KIT

One of the bizarre things about Facebook is that suddenly everyone wants to be your friend. Even people I don't know from Adam have been trying to friend me. Usually I reject these friend requests. But lately they've been coming from people who claim to have gone to high school with me. Some of them I remember, some of them I don't. Some of them are people who I recognize but who I'm sure I've never spoken to in my life. Usually I feel bad about rejecting these requests - we did, after all, go to high school together. Why are all these people suddenly feeling so nostalgic? Is it because we're hurtling toward thirty?

Transforming

Listening (aptly?) to Iron & Wine's 16, Maybe Less.

I thought we'd gotten rid of our boxes but it turns out my husband had a few more, which my mother-in-law sent over the other day. It was amusing to read through what was in them: he was apparently quite the Casanova in his day, judging from the quantity of girls writing to him and the content of their writings. I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised: at our high school reunion, a girl that neither of us remembered came up to him and confessed that she'd had a crush on him all four years. And I know that several of my friends had had such crushes on him as well.

I say that it was amusing to read through these boxes, but it was also kind of sad, the longing and pain that came through those notes, juvenile as they seem now: strangely, I well remember the pathos and all-out desperation of those high school years. For me, at least, it was a time when my sensitivities and emotions were heightening, after the slumber of childhood, but my maturity had not yet grown to match. I can't remember much of high school now, but I seem to remember that I spent most of that time very miserable. I had a parents'-worst-nightmare boyfriend (drugs, gangs, the works), my beloved dog developed stomach cancer and had to be put to sleep, one of my best friends deserted me over issues so petty it's embarrassing to remember - all in all, high school was not a good time for me.

But even though I don't remember it well, it doesn't always feel like that long ago. Maybe it was because I was reading through my husband's yearbooks, and those brought back some of the memories. We are, both of us, so different now. I have a hard time recognizing myself from back then. I think law school was really a transformative experience. Or maybe it's just the changes that come with age. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it helps, when you're afraid of where you're heading, to look back and see how far you've come.

Autumn coming

School's in session again, at least in the school district in which my mother-in-law works. I can't believe that summer is nearly over. And 2007 draws to a close. Why do I lose track of time the way that I do? Seems like just yesterday that I was shivering in my under-insulated apartment, waiting for warm days, tank-top weather, and now here it is fall again. Good thing I love fall. Pumpkins and colored leaves and jacket weather, long walks with just a nip in the air. Hot cider, cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, all those pungent spices. Sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the flames. It's not quite the same in California as it was in the Midwest, although it's not true that we don't have seasons. The leaves change color here, too. I think the difference is that people here don't appreciate it as much. In the Midwest, fall is a reprieve, a welcome transition between summer and the harshness of winter. Here, fall and winter blur together a little more; at least, we don't dread winter as much.

I woke up literally shaking in the middle of the night last night, after a particularly vivid and horrible nightmare. Transitions have always been hard on me, I think. I live too much inside my own head. Slowly learning to put one foot in front of the other again. Things always seem more poignant after a bout of depression; everything just a little more beautiful, in the terrible sense of "nothing gold can stay."

Lapse

People who are frozen in your memory never seem the same when you see them again. The lapse in time makes the changes obvious; often, they are changes for the worse.

Sisterhood

Cleaning around the house today in preparation for houseguests arriving tomorrow, I found an amulet, made out of clay and painted green, strung on black yarn. It's a strange-looking thing. For luck, he had said when he gave it to me. It surprised and saddened me that I have forgotten him for this long.

The eldest child, I always wanted an older brother or sister. Someone to whom I could abdicate responsibility. Someone who would hold my hand during tough times, take my side, get my back, defend and advise me.

We met through a mutual friend, an artist, because he was an artist too. One of the first things he did for me was paint me a watercolor. A girl, crying in a dark room. I don't know where it's gone.

