A Little End-of-Summer Joy

It's hard not to be joyful with ice cream on your nose

A few years ago I was going through one of those troubled times when I couldn’t decide who to blame for my misery but knew damn well somebody was to blame and somebody should pay. I was chock full of self-pity and self-loathing and lots of other self-defeating beliefs and behaviors.

One afternoon, mid-summer, I had one of those brief, shining moments that I like to call a God Shot — for no discernable reason, I was filled with joy. In that instant, I understood that I was free to choose joy. I also understood that I would forget joy was always there for the choosing but that, in odd moments here and there, joy would choose me and I would remember.

I decided to  make the most of that moment. It will not surprise you to know that “making the most of it” for me involved ice cream. But not just scoop-it-into-a-bowl, eat-it-with-a-spoon ice cream. I would go in search of those little cones we used to have when I was a child. I would cram one of those cones full of ice cream and let it run down my fingers and stick to my nose. It’s hard not to be joyful with ice cream on your nose. 

I went to the grocery store and picked out mint chocolate chip ice cream because nothing says summer like mint chocolate chip. I’d never bought cones before, but I thought I’d seen them there before, at the end of the freezer case beside Hershey’s syrup and caramel sauce. I turned the corner and sure enough, there they were, boxes of old-fashioned cones. The brand name, it big, kid-attracting letters: JOY.

Tonight is the final night of August, surely the perfect night to celebrate the end of summer. In the kitchen, I have an old-fashioned cone and a single-serving container of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Some of which will stick to my nose.

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