Cinnamon Pershings

A narrow dirt walkway runs along the edge of a wash near the place where I work. A wash, for those of you not in the desert, is a dry river bed or stream bed that fills with water when the rains come. Because the soil is wetter, plants often make their home there rather than in some of the less hospitable wider spaces of the desert.

I like to walk there sometimes during my lunch hour, and the other day I noticed the sign by the entrance:

ATTENTION

Stay on the Path

I thought of that sign quite a bit yesterday after I went to the grocery story and picked up a couple of cinnamon pershings, a cinnamon roll type pastry. I knew, of course, when I bought them that they contained more sugar and fat than anyone who's trying to lose another 20 pounds should consume in one sitting. I knew that the roll that remains on my belly would not be going anywhere anytime soon if I keep eating like that. And I knew that if I have to take on that many calories, it should at least be in the form of something even marginally nutritious. None of this knowledge prevented me from buying and downing the pershings just the same.

Why did I do it? I'm not sure, but the impulse was and is familiar. Sometimes it's object is TV watching; sometimes it involves recalling past mistakes and berating myself over them; sometimes, like yesterday, it's about consuming something that I just have to eat. In each circumstance, I feel an overwhelming sense that if I don't buy and eat, don't watch, don't indulge in that thought or emotion, something terrible will happen. Or maybe something satisfying won't.

Yes, it is satisfying, even the recrimination afterward. When I do those things, that's the old familiar self, the one who can't help it, the one who doesn't have to change, the one who can go on living life asleep. And I don't really want to get rid of that guy; he's part of who I am. But he also keeps me anxious and oblivious and jumping jumping jumping for the latest bright emotional gizmo to keep me amused. He's always out of breath.

I want to breathe. I want to feel the air in my lungs. When I was a little boy, I used to tell myself in the middle of asthma attacks that I would be satisfied if I could only breathe. When my parents fought, I'd think that if I could only have a home where no one hurt anyone else, where I could feel safe, that would be enough.

And it is enough. To love and be loved, to have a safe, clean home, to be healthy, to be in the peace of my own mind. All I have to do is pay attention. All I have to do is stay on the path.