“I can resist anything except temptation.” —Oscar Wilde

Greetings Dear Ones,

Halloween looms, yet I have not a single costume to sew. After nearly eight months of universal mask wearing and depressed candy bingeing, does such a “holiday” even have any relevance in 2020? Who knows? I plan to dress up like a witch anyway and dance widdershins around a campfire of weeds and brush made from clearing the Land of Lost Plots. I’m not sure there will be treats—or even what a “treat” means these days.

Three hundred and sixty-three days a year I am very anti-candy and will tell anyone within earshot that it is poison. Years ago, we were known as “that house” that gave away storytelling cassette tapes or cds to trick-or-treaters. (Yes, I said cassette tapes! That’s how long ago it was…) My inner child, however, is pestering me. “What,” she wants to know, “about the Milk Duds?” She has become obsessed with these nasty little sugar scabs after years of raiding my children’s cauldrons and confiscating them because they were “bad for their teeth.” Snickers, Reeses, Dove chocolates—all notoriously bad for children’s teeth and must be donated to the nearest self-sacrificing mother stepping up to do her bit for the sake of her children!

Now, when I buy candy… um… “for the neighbors,” (yeah, that’s it), I pick out all mini milk dud boxes and stash them safely in my laundry cupboard. After all, I really wouldn’t like to endanger anyone’s denture work during a pandemic when it’s so hard to see a dentist! I would never suffer anyone to undergo pain I would not endure myself. I’m noble like that.

Recently, a fellow traveler, weary of isolation in the time of Covid, asks me an intriguing question: “Where do your emotional calories come from?” What “feeds” you, nourishes you, and keeps you strong in times of trouble?” I pause and consider those Milk Duds. What does she mean? Does she mean “treat” calories or what might be considered emotional Kale? Given the choice between kale and a Milk Dud, kale is not really the thing I would consider a treat. Yet, I feel very good when I eat it and I eat it all year round, growing as much of it as I can in the garden and then purchasing the rest. I feel disgusting when I eat Milk Duds and allow myself to have them once a year at Halloween only. This year, I cannot decide when, or even if, I will eat them. They are still in the laundry room, hidden away in their little basket. Do I eat them as a reward? A reward for what? If I am feeling well and doing well, why would I want to give myself a stomach ache and then feel awful? Or do I eat them when my resistance is low, when I feel like I’m failing everything anyway, and I feel terrible already? How will doing this help lift me out of the rut? And yet, I LOVE Milk Duds so much! What then, exactly, is a treat for me? I hoard my little stock of toffee sugar clots in rebellion against the idea of permanent deprivation, while my inner child threatens to fling herself off the nearest bridge if she doesn’t get her way. “I am a Grown-Up, damn it,” I insist petulantly. I get to decide stuff like this. I am “allowed” these Milk Duds, if I truly want them, no matter what Prudence has to say about it. I don’t even have to wait until October 31st. But when? And Why?

It brings me back to the over-arching notion of what good self-care means for me. In some ways, I believe that self care involves doing all the things I am supposed to do for myself –things like eat kale; be on time for appointments; pay bills and keep to the budget; keep the kitchen tidy and stocked with more than just popcorn and Tabasco sauce; make sure dog poop gets picked up before someone tromps it all over the house like a shoe-shaped shit-stamp… These make life more manageable on some level but I don’t necessarily consider them as “filling some need”—more like their absence creates more need, or an unhealthy environment. I hate to exercise but I feel better if I do. Caring for my children, for others, for the house, for the garden and the sheep and chickens—yes, these all “feed” me in some way. But they are also chores that drain me too.

