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July 14 CHEWING ON LIFEMany years ago after moving back to the Midwest from New Mexico, I invited my Mother to dinner for some carnitas and papas fritas. New Mexican style carnitas consist of bite-sized pieces of beef sauteed in olive oil with loads of garlic. The papas fritas are potatoes fried in that same olive oil/garlic mixture. It's quite different and a real taste treat, especially if you're a lover of garlic like we are. I always said that if we could get by putting garlic and hot peppers in Jell-O, we'd do it. [Now you understand the reason for my Forum moniker--Halliepena (jalapeno).]
That evening, though, I had purchased a very, very cheap cut of meat. The beef was tasty but so very tough, so much so that Mom invested an inordinate amount of time just chewing it. She could never break it down enough to swallow it and so would chew for the flavor and then spit it out. At the end of the evening, as she was readying to leave, we exchanged our usual hugs and kisses. She started out the door, then turned back and wanting to thank me but still stay honest, said, "Thanks for inviting me to dinner. That was some of the best meat I ever chewed." That has become a favorite joke of ours over the years.
I was thinking about that the other day, that that's also how some of us (me, in particular) have tended to live our lives. We chew on life but never fully give in to it. We're in attendance but yet we never attend. Who knows the reasons why--there is work, and there are bills, and sometimes kids, and relationships, and personal issues of all sorts that seem to get in the way of truly savoring life. But perhaps as a function of age and definitely an outcropping of being diagnosed with cancer, I find myself drawn to people who do give in to life, people who take risks--physically, relationship-wise, etc.--folks who don't just chew on life but live in the here and now. And I find myself drawn to that life approach.
It's taken a few years and some "bumps" along the way, but who knows? Maybe someday I'll be able to say, that was the best life I ever lived!
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