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New Normal

New Normal

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Over the weekend, a taste of normalcy: dinner out — in a restaurant — with friends who are also vaccinated.  The restaurant was empty save for one table of three seated 20 feet away. The server was properly masked. In that sense, it was not business as usual. 

But what a thrill to see actual human faces, not squares on a screen; to enjoy full human expressions, not the crinkle of eyes above an oblong of cloth. There were appetizers and stir-fries and shrimp with vermicelli. There was much catching up. And afterward, there was a stroll through the narrow streets of a small, quaint downtown.

It was not the kind of dining experience I might have sought 14 months ago, folks crammed together talking and laughing, the clink of glasses, the buzz of alcohol and laughter. It was the new normal. And it was absolutely wonderful. 

Celebrating Neighbors

Celebrating Neighbors

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Research has proven that our moods may be lifted higher by a random conversation than by all the cajoling of a close loved one. If this is true — and I have anecdotal evidence that it is — neighbors are likely some of its greatest practitioners.

Neighbors are the ones we bump into while picking up the newspaper at the mailbox (regrettably, while wearing a bathrobe some mornings). The ones we grumble with during the fall raking season. And they are the ones whose banter may unwittingly set our day on a upward course. 
We were lucky enough to fall into a group of neighbors all relatively new to the neighborhood when we moved in. Most had young children, many had chosen this neighborhood for the big backyards and nearby woods. In a region I always thought would be transient, this neighborhood has been remarkably stable. It’s a place where people notice, where people care.

Last night we said farewell to some of our oldest, dearest neighbors. Though I’m sad to lose them, the send-off was such a celebration of neighborliness that I’m left not with sadness, but with joy.

(A Virginia neighborhood from the air.)
The News

The News

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For most of the year I grab the Washington Post from the driveway and read it on the way to work. Now I’m reading a different kind of news.

Friends from Groton, Massachusetts, have downsized to Bonita Beach, Florida. Family from South Carolina has met family from Sweden. There have been travels to Italy and Kenya and North Carolina. Children have grown, dogs have been photographed in Santa hats and people I love have lived another year.

Time is always passing, but this is when and how we mark it. Not with rue or agitation. But with joy and gratitude.

Continuity and Change

Continuity and Change

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It was a weekend of reconnecting, revisiting and reminding myself why I do what I do.

There was the “World Room” with its stained glass window, the stairs that were always quicker than the tiny elevator, especially if you were racing to turn in a story by a 5 p.m. deadline.

There was Broadway, with its jumble of stores and restaurants and Cafe Milano where Mama Joys’ used to be. There was the campus quad, with libraries on either end and a new coffee shop in the journalism building. In other words, there was both continuity and change, as there should be.
Way Back When

Way Back When

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The message went out last night after 9, and by early this morning the replies were pouring in. Would we, the members of Henry Clay High School, class of 19__ (that’s the only part of my graduating class year I’m revealing), like to meet at a classmate’s farm some late September Saturday?

It’s a five-year rather than a 10-year mark for us. But we’ve lost a couple of people since last time and, as the organizer said, “We’re not getting any younger, folks. And there’s something important about being with people we knew way back when.”

There is. Surprisingly so.

What I mostly felt in high school was how much I wanted to get out of it. But the memories now are clearer than most: The way the light came in through the tall windows of Baldy Gelb’s math classroom. (He was Coach Gelb — which may have accounted for the prime real estate.) Or the day Mrs. Ahrens’ student teacher suggested we start keeping a journal. (I’ve never stopped.)

In other words, these were years that mattered. And people who matter still.

A New Chapter

A New Chapter

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My book group met night before last, only four of us this time out of a dwindling number of eight. It was our annual book picking — but we decided to add new members, too.

We did not come to this decision lightly. We’ve taken in no new members for eight years. But what’s eight years when you’ve been together 25?

The children we were birthing when the group formed are now marrying and settling down. It won’t be long before there’s a grandchild or two. But what time and busyness couldn’t derail, major life changes have. Two of us left and came back years later. But the recent departures will be permanent. People are retiring and moving away. We want to keep a quorum of sorts. We want to keep gathering on the first Wednesday of the month (more or less) to chat about Lila, The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace and anything else that crosses our minds.

