Not sparing myself the humiliation

Is it not normal that I love embarrassing moments? Regardless, I do. I love them especially if they happen to me. That’s not jinxing myself, I hope, because I don’t need a ton of them. What I’m saying is that I just really value the collection I have. I love having those memories because they make me laugh at myself. I think there is something wonderfully freeing about re-envisioning yourself doing something ridiculous. And I love laughing. Give me a good and funny story, and I will laugh about it for weeks.

Today my friend La Belette Rouge posted a hilarious account of a recent embarrassing moment, and so I’m taking her cue and posting an account of one of my own moments of humiliation. I have quite a few, but this one is near the top of my list. It happened in 1993, and it has been worth years of laughter for me:

A little background first. I did not grow up a sporty kid. I wasn’t completely a klutz, but I have never been on a team sport; I don’t have that natural grace of someone who is a practiced athlete. But I do love trying new things, so over the years I’ve enjoyed a few attempts at more or less adventurous activities like rock climbing, or kayaking, or skiing. It bears mentioning that I didn’t try any of these until I was into my 20s, when any hopes of being a “natural” had long dried up…

Anyway, I had an amazing opportunity to visit the Olympic sites in Norway in late 1993, just weeks before the opening ceremonies. My parents took us to Oslo with them, and then, in the interest of skiing, my brother and I made a trip to a town just north of Oslo, a place called Oyer, in Lillehammer, Norway.



In preparation for the trip, I had gotten an adorable little ski jacket and snowpants, great goggles, ski-cap, etc. I was prepared to be cute if not good at skiing. I danced around in my little size 4 outfit and dreamed big--who knew? Maybe I would be good at this sport!

We stayed in a strange little hotel that had giant keys for doorknobs and a stagnant pool that felt like the set to the horror film. I couldn’t help but conjure images of trolls with big hands turning those key-shaped handles and languishing in the scummy pool. But I digress.
Bizarreness aside, there was an air of magic to the whole trip, and I felt like I was about to discover something special on my first skiing experience. Yes, that’s right. My first skiing experience was to be on the same hill where there would soon be Olympians competing….what an honor! What a thrill!

The grand plan was for me to get a lesson from an expert Norwegian and learn the right way from the beginning. Ah, plans. The first problem was that we arrived an hour early for the lesson. I figured I would play around on the bunny hill, just getting used to the feeling of skis on my feet. My brother, of course, was an excellent skier already. He had been on the high school ski team for years, and he didn’t want to waste any time waiting for my lesson. So off he went.

I put on my skis in the warm little ski hut, shuffled outside, and found out that skis are HEAVY. Or these skis were. I had been expecting to “shhh” across the perfect snow, but I felt myself fighting just to move forward. I really needed some practice, so I headed over to the tow-rope that went up the bunny hill.

The bunny hill here was actually a bunny hill. It was small, and seemed accessible, and it was populated by at least 20 little kids who flew down the hill effortlessly. Some of them had to have been younger than 3 years old, and most of them had no poles at all. These were clearly the future ski instructors of the area. I was intimidated, but I pressed on to the tow-rope.

This tow-rope was a pretty simple contraption—a continuous rope that was punctuated by little buoy-shaped pieces that you were supposed to grab, slip between your knees, and rest on. The strong motor in the wheel-house did the rest.

The little skiers grabbed the rope as easily as they cruised down the hill. I watched them for a few minutes to see their technique, and then I made my first attempt.

I got in line, grabbed the rope, sat, and ….tipped over to the right. No go. Maybe I didn’t have that buoy-seat right. Try again. And again. Same thing.

By the fourth time, I was getting some good advice from a few of the kids. "Let your skis pull you.” “Keep hanging on.”

All good advice. No go for tries 5, 6, and 7. Now a little crowd gathered. The wheel house guy made a point to stop the rope completely when it was my turn now, and made it go very, very slowly. Still, I fell off. Great. My cheeks may have already been red from the 10 degree temperature, but I can assure you they were warm with my blushing by that time.

