James' World 2

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“Grief is a force of energy that cannot be controlled or predicted,” Elizabeth Gilbert reflected in the wake of losing the love of her life. “Grief does not obey your plans or your wishes. Grief will do whatever it wants to you, whenever it wants to. In that regard, Grief has a lot in common with Love.”

Like love, grief swells into an entire inner universe that comes to color the whole of the outside world. Like love — that rapturous raw material for most of the songs and poems and paintings our species has produced — grief lives itself through the grieving and can’t but speak its truth. Unlike love,our culture meets the voice of grief with an alloy of disquiet and denial. We want to make the sadness go away, to lift the sorrowing heart out of its sorrow immediately. Often, we mistake for personal failure our inability to salve another’s grief or mistake for their failure the inability to snap out of it on the timeline of our wishes.

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Art by Valerio Vidali from The Shadow Elephant by Nadine Robert — a subtle meditation on what it actually takes to unblue our sorrows.

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With only 24 hours in a day, most of which are spent working and sleeping, it’s easy to feel as though free time is your most scarce resource. After factoring in everyday chores like grocery shopping, laundry, and cleaning your space, there’s hardly any time left for connecting with loved ones—and doing so is a key component of living a long, well life. The good news is it’s possible to connect while still ticking items off your person-chore list. Cue: errand dates.

Recently, my friends and I started going on these errand dates, which basically just involves hanging out while we tackle items on our respective to-do lists. In the last three months, I’ve gone on close to 10 errand dates with my best friend, my roommate, and my sister. I’ve gone on an errand date to get groceries, another for a car wash, one to shop for furniture, and another to the gym. And I’m a big fan.

“When you’re bringing your friends into things that you have to do already, it’s a way to fit people into your schedule and not feel more overwhelmed and time impoverished, and also connect with your friend and show them that you’re invested in them,” says psychologist and friendship expert Marisa Franco, Ph.D.

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Photo: Getty Images / Tom Werner

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Chef Meherwan Irani’s marinade for these chicken skewers achieves the perfect balance of yogurt, lime, and spices. Cutting the chicken into strips rather than the traditional whole chunks allows the meat to cook faster without drying out, and as an added bonus, increases the surface area in contact with the marinade. The same marinade and technique can also be used for lamb (boneless or chops), steak, or paneer.

Look for jars of ginger-garlic paste at your local Indian grocery store. If you can’t find it, make your own by smashing 6 cloves of garlic with a 1½-inch piece of peeled ginger in a mortar and pestle, or by blending to a coarse paste in a food processor. Dried fenugreek leaves are a savory, aromatic herb reminiscent of maple syrup. Commonly used in Indian street food, chaat masala is a tangy mix of rock salt and spices including dried mango powder, asafetida, and black pepper.

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Photo by Thomas Payne

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Kristen’s 12-year relationship with her best friend Heather was put to the test during the pandemic. (Both women’s names have been changed at Kristen’s request to protect their privacy.) Their experiences during the past few years couldn’t have felt more different: Kristen, a single, 35-year-old behavioral researcher in San Francisco, was unbearably lonely during the lockdown. Her best friend, Heather, also 35, married and living in Los Angeles, gave birth to her first child. Kristen expected Heather’s priorities to shift as she adjusted to being a new mom, but Kristen wasn’t prepared for how upsetting it would feel to be shuffled to an outer ring of her best friend’s life precisely when she needed Heather most.

They tried to keep in touch, agreeing to hop on a phone call every other Sunday at 8 am. But Heather was a no-show week after week. “She just would get really busy and overwhelmed and kind of just forget about me,” Kristen says. With every phone date Heather blew off, Kristen’s resentment grew. “It just got so painful that I was like, ‘This is not working,’” she says.

As we juggle the demands of this ongoing pandemic, friendships have shifted in all sorts of unexpected ways. Many people now seem to have less stamina for socializing, says Kat Vellos, author of We Should Get Together, a book about cultivating friendships in adulthood. Vellos believes folks became used to having smaller social circles, and some realized they prefer keeping it that way. As a result, these people might be more choosy about the friendships they do invest time in. That’s mostly a good thing, but it can be painful for the people who are hurt that they are no longer a priority.

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