Guilty Pleasures
All of us have them.
For some it might be that morning latte with three
expresso shots, for others, it’s that one cigarette they allow themselves when
they finish a book.
I have a friend who loves Gummi Bears, but he only has a
bag when he’s written new lyrics.
It’s not the same as comfort food, like that favorite
soup you eat after a cold winter day when everything went wrong, or the cup of
cocoa, whisky laced, that you pour when the writing just isn’t flowing the way
you hoped it would.
No, guilty pleasures are something different, something better,
something you maybe don’t share with anyone.
Like coffee milk.
That’s one of mine. And no, I don’t mean a bit of coffee
drowned in milk, I mean the coffee flavored syrup that I used to be able to get
all the time from any corner store in New Bedford. Better than any Hershey’s
syrup you’ll ever taste, at least, if you’re a coffee lover. You can dribble it
over ice cream, use it to flavor deserts, or my favorite, stir it in milk and
drink it.
I ordered some offline, but it was in a plastic bottle
and it didn’t taste the same. Guess I’ll have to go back on Amazon and try
searching for some in the glass bottle. Like a karo syrup bottle. That kind was
the best.
Another guilty pleasure of mine is Maple candy. It’s a
hard, hard find out here in Iowa, I’ve only come across it once. It wasn’t even
the good stuff, the good stuff I have to order straight from Vermont. I
discovered just how much I loved the stuff while I was attending college up
there. The soft, sugary goodness was perfect in small doses with a cup of tea.
Bubble baths are another guilty pleasure of mine. We have
an old, claw foot tub, the big, soaking kind, and there’s nothing I love on a
cold night than filling it with hot water and bubbles, lightning candles around
the bathroom and settling in with a good book. The lilac and lavender scent,
silence and candle light is as relaxing as any meditation.
I love a good whiskey too. Smooth, spicy, plenty of
undertones, while I can drink all the time, but whiskey is something to be
savored, saved.
My favorite guilty pleasure though, is finding that quiet
pond out in the woods, early in the morning when the water’s cold, and slipping
in to swim while shimmers of gold still glitter on its surface. I love the feel
of calm water parting around me, the crisp smell of fall in the air, the
illusion, for just a little that the wilderness stretches further, and wilder
than it does.
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