About health-- a corollary on Farm to Table

    On my grandfather's table there was a pile of Christmas cards that were received from friends and relatives during the season, and as a child I liked to go through them and read. I believe every single text featured a good health wish for the year to come, and I remember thinking like this:

    "Why are these people so boring and not have anything more fun and exciting to wish for...?"

                                                                             *   *   *

    That was then, when as an overall healthy child I took such aspect for granted, and felt like health was something easily accessible. But as an adult I learned more and more about the misery of disease, from some of my own experiences and from others,' and I came to realize that health is one of the most  important assets. And it's not one so easy to regain once it's been harmed. As love, health is paramount. Everything seems possible when we are healthy. And everything appears meaningless when we are sick.

    I hate to push myself to do something when I do not feel well. My mother constantly took pills for migraines so she can deal with her nerve-racking job, and I would not see myself in her shoes. I feel that everything that I would do in such moments would be tinted by my disease, so when I am sick it's time for healing.

    I came to believe that people get sick because they no longer feed themselves. They chew, swallow, drink items that are somewhat edible, but don't nourish and are rather damaging. They are made to satisfy all kinds of pleasures, and generate profits, but they don't give the body that proper substance to keep it going. Historically,  people were concerned with longevity, but today there is more talk about health, how to avoid/heal cancer, or heart disease, the 2 main killers of modern world.  Because of too much disease, we forget about the ideals of youth and beauty, and how to keep them longer.

    So, I would try to prevent any disease. With prevention, though, people are doing different things. There is a general fear of earth, sun, rain, and people prefer the "clean" stuff from a store. Me too, when I first set foot in a supermarket, as they started to appear in my small city where I grew up, I was mesmerized by everything colorful, smooth and shiny, and wanted to be there more often. In time I learned about actual ingredients in the cute containers, and I was hit by the realization of fake. 

    So, I chose to return to earth. I want to fill up my body with the sap of the earth. To let it feed this earth body of mine. Give me those vegetables with soil on them, those with asymmetrical shapes, those with marks that tell me the story of a plant that fought the elements and pests without chemical "help!" I want even those with fuzz, spikes, seeds because it's how they are. 

    And I want to find the Garden of Eden, to sleep on a bed of ferns without having a phobia of crawling things. To dream perhaps of eating the fruit of everlasting life because I feel that I got enough of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

                                                                                 *   *   *

    Today I stopped by a small shop on the side of the road because it advertised local pistachios. The shop keeper, a tiny Asian lady, told me about her pistachios orchard not too far from the shop. She invited me to visit her farm in September, and she would shake the trees for me, she said. I am so used to get pistachios in plastic bags that I did not think how they actually grow. I've never seen a pistachio tree before, and I guess I have to wait for about a year to honor the invitation and see one...

Comments

  1. AnonymousOctober 26, 2022 at 10:44 PM

    Așa e, am pierdut legătura cu pământul.

    ReplyDelete

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