i scream, you scream

Dress: Taylor Stitch (available for pre-order here); Shirt: Heidi Merrick; Boots: Isabel Marant (same style, different color here); Bag: Ali Golden (available via Taylor Stitch); Sunglasses: Ray-Ban; Watch: Daniel Wellington; Necklaces: Jennifer Zeuner

Little known fact: one of my very first jobs (aside from the ones where you 'work at your parent's office answering phones but really do your homework' -- sorry, Dad), was at an ice cream shop.

During my first few summers of college in Reno, I'd throw on my all white uniform and apron and head over to Marble Slab, where I'd often be the only employee for the day, opening up shop, making ice cream batches myself and generally finding any and every excuse to text my friends to come visit me (usually involved me bribing them with scoops of birthday cake ice cream). 

I'd make playlists each day to blast in the store, filled with the songs I thought were so incredibly cool and hip at the time -- and would wait for the next youth soccer team to come in and order far too many complicated scoop orders, most of which would end up on the tables and floor around the store.

And you know what? I loved that job. 

Perhaps it was something about summer break: the promise of 6 hour work days, followed by long, warm evenings with friends and drive-in movies, only to be repeated the next day. Or perhaps it was the freedom that only your first real job can give you, that sense of purpose and duty, even if it just revolves around, well, ice cream. Or perhaps it's one of those appreciations that come long after the fact, because hindsight is funny like that. 

Whatever it is, I always get slightly nostalgic when I go to ice cream parlors. Something about the blasted AC, the numerous finger and face prints from children on the glass case and the occasional couple strolling in, hand in hand, for a cute, late afternoon date -- it makes me want to just sit in the background and take it all in. 

This, of course, gets me thinking. Is there something about my life currently that will make me nostalgic years from now? The answer is: of course there is. But it's hard to tell what that might be at the time, because that aforementioned hindsight can be a bitch. What I've recently tried to do though is be more aware of it -- taking small moments to appreciate the here and now, right now. Because someday, perhaps I'll be sitting in an ice cream parlor reflecting on it all (with two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream, hopefully).

Photos by Mike Armenta