Driving Ourselves Crazy

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

September 30, 2008


One of the areas in which I struggle most to maintain an attitude of moderation is in my driving habits.


Today is Tuesday, which is not even supposed to be the heaviest travel day of the week (that would be Friday, at least for car traffic). I drove Spencer to school today, a rarity as he usually goes along with our very kind neighbor Kent and his daughter Madison, and found myself caught up in the suburban Pennsylvania version of 24 Hours of Le Mans. Detours, way too many other drivers, traffic lights all seemed designed to place obstacles in my way as I maneuvered, trying not to get caught up in the madness.



It is no secret that the roadway infrastructure in the US is aging. It does seem, however, that some transportation committee somewhere had a meeting, and looking at a map, decided, "Lets start fixing all of the roads, all at the same time. While we are at it, let's trim all of the trees on the roads. And, don't we need to dig up some pipelines, too? Oh, look, there is a stretch of road that is not closed. How did we let that happen?"



Of course, none of the obstacles, traffic lights, or annoying other drivers would matter if I could just consistently practice the art of Zen Driving, which applies the concepts of Buddhism to the daily commute. Instead of focusing on what a colossal moron the person in front of me is, that person who is driving as if she can't find the gas pedal and subsequently caused me to get stuck at yet another traffic light, I would calmly observe her in a non-judgmental way, realizing that making the traffic light would only save me about thirty seconds.



One of the most crucial strategies for Zen driving is to leave plenty early. That way, each minute that ticks by as you sit yet again at the stupid two-minute-long traffic light at the end of the street (you timed it, so you know this) would be an opportunity to enjoy the weather, or bird-watch, or think about dinner, or converse with your cute kid. Your blood pressure and heart rate would remain normal. That tension headache lurking about your temples would recede into nothingness.


You would not pull out from each traffic light as if you were in the drag-racing scene in Grease. You would, instead, accelerate gradually, allowing more intemperate drivers to jump out in front if they want. You would wish them well, and Godspeed.


You would finally arrive at your destination happier and healthier, and with the sense of virtue that comes from taking the high road.


Plus, you would save gas. A win-win.

The Colonoscopy Epiphany

September 29, 2008

My writing audience (that is, the three or four people who have actually read my musings) has asked me what led me to start this blog.

I am a lifetime avid reader and information junkie who constantly has text running through her head; but that has been my experience pretty much forever.

So why now? Why start a daily blog now?

I can only attribute it to my colonoscopy ephiphany.

Three weeks ago, I participated in one of the most fabulous rites of the middle-aged; that is, I had my first colonoscopy.

The laws of aging in the US dictate that once you have reached the half-century mark, you must undergo a series of tests, sort of like the Twelve Labors of Hercules in medical testing form. These tests are designed to see which of your increasingly decrepit bodily systems will begin to fail first. Then, you can spend the next 80 years worrying that you will die immediately if you don't get your cholesterol below 200.

Undergoing the testing was, of course, the prudent thing for me to do. I have a family to care for, and a lot people depend on me, or at least so my inflated self-image would have me believe. I cannot live the feckless, who-cares-if-I-get-cancer-I-am-only-hurting-myself life. So, caring for myself becomes a moral imperative.

I had already undergone the physical, the gynecological exam, the blood tests, the mammogram, the walking on hot coals, and the bone density test, and passed all with, if not exactly flying colors, at least the assurance that I am not likely to keel over in the next twelve months. The trial I saved for last was the most difficult of all, the medical equivalent of cleaning out the Augean Stables, the preparation for said trial involving the ingestion of 325 pills and 1280 ounces of water over the course of several hours.

Unfortunately, poor planning on my part indicated that I would spend most of these several hours driving my son and a friend to and from choir practice. But that is a story for another day.

I will leave it to Dave Barry to fill in the specifics of the procedure itself. And I will confirm that the procedure is anticlimactic, to say the least.

