I’m Pretty Sure This Will Happen to Most of Us.
April 25, 2023
It happened tonight at the gym. It happens all the time when I’m working with high school students, having drinks at bar, walking my dog, watching television.
I feel a tiny wince somewhere in my chest, I wish I was that young. I’d like a do over or a do it all again.
This doesn’t last long. I don’t have the option of wallowing when I’m raising a twelve pound weight over my head, explaining the difference between subsidized and unsubsidized loans to a seventeen year old, or hanging out with my friends.
We’re all so busy lately. I’m busy, my friends are busy, everyone at work is losing their minds. Some of my colleagues are eating lunch at their desks, staying long after doors lock and sending emails at 2 am Sunday morning. (Not me. I have lunch with my friends, but that’s a different story, because my friends at work are the best.)
Essentially, I have too much going on to dwell on my age, or whatever the hell age I’d like to be.
Tonight, I dwelled.
When I was in high school, I drank Miller Lite behind the bathroom at the Tourne, a park in my hometown. A lot of people did this, I was known for being Rob’s shadow and spent the first six months of our relationship agreeing with everything Rob said, until we’d been together for a few months.
Around this time, I discovered the excruciating joy of passionate arguments in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night, in the snow, barefoot, because whatever the hell we were fighting was so important it couldn’t wait four hour until he picked me up for school. When I wasn’t whipped up and hysterical about Rob, I used my free time to squabble with my mom about why I had to empty the dishwasher when we had a housecleaner, and walk around a lake called Mountain Lake. I didn’t do any homework or play any sports, but it’s obvious, I was quite busy.
During my twenties, I was sad. My father died when I was twenty-two, and although he’d been sick for a while, his loss hit hard. I wasn’t hospitalized; I went to school, held some jobs, went through the motions, but looking back, I see a sad girl who should have been in therapy.
During my thirties, the first thing my brain tells me to write is I had a damn good time. I was on guest lists, went to concerts in limos, stayed up until dawn playing backgammon, and weirdly enough, talking about high school. I shopped. I hung out at the pool on the roofdeck on the Sheridan. I went to Walden Pond whenever my friend was kind enough to take me, and if she wasn’t up for it, I took a cab out to Concord and made the driver wait until I was finished. (I had a collection of cabdrivers that drove me places and brought me food and alcohol when I didn’t want to leave the house or the liquor stores were closing.)
Most nights, when we were out, I’d leave first, and head back to my apartment to wait for my friends to come over after the bars closed. I don’t like waiting in line for the bathroom and crowds make me uncomfortable. The limos were nice, and the concerts were amazing, but mostly, what I remember is trying to locate the limos after the concerts. That was not fun, and often took a very long time. Backgammon is fun, especially when you’re winning, but Walden and winning backgammon games aren’t enough to redeem a decade that, from this angle, looks pretty shallow.
I had children in my forties. I remember trying to hold slippery Kate up in the sink so I could wash her hair, and almost dropping her, because I turned around to look at the clock. I needed to know how many more minutes until I could put her to bed.
I skipped through parts of Lemony Snicket when I was reading to Colin because I wanted to get back downstairs to some tv show.
I loved taking them to the pool but we didn’t go often because of how long it would take to get them in and out of their swimsuits. And sometimes, while they were swimming, they’d need to pee. It was so inconvenient, those three to six minutes of helping my kids get ready to play in the water.
As they grew older, they started to move in another direction. I’d take them to the park, leave my book and phone behind, and they’d meet their friends. We’d go for a hike, and they’d want to turn around after thirty minutes so we could go for pizza.
By the time they were teenagers, I caught glimpses. I memorized conversations and wrote about them on Facebook, not to brag, but so I’d have records. I drove Katy anywhere she wanted to go, just to have time in the car. I tried to connect with Colin, but he started drifting away around age fourteen. The only time we spoke was when he lost something in the laundry, the only real conversations we had were in the car when we were on the way home from the police station.