Mr. Wheelhouse stopped the rope, came over to me, and explained, in very slow and deliberate English, the method the kids had shown me a few attempts earlier. He went back to the wheelhouse, turned on the rope, et voila: I fell off.

At this point, a weird American guy I had met earlier at our hotel showed up and tried to rescue me. He had registered very high on my creep-o-meter when I’d spoken to him before, that feeling just increased as I saw him him charging up the hill with a here-I-come-to-save-the-day grin on his face. My stomach curdled a bit.

Creepyguy had taken off his skis to get to me all the faster, and he was running. Before I knew it, he was standing next to me in line. When the time came for me to try yet again to get on that cursed tow rope, Creepyguy stepped up behind me and, without even asking, sort of bent down, leaned into my back, and tried to push me up the hill. (If he had asked, what would that have sounded like anyway--I cringe just to think of it.) Despite his best efforts to shove me, I didn't budge one inch up the hill.

I had been laughing and smiling, and even waving a few times to the growing group of gawkers, in that sort of self-effacing “got it under control” kind of palm salute. But I swear, this time I was close to tears-- you know the kind, the ones that start as a laugh but end in big sobs. So, with Creepyguy still at my backside, and with the rope tugging mightily at my knees, I started the big laugh-cry. Then I lost control again, and tipped, but this time, I fell onto my back and into the center ditch between the up-rope and the down-rope.

I lay there like a overturned beetle, my arms and ski-heavy legs flailing above me. That was it, I decided. I think there was pointing, and I know there was laughing. I was going to be done with this and I planned to beat a hasty retreat to the spooky hotel.
The only upside was that at least Creepyguy had stepped to the side. So I lay there, planning my escape for what felt like a long time like a sad ski-beetle, laughing those big tears down my face until Mr. Wheelhouse came to help me up. As he reached to grab for my arm, he got a good look at the bottom of my skis, and he smiled a big smile that showed all those lovely Norwegian teeth.

“Miss, it is your skis! They are iced.”

I had no clue what that meant, but within a minute or two, I had a ski instructor at my side, removing the skis to show me that the bottoms were indeed coated with a good inch or two of clumpy ice. Instructor Arne (to be pronounced AR-Nuh), was to be my very own instructor, and he quickly fixed me up with a freshly waxed pair of skis that were not warm enough to gather an icy coating, and what do you know?

I got up the tow-rope.

I put my humiliation out of mind for my hour-long lesson. During my lesson, I managed to get down the hill several times, too, without injury or incident. Arne, poleless as the two-year-olds whizzing around, skied in front of me, going backwards at high speeds, and insisted I grab for him if I felt myself falling. Arne, wherever you are, you were nice, but that is just not a position I want to get into, ever. I think the thought of plummeting down the hill in his embrace was enough to keep me upright.


The lesson ended in time for the sun to set at 3:30 pm, and my brother met me at the ski house as I was returning my skis. “How was it?” he asked.

On the scale of embarrassing moments? I give it a 10. And worth 16 years of laughs, at least.

Now your turn: What is one of your best embarrassing moments?

A Conversation in the Car

Ada: Mom, what's that smell?  

Husband: Hmmm.  I think that's Mom's perfume.  

Kirie:  What's wrong, don't you guys like it?  It's one of my favorites, and I've been waiting to wear it, and today just felt like the day.

Ada:  It's too strong.

Husband.  Yes, too strong.  I don't like it.

Kirie:  But doesn't it smell warm and, you know, exotic?

Ada:  Mommies don't smell exotic!  Mommies need to smell like mommies, Mom!  

So much for exotic.  And warm and spicy.  The perfume in question is Yves St. Laurent's classic, Opium.  I have loved this scent since I was 12 years old.  It's one of those great scents that changes moods all day long--powdery, sandalwood, sexy, cinnamon, cumin, green-sap and sugar-musk, then powdery again, where it lingers like a sweet memory for a few days on your clothing. 

