Here, and not here

The kids are gone: College. Travel. Not here.

There is no laughter coming from the next room; no half dozen bodies sprawled about playing Settlers of Catan or watching vintage Disney. No strains of guitar between snippets of conversation, no one picking out the notes to Bach’s Minuet in G on the piano. There are no invitations to join in a game of Cranium, no curious conversations about the politics of eating locally, or the merits of graffiti.

No one is coming and going unpredictably, and at all hours; laundry is neatly contained in the hamper, instead of avalanching out; there is a sustained supply of milk and juice in the frig, instead of a perpetual shortage.

The children are pretty independent, even when they are here, but each of these details triggers some piece of my mama-brain when they are at home: guilt over allowing the laundry to get out of control; moralizing with the ghost of my mother over curfews; and a gut desire to be sure the kitchen is always fully stocked A) to guarantee the kids will hang out for at least as long as it takes to have a snack, and B) (and mostly B) for the satisfaction of knowing that I am the person who has taken care of these children for 18 and 21 years, from the homemade baby food right through ingredients for cookies-we-must-make-together-at-11-o’clock-at-night and “righteous,” non-GMO milk from grass-fed cows.

I miss the kids.

But I am growing accustomed to the quiet – what my own mother called “the crashing silence” that descended when I returned to college after a visit home. I actually enjoy creating my own rhythm. If I’m on a roll with work, I just keep going until I’m all rolled out, satisfied I’ve finished whatever project is on hand, uninterrupted by a compulsion to make dinner or a request to go to the store or look at a recent essay or, “smell my hair, do I need to wash it?” I go to dance class and linger to chat with friends instead of rushing home. I meet friends for drinks, which morph into dinner. Stay out late with Joseph. Luxuriate in long walks that take me into evening, and no longer worry that I’m setting a bad example by being in the park after dark.

The kids are not here.

And then they are.

An email comes to say Tyler has lost his phone. And then found it. Clara asks for the recipe for latkes. She sends a link to a global awareness campaign for gay rights in Russia. Should I sign it? Tyler calls: what ingredients does he need for pizza? He calls again: should he try to fix his computer himself, or let the shop do it? The mail comes with a postcard from Clara, in Paris. Or from Tyler, in North Carolina.

All the pieces fall back into place – or something vaguely reminiscent of “place.” I answer the questions. I put the cards up on the frig—which is still full of milk and juice.

Briefly, the kids are here. And not here.

Bar-room revelation

Things have changed since I was young.
But not exactly the way I thought they had.

I was in a bar a few weeks ago, and it was hopping. There was live music, a happy crowd of interesting people, and great “craft” brew, my favorite. We were sitting at a table, and I volunteered to get the beer from the bar, knowing that I would get service faster than my boyfriend. I love this about being a woman – yes, even though it’s sexist and maybe even wrong. Fact: women get served faster. Unless, maybe, the bartender is a woman.

Anyway, I shouldered my way in so I was sandwiched between a couple guys sitting on bar stools, then waited to get the attention of one of the bartenders. They were excessively busy, harried, even. But there weren’t that many other people who had shouldered their way in to call out their orders. Maybe the guys were still filling table orders for the wait staff. I tried to catch someone’s eye, get that registration of, ‘yes, I’ll be right with you.’ And, eventually, I got service, walked back to the table, pints in hand. But it took a while.

I heard later from our friends, who own the restaurant, that they train the bartenders to avoid eye contact. It’s a survival technique, they explained – when the place gets busy, the staff need to focus on one thing at a time and not get distracted by ten orders being shouted across the bar at a time. I wasn’t very convinced, and told them I’ve never experienced this sort of thing before, it must be a new technique. I gave them the whole shouldering-in speech, the women-get-served-faster theory. “It really used to work, I don’t understand what’s changed – I guess bars aren’t the way they used to be.”

And they gently told me that bars haven’t actually changed. I have.

Right. I am no longer in my twenties.

Last week I attended a conference in New York and wound up alone at a brew pub, where I sat at the bar and waited. And waited. Until finally the bartender came by and asked me what I’d like. I wanted to try a couple of their more unusual beers. He poured me two taste-size samples, then disappeared. For a long time. Way down at the other end of the bar. It took him forever to come back to take my order.

Behind me were a cluster of foreign-accented, well-dressed young people. Next to me, three attractive young theater people. Several similarly young folks were scattered across the other end of the bar. I must have been the oldest person there by 20 years, and I suddenly realized, people no longer notice me in this sort of crowd. I am simply another drinks-and-dinner order.

There’s something about humility that makes me want to order another beer. If only I could get the bartender’s attention.