Now, Colin is twenty-two and Katy is nineteen. Neither one of them live at home, but we talk. Colin tells me about his new apartment and sends pictures of his food all the time; this is a trend I don’t understand. Katy shares stories about frat parties I’m pretty sure not every parent hears, sends pictures of her new haircut, her new chair, her form in deadlift, and lately, has let me listen while she tries to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. Right now, archivist, physical therapist assistant, and media consultant are all on the table. She is also considering archaelogy but I guess the prospects for employment are dismal.
My kids are entirely different, but they pick up the phone when I call. Sometimes I have to call twice and then text, but they pick up.
The only do over I’d like is those fleeting moments when they were really small. I’d sit on the floor with Katy and color, instead of leaving her at the coffee table while I sat at kitchen table on my desktop computer. Colin loved playing with tiny plastic animals, I have no idea what he did with tiny plastic animals, but I wish I knew. I wish I didn’t always rush him off the swings, he loved the swings.
I think most parents go back to wishing they’d had just a little more time giving baths and cutting up vegetables. Maybe that’s why so many want grandchildren; I haven’t gotten there yet.
I’m good with where I am now. I live with a pup who thinks going to bed at nine is almost as much fun as eating cookies.
I work, and eat lunch, with people I like, for students who need my help. I don’t spend a fortune on records, (Spotify!). I like to cook.
I wake up without a hangover; I take my time getting ready because I’ve laid my clothes out the night before.
My kids talk to me, and quite often, when I say something, they listen.
Cancel the do-over.
I need to stop time.
I am sitting at the kitchen table, which is a different space this year than last, or the year before. Next to my elbow is an empty water bottle, brought home from boot camp, a tiny miracle, (I’ve left so many behind.)
There is my daughter’s cat, Maurice, who is mad and has been mad since last September when Katy left for college. He is a three legged cat, yet surprising lethal with his single front paw. It is hard not to laugh when he attempts to strike with the limb that isn’t there. Katy says she misses him but she only Facetimes with Colin’s puppy, Nell.
There are bits from Sunday’s paper; my husband and I went to Foxwoods for the night. I still haven’t read the travel section, barely glanced at the magazine section and book reviews. I might not get a chance to pick it up; I will throw it into the recycling before I read it.
It is the beginning of April, and I’ve considered putting springtime placemats down on the scarred wood surface.
How many? Only Sheldon and I live here now and when we see people, mostly, we are out. Two placemats at a table for six might look sad.
Maybe I’ll buy a plant.
There is a box of Kleenex, which needs to go by the bed; it’s allergy season. Some deodorant Colin left behind, which smells like twenty three year old young man trying to impress the world. I’m sure he’s replaced it with something more expensive. I should bring it up to his room, but his room still feels strange; he only left a month ago.
There is the napkin holder, and a mismatched collection of polyester and cotton cloths, patterns and solids, ancient and shiny. There is a candle that sits on top of a trivet, I have tried to dig out the wick, it has only been lit once or twice..
There are my headphones, my shiny, pink Beats. I wear them on hikes and listen to them at a volume that makes my Iphone send me strongly worded texts about hearing loss.
Sometimes, the best, the only thing to do is to slide them over my ears. Find a playlist I haven’t heard in a million years, slip into whatever sneakers I find in the top of the bin, and step outside.. I only bring Nelly, my son’s puppy, because Sophie can’t keep up anymore.
And sometimes, it’s best to leave the headphones behind.
Not in front me, but in the next room, about ten feet away lies Sophie, The Sweetest of Dogs, on the rug. Tonight, I’d like to slip the leash on Sophie’s collar, and let her lead me wherever she wants to go. She moves, or she doesn’t. We might not make it half a block. She might decide to nap on the front stoop as soon we step down the stair. That’s fine too.
Just this morning, we heard from the vet. Sophie was diagnosed with kidney disease three years ago and the doctor told it was a miracle she’s still here.
By the end of week, Sophie won’t be in the next room anymore.
On Saturday morning, I will be sitting at this kitchen table, probably looking the Kleenex and the newspaper, the deodorant, and, maybe, Maurice. I will glance into the next room, to the space where Sophie sits right now.
I’m going to go sit down next to her.
