This is day 4 of journaling with Selena. Today’s prompt:

Write about a small joy that never fails to make you happy. Why does it matter?

Beach towns mean a few things to me. Jacked-up tourist prices, painful skin-shedding sunburns, elaborate sand castles with wells, and most importantly, ice cream. I had an ice cream today. It was pretty good, a cake batter base swirled with heath bar and brownie chunks. It sounded better than it tasted, but trust me, it’s an excellent combination. And while brainstorming for what I was going to write about for today, I noticed that my selection process for ice cream flavor no longer even registers the “normal” flavors anymore.

When I was little, ice cream was simple. I either had cookie dough, or cookies ‘n cream. No toppings, no trying other flavors, just that. You could never go wrong. However, as I got older, I started to try more exotic flavors. I tried a Maine Blueberry flavor that made me think of pies and imagine I was eating a Willy Wonka creation. I delighted in a Martha’s Vineyard Apple Crisp flavor that made me want to get up and set off fireworks praising the great American invention of Apple Pie (shhhh I know it’s European). Even Chili Chocolate Chip was effortlessly amazing, both dairy and spice at the same time, all wrapped in a kind of warm Aztec homage towards xocolatl. I’ve had so-so ice creams, but never a bad one. I mean, how can you go wrong? You’re combining a delicious mix of fat and sugar with already excellent fruits, syrups, and candies. After all, most “exotic” flavors really aren’t too out of the ordinary. After all, you’re starting from the same handful of bases, and mixing in some little things.

The thing about ice cream that puts it apart from other deserts, is that it never stays still. It melts, it drips, it makes your fingers sticky when it inevitably escapes its cone. You can savor it slowly, lick it, bite it, but no matter what, it forces you to be present. Just enjoy it before it’s gone. It’s a reminder that good things don’t have to last forever to be worth it. Maybe the feeling is only good for an hour. Maybe a minute. I mean, I’ve finished an ice cream cone in 30 seconds before.

A lot of the time, when I wait on the train, lean against elevator walls, and stop by cars at red lights on my bike, I think of strangers as ice cream too. I’ll never get to know them enough to appreciate what makes them truly unique. They fall into a few buckets, a few bases, and they have quirks that my unrefined palate can quickly pick out. Some are nicer than others, but none are bad at all. And like ice cream, I wave hello, they say afternoon, and I enjoy a quick conversation before we both return to our normal routines, never to meet again.

Not every scoop of the “specials” board is going to change my life. But every once in a while, something weird and wonderful hits me just right. And when I’m done, I try not to mourn the scoop that I’ll never have again. That’s what made it weird and wonderful in the first place – that it won’t last. Instead, I’ll catch hints of you in different places, at different times, mixed with some other flavor.