Sixteen is wax (and honesty)

Yesterday was our 16th wedding anniversary. 

Weirdly and foreverly, it's also the anniversary of my double mastectomy. Last year I told my surgeon that it was our silicone anniversary. 

In case you're wondering, 15 is crystal. This year is wax.

I'd heard about golden anniversaries and such, but I learned about year-by-year commemorations of anniversaries from The English Patient. Paper for the first anniversary. 

Pretty sure that for me, deep in grief over my father plus undiagnosed post-partum depression, I'd have crumpled that paper, stomped on it, doused it in kerosene, and set it ablaze with an entire box of matches.

I've joked about lying awake at night that year, dividing up the furniture. But that's not really true, because it's so clear what furniture is Nick's, and what's mine. We'd never vie for the other's. 

Until recently, before I felt empowered to voice my actual needs, I'd say things like, oh, look how well our furniture fits together! Because look, Nick, yours is from the colonizers, and mine was all purchased in those colonized countries your ancestors were busy dominating while they were running around wrecking the world.

Instead of just saying: you need to come home from the office and participate nightly in the care of our children. 

To which he could've responded: when the entire world economy collapsed, everyone stopped paying their bills, and I have to work all the time to keep the business afloat.

Me, I had a secure job, but it didn't pay enough to cover our mortgage and expenses. 

And we didn't have that conversation until years and years later.

You cannot expect to have your needs met, or even examined, if you don't voice them.

So over the last maybe year and a half, I realized I had to take responsibility for my actions. I had to look at how my own actions contributed to my happiness or lack thereof in my relationship and in life.

It kind of sucks but is also kind of a relief when you recognize you are your own problem. 

Until recently, I didn't have the ability to confidently and consistently say no in our relationship. No, I don't want to do this. No, this doesn't work for me. 

Or, anyway, the way I said no wasn't the way Nick heard no.

I'd say it in an oblique way, like, well, I don't prefer that. Or, I like this one better. Um, not really.

My concrete and perpetual example is a toilet paper holder.

After seven years in the house, we were going to have a master bathroom. And we got to choose everything.

I said I wanted a particular style of toilet paper holder, the kind where the holding bar flips up. So Nick said to find one. And then he didn't like any of the links I sent him.

Nick wanted, and purchased, a massive monstrosity that would also hold magazines.

I kept saying I didn't think we really needed one that big, how about this one, I prefer this kind, etc. etc.

This was over a number of weeks, as our bathroom was being renovated. And then we stopped talking about it. I didn't see the matter as decided.

And then, on what turned out to be the day of installment, Australian Builder held up Nick's large magazine holder with a bar for toilet paper and said, "Lisa, do you actually like this? Because I'm going to drill a whole lot of holes in your new tile."

And I was all, "Kim, I hate it so much."

He nodded and said, "Yes. I thought I should check." 

But if he hadn't asked me, and had put it up, I'd still be looking at it and feeling bitter every single day. It's not even easy to change the toilet paper. I know, because it's installed in our downstairs bathroom.

(As it is, we never got a wall one in our bathroom. Nick bought a stand, and for the first couple years, without saying anything about it, I wouldn't change the roll when we ran out. I'd just put the new toilet paper on top. My passive-aggressive little fuck you.)

Anyway, when Nick came home that night, I said, "Kim didn't put up your toilet paper holder."

And he said, "Why?"

I said, "Because I fucking hate it."

This was news to Nick. I didn't like it? Why didn't I say anything?

I was raised to say yes. If that's what you want for us, then yes. OK, sure. I mean, not really, but if it's what you want, we can do that.

For him to hear no, I had to explicitly say no. Very strongly, no, absolutely not, I hate it, no. 

I understood this, but I was not equipped to do this. I tried, but I just couldn't. I mean, I could say my sort-of nos, or no-adjacent things. But standing solidly by my no, when Nick wanted me to say yes?

Ha.

Added to this, if Nick doesn't get the answer he wants the first time, he'll ask repeatedly.

Making his viewpoint seem reasonable, and persisting until he gets his desired outcome is his actual job. And he is very good at his job.

So even if I started with no, eventually, I would be worn down enough to agree. And then I'd be pissed.

At some point in my youth I learned to just agree with my dad, and then on the side go ahead and do what I wanted.

This was the easiest approach with my dad and people like my long-ago boss who wanted me to find a way to make Canada look smaller than the US.

Be agreeable and subversive.

Eventually I started doing this with Nick. I recently admitted it to him.

In dysfunction, things get complicated and twisty.

But now, with a tremendous amount of work with my therapist, I can say no. This approach doesn't work for me. I don't want to do that. I will not. No thank you. Absolutely not.

I don't manage it every time, but most of the time.

And then he can say OK, or we can have a conversation. But at least it's starting from an honest place.

This makes things so much better. 

It is awful for everyone if you say yes and then are super crabby about it. Agree, and then resent being stuck somewhere you don't want to be, and pick a fight about something completely different, not realizing why. Say yes and seethe and smile and pretend it's all fine, but with a bitch-faced I fucking hate you smile.

Ooh, I did so much of all those things.

Because I can now say no to things I don't want to do, I can now also be generous with things I don't particularly want to do but I know would make Nick happy or would make for greater family harmony.

And I'm not perpetually angry.

Growing up, I was taught to stuff anger down. Don't make anyone else uncomfortable. Or anyway, don't make men uncomfortable, if you want them to love you. And you want them to love you.

Quietly simmer and seethe and swallow it. Preferably forever, but if not forever, then until you absolutely cannot hold it in any longer.

Nick, on the other hand, was raised wielding anger self-righteously. A useful tool. 

And together, we had so much anger. 

The Anger could be a whole series of posts.

So much anger. And so little emotional regulation.

Part and parcel with saying yes when I wanted to say no, I didn't feel like I had the right to voice my needs.

I didn't really even know how to recognize them to voice them to myself.

All those jokes about stabbing Nick? Hahaha! 

They didn't originate in a place of joy.

Now, as much as I can be, I'm honest. I say: this is what I need. If you want to make me feel like a priority, this is what I need you to do to show me I'm a priority.

Which is not to suggest that Nick hasn't been there for me, because he's been incredibly solid through huge, terrible things. Nick is good people. He's loving and kind and supportive.

We've been there for each other through some very painful events. And being there for those you love is imperative. But the crisis ends, and you still have the day-to-day.

It's true that I'm still quite resentful about the early years with the kids. Even now that I understand how much Nick had to work to keep the business going.

And I understand now that while my mom was helpful, in those young kid years I was also already doing a lot of caretaking of her. 

It was too much for many reasons.

Our new dynamic means that sometimes Nick does not get his way, or we come to a compromise. It also means that I'm not constantly accusing him of having everything his way and resenting him for it. 

It seems so simple, when I think about it now. But those fucked-up learned patterns are powerful.

