COTTON CANDY MORNING

Every morning is a gift, waking to the day’s offerings. Is there an indication of how the day will unfold at sunrise? As the dawn breaks, some mornings are gray, some rainy or foggy, but then there are those mornings when our senses are bombarded by incredible displays. What will unfold on this day…

Although pictures don’t always do justice to the real event, this one reminds me of cotton candy, the kind that was made right in front of you at the ‘three-county fair’. Not the stuff you find at supermarkets and events now, all tied up and restricted in a tight sack of plastic. No, instead it was like watching art created. It began when you saw the tapered white paper cone inserted into a big vat of swirling clouds of sugary sweetness. The vendor’s hand would twirl and twist the cone while the clouds seemed to roll onto themselves like a jellyroll, growing right before your eyes.

And that first taste, warm and crunchy, was the best. I liked to peel off the layers, in reverse order of how they were added, unrolling the random pattern of chaos. Sometimes I would take a bit of it in my hand, squeeze it into a tight little ball, and then pop it into my mouth to get a burst of flavor.

The whole process, from ordering and dropping your hard-earned coins into a hand glistening with sugar, to peeling back the layers and savoring each bite, was almost a religious experience. It was magic of a bygone era.

So what will unfold on this day is something different than there has ever been, or ever will be again. With the sunrise, every day there unfolds some magic we can savor.

Cotton candy anyone?