Temperance Tantrum
I dreaded that giving up my favorite sugar indulgence—chocolate—would be a burden. In fact, a few days before I began my sugar temperance, Joe returned from a business trip during which he hit the jackpot and found some of our favorite chocolates. They aren’t available locally and are prohibitively expensive to ship, so he bought one of just about every flavor he could find. It’s all currently in our chocolate drawer. (Don’t judge.)
Some people have a junk drawer. We have a chocolate drawer.
Okay, I know that looks bad, but that chocolate will last us from here to kingdom come. We still have a single pouch of sipping chocolate, highly prized in our house, from a chocolatier we visited in Raleigh more than two years ago. When Joe & I indulge, we eat one square, savoring it for as long as we can. We don’t eat ourselves sick on it; that would ruin the experience. We’re far happier mindfully enjoying it.
“The Fremen were supreme in that quality the ancients called "spannungsbogen" -- which is the self-imposed delay between desire for a thing and the act of reaching out to grasp that thing.”1 ― Frank Herbert, Dune
So far, that quality—spannungsbogen—seems to be the key to success with my practice of temperance. I’ve been genuinely surprised to find that abstaining from sugar has not been nearly as difficult as I thought/feared/dreaded it would be. I know, that’s super obnoxious of me. Let me explain: in the time since I last participated in a sugar fast—lo, those 12 years ago—I discovered that I have Celiac disease (i.e., gluten murders me). I’m also allergic to the nightshade family of plants, including potatoes, which are routinely subbed in for gluten-containing ingredients (I dare you to invite me over for dinner, I’m a joy to feed!). All this to say that I’ve had to become hypervigilant about everything I eat. My dietary issues have forced me to practice temperance every time I eat, so skipping out on sugar is just one more thing to watch out for. And watching out is operative here; I almost—almost—accidentally ate some cranberry jelly on the first day of my practice. I had made an old family favorite dinner from my childhood and that meal is always served with cranberry jelly and green beans. I don’t know why. I don’t particularly like cranberry jelly and green beans; that’s just the way it’s always been done. I ate without thinking and while I listened to my family’s high/low points of the day. I realized I had some jelly in my mouth and had to spit it out.
“CONSTANT VIGILANCE!”2 ―J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Sorry for the lapse, Mad Eye Moody. I’m learning that temperance is about intentionality. I have to pay attention to what I’m doing, to the choices I’m making, the life I’m living, and the person I want to be. This is different than the kind of temperance I practiced while nursing Q. The truth is that I could probably get away with cheating with gluten now and again, but I don’t. It would diminish my ability to live the life I want to live and the health I want to experience in the longer term. And I really don’t like being sick, ever. So I abstain from eating it.
I’m better at temperance than I thought I was because I’ve been practicing it for years. I expected to feel grumpy and resentful; in short, I was prepared to have a temperance tantrum, but I haven’t. Yet. Maybe temperance is a wisdom that comes with getting older, I’m not sure. I’ll let you know after another week of practicing, I’ll be older and wiser by then.
How are you faring with Temperance? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.
“People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax.”3
― Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Notes:
Image: Sauber, Wolfgang. “File:Parz - Fresco Allegorie Temperantia.jpg.” Wikimedia Commons, the Free Media Repository, 2 May 2010, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Parz_-_Fresco_Allegorie_Temperantia.jpg.
1. Herbert, Frank. Dune. Ace Books/Berkley/Penguin Random House LLC, 2003. 466
2. Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Thorndike Press, 2000. 278
3. “Letter CV.” Letters from a Stoic: Epistulae Morales Ad Lucilium, by Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Penguin Classics, an Imprint of Penguin Books, 2014.