Everything Will Be Fine as Long as There's Cheese
Good morning,
I took a little unexpected break because I felt like I needed one. I feel like we all need one. But I’m back, never fear. Or maybe you should.
I hosted a dinner party this weekend. It’s the first time I’ve had more than two other people in my Jackson house at once, and well, I guess it wasn’t technically a dinner party, though I advertised it as such. It wasn’t a sit down, several course affair, but instead a standing, grazing one. Which was fine, but I suppose I should be more careful about the language I use. Perhaps that’s something I should think about in every moment of my life, actually.
I started this paragraph saying that I have never really thrown a party, but then I remembered one here, one there, sporadic gatherings when I could manage it over the past several years. I guess it would be more accurate to say that I have wanted to fill my life with more parties, more meetings of the minds, more invitations into my home. I love hosting, I truly do. But I guess I worry that I’m bad at it.
Part of me was nervous about the whole affair. All of me was very nervous, actually. I have this inability to reign myself in a lot of the time, and I panicked the whole afternoon while I cooked that, perhaps my choices were not only too ambitious, but also not substantial enough. I panicked that the people I invited wouldn’t get along or would feel uncomfortable. I panicked about them seeing the unfinished corners of my home. I panicked about there not being enough booze. I panicked about them being allergic to my cat.
I don’t know why I describe myself as a laid back sort of person, when it’s pretty clear that I panic quite a lot. But of course, there was nothing to panic about.
So. You want me to tell you about the party?
I made mushrooms stuffed with bacon, spinach and fontina cheese, which I never make enough of even though I remind myself “you need more mushrooms than you think you do” every time. I made tiny tomato tartlets, the kind my mother or some member of my extended family makes every Christmas and that I always pop into my mouth like candy or potato chips or whatever hot food it is you can eat ad nauseum. There was an artichoke tart I threw together on a whim that everyone raved about and that I didn’t touch because I was too busy flitting about. I got the recipe from a TikToker/Instagram influencer in a moment of desperation because I wanted to do something with the puff pastry in my fridge, and then I discovered that the puff pastry had molded so I had to send my friend Amy who was visiting, and whom the party was for, out for more puff pastry in the midst of the cooking. I made my favorite cherry tomato salad, which is just cherry tomatoes dressed with salt and pepper and olive oil and balsamic vinegar, because I love anything with vinegar. Nobody really touched that. I probably should’ve added some oregano. I pulled out a leftover cucumber avocado salsa I had made in desperation a day before, looking for some new way to use the cucumber in my fridge and some way to impress a lover with dinner. I pulled leftover gouda from the artichoke tart, bought salami and another gouda because I had forgotten about the first gouda and didn’t want to give into my baser impulses and buy some sort of really strange cheese to build a cheese board I decided upon last minute because I was worried there wouldn’t be enough food and I texted my friends in a panic “no worries if not but BRING CHEESE” because if you have a cheese board you have something, right? We had so much cheese, so many different types of cheese. I think everyone brought at least one cheese. And so much wine, and my friend Julia spent the beginnings of the party in the kitchen making the most amazing rum and cantaloupe cocktail, and I got to play my records for people, which I never get to do. My cat Barry Hannah wore a borrowed kitty bolo tie from Amy, and I carried him around like a prince and the whole of the party adored him, because Barry was born to be adored. We got to smoke cigarettes on the porch and talk amongst the plants I had bought and then let wither because I was depressed, but I was less embarrassed to let other people see them than I thought I would be.
I’m sure none of this is very interesting for you to read, nor is it insightful. But I hope you’ll indulge me this once. I would say that I have spent the past three or four years of my life being lonely. Weathering a pandemic in Wyoming is obvious in its loneliness, but I would describe the year, year and a half before that as lonely too, wandering through town in a drunken daze, never getting more than a few hours free from work each day. I’ve been in Jackson for a year now, and while I felt more at ease the minute I was back on ground at sea level, I would describe this first year as lonely too. I’ve been working, hiding almost, toiling away at my work (or attempting to), building a space that brings me joy, trying to nurture the friendships I have and doing an okay job at it.
Something about this weekend feels like a turning point. An opening, or perhaps reaching a door at the end of a long hallway. I have friends that want to visit from out of town, friends that want to take up space in my home, a place to rest my head that I have spent time and energy on, and that I am mostly proud of. Things aren’t perfect by any means. I am still broke, there is still lots of writing to do, I still have a closet stuffed full of plastic bins of books. I still worry every day if the work is good, if I’m becoming more stupid or lazy by the day, if I’m doing anything worthwhile. But I think, for the moment, I am happy where I am, in my house with its hardwood floors and parties overflowing with plates of cheese.