Brunch

One significant thing happened yesterday: we had a brunch date. It was the first social engagement we've had since Christmas Day, and before that? I can't remember. It's been so long. We met David and Lisabeth at an awesome Thanksgiving feast my brother and some of his friends put together in Keene, and since they were visiting Portland they got in touch, and we had a great visit. (Food highlight: pea sprouts in the omelette, and very salty butter on the English muffins. Good coffee, too. Local 188. Remember that one.) There's so much to learn, because we don't know them hardly at all, except that she's from Corpus Christi and they met and married in Austin, Texas, before moving to New England in the late 1990s, but they felt like more intimate acquaintances. Plus we, or I, was hungry for social interaction. Misty and I are mostly hunkered down together, which has been a lot of fun & good for The Relationship, but brunch reminded me not to go too long or believe I can go too far without social time. What constrains me is a sense that, why meet anyone we'll have to leave? And building a social circle -- even a social dot -- can seem like a distraction from the work we both know we need this time to do. It's an old tension. But as it's familiar, it's workable. And as we're not overwhelmed with social opportunities, the tension remains productive and in balance.