The Daily Word for March 8, 2021

 

ruminate - verb - 1. to contemplate or think deeply about something or 2. to chew partially digested food

"And now for something completely different" (cue Monty Python), I am including both denotations of a word, not just the primary. Why, you ask? The two are so different, yet related. Most intelligent adults know that rumination involves thinking, not that they want to put much effort into it lately unless forced. Yesterday, I was lucky enough to get part uno of the COVID-19 vaccination, courtesy of Pfizer, at a clinic forty minutes north of my house. Afterwards, I was asked to wait thirty minutes in case of side effects. So in a sterile section, I sat in a translucent cubicle, six feet from others who were doing the same thing. As I had no reading materials on me other than my smartphone that was battery compromised, I started the precarious occupation of rumination. Immediately, I thought of Woody Allen. Yes, I know. Strange. But actually it made sense given who I am. In situations that conjure fear, I tend to ruminate along comical lines. Remembering a scene from Allen's satirical "Take the Money and Run," I envisioned turning into a rabbi as a possible aftereffect, and I smiled. (I'm a Christian woman.) How's that for optimism? O.K., I guess if you're Jewish, you may not see it that way. Yet in my case, the incongruence was comic.

Part dos of the definition is usually related to goats or other dense farm animals since they chew the cud (re-chew what may be regurgitated - yuck) probably without realizing it. I doubt if goats ruminate when they ruminate, but we could and most likely do. Even a "This is gross" would count as rumination under these circumstances. If you like meat and happen to be chewing a piece of steak that is well done, you might be doing quite a bit of ruminating while ruminating just to get through the experience.

What you choose to ruminate about or over is, of course, your prerogative. You create your own mindset. While in my situation (medical duress), which was surely a test of patience, I could have gone in the opposite direction and drummed up negative imagery, provoking fear. However, being an optimist, that option was not in my bag of tricks. Rumination, after all, is under the nomenclature of "Free Will." 

Words to the wise: when ruminating, choose comedy over tragedy when possible.

Happy Monday! 

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