Fusion

Sitting next to my friend Tei at the bar years ago, when Sam and I were only just contemplating having a kid, she told me, with a light-hearted chuckle, "you know, if you guys have kids, we won't be friends anymore…" It came as a blow, and I quickly denied having had any real thoughts about reproducing. Tei later said that she didn't remember saying it, and even if she had, she must've been joking—at least sort of. Nevertheless, I thought about the possibility of losing friends…in particular, this great group of girlfriends with whom I waitressed on Friday nights, and skied on Sunday mornings, and did all kinds of other adventurous and hilarious things. They were active and intelligent and full of life and fun, and a kind of girl power that I couldn't get enough of. There were some men in the extended group as well: Tei's husband, Cecil, was the chef at the restaurant, and Goto tended the bar and knew the name, drink, profession and family history of every single person who came through the door more than once.

Working in a restaurant, especially the busiest restaurant in a busy ski town, is an incredible rush. In the restaurant's peak years, there was a line of people waiting for us to open every Friday throughout the winter. We'd cram down our dinner and then we'd run, from five o'clock straight through to the end of the night, after three hundred or so people had had their meals. At the end of the shift, we had the place to ourselves, to change the music, to swap stories, and to laugh. Sometime after midnight, we'd lock up and walk out together, pockets full of cash. It was like we'd just left a great party, only we got paid a lot of money to be there. And in the years when I was saving every penny, to pay off my car and save money toward building our house, it was perfect: I had a social outlet every week, and I earned money rather than spending it. More importantly, the people I worked with became close and reliable friends. Each of us, at the time (except for Tei and Cecil), was unmarried, but in a committed relationship. We liked doing the same things and we had the same types of schedules. Our lives were on essentially parallel tracks.

But, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end.

For the restaurant, the end came when the Recession hit, the snow didn't fall, and the people didn't come. The business started to struggle, and then it started to collapse. And as it collapsed, things got ugly…it was a slow and painful death in many ways, and it was hard for everyone to watch. The once beloved gathering place for many local friends sat empty.

The parallel lives of friends also started to diverge. Some of the relationships ended. Some continue to evolve. My own life saw more commitments rather than less: House. Wedding. Baby. Toddler.

Almost two and a half years ago, as the restaurant was taking its last gasps of air, the group came up to the house for dinner. I was about halfway through my pregnancy and endured a lot of teasing about my future profession making breastmilk cheese (ick), and about it being The Last Supper, because "when people have kids," they joked, "they only hang out with other people who have kids."

As has been true with most of this parenting experience, I've found that many of the things that people tell you will happen actually do happen—even when you don't want them to.

After Quinn was born, Sam and I did stop socializing as much. We did lose a lot of our freedom. We have wished for more friends with kids so that we'd be able to find other people who would be willing to eat dinner before 6pm. When school is in session, it's all we can do to keep up—to grade the papers, wash our clothes periodically, be sure the bills are paid. Now that we're on vacation, we look around and realize there is no easy social outlet for us. Our friends without kids are much more mobile than we are, and yet we worry about inviting them here out of a self-consciousness about how demanding Quinn is on our attention and energy—not wanting to subject them to it and thinking they won't understand. Our friends with kids, those who are our lifelong friends, through good times and bad, are equally busy and mostly live far away.

But one thing I've realized recently is that I've been dwelling so much on the ways things have changed in my life, that I haven't noticed how some things have stayed the same, and other things have evolved to be even better than they were. 

Last week, after trying and failing many times in the past year, Cathy and I managed to get together. We went paddling early one evening and as we talked I realized that she's been busy in her life too, making sense of her own transitions. And on our way home, we saw Stacy's car in front of the bar where she works one night a week, and we went in to see her. And I realized then that she too is busy, making decisions and changes in life. When we all said goodbye, we agreed to try to get together for real sometime soon, and then, by some stroke of good luck and determination, another dinner party plan came to be.

