For years, I lived my life like the plate spinners.

You know, those guys you'd see from time to time on Bozo's Circus who, for their grand finale, kept what seemed like dozens of plates spinning atop dozens of poles via timely reapplication of force (and the apparently gyroscopic effect of the sabre dance).

It was funny to me, until it wasn't. After all, no matter how skillful you become, it still requires a great deal of energy and focus to keep those plates intact and in motion, which exacts a toll. And for what, ultimately? To prove you are a skillful chicken running around with your head cut off?

As I was getting my breakfast ready this morning, I realized that my life has become less about plate spinning and more about banana rotation. See, I'm not allowed to eat regular bananas on the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, so for the past five years, I've gotten in the habit of staggering my banana purchases so that I always have a few just coming into that overripe stage that puts them in the SCD safe zone.

Only sometimes, I screw up. I get busy (spinning plates, probably) and don't get to the store and all of a sudden there are no bananas, or only unripe (or perfect) bananas, which is the same as having no bananas on the SCD.

Here's the thing: when you fail to keep your plates spinning, you have loud noises and broken crockery; when you fail to rotate your bananas, you have...apples. Or yogurt. Or any one of a number of other foods to fall back on. Quiet, non-stressful foods that, while they may not be loaded with potassium, certainly can get the job done in a pinch. Lesson #20: Yes! we have no bananas

Talk about your zen koans...

xxx c

Image by greenhem via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.