On Chocolate for Days and Days

        

On a recent blog I indicated I had had an important birthday, and some of my coolest friends, my husband, and I gathered at our favorite restaurant to celebrate. In honor of the occasion, many brought one of my favorite treats…chocolate…chocolate with nuts and fruits…chocolate as creamy, gilt-wrapped truffles and crunchy bricks…chocolate with alcohol flavoring, even chocolate sprinkled with sea salt. It all had one thing in common; all the chocolate was dark. Not any namby-pamby milk chocolate, which is what chocolate "interns" consume, and absolutely no white chocolate, which is a sin against nature! This was all seriously dark, sweetened just enough to keep the taste buds from puckering up. And so, perusing my treasured haul a little later, I could see that I had chocolate for days and days!

Days and days...

The memory of “days and days” is a throw-back to my childhood when my sainted mother, seeing her children pushing their vegetables around on their plates, would say, “You’re going to sit there for days and days until you eat those vegetables!” Naturally as an imaginative child, I could see myself at the table all day, overnight, and into the next morning, so the hated vegetables got eaten. But what began as a pejorative eventually morphed into possibilities of continuous pleasure, and days and days came to hold flowing anticipation that brought light and hope. I could enjoy little habits that held positive meanings for days and days. I could enjoy small gifts for days and days brought by others who love enough to bring them. For me, some new beginnings last for so many days and days that, happily, they never progress to conclusions.

New Beginnings...

Yes, my birthday chocolates will last for days and days, and they will also come to an end along with many happily-remembered delightful, gastronomic digestions, but the love infused in every piece will go on for endless days and days…new beginnings all over again.

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