I mean, how do you communicate in an honest way when you're not even aware of how you're being dishonest?

Gosh, this all took so long to learn.

This isn't a remotely romantic anniversary post, but I don't actually think marriage is all that romantic.

Maybe it's more romantic for other people? I don't know. 

Maybe it's easier for other people? I think, given my family of origin, it was never going to be easy for me or my partner.

Nick and I were old enough when we met that I thought we were grown up. But it turns out we both had so much growing to do.

I know we have more work to do, but 16 years in, I'd say we're in a happier, more solid place than we've ever been.

Ca-caw! Ca-caw!

I'm trying to make some crow friends.

Several people I know are trying to do this. Nicole has been actively working at it in Texas.

Apparently, when crows like you, they start bringing you little gifts, like pebbles and sparkly things.

Obviously, I don't need little gifts, but I love the idea. Also, I feel like I'm kind of like that. If I like you, I'll send you memes and videos and shiny little random stuff. 

Or very dark things. One of my friends and I exchange Goodbye Earl-type memes and videos regularly.

This is love.

Anyway, I didn't know till recently that magpies were in the corvid family along with crows and ravens.

Ever since that magpie stole Bianca Castafiore's emerald, I've been a fan.

Before my newfound interest in corvids in general and crows in particular became a New Topic in our household, I said the following to Nick:

"I really want to make some crow friends."

And he was like, "That's an oddly specific and frankly racist way to try to diversify your friend group."

I was all, crows the birds! Not First Nation. 

Jeez. Who would even think that?

Honk if you love cheese sauce.

Since then, Nick's been trying to help me. He saw a group of crows screaming over a sandwich and called me to come out on the deck. One of them dropped the sandwich and another stole it and the others were outraged.

I went inside and got a couple handfuls of wild rice and spread it on our wall.

Those crows, they were zero percent interested. Clearly these are American crows. I need to try enticing them with Doritos.

And then I had to clean up the uneaten rice because DC has a rat problem. I'm not kidding you. We live near restaurants, and the rats in our neighborhood amble around in broad daylight smoking cigars.

They are not scared and they do not care. And they're too overfed to move very fast.

You don't want to poison them, because then you're poisoning hawks and other birds of prey. It moves up the food chain.

What I want are a group of rat terriers to decimate our rat population. Apparently they run around grabbing rats and snapping their necks and moving on to the next one.

I cannot maintain a rat terrier pack, however. I can barely manage one hound.

I wish crows were ratters.

Also, related but tangential, there is this song that I cannot find and the only word I know is "murder" in the chorus. It's sung like, "muh-huh-huh-huh-erder" and there are lots of murder songs when you google and it is driving me crazy. I think it's 80s with an upbeat tune.

Very superstitious/Writing's on the wall

Are you superstitious?

I have no idea where I fall on the continuum of most to least superstitious.

Here's the genesis of this.

I'd been waiting for a third terrible thing. The first was my mom dying. The second was breast cancer.

As bad luck comes in threes, I figured there would be a third.

And then I got pneumonia. And I was like, OK, this was the third terrible. It's happened. Now the slate is clean.

This is super woo-woo, but yesterday I saw my chiropractor, who is also an energy healer. 

Have I told you about her? She was a medical doctor in Russia, and then became a chiropractor and energy healer when she moved here.

I've never met anyone like her.

Over the last 5-6 months, she's realigned my spine and helped me release childhood trauma.

I started seeing her because I had severe jaw pain after having fillings replaced. And I've had chronic lower back pain. No matter how much yoga I did, no matter how much stretching, I couldn't get rid of it.

But the crisis was my jaw.

My dentist is originally Russian, and she was trying to help me, she did this painful but effective jaw massage technique that she said she learned from her chiropractor. So I was all, I need to go to her!

And she said that she's amazing but you should know she's not a normal chiropractor.

She's not. She's extraordinary.

At my assessment, she showed me the model of the spine and pelvis and explained that my pelvis was tilted ever so slightly. And over years, all my muscles had worked to accommodate. You can go on this way for decades. Your muscles can work and work and work and hold and hold and hold, until finally, they just can't do it anymore.

I had arrived at this point.

She said reason I couldn't take really deep breaths was because my pelvic muscles were in spasm and wouldn't let me.

I knew I couldn't breathe deeply enough but I didn't know why. My yoga teacher was always telling me I was taking two breaths when I should be taking one. I could see this. I could hear it in the final OM, when I would run out of air much faster than others.

But no matter how hard I worked, I couldn't pull the air in deeper. 

She said in the beginning I'd have to see her quite intensely. Because both your muscles and your brain are used to everything in your body being in a certain position, even if it's wrong.

So for a while you have to continuously readjust, because every time, your body tries to go back to what it thinks is normal.

Kind of like growing up in a dysfunctional household and then finding partners who fit your dysfunction. It's not healthy but it feels right.

So.

She does the chiropractic adjustment, and then works with tuning forks. When I'm face down, she has the end of the tuning fork against my spine for the vibration. Face up, she is realigning the vibration of my cells with the pitch.

Nick thinks all of this is bananas. You can, too. It's OK.

And then she started asking me questions about my family. It was like my answers confirmed what she knew.

One day during treatment an image of my brother as a kid, one of his school photos, popped into my mind. And literally one second later she asked if I had a sibling.

She asked about my dad, how he died. About his personality.

Sometimes she would do an adjustment, and I would just start to cry. I once had this sensation, not imagery but intense feeling, of little kid vulnerability and fear.

She gave me homework, specific things to say to offer forgiveness to each member of my family. And then to offer forgiveness to myself. She said she thought this would release some of the muscles that were holding.

It did. 

My back pain decreased until much of the time it was completely gone. My back is completely locked up after being so sick, and I knew it's going to take some time to open up and get back to where I was in August.

I can inhale (OK, not in this moment but in general) as deeply as I want.

I've had to practice deep breathing, because my body was not used to it.

Anyway, yesterday she said that she thinks the pneumonia is the final piece of my body processing trauma and letting go. I couldn't completely let go emotionally, and I had all this toxic stuff I was holding. 

So I got really sick, and my body finally purged it. High fever, night sweats, lots of coughing.

Out out out.

I told you all this was very woo-woo. But it totally makes sense to me. 

Maybe it wasn't the third thing. But I think it was, and since I'm a multidimensional human in the multiverse, I can believe both of these things and so much more.

Then I started thinking about other superstitions.

When I was a kid, if we spilled salt, we'd throw it over our shoulder for the devil.

I hadn't thought about that in decades.

We used to have our salt in little bowls with little spoons. So I think we spilled salt a lot. I don't think I've spilled salt in years. 

But there are others.

Like, I knock wood for luck.

I love the number 13, so for me that's good rather than bad luck. But clearly I still attach luck to it.

I also think that might be it for superstitions.

