Spinach and i-scream
“Every form of addiction is bad, whether it be morphine or idealism.” - Carl Jung
Disclaimer: This is not about ice cream or spinach
I haven’t had ice cream for 548 days now.
365 x 2
(350 x 2 = 700 + 30)
= 730
730 - 548 = 182 days away from 2 years with no ice cream
I used to have a bit of a problem with ice cream. At first I’d be able to abstain for the week, trudging to the office Monday to Friday like a zombie only living for the weekend, sitting in the pub with colleagues after work, talking about ice cream. What’s your favourite flavour? Do you let it melt a bit in the tub, or do you try and attack it straight from the freezer? One day, I took a tub out of the freezer (chocolate and vanilla flavour with caramel swirls) and was so desperate to eat it I dug a tablespoon in as hard as I could, and it snapped clean in half. I didn’t think I had the strength to break metal with my hand so effortlessly. I took the spoon out of the tub and threw it in the bin, covering it with a napkin like a dead body wrapped in white cloth so nobody would see the spoon and ask how it happened.
Sometimes I’d put the ice cream tub in the microwave because I just couldn’t wait. I always felt disgusted with myself when I did that, such impatience, popping the tub made of paper on a plate and setting the microwave timer for 20 seconds and taking it out when it was hot on the outside but ice-cold inside. It meant that the edges were soft, so I could dig away from the outside and work my way in.
I guess I knew ice cream hadn’t been working for me for a while - my hormones were all over the place, my skin was bad, my gut was sagging and I had dark patches under my eyes. No nutrition, only ice cream. If I couldn’t get it I’d be in a terrible mood, pacing my bedroom, tears in my eyes and fire in my chest, trembling fingers clenched into a fist in an attempt to force them to stabilise.
When I finally got my hands on some I’d be ecstatic. Too ecstatic, some said. If something has the power to make you dart from depression to euphoria, you have a problem. I went to Paris a decade ago and I didn’t have ice cream all weekend. I remember when I finally had some, outside a brasserie on Champs-Élysées, I grabbed Rye’s hands and forced him to spin around and around with me, grinning until I felt like my face was about to fall off. When we got back to London he told me my high had scared him.
Ice cream began to dictate my life and slowly I started to lose things. My ambition, my self-esteem, my enthusiasm for other things - like my friends and family, a clear sky, a full moon. It didn’t matter unless I could experience it with ice cream. Not interested, but thanks anyway.
Ice cream gave me nothing back but the thrill of when it melted on my tongue. It was probably laughing at me from the freezer every night. Ice cream belongs to nobody. I started to get very sick, throwing up ice cream and bile and then more ice cream. I threw up on the street once, strangers gawping, and when I looked down at the pavement the vomit was bubbling, creamy, and I swear it had taken the shape of a human face as it had shot out of my mouth, and the face was smiling at me. Mocking. I sat there, on a wall outside Guildford station looking at this smiling face made of ice cream that my stomach had heaved up until the sun went down, and I couldn’t see it anymore.
I forgot who I was by this stage, looking in the mirror and smiling politely at the stranger who greeted me there. She looked fatigued, whoever she was, teeth yellowed from all the vomiting, ribs on display from not even attempting to eat anything but ice cream, even though every time she ate ice cream now, she was violently sick. Her torso constantly ached from all the heaving and yet she still wasn’t ready to let it go. One more try she said, and then the next day she said it again. One more try for that high, just one more.
I opened the freezer the next day and the ice cream was gone. Where could it have gone? Did someone else eat it? Who the fuck ate my ice cream, I’d kill them. Death would be too good for them actually, I’d beat the living daylight out of them first, air out their laundry to their loved ones and to their workplace, get them fired. Did you know this person is a thief? Did you know this bitch has no morals, but plenty of audacity? Then I’d ask them to meet me to talk it out and I’d slit their throat, throw the blade in the Thames and walk away before it even sunk.
I came back to reality and sank to the floor and sobbed, screamed, sobbed again and then I heard the word ‘mum’ come out of my mouth; it sounded thick, broken and dripping wet with saltwater. It made no sense because I didn’t know who my mother was, but the pain of my lost ice cream made me call out for her all the same. Have you ever been so hurt you want to crawl into your mother’s bed, turn back time and be newly born? I did, in that moment. I didn’t want to die, I wanted to start again.
