Destination Discipline

Today I am the patron saint of spinach. I discovered spinach 2 years ago when my muscles began cramping. I read that it has high concentrations of magnesium and that it was good for promoting muscle healing and reducing muscle cramps. I had always hated spinach but discovered if it was fresh it was actually very tasty. I grew it in the garden last year and it was much better than store bought variety. Yum!

So why am I eating spinach today? Well, I don’t want to go into details, but I ate too much dessert last night and I feel guilty. I am also the patron saint of guilt. Sheesh. When am I ever going to learn how to stop eating too much? I don’t understand why, when I start eating something sweet, I just can’t stop. Well, I can, but it’s so difficult. So tonight, ixnay on the ice-cream-nay. All of that to say, I like spinach and need to cut my calories today.

I always think of Popeye when I eat spinach. I love my muscles and they love spinach. I also feel really great when I eat it, as opposed to feeling like a garbage disposal when I eat other unmentionables. So yesterday, when someone I work with pulled me aside in the restroom and said, “Are you working out? Because your arm muscles are like, wow!” And I got REALLY self-conscious and swore off sleeveless blouses because obviously I don’t know how to take a compliment. “But yes,” I told her, “I do lift weights, mainly in a vain and unfruitful attempt to rid my arms of the sagging skin that is a dreadful byproduct of losing excess amounts of weight.” And she smiled and patted me on the shoulder and said, “I can’t tell and I sure want some of what you’ve got!”

And you know what? That is very cool! Because if you knew how dorky and insecure I am, you would know how I blushed for 30 minutes after that conversation and got all sweaty and goofy as I worried about people staring at my Popeye arms. I kept wondering if I was a freak of nature. And then, after the weirdness wore off I realized, someone just paid me a compliment for goodness sakes, and I didn’t even say thank you. Ugh.

So today’s lesson, boys and girls, is “eat your spinach.” It is good for your body and will help alleviate muscles cramps naturally. It is also a tasty alternative to ice cream AND you will feel like Popeye even if you look like Wimpy. And this blog feels really random and goofy but I was just connecting the dots and realized I live a very random and goofy sort of life and why not share it, because, honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. After all, I yam what I yam.

I am going to tell you a blatant truth: I am cheap. If there is any possible way for me to save a buck, it will be saved. I am also trying really hard to eat healthy. Healthy and cheap do not necessarily hang out together. In fact, they sort of like to give each other the evil eye and chortle when brought in close proximity. But I digress.

I have 3 boys and they eat like linebackers. I kept buying cereal and they kept inhaling it. I felt that not only did the cereal not fill them up(they were hungry an hour later), I was paying a small fortune for it(even with coupons). So I decided to start making muffins for breakfast. The recipe I have calls for quite a bit of sugar but my husband was NOT having the no sugar variety. So for a while I made them with the full 1.5 cups of sugar and white flour they called for. And I put in chocolate chips instead of blueberries because my children don’t like berries(they are strange creatures, I know). Sounds really healthy right? Not.

Well, I am just completely allergic sugar. I can’t help it. I have this whole rash that comes over my eyeballs and I get mumps in my toes. You know, a super nasty reaction. Therefore, I secretly began reducing the sugar and started substituting wheat flour in small quantities. My husband noticed the flour but never said anything about the sugar. I was adding banana instead. And then one day, after gradually reducing I decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater. NO SUGAR AT ALL! Oh the humanity! It was a glorious day filled with sunshine and roses and pretty little gold coins falling from the sky. And I think there was a leprechaun but I was so completely distracted by the aroma of fresh baked Banana Wheat Chocolate Chips Muffins that I think I squished him while I was jigging around the kitchen.

I presented the muffins to my children. “Come and get it!” and watched them gobble and snort and belch with nary a complaint. As their faces morphed into the usual zombified stares(glued to the boob tube) and the room erupted with fresh farts(unrelated to the muffins) and they scratched and forgot I ever existed, I realized: They had absolutely no idea I had just fed them healthy food.

So I kept making the recipe, even adding things like flax meal and wheat germ and they kept eating it. Finally, on Saturday I told my 11 year old beast-let that the muffins he loved so dearly did not contain one speck of sugar. And his eyes went all squinty and his jaw dropped open, and I grinned and chuckled. I still haven’t told my husband(shh!) but I’m secretly laughing my buns off because he is my biggest critic and loves to point out how he can taste it every time I try to make a recipe healthy.

