Thursday evening. The Girlfriend and I ride bicycles to a Park Slope restaurant — 2 miles north for her, a mile south for me. We’re meeting friends we haven’t seen since Before CoronaWorld, a married couple living with their two children, a daughter done with her first college year, a son ready for his first.
About 90 minutes before dinner Friend 1 texts: “I am thinking that we are not sure what the seating options are going to be like. Each of us should feel free to speak up if we are not comfortable with whatever they can offer us.”
Me: “Agreed. Anyone should be able to bail, or change plans (find another restaurant, get food to go, sit in a park, etc.).”
Friend 1: “Yes, flexibility and appreciation for the ability to be healthy enough to spend time with friends should be the order of the evening. See you soon.”
As I ride south on 5th Avenue, a Park Slope commercial strip, I figure we’re going to have to bail. Restaurant after restaurant has claimed sidewalk territory, crammed in as many tables as possible, block after block of strangers drinking and eating, if not shoulder to shoulder, certainly not 6 feet apart. Outdoors is safer than in, and heaven knows we’d all enjoy a night out, but I have no interest in threatening our health for the sake of a restaurant meal.
I turn west on Union Street, ride to the restaurant, see The Girlfriend has secured a spot; my worries melt. She’s sitting at two small circular tables set in what used to be street parking, set off from Union’s two-way traffic by planters, a three-wheeled bike holding a black barrel (a heating oil canister?). The space sits a good 15 feet from other diners (another table on the street, four or five on the sidewalk), affording more privacy than would an indoor booth. Tables are small but more than 6 feet across; we can chat without fear.
The restaurant, Palo Santo, has for 14 years served pan-Latin cuisine in the middle of a block of brownstone row houses. (The building had been a ravioli shop, grandfathering in its commercial use.) Our friends recommended it. The food, in the event, is terrific (roasted asparagus, ceviche, tuna, skirt steak, key lime pie, strawberry/rhubarb tart); they have a $45, three-course prix fixe menu that makes it reasonable. We order a lovely Argentinian Malbec, then a second. The evening is sticky but not impossible; occasionally a loud vehicle (delivery van, garbage truck, motorcycle) interrupts; but the service is friendly; the proprietor (Jacques Gautier) circulates unobtrusively; we are free to enjoy food, wine, conversation.
All this would have felt routine Before CoronaWorld; it’s remarkable how restorative it feels now.
The Girlfriend and our friends compare notes on their college-aged children, all of whom are set in August to head to campus (in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont). Everyone’s worried about their health, worried the campuses will close mid-semester. But they’re also worried about the passing months of inactivity; the kids are home, not working, spending hours with their screens. (Our friends’ daughter, The Girlfriend’s son had spring jobs that disappeared in CoronaWorld.) The kids are all eager to go, though both older ones struggled in their last semesters.
The parents of these young adults struggle to set limits, to check impulses to hover and helicopter. The kids, independent thinkers, struggle to manage adversity.
The Girlfriend had a screaming match this week with her son about his inability to sign up for remote summer school classes at a City University of New York college. To his credit, he’s been trying; the bureaucracy is near impossible to navigate. To ensure the credits transfer to his university he needs to get course syllabi, needs to get hold of the instructors, adjuncts who aren’t responsive to their college email accounts. To pay for the courses he needs to take care of a hold placed on his account for reasons unfathomable; he needs to contact a bursar. The Son’s disinclination to use telephones to speak to other human beings puts him in a bind here. It all drives The Girlfriend crazy. But she backed down; ultimately, he managed.
For her part, our friends’ daughter was doing fine until a head injury (playing soccer) upended her last semester. Her parents then took turns shuttling from Brooklyn to central Massachusetts, renting cars every week, staying in a local hotel, taking her home every weekend, making sure she was healthy, eating well, getting to class on time.
Friend 2 tells a story of her last final exam, in French. The daughter’s been unusually anxious for a few days, but the two spend a relaxed evening in her dorm room, watching Dolly Parton in something or other, pot smoke wafting under the door. He goes back to his hotel, then texts her next morning, about an hour before her 8 a.m. exam.
No answer.
He texts again a few minutes later. No answer.
A few minutes later he texts again. Nothing.
He calls. Straight to voice mail.
It’s a 20-minute walk across campus to her classroom. Now it’s 7:45, and his mind reels. Has he misread last night’s signals? Has she freaked out, shut down, derailed? Could she have harmed herself? He drives to school, sprints from parking lot to dorm, pounds on her door.
She answers, sleepy, phone in hand. Its battery is dead; she heard nothing. She dresses in a trice, runs to class, missing almost a quarter of her two-hour exam, on which she does well enough to pass the course.
“We’re not doing that again,” Friend 2 says ruefully.
“Our main parenting task this year is letting go,” says his husband.
We finish our coffee, say our goodbyes. It’s almost 10:30 p.m. — we’ve been at the restaurant for almost three hours. (I’d have guessed two, max.) The Girlfriend and I bike home on quiet streets.
1 comment:
I think your use of the word "restorative" to describe your night out with friends---doing nothing more than sharing a meal---is fascinating and right on the mark. I do not consider myself a fan of evolutionary psychology, but the epidemic has made me think of the ways in which our enjoyment of being social may be hard-wired. There is something deeply satisfying about sharing bread, so to speak, with others and something deeply unsatisfying about forced isolation. It is no wonder that prisoners suffer from severe mental problems when put in solitary confinement. It makes me think that back when humans lived in caves, those who were social had an evolutionary advantage, not only because being part of a community helped with food gathering and with protection from others, but also because of the psychological benefits of being around others. Our sense of self and of our psychic well-being is determined in crucial ways through our connections with others. That is why, I suppose, something as simple as sharing a meal with friends can be so, well, restorative.
Post a Comment