Comfort

All paintings in this post by Mark Rothko

It was a weekend that was supposed to be full of guests; the pull-out couch was ready to be sprung. Cocktail places were scouted; brunch menus planned. But then amidst all this, the hurricane warnings began trickling in, people began leaving early on Friday, wishing each other well with a "Stay Safe" as they slipped out into the streets and into the subway, where energy buzzed amongst the riders. The disparate spirits of New Yorkers unified beneath the pale sunshine that preceded the storm.

The trains were shutting down the next day at noon; our house guests had canceled. I sat on the train, ticking off a shopping list to fill our bare cupboards. The next day, as the wind howled, I roasted a chicken, stirred a risotto, and chilled a bottle of wine. These aren't the guilty pleasure comfort foods that I crave most often — cheeseburgers, mac 'n cheese. No, the chicken seemed comforting yet serious — a reflection of the gravitas of dark skies and potential doom from something I couldn't control.

In the end, the city was spared much of Irene's wrath. The weekend became a quiet retreat; we holed up and cared for the body and soul. In informal polls over the next few weeks, I learned that many of my friends took to their quiet kitchens, roasting chickens, baking bread, pressing macarons into vanilla ice cream. Amidst the mania, there was a simple desire for comfort: to nourish and warm the palette.

This past week brought many somber remembrances of the September 11th attacks: museum memorials, grey magazine covers, a man draped in flags walking across 42nd street, and a concert of choral singers in the lobby of the building I work in. I dreaded the anniversary; I'm surprised by how much these reminders have upset me. Perhaps because they haven't really been reminders. It's still a fresh memory; each day a New York paper reports on the construction efforts at the World Trade Center site.

September 11th came at a very key point in my adult life, literally weeks after I had ventured off into the world to become who I wished to be. And it shaped my understanding of the world.

But really, it's just very sad. 

People were hurt; people learned to fear.

Column McAnn has a small piece in this week's New Yorker about how he watched a woman sit alone at a cafe in the days after September 11th. Slowly and methodically, her expression blank, she ate a piece of chocolate cake, staring off into the distance, lost somewhere. 

A simple act that was hard to understand, like a lot of things.