Simple_Pleasures

SIMPLE PLEASURES Two years ago, I was sitting in a Montevideo restaurant lingering over a cup of chocolate and watching towards a great window the city go by. I was feeling well, sipping my hot chocolate, and suddenly it struck me that one reason for my sense of well-being was the little ritual I had been enacting ever since my younger son was born: to share with him, every afternoon, a cup of hot chocolate. . As I reflected on this, I realized that I had seen variation of this ritual enacted in countless years up to now, with the difference that we were living in Salto city, and we were sharing a simple cup of chocolate every afternoon during his childhood. In fact, the preparation and drinking of hot chocolate had become one of those delightful little rites that unify and enrich family´s feelings. To my knowledge, however, no one had recognized it as such, so I decided to invite everybody on Sunday’s afternoons to come home and share a cup of chocolate. To enjoy the simple rite, I need first to install myself in a comfortable sofa, at home, next to the fireplace, and then ask by calling or phoning my sons and wait until they arrive. What follows probably won’t reveal any profound truth, but it makes me feel more intimately a main part of the family, and it will certainly provide a welcome chance to relax and reflect in the middle of a hard sight-seeing day. When your chocolate cup is placed before you, study it for a while: the brown, hot, liquid, is crowned with soft smoke whose curves hold and go up and down the small cup. Notice how the pure white milk changes into dark smelty chocolate. Notice also, the spirals down into the middle of the chocolate’s surface. Then pour two or three spoons of sugar that has been into the sugar bowl placed in the middle of the table. This sugar, falling on the liquid, sends up ripples, creating new waves and textures and layers of hot chocolate. Finally, after appreciating the hot chocolate’ effect on the family’s relationships, to my satisfaction, I taste it, its hot and complex mix of milk, chocolate and sweet sugar, and sit back, and watch through the window, smiling and serene that pleasure can sometimes be tasted in such simple things. SILVIA TORRES------JUNE 5th