What I did not realize before the dreaded test, but know now, is that anesthesia provided me with the best sleep I have ever had. Especially since my brain apparently never ever goes to sleep, and spends its down time at night having dreams that are like my real life on steroids.

I awoke from the colonoscopy in a state of giddy enthusiasm that was only partly attributable to the fact that I do not, in fact, have colon cancer. Much of my euphoria resulted from actually having been asleep for the first time in probably 14 years and ten months (since my son Spencer was born). I felt reborn, and practically skipped out through the waiting room, which was filled with tense people who looked at me as if I was doing the Dance of the Seven Veils.

In the burst of enthusiasm and energy that followed, I decided to start writing every day.

Obviously, sleep is one of the essential components of living the reasonable lifestyle. It simply cannot be dispensed with. And, since I do not have access to the anesthesia cocktail that provided my respite, and a weekly colonoscopy would be both unreasonable and unreimbursed, I have to do a better job of finding ways to summon the sandman.

Any suggestions out there for getting a good night's sleep?

Calming the Internal Storm

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

September 26, 2008


Recently, my brother and sister-in-law achieved a milestone in married life. They have now been married (to each other) for 25 years.

That is a long time to spend with one person. My parents have been married much, much longer - 56 years at this writing.


Why do some relationships last and others fail? There are probably as many specific reasons as there are relationships. It would seem that couples married for a long time are at least somewhat happy with each other, or they would not stay together.

Leo Tolstoy wrote in Anna Karenina, "All happy families are like one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Certainly, happy couples must share some common traits, like mutual respect. It would be hard to be married for many years to someone you find contemptible. In addition to loving each other, happy couples probably also like each other a lot, and enjoy each other’s company. Spending lots of time with a really annoying person augurs trouble.

My sister-in-law Stacey once said that the best thing to do is to marry someone who makes you laugh.

Many books and magazine articles have been written about how to be a happy couple. Perhaps there is a recipe for such a thing, but emotional maturity probably plays a part. Also, the good luck and timing to meet a suitable person in the first place.

Balancing work and leisure, time together and time apart, communication and silence, knowing when to speak up and when to shut up - these things require a certain amount of emotional maturity. Mature people are centered people, meaning that you do not fly off the handle each time your esteemed partner leaves his size 12 brogans lying in the middle of the bedroom floor for you to trip over at 3:00 am when you get up to go to the bathroom. You sigh, take a deep breath, resist the urge to heave them at his unconscious head. You maintain your perspective.


Studies have shown that the seat of the emotions can be found in the medial temporal lobe of the brain, which contains the amygdala. This almond-shaped part of the brain controls how a person reacts to a situation. Memories, and how we react to events that trigger them, are stored in the synapses in ways that medical science is just beginning to discover.

It is known that the emotions prompted by the amygdala can overwhelm us very quickly, like a storm surge, before rational thought can take place, and the result is out-of-control behavior. It takes emotional maturity to calm those internal storms.

So, how do you achieve emotional maturity? Some people may be born with it. For others, maybe it takes a lifetime. Perhaps it can be learned, as Daniel Goleman writes about in his book Emotional Intelligence. Going back to old pal Socrates, knowing yourself is a good start.

The Web of Life

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

September 25, 2008

I sit here at my computer in the den, and watch a spider spin a web in the window facing east.

This spider and I are old friends. Last year I watched her, or her mother, spin a web in the same location, covering the outside of the window with her lacy handiwork.

Spiders are classified in the natural world as arachnids. The name comes from Arachne, a mortal woman from Greek mythology who challenged the Goddess Athena to a weaving contest. Arachne may have been a good weaver, but she must have lacked common sense. She won the contest, and Athena, in a fit of pique, turned her into a spider.

Perhaps the spider in my window is one of her descendants.

It is possible that the ancient human art of weaving, which dates back to about 5,000 BCE, originated in the imitation of the spider's activities.

