Cardamom Ice Cream

This post has been edited to protect the privacy of friends, so I hope no one thinks I’m trying to freak them out by changing the story.

While reading a blog, a line catches my eye: “Mountain bikes are just wilderness wheelchairs.” Just days later, I find myself hiking with the author. I mention liking that line, and she giggles, explaining her view that running is fun but not necessarily kind for her and her self-described clumsiness (aren’t we all?). She needs some form of recreation to overcome her injuries.

My interpretation might be slightly off, as my mind soon drifts to cardamom ice cream. It’s good but not necessarily good for me. Running is fun but dangerous. Ice cream is tasty, yet nutritionally a disaster. Much like some of my past relationships.

The hike continues up to the Waterworks Hill ridgeline, and my thoughts shift to a book I recently read, “Emotional Alchemy,” by Tara Goleman. She narrates a story about Julian, a man who becomes infatuated with a woman who stops returning his calls. Initially, he was only mildly interested, but now he’s almost obsessed. This pattern, Goleman explains, is fueled by a ‘reparative fantasy’—a longing to be rescued by these emotionally unavailable women.

“In my crib, maybe two, crying out to my mother. She doesn’t ever answer. It’s as though this has gone on for forty years. It’s not just my past; that two-year-old is crying out now, crying so hard he’s afraid he won’t be able to breathe…”

That thought lodged itself in my mind as I sat reading the other night. It felt relevant, and now, hiking at night with a snowstorm rolling in, it surfaces again. My family subscribed to the old west nurturing technique: if a baby cries, just let it cry, thinking it needs to toughen up for life. Life is hard, they said. But isn’t this just bad parenting? How can you turn your back on someone that needs nurturing?

I stumble on a rock and almost twist my ankle. Hearing the shuffle, my friend glances back, “You ok?”

“Yeah.”

She’s emotionally available, caring, a good friend. I have good friends and continue to surround myself with good people—people who are good for me. The problem is my friends always want to stop by the Big Dipper for cardamom ice cream.