There is a store about 15 minutes away from my house which sells homemade, handmade chocolates. There’s a reason why they’d just been featured on the food network…they are just amazing. As you open the door a breeze of sweet chocolate floats you inside. The view is of endless cases of rich chocolate confections and jewel-like candies, in a kaleidoscope of colors and shapes. As if all of this isn’t enough, they also offer ice creams during the summer including an apple-cranberry sorbet that is my particular favorite. The flavor is like a first snow of sweet-tart apple cider melting on your tongue. It’s remarkable.
Yes, I have diabetes. But as long as I’m breathing I will find a
way to keep that sorbet (and chocolate) in my life. Having diabetes and wanting to live a long
healthy life means that I can’t get a huge dish and eat it with abandon – like
I want to. And maybe I can’t get a box
of their fabulous dark chocolates along with the sorbet and indulge in a sugar
fest all in one night - like the old days.
But I can pick out a few
chocolates and space them out over the next week, and I can bring home a small ½ cup portion of sorbet to enjoy tonight
after dinner. Planning for that sorbet,
figuring out how to incorporate it into my meal plan and anticipating every
ethereal spoonful is a pleasure that I give myself without guilt or reservation.
Periodically
through the winter I think about that particular sorbet and anticipate the joy
of that first spoonful on a sunny summer day.
A pale blush color scooped into its paper cup, translucent and icy, it’s
unlike any other ice cream or sherbet I’ve ever had. The stuff dreams are made of…literally. A dream that effortlessly survives the long,
cold New England winters.
And finally today was that day. The first day of summer, sunny and beautiful,
it was the perfect day for a drive to Richardson’s. I called ahead to be sure that they would
have the sorbet. If they didn’t I knew
I’d be disappointed, but not as badly as arriving with that taste-memory in my
mouth and finding in that moment that it had run out. Better to know ahead of time.
You
can probably imagine my dismay when the woman who answered explained that they
no longer served apple-cranberry sorbet.
She explained that it just wasn’t popular enough. Are people insane? What’s wrong with everyone? How could a flavor like that not jump off the
shelves? When I sighed regretfully she
lowered her voice and whispered into the phone “have you tried Herrel’s in
Northampton”?
“Why?”
I asked. “Do they have that flavor too?”
Hope surged in my chest as I latched onto the possibility that the
sorbet wasn’t an impossible dream.
“That’s where WE always got it from” she said in a low voice.
It
took a moment for this new information to sink in. Oh wow.
Not only was the sorbet available to me, but I could go to the source,
the original creator and get it there. I
quickly went on line for directions and a phone number for the store. I called and was told that they had the
apple-cranberry sorbet in stock today along with over 100 other ice cream
choices.
Feeling
like I’d just discovered King Tut’s treasure, I jumped in the car with an ice
chest full of ice and drove to Northampton with Sharon. As we drove I thought about the ice cream TV
special I’d recorded on the DVR and we anticipated how much fun it would be to
watch the show and taste a number of different flavors along with the beloved
sorbet.
I
remember 30 years ago when we first met we’d go to Friendly’s and get giant
banana splits called Jim Dandy’s. Four
scoops of ice cream with hot fudge, strawberry topping, marshmallow crème,
bananas, nuts, whipped crème, sprinkles and a cherry on top. They were decadent and delicious and one of
our favorite indulgences.
There’s
no way I can eat a Jim Dandy anymore. I
don’t even want to imagine how many carbs there are in such a giant and toxic
dessert. Thinking about it fills me with
nostalgia and a wild blast of anger. How
can we as a society justify creating such self-destructive time bombs wrapped
in Norman Rockwell innocence? I feel
like I’ve spent a lifetime being tricked and trapped and seduced, all the while
being told that I’m massively guilty and responsible and the one to blame.
But
underneath, around and beyond the swirl of conflicted feelings, the untainted
desire for ice cream lives on. And
finding a way to eat a small amount, as a planned part of my healthy meal plan
successfully restores the purity, innocence and pleasure without any self-doubt
or recrimination. I can claim the right
to ice cream pleasure as well as virtue and a feeling of self-control. A win-win situation.
So
we set off for Herrel’s with our ice chest and big smiles. How many flavors will we get? Can we get them to put them into individual
cups so the flavors are separated for perfect tasting conditions?! When we arrived we made a list of the flavors
we wanted and happily they agreed to package them separately. While I waited for our ice cream, Sharon
went to get the car so we could get them into the cooler as quickly as
possible.