Because while I don't walk under ladders, that just seems like common sense rather than luck.

I don't believe black cats or broken mirrors bring bad luck.

I don't look in mirrors at night, but that's about me being a chicken and the possibility of Bloody Mary appearing behind me rather than luck. 

I don't know of any others.

What do you believe?

Pneu pneumonia (to the tune of Ophelia)

Until recently, I think if asked, I'd probably put pneumonia in the same bucket as arson or Nazis: categorically terrible, but not something I spent much time thinking about on a regular basis.

And then. Then I got pneumonia.

Pneumonia, you all. Pneumonia is insane. I've never been so sick. For so long!

The above photo was at one of my lowest points. I also got a cold sore for good measure. 

While I did feel tremendously sorry for myself, this is not a post to garner sympathy. I'm now dramatically better.

What I want to say is if you start getting really sick, go to your doctor! Or urgent care, or the ER. Do not wait. There are some terrible viruses going around. 

And if stuff sticks in your lungs, it can turn into bronchitis, or pneumonia.

And then you might feel like you are going to live in bed for the rest of your born days.

On August 26—three full weeks ago—I got in bed with fever and body aches. I practically did not get out of bed for two weeks.

After four days in bed Nick took me to urgent care and they were all, it's not COVID or Flu. There is this terrible virus going around and you should feel better in 10-14 days and come back if you get worse.

So I was just waiting. I wasn't really getting worse, but I wasn't getting better. 

Although when I think about it, I was getting worse, but it was like being the frog in the pot starting with cold water.

So by the time I had to put two feet on each stair and pause to breathe with each step, I wasn't really noticing how much worse that was. Because mostly I had stopped going downstairs and was spending the entire day in bed.

Nothing helped. Not the rescue inhaler. Not the daily steroid inhaler. 

I woke up every morning in a violent coughing fit. It was scary. 

One time I set my alarm sound to The Devil Went Down to Georgia, thinking it would really wake me up, but this is not a way I would recommend anyone start their day unless you like being jolted into sudden and inexplicable terror.

Anyway, last weekend I woke up in a coughing fit, and when I could finally inhale, my lungs were making this weird crackle sound.

Nick had to help me walk. I was panting, taking very shallow breaths, and still barely getting anything. Also, I was crying. Because I was very scared and felt very terrible.

So we went to the ER, where when they asked me what was wrong I said I couldn't breathe and started to cry again.

When you can't breathe, they take you back very quickly.

And once in a room, we ran into our dear family friend Shannon, whose dad was two doors down from me.

Nick went into the corridor to use the bathroom or find snacks or some such, and I heard, "Are you kidding me?" And there Shannon. So we got to catch up over a long number of hours.

And on a side bar, Nick is always disgruntled by the lack of food options at hospitals. It annoys the crap out of me. Every time we've been at any hospital—and over the years this has been many times—he is upset about the lack of food.

This time at the ER I snapped, "Nobody comes to the fucking hospital for the food. You'll survive."

He still tells the story of making a big bag of gorp to take to the hospital when I was going to give birth to India. Like we were embarking on a trek in the Himalayas.

He's still disgruntled by the fact that our doula ate most of it. Once they were like, this might be another C-section, I wasn't allowed to eat anything. 

And then when they put me on an epidural, Nick left to shower and have breakfast.

He announced this proudly upon his return. He was in clean clothes and had had a meal. Like he was going to need his strength.

I was like, if I could feel my legs, I'd kick him right now.

Nick hates these stories because why, he wonders, why are my thoughts towards him so violent? Why so much anger? And I am like, you don't know the half of it.

But back to the matter at hand.

The doctor said I had pneumonia, and gave me IV antibiotics and sent me home with two more oral antibiotics.

For much of last week, I was pretty despondent. I was just going to languish like a consumptive Victorian until I faded away. My face was pale and my hair was pale and my pillowcases were pale, and at some point, we would all just blend.

Although I think consumption was TB?

Now that I can walk several blocks, have the energy and breath for chit-chat, and am confident I'll survive this, pneumonia one of my new topics.

Also, as I understand it, fixating on topics is neurodivergent behavior. The more you know!

This is how it started. I said, "Nick, pneumonia is a really big deal!" 

He was all, "Yes. George Washington DIED of pneumonia."

Whoa.

Then I started looking up famous people who died of pneumonia. And let me tell you, there are a lot lot  lot of them.

I started reading him a list. And he was like, yes, many, many people die of pneumonia. And I was like, wait, but did you know about this person?

Lawrence Whelk!

At a certain point with any New Topic, I think Nick just tunes me out.

But actually, what I'd really like to talk about is what I learned on the internet in the last few weeks.

I spent so much time in bed without much stamina or the ability to focus for long periods of time.

So I watched a lot of Instagram reels. Which I've learned are videos of what people posted on TikTok. But I am old and don't watch TikTok.

I learned that there are many young women who call themselves "tradwives" and are very proud of being in "traditional" relationships where the man has an outside job and the woman has babies and does all of the work in the home.

There is this couple in Texas, both models in their 20s. They're apparently Mormon. The wife is the more beautiful, and the husband, while good looking, has the kind of pale no real smile eyes that make me nervous. 

But they could well both be very nice people. What do I know?

They have three kids, and the wife narrates her professional quality videos with this bedtime-story kind of voice. She makes the craziest things, like Froot Loops from scratch, or if they're going to have grilled cheese sandwiches, she first makes the bread and the cheese. I don't know if she also makes the butter but it seems likely.

She does this while wearing full makeup and designer gowns.

The children, apparently, are with their nanny. I'm not saying this to be snarky. This is what I've learned.

As I said, I spent a lot of time in bed.

There are myriad iterations of this woman, young women who are not models, who are all about their role being that of babymaker, homemaker, foodmaker. In these videos, they are joyful and defiant.

Then there's this group of Mormon women who apparently now have their own show. There were part of a bunch of couples who would hook up with each other's spouses, in what they called "soft swinging" and everything was OK as long as they were all in the same room and there was no penetration.

And then one of them had full on sex with someone else's husband without everyone present, and that exploded everything.

I genuinely think people should live their lives in whatever way they want, as long as they're not hurting anyone. Lots of stuff goes on in the world that I would never have imagined.

And still, I am apparently easily surprised. Not shocked, just surprised.

These people are popular, and because they're popular, they make money from their content. Some of them make lots of money.

And then you know when you watch something, you get served more of the same. So then Instagram kept offering up videos of these ostensibly happy homemakers and Mormons.

I had to make a concerted effort to veer back to yoga and nutritious food makers and holistic health accounts.

I'm not saying these influencers are bad people, though I certainly don't want my children influenced by them. I'm not lumping them in with arson and Nazis. Mainly, I don't understand them.

And I know they're not new to the world or to the internet.

They're just new to me, like pneumonia.

