Blue Light

In the blue light I remember feeling joy. I couldn't have been older than nine. Some time earlier my mother had taken my little brother and I to a Chicken Pox party in the hopes little red bumps would arrive before Christmas break. Not knowing that Chicken Pox involved misery, but instead involved missing school, I anxiously awaited my first red bump.

The evening the first small bump raised on my forearm I scurried down the hallway to announce the accomplishment of my set task - I had contracted a childhood right of passage. I was in the club. My mother carefully and dutifully inspected the announced area and confirmed I had in fact accomplished the mission and I would not be attending school anytime soon.

She also announced that I, unlike my little brother who was still awaiting his first bump, could stay-up as late as I liked. After the dishes were washed, my brother and father off to bed, my mother and I sat in the living room together under the blue light of the TV. I don't remember watching a particular show, I just remembered feeling grown-up, the two of us hanging-out, giggling, girlfriends. At some point my mother announced it was past eleven and offered me a late night bowl of ice cream, a decadence I had never experienced. It was under that blue light, laughing, big cold bowls of cream and sugar, that time seemed to stop and life was lived. Simple. Sticky. Sweet. True.

In Marcel Proust's The Madeleine, Proust recalls such a moment in his childhood when he dipped the lemon hinted Madeleine cookie into warm tea, the feeling of familial inclusion, a step into adulthood. Proust recollection, like my own of ice cream at midnight, is perhaps based less in fact and more based on sensory emotions, "...after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, still, alone, more fragile, but with more vitality, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, the smell and taste of things remain poised a long time, like souls, ready to remind us, waiting and hoping for their moment, amid the ruins of all the rest...".

In writing this blog I thought of consulting my mother to fact check my memory and I realized that is really not the point. Perhaps I have exchanged one memory for another, perhaps this memory was not tied to Chicken Pox, perhaps we did not stay-up as late as I remember, but the feeling of joy, the feeling of respect, the feeling of specialness is real.

The recollection of that night with my mother made me realize my affinity and good luck for capturing late night snack moments. There is something special about the night, it spells occasion, leisure, and play. From 2 am diner breakfasts with rowdy friends after a night of drinking, to sharing M&M's at midnight with the first person I loved, to the recent 3 am pizza night with friends I have known for almost 15 years, each of those memories is filled with uncontrollable laughter and pureness.

Somewhere in the blue light my next memory awaits.