The Coronacation Diaries, Episode 5

When The Bars and Restaurants Are All Closed

It's our Friday night tradition: dinner out with Tracy at a locally-owned pub, usually Blue Gill Grill or the Mayfair, while the kids begrudgingly put their electronics away during the meal and then tune us out during the pints before and after. It's always been this way. Dinner @ 5:30, arranged by text message. Kids dragged along, rolling their eyes. But it's tradition. It's what we do.

Now the bars and restaurants are all closed. 

I had planned to cook something at home, and then drive up to the Mayfair to tip out their front of the house staff with what we would have normally spent on a weekend. But 5:30 hit and I was hungry. The idea of spending another half hour or hour trying to cook something that anyone in the family would like was daunting. I didn't have the energy or emotional stamina to do it again.

 I called in an order to go. Kelly (the bartender) took the order and recognized my voice right away. The 25 minute quote time extended to 45 minutes as the kitchen was slammed and the phone was ringing off the hook. It was all okay, though. Seeing her as we picked up the food and chatted a bit (no more than 5 people allowed inside at a time) was nostalgic, like we hadn't seen each other in years, and not simply just a few days. We talked about how things used to be; about how things would be again, soon...we hoped. We left an envelope of cash for the waitstaff and bartenders, asking that it will be passed out by the owner with paychecks. 

We took our food home, and ate it at the kitchen table. The kids didn't even try to bring electronics to the table this time. They also lingered a bit after we were done eating instead of rushing back upstairs and putting the earbuds back in. And then they wandered off, and I read, and folded laundry, and emptied the dishwasher, and thought about how different the pace is, suddenly. 

The brakes have been applied, and everything has slowed to frame-by-frame instead of real time. My sister Katie called it "The slowing down to what is essential, primary, necessary..." For most of the week, I've been trying to hold the panic at bay, knowing that I cannot control the unknown, refusing to speculate about all of the what-ifs, and trying to help others process their own rising anxiety. And I know that my own anxiety will rise again, throughout the coming days and weeks, as I try to figure out how to regroup and get back all that we are losing. 

But tonight, I also can see that, with this tremendous change, comes a tremendous gain. A chance to slow down to what is essential, primary, necessary.

So, order a meal from your locally owned favorite place. Tip the waitstaff as if you were there. Take a deep breath. Take it all in. These are strange, strange days, but they are days, nonetheless. Maybe we can learn to cherish them, even while we strain and hope that they will be over soon, and we can get back to normal.

Photo by John Baker on Unsplash