where it stops, nobody knows
My partner and I have just won a pub quiz night for the second time in a row and we are…embarrassed. We sit at the round kitchen table…
My partner and I have just won a pub quiz night for the second time in a row and we are…embarrassed. We sit at the round kitchen table, forced awake for another hour to babysit the rising sourdough, unpacking our feelings about winning a casual Zoom trivia night. Is it because we’re not used to winning? Is it because we don’t quite understand the depth of our own knowledge? Was the deck stacked for us because the questions were skewed slightly toward the musical and light on sports? Was it because, inspired by one of the night’s early questions, we played The Steve Miller Band’s Abracadabra over and over on repeat? Brendan says ours is a broad shallow base of knowledge. I don’t know. It’s late and we’re about to drink one more cocktail and Steve Miller wants to reach out and grab me.
Anyway, apparently we’re winners and this is a strange thing to be in a pandemic. At a time when I’m questioning just about everything, I’m answering questions with a fair amount of accuracy.
I am thinking about the summer. I am thinking about the future. The Negroni has efficiently erased me thinking about anything past that. We mark the weekend with cocktails and sleeping in while the children watch one too many Magic School Bus episodes. The sun comes out and the weather app on my phone shows me a 7 for the first time in a long time. I walk and see neighbors checking in with one another, writing math problems on the sidewalk with chalk, postal workers saying hey, you’re out early today! to elderly folks sitting in folding chairs at the top of the brownstone steps. I see so many more people out and wonder, how long can this last? We need each other in this way. The weather warms, the bread rises, we keep longing for one another. There is no answer.