Playing Hookie

Pureed tomato soup: sauteed onion, garlic, carrot, and diced tomato, white beans and raw avocado add creamy texture, salt and pepper and fresh basil, cilantro, and oregano add yum.

Miso soup for breakfast.

Nori rolls with black rice, carrot, red pepper, tofu, and cilantro, plus tamari and wasabi gravy, and pickled ginger.

Yesterday's salad: spinach and lettuce from the garden, bell pepper, grapefruit, Spanish onion, heirloom beans, avocado, and sprouted lentils.

I'm playing hookie from cancer for two more weeks before radiation begins, using the time to wrap up client projects, organize my office, weed the garden, exercise, play with my dog, and cook. I've also instituted a new, earlier bedtime, which is serving me well.

The key to happiness, I'm convinced — for me anyway — is to do less of a million things and more of just a few. Less multitasking, less rushing (as I've said), and more work on the things that matter most to me. More lounging around reading too. It's a new discipline, but so far so good.

I have a goal to finish a book proposal (I'm working on a cookbook, have I told you?) by the time I start radiation. I may or may not make that deadline. In a way, it doesn't matter, as long as I'm making progress. What matters most is balance. But I do think I might make that deadline!

I'm determined to open a new chapter of my life in which the work I want to do is at center stage (writing, art) and in which there is at least a moment if not long hours of aimless pleasure each day.

Cancer reminds me that each day is precious and irretrievable. I can worry about not getting as many days as I thought, or I can savor what I've got.

I choose the latter.

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