Family Vacation
March 20, 2023
The whole time I was on vacation with my mom and step-dad, brother, and two daughters, I was wondering “how am I going to write about this without pissing anyone off?” We were in St. Augustine, Florida, in a townhouse, the six of us, last week. It is a good thing it had three floors and seven bathrooms.
I am the oldest, one of my kids is in college, the other is in California, and only reaches out when he has something exciting to say, like Drake is two tables away from him at a restaurant. I live in Massachusetts and work at a local community college, I know the group exercise schedule at the gym next store by heart, and I try to read books instead of scrolling on Facebook and Instagram. I am very excited about the new season of “Ted Lasso” and neither my brother nor my mom have any interest in checking it out, but I don’t watch “American Idol”, (Mom,) or movies where lots of things blow up, (Jimmy, my brother).
My brother is two years younger than me, and, I think, finds me a bit silly and a little irritating, though he said once I was a talented writer. He is fierce, and Southern. He is funny, brilliant, and a lawyer for the state of Florida. I am not going to say anything else about that because he appreciates his job. He has some health issues, a dog he loves named Charlie, and is the devoted father to two, also brilliant, daughters.
My mom and her husband live in South Carolina. We speak every day on the phone, about Wordle, her bridge game, a recipe, my dog, her cat, the kids, and the weather. She loves to talk about the weather, especially in the winter. I think she’d like me to move there, but there is also an understanding between us that maybe we get on so well because we are rarely in the same room.
We don’t see much of each other. My brother’s schedule and mine rarely aligned because for the past fifteen years, our lives have been defined by when our kids had vacations- my kids and his kids had different weeks off. Mom and Edd were passionate about traveling in an RV for while, then they moved onto cruising. Now, they spend more of their time at home, with their cat, binoculars and a best friend named Sue.
We settled on St. Augustine to meet. Jim’s kids were off of school during my college’s spring break, and Mom found us a beautiful place to stay across from the ocean.
We were there for five days.
Five days, one car, seven people, from three states, three generations, and lots of opinions.
I made dinner reservations, and changed them every night except one.
I went to the gym with my nieces, we hiked through the woods and saw three armadillos. We argued over the definition of greek pizza. We collected shells on the beach, Heather gave me a handful, which I put on my nightstand. We made sandwiches, we toured old downtown St. Augustine, we sat in traffic and bonded over a strong aversion to roundabouts and traffic. (In Mass, they are called rotaries. I don’t think they are that big a deal, but I don’t spend much time behind the wheel, and, as a passenger, am oblivious to traffic, because I am on my phone, scrolling thru Instagram reels.)
We went swimming once, Laurel ran all the way into the waves even though the water was cold, and we stayed in the water for an hour. Jimmy and Heather flew kites so high in the wind, I thought they’d never come back to earth.
I made smoothies every morning, Mom made sandwiches most afternoons. Jimmy drove us to the store three times a day, to the gym, and to dinner. There was coffee brewed by the time I made it upstairs to the kitchen, and one morning my husband made popovers following my mom’s recipe. They were a bit flat, but we ate every single one so he wouldn’t feel bad, slathered with honey butter, blackberry jam, and strawberry preserves.
I took a million photographs, and I never take photographs. There are lots of duplicates, but I don’t think I’ll delete anything.
I wish we’d had more time.
I hope we do this again, and next time it’s easier. We’ll linger a little longer, together, over coffee, over dinner, in front of the news, at the beach, on the deck.
Because the week went by far too fast. I know my brother’s daughters better today than I did two weeks ago- I know Laurel is allergic to pineapple and Heather can stay up until midnight and wake at five thirty in the morning to walk to the beach so she can take a photo to send to a friend.
I know my mom says she likes to eat at five, but while on vacation, she eats lunch late, so when making dinner reservations, it’s probably a better idea to book a table for seven o’clock.
I know that my brother is one of the best people in the whole world, and definitely the most stubborn, but I didn’t need five days in St. Augustine to figure that out.
Small Moments
November 27, 2022
It is the Sunday after Thanksgiving.