Labor day/birthday year two

Dear Mama,

Today is your birthday. You said you were born on Labor Day, which your parents rather enjoyed because ha. 

September 2 is always your birthday, but it is not always Labor Day. Like that expression all Singhs are Sikh but not all Sikhs are Singh. Or maybe it is the other way around?

I remember how you used to always ask people like cab drivers where they were from, and I would be all, oh my god, just let people drive.

But this one time we had a Sikh driving us and you said, "Are you from Jalandhar?"

And he was all, "Yes! I AM from Jalandhar!" Delighted.

You'd do random things like that and instead of people being like, just because I'm a person with an accent does not mean I want to talk to you about my homeland, they'd be delighted that you'd taught at a school in Kabul and could still speak Farsi. 

I saw our neighbor Marie the other day, and she said she was just thinking about how much she loved sitting on her porch chatting with you. She said you were so interesting, and had so many great stories.

I should've asked you for more stories. I should've recorded them when I had you.

This is your second birthday not here with me, and I miss you.

I've been sick, like flattened in bed sick, for an entire week. At some point last week I called Nick sobbing because everything hurt so much I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't walk the dog.

Urgent care said that what I have is a terrible virus that is going around, and that I should begin to feel better on day 10-14. I'm at day 7 and it is taking its damn time.

It's been brutal. I cannot remember being this sick for this long. Not even with Covid. Which I do not have.

I used to have a lot of versions of the loneliest me imaginable.

This past week I realized that the loneliest I could be was sick, really sick, without my mama.

You would pour me a glass of ginger ale, mostly ice, and leave it on my bedside table. I was dying for ginger ale. I was too sick to go buy any. I kept forgetting to ask the kids.

You'd come in and put your cool hand on my hot forehead.

Even if that didn't do anything, in the same way that throwing your arm across me when you braked the car hard wouldn't have done anything in a crash, what it did was make me feel loved.

You'd be in and out of my room quietly, which was perfect, because all I was doing was sleeping anyway. But I would know you were there.

I know you are fine, wherever you are, and this idea comforts me. I know that what hurts is all the ways that you are not here for me.

Being motherless for me is somehow being less protected in this world. It didn't matter that I'd gotten bigger and stronger than you.

That's not the point.

I wouldn't hesitate to give my life for either of my kids, and I think Jordan would believe it if I told him so, but our girl India, she knows.

She knows she is my heart in the same way that I knew that I was yours. She is forehead to forehead emotion meld.

You know this. When I tell her I love her, she says, "I love you more." And she got that from you.

The other day I had a quick vision of you laughing and saying, "Oh, Lisa, how I do love you."

When people ask how old you were, and I say 85, I know what they are thinking, and so before they can say anything I tell them that I knew you had a big, big life. Because you did.

But that's not what I'm thinking. I'm thinking, but what about me?

When I first saw Nicole after you died, I hadn't seen her in years. She disappeared into a hole after her mom died. She hugged me and said that as it turns out, it doesn't even matter if you have a difficult  relationship with your mom. When she's gone, you're flattened, she said.

It's changed my relationship with the world in a way I cannot yet quite describe.

I know ahead of time these days will be difficult, and still, I'm never prepared for how sad I'll be. Birthdays and anniversaries, they really fuck with you.

Anyway, we're all still here, and you're somewhere not here, somewhere I hope is really, really good, with all of our beloveds who also aren't here.

I miss you with my whole heart.

Love,

Lisa

Vuela, vuela/No te hace falta equipaje

I've been wondering: where in our bodies does long-stored joy live? 

Do scientists even know?

The memory of connection, of happiness, of safety, those feelings that make you delightedly embrace a friend from 30 years ago in your past—where do they live?

Over the years, I've read a lot of research about how trauma is storied on our bodies, reshaping them, and rewiring our minds.

Perhaps you've read "The Body Keeps the Score," or watched a video of Gabor Mate speaking about how trauma is stored in your body. How trauma isolates you, how it keeps your body in fight or flight mode, triggers you. How trauma leads to mental and physical illness. 

So much of my effort, over the years, has been focused on trauma.

And this post is about the opposite.

It's about connections forged decades ago. It's about laughter, love, and joy.

I've come to believe that just as trauma lives in our bodies, so does joy. So do feelings of friendship, safety, support, and connection. All of which have their roots in love.

I hadn't, until last week, thought about how our bodies might store past joy and deep connections and love for others.

We have happiness triggers, too. We just have to be in a space to activate them.

The weekend before last, a big group of Peace Corps friends converged for a reunion, hosted by our friends Cathy and Tim, who live on a beautiful lake in Michigan.

Cathy and Tim are the most gracious, generous, kind, and fun hosts. They opened their house, their yard, their boat, their hearts to all of us.

In the group photo at the top, it's the Saturday of the reunion weekend, and everyone who could attend is there.

Some of us have just been swimming in the lake. Tim has just returned from hosting a themed car parade in Fort Wayne, IN, which he organized with the sole purpose of putting more happiness into the world. I'm not kidding. He's still in the Ferris Bueller vest from the parade. 

On Friday, Cathy took those of us who were already in town on a tour of Ann Arbor. I didn't know that JFK announced the creation of the Peace Corps at the University of Michigan in 1960!

Carissa, who was organized the reunion, proffered out a "high-level agenda," with bingo and a Yankee swap, and a yoga class Saturday morning.

This isn't the best photo, but here we are, wearing our hard-won shigras (which we used in Ecuador market bags) as hats, laughing, laughing as always.

But the yoga: I said yes, of course, but was initially nervous when Carissa asked me, as I wasn't sure what kind of class my friends would want. And as it turned out, it was such a delight, yoga with friends lakeside on a perfect Michigan summer day.

Summer in the Midwest is spectacular, particularly if you have access to a lake. It's magical, with warm but not hot sunny days lasting till late late.

Cathy took us on so many gorgeous boat rides.

Our group first met in Miami in 1993, now 31 years ago. Multiple lifetimes. Many of us have grown children. Some have grandchildren.

We've lost friends since our Peace Corps days. Alfonso, Blanche. Maggie. And since the last reunion, Alto Ron, nicknamed such because he was so tall. Lovely Bonnie, so young and so beautiful. 

There were friends who couldn't join, and I bet their ears were burning all weekend, as we spoke of them so fondly.

In 2015, I joined a number of people in Austin for Rhonda's 50th birthday. This was my first time reconnecting with a group. And then in 2017, friends hosted a reunion on Whidbey Island, off the coast of Seattle.

The reunion in Michigan was the largest gathering I've been to. Some of us brought spouses and kids.

For this gathering, Janet, our artist, made coasters. Lovely recuerdos of our time together.

Our friend Neal, who hadn't seen anyone from Peace Corps years since 1995, wrote ahead of time, "I have been describing to my now college age kids the nuances of evolution of relationships and significance of mutual connections, even if transitional and seemingly fleeting in the scale of a lifetime." 