As a child, I was terrified of spiders; arachnophobia is one of the most common phobias, and frequent lengthy visits to my grandparents, who lived in the woods, gave me plenty of fodder for my overactive imagination. This frequently proved to be a source of great entertainment for my older brother Jim, who feared nothing, as is the wont of older brothers.

As I have matured, however, I have come to see these creatures as much more benign. Although they are predators, they do not prey on humans, although just about anything will bite if cornered. They kill, and consume, other insects, some of which are unpleasant and can spread disease, and some of which are innocent and just unlucky. Spiders are a part of the vast network of entities on the planet who interconnect in many ways; they help to balance the pest population.

The spider in my window is a garden spider. It is an orb spinner, creating a roughly circular piece of functional artwork close to a foot in diameter. It is one of the many wonders of the natural world that an insect so small could create something that is not only beautiful, but surprisingly strong, out of the materials found in its own body. There is an intrinsic symmetry to a spiderweb, and in a certain light, it shimmers as if made of diamonds.

Halloween is coming in about a month, and my house will be decorated in fine fashion. We work together, the spider and I; she weaves her web of diamonds, while I spin a yarn about spiders, connected to her by unseen threads of life.

The Rites of Autumn

September 24, 2008


One of the great rituals that takes place each fall in the United States is the winding down of the regular baseball season and the start of playoffs, culminating in the World Series in October.


Rituals are important things to have in a society. They allow us to maintain a sense of continuity with the past. They comfort us with the familiar. They give us a sense of fellowship. We know what to do and when to do it.

All baseball fans know that every fall, after many games played with other teams, men in uniforms of various colors, most of which are white, perform this ritual wherein they go out to a grassy field for a few hours of standing around, throwing, catching, and occasionally running, to see which team does these things the best. People sit in the stands, and watch them, and chat, and eat, and drink.

Perhaps because of its origins in an earlier, less frenetic time, baseball is the most pastoral, and has the most qualities of moderation, of all of the sports played at a professional level in America. The players, for example, are mostly average-sized, although exceptionally talented. The game is played during the spring, summer and early fall, when the temperatures are pretty mild, with the occasional heat wave or thunderstorm thrown in to make things interesting.

Players are asked to use their bodies fully, but not to excess. The number of pitches thrown by a pitcher are carefully monitored, and when the magic number of 100 is reached, frequently a pitcher is removed, so that he might be well to pitch another day. Baseball is just about the only professional team sport which is played by men in mid-life.

There is some activity, but it is far from non-stop; there are stretches of time when nothing much is happening. And then, a brief burst of excitement - a ball is thrown, and then hit, and the tension of seeing how far it goes. The batter runs, but not too far, hoping to make it to a base in time. Sometimes he makes it, sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he runs all the way around, and the fans cheer wildly. Fielders stand around out in the grass, watching the action, sometimes running to make the catch but perhaps also having some time to think.

In the stands, we enjoy the feeling of being in the open air, with other people who are having fun. Hopefully, we do not lose the perspective that this is, after all, a game, and behave in immoderate ways, such as drinking too much and fighting with our neighbors who happen to be rooting for the other team. I live in suburban Philadelphia, and Phillies fans can take the game a little too seriously sometimes.

But much of the time, as the season winds down, we are just enjoying ourselves, fluttering our small white rally towels as once young ladies waved their scarves at jousting tournaments. For a few hours, we are united in a common purpose. We look toward the World Series, but even if our team does not make it this year, there is always next year. And the rites of autumn continue.

Take a Walk

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

September 23, 2008



Yesterday I touched on the topic of exercise, and how it can improve balance. But there is a lot more that exercise can do to help us live balanced lives.


It is no secret to anyone that we Americans as a society have become quite sedentary. And overweight. Rarely does a day go by without an article about the obesity epidemic appearing in the mainstream media. Certainly food intake plays a part in the perceived blubberization of the masses. But lack of exercise also plays a part.




A life lived while sitting down is a luxury that until recently was available to a few very privileged individuals. And still, in many parts of the world, the average person works hard physically from sunup until sundown just to be able to survive.





