An Evening of Memory (7/30/2009)

Thursday night. An evening to myself in Grand Rapids. I sit on the patio at Blue Water Grill and order pork loin and white wine from Old Mission Point north of Traverse City. I want to take advantage of the time tonight to write, spend the evening outside in the wonderful weather. We haven’t eaten outside at home nearly enough this year (or last) because of Calvin.

There are times I miss life B.C.—miss my time alone, miss my time with just Zach, going out to eat, watching movies, frittering the night away at Schuler’s drinking coffee and looking at books and magazines we probably wouldn’t buy.

I don’t like how negative I’ve become, how down I sometimes feel. How stressed. How pressed for time. I'm sure everyone feels this to some extent as a new parent. Do you feel it more once you’ve tasted too many years of freedom to do what you want? Does my son remember how awful yesterday was? Does he know how angry I was and how awful I felt about it? I did not feel like a good mother yesterday. I was exasperated, frustrated, angry, defeated. Yesterday I was a total failure.

My wine glass sits on the table, upright, at attention—stately. Condensation forms on the outside and the pale, tawny liquid shines in the waning sun. I hear great music, including one song that reminds me to pick up the new Indigo Girls CD before I go home. I sit alone on the patio overhearing a banal conversation about basil. Men in ties, women in big sunglasses, too-dark tans, and tank tops, their undergarments peeking out. I check my own shoulders for errant straps. I’m okay for now.

My pork and risotto arrives, smells perfect, looks lovely. Napkin on my lap I thank God for people who know how food should be prepared—not piled six inches high atop three potatoes’ worth of fries. Good cooks are truly artists. Roasted pork loin with apricot chutney, parmesan risotto, and a salad of arugula, skinless tomato, and matchstick apples sit in humane portions on a 10x10 inch square plate. In the gardens around me it appears the restaurant is growing some of its own ingredients—herbs and tomatoes.

As my meal ends I’m disappointed (maybe appalled is the correct word) to learn that their normal tiramisu (my favorite dessert) has been swapped out for a “retro” version (that’s what the waitress calls it) made with Twinkies (yes, you read that right) rather than lady fingers. I try to think of where I can go in Grand Rapids to get some real tiramisu, but it has been too long.

It suddenly dawns on me that seeing me writing during the entire meal might give the staff the impression that I am a food critic. No worries there; even with the heresy of the Twinkie Tiramisu, I give Blue Water Grill high marks. I love this place. [2011 Update: The venerable Blue Water Grill has seen the error of its ways and taken the "Retro Tiramisu" off the menu and put normal Tiramisu back on rotation.]

I don’t finish the risotto. It’s great, but I’m not hungry anymore and I want to be hungry enough for dessert later. I pay the bill and head toward Martha’s Vineyard for some Djarum Black clove cigarettes even though I can get them from any gas station. I want to drive up Union and remember the time Zach and I lived in a little apartment in Heritage Hill. Martha’s Vineyard was Zach’s lifeline to Jolt and pistachios, the recipient of an embarrassing percentage of his income in his early twenties.

Driving around Heritage Hill now I realize that I had forgotten how amazing the houses really are, more so now that many of them are getting new coats of paint and gardens. I stop at Discussions on Jefferson for coffee, forgetting that they only take cash and I never have cash. So I decide to see if Urban Mill is still open, but I’m detoured away from the Fulton Street Bridge by construction in front of the Van Andel Arena. I manage to get back on track at Monroe and head toward the bridge I always parked on when I worked as a writing tutor at the Eberhard Center.

My bad luck holds out and Urban Mill is gone. There is another place there that looks like it would sell coffee, but the parking lot arm won’t raise because the machine is out of tickets. The lot is about 4/5ths empty. Oh well. I park on the bridge and find a place just outside the Eberhard Center overlooking the Grand River and the blue Laker footbridge. The Plaza Towers look a little dingy and there are a few sparkly new buildings in the skyline, but for a moment I am transported back 10 years.

I used to look at this very view a few times a week. After work or class I would meet Zach down by the Days Inn parking ramp or at Four Friends Coffeehouse and we would waste the night away watching movies, eating sesame chicken in his dumpy apartment, and smoking cloves or cigars. We would walk around downtown at 10 or 11 at night even though nothing was open. We weren’t interested in shopping—just in being together in the nearly empty streets, swinging on the giant tire swing under the street lights.

I’m not normally a nostalgic person—I’m usually looking forward to the next thing. But I guess having a child makes one look back. Getting closer to 30 makes one look back. It doesn’t mean you’re unhappy—it just means you wonder if one different choice or circumstance would have changed everything. Strange to think about.

I open up the file of the story I’m working on right now, but my mind is not in it. It isn’t on Mackinac Island where the story takes place. It isn’t in Lansing where my life is now. It’s in downtown Grand Rapids, the city of my college days, the city of my early marriage, the city of my childless days. For the moment I am stuck here. And when I crack the plastic wrapper on the Djarum Blacks, the moment is sealed. It is uncanny. And that first taste is so sweet.