The Best Ice Cream is Everything

Growing up, I rarely got the opportunity to experience one of the simple pleasures of being a kid; ice cream. I occasionally remember mother ordering marshmallow chocolate swirl from the Schwann Man (back when that was a thing), but it didn't last for long. I also remember very infrequently having orange push-pops with the Flintstones characters on the side. But all in all, ice cream was a leisure in which the adults in my life rarely indulged.

Maybe that's why as a teenager anytime I had money, I splurged on ice cream. The best ice cream is chewy, velvety like a 1970's pair of bell bottoms for the mouth. Like you've reached toward the sun and grabbed a handful of cool, whipped sky. It should also melt on the tongue like pavement in the south on a day of record shattering heat. (Not the most positive imagery, but effective none the less.) The best ice cream also, as I learned, numbs your pain. It didn't help that the boy I fancied worked at Dairy Queen.

Each scoop to this day has some kind of magic, some sort of much yearned for nourishment within seemingly all bites taken throughout time. Craving comfort? Ice cream. Needing love? Ice Cream. Had a hard day? Ice cream. Magically it all comes into existence, into the scope of being with a little bit of ice cream.

I could analyze this behavior. I could say that it is a substitute for healing, for digging deeper in intense moments of desire. I could also say that it's just a small application of self care. A little soothing for the sting of our daily realities. A remedy to nothing, but a salve for everything.