I went to see my father and his eyes opened a little wider when he saw me, a visible double-take. “I know you love ice cream, but you need to eat something else sometime, you know,” he said gently but firmly. It’s rare that he is gentle, he only reserves that for when he knows I’m about to break.
I staggered home exhausted and on my last legs, trudging up the hill to my home like it was Mount Everest and finally opening the door. My cat came to greet me as I pulled my shoes off, walking in and out of my legs, giving herself a little back rub against me without permission. I smiled and burst into tears and she walked away, bored.
I swung open the fridge without looking at the freezer - I didn’t dare even look at the freezer door. In there was a bag of spinach, deeply green, forest green, evergreen, fresh leaves that reminded me of God. I took the packet out and found an old frying pan that was covered with scratches, silver slithers on a black pan, irreversible damage. Click click the ignition went, and a blue flame appeared like magic. Sylvia Plath died from sticking her head in the oven, did you know that? I lifted the crystal lid off the butter tray and scooped out a teaspoon of salted butter that sizzled and slid around as soon as it hit the hot pan on the stove. I looked at the fire underneath the pan and wondered what it would be like to live in that blue flame.
What else would go well with spinach? Garlic yes, garlic goes with everything. Mm. Butter and garlic. What else? I pinched some sea salt, crushing it with my fingertips as I sprinkled it into the pan. A pinch of black pepper next, white pepper tastes like a sock. The spinach was inspiring me to be better - I could make a meal out of this. So I boiled some wholewheat spaghetti, shredded gruyère, reserved a little spaghetti water when it was done, added heaps of spinach and the cheese and before I knew it I’d finished the bowl and was eating strands of cheese off the edge of the bowl with my finger. For the first time in a long time, I’d eaten something that could sustain me.
I don’t remember falling asleep that night; all I know is that I woke up at 5 am full of energy. I rolled off my bed and onto the floor to try and find my pen and paper that I’d shoved under the bed one night a long time ago when I’d no longer had the strength to write anymore. I started scribbling furiously now, life spilling through my fingertips the way the sun was spilling through the gap in the curtains. I think I knew then, that I’d wasted so much of my life chasing sugar, sugar that was going to kill me in the end. To be honest, it wasn’t even that great?
Once I’d filled a page I went to brush my teeth, the sound of trains seeping through the frosted window that had been ajar all night, trains from Whitechapel to West Croydon. My eyes are usually a muted hazel - sometimes greenish, occasionally yellowish if I’ve had a particularly bad day, I don’t know - but when I looked up into the mirror that morning they were electric green, forest in July green, never going to die green. I hadn’t seen them look like this in my entire living memory.
My gut was positively warm, fulfilled, ready to start again. I had turned a corner, finally. I kept eating spinach, even on the days when I wanted something bad, and it started to pay off. My heart rate slowed, my happy moments increased, I felt like I was on stable ground, those polar opposite feelings of depression and euphoria I was used to riding like a rollercoaster became less extreme, and I started to realize I was destined for middle ground. This was where contentment was.
Sometimes I had nightmares about ice cream, and sometimes I’d lock myself in a bathroom and weep, unable to handle the intensity of the sugar withdrawal. I’d rather die than continue to feel withdrawal like this, I thought. But then I’d eat spinach for dinner and my skin would glow and my gut felt more comfortable and my energy peaked and I became a nicer person and I thought, thank God I didn’t succumb to weakness.
There is weakness, and there is making a choice. One day I thought, you know what, I could probably eat a spoon of ice cream and be okay now. I think I can consume it in a healthy way, finally. Either way, I wanted to face the demon. I opened the freezer and cobwebs floated off the handle - I’d disturbed the spiders that had found a home in the ridge of the long-unopened freezer door. Little arachnids came running out of the freezer, hundreds of them, babies fleeing from the only home they’d ever known as I pulled the drawer open and shards of ice spilled onto the floor - tiny to me, icebergs to them. Apocalyptic. I picked up the tub of ice cream, lifted the lid, and my stomach turned. I threw it in the bin. I think I want spinach curry for dinner tonight. I turned back around to get spinach out of the fridge and the spiders had vanished. Had I imagined that?
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Wow maz, thanks for sharing. Just goes to show how deep addiction can be and anything can be a trigger. Glad you have got through it, but the bit at the end with the spiders, chilling I got goosebumps honestly 💯
Oh neo is this a euphemism? 🥴🤯