We were in different groups—engineering and health—with sites far apart. We hadn't spent much time together ever.

And still, we'd had a shared and very intense experience, now so long ago. I was excited to see him, to meet his wife, to hear about his life.

This time, Nick accompanied me, and I was so happy for him to meet everyone. 

Health volunteers:

Water engineering volunteers:

Special education volunteers:

Business volunteers:

I hadn't seen Jaime or Eric, both of whom lived near me, since 1995. They, along with Ralph and Juan Carlos, were my closest friends, my constant source of friendship, laughter, adventure.

Back then, you'd bring a sleeping bags, and crash at each other's sites. This was back when I could sleep anywhere. I envy my past self for that.

Eric lived an hour by bus up the mountain (not far in miles, but the road wasn't great), in a convent with Padre Antonio, a young, handsome, charming priest. Not much older than us, and so full of life.

Padre Antonio had a truck, and he'd take us on picnics, hikes to hot springs, exploring the area. His parents lived in San Blas, just a short walk from my village. They were lovely. We visited them regularly.

And then, sometime after I left, I heard there'd been a scandal. A woman was pregnant. Padre Antonio had left the priesthood.

But I never knew what happened.

And so, 30 years later, Eric told me the story. They'd kept in touch after Eric left, and thankfully, it worked out well. Antonio, Padre no more (but eventually a padre of five) left the priesthood. He had a family. He started an ecotourism company. He's since passed away.

I'd wondered about him, all these decades. He was kind, positive, generous. The type of person you'd want representing your organization, particularly if your organization was truly dedicated to serving those in need.

The priest in my village was always asking me to translate letters requesting things from American and European organizations. A car. Funding for personal projects.

The Catholic church had so much power in these villages. Our village priest shamed women during Mass for not having children. 

We weren't gallivanting about the countryside with him.

Volunteers in our area rented mailboxes at the post office in Ibarra, 30 minutes by local bus from my site. You'd ride with farmers toting grain bags, holding live chickens, everything.

I visited Ibarra and the post office regularly, to send and check for mail. I lived far from one of my besties, Neeta, and we wrote to each other several times a week.

Our sites varied so much. I had water and electricity. Neeta had to have water delivered by a truck. She used it for food, then washing, then plants. There was a hierarchy of need when you have a limited water supply.

Eric would come down the mountain and we would make a trip into the city. There was a bakery we found in Ibarra that had amazing bread and alfajores. We'd chat and write letters and just spend time.

It's weird to think about, that trips to the post office were an event around which we would plan our day. Now when we all have instant communication at our fingertips, and complain about not wanting to receive phone calls, or the burden of texting back.

But our lives were like that. We worked hard to maintain connection.

We circulated books. Peace Corps is where I read "Seeking John Galt," "The Fountainhead," and a massive book on Frida Kahlo, the title of which escapes me. We all read them. 

We shared tapes. I listened to Liz Phair's "Exile In Guyville," "Rites of Passage" by the Indigo Girls, and Maná's "¿Dónde jugarán los niños?" approximately a million times. 

The last time I had seen my friend Jeff, who also lived far from me, was in Quito. We went out for drinks and I poured my heart out about a complicated boyfriend. This past weekend, we talked about our lives now, our spouses and kids.

These were connections dormant for 30 years, and still we have such hope for the happiness of each other.

There are so many things I hadn't talked about, or really even thought about, in 30 years.

Like how one of the communities I worked in was only accessible by hitching a ride on a passing truck. The bus took you to a certain point, and then you had to wait for a truck that was heading into the valley. You had to do the reverse to get home.

Eventually Eric and I started an income-generation project there. 

A woman from his community made these adorable little ornaments, fake flowers and such, out of very simple ingredients. People would use them for decoration for weddings, quinceañera, etc. So we brought her down there to teach a group of women who were interested.

We did things like that. It was so different, after the structure of college and then an office job. 

I was untethered. So insecure, sure that everyone else was doing things right, and I was just faking it.

We regularly rode in the back of pickup trucks, or sometimes in the cab of a big truck driven by a person willing to take us. We paid for these rides. It was just normal, if schedule-wise unreliable, transport.

At the reunion, Eric called me "Lisacita," which nobody has done since Peace Corps. In our part of the sierra, anyway, everything was made diminutive.

Cariñito, amorcito, lindito. Our Spanish, or Castellano, as it was called, was infused with Quichua (or Kichwa) words and phrasing. 

Our villages had Quichua speakers. And how nice it was to say, "Quichua," and not have someone who'd spent time in other parts of South America correct me and say, "Actually, it's Quechua." Because in Ecuador, actually, it's Quichua.

The Castellano we learned was formal, and maybe the coastal volunteers acquired it, but I never learned the informal plural "you" because we were taught Ustedes. The sierra, anyway, was very formal. The Spanish we learned was infused with Quichua words and grammar. Like, "guagua" for baby. "Dame traendo..." for "Bring me..."

I don't know if "siga no más" is particular to Ecuador, but I haven't heard my Spanish friends use it. You'd hold the door open for someone and say, "siga no más." Go ahead.

Eric, Ralph, and I worked with a woman who always prefaced everything with, "No sea malita/o..." It was a softening before asking a favor, but literally translates to, "Don't be a little bad one."

We'd joke about it in English. "Don't be a little bad one. Hand me a pencil."

The names of the villages and towns our sites were in were names I hadn't said in three decades—Pablo Arenas (Eric's site, which he reminded me we liked to call Paul Sands), Atuntaqui, Jaime's site, and where he'd been biking from to my site when he had his terrible accident and had to be Medevaced to the US.

It felt good to talk about Urcuquí, my site, which back then had no street names or streetlights, but is now big and rather urban. This I know now because Jaime's wife is from Pablo Arenas, and she goes home regularly.

We talked about the bus rides we took then, ones we'd never allow our kids to take now. Us women, we would often limit their water intake ahead of time, and eat salty snacks. Because you didn't know if drivers would be willing to take a bathroom stop.

You were at the whim of the driver, always. 

They might stop for you if you had your hand out on the side of the road. They might make a million small stops to pick up passengers, livestock. They might not stop if you were begging, absolutely begging, for them to stop so you could pee.

Everything was arbitrary.

These were buses where you were happy for squealing brakes that were audible over the music, because at least this reminded you the brakes were working.

Buses where the driver and his assistant, because there was always a ticket taker, would be drinking, or the driver would be flirting with his girlfriend.

Andean roads at 7,000, 8,000, 9,000 feet in altitude, roads hugging the mountain with no shoulder on either side. Roads with blind curves, and sometimes you'd encounter a bus coming the other direction, and each driver would have to slowly slowly inch backwards and forwards until you could both pass. 

