And then there was the heat. Starting in early June, a mighty heatwave descended on Texas and choked the air out of the land. It was a menacing force that blanketed our bodies in a throbbing heat.
It went on for weeks. The relentless and unforgiving sun pummeled the hard ground as the June days turned into July. At the bars, mister fans sprayed relief and in some ways hope but they were like small children yelling to be heard against the deafening roar of a Super Bowl stadium.
The heat’s angry persistence only gave up in the hours after midnight, resting for a little while like it too was exhausted from its own fury. But then in the morning it awoke and covered the landscape in a fever and even in those early hours we marveled at the sun’s merciless sting.
Despite the long hot days, we persevered with the grilling. Around lit charcoal or flaming gas grills, we gathered and sweated and set off smoke alarms on a march toward the communal dining table.
Cheeseburgers and ‘dogs.
Wings with hot sauce.
Corn and peppers.
Smoked brisket.
Chicken thighs.
Ribeye steaks.
Racks of ribs.
In the calm years before we had kids, the dining table played host to long and uninterrupted discussions of nights out, new friends, movies, new restaurants, overseas vacations, weddings, new jobs, old jobs, and on rare occasions, politics.
But now gnawing and nagging children pull us in and out of conversation, interrupting our back and forth with intermittent whining and desperate pleas to find a lost toy or for a glass of milk. Meanwhile, the dogs lay at our feet, hopelessly waiting for food scraps and a belly scratch.
Around the dining table is where we’ve made many of our friends. We’ve moved four times in the last five years and in every new home, in every new city, our dinner parties represent the perfect opportunity to cultivate new friendships or maintain old ones.
I think back to the hot sauce party we hosted in our one-bedroom apartment in New York, and the spoonfuls of ghost pepper sauce that were shared around to a roomful of giddy guests. Trays of chicken wings adorned the kitchen bench and the apartment buzzed with burning mouths and wide eyes as Maala, then 10 months old, slept peacefully in the only room with a door.
In St Croix, we had a queue of friends lining up at the dining table for a serving of Mikey’s French Dip, complete with all the trimmings. The hefty chunk of roast beef looked mighty and unimpeachable on that table but still it was no match for the 12 hungry mouths waiting for it to be plated and served.
In Philadelphia, we hosted smaller groups and cooked heartier meals like braised short ribs and homemade pizzas and that was how we made it through the winter.
Now we’re in Austin and there’s a distinct familiarity to this moment. It’s an unremarkable Friday but we’re surrounded by friends again, nursing full stomachs and tired minds.
Our bodies slump into chairs with backs supporting our heft and our glasses are full with chilled rose wine, and we return to our musings. Religion, a TV show, something about aliens, something else about in-laws.
We laugh slowly and deeply. Exhausted from the heat and the day.
Eventually, that day melts deeper into the evening and soon it’s time to leave.
And so we do.