I
stood by the cash register while they scooped.
Looking around I watched the busy store and customers ordering their
various mix-ins and sundaes. As my gaze
swung around I settled on a glass case up front. Looking more closely I saw some specialty
products available for sale. A whole
line of hot fudge sauces with various flavors.
Small bags of specialty chocolate designer sprinkles. Oh my.
The sprinkles looked delicious.
The fudge sauces sounded decadent and luscious. Coconut dark fudge? Mmmm.
Then
I noticed the baked goods. A nine-layer
dark chocolate ganache torte cake.
Moist, fudgy and huge, it was like some sort of utopian cake of the
Gods. Next to it was a platter of gooey,
dense, dark chocolate brownies covered with a soft, thick blanket of rich
frosting. In the front was a half of a
chocolate chip cookie pie. Made entirely
of cookie dough, studded with large chunks of dark chocolate and topped with a
shimmering sugar crust, it screamed “eat me”, “eat me now!” My mouth watered as I studied the cake, the
cookie pie, the brownies. I could feel
my heart beating faster and I could almost taste the chocolate melting in my
mouth, the chewy cookie as I slowly bit down on its caramel, chocolaty
goodness. The melting explosion of
flavor as the gooey brownie filled my mouth.
I could smell the sugar, the chocolate; feel the ganache coating my
lips, tongue, and mouth.
As
I stood at the cash register, riveted by the treasure in that case, the sounds
around me dulled into the background, the motions in the store slowed into a
dream-like slow motion, and all that mattered was me and that case filled with
the seductive promise of bliss. To say
that I wanted to bring it all home can’t ever capture the depth of my
fascination, hunger, or fierce desire to immerse myself inside all of that
creamy heaven so it was covering my face, my hands, filling my mouth, breathing
it, tasting it, thrilling to it, becoming it.
With
a jerk, I pulled away from the fantasy and paid for my order. As I walked to the car outside I was a little
dazed from balancing on that jagged edge.
Not that I would have bought anything.
Not that I would have actually thrown my health and caution away and
actually indulged my darkest desire.
But just the intensity of that desire clawing inside me – the trembling
depth of it – shook me up. Where does
that come from?
It wasn’t the covering up of
feelings that drove me to that wild, bestial, craven place. It wasn’t a natural human appreciation of
sugar that resulted in that walking dream sequence. It was complicated, layered, and confusing. And mostly…what I’m left with is the sheer
force of it. Like the power of a
thousand suns exploding in my chest.
So here I am now. Trying to make sense of what just
happened. The ice cream sits safely in
my freezer waiting for this evenings treat.
I will eat an appropriate amount and enjoy it appropriately. I will feel proud of myself control and
impressed with my adult, sane, measured choices. As I have a right to be. As a food addict, as someone who lives with
the growling beast of excess inside, it’s nothing short of miraculous that I
can harness the clawing compulsion for wild abandon and live safely on the
sharp edge.
But I’m still left with the shaken
memory of that compelling dark thrill calling to me like an (almost)
irresistible siren. And left feeling
unsatisfied, denied and cheated out of something I can never have. Flames still licking around my suicidal
fantasizing. I don’t want to be someone
who can have such a dark need for excess.
I don’t want to be someone who can feel so much for food. I see the pathetic horror of my obsession and
am mortified by myself. Addiction is
ugly, even when coated in chocolate and covered with sprinkles. And no matter how many years I live in
control, make good choices, get healthier physically and emotionally, that
churning chaos inside will always lurk…dark and dangerous and hungry.
I remember reading that Amy
Winehouse died. Succumbed finally to her
addictions. Everyone shook their heads –
they saw it coming. She was a train
wreck and it was only a matter of time until her self-destructive drinking and
drugging took her life. They don’t see
me the same way. But Amy and I are
kindred troubled spirits. I fight the
same demons she did. And all I can say
is that today, for today, I won the fight.
But Amy didn’t.
If I could wish for something it
would be that we all didn’t have to fight so hard to live. But maybe that’s what we’re meant to do. Maybe it’s part of what makes life so very precious. Because it’s worth fighting for. Every soft summer day, every impossibly blue
sky, every joyous shared drive to an ice cream shoppe, every moment shared with
someone we love, it’s worth fighting for.
With everything I have and with everything I am…I want to live.
