As I was getting ready to head back to Boston for the Thanksgiving holiday today, I got the sudden urge to dig through some very old photographs that I had stuffed away in my very tiny Manhattan apartment. I think deep down I wanted to see some evidence of everything I had built in my years away.
When I moved away, I was not even old enough to rent a car - do you know that magic number? I’ll tell you, it’s 25. I remember that because when I was living on the peninsula, I had to vacate the place I was crashing and not one car company would give me a car so I could get into the city. I was trapped in San Bruno and was relegated to walking into the Sizzler, where the hostess very loudly announced, “Table for one?” Maybe that’s how I became confident on eating alone. She yelled it so loudly that the fear and embarrassment just couldn't really make me feel more alone than I was already feeling. It’s rather crazy to say that I learned how to enjoy being me at a Sizzler. Don’t tell anyone I told you that.
Years later, when I had moved to San Francisco, I never really realized how much I had when I had it. A condo smack dab in the middle of the city where I brought together every orphan stranded in the Bay Area that I knew for the best dinner I could make. I could depend on the same cast of characters every year with a few additions. Those whose families had forgotten them, cast them out or simply those who felt that there was no place like home in San Francisco. And what a cast it was indeed. The photographs I found were the evidence that they really did exist - and there in the mix was the boy who had stolen my heart and every fiber of my being. As I looked at that picture, some almost 20 years later, it is so clear that despite the joy on my face, that he could barely contain his uncomfortableness being held by me. Why then did he come to this orphan dinner, insisting he bring his Nutcracker china to set a tablescape like no other? The answer came weeks later, first with a comment that he loved my friends, to which I replied, “You can’t have my friends without me.” The rest of the story is a messy one, but one I always think back to over the holidays. But regardless of the drama, I’m still thankful that it happened. That dinner, surrounded by those friends that he so desperately wanted, is one of my all time perfect memories.
I haven’t hosted a massive dinner since I left the city by the Bay - and one day, perhaps, I’ll reach for the apron, put it back one with my fluffy Snoopy slippers and be back in the kitchen.
A lot of years have passed - and there have been countless places I’ve called home. Could I ever have imagined that I’d be back on the east coast? Would I have even believed it if you told me that? For every memory along the way, though, I am truly grateful. From the gay drama in the middle of Castro street to the wonderful dinners and wine over a golden turkey surrounded by friends I could never imagine getting through life without. All of it provided a foundation for who I am. I’m now closer to my family than I have been in years. A train ride away to hug my mother, breath in her scent, spend the days just watching Hallmark Movies and listening to how she can’t remember if I were home for turkey day last year or not. It’s joyous and precious and I’m so thankful for that. Despite all the crazy twists and turns in my life, I’ve learned what it’s meant to be me and that in turn has made me appreciate the holidays more than ever. And it’s put all of them into a perspective I could never image. For as long as I was away, I was never without family - whether I made them from the friends I met along my travels or the boys who eventually fell out of love with me or were never really in love at all, my family first and foremost started with me.
Just ask that young trashy hostess at Sizzler, asking, “table for one?”
i love this :-)
ReplyDelete