Writing Off Chocolate

It has been raining here. Now, this is Scotland, so a sentence like that is really redundant, but even the old-timers here admit that this summer's rain is excessive. The radiators are groaning under the weight of our wet laundry -- with three generally active teenagers we keep them well supplied -- and I seem to spend half my time wiping down the front porch, where from the looks of things we seem to have opened up a used shoe and umbrella store.

This rain means that I can get a lot of writing done. Unfortunately, it also means that if I want to do any walking or gardening, I'll end up in mud from head to toe. I look at our exhausted radiators, festooned with steaming towels, countless undergarments, rivers of socks -- and decide to stay indoors.

And unable to walk or go out into my garden to dig up flower beds or tend my herbs, I get bored. And when I get bored, I get hungry. Specifically, I get hungry for chocolate.

Logic tells me I don't need it -- what I need is a walk. But damn it, I want it. And sometimes desires get so strong that they can pound logic right into the ground. This is one of those times.

I know every single place in this house where chocolate might be. Like a junkie sniffing out a fix, like a nicotine addict desperate for a cigarette, like an alcoholic trying to dry out, I know where the stuff is kept. I've gotten down on my hands and knees and peered into dark cupboards where I once stored a nest of Easter eggs and forgot all about them until Christmas. I've dragged a kitchen chair across the floor and stood on my tiptoes, scouting the tops of the cupboards for stray chocolate bars. I've ruffled through the books and magazines, hoping for a bit of forgotten secret stash (not likely in that we've barely been back a month, but my need is stronger than logic), and I've been through the linen cupboard, dish towel by dish towel.

But there is no chocolate in this house. No baking chocolate, no foil-wrapped pieces of candy bars, no forgotten after-dinner-chocolate-covered mints, not even powdered cocoa.

So I go back to my writing and amazingly, I do good work, even in the absence of chocolate. I work until I've done over half of my daily quota, so I decide I've earned myself a tea break. On my way to the kitchen, I spot it on top of the linen cupboard in the hallway: a beautifully wrapped box, the red ribbon stretched tight over crisp white and gold paper. And I vaguely remember my daughter receiving this as a late birthday gift, leaving it on the kitchen table. I remember putting it on top of the linen cupboard where I often stash abandoned items that happen to be in my way when I'm cooking.

And there it has stayed, unneeded, forgotten.

Now we don't just have lust for chocolate beating down logic, we have lust for chocolate beating down moral scruples. Is it right for me to open my daughter's birthday gift just because I'm desperate for a fix? Yes, the chocolate-fueled demon in me says, because remember, you made her a birthday cake AND sushi; you did all the washing up and had all her friends over and remember what a mess they made in the lounge? You cleaned that all up with hardly a whimper of protest. Go on and open that box -- you've earned it!

And the part of me that is still good and decent and able to withstand the pull of chocolate says, Don't do it, look at that box -- it's special. Somebody picked that out for her and her alone, not you. You can't open it.

And the chocolate-lusting demon reminds me that she's forgotten it for almost an entire week, and my better angel tells me that whether she's forgotten it or not doesn't matter, and back and forth they go -- and I am torn between these two.

And finally, after I've finished my cup of tea, I can no longer bear it: I decide to see just what is inside that box. What it is that has kept me wondering, hoping, seething with chocolate greed. Because a peek can't hurt, can it? I gently ease one side of the ribbon off -- I'll be able to put it back on later -- and find: a box full of tiny bottles of shampoo.

Both of my angels are so disgusted by the depravity of putting shampoo in a chocolate box that they vanish in a puff of outrage, just like that.

Chocolate deprived, but blissfully free of temptation, I go back and finish my writing.

Water, Water Everywhere

Yesterday, I caught myself carrying a basin of water outside to the garden. Half the way across the kitchen, I realized what I was doing and stopped: I'd used the water to wash rice, but I didn't want to just dump it. But I had to. I walked over to the sink and poured out the water, gritting my teeth at the waste.

I don't need to save water anymore and it feels so weird.

Over the last two years, I've grown used to recycling the water I've washed rice and vegetables with. In our bathroom in North Cyprus, I had two large tubs of water saved from running the tap until the right temperature was achieved. When they got full, I mopped the floor with the water, watered my herbs with it, or used it to launder clothes, pouring it right into the washing machine.

Everybody conserves water in Cyprus -- you have to. Everywhere you go, you see air conditioning units with receptacles under them so as not to waste even the smallest bit of runoff, bowls carefully placed under leaky hoses, trays put out to catch rainwater. In Turkey too, we saw birds and animals drinking from air conditioning pipes; dry fields where the only green was the weeds growing in patches under leaky pipes.

In Cyprus, everything is dry as dust in the summertime. Root systems grow incredibly deep to tap what water there is; only the hardiest, most drought-resistant plants and trees can survive. We got used to seeing trucks delivering water, used to taking two-minute showers, used to turning the water off when we brushed our teeth or washed our faces. For one memorable weekend in November when we ran out of water, we got used to going to the local swimming pool every evening so that we could at least wash our feet. We stopped going to the tap to fill our glasses too: the water from our faucets was nasty-tasting stuff. We got used to hanging our clothes outside and being able to take them in almost immediately, bone dry. In all the time we lived in Cyprus, I never once saw a clothes drier in anyone's house.

In Scotland, water is completely taken for granted. When it rains, which is almost every day, water pours off rooftops and gushes into gutters. If it isn't rainy, it's cloudy and there is often mist. The ground is soon saturated. It rains so much, everything is generally damp almost all the time. Moss grows lush and thick in gardens, weeds go on a rampage, spreading far and wide, and grass grows so fast you can almost hear it. Everything in Scotland is green. On the rare days when the sun comes out, everyone hurries into their gardens to peg out laundry. You get used to hanging your sheets and towels out, then racing outside to take them back in when it starts raining. Two years ago, I often had to do this two or three times a week. Our neighbors, an ecologically-minded couple with a newborn baby, ended up giving up and buying a clothes drier. I could hardly blame them.

I grew up in Riverside, California, a hot, dry place. In Riverside, just as in Cyprus, we hoarded water and we respected it. In Scotland, you can't walk half a mile without finding some body of water: a bog, a stream, a pond, a river, a loch, or the sea, but in Riverside, where even a burst sewer main can be refreshing, you can go a long way to find a puddle. The joke of Riverside is that it not really beside a river. Actually, the Santa Ana River used to flow through Riverside, but nowadays you are hard put to see even the merest trickle where it used to be. When I was a child, my sisters and I used to love going to see the 'river' after a long, hard rain. It was thrilling to see a foot or two of muddy water snaking its way through the huge, parched river bed.

Here in Scotland, I've got one river practically in my backyard and another a stone's throw away from our house. Both are deep, full at all times, and lined by grassy banks and moss-covered trees. There are times I try to picture my childhood self gazing with longing at this green, wet world I now live in. Two years ago, I was beginning to take all the rain for granted myself, but after two years in Cyprus, I'm back to my Southern Californian water worshiping status.

I wonder how long it will take me to stop hoarding water?