Sweet Peace #30: Review of Progress

Back in Santa Barbara

Well into the second half of this self-imposed challenge, perhaps a review is in order? I decide to reread the posts made since this journey began on December 21, 2021, when I wrote:

Sugar has always been a central character in my drama: 

a reward, a treat, a temptress, a siren song 

leading me toward the rocky shores of a toxic desire. 

… for the next 52 weeks, 

I am going on a journey to find non-food/drink 

replacements for the desire for sweetness.

… finding sweetness in life, indulging in joy and celebration, focusing on gratitude and connection 

rather than taste bud ecstasy.

The first post ended with healing words from Maria Sabina:

“Heal yourself with the light of the sun 

and the rays of the moon. With the sound of the river 

and the waterfall. With the swaying of the sea 

and the fluttering of  birds.

Heal yourself, with  beautiful love, 

and always remember ... 

you are the medicine.” 

The second post, written after the chaos of the holidays, outlined some guidelines which still seem on track:

- Create emotionally supportive non-food rituals and celebrations.

- Avoid eating in a moving car. 

- Avoid solo sugar … allow it to be a small treat saved for social settings.

- Understand that if I buy it, I will eat it … all of it.

Major Win: A 63-day sugar fast seems to have broken the obsession. Sugar cravings seldom happen and I seem to be able to tolerate it occasionally without triggering a binge. The process of limiting sugar to rare social events seems to hold the sugar cycle at bay. 

I also know how easily I could lose this peace if I once again open the door. Having lunch with a friend, I noticed a family celebrating a birthday. At the head of the table was a lovely bundt cake dripping with icing and I could feel it tugging at me as I walked by. However, thoughts of sugar have diminished and that feels good.

One of my favorite movies … Jeremiah Johnson … has a line when the ancient griz hunter (Bear Claw) says to the now-seasoned mountain man (Jeremiah), “Ye’ve come far pilgrim.” 

I, too,  feel that I have come far, with even further to travel.

The pilgrimage of life is seldom like the movies

Dream Genie

In one of my favorite movies, Jeremiah Johnson, the ancient wisdom keeper Bear Claw Chris Lapp watches the progress of the beautifully ignorant Jeremiah as he deals with the wilderness in his pilgrimage to become a mountain man. After a long series of trials, Bear Claw gives him the ultimate accolade when he says, “You’ve come far, Pilgrim.”

I like the idea of being a pilgrim, of being on a pilgrimage, although that carries with it the idea of a destination. When I think of my journey, a few-days short of seventy-two years, I marvel at how far I’ve come but still wonder where I’m going.

My earliest memories begin in the north woods of Washington … living in a tent. My dad, actually my step-father, my mother having ended her marriage to my birth father shortly after it began, for reasons she would never … or could never … reveal, was a DIY kind of guy. So, as we lived for six months in a large, Army-style tent, he built the garage for the would-be-but-never-actually-happened house. My few memories of that time include seeing grass grow up through the floor and hearing wolves howl when my dad went off to work and left my mother and me to deal with the immense, lonely darkness.

Jeremiah wanted to be a mountain man and he followed that certainty through trials long and challenging, gradually becoming what he imagined. When Bear Claw meets Jeremiah for the last time, he asks, “Were it worth the trouble?” Jeremiah, by now grizzled and worn, mere grunts, “Huh! What trouble?”

Joyce Wycoff, age three

Certainty is easier in movies. 

My own path, or pilgrimage, seems to be more a long series of dead ends, marked by signs saying, “Try something else.” But, at each turn, there was a token, a gift, a learning, something revealed. When I look at the only known professional photo of my childhood, I see that same beautiful ignorance of what lay ahead, of who I would become, am still becoming.

I am grateful for the gift of a long and healthy life which has given me time to peel back so many layers of this endless onion, discovering light and shadows never imagined. 

Writing this in the Mexican village of Ajijic, I'm on my way to Lake Bacalar, known as the Lake of Seven Colors, where a friend and I will stay in an Airbnb home right on the lake ... with two kayaks to explore all seven colors.

I still shiver at the wonder and beauty of it all.  

Lake Bacalar (Photo credit and info)

Behind my garage of a house in those northern woods, there was a filbert orchard with mounds that called to me. My memory of them is that they were tall and I could climb up to the top of them and see forever. I imagine that three-year-old child, trying to see further than her own height would allow, sitting … alone … on those mounds, and wonder what she was thinking and feeling.

I wish I could reach back and tell her that all will be well, that some day she will be in a beautiful, friendly place, where she is often alone, but never lonely. 

About the image: "Dream Genie”

My dreams have been active lately, and, as usual, I wonder from whence they come. Sparks for this image came from a stunning piece of Chihuly glass work seen with a friend at the Clinton Library in Little Rock, Arkansas, another beautiful piece of glass seen in Tlaquepaque, Mexico, and a piece of wall art found here in Ajijic, Mexico. Bits and pieces meld together into one message.

Favorite bits from the movie, Jeremiah Johnson:

Movie Clip: Bear Claw meets Jeremiah

Movie Clip: Last meeting of Bear Claw and Jeremiah