Some things—like playing music, dancing, knitting, sewing, spinning wool—these are things that feed my spirit—but doing them takes time away from other things. Singing, praying, being outside—these are things I can do without much fatigue but other things fall into a swinging sort of space where they drain or nourish me depending on me, on them, on the day, and the overall load. If things can be done with leisure, at a pace that suits me, such as weeding, ironing, cooking, or cleaning, they can be extremely nourishing and fulfilling tasks. There is nothing I like quite as much as settling into a Saturday afternoon’s ironing or mending with Brian O’Donovan’s “A Celtic Soujourn” or a good podcast like Trad Café on in the background while I take my time. Keeping domestic things in a reasonable balance is the wholesome “Kale” of my emotional life. There are a few elements of my life, while quite good for me, that are so depleting they cannot be sustained for very long: Each day, I find I can run for no more than 30-40 minutes, and I can only write for about 2 hours. Then I must wait until the next day for the tank to refill.

I think about the question, “what feeds me?” and it is so depressing to look at my life, as it is now, and realize that very little emotional food does not come with some sort of fatigue or “cost.” The chaos embedded in this lifestyle means that if I do this: _______________ (insert deeply fulfilling activity that causes my soul to blossom) then I am not doing that:_____________(insert obligation which ensures the survival of civilization on some level, or at least the prevention of tooth decay…) and then some little neglected thing flares into a bonfire I have to stop everything to put out. While I tend to one “bonfire,” of course, by default, I am neglecting a host of other little things which are themselves turning into bonfires as we speak. Eventually, I find myself lurching from crisis to crisis, burned and dazed, with my eyebrows singed off, because I let the general management of things go in favor of some little “Emotional Milk Dud” I needed that wasn’t part of a healthy plan. These “EMDs” come at a heavy cost. They, like real Milk Duds, cannot be daily fare. Or so I tell myself, with a familiar, sinking, deprived feeling.

I think about how much I love Milk Duds, the real ones and the emotional ones. I think about how being so fiercely wedded to my own schedule ensures that I cannot contribute to others out of sequence, nor ever, do I have the time available to let them contribute to me in ways I am not the boss of. This feels like too much Kale, too much perfection with nothing “perfect” about it at all.

I think about my dear friend, who died of cancer the year before my own life, as I knew it then, came tumbling down in the rubble of divorce. We used to talk about when she would give up fighting. She was consuming nothing but raw juices and herbal supplements at that point, in a last ditch bargain to be able to see her kids graduate high school, to attend their someday weddings, to hold her grandchildren, or sip red wine in jazz cafes. She said “Any day now, when the doctors give the signal that nothing more can be done, you and I are going to go to New York city to be like two big hungry caterpillars who eat their way around all my favorite menus and memories. I want to taste everything bad for me just one more time. I can’t wait until all I eat is ice-cream. Not just any ice cream, either—the slow-churned homemade stuff at Rota Spring Farm, where the cows hang over the fence and watch you...” And we would both sigh and continue our sugar-free bargaining for “something better” than having what we truly wanted, as life ebbed from us both.

We never made it to New York.

Even scarier than the ancient Celtic idea that the dead get to roam the earth for a night, or fears surrounding the upcoming election, is the idea that we spend a lot of time Alive yet not daring to Live. In our loneliness and lock-downs, we remember those Milk Dud dance partners, those Milk Dud late nights until dawn, those Milk Dud impulses and the cavities they inevitably brought our teeth, morals, or hearts. Despite our abstinence, Rot sets in around the longing to taste them one more time. We feel deprived. In a world more-than-usually obsessed with avoiding Death, how much poison are we allowed in order to “Live a little”?

At its core, Maturity seems to be about Trust. Trust is the foundation of our ability to transform ourselves. If we trust ourselves, we treat ourselves better. If we trust each other, we treat each other better. Can we trust ourselves to do the best things? Make the best choices? We have some big choices coming up. Do we know what to cut out and what to allow without creating tyranny? Do we live for Today or put it off until Tomorrow? And HOW are we to deny, reward, or comfort ourselves when that sweet, golden Darkness calls from the Laundry room cupboard?

I’m Curious. How are you treating yourself, Dear One? Where is your daily nourishment? What is your “kale”? And again, the question that plagues me still: “When can we eat the Milk Duds?”

With sew much love,

Yours aye,

Nancy