It just started to rain and I’m wondering where to begin.
Our family feels different than the others I know in our town; no family members live anywhere nearby, that we speak to often, anyway. Our unit is my husband, my 22 year old son, whose been on house arrest since last October, (weed, my friends, just too much damn weed in a closet,) me, who works at a local college helping students navigate financial aid, and my daughter, 19 years old, in her first year of college in Amherst, Massachusetts, two hours from home.
I just noticed I didn’t say much about my husband; for work, he is content to drive people to the airport, walk dogs, and detail cars, he’s been a member of the gig economy before that was a thing. While I’m at work, I send him recipes almost every day in hopes that he’ll figure out he should start cooking dinner each night. Often, he’ll go to the store for the ingredients, and half the time they go bad before one of us tackles whatever dish I’d discovered on the NY Times cooking app.
When we are in the same house, an observer might think we were boarders who had been sharing the same space for a while. Colin will text Kate, her room is across the hall, his door maybe 18 inches from his door, to ask her to go downtown and pick up his dinner or to Hanover to buy a dozen over priced cookies the size of tea plates. When she said goodbye to him on her way back to school, she tossed the words over her shoulder, at my prompting, as she walked out the door. I don’t think he heard her, I think he believed she’d left hours ago. She is quiet, behind her door.
My husband watches tv in bed downstairs at night, I watch shows on my phone from the sofa in the living room.
We’ve drifted; we weren’t always this way. Christmas will be awkward; all of us standing around in the same room. Probably I’m the only one who will see it as awkward. Or maybe, Colin will be off house arrest and we’ll share dinner in the city at a noisy restaurant and things will feel normal again.
God, my life sounds grim, our life sounds grim. It’s not. My husband and I have friends, we go out to dinner. Katy loves school and invited me to have a glass of wine with her when she had friends over this weekend. Colin bought a puppy last November, and we spend a lot of time sitting around on the run in the living room, watching Chanel wriggle and roll, chase a toy or a bottle of plastic, try to hump my left leg. Actually when she does that, Colin gets disgusted and goes back upstairs. (I wonder why she finds my left leg more appealing than the right.)
Usually, the Sunday night after a holiday weekend, I’m overwhelmed by what I didn’t do and what I need to do. It’s only 5:43 pm, and all that’s left on my list is to find a clean pair of pants and pick out some shoes for tomorrow.
Tonight, things seem lovely, not even a little bit grim.
Katy asked me to get matching tatoos. I am not sure I want to get matching tatoos, or any tatoo, but if I am going to have inkspots carved into my skin, it will be because Katy asked. I was surprised; I know we’re close, but lately I’ve been feeling like she regards me as just-a-mum, who needs to tolerated and offered the ocassional compliment or cookie.
Sheldon and I cooked a Thanksgiving meal to share with our son and his friend, since Colin couldn’t join us on Thursday when we went to Salem to see Shel’s sister. We didn’t fight about dishes. We didn’t squabble about celery in the stuffing, (I gave in, I put celery in the damned stuffing, and to be honest, couldn’t tell the difference). I didn’t snap when he left the table early to watch football, or when Colin neglected to put his dish in the sink.
Sheldon always leaves the table early for football, and Colin gets his dish to the sink about twice a week. I do not know why, once or twice, this has made me so mad, I’ve broken a bowl or glass by angrily flinging them into the dishwasher. Take that, cup!
I turned up the radio and sorted out the kitchen cabinets that store the tupperwae, the chinese food takeout containers, the old yogurt cups. I threw out the things without tops, I threw out the tops without things. I rearranged our bowls, I scoured our cookie sheets that were, to be honest, disgusting. I almost snapped a photo for Instagram but images of stacked plasticware are not what I want to see when I’m scrolling.
