Bubble Gum Ice Cream

I'm catching up on blogging about the last month and a half, and I'd say the above picture captures a favorite moment of this fall.  We went to the Poconos for a friend's wedding October 16-18, which incidentally was one of the best weekends of the entire year.  The weekend was filled with friends, laughter, great food, and a day of re-living my childhood in the Poconos.  It was incredible; we went to the pretzel factory where you can "take the tour" and watch fun-loving individuals make pretzels.  We went to American Candle and Holley Ross and every amazing place I remember from being a kid.  I realized on this day how much the Poconos feels like home to me.  I never really felt much connection with New Jersey.  Sure, it's a fine place with culture and proximity to beaches and cities and blah blah blah, but it's not where my heart is.  For the longest time, I thought NYC was my home, but the NYC I know only exists in memory.  I never realized it, but my time in the Poconos was when meaning was whispered into my soul; every falling leaf, ski slope, and walk to the lake pumped life into me.

The weekend more than satisfied my expectations.  In fact, I didn't even realize a piece of me was missing until I got it back sometime on our journey through the Poconos, and I think it was when I found the "Casino" Ice Cream Parlor and movie theater in Mt. Pocono.  My sister and I used to order bubble gum ice cream-the real kind with the actual pieces of bubble gum-and ride the little kiddie rides there.  Then, with our tongues bright red, we would go across the street to the weird gift shops full of Native American paraphernalia, wooden gifts with first names etched into them, and large clocks painted with scenes from hunting in the woods, all while chewing tasteless gum.  Finding the Casino Ice Cream parlor and seeing it again with Mike was the best.  It was Home.  

P.S. The ice cream parlor still had the real bubble gum ice cream.  It also had a new flavor which I HAD to get: Play-Doh flavored.  I mean, it really looked like play-doh.  It was bright bright yellow with chunks of bright bright red and blue "play-doh" mixed with it-really cookie dough.  I felt 9 years old-I had a scoop of play doh and a scoop of bubble gum-only this time I was actually allowed to have a cone.  For those of you who don't know, I may be the only person ever to have been kicked out of an ice cream parlor as a little kid for being TOO MESSY, so growing up I wasn't ever allowed to have a cone.  When I went to college, I found one of the many pleasures of being an adult was the ability to order myself an ice cream cone.  I still am thrilled to have my ice cream cones!

Oh Coffee, why have I forsaken thee?

There's nothing like a good cup of coffee.  It's one of my favorite things in life, and yesterday I attempted to give it up due to stress, heart rate, etc.  My attempt lasted all of 90 minutes, then Mike woke up and put on a pot and I just couldn't resist.  It was one of the most wonderful cups of coffee I've ever had.  Oh coffee, I might not ever leave you, and I don't know if I'd ever want to.  Oh coffee, please forgive me.  

I remember trying my mother's coffee when I was little, and thought it was good only when dipping a cookie into it.  A few years passed before I tried it again, and I started drinking it regularly when I was 17 and moving to New York.  My sister used to joke with me about how I would become some beatnik the second I moved to the city, wearing all black, drinking black coffee, being snooty, and talking about Baudrillard and Hobbes and Margaret Mead.   To be perfectly honest, she wasn't very far off.  When I moved to the city, I lived an amazing life, the life I thought I should be living, but it was missing something.

I thought what I was missing was life experience, travel, and romance, but I still fell short.  When I moved out of the city, I thought I was just missing the city.  After spending a lot of time in NYC recently, and even visiting my old stomping ground at NYU, I realized what I was missing the whole time: myself.  I wrote a blog two years ago about the cookies in the Dr. Seuss cookie jar, and how I just tossed it aside and proclaimed it too juvenile.  I think about those cookies often and how I acted, and I always cringe.  I realize now my mother was trying to give me a part of myself, and at the time it was something I was desperate to toss aside.  

All of this clarity did not come all at once.  After all, there is a two year gap in this blog.  I started this blog as a quest to find myself, to return to the person I wasn't sure I knew anymore.  I decided then to concentrate on figuring out my favorite cookie; once you find your cookie, you find yourself and the richness in life.  

The thing is, I knew my favorite cookie all along.  I knew who I was, I was just plain terrified.  It's been a long two years, but really my favorite cookie was the kind in the Dr. Seuss cookie jar, those extra-extra chocolate morsels with a confectioner's sugar coating, the ones I didn't even finish.  It feels so good knowing this about myself, knowing I am only a recipe (and a cup of coffee for dipping) away from who I really am.

I am truly thankful for this clarity, and know I wouldn't have gotten here without Cheri's visit.  I hadn't seen her in three years, and it was wonderful to have her around as a reminder of our NYU days, but also as just a good friend who isn't at all enamored with the culture or excitement of New York.  I'm not going to lie, I still love New York.  I still love people watching, the crazies, and the unexpected.  But life is different and much more difficult there as an adult, and I didn't truly realize it until this week.  I don't just want to live or work in the city just to do so, I want a good quality of life.  It's really good to know this about myself.  I may still drink my coffee and talk about Margaret Mead, but at least now I will do it because I love it, not because I'm trying to be someone I'm not.