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Blogs by Lisa Adams
One Scoop 8/3/2008 11:53:54 AM
Ah, summer...it is such a lovely time of year despite all the crying around about death rays (solar) and evil things lurking in the grass-woods-mountains...outdoors...whatever. And I had an experience that was so cool (literally) and, frankly, inspiring, I am compelled to BLAB it to the world.
Mel and I stopped at the Flying J in Hermosa SD (a truck stop) en route home from visiting his aunt Jo aka Freak Jo - a kindred spirit. Lo and behold, I saw IT: "real" ice cream...in a case...in five-gallon containers a la ice cream parlor. OH JOY! Music of the spheres playing in the background...I ordered a scoop. One scoop of...mint chocolate chip. Yep, the vapid green stuff with dark bits o'chocolate. "Dish or cone?" the vendor asked. No hesitation and less than a second later: "Cone," I replied.
You know, I can't even remember the last time I had an ice cream cone. All I know is it was mint chocolate chip or licorice...or nothing. And as I drove down the loooong lonely highway back to Chadron, Mel in front in his truck, each lick resurrected a memory.
I remembered riding on the back of my mom's Sturmey Archer 3-speed circa 1966 in a little black fold down seat to the boat pond in Chicago (south side...Hyde Park....naturally mom hung out in the artsy community)where we would watch the big model sailboats and she would let me swim. I remembered catching minnows in Lake Michigan and stepping on a catfish in an upstate New York lake.
And I started laughing. Then my tongue froze. Egads, I actually had forgotten your tongue freezes if you don't take breaks. And of course some melted and dripped over my hand. Hell, that's the best part, right?
And for some insane reason, I realized with amazing clarity that all the drama and what not that accompanies so-called adulthood is...bullshit. Plain and simple. It's nonsense. Because here I was flying down a highway doing 70, eating a freakin' ice cream cone and having, like, the best time. BEST time. I wasn't thinking about bills, politics, publishing, a job, whether the ice cream would make my arteries explode, or even my raison d'etre. I was living as purely in the moment as I had as a kid.
I had a bona fide chip-piphany. Little had I known the zen-inducing qualities of a simple bit of frozen milk with floaty chocolate bits. And when I ate that last bite - you know, when the melted ice cream pools perfectly in the bottom of the cone making it perfectly soft...ah, sublime.
I turned up my radio, opened the windows, turned off the AC and, for all intents and purposes, became happier than I had been a mere hour before. So much drama we bring into our lives...and for what? It only serves to make us miserable. Oh sure, I will always rail against bad government and corruption, but that's common sense. I don't brood on that crap all day. Instead, I seek the touch of someone I love; the scent of summer air; and the smell of the earth as I water the garden. THAT'S living. And life really is beautiful if you just take a few minutes to stop thinking and begin experiencing.
