All I wanted was some peach ice cream. Chasing after a childhood memory that probably never even happened, Suzie and I were with Chris on a hot summer day in Central Park. We’d scoured a nearby Whole Foods Market for a carton of peach ice cream, finding nothing but frozen yogurt which is most definitely NOT an acceptable substitute for ice cream. Chris looked quickly online and said there was talk of peach ice cream in the Chinatown area, but it was too hot to move from our rock.
We sat on a large piece of native stone, something that had been here before the city went up all around it, something that would likely remain after it fell. The day was sweltering, but in the shade of a few plane trees and the company of a couple of close friends it was all bearable. It might have even been beautiful. If only we’d found the peach ice cream.
The original memory, sketchy and problematic as it may be, was of a restaurant in New York City – something like Serendipity. We couldn’t even have been teenagers yet, as Suzie and I were traveling with our Moms. We had been in town for a couple of plays – ‘Lost in Yonkers’ and ‘Six Degrees of Separation’ – and were finding a brief respite from the pounding heat of a New York sidewalk in the middle of the day. We had our lunch while whimsical lamp fixtures fascinated from the ceiling. When it came time for dessert I played it safe and ordered a hot fudge sundae or something similarly plain. Suzie ordered a bowl of peach ice cream. It was the prettiest, most luscious-looking dish. Peaches dotted the creamy mound of ice, wonderfully crunchy in frozen form in the spoonful that Suzie offered me. A perfect treat for a hot day. It was a summer memory made instantly, one that I have held onto and probably morphed into some more than it ever was, especially seeing as how Suzie doesn’t even recall it happening. But I know it did. The details may have been different, but that bowl of peach ice cream was real. To this day, it symbolizes childhood, summer and New York City all at once.
And so we found ourselves, years later, sitting on that Central Park rock and dreamily contemplating an elusive bowl of peach ice cream, making a new summer memory while simply passing a hot, sunny day.
Back to Blog
