Possibilities Are Still Out There

I can’t help but reminisce about childhood whenever I think of summer. As adults we obviously still have summer, except ours are filled with a considerably higher amount of work versus play. Gone are the days when you could just go to the beach all summer long and build sandcastles under the Sun without a care in the world. Adulthood is full of responsibilities whereas childhood is full of possibilities. And for a kid in summer, nothing screams possibilities like an approaching ice cream truck.

As a little kid playing in the sand, nothing could bring a smile to my face faster than hearing the familiar sound of an ice cream truck approaching. Though to be fair, there was seldom a time when I was not smiling when at the beach. Maybe it is better to say that my smile before hearing the familiar tune was not nearly as wide as after.

Once I was sure what I heard was really the call for ice cream, I'd immediately stop whatever it was that I was doing and make a beeline for my parents. By the time I made it to them, they would already have come up with a pretty accurate guess on why I was heading over. In their hands would always be a folded $5 bill.

While some kids had a go-to ice cream each time they ordered, I was not one of those kids for better or worse. I say 'for better' because it allowed me to explore different possibilities and truly figure out what I loved and what I hated. I say 'for worse' as the origin of the anxiety I sometimes feel when ordering at restaurants can likely be traced back to younger me always getting to the front of very long ice cream truck lines and not knowing what I wanted.

Although I suspect the options rarely changed much day-to-day, each time I made it to the front of the line I would find myself examining all the various flavors and other treats. Did I want a traditional ice cream flavor on a cone, or something more out of the box? Maybe a snow cone? A fudge bar? A SpongeBob popsicle? While of course there had to be some finite number of choices, as a little kid there were seemingly endless possibilities.

I'm sure many adults reading this have either seen first hand or have come to realize that as you age the number of possibilities for what your life can be and what you can do declines. I don't say this to be grim. Just like death, it's simply an unfortunate fact of life. Maybe today you could hike to the top of Half Dome in Yosemite, but that same feat would likely be impossible when you are in your 90s.

But at least for now, hearing the jingle for ice cream still gets me running during the hot summer. These days I can make a beeline right for the truck versus having to make a pit stop at my parents for the $5 bill. I always hope I get to the truck with no line behind me so I can really take a moment to myself to relish in all the various possibilities in front of me. Deciding what ice cream to order transports me to a time of my life where I had far more possibilities than responsibilities.

So I dare say that there is no one iconic summer food or even a specific ice cream. Rather, it is the experience of trying a new ice cream flavor that is so iconic because unlike anything else, it can keep possibilities open.