I fell for Opium when I was in junior high.  My music and voice teacher wore it as a signature perfume, and because of that, it signified all that was special and dramatic to me.  Stevie was vivacious and beautiful, with a huge, bell-like voice and the presence to match it.   Though I've worn the perfume long enough to establish new associations to it, the first note always sings "Stevie."  

So, phooey to my clan--I'm still going to wear it.  Just not for long roadtrips in the car.   

Later I prodded Ada a bit on what exactly Mommies smell like.  Her answer: soap and milk.  And that is definitely not exotic.

The photo is a rare shot of me, taken by Ada.  She points out that "You do not look exotic in that picture, either."  No kidding.  

Open Heart Letter 1: To Kim

Yesterday I wrote about my new project, the Open Heart Letters. I have been inspired to do this project, in large part, by the loss of my dear friend Kim, a woman with whom I had this in common--she wore her heart on her sleeve, too. She died in December--young, ravaged by disease, and leaving an amazing family.

Any wise person would insist that our society needs to learn how to accept death as a part of life. I think of Kim, and her grace and honesty as her own death approached, and I understand this now in a way that I did not before. While I am in great health now, I know also that I am here on loan, and by the same grace she was. What Kim taught me, in the way she lived before she was sick, and the way she remained herself afterwards, was to embrace and to be and to love. To cherish those many, many connections that make us feel life all the more deeply.  And writing these letters is a way for me to express that in some way.

I think it's only appropriate that my first open heart letter is to Kim. I was fortunate that I could actually send her a similar letter before she died--selfishly, I needed her to know how much I cared. I share this letter with you now, with love and gratitude for having known her:



Kim,
It seems to me that it’s the little things that make a friendship. Let me tell you about some of my memories of you and us. From the smallest to the most prominent, I have lots of important memories about our friendship:

From the moment I met you, I knew you were a kindred spirit. One of the first times we spent together was just after D. started teaching. It a late spring evening and you and your family came to see us. You were still living over an hour away, and I remember that by the end of the night I was wishing very much that you lived closer—(I eventually got my wish!!)
That night was especially beautiful—the dusk was mid-summer long, and the trees were throwing plum-colored shadows all over the yard and the pool. We lit some lanterns with candles and hung them around our back porch, and we all sat out on our deck—you had your feet in our pool.
Later, after dinner, we were in the screen porch, and I vividly remember little B. listening to us tell stories about ourselves as we got to know each other better. Her eyes drooped, and soon she was asleep on your lap. And you were so lovely—the candlelight lit up your face, and you glowed. I remember many times we spent at our pool as the years went on, but that first night is strongest in my memory.

A few years later, we were thrilled to learn you were moving to our town, and we were so happy! After that, we spent more time together, including one visit on Thanksgiving. Our screen porch was a closed-in room by then, and you were our first Thanksgiving guests to eat with us there. I felt so pleased that you had been able to join us. The kids were so excited that night they had a hard time eating!

Speaking of eating—I must tell you again how I much I love your cooking!! You have a real talent in the kitchen, and I will admit that at least one of my favorite things to cook is a down-right ripoff of something you served us at your home: Moroccan-style chicken with figs, olives, cumin, etc. Oh my. That was one of the best meals. Thank you for sharing that recipe!

I have another ridiculous confession: I think of you every time I fold clothes. Really. Do you remember all of those lovely clothes of B’s you gave me for Ada? We have been loving those clothes for years now. Ada has been “on the small side” forever, and so she was able to wear some of those outfits for two years (or three! Amazing!). Now Esme is starting to wear them, too. It was so generous of you to give those to us. But here is the funny thing: When you packed them so carefully, you folded them in a way that was new to me: arms across each other, then fold, and fold again. Each shirt looked like a neat little hug. Inspired! Here I had been folding wrong for years--lumping my clothes into folds that wouldn’t stay, and they would sort of slump and shrug themselves out of the closet shelves into heaps. So I copied your way, and now the clothes stay put. So silly. But every single time I fold my clothes I think of you. I’ve been wanting to tell you that ridiculous thing for years, and now there it is.

