What follows is an installment of my Writer’s Diary, which for sixteen weeks I am sending every Sunday. This current run has a central focus on food. To receive this in your email inbox, subscribe here.
Hello! This is the sixth installment of this email diary, and I vowed in the first one that this season would run for either 12 or 18 installments. I’m still not sure which one! Either way, thank you for being with me on this journey. We’re either half-way or one-third done.
A brief email diary today. Sometimes I want to say so much (I see you nodding), but other times it feels more right to sit with silence. To be receptive. To follow.
Today is one of those days.
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In lieu of writing a long essay, I want to share with you some of these signs from this morning’s march against police violence. I think these signs, partly due to their roughness, capture something of the the sorrow and anger of these protests—and also some of the humor.
The protest began up on Hollywood Boulevard in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater, and then it headed west, cutting down onto Sunset and then onto Santa Monica. There were maybe 30,000 people filling miles of street, with nary a policeman in sight. (Except, of course, the ever-present helicopters.)
The mood was oddly quiet, less fiery than last week. There was still plenty of chanting, plenty of fellow-feeling. It was just a little less intense. The rage and stark sorrow of the early days has shifted into a steely resolve.
Maybe we all feel a little tired, seeing so many reminders that this fight won’t be won in a day. I know I can feel this weariness. But then I gird my loins and vow to aid in this struggle as long as it takes to deliver justice.
When we returned to our apartment, we were tired and hot and ready to sit. We needed something to cool us down and pick up our spirits. We needed popsicles!
So I opened the freezer and took out the mango popsicles I had set up to freeze in the morning. They were just the thing. A true refreshment.
And so I ask: why does our society relegate the popsicle to childhood? Why do so many of us willingly forget its charms just so soon as we hit our teens?
When we moved to L.A. in January, I finally bought a good set of reuseable popsicle forms off the internet, for about $20. They came the next week. I fill them with juice, give them a few hours in the freezer. In the afternoon, especially if it’s a hot day, all I have to do is grab one, run it under warm water until the plastic mold slides off, and ta-da: I am eating a delicious popsicle.
May I recommend mango popsicles, made using Russian mango juice purchased at the corner deli? That’s my current go-to.
In the picture above, you’ll see my sister’s favorite: concord grape juice. It does make an excellent popsicle. (Cassie got back into popsicles the way many people do: by having a kid.) The grape juice is a vibrant dye, however, so be careful you don’t drip on your white clothes.
My all-time favorite popsicle must the apple juice popsicle. I know, I know, the freezing forces much of the apple essence to the surface, leaving behind only vaguely apple juice-y ice crystals. It is not a ‘flavor-bomb for your mouth.’ Quite the opposite; this may be the quietest of the popsicles.
In lieu of instense flavor, the apple juice popsicle is redolent of hot summer afternoons when I was four. Feeling the breeze on my skin, wondering what life would be. Standing outside because I wasn’t allowed to eat popsicles inside. Looking at my sand box, my tricycle, the Pacific Ocean. Enjoying the way an hour passed, how much it held, how long a day was. How filled with wonders.
Those endless popsicle days constituted an era of my life. Only this year have I discovered how to time travel back to them.
I hope today has had some wonder in it for you, dear reader. Perhaps the wonder of seeing your fellow citizens rise up in the name of justice. But if you’d like a little more wonder, a few sweet minutes of it, consider the humble popsicle!
Be well. I’ll see you next week.
Jasper
June 14, 2020