When I went upstairs, after dinner, Colin invited me into his room. “Check this out!” On his big screen tv, we watched some divers almost get eaten by a cluster of five huge whales, feeding on sardines by leaping into the air, jaws open wide, and scooping massive mouthfuls of water, fish, and seaweed, then gulping the whole mouthful down. The narrator pointed out it was luck that one of the divers wasn’t part the dinner; someone could have easily been caught up in the maelstrom. I’m going to keep an eye out for shows like that; explorers or hunters having near death experiences, with lions or sharks or the really big bears that have been on the news so much. Colin and I used to watch television together all the time- we loved “How I Met My Mother” and when he was older, it was all “Law and Order”. Maybe we can be brought together by violent nature shows that remind us we are lucky to be alive in front of huge flat screen tv. I’ll try anything that isn’t illegal or involve staying up after ten pm to connect with my first born, Collie.
Maybe my family feels odd, or maybe everybody’s family feels odd, from the inside.
Tonight, I am a little bit closer to mine. I am insanely proud of my cabinet, the stacks of leftovers in the fridge, my lunch already tucked away in a bag where I’lll find it. It’s been a good day, and a lovely weekend.
I am thankful that I have more time with the people I love, more than anything, and more time to figure out how to get things right.
Not An Easy Sunday
November 7, 2022
Sunday mornings I start my day, sometimes in my pajamas, at 750 am. I go to the gym down the street for a 8 o’clock Pilates class. I reserve a space three days in advance; it’s popular because it’s ridiculously hard but eighty percent of the time, we’re lying down, on our backs or our bellies, so it suits the lazy, the hungover, and the people that want to look good in a bikini. The classes are never the same, but I can count on a Joni Mitchell, Taylor Swift, James Taylor, type music, on the playlist.
It is hard, it is not so hard. If I chose. I can do pushups from my knees and use light weights. I like staying low to the ground when I’m just waking up.
Today, there was someone new. The music was soft. The moves were hard; ten minutes of side planks on a Sunday? There was stretching, and then more work. It was lovely. It was different. It ended at 849 am, four minutes over.
Church is at 1030. I’d signed up to teach religious education, or Sunday School, which means I spent half the service with eight 7th graders, helping the lead teacher with the lesson of the week. I’ve been out of the loop for a while, so I didn’t know the kids or the teacher, at all.
I made friends with Leona, the artist, and Sebastian, the shy one. The lesson had an African theme, my husband volunteered to fry the plaintains, (a job assigned to me,) so I could join everyone out to the yard and watch our group play a game.
It is November in New England and this morning the temperature was over sixty degrees. There is something delicious about spinning around in the leaves and the wind on a November morning in very short sleeves.
I can’t remember the name of our activity, but it came from Africa and hiding, then finding stones, was the point. The leaves have mostly fallen, so there were breaks to hang on naked branches, examine seeed pods, and discuss whose turn was next. No one slipped on the wet grass, or broke a limb, the human or the tree kind. At the end, we lost about half the stones, and the lead teacher said that was impressive.
We all tried the fried plaintains, and I don’t think they were that good, but some of the kids liked them or were polite.
I raced home afterewards to get ready for a funeral for a friend. This was a woman I worked with a long time ago at Quincy College. I can’t sum her up in a few words. She smiled with her eyes, adored sparkly eye shadow, spoke her mind without lowering her voice, and was someone I would call a friend today, even though it’s been four years, because she was loyal and fierce and…
I will think of her often. I wish I’d seen her before she died and after Covid.
There was dinner with friends and two glasses of Chardonnay. There was a walk around the block, Sophie sniffed, and Chanel sniffed and pulled.
And now, I am home. I am thinking about church and faith. I am thinking about my kids when they were young, and if the dogs will need another walk. The windows are open, so I’m thinking about global warming. I hear Colin’s voice upstairs, I wonder if I should remind him to bring his trash down tonight; tomorrow is Monday.
I am thinking about my friend Pat- years ago, she told me my boots were too beat up to wear to work, I gave them away the next week.
I am thinking about how two weeks ago, my friend and I talked about visiting Pat at a home and how she was a little confused. Both of us knew we didn’t have the time to make the trip.
So many people were there to say goodbye today. I hope she was watching.
We toasted at her when we got our drinks, and then conversation moved on- to classes, work, flight plans, holidays, kids and conversations.
