Cheeseboards were on sale at Crate & Barrel, but I refrained from the extravagance of getting one for a single night, figuring I could use a large plate when it was just me and Kira. I did make a stop at Eataly to get some charcuterie items before the risotto dinner, and here are the results. A new book on ‘dry’ cocktails included a recipe for a Blood Orange Sunrise (more on that experience later, and it’s a good one). We paired that mocktail with meats and cheeses and pepper biscuits and Marcona almonds and cornichons. Next time we’ll just make a meal of these items and pig out right proper. Appetizers are always somehow better than dinner anyway. The beauty of being with someone as easygoing as Kira is that we no longer feel the need to impress one another. There is great comfort in that. Safety too. Two things I need more than ever this year. Such was the realization that struck as we finished up our dinner and Kira began the dishes. (I cook, she cleans, and we both prefer it that way.)
The best parts of these holiday get-togethers aren’t the fancy dinners out or the strolling about the city – it’s those little jewels of time where the world feels full and perfect and as close to cozy that this dark time of year can get. One of those moments happened after dinner. To set the scene, allow me to quickly describe what I have dubbed the ‘spa shower’. It’s an easy ritual that Kira and I developed during an especially cold winter a couple of years ago.
The bathroom and bedroom end of the condo is always the coldest, even when the heat is cranked up. The bay window – a boon and beautiful bonus for a bedroom – is a double-edged sword when it lets in the heat of summer and the cold winds of winter. Getting into the shower, especially in winter, is a chilly experience. To combat this, I decided to boil a kettle of water and pour it into the bathtub to raise the heat and humidity. Before this, I sprinkled a few drops of essential oils into the tub – some lavender and lemongrass and geranium and a bit of clove for holiday spice. When the hot water hits the oils and the tub, it gives off a glorious plume of steam, filling the small space with warmth and peaceful perfume. It’s an instant embrace that makes getting into the shower a pleasurable routine. We call it a spa shower, and it’s part of any proper winter weekend in the condo.
After this, clean and moisturized with some Beekman Boys goat’s milk lotion, I shuffled into the living room and snuggled into the couch while Kira finished the last of the dishes. This was it – the highlight of the Holiday Stroll weekend – coming the night before the stroll itself. And I realized it right then and there, which is not customarily the way it works. Unforced, unplanned, unexpected, I returned to a childhood feeling of warmth and safety, before everything became so dangerous, before everything turned so cold. In a pair of pajamas, my feet bare but brushing against the softness of our new blanket and pillow, and backed by another pillow against the cushion of the couch, I felt a coziness I’ve not felt in years, as if I was small enough to disappear into this little corner of cuddliness and look out at the whole of the immense world from a single lofty window.
Holding the moment as long as possible, I made a memory, something to grasp onto when the winter arrived with its bluster and boorish behavior. We moved into the bedroom and returned to a movie tradition, ‘The Man Who Came to Dinner.’ Sleep came before the end of the movie, as it usually does after a full day. The next morning was slated to be our loosely-plotted Holiday Stroll 2019, and steady rain was forecast until the afternoon. We would sleep in as long as possible, a rare luxury for both of us. After my jewel-box of a moment, everything else would be a bonus.
{To be continued…}
