I have this thing for ice.

And it’s not a normal thing. It’s not a hot-day-outside-I-need-a-cool-down-thing. It’s not a sometimes thing. It’s a first-thing-in-the-morning-thing, a middle-of-the-day-most-of-the-day-long, and sometimes it’s even a middle-of-the-night thing.

I am the great Northwest hunter of all chewable frozen H2O.

I love the feeling of the particles crushing between my teeth, and forming a frost river that cools my throat as it heads towards my belly. I love Pizza Hut ice, (you know the kind that is in little cylinders, and crunches like popcorn), I love Starbucks ice with its square and sensible shape, and I love the crescent shaped ice that soars down the refrigerator shoot directly into my glass while making noisy celebration all the way down. I think the only ice I haven’t been desirous of was the monstrously huge and hard shot-glass sized ice that filled my diet cokes in Greece this summer. Those suckers were way too huge to conquer, and frankly, in the 90 degree weather, it pissed me off.

I chomp and chew with reckless abandon. The fact that I have never lost a tooth is actually quite ridiculous. The whole thing is ridiculous really, but I can’t (or maybe it’s don’t) stop. It cools me, relaxes me, and it serves as a truly non-violent way to cope with my inner restlessness.

I’m not exactly sure when this frigid love affair began. And, I am not entirely sure what it represents (assuming that all addiction is something deeper revealing itself in perversion) I can say that my hunger for ice holds greater meaning than the urban myths attributed to it (you know…sexual frustration and iron deficiency….yada yada yada)

Strangely enough, I think this odd little habit of mine has the capacity to reveal a substantial amount of insight into my being.

I can’t say with accuracy where it comes from and what it means, but I do think that is hovers somewhere around the roots of my desire. I think it reveals the gnawing, dissatisfaction in me that may never, (ok, will never) be satisfied. And similar to my thirst for ice, I always find myself thirsting and longing for something more eternal, more substantial, and more beautiful. I stand before the ice machines of the world like I stand before the unknown future hoping to ingest, and digest, and be filled with beauty I have not yet known.

And, like my desire, my ice-chewing has cost me my pride a few times.
Like the time that I got written up for violating health code while I was bartending. (I brilliantly reached down into the ice bin, grabbed a cube, threw it in my mouth, and smiled at the stranger next to me with unabashed confidence. It turned out she was the Washington State health inspector. Awesome.)
Or when my roommates come home from work to find that the entire ice bin is empty. No, it is not a small bin. And yes, yes, yes, they love to profess to others about their quirky roomate, and her olympic ice-chewing skills.
Or when I am at a social event, and I am trying to fit in, and someone else notices before I do that I have absent mindedly chomped my way through several glasses of ice, and usally, trying to hide their judgment, says something to the tune of, “you really like ice don’t you”, or “you know that ice chewing is bad for your teeth don’t you”, or “seriously Eli, I can’t hear the movie”. oops.

But the pride thing is overrated. And I think this addiction of mine gives me more than just a chilled esophagas. It gives me insight into the fragility of desire, and the necessity of hope.

I find myself sometimes embarrassed, sometimes annoyed, and sometimes laughing hysterically at how peculiar I seem to the rest of the non-ice-addicted world. And though at some point, it would probably benefit my teeth to give it a rest, for now I find myself delighting in this pastime of desire, that leaves me restless, waiting, hoping, and chomping at the bit (of ice) that reveals how earnestly I long for life.

So although my desire may cause me loss, and embarrassment, and often times dissappointment, I will continue to chew, and chomp, and work my way through glass after glass after glass, until the day comes when I am finally, and profoundly filled to the brim with the beauty I was intended to hold.

And so this blog shall be like a tall glass of ice, a place for me to chew, and chew, and chew, and wrestle with the magnitude of desire that dances within me.