Meet my poison, my addiction, my love, my dirty secret: Candy
Halloween is all about celebrating darkness, and the candy that I’ve brought into my home in preparation for this holiday is my darkness. More trick than treat, even the best of American candy contains artificial colors, high fructose corn starch, and enough chemicals to scare anyone reading the labels half to death.
But whoever turned down a piece of candy based on the additives? Not me, I’m am addict, pure and simple. In those heady early days, I thought everything in Queens tasted great, and I was hungry all the time. But there’s a price to pay for saying yes to American candy, I’m twice the women I was when I got here.
I couldn’t wait for my first Halloween. We never celebrated it in Australia, although the last year I lived there two teenagers came to the door seeking tricks or treats. That seemed totally wrong. October is spring in Melbourne, it was about 80 degrees that day, and the light was blindingly bright well into the evening.
When Halloween in Bayside finally arrived, I loved that everyone in the neighborhood was out on the streets, and the wonderful costumes children, including my own were wearing. I couldn’t figure out how everyone had time to make such fabulous costumes. Then my sister-in-law took me to Party City. I’d never seen anything like it; it was a party wonderland. Australia just didn’t have the population back then to support a store devoted entirely to parities, and costumes were always custom made. But of course, to an addict like me, the idea of a day when you could go from house to house asking people for candy seemed too good to be true. I loved it as much as the kids did.
But all that candy has lodged its self permanently on my thighs and belly, and I’m getting tired of carrying it around with me. Halloween is closing in on me like a growling zombie. It is then I see ghouls, goblins, vampires, skeletons and ghosts adorning the neighborhood gardens and I wonder if I should just hide away on the day. Or perhaps I should offer any children who drop by fruit? I tried that last year and I was greeted with indignation. They wouldn’t walk up the steps for an apple. Besides, what parent nowadays would let their child eat a piece of fruit given by a random stranger? I know I wouldn’t have when my kids were little. The same caution is rightly applied to homemade treats.
Now with the sun dropping below the horizon and darkness appearing ever earlier, it’s hard to blame children for seeking that sugar high to fortify them against the cold. The problem isn’t really the kids seeking their annual sugar rush, it’s me and my inability to control my sugar cravings.
If there’s candy in the house I’ll eat it.
I thought of trying to eat the candy mindfully, of seeing huge industrial sugarcane fields and corn rows stretching to the horizon, envisioning the machines that process the controversial plant. Sugarcane is still hand-squeezed through ringers on the streets of India and in the Caribbean to make a refreshing drink which you can find in certain neighborhoods in Queens. Instead though, I saw myself offering the neighborhood young folks a bowl overflowing with corn syrup-based, color and flavor added candy.
No, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to encourage them down that same dark path I took. Perhaps I should hide on my porch, and when they ring my door bell I’ll jump out, dressed as myself, carrying a sign with an arrow pointing to my ample belly that says “Too Much Candy”. Now that would be scary.
