different times and I see it most when children are about 7 or 8. They become aware of their individuality and often begin to judge themselves and others as same/ not-same, good/ not-good, can/ can’t.

This first inkling of self is sometimes as far as a person gets in this lifetime, as looking directly at your self can be challenging. I still surprise myself with hidden beliefs that are not serving me. Thoughts of worry about future, and thoughts of the past, and of judgement, that I didn’t see because they’ve been hidden under all of the other thoughts of worry and past and judgement that I’ve been peeling away for a long time. It seems the closer to the centre of the onion I get, the stronger the intensity of the hidden thoughts.

The morning after the McChicken, I was sure that what was going to come out of me would be epic. Instead, it came out of me in mouth sores and a horrible feeling of flu-yness and gloom for the next couple of days. Choices, my dear, choices.

Just a couple of years ago, Burger King came out with their moldy burger ad. Seriously nothing short of genius. I’d love to meet the folks that worked on that campaign. They must’ve had a lot of fun. Still, ability to rot or not, fast food is not the answer. Our food is the most immediate source of what keeps our physical bodies heathy.

Our choices determine our weight and our propensity to illnesses. Our choices can heal us. Western medicine would have you believe that you need a pill or a test or a procedure in order to be well. We don’t consider the amazing amount of control we have over our own physical health. No food isn’t everything. We are more than our physical bodies and we need to care for the non-physical with the same devotion.

The one thing I have always known, even though I said I have no idea, is that we always have choice. An addict can choose to remain an addict and nothing anyone can do or say will ever change them. Or they can make a different choice. If I don’t want grief, I can choose joy. It sounds so simple. And it is. It doesn’t mean I won’t find myself being hit by another wave, but I will always pull myself back onto the sandy shore and laugh that I had been taken so unaware. After the wave, I’ll go home and make myself a beautiful, nourishing meal. I will sing loudly and badly while dancing around the house like a drunken fool and laugh at my own silliness. We have such a good time together, me, my Self and I.

I haven’t told you about my other friend…

Next: You Asked… Or Maybe You Didn’t