The Brewster Bulletin: Smoothie Memories

I had a sudden flashback this morning. Sometime between my morning family practice zoom meeting and my first patient OTN visit, as I washed out the dirty smoothie glasses in the sink, I remembered a similar moment in time an era or so ago. Except it wasn’t the physical washing out of the smoothie glasses that I remembered- those got put in the sink in a mad rush to get everyone out of the house on time - it was a vague recollection of someone asking me what in particular made me feel successful. And I said, quite clearly, in that pre-COVID time, that it was the odd day where I had time to make a smoothie for my kids in the morning that made me feel like I was winning at life.

What a completely ludicrous answer.

Today, the morning smoothie is just as much a part of our routine as is our daily walk and and virtual French lessons with Grandma Lynda. In fact, the morning smoothie is now so commonplace that every now and then my kids don’t FEEL like having a smoothie and opt instead of scrambled eggs or an omelette.

I actually had to stop and think, my hands covered in soapy water, to remember what it was that made smoothie making SO difficult.

First, there was an alarm clock that went off. Not mine- I never heard Rob’s alarm because it went off way before the sun even thought about rising – and he was often out of the house before MY alarm went off. I would then shower. (EVERY DAY!) And put on REALLY NICE work clothes – this is pre scrubs, remember – before waking my kids ups. I remember there was a VERY PARTICULAR way I was allowed to wake Toby up. It involved quietly entering his room, turning off his fan and waiting patiently for the first sign of movement before softly whispering, “Toby. It’s 7:15! Time to get up!” Then there was the MADRUSH to make lunches. LUNCHES! What a painful procedure! There was the hunt for Tupperware lids that fit, the fight over who got which leftover, the nagging from Toby not to forget a SPOON again. There was the silent self beratement at feeding my kids such an inadequate array of processed foods – granola bars, yoghurt tubes, cheese strings, fruit cups- UGH. The daily mental note to self to google how to make homemade granola bars. Every now and then there was “litterless lunch day” which required the extra step of taking all of the above items out of the packages and putting them in appropriately sized Tupperware first. Then I’d make my own lunch. Then I’d sign their agendas. Sometimes we would have to do a last minute refresher on spelling words. Then we’d have to make sure the kids got DRESSED and brushed their teeth AND HAIR. All BEFORE school started!! And there was a firm deadline -8:22. That bus driver waited for NO ONE. Then the mad rush home to vacuum, clean the kitchen and get myself to hospice before I got myself to my FULL waiting room of family medicine patients in Wasaga Beach.

I was starting to remember why throwing a homemade smoothie into this mix was such an accomplishment.

Nowadays my kids wake up when their bodies are ready to wake up. I can leave my office to hug them each good morning and then handdeliver them a smoothie to their classroom. All of which is within a 25 m radius. We take breaks in all of our days to go for walks or bike rides. Lunch we do together. Often, between meetings or virtual patient visits, I check in on them and see how their day is going. Rob and I sometimes drink tea or coffee on the front porch before we start our afternoons. And there isn’t a fruit cup or a cheese string in the house.

Smoothie successes aside, I now have time to languish over my hospice visits. My palliative patients who are well enough to leave their house don’t have to sit in my uncomfortable office chairs to see me- it turns out that OTN visits from our respective couches is just as intimate, if not more so.

I have to admit that I no longer count “smoothie making” as a measure of my success each day. I’m not sure how I would answer that question right now – perhaps staying healthy and keeping my kids happy? Or perhaps it was completing my first easel canvas painting with Mia the other week. Or maybe it’s when I come through victorious over Rob at our family Top Chef challenge night?

If you had told me it would take a world pandemic to get my kids away from processed lunches I probably would have believed you. If you had told me that it would take a pandemic to even fathom a world where we slowed down to such an extent that priorities and goals completely shifted to unforeseen levels I probably wouldn’t have.

I don’t know how I fully measure my success right now but I can tell you how I will measure it in the future. Looking to a future era when we reach a new balance and a new “normal” and expectations go back to in class learning and full office days and rep hockey and processed lunches, I’m going to measure my own success by my ability to hold tight to these shifted priorities and remember the time when the world might have been a bit scarier, but made a whole lot more sense. Ironically, it has taken a pandemic to make our lives that much healthier.