Baking, and adolescence

I am making chocolate truffles. I am making them with the finest quality dark chocolate I can find on the high street (currently one of the Montezuma varieties); espresso coffee; honey; and cocoa powder. The first step you take when making these truffles, is to melt the chocolate, very slowly so that it does not burn. Good quality dark chocolate takes on a molten, shiny, dreamy consistency, like a brook lapping its way over stones and pebbles. Melting this chocolate is a mesmerising experience. Inhaling the cocoa smell, taking in the dark, reflective glow, and watching the melted chocolate drip slowly and deliberately off the back of a teaspoon, unlocks a memory bank in my head. It's my baking equivalent of that moment in the Harry Potter movies when wizards stick their wands to their temples and extract fine, hair like wraiths of memory and bottle them up in test tube bottles (why is it that wizards always seem to have test tube bottles about them? Is it like Mums who are never without wet wipes?) And it performs the same function for me - to relieve my aching head of overflowing memories. Why is it so overburdened right now? Because my youngest child has reached adolescence, an important coming of age moment in his life, and because he is my youngest child, I have been wreathed in memories of his early years for days now. I stir the chocolate, stare at my reflection in it, and see pictures of him in the sheen. Blonde curls. Zonking off to sleep on my shoulder, milk dribbling down the back of my sweater. Looking on at his brother in delight as he got on with the serious business of playing with his trains. Fumbling with a hardback toddler sized book. Falling over and screeching about it for hours afterwards. His first day at primary school, looking so unbelievably tiny compared to all the older kids as he came out at lunchtime clutching his book bag. Making a huge fuss of learning to ride a bike. Good stuff and brain wrenching stuff. Serious illness, and extraordinary achievements. All that in such a seemingly short space of time. I add the honey to the chocolate and ponder the next stage of his life. The chocolate changes sheen and I imagine him sitting exams, maybe going on to further study, or quitting and going into business, or travelling. Or dating (yikes). I add espresso to the mixture and it turns viscous. I turn the heat right down and stir, carefully and firmly, so that the mixture turns into a dark chocolate cone. I take it off the heat, add vanilla, stir again, and leave it to cool. I put it in the fridge, and on the door is one of his early drawings, with a poem about a kiwi. It has been there for years because I love it so much. It describes the black kiwi seeds as "dark, mysterious pearls". Dark, mysterious pearls. A bit like what I hope my truffles will turn into. What will his future turn into? Gosh. I cannot wait to see it.