Mindfully Stylish 🌷

I sat in the cellar bar of the Cork & Bottle just off Leicester Square and ordered a massive fillet of pan-fried salmon on mashed potato with a glass of the house red. I thought if I bolstered myself and fought off my cough with some omega-3 it would make my phone call to my dad’s psychiatrist easier to bear. She had left me a voicemail while I sat in my therapist’s living room, the first time I had seen her in person in months. Now my dad’s psychiatrist had the results of his Parkinson’s scan and she wanted to share them with me. Mercifully, it had been a good session with my own therapist ~ I hadn’t broken down as I so often did. I was feeling strong and hopeful, and we enjoyed being in each other’s company again.

Christmas songs played over the speakers concealed in a beautiful fir green bower with glittering fairy lights and silver and red baubles. I sank into the velvety dulcet tones of White Christmas and Santa Baby and sipped my wine, looking up at the sommelier a little too soon with maroon devil marks around my mouth. I glanced at myself in one of the gilt mirrors on the walls and wiped them away swiftly, realising as I did it I couldn’t be bothered to be embarrassed. 

I thought of the ensuing phone call and my sore throat. I’d bought my best friend Matty, who I was staying with, some orange juice and a ginger shot from Pret as he hadn’t been feeling well, and I was looking forward to giving them to him. 

Paying the bill, I wandered slowly but with purpose through the rain, from Cork & Bottle along Charing Cross Road, cutting down the side of Trafalgar Square and past St Martin-in-the-Fields, where I have performed a few times and thus have many happy memories, taking pictures on the steps. 

My footsteps made their way to Gordon’s Wine Bar, my father being called Gordon and knowing this restaurant from his own days in London. “I need to make a phone call,” I said to one of the waiters, “but I don’t want to disturb everyone,” gesturing to the diners along the railings. “Of course,” he said and waved me down to the far end, where I am sitting now. I can feel nerves in my stomach and my throat hurts. Nothing left to do but to call. 

I put the phone down and called my sister, debating in my head how to put this, “Hey my darling, just a quick one, I know you’re busy. I just spoke with the psychiatrist and the scan is conclusive of Parkinson’s for Daddy. They’re going to tell him the results tomorrow. Would you be able to go with him to the hospital so someone is with him since I’m not there?” “Yes, of course. Are you okay?” “I’m fine, I was 90% sure anyway.” “Okay.” We spoke of the appointment scheduled for the next day at St James’s Hospital, ‘Jimmy’s’, in Leeds. I explained my concerns about the diagnosis scaring him.

When all was said and done, I sat under one of the overhead heaters the staff had kindly turned on for me and asked for a menu. I looked at the cheeses, cheese being my number one comfort food in times of sadness, but I couldn’t bring myself to order the Truffle Brie, my favourite. It wasn’t a time of celebration. I thought of how shit it was to give my dad the news four days before Christmas, but then I thought, would it really have been any better at the New Year? When is that kind of news ever welcome?

So I ordered the Taleggio, an Italian cheese that reminds me of my trip a couple of Summers ago…

Places and food and other smiling strangers ~ they help us and hold us without knowing it. But perhaps that is their intention all along. Perhaps that is what and why we create ~ food, hospitality, art, ambience ~ to have and to hold in times of tears, to enjoy and indulge when we are hopeful and light, and to be there, to make new memories in the same space when they comfort us, long into the night…

In Love&Light, FS XOX