That’s the way it goes, I guess. One day isn’t ever one day, really, it’s a million tiny days sandwiched between waking up and sliding in between the sheets.
May peace be with you, Pat.
May peace be with all of you,
Julie
The season of the big ouch
October 2, 2022
About three years ago, Sophie the Sweet, was diagnosed with liver and kidney failure. We were warned she didn’t have much longer to live.
I jumped on the internet and started making recipes for low protein low fat meals, most of them ended up greyish brown or brownish grey. Sophie the Stubborn never ate a bite.
We found her a ‘healthy” dog food that I would eat after I covered it with slabs of bacon, shredded mozzerella cheese, meatloaf, chicken skin, and catfood. We would place her bowl at the top of the basement stairs, behind the door, and stand on the other side to listen for slurping or toenails on cement heading downstairs.
For months after the first visit to the vet, tears would spring at random. Was this our last walk at Houghton’s? The final cookie party? The final glimpse of her gobbling a rabbit smeared on the driveway left by Michael, the cat?
But she went on. So we did.
Just last week, she started limping. My husband diagnosed her as needing a day at the spa. The pawdicure didn’t work.
For the past three days, I’ve been carrying her inside and out of the house. The healthy dog food is going to my son’s puppy, Nell.
Tonight, I fed Sophie a chicken enchilada, tore every morsel into tiny bites, and left out the bits with tomato, in the middle of the living room while Nellie tried vigorously to climb my right leg. I’m not sure what exactly Nel was trying to accomplish, but when she stopped, she looked like she wanted a cigarette.
Tomorrow, I’m thinking Peking Duck for lunch. It will be Sunday, and Chinese food tastes best on Sunday. We’ll take her to the vet on Monday. Maybe there will be another miracle.
Right now, there is a miracle dog in my living room. I”m going to go read a book and hope that she can read my heart as I sit on the couch, near her, in her bed, on the floor.
Tomorrow we’ll visit Houghton’s so that she can swim before the weather turns cold.
Winter is promises to be bitter this year.
I bury the lead and ponder a little.
October 14, 2021
I’ve been working on texting with two hands lately and mildly obsessed with the trying the new dance cardio on the Peloton app. I don’t know why I want to text with two hands, I’m not twelve, and I don’t think it will impress my friends. When I finally tried the dance cardio, it made me feel dumb. My upper body is not able to move like a snake, and they never asked me to do that in jazz class a million years ago. When I touch my chest, I look silly, though I am far from the mirror because I learned in the days of group exercise to stay far away from the mirror. The whole thing made me laugh and I needed to laugh.
Colin, my 21 year old son, is home again, not his choice, and certainly not mine or my daughter’s. Katy’s eighteenth birthday was spent at a hotel because she didn’t want to entertain with Collie scowling in the background or, even worse, trying to include himself. (I believe he would have been respectful of Kate, but I am an optimist, and she liked the hotel idea.)
Work is what heals me; I work with students at a community college. The ones that are able to get through on the phone need help, and it feels good to be presented with a question- “how do I apply to the nursing program”?- that has answers that I know. I’m new there, so I don’t know all the answers, but I’m good at finding out. It’s a college so there are lots of people with answers. I use the directory often.
At home, I don’t know much. I don’t know how long Collie will be here, or what’s going to happen next. I don’t know if Sophie will eat dinner three times, or not at all. I don’t know if Katy will ever get to her college applications, put away her laundry, or watch tv with me again, because Covid ended and she’s eighteen and has a life.
I do know I’m getting better at texting with my hands, and I’ll probably go back to bike boot camp on the app.
I do know I”m tired of hearing the words “stay safe.” I know they are meant as loving or kind, but lately, they feel paranoid and dark or judgmental, like someone feels like I might go into a crowded grocery store without a mask, and spread germs on all the produce, if they forget to remind me with those cautionary words to take precautions, there is still a crisis. I know it’s still a crisis, and there is no danger of forgetting.
Maybe, I should have said those two words to Colin, starting when he was two, every time he left the room. Maybe things would have turned out differently.
Homecoming
October 6, 2021
I’ve been thinking about my high school reunion since the invitation came last May.