Here, though, and in many parts of the west, much of our time is spent in front of computer screens, much as I am doing right now. I confess to being a computer junkie; I could surf the Internet all day. In the many corporate jobs that I have had, though, I rarely got out of my seat to do more than walk to a conference room. Ironically, in my current position as a stay-at-home mom and blogger, I get more exercise doing laundry and cleaning than I did when I was "employed".





In the Woody Allen movie "Annie Hall", Woody compares relationships to sharks, saying that, like sharks, a relationship must move forward or it will die. This is true of some, but not all, sharks; the Great White Shark is an example of a shark that must move constantly to keep from drowning.





While we as humans do not require incessant movement to stay alive, we do have to move some. There is a debate as to whether moderate exercise will be helpful in achieving long-term weight loss, but no one will argue the fact that exercise benefits everyone. Moderate exercise, such as walking, is easy to do, and is unlikely to lead to the kinds of injury that can come from serious training.





According to another of our ancient Greek friends, Hippocrates, "Walking is man's best medicine." It can reduce stress, help circulation, and give us time to think, all at a reasonable pace. You can even meditate while walking; walking meditation is a form of meditating while moving advocated by Vietnamese Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh.




It is not necessary to join a fitness center to take a walk. Just go outside, and put one foot in front of the other. Repeat.

The Autumnal Equinox

photo courtesy of Spencer Greet

September 22, 2008


Today is the first day of Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere.


That means it is the day of the Autumnal Equinox, when the amount of daylight and darkness is roughly equal; that is, the suns spends nearly an equal amount of time above and below the horizon. I mentioned this in my post of September 18, but since today is the actual day of the Equinox, I decided to refresh my gradeschool-era knowledge of why this happens.



The Earth is tilted about 23.5 degrees from the vertical on its axis, which is the imaginary line that runs through the Earth from pole to pole, and around which the Earth rotates. That means that the Earth has "seasons", meaning that the weather does not remain constant, but changes over the course of a year.



During the months of June, July and August, the Northern Hemisphere is tilted toward the Sun, making it summer in that part of the world. In the Southern Hemisphere, it is winter during those months. But as the Earth continues its rotational journey around the Sun, eventually it reaches a point where the Sun is right over the equator, marking the equinox ("equal night" in Latin).



How high the sun reaches in the sky depends on the hemisphere and the latitude of your location. Near the North Pole, for example, today is the day when the sun actually dips below the equator for the first time since the Spring.



In the Southern Hemisphere, today is the day of the Vernal Equinox. Summer has just ended, and Spring is beginning. Because both hemispheres are at equinox, the weather is actually very similar at equal latitudes above and below the Equator; both hemispheres are getting the same amount of light.



To celebrate the Equinoxes (and the Solstices, as well), one of my neighbors has a bonfire that is visible from my deck. I am not sure why he does this, but it is kind of fun. There is a vaguely Pagan feel to it; equinoxes and solstices were greatly celebrated in ancient Celtic and Druidic cultures.



I plan to celebrate the Autumnal Equinox by going to the YMCA, which my family recently joined, to begin yet another workout routine. One thing I would like to achieve by exercising is to improve my balance, which has never been really good. Several years back, I dislocated my right elbow because I tripped over my purse, lost my balance, and fell on my extended right arm.


Gravity is not our friend, as we find out when we hurtle to the ground after a fall. Not only does it tug at the skin of our faces, necks and upper arms, leaving us with wattles that are the envy of the turkey community, it yanks us down with a vengeance as soon as we get a little cocky. Just try to defy gravity for a few seconds and see what happens.


Falling is one of the great dangers of getting older. As people, particularly women, age, they are subject to osteoporosis, which is a weakening of the bone mass. This weakening is why older persons are vulnerable to broken bones.



Exercise can help to improve balance and strengthen bone, a double benefit.


Plus, it may help me get rid of those award-winning wattles and get me back into those size-6 jeans that I keep hanging onto.

