Love Affairs

I had a love affair with the sun in my late teens and early twenties. I was a tanned, naturally bleached blonde goddess. Equally, carefully, tanned on all surfaces. I would carefully time and turn and twist so that no armpit or inner thigh was left untanned. That was a fad, it only lasted a couple years as I recall. That was a very deadly affectation as it turned out. Add those sun filled tanning days to a childhood sunscreen free, and one fateful major burn at 13 while surfing in March on Waikiki Beach and you get melanoma, at least for this Irish blonde. Thanks for an accidental miracle, a scratch I got while working in the garden, which lead me to notice a no longer innocent, slightly larger than before mole. It was pure intuition which prompted me to follow through and have it checked out and then finally it required a serious dose of hutzpa with the doctors involved. (I would be dead right now if I had not been my own impertinent, insolent, audacious advocate.) Anyway, I survived the melanoma after a lot of intensity, reality checks and a couple of surgeries on my lower middle back. I didn't mean for this to be a post about my brush with cancer... I'll look for some journal entries from those days... 1995 ish. I garnered quite a few interesting distinctions going through that experience, as you might imagine. I certainly earned the "cancer survivor" letters after my name. (An interesting thought / observation... like MD or PhD... CS, cancer survivor.. fodder for another day. Laurie McCauley, C.S. has a nice ring to it...there's a lot of us these days!)

I guess I'd have to say that smoking was my first illicit love affair. I think my affair with smoking and writing kicked off around the same time. I used the smoky stolen solitude to write. My first diary entry was in April 1979, I was 13. I was inspired by reading the Diary of Anne Frank. Pretty insane when you consider the circumstances that created that book and the incredible impact it had on me. It saved my life, writing has saved my life more than once over the decades. Chokes me up!

Writing is the only love affair of mine so far that is thoroughly good for me in every way and has no nasty, addictive, beastly or vulgar side effects. It came to me this morning, thus the source of this post, that most of my love affairs have turned illegitimate or adulterous in some way. Smoking was, certainly, and so was drinking. Perhaps misguided or reckless are better descriptors, any which way... they didn't serve me in the end.

While clearing the traffic jam on the hershey highway this morning, I came across this quote in my Nic Anonymous, Year of Miracles book: "I no longer search for "truth." I search only for beliefs that serve me, that help me to get where I truly want to go. Then I work diligently at discarding beliefs that work against me." Barry Neil Kaufman (interesting programs and retreat space 1.5 hours from me! The programs appear curious, but seems as though you still have to know where the fuck you want to go!)

The observation for the day is: I now realize I have a love affair, perhaps inappropriate, with food. (Breakfast, especially, eggs benedict, all flavors of sausage, limp smoky bacon, grits and flapjacks, waffles, hash browns, biscuits and gravy... scrambled, poached, baked, fried, tossed you gotta love em all... EGGS!  Makes my mouth water just thinking about it. The food exploration I've been on... the "diet" / "healthy eating" journey has made me aware of the physical presence of a bread, sugar and fat (sat or un) whore inside me. Shit!? I know now too that I have a love affair with coffee... I am a coffee snob and I'm quite certain that will also prove to be somehow unhealthy and I'll have to give it up. I know that moderation is the key but that's for most people. Abstinence seems to be my most sane and realistic option. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck as DeeAnne would say! As the quote says, my ray of hope at the moment, focus on the love affairs that serve me and discard the rest. Thank God for bathroom reading!

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