We Still Let It Rip

and Spring Orzo Salad with Artichokes, Radicchio, Beans, Greens and Lemon

Back in my early twenties I remember my husband coming home after a night out with his friends and I would ask him, how is everyone doing, how’s so and so, what’s going on with him? And he would say, I don’t know. And I would look at him. You were together all night and you don’t know how anyone is doing? I wasn’t annoyed. I was struck by it, the way you’re struck by something that confirms a thing you already suspected. Men and women are different in this way, and I have never expected anything, but I still marvel at it. When I got together with my girlfriends, my high school girls, my college girls, the work friends with whom I took long weekends, we would let it rip. Kids, husbands, bodies, fears, whatever needed air. Not mean, nobody was sitting around saying I hate my husband, but honest. Real. Carrying the load together so nobody had to feel it alone. I have always been so grateful for that, the particular way women show up for each other when they decide to really show up. Which is why what happened at the shower a few weeks ago got me thinking about my part.

We were in a room full of women where many have known each other for years, a whole layer of us, and at some point during the passed apps hour, the conversation had made its way, as it tends to these days, to the food. How the heat creeps up from the corn salad. The weather, the cold raw stretch we’d finally come out the other side of. My daughter, who walked up to me during a lull when someone was saying this exact thing, leaned in and said, I am hearing alot about corn salad. I immediately wanted to defend myself, to let her know she just missed a rich conversation but I knew exactly what she meant. She has always been an observer from a young age and she was noticing something and putting words to it before I had. Here was a younger woman watching a generation of women who used to really talk and wondering, what happened to you?

I've been turning that over ever since because I don't think it's simple. And honestly, this wasn't the first time I'd felt it. It's something I'd been noticing for a while, in different rooms, with different groups of women, and the shower was just the moment it finally had a name. I don't want to write a piece that says we've all gone shallow, because that isn't true and it isn't fair. There were good conversations at that shower. You can't solve the world at a bridal shower, I understand that, and when you have five different friend groups in a room together it isn't really the place to test whether you can still go deep with someone. But in the right room, with the right people, you can go one layer deeper than the appetizers. Sometimes we don't because somewhere along the way, without anyone deciding it, we started editing ourselves before we even opened our mouths. When we were younger and all going through the same things at the same time, the same exhaustion, the same chaos, it was so easy to say yeah, me too, and just be in it together. Now we've all landed in different places. Different needs, different beliefs, different versions of ourselves than the ones our friends first knew. And sometimes that distance, the life distance, makes you wonder if it's still safe to bring the real thing.

It was time to sit down for lunch and the scheduled activities ensued where we were mostly engaging with the people at our tables. I was at the family table and enjoyed catching up with my cousins and meeting the sister of the groom. In an ideal world I would have had the opportunity to speak to all of the people I didn’t get to that day. But at the very end, a high school friend caught me on her way out and said, I didn’t talk to you the whole time, how are you? And I told her. And she told me. And I didn’t feel for one second like she was looking over her shoulder even though she had somewhere to be. It was maybe fifteen minutes and it was the most present I felt all day. Going deeper, it doesn’t take that long. It takes someone deciding to do so. I gave her a big hug because I was so happy to see her and the dopamine from the connection.

Two weeks later I drove to Mystic to have lunch with my college friends Cathy and Jill, and I was determined to arrive prepared. I had been reflecting on everything I’d noticed at the shower, I had questions, I was going to make sure that both of them felt seen and that I wasn’t going to let the afternoon drift into the appetizers. I had let myself think that these friendships are almost 40 years old and we have not all landed in the same place. There are things we see differently now, the kind of differently that can make you feel like you’re standing on opposite sides of something, and I think without ever saying it, I had started to wonder whether the distance would change what we were to each other.

I didn’t need my questions. Jill was talking the minute we sat down, Cathy right behind her, and we were off. I was asking follow-ups and listening and also smiling on the inside because here we were, engaging like always, no need to lead the conversation, we were already there. We talked about family and health and who we’re willing to go to the mat for and what we’re letting go of. Jill, who works remote with her husband now in a way that didn’t exist before COVID, has been putting up real boundaries around her time so that she’s actually present with him. Cathy talked about how she’s deciding now, with a clarity I really admired, where her energy is going and who she’s choosing. She actually changed a word I used, I said performative, and she said engaged, as in there are people she used to engage with out of obligation and now she simply doesn’t. Clear-eyed. Jill agreed with her. Time ages with us, she said. You get to decide where it goes. I let them know this subject about friendships was on my mind and that I would be writing about it here.