Know Thyself

September 21, 2008

It is Sunday, which around our house frequently means it is the busiest day of the week, especially for my son Spencer. He is much in demand in the small community church that we attend, whether for his boy soprano voice or for his dramatic reading skills. He also sings traditional Anglican music in a choir, the Valley Forge Choir of Men and Boys, whose performances are mostly on Sunday afternoons. Some days, like today, he spends the morning performing in one way or another at one church, comes home for a few minutes to eat and change, and goes out again to another church to sing for a few more hours.


Spence always says that he does not like to be so busy. He would prefer doing one activity or another, but not both. He seems to have an inborn sense of moderation, of how much activity is too much in one day. He, like his mother, is of a more contemplative nature.

Over the years I have sometimes tried to cajole him into a more active schedule than he would prefer. I have found it difficult, however, to counter his arguments that "Mom, that is too many things to do in one day" when it is clear that at 14, he knows himself and his limitations.

The aphorism "Know Thyself" was inscribed in the courtyard of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi; it is variously attributed to a number of ancient philosophers, usually Socrates. Once again, our old Greek friends were on to something. Throughout my life, and more and more as I have reached the frantic years of middle age, I have overscheduled myself to my own chagrin, ignoring my own unacknowledged yearning to say "no" and slow down. I can tell when I am too busy because my usual sang-froid is replaced by increasing crankiness and irritability; the air around me crackles with lightning; and the dog flees to his crate.

Self-awareness is key to living a moderate lifestyle. For some people, like me, awareness of my own needs only comes gradually after half a lifetime; others, like Spencer, seem to have been born with it (and I can't even take credit for it coming from me).

In recent years, I have become interested in the Buddhist concept of mindfulness, which to my limited understanding means living in the now, rather than the future or the past. From what I have read, practicing mindfulness can help a person gain self-awareness. Over the next year, I hope to explore this concept more to understand how it can be helpful in living a life of moderation and balance.

The Grapes of Enthusiasm

September 20, 2008

Yesterday I waxed lyrical about wine-drinking, only tangentially mentioning the delicious fruit from which wine is made.

With apologies to John Steinbeck, I think grapes are pretty fabulous.

Grapes do not have to be fermented in old French oak barrels to be useful. They are a great snacking food. They have their own carrier. You can throw them into the air and catch them in your mouth, and provide entertainment for your dinner guests. You can recline on a sofa and do that ancient Roman thing, which looks like the epitome of hedonism, except that you are eating something healthy. Grapes can be a part of a balanced diet, are a good source of Vitamin C and K. On the negative side, they do have a lot of sugar in them, in the form of fructose, but that only means that they should be eaten - say it all together, now - in moderation.

Generally I have been more familiar with the European style red or green grapes, such as Thompson Seedless, or Concord grapes. Apparently there are over 600 kinds of grapes. Recently, my friend Deb introduced me to champagne grapes, or Corinth grapes, which are really tiny, sort of Lilliputian grapes with no seeds. They are incredibly tasty, and so cute you just want to eat them one at a time so that you can continue to look at them as long as possible.

And then there are the leaves of the grape, which have even more health benefits than the fruit. Grape leaves are used to make dolmades, a Greek dish wherein grape leaves are stuffed with rice, lentils, meat and spices.

Grapes are very pretty to look at, especially when they are chilled and rinsed off, and have those little beads of water on them, and you place them in the middle of your table in a nice bowl. But of course, then you have to start eating them, or the little fruit flies will come and they will not look so good anymore. Better you should eat them before that happens.

Wine Not?

September 19, 2008

I think I was getting a bit preachy yesterday.

After all, who am I to tell anyone how to live his or her life? I am pretty new to this moderation thing.

And, as I said in my post of September 16, "moderation in all things, including moderation" is really my goal. Occasionally throwing caution to the winds is a good thing, as long as it doesn't involve life-threatening and/or illegal behavior, such as driving while intoxicated, or going duck hunting with Dick Cheney.

