In the Mexican state of Chiapas there is a little village called San Juan Chamula. Many years ago we visited. We drove past the freshly-mounded graves heaped with pine needles and then arrived in the town. I don’t remember much about the town besides dust, dogs and poverty and a beautiful blue and white church.

The bright exterior of the church was in stark contrast to the interior. The murmur of prayers and ceremonies were muffled by the fog of incense and the thick carpet of fresh pine needles lying on the floor. The light, dim and golden, was lit by hundreds of flickering candles. The air felt deep and warm with the piney aroma of resin and melting wax; a smell I immediately wanted to bottle and breathe in for the rest of eternity.

Parishioners knelt in front of the statue of John. Jesus, a minor saint, stood off to the side. Like the other statues, he was dressed in fresh clothes and surrounded by mirrors.

A shaman stood in front of a believer as she sat on the church pew, her hands resting on her thickly-woven woolen skirt. A chicken egg was rolled over her glossy black hair, and then was moved closely over her embroidered blouse. The evil illness would be transferred into the egg and the egg would then be buried to take her sickness away.

Nearer to the wall, another woman was seated while the shaman used a live chicken for the same effect. It would be then killed and buried as well. Small tilting blue crosses dotted the tiny homes’ front yards, proof of how often these methods and subsequent burials had been used.

Like everywhere else in the world, Coke promised to add life. But in San Juan Chamula, the bubbly black liquid is a potion to burp out evil spirits. Red crates of empty bottles towered against the back of the low store, testament to Coke’s curative powers.  Whether the cure was for a baby or an adult, once they had imbibed enough Coke, they’d burp and the evil spirits causing their illness, or other evil possessions, would be released.

Unfortunately, excorcising all those evil spirits left a wake of black crumbling teeth from the babies to the elderly. But surely that’s a minor price to pay for ridding onceself of a demon or two?

Today I started thinking about trying the Coca Cola cure.

Because here’s the thing. I am being as grown-up as possible in the face of my friend’s newly-diagnosed brain cancer. Since Sunday’s news, I have been the Queen of Hanging with the Unknowingness.

I am the wise counsel who suggests it’s okay that we don’t have any answers, that we simply have to do this one day at a time. We have to be hopeful but free of expectations. We don’t need to know the exact diagnosis, we need to be patient, we need to believe she’s in good hands, it’s not up to us, let go and let God…Are you getting the picture yet?

The facts are that you only have to hang around me for an hour or two before I bring you to tears with my blathering about breathing and accepting.

I am, in other words, one big bloody walking-talking whack of cliched homilies and new-age bullshit. I am the fucking embodiment of Eckhart Tolle’s Power-of-Nowness.

But you know what? That guy’s a twerp.

So forget a Coke-induced burp or two. Frankly, I just want to down enough Coke to throw-up.

I’m beginning to think it’s a much more reasonable response.