Music in the margins

We went to look at colleges in New York recently, and I took in a lot of information, really I did, about dorm life and creating your own major and faculty qualifications and financial aid. But some of the most memorable moments from our visit were, as usual, about food.

This is my touchstone.

The first day was an impromptu picnic in Union Square. The weather was unseasonably warm, and a pair of skinny, bearded buys were hollering out some fine bluegrass, playing banjo and guitar. It was a foot-stomping, gotta-move sort of rejoicing right there along 14th Street, and a crowd gathered round and filled their guitar case with coins and dollar bills. I could have been in Floyd, Virginia, except we were surrounded by urban canyons instead of Blue Ridge mountains.

Major points to Eugene Lang the New School for being located near this classically New York experience.

Like a really good college book that’s already been read and marked up by someone else, our trip to New York was substantively about serious subject matter—college choice—but it had margins packed with bonus moments like this. “Pay attention to this part!” the notes said. “You’ll love the bit on bluegrass!”

There was more foot-stomping in the subway station, a solo fiddler whose tunes got my feet moving in the approximation of clogging I picked up in the mountains North Carolina. A bit of Appalachia, in the depths of New York’s subway system. At another subway station, there was a woman with a beatific expression on her face, as if she were impersonating an angel, and she was playing a saw. The kind that cuts wood. She had a violin bow that produced an eerie, harp-like accompaniment while she sang Greensleeves.

Then there was a young man sitting on a bucket in the middle of another subway platform, finger-picking a curvy, spare-looking electric guitar that had only a perimeter of wood– through the center of the instrument, you could see the player’s shirt. His music reminded me of Pierre Bensusan, a mix of classical and traditional picking that showcases technical prowess as well as emotional depth.

Food for our ears.

For our bellies, there was our picnic, taken from a market that had delicious things waiting in every narrow aisle. There were dozens of cheeses, all neatly labeled in the case, and baguettes bouqueted in baskets; taste stations with humus and caponata for the semolina bread you could dip in; there were the best sort of chocolate cookies, set out in pieces for sampling, and in the produce section all manner of brightly colored vegetables and fruit, including “sugar plums” which we never did try. I believe the best places are the ones that leave you wanting to return, and I am sure I will come back to try these little gems.

We chose the easiest way to lunch: sandwiches from the deli counter where two guys moved with the quick efficiency and grace characteristic of so many New York delis. Clara got classic roast beef with horseradish -- and watercress. I ordered roasted vegetables with pesto and goat cheese on a heavily seeded bun, we added a bunch of green grapes and went off to sit in the sun at Union Square, between the playground and the dog park. Between bites, we matched people with their dogs, wondering whether the prim and mincing ladies with toy Chihuahuas and such were any more attentive to their canine companions than the dread-locked dudes with mutts. We noted the neon pink shoes and ripped tights on one girl, then traded tastes of our sandwiches, and pointed out the striped socks and rolled up trousers of someone else.

Our dinner that night was French. After surfing the internet we found Jacques, a cozy spot in Soho that was unpretentious and marginally less pricey than most. Our French waiter, who wore an unwieldy winter hat over what must have been a tangle of curls or dreadlocks, brought my wine in a miniature carafe, then poured it the glass, leaving some for later; this small gesture makes me feel coddled and makes the wine stretch. We ordered moules—mussels—which came in a ceramic bucket with a fine and buttery mariniere sauce, really more like broth, pooled in the bottom; the frites were stacked on end in a paper-lined cup. They could have been thinner but they were still good and I ate every last one and a couple of Clara’s as well. Then we chose profiterole for dessert, except they were cream-filled instead of ice cream-filled, and we dipped them in chocolate fondue. The dinner must have been especially good, as the conversation was one of those magical intimacies mothers and daughters share only when all elements come together at once.

Today, we had a lovely brunch with our friend, Lauren, in a find of a place, Ceci Cela (the food was so good it was gone by the time I took the photo, above). Up front this tiny spot looks like a take-out bakery with scrumptiously beautiful tarts and croissants, éclairs and other French treats. Through a narrow corridor, though, is a five-table café with French poster prints on the walls and miniature chalkboards at each table, announcing the quiche of the day. The menu is limited to all those sweets we saw when we came in, plus croque monsieur (basically a fried ham and cheese sandwich), quiche and a few sandwiches. Clara got smoked trout with orange butter and radicchio on thick, soft bread; Lauren went for the turkey on a baguette and I had the leek and onion quiche, with its thick, buttery crust and small salad accompaniment. Oh, and langue de chat, literally ”tongue of the cat,” cute little slivers of cookies that are rough with sugar, like a cat tongue. The servers were French, the language at the next table, Spanish. One of the things I love about this place is the efficient use of space: there is a stairway that goes to a storage loft, and once I saw what looked like a futon mattress there. Does the pastry chef sleep there while his bread rises before breakfast?

