Day 25: Pre-Halloween Part II

So, a lot has been on my mind leading up to Halloween.  I have always loved Halloween, it is just a great holiday.  I know that there are people out there that will tell you that it is the Devil's holiday and all that, and maybe it is, but I just like dressing up and eating candy.  Naturally, as we get closer to the 31st, candy starts to pour into the house.  I, of course, have not bought any, but every time I come home, Emily or the kids have invited one of these tasty little treats into the house. 

I decided yesterday that I had to face up to the candy and tell it once and for all who was boss.  So, I decided to meditate.  I have been regularly meditating for about two months now.  For those who do not meditate, just so you know, after two months you are not that great at it.  It takes a lot of work and effort to get good at it.  I just wanted to throw that out there so people don't think I am some kind of Buddha or something (and no, I do not look like the Fat Buddha when I meditate, so stop thinking it). 

Anyway, maybe I will write about meditation later, the point is, in an effort to get over the candy cravings, I decided to practice a difficult type of meditation, where you look at and examine an object, focus exclusively on that object, and try to describe the object in your mind without using words (describing something without using words is not an easy task).  So, just to torture myself, I decided to practice this meditation with one of the Twix bars Emily had brought home for Halloween candy.  As soon as I opened it, my daughter Maggie started yelling for Emily in her tattletale voice:  "MOM!! Daddy's eating candy!"  Emily came running down the stairs thinking she needed to begin an immediate intervention.  I explained what I was doing, she rolled her eyes (more at me than at Maggie), and then went back to whatever it was she was doing. 

As I stared at the Twix bar, I began my meditation.  I started by exploring the Twix bar without using words.  Now, the point of meditation is to exercise your mind in a way that you can focus on a single thing.  A single thought, a single concept, a single object.  You are not supposed to deviate from that thing.  After about 15 seconds of looking at the Twix bar, I was reminded of Halloweens past.  All I ever wanted to be for Halloween was Darth Vader.  To have a Darth Vader helmet would have been awesome.  I was not so lucky.  I thought about the time that my sister Jennifer really wanted to be Tinkerbell.  My mother made me be Peter Pan.  I didn't want to be Peter Pan, but it ended up being worse than I thought when she came home the day before Halloween with a pair of green pantyhose (yes, I was forced to wear them on Halloween night, much to all of my friends' delight).  The next year, I was going to be Darth Vader, I just new it.  Jennifer wanted to be Minnie Mouse.  Can you guess what I ended up being that year?  Yes, Mickey Mouse.  Oh, and yes, I had to wear "tights" that year too.  This was not good for the social life of an eleven-year-old.  Darth Vader, that is all I ever wanted to be. . . .

So, in meditation, when you realize you are off topic, you must gently refocus yourself back onto what you are supposed to be focus on.  I realized after about five minutes that I was not paying any attention to the candy in front of me.  I refocused, gazing intensely on the little ripples of chocolate covered caramel.  I started to think about all of the candy I had been introduced to because of Halloween.  I tasted my first Three Musketeers Bar at Halloween, my first Caramello, my first Butterfinger.  I remembered the time that I had decided to save my Halloween candy by hiding it away for eating later, then finding the stash about two weeks before the next Halloween, all the candy old and stale (don't worry, I never did that again).  I thought about how much I like Snickers bars.  The peanuts and caramel, laying on a bed of soft nougat and covered in chocolate. . . .

I had been thinking about candy for about eight minutes when I realized what I was doing.  I refocused again, again thinking about the Twix bar and its characteristics.  As I did so, I remembered a friend of mine, whose mother engaged in her own form of Halloween torture.  Every year, after my friend came home from trick or treating, her mother gave her a choice between two options:  First, she could chose five pieces of candy, which she could keep and eat at any time.  Second, she could eat as much candy as she wanted, but she had to do so before she went to bed that night and anything left over would be thrown away.  Personally, I think this was pretty harsh and completely unnecessary to put a poor child through.  My friend, of course, did as all children would do and ate as much as she possibly could.  She got really sick every Halloween, and now, unlike me, she hates the Devil's holiday. 

I started thinking about the Devil, and at that point, I realized I was off topic again, and realized that I had closed my eyes (which, for this type of mediation, you are not supposed to do).  I opened my eyes up to look at the Twix bar, and to my surprise, it was gone.  My first thought was wow, I am a lot better at this mediation thing than I thought.  I have completely eliminated the Twix bar from my mind and from the world.  It was then that my (almost) two year old came up to me with chocolate all over her face, wiped her chocolaty hands all over my khaki pants, and said (in her ridiculously sweet way), "More?"  Needless to say, I won't be doing this type of meditation again any time soon.