I quit Pepsi, a life-long addiction—seriously, that long—on December 9, 2011. This was supposed to be a positive thing, a positive step forward for my overall health. Staying off Pepsi has been relatively easy. The real problem has been: what to fill the caloric time and space with that Pepsi has vacated. That’s the tough part.
Here are the pros and cons of quitting Pepsi, thus far:
Pros
I don’t have to buy, find, plan for my daily habit anymore. I really identified with this quote from David Sedaris, where he discusses making sure one is well-stocked for one’s vice:
I may have been a Boy Scout for only two years, but the motto stuck with me forever: “Be Prepared.” This does not mean “Be Prepared to Ask People for Shit”; it means “Think Ahead and Plan Accordingly, Especially in Regard to Your Vices.”
I don’t need (but often still want) Pepsi first thing in the am. I’m especially wanting it when it’s hot, but I don’t feel like I’m going to cave. The craving is real but my will is strong.
My teeth might be better exposed to less liquid sugar and acid.
I feel good that I quit and it seems to have stuck.
Cons
I’ve lost no weight and might possibly be gaining weight even though I consume approximately 500-800 fewer calories of HFCS each day.
In the absence of Pepsi, I crave sugar all the time. I’m constantly thinking about how to feed the sugar craving. When I was drinking Pepsi all the time I didn’t think about this because I knew that there was another Pepsi just around the corner and I didn’t need to think about it. Feeding the craving was a constant and a given. Now it’s a crushing desire.
I don’t eat any healthier. I probably consume 400-700 calories of junk to replace Pepsi’s missing calories. None of this junk satisfies my cravings, by the way, and yet I still feel helpless about it.
I enjoy eating out less because Pizza goes best with soda and Chinese food is great with soda.
Things I love, like an egg sandwich, are less enjoyable without a soda.
I’ve become a coffee drinker, which I have with cream and sugar.
Although things in my adult life are better now than they’ve ever been—really they are—I’m more aware of the dissatisfaction I have with just about everything. The Pepsi and the need to have it drowned this down before, and without the sauce, the dullness is in relief. Some addiction therapists call this a period of vulnerability, when the skin is thin and new boundaries are being drawn. I don’t really feel a thinness or a vulnerability, but rather I feel like there is a constant gnawing, a vacancy in my life that needs to and cannot be filled. Pepsi substituted for a long while. Without Pepsi I feel a dull, roaring vacancy that is my inner chaos.
One of the reasons I put off the quitting of Pepsi for so long is that I knew that quitting wouldn’t really change anything. People tell stories about quitting their vice and then “magically” losing weight, getting healthy, running marathons, falling in love, becoming rich, etc., but I knew those things were unlikely to happen for me. Pepsi was only an outward manifestation of whatever my problems are. (I’m still sad I haven’t lost any weight, though. I was holding out hope, however false, for that one.)
Today is the last day of National Poetry Month. Thanks for playing.
Mule Heart
On the days when the rest
have failed you,
let this much be yours–
flies, dust, an unnameable odor,
the two waiting baskets:
one for the lemons and passion,
the other for all you have lost.
Both empty,
it will come to your shoulder,
breathe slowly against your bare arm.
If you offer it hay, it will eat.
Offered nothing,
it will stand as long as you ask.
The little bells of the bridle will hang
beside you quietly,
in the heat and the tree’s thin shade.
Do not let its sparse mane deceive you,
or the way the left ear swivels into dream.
This too is a gift of the gods,
calm and complete.
One of my students, Kimberly, has this to say about her favorite poem.
This poem is also considered a prayer and is very special to me. My dear mother gave me a copy of this poem because she said it reminded her of me. I was facing a lot of challenges with friends and family members so it made perfect sense. However, this poem really represented my mom, because she lived her life with a warm, forgiving heart and was a wise, loving, kind, generous person. A few months after my mom gave this poem to me she passed away, and took most of my heart with her. I still have the poem and I will cherish it for the rest of my life. When you read this poem you cant help but relate to it on some level. People come and go in our lives, some leave disappointment and some leave a smile. But like this poem addresses, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter what the circumstance, your life and your choices are between you and God. For me this poem represents love, choosing love and choosing to do the right thing. Although its not always easy, ” I do it anyway.”
One of the fun things about story is that it comes in so many varieties, and writers are exploring new forms and modes every day. This is a great example.
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost …. I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
Chapter Two
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend that I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in this same place.
But, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
Chapter Three
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit … but, my eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
Chapter Four
I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
Poetry is associative. There is often not logic nor reason that speaks to us through a poem, but something less easily explainable.
Maira is one of my students this semester, and she is getting married soon. As she was searching for wording for her invitations, she came across “In a Boat.” I asked her to write about why this poem touched her. She says:
I like that it reminded me of me. I tend to point out the negative things in life, but it’s because that’s what stands out to me most of the time. I focus in on what isn’t right, what I haven’t accomplished, the goals I’ve given up on . . . . Lately I am anxious and panicky over my fears for my wedding (in three and half months!), every day there’s some new . . . problem that’s come up . . .