Yesterday, as I cleaned the house, and put the chicken and the zucchini in their marinades, and I made a batch of vanilla ice cream, and I picked blueberries to go into my peach and blueberry pie, and I rolled out the crusts, and then cleaned again, I felt like it was Christmas. I felt nervous and excited about the prospect of having everyone arrive for dinner...all these friends I had only seen sporadically and one-on-one in the past year.

At five o'clock, Stacy arrived with a bottle of rosé and her dog, and we went for a walk, and then we sat on the porch and talked, as Sam and Quinn played ball. And then Cecil and Tei arrived, with a cooler full of food—a marinated pork loin and an Asian-spiced slaw—and a twelve pack of Yuengling beer from Pennsylvania, where Cecil and Sam both grew up. Eventually, Cathy and Goto showed up with bags full of fresh food, some ginger beer, beautiful Ahi tuna, marinated local beef, spinach for salad and the biggest, reddest tomato I've ever seen from Cathy's CSA. And within moments of everyone's arrival, everything was happening at once—dogs were running in and out of the house, plates and bowls were being pulled from cabinets, chilled glasses were retrieved from the freezer, ice was clinking, corks were popping, laughter, compliments and wise cracks exchanged, drinks were poured, salads were tossed, wasabi was mixed, meat was seasoned, the grill was lit, and dinner came to be with such ease that it was as if we'd done it once a week for years. And we had, only not in what has felt like a very long time.

I was so overjoyed having them all there, I felt like I had been resurrected from the dead. At one point, I just stopped and took it all in: Cathy and Goto cutting that giant tomato on the tiniest possible cutting board, laughing. Tei and Cecil and Sam laughing around the island. Stacy sitting with Quinn at her little table, doing something together as if it has always been that way. And while I worried that Quinn would somehow ruin the evening, she didn't. She hid behind her pacifier most of the night, but when Stacy put her hands out in front of her, Quinn put her hands out to touch them. And when someone tickled her feet that were up on the counter as she sat in Sam's lap, she giggled. And later, eventually, she gained enough confidence to move around on her own, and she gave Stacy's dog Sequoia all kinds of love, and she navigated the kitchen amidst all of their unfamiliar legs.

On cue, Quinn went to bed without a noticeable fuss. I took my time getting her through her routine—I put on her pajamas and read a few books in the rocking chair. I set the fan up for her in her room. I kissed her goodnight and waved to her as I closed her sliding glass doors.

And on cue, just as the grilling was nearly complete, Sam holding the umbrella over Cecil as he turned the meat, and Goto running things in and out of the house, the rain we've been waiting for for weeks and weeks started to fall. It fell in a deluge, deafening on the metal roof, wind twisting in the trees, thunder and lightning just overhead, everyone cheering its arrival.

We lit candles in anticipation of losing power, and sat down to eat—the table a beautiful spread of beautiful food, and the familiar dance of friends telling stories, laughing, Goto filling drinks, Cecil passing platters, each person holding dishes for the next. The quiet moment of first bites, a pause in the action, and the chef: "Wow. There are so many good, complex flavors happening here!" And then more action, more stories swirling with laughter. Tei dishing out Tei-sized portions of dessert (she eats like a linebacker despite being the size of a wood nymph), everyone asking for recipe tips, the dogs barking just a split-second before the next big thunder clap. All the while rain soaking the parched earth, and Sam smiling at me from the other end of the table, and Quinn somehow sleeping upstairs.

"Kudos to you guys," Cecil said at one point, his glass in the air, "for managing to still connect with old friends. I know it must be hard with a little kid." They thanked us for hosting and in that moment I honestly could have cried from relief and gratitude—how nice to have them there, how thankful I was to see them at our table.

Eventually we heard a squack from upstairs, inevitable given the violence of the storm outside. Sam went up and retrieved Quinn and she came to sit on my lap with her lamb. She put one arm around my neck and hid her face on my shoulder.

I was glad to have her with me in the late night company of my old friends—something that once seemed so incongruous and impossible but, last night, was akin to water on parched earth. So much nourishment for the soul…so many good complex flavors in this life.