When I was in preschool and we were getting a bit rambunctious, our teacher would call a timeout in the air. Everyone instantly knew that they needed to return to their desks, close their eyes, calm themselves by breathing deeply and listen.
For a minute we would simply listen and remember everything that we heard. We would then take turns telling our class mates what our ears had picked up on. It was a mindful exercise I learned when I was only six utilizing only one of my senses. I still use it today, but I've expanded it to include all of them. Here's my senses experience from today.
I gazed at the little thing in my hand and looked for the corners. I carefully scraped one away and slip my nail under the little flap it left. Feeling triumphant I then worked my way around all side, opening, removing, releasing the little piece of delight into my fingers. It felt hard to the touch.
Before I could even blink, my fingers had taken over and popped it in my mouth. It was cold, but it would warm up soon enough. I ran my tongue along the edge of it tasting the lovely buttermilk taste. My favourite.
Before long it was becoming more supple and that's when I started to chew. It was still quite tough like taffy, but the flavour it released on every downbite was immensely satisfying. I sat back and closed my eyes just enjoying how my jaw was waging war on the toffee inside. It was sticky and stuck to my teeth and the roof of my mouth, but I pried it away with my tongue; it working in unison with my teeth to reduce this piece of candy to a small, soft ball in my mouth.
It was like ecstacy every time I nuzzled it with my tongue, the taste exploding over my tastebuds and flowing around my mouth. Delectable little delight which devolved smaller and smaller until it wasn't even a toffee anymore, just a small piece of soft, stringy gloopy sweet. No longer sticking to my teeth, it simply started to fade away. My mouth was producing a lot of saliva to work it's way through this dessert sweet, but oh how heavenly that milky taste was. I sucked on it a little bit more before it was all but gone. The taste stayed around in my mouth for a little while longer. Sweet and almost fruity. Delicious.
Once it had vanished completely, I smiled and then reached over happily and picked up another small parcel and started finding the corners. I had bought myself a whole bag of these little toffees and I wasn't about to stop at just one. They were just too good.
After the second one was finished, I could feel my jaw's dull ache from the exertion of biting down on this hard sweet. It wasn't painful, it was just a sign of having worked for the taste of buttermilk bliss. My whole being felt like buttermilk. Light, fluffy and sweet. I was all sweeted out by now and happily so.
I didn't need any more desserts now, just a great deal of teeth brushing before sleep. But it was oh, so very worth it.