Events that involve planning and coordinating people are always noisy and stressful. It may sound cliche, but you’ll think fondly on these problems someday as they will be part of the mythology you and your fiance are creating.
One piece of advice someone gave me before my wedding was to eat before the ceremony, as you’ll be too busy making everyone happy during the event to eat the food you carefully planned for. We took that advice and ate lunch, just the two of us, at our favorite sub shop shortly before our wedding. It was a good foundation to build on.
I hope there are moments in these next few months where you can stand back and breathe in clearer, brighter water.
In a Boat
by D. H. Lawrence
See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.
Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?
When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
—So that bright one of yours, love.
The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
—The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.
There, did you see
That spark fly up at us; even
Stars are not safe in heaven.
—What of yours, then, love, yours?
What then, love, if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?
The bluebird is a harbinger of happiness, but you wouldn’t know it from this poem.
What’s in your heart?
Bluebird
Charles Bukowski
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?
there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?
The Woman Hanging From The Thirteenth Floor Window
Joy Harjo
She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor
window. Her hands are pressed white against the
concrete moulding of the tenement building. She
hangs from the 13th floor window in east Chicago,
with a swirl of birds over her head. They could
be a halo, or a storm of glass waiting to crush her.
She thinks she will be set free.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the east side of Chicago is not alone.
She is a woman of children, of the baby, Carlos,
and of Margaret, and of Jimmy who is the oldest.
She is her mother’s daughter and her father’s son.
She is several pieces between the two husbands
she has had. She is all the women of the apartment
building who stand watching her, watching themselves.
When she was young she ate wild rice on scraped down
plates in warm wood rooms. It was in the farther
north and she was the baby then. They rocked her.
She sees Lake Michigan lapping at the shores of
herself. It is a dizzy hole of water and the rich
live in tall glass houses at the edge of it. In some
places Lake Michigan speaks softly, here, it just sputters
and butts itself against the asphalt. She sees
other buildings just like hers. She sees other
women hanging from many-floored windows
counting their lives in the palms of their hands
and in the palms of their children’s hands.
She is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
on the Indian side of town. Her belly is soft from
her children’s births, her worn levis swing down below
her waist, and then her feet, and then her heart.
She is dangling.
The woman hanging from the 13th floor hears voices.
They come to her in the night when the lights have gone
dim. Sometimes they are little cats mewing and scratching
at the door, sometimes they are her grandmother’s voice,
and sometimes they are gigantic men of light whispering
to her to get up, to get up, to get up. That’s when she wants
to have another child to hold onto in the night, to be able
to fall back into dreams.
And the woman hanging from the 13th floor window
hears other voices. Some of them scream out from below
for her to jump, they would push her over. Others cry softly
from the sidewalks, pull their children up like flowers and gather
them into their arms. They would help her, like themselves.
But she is the woman hanging from the 13th floor window,
and she knows she is hanging by her own fingers, her
own skin, her own thread of indecision.
She thinks of Carlos, of Margaret, of Jimmy.
She thinks of her father, and of her mother.
She thinks of all the women she has been, of all
the men. She thinks of the color of her skin, and
of Chicago streets, and of waterfalls and pines.
She thinks of moonlight nights, and of cool spring storms.
Her mind chatters like neon and northside bars.
She thinks of the 4 a.m. lonelinesses that have folded
her up like death, discordant, without logical and
beautiful conclusion. Her teeth break off at the edges.
She would speak.
The woman hangs from the 13th floor window crying for
the lost beauty of her own life. She sees the
sun falling west over the grey plane of Chicago.
She thinks she remembers listening to her own life
break loose, as she falls from the 13th floor
window on the east side of Chicago, or as she
climbs back up to claim herself again.
As I mentioned in a previous post, students love Robert Frost. Here is one for them.
Fire and Ice
Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
An idea students commonly have is that poems have a specific meaning, that they are supposed to get something from reading it. When they don’t connect to a poem, they “don’t get it” as if there is a correct solution to the riddle. Although this poem is one with concrete imagery in every line, it’s often not gotten by my students. This isn’t a poem I get, rather it’s a poem I feel.
Searchers
D. Nurske
We gave our dogs a button to sniff,
or a tissue, and they bounded off
confident in their training,
in the power of their senses
to recreate the body,
but after eighteen hours in rubble
where even steel was pulverized
they curled on themselves
and stared up at us
and in their soft huge eyes
we saw mirrored the longing for death:
then we had to beg a stranger
to be a victim and crouch
behind a girder, and let the dogs
discover him and tug him
proudly, with suppressed yaps,
back to Command and the rows
of empty triage tables.
But who will hide from us?
Who will keep digging for us
here in the cloud of ashes?
The Ghost Wisperer says that people are haunted, not places.
The Dead
Susan Mitchell
At night the dead come down to the river to drink.
They unburden themselves of their fears,
their worries for us. They take out the old photographs.
They pat the lines in our hands and tell our futures,
which are cracked and yellow.
Some dead find their way to our houses.
They go up to the attics.
They read the letters they sent us, insatiable
for signs of their love.
They tell each other stories.
They make so much noise
they wake us
as they did when we were Children and they stayed up
drinking all night in the kitchen.