Tonight the house is filled with the sweet cinnamon-ey aroma of fresh baked muffins and everyone is salivating. Of course they have to wait to eat them until the morning because I am cruel, and possibly evil. But I am reveling in the greatest subterfuge I have ever had the occasion to get away with. And because I can’t contain this wickedness, I am going to share my recipe with all of you.

Banana, Honey Wheat, Chocolate Chip Muffins of Goodness (makes 1 dozen)

[10 carbs per ounce/80 calories per ounce]

1 large very ripe banana

1 stick of butter

1/4 cup of honey

2 eggs

3/4-1 cup of milk 1/4 cup ground flax meal

1/4 cup wheat germ

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 cup white flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 tsp baking powder

15 chocolate chips in each muffin(yes I count them out)

Mash banana and butter together. Add honey and mix. Add eggs and mix. In a separate container mix dry ingredients. Alternate stirring dry ingredients into butter/banana mixture, and stirring in some milk until everything is blended. Spoon into paper lined muffin pans, layering in chocolate chips as you go(5/5/5). Bake in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes(poke with a toothpick in the center to make sure they are cooked through as oven temperatures vary). Eat and enjoy guilt free!(unless you eat too many-then, well, that would be bad…)

I went to a special lunch event today with my job and ended up sitting next to a woman I greatly admire. I made a point to ask questions and really listen to what she had to say because I want to learn from her. She has walked a path of great suffering since she lost her husband to sudden illness last year. She looks frail in every conceivable way but she is one of the strongest people I know.

At one point during our conversation she said, “Losing my husband is the hardest thing I’ve ever been through. It’s like an amputation of the heart. My life will never be the same. But I make a decision every day to keep living, even when I don’t want to. I have so many blessings and I force myself to remember them.” She recounted losing her parents and even a 17 month old grand-daughter. Never once during the conversation did she complain. I could tell she has a lot of experience holding back tears because she did not cry and her voice never wavered. Her right hand trembled slightly as she delicately placed her fork into her salad. Several bites in she said, “I lost my appetite when John(not his real name) died. But I know I must eat, so I do. I don’t manage change well, but change is a part of life.”

I have never experienced that kind of pain and was struck by her resolve. While the world zips by around her, she lives in a cocoon of grief. After 47 years of marriage, she is alone. And I could think was, “It’s not fair.”

All of us manage pain in some capacity, some better than others, and in varying degrees. From the cold finality of death, to the loss of a job, pain does not discriminate. It invades our lives when we least expect it and crushes us with tentacles stronger than steel.

I spent most of my childhood in abject pain. Picked on by children at school, and misunderstood by family, I began acting out. I so craved approval from my peers that I earned a reputation as a class clown. I would do anything for a laugh, including flopping on the ground and flailing around as if I was having a seizure. One of my favorite cries for attention was belching with the boys. I just wanted someone to tell me I belonged, that I was “normal” and I wasn’t a social outcast. Of course I picked all of the wrong activities for a young girl. I had a beige jacket that zipped all the way to the top of the hood and took turns bobbing around blindly, bumping into my classmates as if I was some kind of deranged lunatic recently escaped from the asylum. They would laugh and scream and shun me further but I craved their attention. I didn’t understand why their laughter was not acceptance and I wholeheartedly refused to listen to my mother when she said, “Stop acting so weird and people will like you.” I didn’t know how to stop acting weird. Quite obviously I have never figured it out.

Clearly I have very simple problems. I don’t have cancer. My children are all relatively healthy. I am gainfully employed. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to not know where I was going to sleep tonight. Or even worse if I did and it did not involve a roof. I am always struck by the homeless who linger outside the baseball games down town. Their faces sag under the weight of addiction and rejection. I walk by arrogantly and judge them even as I work to forget their faces.

Pain is a part of this world whether we like it or not. We have two choices to deal with it. Wallow and sulk or keep moving. Grief is a rational response. So is anger. And still, we must keep moving because if we stop, our growth is stunted. If we choose to stay in that place of pain, we diminish and are forever defined by that moment of sorrow. I admire and enjoy people who have suffered and learned from the experience, but I loathe those who froze in place. Not because they are less human, but because they are so unpleasant to be around. My own little slice of suffering gives me perspective and hope. Perspective, that pain does not last forever. Hope, that happiness will come again.

While my journey is very different than that of my friend, we have one thing in common: conscious movement. We recognize that staying in place is counterproductive. It is difficult for her to move when her heart is so heavy, but she knows there is still beauty in the world to be experienced. So I’m going to quote my favorite Pixar character here, and if you haven’t seen Finding Nemo, I still think you’ll understand. “Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming.”