It always felt best to be the inside bus, in that situation.

Roads where you looked out your window and saw the massive drop you'd take if the bus went over. Roads with crosses on the side, for those who'd died.

I think it was Rich who said he was on a bus near Cuenca when one of the wheels fell of. The entire wheel just fell off and rolled away. They had to wait for trucks to hitch rides on.

Another friend told us that at some point, there were mudslides near their site, so until they were cleared, they'd take a bus to the point of the mudslide, walk around, and then get on another bus on the other side.

Juan Carlos and I talked about visiting Suzy at the coast, hours and hours of bus rides from where we were, high in the sierra.

We had to be back at our sites on Monday, and were lucky to hitch a ride in the back of a pickup from Suzy's site to Guayaquil, because there were no buses. The traffic was bad, and if our truck were in an accident, we'd have been flung out.

I was used to being in little pickups on low-traffic roads. This was a highway.

Someone reminded us this weekend that Juan Carlos had deemed Ecuador a "run with scissors" kind of country, and I don't know what it's like now, but that was a perfect description for what we were doing then.

The beach weekend, it was glorious. We swam, we ran around in the sand, we ate fish and patacones, which my god are so delicious. We laughed, because we always laughed.

We all have these very particular memories, connected to stories, connected to feelings. They live inside us, just waiting for the opportunity to bubble up, to blossom.

Jeff, I think, brought bank slips to the swap. I'd forgotten that we used to have to fill out these slips, and we'd get our monthly salary in sucres, which was then the currency of Ecuador.

I can't even remember how much we got paid each month. Maybe $130? But in sucres, that meant mountains of 1,000 sucre bills.

We'd get massive stacks. While still inside the bank, I'd divide them, putting some in my waist belt, some in my bra, some in each shoe.

Eric and I would also make a day of that, going on the bus to Ibarra, to the bank to get our wads of cash. Surely we also went to the post office, to the bakery, and to visit Ralph, if he wasn't already with us.

It was hard to organize things ahead of time without phones. We'd just drop in on each other, and then hang out waiting if their neighbor said they were out.

You'd be walking in your village and run into someone, and then you'd go to the market or stand in a line for something together. 

I wonder if people still have this time and spend it together.

It was the blessing and the hardship of being in a little village. There was no anonymity. I'd meet someone who was visiting, and they'd immediately tell me that I was the gringa who went running.

I am not an early bird, but in my village, it was dark at 6:00 pm, and I was in bed exhausted by 9:00. I'd get up at 5:45 am to run.

I'd put a massive kettle on my burner to heat water, so I could use it to bathe when I got back. In retrospect, I suppose I could've burned down my place, but luckily I never did.

I went early so there'd be as few people out as possible, as I already stuck out. But I'd run past farmers from my communities. And in Ecuador, you had to greet everyone individually. So I'd be huffing and puffing along at 7,500 feet altitude saying, "Buenos días señora, buenos días señor..."

I've just realized I don't remember the name of the sister of my landlord. Doña...I can't believe I can't remember her name, but recall she got a poodle she named Mercedes, Michi for short. She owned the bodega next to me. I spent a lot of time with her.

People used to laugh, because I referred to my landlord as, "mi dueño," when I should've been saying, "el dueño de mi vivienda"—because he was not, in fact, my owner, but rather the owner of my apartment.

As Yankee swap prizes, Cathy gave away blue soap, the hard blue cakes of soap that we would use to wash our clothing in the courtyard of my building. I had a bedroom and a kitchen, and shared a bathroom and a courtyard.

I'd forgotten about the blue soap, and the cold, cold water from the mountain.

Eventually I bought an electric shower head for our shared bathroom. The shower head had an immersion heater, so as long as you didn't turn the pressure up high, you could have a hot shower.

A group of us spent a Thanksgiving with friends in Azogues with a shower that shocked you whenever you turned it on, which in retrospect is terrifying.

When I think about how we would take buses for hours and hours, all day, buses we were afraid would fall off the side of the mountain, just to be together. We'd line up sleeping bags on the floor and just crash.

I threw a big party for my 25th birthday. So many friends came for the weekend, brought sleeping bags, lined up on the floor to sleep. Maude was visiting, for a whole month, and was there over my birthday.

I love when people I love from different areas of my life connect.

The proprietor of the bodega, my neighbor whose name escapes me, sold us so much beer that weekend. 

Among my neighbors with whom I shared the courtyard and the bathroom, was a married couple. The husband was a bus driver. The lovely wife was my birthday twin. And on our birthday, she was quite pregnant.

We were exactly the same age. On that birthday, I wondered if she was who I'd be, born to different parents in a different place.

There's something about shared experience, shared memories, that's so powerful. I don't believe this is particular to my high school group, or my Peace Corps group. It is not location or time specific. 

For us, in this group, it was Ecuador in the mid '90s.

What's rare, I think, is to be seen, to be heard, to be valued for who you have been, and who you are. 

So when I ask myself where joy lives, I think the answer is: everywhere. I believe it resides in each and every cell of our beings.

We dip the Proustian madeleine into the tisane—or maybe in our case, drink the trago, eat the patacones, listen to Maná—and let affection and connection drive the bus.

I've got to keep on keepin' on/You know the big wheel keeps on spinnin' around

Nick and I flew to Michigan last weekend for my Peace Corps reunion.

I have many loving things to stay about that. Many oh my gosh so many many.

I returned with my heart so full.

But first I'd like to talk about my own self-inflicted travel predicaments.

The thing is that when I fly, particularly if it's a long and difficult distance, I wind up buying something that will make my air travel experience more complicated. Slightly fraught. Physically uncomfortable.

Twenty-ish years ago, I had three flights on three different brands of airplanes when I went to South Africa, because I booked budget and last minute. This was way before I met Nick, and not that many years after 9/11.

Three airlines and three airports meant going through security thrice.

One of my last days in Cape Town, I saw this large and charming basket, with half-cowries decorating the wide rim.

It was big. It was delicate. I would have to carry it, and it would fill up my arms walking through each airport, and I'd worry about it in the overhead bin on every flight.

I still have it.

Then there was a large wooden turtle in Mexico. The turtle part would've been fine, had it not had long legs with feet sticking down and out, and a long neck sticking up in the air, with the carved head of a woman atop it.

This also had to be carried in my arms, and unwrapped for security because there were nails inside and the X-ray didn't like them.

Then last year, in Bali, I fell in love with a carved wooden king dragon mask. It's really cool. The whole shop had incredible carvings.

Fiona and I returned on our last full day, when I'd decided to go ahead and buy it. And then I was like, oh, who knows if I'll ever make it back to Bali, and maybe I should get two masks? Because Jordan will love this one. And I always find tons of stuff for India, and nothing for my boy.

So I bought two. One for him and one for me, for the living room.

