A fortune cookie from December of last year told me May would be a month of exploration and adventure. In my Google Calendar, I even marked June 1st, 2025 with a question: did something special happen to you last month? This past week, I received these two. Does this mean I am going to meet a life-long friend over a jar of fermented vegetables while stepping outside my comfort zone? There are four more weeks left. Of course, I have to get up out of my house and go do something. Do not worry. I will let you know if anything happens.
Also, my initial goal was to discuss how I made one of the most delicious ham and cheese sandwiches, courtesy of the tastiest Portuguese roll I have ever discovered in a grocery store, and how eating it stirred the faintest childhood memory of a sandwich and pickle outside a deli in some New England town. I am not certain it ever happened, but I refuse to give it up. However, I have put aside that story for the one below.
A have a weak spot for nostalgia, not the specific past experiences, but the feeling of nostalgia itself. That is why I love listening to Dreamsicle by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, especially the refrains.
Marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey chocolate. On their own, I find them bland, unless I am desperate. Yes, I am obsessed with sugar, and I have been known to consume candy corn when nothing else was available. Like an alcoholic resorting to mouth wash. But combine those three items, smoosh them together, and roast them over a fire? Yeah, still not for me. In fact, I consider it worse. Between the effort and the mess, I would rather just sit down with a package of the Hershey chocolate, which I already find barely edible without almonds.
(When you discover quality chocolate, it is difficult to go back to the substandard stuff. Not impossible. Just... difficult.)
There is a metaphor here. Maybe something being more than the sum of it parts? Unless that something is not worth having? Or the parts suck anyway? Then just do not bother with it all? Except when someone else enjoys it? So help them make it anyway? However, if they leave a pile of hardening marshmallow droppings that you struggle to clean up, just as you feel the need to sit down a blog, what then? How does it affect this exercise in symbolism?
Perhaps, instead, there is a life lesson to be gleaned. Some times the messy stuff is necessary in order to get to the end result. The three ingredients, the roasting, and the the s'more itself are not the goal. Rather, it is the two giggling teenage friends who jumped in the pool in order to wash away the marshmallow stickiness from their hands. Shadows of a late July evening mingling with whisps of smoke from a dying fire. The sounds of a Sunday evening in the suburbs muffled by a wooden fence. And plucking a bit of inspiration from darkening sky, like a firefly, placing it in a jar, and having it light your way to blog post.
Those damn s'mores were just a means to strengthening a habit.
(The official video for Dreamsicle by Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit. Love this song. Especially the refrains.)
