Good Humor

In which I know the best part of my day the moment I hear the tinny music. (I also set myself a writing lesson.)

I sat sprawled on my sister’s couch Saturday afternoon, mute with languor. We had driven forever the day before, and now it was hot. On Monday at home on Lake Superior, we used the snowblower for what we expected would be the last time. (It hadn’t snowed, but a foot of snow still ran down the middle of the driveway.) Now in Ann Arbor, it was 85 degrees, and all around the neighborhood, daffodils bloomed. Slouched on the couch, I heard tinned music and a recorded voice saying, “Hello” every so often. I shot up and went to the door. “I think I hear the ice cream truck,” I told Rick, who sat studying a map at the kitchen table.

“Really.”

I turned my ear toward the glass. The music came nearer. “Yes.”

I snapped the dog’s leash on and headed down the steps in bare feet.

“I’ll take a Heath bar,” Rick said in a tone that assumed I would return with one. I didn’t answer but mentally patted my pants pocket, which had some one-dollar bills folded in it. Lucky, I thought, crossing the walk and lawn and Magnolia Street, hauling the dog along.

I got in line just ahead of two middle-school-aged boys on bicycles. (They had arrived seconds later than me and must wait their turns, after all.) I studied the menu while the man in the truck served the customer ahead of me. His wife leaned out the passenger’s side window. “Hello,” she said almost in unison with the van’s recording. “We’re Dave and Teri. We’ve been married fifty years.”

I congratulated her on their long union and returned to studying the menu. I pulled my money out of my pocket to count it and be sure I had enough.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Umm, Ellen.” I was still studying the treat options. I had made my choices, but should I reconsider?

Her husband said something to me, and I peeled my eyes off the menu. He held up a large Milk-bone. “Too big?” he asked, nodding at Harwood.

I smiled. Harwood expects big dog biscuits to be broken into small pieces for him. Before I could say this, the man lifted a smaller bone, and I accepted it. I gave Harwood the treat and ordered my own: two Heath bars, $7.

Treasures in hand, I strode back to Mariann’s, the soles of my feet burning on the pavement. I felt alert and pleased, maybe inordinately so. But I was grateful to have something so unexpected roll into my day. Such events—small, real, and particular—are one of my favorite things about life.

Also, I had run into something I could write about.

I often find it difficult to create a post. I want to write, but about what? Maybe you Northern Dispatches readers who are also writers will know what I mean. But the ice cream van rolling down the street hauled an opportunity along with it. At a minimum, I could share a moment that delighted me. As I did so, I could use active verbs, specific nouns, and as few adverbs and adjectives as possible. Also, I could create a scene: I could show and not tell you what that part of my day was like. And if I was very lucky, the piece would leap into meaning.

That doesn’t always happen. But if I keep working on these paragraphs, revising and musing, the piece might get stronger. Insight might jump out at me. That’s the magic of revision. Sometimes, as you tap at the nuts and bolts of the thing, adding pieces and taking others away, it begins to move, activated by an engine you weren’t sure existed beneath the thing’s carapace.

I’m sitting in a waiting room at the Burlington Building on East Eisenhower now, the lone occupant. The place suits this work. After all, I’m hanging around the post to see if meaning will leap out at me.

The door to the treatment area swings open, and a receptionist returns to her desk. Beside me, an air purifier hums. Possible insight(s) for the piece meander through my head:

1. I like ice cream trucks.

2. I appreciate moments that are real and alive.

3. I worry about the Internet and constant connectivity lulling humans out of noticing such moments too much of the time. (Yes, me included.)

4. I still like to write. (I wasn’t sure about that for a long time.)

5. I spend a fair amount of time pondering what writing is for, or anyway, what my writing is for. Possibilities:

   1. Encouraging noticing.

   2. Contributing to my own health, like morning oatmeal, for reasons that remain opaque to me. (And maybe that’s fine; just do it anyway.)

   3. Connecting with people.

The door to the treatment area swings open again, and Rick emerges, smiling. It’s time to head home and also time to release this post into the world. Letting this one fend for itself without more revision is part of my Substack experiment. Thanks for reading, everyone.