They were much larger than they seemed on the shop wall. And solid wood, quite heavy. I realized this when I was trying to return to the hotel on the back of a hired scooter.

The next morning, Fiona helped me completely rearrange my suitcase and carry-on so I could fit them both separately and surrounded by cushioning clothing.

Fortunately, I've turned into my dad for travel, and now bring my own pillow. That helped.

They arrived in DC unscathed.

And then! Jordan did not love king dragon.

But I still do.

So post-reunion, on the Sunday, Nick and I went into Ann Arbor. The rental car place had given us this bright orange Jeep, which was cute, but had no trunk.

And as such, being from DC where we lock the car door before we leave the garage, and do not leave anything visible in the car, lest the windows get smashed, we were nervous to go into Detroit and be tourists, what with our bags just hanging out in the back.

So we went into Ann Arbor, which Nick hadn't been able to see when the group went Friday, because he'd had to stay back and work.

We had lunch and then wandered a bit, and came across a little market.

Where, almost immediately, we spotted a table with crocheted items, including and most spectacularly, this crocheted triceratops! 

We asked the lovely young woman behind the table about it.

She gave us a price and said it was expensive, because it had taken an entire week to make. Plus the cost of the yarn. Plus a local woman had made the eyes.

I gushed over it a big and then we thanked her and kept walking through the market. I kept talking about the triceratops, and how charming it was.

And finally Nick was like, "Do you love it?"

I said I did.

So we walked straight back to her table and said we'd like to purchase the triceratops.

The young woman's cheeks turned pink and her eyes teared up. She said, "Really?"

Really.

I asked if I could take her photo, and then Nick suggested I get in the photo, and then her younger brother, who was helping her with her stall, got dragged into the picture as well.

It was adorable.

So my triceratops, her name is Ann. Her last name is Arbor.

I got caught in an exit door leaving the airport in DC, because one arm was full of her and the other was dragging my suitcase.

Actually, that's not why I got caught.

There's a big sign over the door saying you can only go out. Exit only. No entry. 

I was all, fine, we're leaving. And then the doors clamped down and I was stuck and I was all what the fuck?

But it was my fault, because with these exit doors, there's a door you go through, and then a corridor, and another door. And there was already a woman in there who was at the exit door.

Apparently you're supposed to wait until the person ahead of you is through.

They don't want both doors open at once so that someone could bypass security and dash in through the out door (out door...)

So the woman in front was struggling with that door, because of me. And Ann, my luggage, and I were squashed in the other set of doors that were trying their hardest to close.

Finally the woman in front got through and then my doors opened and we got through.

And then Nick was all judgy at the other end. 

Because he is a man who reads instruction manuals and knows how things work and also is not the kind of person who is scared of revolving doors because he likely in younger years never tried to squeeze in with someone.

Cathy's partner Tim is an engineer, and while we were talking about his work, it came out that he has written numerous user manuals for cars, and he said, "You've probably never read any." 

And I was all, "NICK READS THE MANUALS!"

And then Nick confirmed this. He reads the manuals so he knows how things work. He knows how our appliances function. He knows what the myriad options are on the car.

So he reads the manuals and I don't, and I live my life limited to the bits of technology that I understand.

And then when there is something extraordinary, then I call him and am like, what does the dashboard light mean that looks like a lotus? Or maybe more like an exclamation point with angry lines coming out each side?

He actually got this one very quickly. I think by now he's used to these questions, having at first been very WTF about the yellow submarine light.

Apparently this light means I'm too close to the person in front of me. Which couldn't be helped in fucking Connecticut or on most of 95, for that matter. 

In searching for a flying song for the title, I was reminded of my difficulty with these song lyrics.

And being with Nick is like being with Big Ol' Chedo Lino, in the best possible way. It means that I always feel safe, which is a feeling that's very important to me. But it also means there is often not enough room for him.

We were on a relatively little plane to Detroit—a Bombardier—which I pronounced bombard + ee-ay, but Nick contends is pronounced bomb-a-deer.

Anyway, they're not all that big, so they took our carry-on luggage before we got on the plane. We only had our personal item. I was a little worried about Ann, since she's not small, but they didn't care that I was carrying a stuffed animal. 

I was going to hold her but then I realized I wouldn't be able to have a drink or eat a snack or read without some difficulty. Nick put our items in the overhead.

And then when he was getting it all out, there was this big long narrow thing in a bag, and the couple behind us said, "Oh, be careful with that."

So Nick handed it to them gently, and then asked what it was.

They said, "It's a monopod."

We were all, huh?

So the guy said, "It's for a camera. A tripod had three legs. This has one. It's a monopod."

And then we disembarked and that was that.

Later, when we were getting ready for bed, I was like, "Isn't that just a stick?"

Mad dogs and Englishmen (and me)

When the kids were quite young, we took them to southern Spain in the hottest hotness ever recorded in the history of heat in Spain.

It was all anyone talked about. It was literally the only topic of conversation, no matter where you went.

It is exactly like this in DC right now.

Except the thing is, I live here.

And apparently every single human to whom I have ever spoken in my neighborhood or in the course of my daily life knows my proclivity for the heat.

Which is all well and good except for the fact that it's as hot as the surface of the sun in DC.

The Capital Weather Gang—whose profession is WEATHER—actually described DC as hell. Read the first line of the photo below.

And while the current heat is in fact Stygian, and I don't prefer it, I still take it over cold. Yes, my ideal is probably 95 degrees and dry. 

In the 90s to 100s and humid is not pleasant.

I do a lot of coming home and immediately swooning onto the sofa like a consumptive Victorian.

And still, I do not complain, because I fervently believe that you get to complain about one season. This is what I tell my kids, who completely ignore me and whine about both excessive heat and cold.

But since I complain bitterly all winter, longing for summer, I just suck it up in summer.

Yesterday I needed to pick up a prescription in the afternoon, so I biked to K Street and back, which is a little over three miles roundtrip, with the return trip almost completely uphill.

By the time I got home I just wanted to drink cool water and lie on the floor. Wanda and I have been hanging out like this a lot.

But the point of my story is this: everyone knows that I prefer heat. And when I run into them, almost to a person, the conversation goes as follows:

Me: Hi! How are you?
Them: It's so hot. It's too much.
Me: Yeah, it's really hot.
Them: I know you like this heat.

They have a tone. As if I'd willed this upon us with my love of summer heat.

I've had to stifle the urge to apologize.  

The first couple times it happened, I actually felt guilty, as if by loving the heat I'd somehow invited this discomfort on others.

So now I am all, "Gosh, even for me, this is too much!"

Reader, it is not too much for me. I would like it to cool down. I'm hoping for a thunderstorm that breaks the heat.

But I would not trade it for cold.

And then I started thinking that it wouldn't be my chosen superpower—I think I'd pick flying or breathing underwater—but lacking a superpower, I wouldn't turn it down.