I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you how much we have loved the many gifts you’ve given us over the years. Almost every afternoon, Ada and Esme still wear the fairy wings you gave Ada many years ago. For Ada’s Christening, you gave her a beautiful book about the twelve gifts of birth—it’s one of my favorites. And all of the cards and notes you’ve sent me—it has meant so much to me. I don’t know if it’s always the case that one’s handwriting corresponds with the sound of one’s voice, but with you, it is undeniable. Your voice is sweet and distinctive, and your handwriting matches it perfectly. I swear I hear you talking when I read it!

When we had to move away, I was sad to leave all of our friends behind, and you were such a source of comfort to me. First, D helped us move a U-Haul truck of stuff up north. (Do you remember that crazy time? Our guys spent 8 hours driving to our rental house, 2 hours trying to get a key from the rental agent, and then 1 hour unloading the entire contents of the truck into the house itself. It was a wonder they made the plane to come home!) What a blessing his help was. And yours—A. was so little at the time, and B., and I was so grateful that you and D. could sacrifice that time to help us. Then when we moved, I was really lonely. Sometimes when you move, people fall out of your life—you probably know how this can happen. It’s hard to keep relationships going, and it’s a testament to you, Kim, that so many people stay in touch with you—you have lived so many places, and collected wonderful friendships everywhere along the way!
Anyway, when I moved, only a few people still called or wrote, and you were one of them. The conversations I’ve had with you over the years have been so honest and understanding—I’ve always been able to open my heart to you without fear of judgment, and it’s a true treasure. After I moved, I was so cheered by our phone conversations or your notes; they would stay in my mind for days. Thank you so much for being there for me.

I know I’ve said it so many times, but I wish I were there for you now. I would love to cook for you and D and the kids. I would take the kids to the park. I would hug you, and listen to you, and make you silly little things. I would try to pretend that this would all go away, and I would cry with you when it was clear it would not.

You are so strong, as is D. You are walking a path now that we will all walk one day, and you have taught me so very much about Grace and strength. I know you’ve had the gamut of emotions over the past year and a half, and I’m guessing that riding that emotional rollercoaster might sometimes rival the physical pain.
Your honesty and wry humor are a potent and uncommon combination, and I know you attract wonderful people to your circle—D. being the primary example, of course!—but also all of your friends who I’ve learned about since your illness.
I hope you can feel the strength and love and well-wishes we all try to send to you every day. The waves of love from here are strong and constant, and will continue to be no matter what. You really do always have my heart, my dear friend. I love you.


Kim left us on December 9, 2008. I think of her every day, with love and admiration.

Wearing my heart on my sleeve: An ongoing project

If you have read more than one or two posts here, you know as well as anyone in my face-to-face life this important fact about me: I wear my heart on my sleeve.

I fight it sometimes, I do. But I just can't help it. I put my whole self out there, into the world, just because I feel I have to. You'll not be surprised to learn that I do not have a poker face among my repertoire of facial expressions.

Being this way brings its complications. I'm overwhelming to some people with my puppy-like eagerness. Because I'm not good at pretending ennui, I probably lack a certain mystery; I don't do aloof. 

I love meeting new people and getting to know them. I think most people are interesting, and I love learning about new friends, getting to know the details of their life.   And equally so, I love connecting with people whom I've cared about in my past.   


For years I have been a little ashamed of this kind of enthusiasm.  But now, instead of working against it, I have decided to embrace opening my heart to people. I am wearing my heart on my sleeve, proudly.

