Flossing

“If I can floss, I can do anything.”

My good friend uttered these profound words a week or two ago when we gathered over coffee to ponder our talents and wonder where our future career paths might lie. We had talent assessments, course brochures, and deep, spiritual books covering the table, but my takeaway from our conversation was the newfound zeal she had for flossing. Indeed, I saw her passion echoed in headlines from this weekend which trumpeted studies that found correlations between heart health and gum health. Those with gum disease were much more likely to have heart disease (http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/features/periodontal-disease-heart-health). Could the secret to long life and health be written on a simple strand of floss?

I held on to the slender weave and warp of this idea over the past several days when all career ambitions fled before the energy of my children and the emergent tornado of my frustration at my ineffectiveness as a parent. Coursework and earned income seem years away as I struggle to keep the house clean (OK, just passable), hold my temper through bedtime, modify the sharp words that leap to my tongue, and struggle to find gluten and dairy-free alternatives for every meal. I have not found time to pray or meditate and be thankful for our good health, good friends, and loving family. I was on the bow end of the Titanic last week, sinking fast, but every so often the thought came to me, “if I could just start flossing, I could do anything!”

For of course, I don’t floss regularly. For a long time I did not believe that anyone flossed – that it was a grand scheme laid up by dentists and the Catholic Church to make us feel powerfully guilty. I did not grow up flossing and had no real interest in adding it to my bedtime routine (though periodic visits to the dentist are a powerful incentive). My friend urged me to start, saying that she had never flossed until recently and that once it became a habit she could not imagine going to bed unless she had cleaned every crevice. Apparently overcoming the hurdle of flossing was enough to power her ambitions for the future and restore faith in her abilities. The flossing attitude appears to be just what I need to make it through the last few weeks of winter.

As flossing might be a simple preventive measure to restoring heart health, requiring only dedication and an inexpensive length of floss, a short period of prayer and gratitude might help my evening energy and restore some balance. I vow right here, on this keyboard and page, that I will start to floss each night, and moreover that I will use that time to say at least one prayer of gratitude or reflect on one action of the day while I clean my gums. The key to mental, physical and spiritual health contained in one act? You may be dubious but I hold to my new mantra, “if I can floss, I can do anything.”