Thought for Food

Gonna level with you. My life hit the fan on Monday around midnight and things have been pretty god-awful since. Only thing keeping me moving is

1. Tracy in the morning
2. Knowing I’ll see dear Jane in Chicago tomorrow night
3. Friends (always)

Yesterday evening Julie texted me to see if we could move up our Thursday dinner date. Seafood sounded a helluva lot better than what I was doing (bawling on 5th Avenue in front of the Express store). Pulled those sunglasses down and headed downtown.

Things got better when I got to her street, one of the prettiest in the city.

Things got downright okay when we stopped to smell the roses on 6th Avenue at 9th Street.

Things got kinda awesome when they showed us to a little table in the back of Pearl Oyster Bar without so much as a minute’s wait.

And when we struck up neighborly conversation with the tables on either side of us — two gay partners celebrating a birthday with lobster rolls and a sweet grown son doting on his mama — I felt grateful for the gifts that strangers can give you without even realizing it.

05.26.2010, 7:45 pm. Caesar salad, lobster, shrimp, clam, and oyster cocktail, French rosé, and blueberry crumble pie with vanilla ice cream. Pearl Oyster Bar, Cornelia Street.

…

I need to add something. There’s something else that belongs on that list:

      4. Faith.

Faith in him and I. We have both been scarred by our history; mine primal, his contemporary. We know the injustice of life in a way that many do not. We know pain. And because of that, intimacy — love — oh, it can be hard. So hard. I look from outside and I see two people and I ache for them, you know? Because they have suffered and they are afraid but they are trying.