Three very different but equally enjoyable meals; four musicians, each exceptional in different ways, and two colleges. One good weekend.

On the road

There are few things that make me happy the way a beautiful cup of cappuccino makes me happy, and this one is particularly sweet: the barista suggested I get a traditional Italian style, which is two shots of espresso (since this is really what I’m after) mellowed by just a little milk (instead of being overpowered by it – this seems like such an oxymoron, for milk to overpower coffee, such a light, weak sort of milk-toast thing trumping a vigorous, put-hair-on-your-chest, thick and dark thing. Not that I don’t like milk. I just like a little of it). Plus I put raw sugar in it; it’s always a bonus when I see those little brown packets on the cream and sugar table.

The barista tells me this sort of cappuccino is controversial in the “coffee world,” and at this shop, tazza mia, at 441 Vine, they put even more espresso than usual into the cup. It’s really a wet macchiato – macchiato being the espresso with foam. For me, it’s the perfect cross between cappuccino (too much milk) and macchiato (too much espresso). They also have a great chipotle turkey bacon sandwich on wheat berry bread, and a case of sweets, including a gooey chocolate chip number I might have to get before I leave.

All this is accompanied by a phenomenal soundtrack, including "Rollin’ in my Sweet Baby’s Arms" with Doc Watson-like amazing guitar picking leading the way, and someone wailing on the harmonica.

I am in Cincinnati, where everyone has been so friendly you’d think I was in the south. Which I kind of am, I guess, snuggled right up next to Kentucky. Witness the friendly barista who also promised me a free shot if I could guess the musician correctly. Alas, it is not Doc Watson, but I’d already had the two shots in my Italian-style cappuccino so I think it’s just as well. (It was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. I should have known!)

Last night I had dinner at a place called Local 127, and at one point I had three attractive young men waiting on me. At once. I love dining alone.

The chef came and asked how everything was. I told him the celeriac soup was phenomenal. Which it was, with this foamy cheese dolloped on top as if it were cream, but so tangy and flavorful you couldn’t mistake it for anything but good quality (local) cheese when you took a bite. There was also smoked trout, which was a surprise: I’d expected a cooked-smoked sort of thing, which I’d had before, but it came out like smoked salmon, dressed with a ginger cream and pickled red onions to cut the unctuously smooth and mellow flavor of the fish with some zing. Pop! Yum. I also liked the little crisped rice bits scattered around for some crunch. The Caesar salad was lovely as well—romaine like you never get at the store (not even the co-op), tender and crunchy all at once, with just the right amount of anchovy taste in the dressing and the most beautiful poached egg to top it all, with a brilliant orange yolk. As this restaurant specializes in local food, it must have been from a free-range, locally raised chicken.

My one complaint: the salad plate was cold. Is this a thing? I think a salad plate should be room temp, so I don’t wonder whether the salad was prepared in advance (I want my salad prepared now, not five hours ago, or even two). I would also have done the egg warm, rather than cold (refrigerating a poached egg? Weird) so you’d get the runny goodness of warm egg contrasting with the refreshing crunch of the lettuce.

But overall it was a lovely dining experience, and they even had one of my favorite wines – one I buy at the liquor store, Primitivo. Nothing super special, just a reliable red.

I am here on business, and it is really good business, writing about community schools. That deserves its own posting, but briefly: The AFT supports schools with “wrap around” services, and I am writing about them for its publications. In these places, low-income, disadvantaged children in low-performing schools have all sorts of services available to them: vision testing, mental health services, college counseling, free breakfast, lunch and dinner, homework help. But most important, they have a community of adults who are absolutely committed to raising the whole child. People who understand that Johnny is sleeping through class because he is homeless, grabbing what sleep he can from an auntie’s couch, a friend’s floor, the back of a car, and coming to school worried and exhausted. People who notice when Mary’s clothes are dirty and wrinkled, and can get her a fresh set and wash her up in the health room, then let her talk to a trusted adult about the single parent who is checked out and neglecting her children.

I am lucky to write about things that matter.

And I am lucky to travel alone.

I think of my young daughter, traveling alone in Europe, and I think, yes. She will encounter friendly baristas, and magical street performers, and fellow travelers so interesting they will talk late into the night. And then my heart aches, in a good way, as I think of her as the little waif of a girl I raised, sitting alone, maybe in her own find of a coffee shop, with the world swirling around her in such a tantalizing way and I can’t believe that she is so grown.

Have fun, Clara. I am. Right here in Cincinnati.