Cracks of Light

We’re beginning to see light at the end of the long tunnel that has been the pandemic. Slots to get vaccine shots are more readily available in the United States. Families are planning gatherings again. Businesses that survived the economic chokehold are seeing an uptick in customers. It’s all perfectly timed with the hopefulness of spring. Longer hours of daylight. Signs of life poking up from cold, dark soil. Our gardens and our selves are tentatively emerging from a long hibernation.

Recently my friend Lucie came over for a socially distanced walk, which has been our only form of communion for over a year, with me and my new dog, Mimo. He is a rescue from Puerto Rico, brought to us thanks to The Sato Project. While new to us, he’s about 5 years old. We’re working with a trainer to undo the habits that served him well in his earlier life, such as a fondness for garbage dumpsters and an equally intense wariness of other dogs.

After our walk, Lucie and I sat on a low stone wall facing the sun and letting it warm our faces. She surprised me with takeout from Formaggio Kitchen, a gourmet shop in Cambridge. We removed our masks and tilted our chins toward the sky. It felt like layers of freezer burn were melting away. Lucie lifted the plastic lids off the black containers, each filled with a prepared food. Cabbage sautéed in butter, roasted eggplant layered with a slab of cheese, and bread pudding studded with cherries. A feast. We spooned mounds of each item onto melamine plates cheerfully decorated with vegetables and fruits that I found on sale in a musty general store two summers ago, back in the day when I thought nothing of leisurely in-store shopping and touching the merchandise.

I grabbed us two cans of sparkling lemon seltzer. The pop of carbon dioxide that released as we lifted the small silver tabs sounded as grand as champagne being uncorked, fitting the occasion. It was the first meal that either of us had shared with anyone other than our respective partners in a long time. We chewed slowly, letting the flavors flood our throats. Granted, the food from Formaggio’s is reliably flavorful and well-prepared. But what elevated the experience to something special was the joy of eating with a friend again, not intermediated by Zoom. Behind us in the garden, clusters of snowdrop flowers, the first of the season, bowed their white bonneted heads.

I made a mental note that when asked the inevitable question, months or years hence, what were highlights of this period, this meal would be one of them. Good food shared with a great friend and seeing more than a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.