The Bittersweet

I love the pinch on the inside of my cheek when I eat dark chocolate, a barely sensed wince and then the flush in my mouth of something special and secret. It takes time for my taste buds to respond completely, and as I do, I feel my shoulders drop and everything settle. I like this indulgence, this complex fusion of sensation, texture, fragrance that embodies more than sweetness, lightness, frivolity.

Photo by Amy Vann on Unsplash

Tolerance for bitterness can be changed, even elevated as we explore the experience of taste, finding enjoyment where once the ease of cheery sweetness, uncomplicated and pleasing held us captive.

Watching my oldest daughter walk to the dais to get her diploma, red-robed, wearing a cap on which she’d designed a cotton candy-clouded, hopeful sky with a big blue flower at its center, I felt that decadent, rich taste rise in my cheeks. Everything about her was perfect. I’d watched her take these steps since her first, now confident, more a glide than a stride, gracefully climbing the steps to what lies ahead.

When she was small, she was the sweetest little bean. Even while playing alone, she’d have a smile on her tiny face as she chatted with the energies around her. Light would shine through her thicket of wild curls, my little lemon bar. My eyes would water at her cuteness and the tinniness of her voice. She was candy and I delighted in her discovery of the world and its textures, colors, and flavors.

I like sea salt on an 85% cacao chocolate. Bitter and rich, the crackling salt crystals pruning my lips. It’s not gentle with me, rather asks that I be deliberate in my experience of it. Its first bite is a shocking hello, but its goodbye lingers, a long finish that remains in the mouth and calms the nerves. It offers surprises, pulls my cheeks into a smile. The bittersweet bite is to be savored with closed eyes and marvel at its complexities.

I’m crying, sucking my teeth trying desperately to keep my eyes from watering. Being a mother is an exercise in discovering the delicious and savory, moaning with the pleasure of it, and then inhaling it just to the back of your mouth without swallowing any more. I have gulped back the tears that start in the hollow of my throat and wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, still licking the sweet and savory from my lips. I have caught my breath while delighting in the decadence of my children’s souls catching a glimpse of their own purpose. Let the tannins pull me back, like legs down the inside of that gorgeous blown-glass sip of pinot noir and ground me so that they’d feel safe to soar.

Before my eyes and behind my back, they have grown up. Life is sweet. And it is sharp, sometimes overripe. My children gave me a taste for it again, a voracity for connection and engagement and family. Every hunger denied was granted. We made cookies and brownies and baked cakes, standing in the kitchen in our aprons, licking our fingers even with the warnings that we should not consume anything raw. We delighted.

There is a tiny little sore forming inside my cheek that I keep touching with my tongue. If I am not careful, it catches when I am chewing and I bite it, making it worse. The things that give me comfort, wine, chocolate, nuts will only cause harm now. I’ll have to swallow the salty tears as we unfurl the mattress cover and hang pictures on the wall with Gorilla putty. I will hang string lights around her bed and her desk and line up water bottles and snacks in the drawers under her bed.

The summer of bittersweet goodbyes began at her graduation and ends with her launching into her own story. That I was able to love her with every morsel of my being, that I got her to the place where she turns to look back, where she hugs one more time, where she thanks me, and I thank her, does make the moment sweet.

My butterscotch baby who stood early in the crib and walked across the floor before she was one, and chatted my face off, learned to ride a bike and write her name and create worlds while doing the cat’s cradle on her fingers. She got behind the wheel of the car, became a leader, an open-hearted giver and lover of the world. She is sweet and kind. When her hair is out, it is still big and wild. This all happened under my nose, while I served chicken fingers and pasta and sweet potato puree and dumplings and pizza slices on rotation.

She liked her chocolate in brownies and as chips in cookies, semi-sweet. What is more delicious than the world opening up in front of you, feeling hopeful, dreaming of the wonderful possibilities. Where I once took Snickers and Twix mini bites by the handful, I now allow myself just one delicate square of rich, dark chocolate sprinkled with sea salt. I watch her find her footing, balance on her heels, and march into the next phase of her life.

There is a hint of pepper and of cinnamon that elevates the cocoa giving it a layered and multifaceted flavor that my matured palate has craved. Until this day. Today I want to hold out some tiny M&Ms to her little hand and watch her chew them up, wipe her mouth, and scoot her closer to me. It is the bittersweet dark that will ease my nerves and calm my heart. She will seek and find the sweet nectar of this phase of her life, knowing the complex flavors and tastes of our cacao indulgence will sustain and inspire us. I know it will be delicious, sometimes overripe, sometimes burnt, sometimes rotten, sometimes just right.

For her mama, watching her take her first tiny bites, is bittersweet.