Strawberry Ice Cream
Flush pink hue,
creamy tender texture,
tingling cold sensation.
How you remind me of simpler times.
When life seemed to mold and fit into
the confines of our fearlessly made plans.
Evenings spent were always consumed
with you in mind.
You have always been such an ally.
Strawberry ice cream was when you and I made sense;
when our path was undetermined, yet so full of promise.
Strawberry ice cream has always been your favorite.
“Just one scoop!” You would call out to me over and over again.
“I don’t want you spoiling your appetite…”
Little did you know, that I would sneak downstairs in the middle of the night; especially during those long, dreary, cold winter nights; when sleep seemed so distant, to muster up a bowl of magical, always nostalgic, comforting, and “just one single scoop”, of strawberry ice cream.
Twenty seven years later,
and strawberry ice cream is still
conditioned in my mind as a safe place.
A childhood escape.
A portrait of the motherhood you desired for me.
As I stare at this new bowl of strawberry ice cream;
filled with a plethora of new toppings;
so many choices,
so many flavors and combinations;
more, more, and more.
Strawberry ice cream, you are no longer the same.
I am no longer the same little girl.
Scoops, after scoops, after scoops.
More, more, and more.
We now live in a world that requires more than evenings with strawberry ice cream to fix our problems, and protect me from danger.
To protect my future children from heartbreak.
This is the better and improved version they all tell me.
This flavor of strawberry ice cream will never dissolve or melt away.
Each bite does take me to a new place.
It does get easier.
It does begin to taste like home;
a new home.
You warned me that this was what growing up felt like.
What finally coming into my own skin would entail.
Sometimes I don’t want to grow up though.
I want to stay in the confines of strawberry ice cream;
in the warm comfort of your motherhood.
I still find myself wanting to go back;
back to the old strawberry ice cream days.
When things were simpler;
when things made sense.
I miss our strawberry ice cream days.
What if I can’t be the same kind of loving,
patient, strong, and fearless mother you are?
What if my child grows up to only drift apart from me?
To take on the parts of me that we have both worked,
effortlessly, to stow away for safe keeping.
To place in a compartment.
To make that decision; together, hand in hand, to never look back at.
What if my child resents me the way that so many often do?
Or worse, grows up not having much of anything to really even say about me.
What if I can’t be the same kind of mother you are?
A sea of faces pass by.
Voices trailing in the distance.
Your voice suddenly appearing, as
my gaze is immediately interrupted
by the shaking of your hands on my shoulders.
This forcible movement bringing me straight
back to the present reality.
Funny how something as small and ordinary
as strawberry ice cream,
can conjure up so many memories and emotions;
so many foresights and revelations.
“Are you going to finish that?”
You gently inquire of me.
I look down at my vanilla ice cream,
and then your strawberry ice cream.
Back and forth.
Scanning over the
contrast of white to pink,
subtle to bold,
smooth to textured.
I will always be a vanilla.
You a strawberry.
As a child, you tried endlessly to mold me,
and package me up;
to cover me up.
As a child I was keen to mold.
Eager to please.
Naive to not question.
Desperate to be loved and to belong.
Spring forward into my adult years,
living more than two thousand miles apart.
In different cities;
in different time zones.
The push we both needed to catapult me
into letting go, and growing on my own.
Not having to rest my life and journey on
the trajectory of plans you had made for me.
Not that these plans were wrong or bad,
but they were not mine.
These plans are not my own.
They resembled your dreams,
your sorrows,
your hopes,
and your inner musings.
We are two different, separate beings;
created from the same cloth, made of up similar molecules.
But completely different,
and unique,
and singular.
You taught me to always strive for more than strawberry ice cream.
I have always vowed to honor this.
To honor you.
So, here’s to strawberry ice cream.