Like, if I could direct a heatwave, and concentrate it on one person, that would be kind of amazing.

Basically, I could be like, here, have a big wallop of perimenopause. This hot flash, however, is going to last three days straight. Maybe a week.

Depends on how I'm feeling towards you.

That I might find immensely satisfying. What I'm saying is, if someone offered me this superpower, I would not turn it down.

But let's be clear. I don't control the weather. I can barely get my kids to clean their rooms.

In the immortal words of Power Station, “Some like it hot and some sweat when the heat is on.”

Indeed.

Every rose has its thorn/Just like every night has its dawn

I don't claim to be any kind of flower expert, but I can recognize more than one or two.

My mom was an incredible gardener, and in my childhood she always grew zinnias, marigolds (and mariyellows, as I called the yellow ones), snapdragons, cox comb, sweet peas.

And as I mentioned in a previous post, so much of the foliage in Bali was that of my childhood. I used to pronounce frangipani "frangy-pangy"—and it wasn't that long ago that I realized that frangipani is plumeria, and we have it in the US.

It's one of my favorite flower fragrances. (Ooh, the alliteration!)

And a year ago in Bali, I spent a lot of my free time journaling and drinking tea on my porch, luxuriating in the view.

I mean, really. What a blessing!

As Bali is near the equator, darkness comes early. And every evening on my way in, I'd see the Buddha statue out of the corner of my eye, and I'd always think it was a person, and startle before I remembered.

You'd think this wouldn't happen day after day. However. 

Anyway, Fiona would often join me on my porch, and at some point we noticed these particular white flowers.

How could we not have noticed them before? We'd never seen anything like them.

They were in the middle of a bunch of foliage and some water, so not easily accessible. We didn't see them anywhere else on the extensive grounds of the hotel. None on the way to the yoga shala.

I felt lucky to have such unusual water flowers in my garden. They looked like they grew on very thin stalks. Maybe they were some kind of flowering reed?

In any case, clearly rare and tropical.

Even if we learned what they were, we couldn't take them home, as you cannot bring agricultural products into either of our countries.

But we were dying to know. We kept forgetting to ask the hotel staff about them.

We talked about these flowers so much. 

I'd seen a couple of snakes on paths near my room, so I was cautious about stepping into the foliage. But I was dying to know.

So finally, during the day, I decided I was going to tiptoe over, minding my footing and carefully stepping on rocks, to get a close-up and figure out what these were.

Thankfully, I was able to snap these photos. Because the next day, they were gone! Plucked from the garden!

Yes.

So while Indonesian bottle brushes may somehow be more exotic than American ones, I bet they're all made in China, and you can buy them at Home Depot.

John, I'm only dancing

I don't know if you've ever thought of someone from your past and googled their name to find that they are no longer with us.

This happened yesterday.

I googled my friend Debbie, neighbor of Alyssa who had chicken for dinner, to find that she died in 2007.

Her parents are still alive. And so many years ago, they had to say goodbye to their daughter, who would never turn 40.

Her mom had been an actress in Poland before they came to the US. She had a strong accent. This was the era when we learned about ibuprofen as a pain reliever, and she called it "eeboopreen" and so that's what my mom thought it was called for the longest time. 

"Do you need an eeboopreen?" Now I find it cute, but back then it drove me crazy.

The truth is, I hadn't seen Debbie in decades. Something would remind me of her every once in a while, because for about three years, we had a very intense friendship.

I guess all my friendships have always been intense.

At some point her dad came into money, and bought a huge house in a fancier neighborhood, which was in a different school district, and they moved out of our modest neighborhood.

And she hated it. She hated the new school.

One night, she ran away. She walked miles over to the parkland behind our house. She was going to live down by the creek. 

Since this was the early 80s, the "It's 10:00. Do you know where your children are?" era, we'd spent entire days down by the creek, exploring the parkland. We played kick the can with neighborhood kids in the dark.

Our parents weren't actually looking for us until it was clear we weren't home for dinner or bedtime.

Basically, she was going to live down there and I was going to supply her with food.

The plan was not sophisticated. She just wanted out of the painful situation into which she'd been thrust.

We'd read books like My Side of the Mountain and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. Running away for a time and living in nature or the Metropolitan Museum of Art seemed like an actual option.

In books like that, where the kids are very self-sufficient, you don't have the view of the parents freaking the fuck out wondering if their child has been kidnapped or killed.

In any case, I think it was my brother who spotted her down by the creek and told my parents.

I mean, the police were out looking for her. It was a crisis.

And in retrospect, I see us as kids, tweens, living in traumatic situations and not having the words. Not having been told that we could ask for help. Not trusting that someone would help us, except our friends.

We couldn't trust our parents to fix the situations when our parents were the cause of them.

Anyway, then her parents got divorced and her mom and the kids moved back to our neighborhood and her dad became a Zionist.

And then my family moved to India, and all we had was letter communication. Which I only succeeded at in starts and fits.

I'd see her in the summer, and they had cable, which meant we'd spent hours in her living room watching MTV. 

She was funny and smart and artistic. She was a year ahead of me, and at some point she was studying ancient Egyptians, and for a project she decided to make jewelry, like in a museum exhibit. So we rolled out clay into snake necklaces and such.

It was a really cool project. I was jealous.

At her house, we had Kraft macaroni and cheese, which we never had at my house. It was magical.

One summer after we moved to India, we came home and stayed with the neighbor next door to our house, which we rented out to another Foreign Service family. I met the son, who had coincidentally been in high school in Kenya with one of my New Delhi besties.

And he was so cute. We met, and then in the way of the teenager, all we wanted to do was make out to Tears for Fears.

We did a lot of that in a very short span of time. His mom wanted him to get a summer job and we wanted to sneak off and make out.

In a horrible coincidence, he was also the boy Debbie had had a crush on the entire previous year of high school. He had no idea.

I never told him, of course, because she'd have killed me. And I never told her about the making out. Why hurt her feelings? I'd be gone in a week.

Debbie is the one who introduced me to David Bowie. She bought the albums and made me tapes. 

We loved David Bowie. We loved him so much. We even loved his weird songs like "The Laughing Gnome," and "Come and Buy My Toys"—which, I learned as a mom reading Mother Goose, is a nursery rhyme. "Please Mr. Gravedigger," on the other hand, is probably not.

At one point, she gave me a special edition album of Diamond Dogs, and I wish I'd kept it, but it got let go somewhere in one of our many moves.

In any case, I hadn't seen her since the late 1980s.  

And I know that when we grieve, the pain we feel is for ourselves. 

I know that with each loss of someone dear from my past, it's a reminder that I don't have my mom to tell. Because I would definitely tell her about Debbie. 

But probably she already knows.

She wasn't mine to lose, and I think, who am I to be sad, when I hadn't tried to contact her for over 25 years?

But I also think, gosh, now I never can.