Many of us have burst our bubbles. Having restricted our friendliness to elbow bumps and driveway chats for more than a year, we are eager to feel each other's skin. Plans are popping up like corn to cross the invisible barrier of thresholds, and sit at one another's tables.
A friend is having company. Relatives will arrive next month to break gluten free bread and sleep under the same roof. I gingerly inquired whether she worried about a particular family member who has developed unsavory habits in recent months.
"Fortunately he behaves when there is company!" she laughed.
I recalled the tenant effect when we housed half a dozen college girls in our attic years ago. We all leaned a little farther into chivalry with an audience. Somehow such restrictions droop in the presence of only, you know, our besties.
There are a few mannequins at the theater. I wonder what would happen if I dressed them up, and parked them around the house. I have an inexhaustible supply of costumes at my disposal and could fashion one as an Edwardian lady in waiting, another as a flapper. Could seeing them in our peripheral vision as we stomp up the stairs or complain that the dishwasher isn't running remind us to corset in our snippiness?
Maybe.
The funny thing is that I think cantankerousness leaves a bruise, even if the only observer is me.