I left that lunch invigorated in a way I hadn’t expected to be because nothing was performed. We brought our actual selves, the ones we’ve become, with all the ways we’ve changed and diverged and grown into different versions of the people we were at eighteen and twenty, and it held. Our relationship held. And that is what I keep coming back to.

I think the corn salad, and the weather, and the surface of things, that’s what fills the space when you’re not sure anymore if it’s still safe to bring the real thing. When you may not have the time or energy to figure it out. When you wonder if the person across from you can still meet you where you are now, not where you were. And the answer, at least the one I got in Mystic, is that more often than not they can. But you have to be willing to find out. You have to trust the relationship enough to show up as who you actually are now, the complicated evolved version, and see if it holds.

I write a lot about abandoning ourselves, how we do it for our kids and our parents and everyone who needs something from us, and how important it is to stay regulated in your own body while you’re taking care of the people you love. We sometimes abandon ourselves in our friendships too. Maybe not in a way that everyone recognizes. We show up, we bring the wine, we talk about the food, and we drive home a little emptier than we should be because we didn’t risk bringing anything real.

We are not too old for depth. We are, if anything, finally old enough to know that depth is the whole point. Trust the relationship. Say the real thing. Your girls can handle it. They are still there, I promise you, right underneath the corn salad.

Mad love, Denise xx

Recommended Recipe

Spring orzo salad with artichokes, radicchio, beans, arugula and lemon

Serves 4 as a side salad or as a meal if you serve with the frittata.

I made a 1/2 version of this frittata to serve with the salad. Using no beans because I have beans covered in the salad, instead using 4 eggs, 1/2 the amount of cream, (1/4 c parmesan, 1/4 c Romano cheese) a big handful of baby spinach, 1 cup roasted tomatoes, 1 tbsp basil, few chives cut, and 1/4 cup feta and I cooked it in a olive oiled tin pie plate for 20 minutes at 350 degrees F.

Ingredients:

• 6 oz Orzo

• 1/2 head of radicchio, sliced up

• 2-3 oz of arugula (two handfuls)

• 1 15 oz can of pinto beans, rinsed (1 and 1/2 cups cooked beans, rinsed) I would consider adding up to another cup of beans to the salad, now that I have tried this. I like the ingredients in my pasta salads to match the amount of pasta.

• 1 14.5 oz jar of artichoke hearts, liquid removed (I buy Jeff’s Garden at my local market)

• 1 lemon, juiced and zested (1/2 a lemon if its really juicy)

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• Salt and pepper

optional : buckwheat groats on top for crunch

Instructions:

Fill up a medium pot or saucepan with 4 -5 cups of water, add salt and bring to a boil. Add the orzo and cook to one minute before al dente. The last minute add the pinto beans and then drain both. Add to a bowl. Add the artichoke hearts.

While the pasta is cooking, zest and juice the lemon. Add the two tablespoons of olive oil to a small jar or bowl. Add half the lemon juice (no zest) stir. Add salt and pepper to taste. If you need more lemon, add it here. Set aside until pasta is done.

Drain the pasta/bean mixture and pour into a serving bowl. Add the lemon-olive oil mixture to the warm orzo. Add the zest. Add the arugula and radicchio and fold everything into the orzo and beans. Add any salt or pepper to taste. And optional buckwheat groats for crunch. Plate into individual shallow bowls with a wedge of frittata and enjoy.

Note: If you make this ahead of time and it’s on the counter you may want to try it and add a little more lemon juice and olive oil to brighten it up before serving. I served it with the frittata and also some heated, crusty durum bread.

*If this resonated, share it with someone who needs it and please click the like button. If you are curious about beans and want a clear place to begin, the Bean Reset that’s where I’d start. Come find me on TikTok for the behind the scenes. And if you have questions, I am always at startwithbeans.com.*

*Note: I am not a doctor. I am an educator with a doctorate in educational leadership who improved her own GI symptoms through nutrition and lifestyle changes. Please consult your doctor before making changes to your health routine.*