A Feast of Food and Friendship for the Covid-Starved

On the first day of summer 2020, life took one step toward normal in my suburban New Jersey town, with the first post-lockdown dinner party. It was just six people but my friend made it an Event: formal place settings, a scrumptious menu (steak, lobster and salmon!), candles and wine.  Two couples would sit across from each other while the host and hostess sat at the far ends. We were close enough to chat but far enough to be safe, just in case.

It already felt different than the gathering we’d had a few weeks earlier, when the fear of Covid was still thick.  Then, everyone had brought their own cups, and hand sanitizer, and sat far apart in the backyard. This time, we clustered in our friend’s kitchen, using our fingers instead of tongs to sample the cheese and crackers. There was a moment of anxiety, as my friend and I got confused about whose drink was whose. Did we dare take a chance and sip from what could be the other’s straw? We did not. We spilled them out and started over.

A longtime New Yorker, my friend had moved to our Princeton area town a couple of years ago, and hadn’t been back to the city in months.  She’d spent the lockdown redecorating and taking up coloring and bird-watching.  Her closet was being remodeled, her living room table refinished, and she had rediscovered her passion and talent for design.  Until Covid, she had worked for a big company in midtown Manhattan. I wondered if she’d even want to return to work once everything got back to normal? 

Just wearing something other than sweatpants or old jeans was uplifting. My work and `nice clothes’ had sat untouched in my wardrobe for months. This was the first time in ages I’d taken more than five minutes to do my hair or apply makeup. I put on earrings and painted my toenails. My husband steamed his shirt (that’s as close to ironing as he was gonna get).

After dinner we wobbled our way outside, enjoying the fresh air and some music. Our friends’ neighbors were finishing up their own gathering and came by to join the conversation. I joined a group in the fairy-lit gazebo where the conversation turned to politics, a topic that, as a journalist, I usually try to avoid among friends. But it had been too long and we all needed a good intense conversation about the wider world. We needed the air, the opportunity to express our fears and frustration, our anger. We are a group of different social, ethnic and economic backgrounds. Among friends we laid it all bare.

The debate was interrupted by literal fireworks, at the neighbor’s house, bringing back memories of July 4th celebrations.  We all fell silent, each in our own thoughts, enjoying the beauty of the night.  All the divisiveness melted away as we stood together and enjoyed the simplest of freedoms: the ability to stand outside together again.