I recently wondered whether art museums are the secret to long life. Lately, I have had the urge to visit New York City again. I didn’t like living there, but I love to visit. I love the buzz and hum of the city. I love the concert halls, with the murmuring of the audience and the expectation of something beautiful about to happen. I love the museums with their echoing quiet, and the inner peace they instill while outside their walls the world buzzes on. And the restaurants. I love the subway. I love the main Library in whose Rose Reading Room I finished writing one of my books…so many things…including people I love and encounters with my past.

I love the shopping, too, although the great stores are considerably diminished. And the restaurants…did I mention the restaurants? Oh, how I miss them. In any big city I will always want to go to the best French restaurants, but there are so many restaurants of all kinds to choose from in New York it can be overwhelming. Last time I was there I went to an Italian restaurant twice because it was so good and in the neighborhood, but of course I went to a French one, too. Often, because it is near the home of a friend, I go to the famous and charming Cafe Luxembourg.

This past week I read of a new restaurant in New York, the province of a well-known chef: Café Carmellini. It is in a two-story atrium with full-grown trees, and it sounds like exactly like my kind of place, with “a formal, European style of service” and creative French food—although I’d go just for the trees.  The chef is an alumnus of L’Arpège in Paris, and is said to have a deft touch that shifts from French to Italian, sometimes on the same plate. I long to go there. I long to go to Paris, come to think of it.

The irony is that I detest travel. At least, I detest the beginnings of it. Just this morning, when I arose before dawn, I was thinking about the anxiety of early morning preparations for travel, with all its last minute domestic details, like packing toiletries and emptying garbage, and comforting soon-to-be abandoned dogs. And once I leave, even when I’m having a wonderful time, I miss my dogs, and my snug house, and the bucolic peace of my days. So, I took extra pleasure in my leisurely bath and my complacent pups. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to be anywhere…and yet, I long to visit New York.

Maybe soon. But first I have to finish the novel.

Now available for pre-order wherever you buy your books

***

Eddie was accustomed to listening to his customers’ problems. He rarely told his own. In fact, most of the time he would have said he didn’t have any. But Dirk had a quality of empathy that resonated around him, and after pouring a generous scotch for him, Eddie found himself talking, for the first time, of Danni.

“I guess, the thing is, I don’t know why I’m thinking about her now, after all this time. I mean, my life is pretty good. I’m happy. But I screwed up, you know? And I can’t help wondering where she is, and whether she’s happy. Probably married to someone else with a couple of kids by now.…” His voice trailed off.

Dirk was silent, considering, before he spoke.

“Well, if you go looking, there are only two things that can happen, really: A) You find her, and realize you still love her, or B) You find her, and you wonder what in Hell you were thinking. There are variations of both A and B, of course, but those, essentially, are the primary options, and then the road branches out from there. The question is: Do you want a new kind of regret, or are you content with the regret you already have.”

“What do you mean?”

“ Well, think about it: Sometimes, the old, familiar griefs are a kind of comfort. You can fantasize about how wonderful she was because you never had any of the normal struggles of a long-term relationship. You never got bored with one another. She never said anything cruelly cutting to you. She never nagged, or rolled her eyes. She never had annoying habits. You can have a beautiful and romantic dream of your perfect lost love. Because that’s all it really is: a dream. If you act to find her, then you will have to cope with reality, with all its flaws and joys.”

“On the other hand, what is life, but stepping off into the unknown to see what will happen? Maybe you owe it to yourself to find out.”

They were both silent. Eddie, usually a whirlwind of activity behind the bar, now stood still, his gaze fixed at something he wasn’t seeing. Dirk stared into his glass.

There was the sound of a car door slamming in the parking lot, and they were jolted out of their reveries by the impending arrival of others.  Dirk was the first to speak. 

“The thing is, you always get grief in life, and you don’t get to choose what kind, how much, or how serious it is. This way, what you have now is a sad longing. But you could choose to give that up to get a reality-based grief. One way or another, it’s all grief in the end.”

They could hear another car drive up, and the sound of cheerful voices in the parking lot. 

“What about happiness? You get that, too.”

Dirk shrugged. “Maybe. Some people do. But there’s no guarantee of that. Grief is the only thing you can really count on.”

Eddie stared at him curiously. “I didn’t take you for being so dark.”

“Oh, I’m not. At least, I don’t think of myself that way. But I am a realist. Grief comes. It’s inevitable if you’ve lived at all. But I’ve known plenty of people who have never been happy, and never will be.”

He smiled a small, almost mischievous smile. “I, however, am not one of them.”

They weren’t married in Annapolis, although my father trained at the academy there. They were married at the Navy chapel in Norfolk! My thanks to an alert reader, who pointed out that a trolley ride from Virginia to Maryland would have been a bit tedious. Note to self: keep your Navy chapels straight.

He got on the bed before I covered it with the dog blanket, and I decided to let him be. He’s very snug under there, and it’s a cold night. Sometime after midnight he will bestir himself and come up to press himself against me as close as he can. Without opening my eyes, I reach behind me and pat him to let him know I know. Usually, he purrs. Eli’s on the floor sleeping against the French doors and snoring like the big bear he resembles.