My summers as a kid seemed to be endless. The days stretched long into the evening after the sun went down. The neighborhood was full of parents on aluminum webbed beach chairs smoking cigarettes and drinking a beer and kids engaged in games of stoop ball and hopscotch on boards designed on concrete with colored chalk. The biggest decision of the day was whether to ask for ice cream from Mr. Softee, Good Humor or the Bungalow Bar truck that stopped on our block. Summer, even in the city, moved slowly and that was a good thing.
Things change and with it so does how fast time slips away. It is August 2 and the summer of 2010 is waning quickly. We are at that point where I know in the blink of an eye, the leaves will start to change color, the air will get cooler and I will feel sad to let go.
It is also exactly two years to the day since I held a corporate job. Two years since I made a conscious decision to create something new and different in my life. Two years since I woke to an alarm and raced about my morning to head downtown to the office.
One of the most difficult things in my transition has been the speed with which things manifest. I was in a fast paced sale in which you had a lot of control on the end result. That is not true of the direction I’ve chosen. The business of writing and selling stories is not a fast one, nor is building and growing a coaching practice.
And that is the great irony of today’s blog. At the same time I want to slow the end of summer, to bask in each ray of sunshine, I want to rush time and speed up the selling of my novel.
Maybe that is also the lesson. To savor each moment no matter what. We can’t delay the changing of the seasons, nor can we speed up things before their time. We can only do the work, drive the truck in the direction we want to go, stop for an ice cream on occasion and remember to enjoy the journey.
What a shock to see your pic of an ice cream truck in the shape of a bungalow. As kids we used to sing, “Bungalow Bar tastes like tar. The more you eat it, the sicker you are.” I guess I was so intent on shouting the distasteful song for the even more distasteful ice cream that I never noticed the creative look of the truck bearing vulgar ice cream…lol..but I loved hot fudge sundaes from Mr. Softee and chocolate eclairs from Good Humor.
It’s another summer day in LA. But not an ice cream truck in sight.
Thanks Joanne
Bungalow Bar was definitely a NY thing! I remember that song well!
As soon as I read this I thought to write the Bungalow Bar “ditty” but, darn it, I see someone else got to it first. Too funny. (and I thought we cornered the market on that sing-songy rhyme in Glendale) However, I don’t remember that the ice cream was so bad. It was your basic Good Humor, Marino’s Ices & the like. It wasn’t chic or gourmet but was just as satisfying…especially to a kid. Today’s ice cream trucks come peddling the same confections along with some more recently conjured treats. They may not get a high score in the Zagat guide but how many other desserts come “knocking” at your door??