There was Covid to consider. And the memory of the last one I attended where the night ended with me falling up my friends stairs and splitting my forehead open. There was the twenty pounds I wanted to lose, and the people I didn’t want to see, and the people I missed.
One night, I finally clicked yes on the Evite, knowing I could always cancel. It was late Spring of 2021; I wanted a plan to get out of town and see some faces that I hadn’t been seeing for the past year and a half.
Amy, one of my best friends, still lives in Mountain Lakes, and she volunteered to go along, even though she wasn’t in my class, and isn’t much for cocktail parties.
A week before the party, my friend came to visit me in Boston. Taylor, Amy’s daughter, had been found in bed by her roommate, unable to open her eyes and mumbling into her pillow. Her roommate called an ambulance.
Before she left, she laughed nervously in my living room and asked me- “Maybe you can come down anyway next weekend? And take care of me? While I look after Taylor? I mean, I know you have your reunion…” I hugged her and thought there was no way I’d drive five hours, miss a party that I had given up Ben and Jerry’s for, (mostly), so she could lean on me while her daughter recovered from a really bad case of the flu?
It wasn’t a bad case of the flu.
On the Thursday before the reunion, I flew to New Jersey. Amy’s husband picked me up at the airport. On the way home we talked about my daughter’s SAT scores, how much harder it is to pack for travel by plane than to load up a car, and that my husband thinks Facebook updates on his phone are actually text messages to him. No one knew what was wrong with Taylor for a while. Now they think it’s encephalitis. Tonight, John, Amy’s husband, let me know Taylor hasn’t had any seizures all day. This has made all of us who love her giddy with joy.
She hadn’t had any seizures for twelve hours. It’s going to be a long time before she gets better. It’s going to be a long time before she comes home.
I didn’t visit Taylor. I stayed home and matched socks, made smoothies, one bad pot roast, a salad of strawberries and goat cheese, and enough Bolognese sauce to last them until spring. Or until I go back.
I made it to the reunion. I found friends I didn’t know I had, and connected with people that I love as much as I did when I was in high school, when most Saturday afternoon’s we’d drink too much beer and exchange drunken, slobbering hugs, while declaring undying affection. Since I’ve only stayed in touch with a few, it was nice to know that those promises all those years ago were true. My affection for these people is undying and I am glad to know, and have known them.
I’ve changed a lot since then, I guess we all have. But when I stood in that room, I knew I’d made it to Homecoming, even though it had taken a long time to figure out what that means. These people knew the awkward, bumbling seventeen year old and were happy to see the tired, worried, friend who badly needed a night out. I didn’t get the chance to talk in depth with many, and I regret that. I was distracted with guilt about being away from Amy and John and trying to decide if my outfit looked better without the sweater.
When I walked up Amy’s stairs that night, and Gigi greeted me at the door, I was home there too.Home is where we choose to be, where we offer and accept love or acceptance. Where we pretend to remember things we don’t remember, and when someone gets drunk, we drive them home, partly because we don’t want them to get sick in our car, partly because that is what we do for the people who have known us our whole lives, and remember what we looked like with big hair and braces, and partly because a lot of us have been the drunk in the room that needed a ride.
These days, I have a crooked smile, I can’t wear heels. I could still lose another twenty pounds, I’m a little pissed off that I work out every single day and I will never, ever have Michelle Obama arms. One of my classmates does, and I adore her anyway. I will not share her name but we all know who I’m talking about.
Thanks for being there, my friends. And for those of you who couldn’t be, I hope to see you the next time. I like us better now. Please, let me know if you ever get up to Boston, or are driving through on your way somewhere else. I would like to hear what you’ve been doing all these years, and I’m sorry there wasn’t more time.
I think I’ll go to the next one, I can’t wait for the next one.
And thank you, Amy and John. It is an honor to be there for you. I changed my cell phone settings so you can call anytime. You have your own ringtone. Call anytime.
Taylor, girl, come home soon. You have the best home in the world, or it will be, when you are back in it.
Mixed Emotions/ I’m going to my high school reunion in two weeks.
