Friday night I had dinner on my own. New York is very kind to single lady diners, even at a cozy restaurant on the mighty and terrifying "date night."
**Sidenote: I don't really like the idea of "date night" sort of like I dislike Valentine's Day and also Brunch (with a capital B) and certain babies/puppies (and if we're being honest, the word "hubby" and its slightly nauseating offshoot "hubs"). It's all very twee and silly, or maybe I'm just a cynical jerk which is certainly possible, but anyway, back to it. **
I was happy to be a single lady diner this evening. I'd been to an awesome benefit for these guys, chock full of celebrities. My head was spinning, and it took me most of the train ride home to figure out that I was starving as well as star-struck. So a stop-in at Franny's, a couple of glasses of wine, some food. The pizza had a super, heavily charred crust but was just too damn salty. Slightly disappointing, as I'm stupid for Bklyn Larder and was expecting similar quality. But, again, two glasses of fairly good wine and I'm a relatively happy girl.
I tend to avoid books and newspapers when I'm eating on my own, as I feel more in-tune with the pulse of the restaurant, the other diners, society, the world and universe etc. I'm slightly tipsy towards the end of my meal and then, it might be the wine or the famous people or the still evening after a week of rain, but BOOM, there's suddenly a deep and abiding connection with most everyone in the restaurant and the whole entire city and I am having this experience and it's terrific even though I wonder a bit if my wine was spiked with something stronger and then I realize that I don't care. I'm sort of ecstatic in this really mellow way, totally delighted, aware and present. It's momentary, but it's intense, and I'm grateful. This is me: I tend to favor short bursts of high-stakes connection, like that instant when you realize that you've got something arbitrary and quirky in common with a stranger, and you scream inside for a few seconds, then walk away, not looking back, but a tiny wave of nostalgia every time you think of it. It's something that occurs, and I don't have to work too hard for it, which is kind of nice.
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I'm different around my family. There's nothing fleeting about my relationship with them. My parents are divorced and re-married, and my "step" family is just as dear to me as anyone I'm connected to by blood. I've got a bevy of cousins, all close in age, and four living grandparents. It's absurd, really, because we actually enjoy each other, and for years I stayed in on Friday and Saturday nights, content to spend time with relatives. Sometime in college I learned how to make friends, and good friends at that, but it's not, never will be, the same.
It gets sad now for a bit, ok. Because, just as I was wrapping up at college, my family got sick. All in one house, three people with life-threatening and vastly different conditions. It didn't all happen simultaneously, but six months out of college and I'm the only healthy person (whatever that means) at home. It was a bizarre time, one that I don't really remember. I found out about terror and relief, and how one mustn't overwhelm the other. I learned that one tiny mutated cell can multiply rapidly and turn a beautiful body into a warzone. That a beating heart can stop and start again. That a cruel, cruel condition can batter away at the gentlest soul I've ever known. That a good, strong martini does in fact help, if taken every day and straight up.
And that, a year after the first wave of danger has passed, two others whom I love dearly are stricken and taken away. There is suffering, and death, and we see all of it. This time, two different incarnations of the same disease run the full ugly course and it's deliberate, we think, and this world is really mean, we think, and there is anger and there is pain and there is very little hope and there are very few bright spots. And there are lasting implications. And a caution and hesitancy, and "it all happens for a reason" is, for the most, complete bullshit. That it never gets easier, you just get used to it being hard.
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Two years later, now, and I'm in New York for better or worse. Speaking of: there's a family wedding this weekend, between two ladies who have been through it all and deserve, very much, to be extremely happy. I'm going to see my sister Anna after too many months and I think that I might cry when I do, and I think that I might cry at the wedding. I don't plan on being very cynical this weekend, even if someone tells a story about eating Brunch with her hubby on Valentine's Day. I will eat and drink and kiss too much, and celebrate the people who are, those who were, and those who have just become. And I promise, when I get back, that I'll start writing about food again, because I know that a sentence about an overly salted pizza doesn't really cut it.
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