Happy Hours

It’s not often that I go to happy hour.   People crowded into tight spaces, noise, chatter and boisterous glee – this is not what I need at the end of a long workday.   For me to unwind and recharge, I like to be alone.  Most days, I scurry home to my woman cave.  But every now and then, I crave something different.   So, here I am, off to happy hour.

Exiting at Gallery Place-Chinatown, I make my way up 7^th street.  Seventh Street is its usual carnival of activity. Cars and buses fill the street with their obligatory honking.   People on foot are rushing to get somewhere until slowed by dazed tourists.  And bicycles brazenly cut through it all.  But it’s Friday, and a little more mayhem, somewhere between kids on the last day of school and animals escaping the zoo.

  

I arrive at La Tasca and I’m pleasantly surprised.  There is a sea of dark wood throughout – the flooring, tables, chairs and the bar.   Large, wrought-iron chandeliers hang from the ceilings.   The restaurant is warmed by golden walls.   Red and yellow accented décor remind me that LaTasca has brought Spain to downtown Washington. 

After excusing my way up to the crowded bar, I find James and Hilda.  James greets me with his usual “Heyyyy…KayKay!”  James I’ve known for almost 20 years, and Hilda I only know through James.  A few times a year I go out with them and experience something new.  I once went with them on a bar crawl which was cool until we reached the third or fourth bar, a club with 3 floors.  Shortly after entering, I knew I had had enough.  When they went to another floor, I headed straight to the exit.  Via text, I bid James adieu.

After settling in beside Hilda I look over the menu.  I don’t usually fool around with sangria but La Tasca has seven sangrias on their happy hour menu.  Hilda, a connoisseur of happy hour, says the sangria they’re drinking won’t bother me.  Although my stomach wasn’t convinced, I follow Hilda’s suggestion.  There are only 2 bartenders behind this very long bar and they spastically move from one customer to the next.   Without much effort, Hilda gets the attention of one of the bartenders and orders another pitcher of sangria and my dinner of mini empanadas and calamari from the $4 happy hour tapas menu. 

The three of us chat about everything but nothing in particular.  Hilda and James have been here for 2 hours before my arrival enjoying their sangrias and appetizers.   They had caught up on their lives since last seeing one another.  Hilda’s ability to get the attention of the bartender was impressive and we tease her about it.   Most of our fun is in watching the bartenders and the happy hour patrons crammed around the bar.  These patrons were mostly young professionals and they dressed as if they took their young professional jobs seriously.  We, on the other hand, are not that; but can appreciate those not-so-good-ol-days. 

James went to check the meter and soon after, Hilda and I find ourselves discussing men and dating.  I smiled at the thought of two single gals at a bar talking about men and dating – a bit stereotypical but great fodder for happy hour.  We giggled, raised eyebrows, and pursed our lips as we talked.   We took a more whimsical approach to our single status instead of war stories and hopeless resignation. James has returned and we finish off the last pitcher of the evening.  James asks “Ya’ll ready to go?” which was a statement that it was time to leave.  We made our way out of the restaurant that was still packed with those that had come for happy hour. 

Hilda and I headed to the train station and the last thing I said to James was, “I hope I make it home ok.”   Pointing at me, he answered, “Look, all you have to do is get on the train.”   I nodded like a younger sibling receiving step-by-step instructions.   But first I had to keep up with the fast pace and chirpy conversation of Hilda.  All of this, I did; in spite of a queasy stomach and the dizzy detachment from the happy hour sangrias. 

On the train, I sat back and relaxed; smiling at these last few hours.  I was happy to make it to the metro and down the escalator, amidst moving people and morphed objects.  Happier still, that the contents of my stomach remained intact and in my stomach.  I really enjoyed myself as I was with friends - talking about nothing, eating, drinking, laughing, living.   It was our time to caste off or delay the worries of this life.  Once home, I texted James to let him know that I had made it home and that I was alive.   He said he was glad that I came out.  I texted, “Me too! I had fun!  Imagine that.” To this he replied, “Smh. Imagine.”

For non-texters...Smh = shaking my head

Listening, Reading & Writing

After meeting a friend for lunch last weekend, I visited Second Story Books.  It’s a used and rare bookstore in Dupont Circle that I like to check out when I’m in the area.  About two years ago, I decided to collect books written by or about James Baldwin.   I had a few already and thought I could build a collection.  While at Second Story Books, I was able to pick up my 11^th Baldwin book, Notes of a Native Son.

While perusing the aisles, I discovered a lovely little book by Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings.  Published in 1983, the memoir was developed from lectures Welty gave at Harvard University. Welty won the Pulitzer Prize for the Optimist’s Daughter.  After I purchased the $3 book, it occurred to me that I was also building a collection of books about writing and publishing.

I love the style of the book and decided to include an excerpt from the book from the chapter on Listening.  I read this passage over many times, as it resonated with my experience as a reader and as a writer.

Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn’t hear.   As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me.  It isn’t my mother’s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own.  It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it.  It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself.  The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me through the reader-voice.  I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers – to read as listeners -  and with all writers, to write as listeners.  It may be part of the desire to write.  The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth, for me.  Whether I am right to trust so far I don’t know.  By now I don’t know whether I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.

My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books.  When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make my changes.  I have always trusted this voice.

Eudora Welty

One Writer's Beginnings

Goodbye Summer
Miami 2009