June 2009

A couple of years ago my sister Judy and I were each given a box of truffles. The tiny print said two pieces contained 310 calories and there were six pieces in each box. We were sitting on the bus headed down Broadway, quietly doing our calculations.: Judy was dividing by two and I was multiplying by three. When she realized what I was doing a look came over her face that is hard to describe. “I lost all hope for you,” she says now. The difference between us could not have been more clearly defined than in that moment. 

     There are people who can eat one piece of chocolate, one piece of cake, drink one glass of wine. There are people who can smoke one cigarette a day. And then there are people for whom one of anything is not even an option.

     What about the differences in your own family? Your own style of parenting, friendship, ways of greeting the day? I grind my own beans to make my coffee in the morning, but my late husband stuck to instant. I would try again and again to convert him--"Just try it," I'd say, and he'd oblige, pronounce it delicious,m and go back to spooning his teaspoon of whatever it was into his mug and pouring the boiling water on top. I never understood it. But we like what we like, prefer what we prefer, and I think habit has a role to play here. I can't drink out of a coffee mug, I like thin china, but he loved his mugs.

     I don't understand the kind of restraint my sister can exercise (and here I want to add that I always wanted to name a dog Restraint, so I could go out and exercise it) but I wish I had a little of what she's got going.

Assignment:

• Write two pages when a difference between you and somebody else became strikingly clear.
• Write two pages that contain memories of chocolate.