Tomorrow I will post the first in a long series of posts I'm calling "Open Heart Letters." These are open notes to people in my life--both currently or from my past--who have made some sort of impression on me. For the people in my life now--well, I am writing these because it's so good to know that someone cares for you and thinks of you, isn't it?

And for those people I knew long ago-- I realize that many of them won't even see these "love letters" I feel compelled to write.  Regardless, I think it's a worthwhile exercise to reflect on the people I have known at formative times in my life, even those I knew for just a short while. They stay in my memory. From time to time my thoughts will land on such a person, and I am reminded how amazing the wide world is, filled with good people who make positive impressions on you just by crossing your path.

This is an ambitious project, and potentially endless--there are so many people I've admired and cared for over the years.  Some notes will be long letters, others distilled into a few lines or a poem.   I invite you to come along on the journey, and consider your own connections as we go...

A long Christmas post for a long Christmas season. Part 1

Christmas is starting early in our house this year, which goes against all my childhood traditions.   We not only decorated mini trees today, but we chose and chopped down our big tree.   And I am loving this extended season.

We are calling our tree "Mr. Crazy Man," as he is waving his extra-long arms wildly about, and he is a bit odd-looking.   Perfect.  He's also a strange and pretty lime green, which I was drawn to at the tree farm.   Now that we're home, I'm trying to convince myself that he is not dehydrated or sick.    My wise and sweet husband, who is an expert gardener, pronounced the tree to be perfectly healthy, and he's urged me to just enjoy the lovely tree we chose.   So I am.

Mr. Crazy Man tree is patiently awaiting lights and decorations, and by the end of the day today, our home will be decorated for Christmas.   I am almost as excited as the girls, who are bouncing more than normal, and constantly breaking into mangled Christmas songs.   

Still, it's taking a mental adjustment for me to get a tree in November, because when I was a little girl, we sometimes didn't get a tree until a few days before Christmas.   Just like any other kid, I was enamored with the whole magic of the season, and I longed for a house decked with evergreen swags and shiny baubles all December. But my mom and dad had other priorities.  Focused on running their small company, they were doing all they could to keep enough clients to stay in business.  What time could they have had for worrying about decorating?  

Never one to sit around just wishing for something, one year I decided to take Christmas decorating into my own hands.   It took some planning.  I was a latchkey kid, so finding a few minutes alone wasn't the problem.  But getting the stuff down and out was a challenge, since I was only eight years old.  

We stored all the decorations in the attic, a squat and freezing place accessible only by the ladder that we kept in the garage.  Of course, I couldn't manage getting the ladder by myself, so I improvised.   First, I made a ladder:  As a base, I used the storage chest my parents had for vinyl records.  Think benchseat meets Danish minimalism, c. 1962: cherry sides, padded leather top, and round aluminum casters.   I would love it now for its design.  That day I loved it for its height.

Somehow I ignored the obvious problem of building a tower on a rolling cart, and I managed to stack up a few of my thickest storybooks and some phonebooks, each thick enough to give height and be slippery at the same time.   These I topped with a wooden footstool so notorious for its instability that it had become a doll's table.  All said, this stack rose to a height of about four feet, which gave me just enough of a boost.  I stacked a makeshift "stair" of books next to the tower. I pushed the cart a few times to see how wobbly it actually was.  I leaned a broom against the cart.  And then I climbed.

 

I've got unnatural balance, I think.  Standing on top of the teetering stack, with the broom in one hand, and my other hand on the frame of the attic opening, I must have been something like the Cat in the Hat, and I remember feeling just as clever, and just as defiant.  Finding leverage from some burst of adrenaline, I jammed open the hatch with the broom handle and shoved it into the attic, where it fell with a disturbing crash.  Then, God knows how I did it, but I reached my hands into the frame of the opening and swung myself up and into the attic itself.   

I was a good little girl, and I did not even know how to swear then.  But if I did the equivalent sort of feat today, it would be peppered with some colorful, self-congratulatory language, marveling at my physical prowess, etc.   I would not be modest.  But then, there was no celebration.  I simply headed for the goods.

