Buy The Cookie
Saturday was the first day in quite some time I got out and about. My asthma exacerbation was abating and it was time to attempt to do something. Some One Thing which resembled living again.
I went to the grocery store/pharmacy on a test run. It went really well. I found myself pushing the cart — not leaning over it as though it represented the only structure which would keep me from collapsing into a wheezing, hacking, quivering mass of DNA. So progress.
I was in seek and destroy mode — as is my usual shopping attitude. I am not a browser by nature. I get what I need and I get the hell home even on a good day. I stick to the list unless I happen to remember I need something while I’m there. Then in perfect OCD fashion — I add said item to said list. And — stick to the list.
And I never. Ever. Buy cookies.
I just don’t. I’m not even tempted by sweets. Not pies — I make much much better pies myself. Not cakes — okay — maybe if it’s someone’s birthday but truthfully then just a bite. And never cookies. I bake Christmas cookies. And they kick ass. Once a year I get my fill of homemade cookies and just don’t even feel tempted by anything less than that.
I am a savory treat kind of girl.
Until Saturday. When I walked by the cranberry crunch cookies which happened to be on sale in my grocery store.
I stopped and stared at them as they softly called my name.
I picked up the package to be sure they were not oatmeal raisin cookies masquerading as cranberry crunch cookies.
I double-checked the sale price.
I held them close to my heart.
I put them back.
Then I picked them up again — imagining how perfectly they would taste with the chamomile vanilla honey tea I had been living on for the last 10 days.
Somehow — they managed to make it — this time — into my cart.
As soon as I got home, I brewed my cup of tea and I sat down —with teacup and cookie to a most delicious treat. The cookie was enormous — as large as my hand — baked by the store’s bakery. I didn’t look at the calorie count on the thing — the nutritional value — none of it.
Because — Fuck That!
This was food for my soul — not my body. Holy Communion. That kind of moment.
I’ve thought about the cookie since then. Less than $4.00 — that box of 4 cookies. Even not ‘On Sale’ — it wasn’t about the money. Why did I never allow myself this indulgence?
The Gift of my last sit down with The Universe might just be this Ah-Ha Moment:
Even if your body doesn’t particularly crave a sweet treat — it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t consider the fact that your soul just might need it. We focus on The Body so much — always to the detriment of our other ‘parts’. Mind — Soul — Spirit.
My Body is healing nicely now. And the sugar (additives, etc) in the cookie were probably just exactly what it didn’t need. However, the other parts of me needed to feel Joy. They needed A Celebration — an acknowledgment Life was indeed going to go on. We had Survived.
So we had a cookie — a cranberry crunch cookie with our tea. All of us — Body — Mind — Spirit — Soul.
Because Life is short. So buy the cookie. Invest in Joy — whenever it calls you by name.
Namaste.