September 19, 2021
I live in Massachusetts and I grew up, mostly, in Jersey.
But Facebook means that even though it’s been years, I know that Jim is a doctor and just got divorced. Laurie just had a grandchild, Emma is a professor and Allan is killing it in real estate.
Facebook means there is a place where everyone from Mountain Lakes shares memories, obits, updates and asks for help- tracking down an old friend, prayers during a battle with cancer, supporting a business, a page, or a cause.
This is the thing, and I’m being careful because the reunion is next week, and I love my hometown. I have connected with people on social media who I didn’t know when I saw them every damn day in the hallways at the high school or in the parking lot at Del’s Village.
When people reminisce about Mountain Lakes, many talk about the town, and their youth, as if it was a spectacular aberration.
Yes, we had parties, and people played guitar. Yes, the parties were really good parties, and the Stanfield’s were the coolest family in the world, they had a fire pit, an open door policy, and their kids were and are some of the best, smartest, funniest, and most amazing people I know, as well as you can know someone years after you shared a beer with them in their backyard.
The football team won all their games. We skated all winter and swam all summer. We went to the Market for sandwiches and Roma for pizza, and the pizza was better than any pizza I’ve had since, including New York. Well, maybe NY pizza was a little bit better, I’m in Massachusetts. I’m deprived.
Mr. Fox was a magical art teacher. I remember what Mrs. Smith taught me in freshman English. Mr. Hoke recited Shakespeare in a baritone that I can still hear. There were bluegrass festivals two towns over, New York City was a bus ride away, I wrote poems on scraps of paper and people read them and said nice things, even though I don’t think they were that good.
I have pictures of me smiling in a black tuxedo and fishnets during something called GAA. a competition between two teams, Blue and the Orange, that happened each spring after months of preparation. Each team would pick a story, and perform it, like a musical with the songs being used as vehicles for different dances and gymnastics. I was excited when I made the the modern dance team, even though I was picked as second substitute. There’s a photo in the yearbook, I had thick thighs and a huge smile. (I didn’t smile between the ages of fourteen and eighteen, or so I’m told, but in that picture, I’m grinning.
Yes, it was a magical wonderful time. But it wasn’t all bonfires and pancake breakfasts.
It was being picked last at gym. Starting to drink beer because it made me a little less shy. Getting crappy grades because I always forgot my textbooks in my rush to be on time to watch General Hospital, bumming cigarettes during lunch, people getting sick of me bumming cigarettes during lunch, getting pinkeye every summer from swimming at Island Beach, not eating much and lying on the floor to put on my jeans because I’d had cereal for breakfast. Smoking pot and feeling dumb. Taking up beer and Marlboro lights with the enthusiasm some reserved for field hockey and making the honor roll. Not ever having a clue about what was coming next or where I wanted to land.
These memories aren’t specific to being a young person in Mountain Lakes. They aren’t specific to being young in the 80’s, young and privileged, young and female.
They are just some of the things I think of when I look back.
For many people, in Mountain Lakes, NJ, and Milton, Massachusetts, our memories are where we like to linger because now is so damned hard.
We tell ourselves and our children about life back then, and it all sounds glorious.
But I’m pretty sure we leave stuff out, or forget the worst. I do.
Because the now, with the sore hip and the Covid, the retirement looming and the dental bills mounting- it’s nice to look back to anything other than what I see in the mirror before I’m ready to look.
I just wanted to say Mountain Lakes was a great place to grow up. So is Milton. So are a million other places.
But, it was’t perfect. For me anyway. I still can’t wait to go back.
It will be nice to walk down the Boulevard and stand on the beach by Birchwood Lake.
It will be good to see people in three dimensions, especially after this past year. It will be nice to look back on all of the hard parts, the stuff I’d never talk about on Facebook, or with anyone. For me, growing up was one quarter bliss and Bruce Springsteen and three quarters braces and diets, wondering what to say next and wishing I’d said something else or nothing at all.
I’m grown, and I’m in pretty good place right now.
It’ll be nice to take a weekend to remember how I got here.
julierichmond 