Ray of Light
There was a jokey text exchange I had with a friend. The summarized version went something like this:
R: I think I’m either going to rehab or going to be running a restaurant after the pandemic. Which do you think is better?
Me: Rehab is way easier. No one asks you to cook. No one asks you to order food. Someone else does your laundry. You can go for long walks. And then you go meet with your shrink and talk about your feelings.
This was last week.
This week a friend of Stephen’s committed suicide. I had recently met B in December. We had B and his wife over for a giant dinner party at our rental in Jackson Hole. B retired in his 50’s and travelled the world fly fishing and skiing. S does not know if he had any underlying health issues or if he had the Coronavirus.
Last night I got an email from a friend about a woman I met on a ladies tennis trip to the Bahamas this past February. (Oh how I was spoiled)! I shared a taxi with N from the airport to the club with some other women. She seemed stand-offish and cold. She sat right next to me and never asked me my first name. She complained about being hungry. Called the concierge non-stop about ordering lunch just for herself. Then I saw her at dinner. She sat next to me. We chatted about a mutual friend who had organized a ladies lunch in Locust Valley. This mutual friend, C, had asked every woman to stand up and talk about her accomplishments. N was flummoxed by this request. She was just a housewife, a divorced housewife with grown children. C spoke Japanese fluently, had 5 children all while saving the world working at the Council on Foreign relations. N committed suicide on Saturday.
Who are any of us anyway without our usual trappings of fancy jobs, fancy husbands, fancy clothing? What happens when we are isolated from all the things we believe make us who we are. Or who we think we are?
I woke up at 7:30 this morning to a ray of sunshine in my room. Stephen was awake and rubbed himself against me.
I said, “Babe, I’m not a 24/7 all you can eat buffet.” He rolled over. I checked my phone and my girlfriend, R, who happens to live five minutes from me is out of eggs. I ordered 16-dozen from a restaurant supply store. She has chicken breasts. So we do an exchange. I left three dozen eggs on my porch and she left the frozen chicken breasts. I did not even see her come or go.
Tuesdays are my least favorite days. The garbage truck comes and I rush around the house trying to clear all of the trash cans and boxes. Tuesdays are also the change and wash the sheets days.
Everyday there is a what’s for dinner conversation. I have never talked about food and food ordering and cooking so much in my life. In my previous life, my girlfriends and I would go to restaurants and discuss dieting. Oh, the irony.