A place to ponder life’s choices: a cozy pizza restaurant with longtime friends. (photo by Chris Erskine)
I like beer in old jelly jars on long winter days. I have a near-mythic appreciation for life’s little things. Simple man, simple tastes, simple life.
The other morning, I woke in the dark, as older gents are prone to do, you know, just to check that we’re still alive. My shoes had overnighted by the heater vent. They were toasty. I flipped on the porch light and the coffee maker. In minutes, life glowed.
For most of the past 10,000 years, men like me awakened to cold houses with no plumbing, no Keurigs, candles for light. That might’ve been glorious for a while, instilled a certain pioneer camaraderie. But I’ll take the warm shoes by the heater vent, the coffee mug in my hands. Then later, the jelly jar.
Tricky times, to be sure. Then again, so were the Crusades.
Is a certain amount of dysfunction part of the human condition? We seem so evolved sometimes, with reservations at our fingertips, memory-foam mattresses, Disney Hall. Life has been better, to be sure, but it has also been worse.
As S.J. Perelman once wrote: “Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.”
Look, don’t worry, this isn’t going to be one of those relativist rants about how great we’ve got it in relation to tougher moments in human history. But on the whole, we still got it pretty great.
For the record, I measure my life in belly laughs and French kisses (yes, dogs count) and dinners with friends in sparkly, pingy restaurants (Town Grill is a good one, as is Musso and Frank and the Smokehouse – anyplace where they remember you when you walk in).
Dear innkeepers, is that so hard?
At a local steakhouse the other night, we ran into Gary and Rhonda, Lorraine and Rick, Ayesha and Colin. It was like a spontaneous high school reunion, minus the pre-reunion angst.
Made me realize I could never leave here.
Or could I? Wonder if I just loaded up a Mayflower van with all my friends, including most of the spouses, and moved to Idaho or Vancouver? It’s be like a Grateful Dead tour, without all those annoying groupies.
I’ve always said I’m rich in friends and family. While others invested in real estate or Crypto, or cases of glorious Silver Oak, I was investing in sons and daughters, coaching buddies, drinking pals. What an idiot. I swear.
Listen, we are stars wrapped in skin, as a 13th-century poet once noted.
And God is in the details, as they like to say. He or she is also in the weeds.
One of my favorite pastors (Gary) says that this notion that God is male, or God is female, is pretty ridiculous … that God is actually a force. God is the snow and the rain, the composer of sonnet, every sunset, every smile, every steak medium rare.
Good theory. Stay tuned, I’m asking for more details, which as it turns out, is where God really is.
Ultimately, how do you prove a great abstraction – love, loyalty, faith, conviction?
You can’t. You just order the halibut with the creamed spinach, splurge on the bread (it costs money now; previously, I guess it just dropped free from the sky).
My buddies and I are at the age where we order the fish in a steakhouse. That saddens me somewhat but not a lot, for the drinks are cold and the conversation is hot – not tender, just real … the hard-edged banter of forever friendships. We tease each other a ton over what we used to do and how we are now. And we complain about the kids, who happen to be the best things that ever happened to any of us – yes, those kids.
FYI, many young couples today are choosing not to have kids, and I certainly get that. Kids suck sometimes. They are expensive, whiny and super sticky, lacquered in some combo of snot and Kool-Aid. They almost never go away when you want them to. Kids are a specious proposition at best.
But what will these young couples’ lives be like later, when they huddle with old friends in cozy cafes on rainy nights? What will they talk about if not their sons and daughters, and how proud and frustrated they make them feel?
Honestly, I don’t know from Oscars, or Nobels, or any prize at all, really.
But aren’t kids everything?
Deepest gratitude to all those who gave toward our family compassion fund, which this year is aiding fire victims. If you’d like to give, please go to lcpcparented.org/give. Click on the Erskine Compassion Fund, which honors my late wife and son. Any amount helps.
Thank you.
Among our favorite playgrounds, is Musso and Frank, a robust and beloved Hollywood restaurant. (photo courtesy of Musso and Frank Grill)
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