Let’s Have Tea!!!

So my relatively covid-conscious friend Belle and I were finishing up our outdoor distanced lunch a deux at our local when Belle said, “I’m just wanting a little more fun, just something these days.”

“Me too!” I said. “Should we plan a trip to Tulum?”

“No, I can’t plan another effing trip I have to cancel.”

“I get it, I get it.  I wasn’t thinking actually book a trip, just maybe like fantasy-style planning.  I read a thing saying a mental vacation — imagining a vacation — is, like, healing.”

“Ya no, I can’t even go there it’s too depressing.”

“Yeah.”

“What about a pedicure?”

“I don’t know.”

“We could N95 it up and just do it.”

“Mayyybe.  The place I’d go is right around the corner, you wanna check it out?”

“Hells ya!”

With a slight spring in our step we walk around the corner.  Some passers-by coo at Brownie and we stop to let them try to pat her, but she shies away from them.

“I’m sorry she’s really friendly she’s just having a hard day,” I say to make them feel better, like it’s not that their assumption she will want their pats is off-base and their disappointment with her is-ness being different from how they’d like it to be is more a reflection of their own attachment issues that need healing and less a sign that Brownie is somehow imperfect.  She is perfect as she is.  

And so I get to explain how she’s really friendly and a nice girl just not that into strangers.  Especially strangers without treats.  And men.  And men in hats.  And also women, except some women who may smell like other dogs. And some men, even ones in hats.  Her proclivities are a mystery.  I love her.

So anyway, the three of us Belle, Brownie the pup, and I get to The Nail Palace which is not a palace and notice that it is in fact a quite small, windowless establishment with a closed door.  It is much smaller and enclosed than I remember it being in 2019.  We peer in anyway.

“No.  No way,” Belle says.  “No way, we are not going in there.  Look that lady has her mask under her nose and no one is saying a fucking thing.  Not a fucking thing.  Just sitting there.”

“Ya, not feeling it,” I say, and we turn around and amble back towards where the cars are parked.

I remember once upon a time going to the Nail Palace and chatting with other ladies who maybe weren’t like me in some ways but maybe were like me in other ways — In the way that we were all human beings enjoying human contact, trying to do something nice for ourselves, get a little perk up, having a chat just because we happened to be in the same place at the same time.

There is so little of that these days.  I seek it out.  It’s not the same but I seek out the phone chats and the outdoor visits and the zoom book club because I need humans, way more than a foreign beach vacay it turns out.  And I can get more humans in my life without having unacceptable exposure risk.

“So that was a fail.  What now?” Belle asked.  I was feeling kinda blah and tired, and I had admin to do and people to call and workouts to attempt, but spending time with a friend when I could felt more important, it was more important.  For me it’s important to reach out - especially when - I’m feeling kinda blah and tired and not very exciting or peppy.

So I said, “You wanna have a tea in my backyard?”

“Yes! Let’s have tea!!!” She said, like, “Let’s all get naked and jump in the pool!”

And so we did. Have tea. And it was lovely.  I’m gonna keep going.  

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www.combatcovidstress.com