Speaking of intoxication, wine is one of the great pleasures of life, especially good wine. I don't claim to be much of a serious oenophile, but as I get older, I appreciate it more and more. Wine drinking has a long history, going back at least 8,000 years; coincidentally, to about the time of the first recorded hangover.

Hangovers result, of course, from immoderate wine drinking; although if you listen to a character in Brideshead Revisited, after a friend revisits his dinner through an open window, it is all in the mix: "The wines were too various...it was neither the quantity or the quality that was at fault."

I try to limit my consumption to two glasses in any given day. I like both red and white, but red sometimes gives me a headache (no, not because I have sucked down an entire bottle). I think it is the congeners, or impurities, in red wine but I am not sure. However, as we all know by now, drinking red wine has all of these fabulous health benefits in addition to making you feel like a happier, better, more Continental version of your self. Any reasonably good red wine works for me, whether Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz or a combination; I don't usually spend more than $12.00 - $15.00 for a bottle, but occasionally I will splurge on something more expensive, perhaps for a special occasion.

White wines are also quite enjoyable; I like a dry Riesling or, recently, a white Bordeaux was very nice with a summery meal.

One of my favorite wine-drinking memories is a bicycle trip through Tuscany that I took with my brother Jim and sister-in-law Stacey twenty years ago. Tuscany is hilly, so the biking was challenging, even thought I had been riding a lot. We would bike all day, and then stay in some wonderful medieval castle or villa; one morning we biked to the top of a hill where sat an old monastery. Our group of about 20 lunched on some of the best food I have ever eaten, and drank much wine, sitting outside in the mellow Tuscan sun at long white-clothed tables, while turkeys strutted and gobbled in the courtyard. It was early October, and the grapes were ripe.

The fall is a good time to drink wine. It is getting cooler, the air is clear and dry, the grapes are ripe. Pour yourself a glass, sit outside, contemplate the sky, sip slowly and enjoy.

The Golden Month

September 18, 2008

Ah, September! The golden month!

If months were colors, September would surely be gold, at least here in the Northeast - the color of the sunlight slanting through the trees in late afternoon, squash ripening in the garden, leaves starting to turn at month's end.

September is also, of course, a month of moderation - hammocked between the dog days of August and the fiery fall spectacle that is October - when the weather is just about perfectly balanced between hot and cold, and even the day and the night are at parity. The Autumnal Equinox occurs on or about September 23, when the sun spends an equal amount of time shining on both of the Earth's hemispheres.

This balance and harmony is also manifested by the Western astrological sign Libra which starts, coincidentally, around September 23. At the time Western astrology was developed, in Mesopotamia roughly 2,000 BCE, the constellation Libra was visible in the western sky during the month of September. The name comes from the Latin word for balance; its shape vaguely resembles a balanced set of scales.

September is the month of harvest, when fruits and vegetables are available in abundance. The great variety of available foodstuffs makes it seem positively silly to eat in ways that avoid entire food groups (yes, you practitioners of the various anti-carbohydrate, low-fat, get-all-of-your-food-shipped-to-you diets, I am speaking to you). Remember when dietary experts used to talk about a "balanced diet" as a way to achieve good health?

My sister-in-law Stacey emailed me a recent article in the New York Times that attested to a hopeful trend in eating for enjoyment rather than pursuing a "diet". If food is actually enjoyed, rather than viewed as a threat to be managed and subdued, it is much more likely to be eaten in reasonable quantities. Fresh fruit and vegetables just taste better. Quality, rather than quantity, should be the goal.

As someone who avoided carbohydrates like they were disease vectors for a few years, I can attest to the delights of dipping a piece of bread in olive oil and munching away. And yesterday, I went out to my garden, plucked a particularly gorgeous, ripe Brandywine tomato, cut it up and put it in my salad. It was heaven on a lettuce leaf.