The attic was just as chaotic as the rest of my childhood home, and unlabeled towers of boxes crowded around me in the darkness.   Christmas magic had imprinted the shape, color, and feel of the ornament boxes in my memory, though, and it wasn't long before I had shoved my way through a few stacks to find the crucial few I needed.  

Tied in twine, top flaps warped from being tuck-folded, the Magical Christmas Boxes were the closest thing to treasure I knew.  It took a huge reserve of self-control to not rifle through the tissue right there in the attic.   Okay, perhaps it was less self-control, and the more the fact that it was freezing and dark up there, and that my parents would be home soon.   Regardless, my goal shifted from getting the boxes to getting out.   

I need to stop here to ask: have you seen how small an eight-year-old girl is?  Ada is only seven.  My heart beats faster just thinking about how tiny her little face would look peering over the edge of an attic hatch;  I think of her swinging her legs over the edge, and I am literally cowering in my chair with vicarious anxiety for her.  

Of course, Ada is much more sensible than I was.  She is the kind of girl who cautions.  She can readily spot "a bad idea."   She is also the kind of girl who prepares, and if she were to climb into an attic like this, it would not be on a teetering stack of slippery things, it would not be without a flashlight or a coat, it would not be without a plan to return to the ground.    

Like I said, Ada is more sensible than I was.

Tomorrow.  Part 2

A secret: celestial obsession

I'm going to let you in on a secret obsession of mine. Okay, the secret is not that I have obsessions--that's something that's immediately obvious to anyone who talks to me for more than a few minutes. The secret is my obsession with the sky and all the interesting things that happen up there. 
When I was little, my parents used to tell me to stop shuffling my feet and looking at the ground. I was always surprised by that because so often I was thinking about things in the sky. Not the woo-woo X-files kind of things, but rather the immensity of the sky, and the nothingness of it, the great formations the clouds made, the magic of the stars so far away and so constant. I loved the way the sky changed, too. With each hour of the day, the colors were different. And as the seasons passed, the light shifted across the treeline in such a specific way that, if you looked closely enough, you could almost tell what month it was.


In the spring and summer, like every other kid who grew up in suburbia of the 70s and 80s, I spent a lot of time running around outside until long after the sun had set. It was a delicious feeling to lie back in the grassy yard as the dusk settled in around me. I would stretch out and stare at the sky where it met the branches of the backyard trees until the contrast was so great it hurt my eyes. Once the darkness was thick enough to blot out the spaces between the leaves, I could sometimes believe I could feel the earth as it spun toward the next day.



So I am a sky-gazer. My love for all things celestial didn't fade as I got older; if anything, it intensified. Among some of my most treasured memories are times that I saw something amazing in the sky: a sundog, a huge rainbow over the bay, the northern lights, an eclipse, a spectacular meteor shower, a towering lightening storm as it charged off the Atlantic onto our island...
The beauty of all of these is that they made me stop, and stare, and appreciate how tiny I really am in the scheme of things. I have been so awed by some of these that I have sprinted inside for the phone (think back before cell phones) and literally begged family members to "run outside as fast as you can and LOOK UP!"

So far, I am still looking for takers to watch the sky when something amazing is happening--will you join me? Tonight there is supposed to be a fantastic meteor show(er) called the Taurids, visible in the Northern Hemisphere just before midnight. If you are so inclined, take a look into the eastern sky, and see if you can see some shooting stars with me.

Election reflection--

I did say a few days ago that I'm not a pundit or politico, but I do follow politics.   And this election was particularly exciting for me.    

I love that I can measure out periods of my life with elections.  Regardless of who is in office, four years is a long time, actually.   A person's life can change a great deal in the space of a Presidency, and these election cycles make me reflective of what has changed in my life since I started becoming politically aware. 