So in January we add a new chapter. We become a slightly altered group — but this time altered by addition rather than subtraction. 

The Art of Eating Crabs

The Art of Eating Crabs

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Yesterday there was a graduation in Maryland, so after the congratulations and the photographs and the appetizers it was time for the main culinary attraction — that would be the Maryland blue crabs.

They start off blue but by the time you eat them they are red from the steaming and the seasoning. And eating them is an art. First you pull off the legs, then you find a little tab on the underside of the shell that opens up the critter — almost like a can with a pop top. Then you scrape off the gills and eat the meat inside. You save the claws for last, cracking them with a nutcracker or pounding them with a mallet. The meat is delicious!

Yesterday I sat next to some accomplished crab pickers who made the difficult look easy and left a pile of picked-clean shells. “Eating crabs is not just about eating,” said one of the experts. “It’s about sitting around and talking, the whole experience.”

And this was true. Because it takes so long to eat a crab — and because you have to eat so many of them to fill up — the meal is long and the stories fly. We talked about history and the Bible and Willie Nelson and the singer Meat Loaf, the stories unspooling, the crab shells flying and the perfect May day winding down into dusk.

Collegiality

Collegiality

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A hard day yesterday, one of several. There was too much work and not enough time. There were the typical absurdities. But there were also revelations, shared laughter, plans for drinks after work. There was gallows humor.  In short, there was collegiality.

Every group of people creates its own force field. As we interview candidates for openings in the department I think a lot about the ineffable qualities that make for a trusted colleague. It’s a similar approach, a complementary attitude, a sense of humor. Sometimes you get it right; sometimes you don’t.

People who write have a tendency to get caught in webs of their own thinking. It was in part to avoid this trap that I entered the office world again. I can’t say I haven’t second-guessed my decision hundreds of times. But I didn’t yesterday.

Collegiality is often a haphazard affair, a
byproduct, the luck of the draw. But once you’ve known the joy and purpose of working together toward a common goal it’s difficult to go back.

Friendship Priming

Friendship Priming

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The newspaper clipping, neatly labeled “International Herald Tribune,” came from Kay in France. She had tucked the essay in with a note that said “this has ‘Anne’ written all over it.” 

The topic: structural priming, the unconscious influences on writing, how what we read settles into our brain and sets up shop there and, before we know it, we’re penning lines better suited to reports than poems. It’s a habit we can break by cleansing our “linguistic palate” — reading widely and “against type.”

The author, Michael Erard, has written short stories, essays, reviews and nonfiction books — but his day job is a think tank researcher. In other words, he says, “I’m a dancer who walks for a living.”  And he dances better, he says, if he shuts off the Web and dips into a page of Virginia Tufte’s Artful Sentences: Syntax as Style before beginning his creative work.

Reading this essay was like turning a kaleidoscope and bringing a new palette into place. It’s something I’ve thought about for years, but couldn’t have articulated.

And it’s worth noting that although I might have stumbled across the article online, it came to me because someone I love thought I would like it. Which makes it an example not of structural priming but of friendship priming, the uncanny and unconscious connections that exist, that flourish, between friends.

Grasping the Moment

Grasping the Moment

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There was a last-minute offer to grill, a request for chicken, zucchini and tomatoes, all of which I gladly supplied. And then there was transporting the grill, the real thing, the Weber, with its bag of charcoal.

The real grill takes time to heat up so there were games of catch with Copper, plenty of ins and outs through the backdoor. People appeared on the deck, talked on their phones and then vanished back inside. Earlier we had sifted through an album, found a black and white photo of Tom from his long-hair days. This was passed around and admired. We opened some hard cider, marveling at its tang and effervescence.

Two more friends appeared, and now it was an impromptu party. I bounced on the trampoline, listening to songs I’d just bought: “Teach Your Children Well,” “September,” “Your Song,” “Morning has Broken.”

My troubles left me alone for this blissful, golden evening. The late light glancing the trunks of the oaks, the hydrangea blooming, voices from inside, laughing. People, young people, talking about music and jokes and places we don’t know and never care to find out. Someone could have pulled out a guitar, strummed a few chords, and I wouldn’t have been surprised. Maybe next time. It was life renewing itself. And I was pulled along by it, glad for the ride.