September, the golden month, is a perfect time to increase enjoyment of life by seeking moderation and balance in eating. So, throw away those diet books, stop getting food by mail, and start savoring the good things available at your local produce stand. Bake, or buy, some really good bread. Use some fresh herbs. You will eat less and feel better.

...Including Moderation

September 17, 2008

So, why Aristotle? Why go back to a 2,000 year old Greek philosopher?

Because of the concept of the Golden Mean, the name given to the concept in Aristotle's philosophy that to live an ethical, good, and presumably happy life, you have to live in a balanced way, avoiding excesses.

This idea did not originate with Aristotle, but goes back even further, to Confucian writings in about the 5th century BCE (or, Before the Common Era).

So, for several thousand years, great thinkers have been espousing the idea of moderation.

Of course, I gave this post the title ...Including Moderation because every now and then, you have to go "off the rails" a little bit ("off the rails" is an expression that I have seen used by the British, and I like it). I originally thought that I made up this addendum to the "Moderation in all things" quote, but when I Googled it I discovered that I am not quite the philosophical genius that I thought.

Oh well.

So, from the lofty heights of philosophical contemplation, I have descended to the world of practical, everyday reality. How can I utilize the concept of moderation in my own life?

Well, for starters, there is chocolate. A substance over which I am powerless.

In the past year or two, in response to some intense personal happenings and (probably) menopause, I have indulged my craving for chocolate in a positively apocalyptic way. As in, "well, if everything is going to hell in a handbasket anyway, I might as well eat some more chocolate." I have been most immoderate in my chocolate consumption.

Basically, if there was chocolate in, on, or around something, I ate it.

Now, I happen to believe that chocolate makes the world go round. That it is one of God's great gifts to us, along with butter cake, "Brideshead Revisited" (the book and the miniseries), Van Morrison, Mozart and margaritas. Also Netflix.

But immoderate consumption of chocolate (especially dark chocolate, late at night) caused me to lose sleep (caffeine), gain weight, and feel guilty. And thus, a good thing became a bad thing, because of excess.

So, I have begun to be more prudent in my chocolate eating. I now allow myself two squares of Ghirardelli 60% Cacao every night. I eat them in small bites, I do not gobble. I let them melt, and savor them. They last longer that way.

Moderation in all things...

September 16, 2008


Well, here we are - things are at a pretty pass, aren't they?

I believe it is time to celebrate the mild instead of the wild.

To back away from the precipice of extremism, consumption and folly on which we find ourselves, and instead to lie abed, wrap ourselves in the comforts of the middle ground and hug more closely the pillow of reason.

To seek harmony instead of discord.

Reasonability is, of course, the purview of the middle-aged, especially those of us who have unabashedly embraced our middle-agedness. Our bodies are beginning to wear out, and we just can't dance with the abandon we could when we were in our twenties. Or even thirties. We can't drink to excess without feeling like death on a cracker the next day. Or without worrying about our livers. Nature is telling us to back off.

But we also need to back off in the larger sense. Do we really need the 4,000 square foot house? The huge SUV? The 45-inch flat-screen TV? Do we need to eat like we don't know where our next meal is coming from?

(Full disclosure: I do not have any of the above items, not that I haven't wanted them or thought about buying them. Also, I have gained twenty pounds in the last two years, and my knees are starting to hurt.)

Do we have to treat our political campaigns like they were reality shows? How about a little dignity in our discourse?

Certainly self-indulgence is fun. Moderation requires self-control. That's no fun.

Maybe we have had enough fun for now. Or, maybe - just maybe - there is a way to enjoy life with limits.

You know, I am starting to sound just like my mother. But considering that she is one of the most reasonable people I know, that is probably a good thing. Plus, she is 82 and in good health. Perhaps a moderate lifestyle helped her get to this point.

I believe that there are other moderation - seekers out there.

What does moderation look like? How will we know it when we see it? Where do we start in our quest for a consciously moderate, enjoyable life?

These are the questions I am going to explore. With a little help from my two-thousand-year-old friend pictured up there - Aristotle.