The first election that really charged up me was in 1992.   I was torn between Perot's against-the-grain, fix-it attitude, and Clinton's progressive message.  After the convention, I finally decided to get swept up in the wave of support for Clinton.   The night he won, I was so hopeful. I was 23 years old, discovering who I was myself, and now that I look back on it, I believe that a great deal of my excitement about election was also tied into the great changes I was about to make in my own life.   

The night Clinton won, my dad and I had champagne and oysters and crowed about Clinton's victory to my mom, who had voted for Bush that year (sorry for gloating mom!).   That night, woozie after the many toasts, I fell asleep with my walkman on, listening to the NPR coverage of the night.  An idealist as ever, I dreamed about how happy the Clintons and the Gores were, dancing on the stage to Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow."   

That rosy feeling manifested itself in the weather itself the next morning--as I drove into Chicago early that post-election day, the eastern sky was flushed with the most amazing sunrise.  Stuck in traffic, I crept along the southbound Kennedy, and I felt as glowing as the glassy skyline that was drenched in pinks and golds.  

I was going downtown that day to "audition" for a model UN class, the class in which I would meet my future husband.   Retrospect is tricky, and memory is wily.  Perhaps my memories of that election are all the more poignant because of what happened immediately following it.   What I do know is this:  because of my own enthusiasm, something did change in me, and for the first time in years, I started to see real Possibility--in the world, and in my life personally.  

If a soothsayer had been in the car with me that morning, and if he had whispered to me his predictions, I would have been able to suspend my skepticism and believe. -- Yes, you will meet your perfect mate.  Yes, you will share your world with him.  And one day, in 16 years, huddled together in your darkened bed at 2am, you will celebrate the returns for an even greater election as they roll in on a tiny computer called an iphone.  

Photo Flashback

We found this photo recently after reminiscing about our surrey. Here's a shot of me when I was seven. Now they love it as much as I did, and the tradition continues...

Welcome, summer!

The strawberry patch is the perfect place to start summer. Ada is an expert at choosing the best. Now to make some strawberry jam! Maybe next week...I have a feeling we'll eat these well before then.

Thoughts on the reunion, and a girl in the mirror

For the past few weeks, I've been spending an unusual amount of time looking backward. Planning a 20th reunion will do that to a person, I suppose. So many names, so many people. I was not, by far, a popular or well-known person, but for some reason I remember almost everyone. There were 450+ members of our graduating class, and I am determined that each one is invited individually.

Ideally, we would all attend the reunion. We would all be the amazing grownups we thought we could be. We would leave behind us the grudges, the resentments, the cliquishness. Ideally, we would instead make a celebration of the past--the good and bad of it, and acknowledge how our adolescence influenced the people we've become. We would be one, big, happy group, the same as the day we graduated.

Oh idealist! Of course, this assumes there was a real unity to our class--a happy unity, at that! And there wasn't. How could there be in a group so large? We may have been physically "together" in the same building and in the same town, but we were not all "together," were we?

Still, there is something to be said about remembering those formative four years, and the fact that we all did have the same environment. We did start together. We have a something of a shared past, whether our memories of that time are happy or angst-ridden, or most likely, both. And that's why I'm spending time on the reunion. Contacting people has been such fun--I am revisiting memories I had long forgotten, and hoping others are doing the same. Good memories, bad memories, formative memories. These are a few of the roots of the me I am today.

Here I am, reflective in another way, sometime around 1985. I love this photo--me, in my favorite Esprit pants, no doubt worried about what I saw in the mirror. I look at her now, and I feel--well, love. Thank you to her and to my parents and friends and all who brought me to happy today.


It's funny to spend time in the past, with these photos and memories. Esme and Ada, and life in general, have a way of keeping me firmly rooted in the now--the right now!--kind of present. These reunion diversions are fun--and between the laundry and the dinner and the nursery rhymes and violin lessons and ballet class and diaper changes, I think about these things and wonder what Ada and Esme will think about when they wax nostalgic...