Agoraphobia

Agoraphobia is the family disease. At this point, my Dad has it pretty severely. He doesn't like to leave the house, with the exception of going down to get the mail at the post office and occasionally visiting the bank. My brother told me about taking my father to get his driver's license renewed. It was quite the scene. My sister also fell prey to it. When she was graduated from high school in 1969, she received a full scholarship to attend the Philadelphia College of the Arts. She didn't go. When I lived in Philadelphia, I met her a few times when she would have to come into town to deal with a court case she was involved in. She was extremely anxious the whole time.

And me? Nothing much. Although I have this "thing" about new places. The West Village is home to hundreds of restaurants. There are half a dozen that I go to. I tend to avoid a place that I haven't been to before. When I have someone with me, I feel a little bit more intrepid.

This is one of the reasons that Starbucks holds a place near and dear to my heart. They're ubiquitous, and they're a known quantity. Walk into a Starbucks in the Bronx and it's the same deal as the one at 6th Avenue and 22nd Street.

What am I afraid of? Who knows? What if I walk in and find out that they want $18 for a muffin? What if I walk up to the counter and it turns out that it's table service? What if I sit down at a table and it turns out that it's serve yourself? What if every item on the menu includes okra, coconut, or eggplant (the three foods I will not eat)? So I'll have an awkward moment, and people will see.

Now that's ridiculous. So what if I have an awkward moment? I'd handle it with my usual pluck and aplomb.

I once heard Jack Kerouac described by a friend as being awkward in new situations. His friend said that he first saw Kerouac when he was a student at Columbia University, carrying his tray through the student cafeteria. He acted like a man who felt that every eye was on him, and if he were to stumble and drop his tray, then that would be the worst possible thing that could happen to him. Kerouac, a working class boy from Lowell, Mass., who made it to Columbia on a football scholarship, felt himself to be very much on stage and judged and found wanting. (Then he discovered benzidrine, and that made things so much easier.)

I tend to think that my agoraphobia stems from the same sources. That sense of "what if I'm revealed to be an idiot?".

It's not debilitating for me in the least. With the surreal transformation of the formerly beloved Factory Cafe from comfy cozy hang out to Greek diner, I'm scoping out new places where I can go, sit, have a latte, watch boys, and read a book for a couple of hours straight. This has lead me, solo, into several unfamiliar establishments.

Y'know, maybe it's not so much anxiety, thus not agoraphobia at all. As I think about it, there's no anxiety at all attached to any of that. Rather, it's the simple joy of being a Regular. Being greeted with "Hey, how's it going today? Good to see you. Get you a latte?"

One of the great things about the U. S. of A. is that if you do something three times in a row, you might as well have been doing it all your life. It's very easy to become a Regular.

And I love that.

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