He was the person I called when my drugged-out boyfriend (at the time) didn't recognize me, was hospitalized, was abusive. The person I called when I was too embarrassed or ashamed to call anyone else. The person who got angry on my behalf, who cared about little things no one else wanted to hear about, who drove four hours to see me for five minutes, to give me a little green amulet, for luck.

Like many little sisters, I suppose, I took all of this for granted. And I went away to school, and got busy, and lost touch. Lost the watercolor, and even many of the memories. But I still have the amulet.

No rain

1.

It's cloudy, gloomy, and that feels strange. After months of sunshine and perfect weather, I'd forgotten what an overcast day looks like. I wish it would rain, but nobody's calling for it.

I remember you coming into my room, hesitantly, to tell me what you had heard. Telling it as a story, rather than asking me, because you knew you had no right to ask. No right to be upset, but I could tell that you were.

What I don't remember is what I said, how I responded. Did I laugh? Get angry? Deny everything? The end of this story is a blank, the look on your face is a blank; what I remember is the hesitancy in your voice, because that was what calmed me. That you knew that you had no right.

2.

You had cut your hair and I didn't recognize you at first. Even your smile looked different. We went to a restaurant and I told you I was getting married. Both of us smiled widely, wildly, my cheekbones aching with the strain.

3.

I'm sorry I never showed up. I'm sorry I lied to you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

Summertime

By eight o'clock in the morning, it's nearing eighty degrees outside. During the day, it gets over ninety. Temperatures have been this way for the last week. Summer weather - it makes me forget where I am, think I'm somewhere I'm not. Grass swaying too tall, wishes floating overhead, the sun bleaching everything pale, burning colors. People I loved, now, too, bleached out memories. Just kids talking dreams - everything seemed so serious then, big decisions to be made, whole futures. I think I'm more pragmatic now, although I guess my life belies the statement, because here I am, wasting a legal education, making the kinds of decisions I was afraid to make back then. Where are they now? We cried at parting; that, too, seemed so serious. We weren't old enough yet to know that parting is a way of life. Over and over again we let go of the people we thought we could hold onto. Promises to write, but what was there to say? Once separated, we had already given away the best parts of ourselves, the parts that synthesized into understanding. Most of us felt very misunderstood. Maybe we were, too serious, too filled with angst and a drive toward something we ourselves didn't understand. Still don't understand. And here I am, changed and indifferent, but somehow still chasing the same dreams.

I'm too young for this

Two of my friends from law school separately are on baby #3 each. Three kids apiece. Six kids total. And we are barely four years out of law school! This isn't even counting all the first babies that have come along in recent years. I receive baby notices as often as wedding invitations these days. Baby after baby after baby. What's going on, people??? To top it all off, I'm throwing a baby shower in a couple of weeks! Both my sisters-in-law are pregnant, one with a girl, the other with a boy. Craziness.

Birds and Bees

On today's to-do list: build a small cage around our strawberry patch to keep away marauding birds. I hate birds, even pretty ones (hummingbirds excepted), and the blue-jays and magpies that surround our house are at the top of my list. They've been picking off the strawberries as they ripen. This is unacceptable.

Other things on the to-do list: clean out old letters/cards. I have to admit, I'm something of a packrat. My husband, too, although less so. Between the two of us, we have quite an archive of correspondence. I have cards I received twenty years ago, from people I no longer remember. I have really personal cards from people I can't remember having been that close to (admittedly, my memory for such things is not long). I think I've kept every scrap of paper that anyone has ever written me, no matter how insignificant the message or the relationship. While it seems sad to toss away a fifteen-year-old message asking me if I want to go shopping, I think it's time to put these in the recycling bin. Of course, I'm going to continue to keep some of them, the ones from people who still matter to me, the ones with really meaningful messages.

A subset of the old letters/cards category is the memorabilia of past relationships. Both my husband and I had a "box" for each former flame. Going through these boxes was amusing - we've been together for so long that it felt like rifling through someone else's life, like gossip, rather than anything we had personally gone through. It did, however, make me feel old. Were we ever really as young as we sounded in these notes? I can't remember having been so young that it seemed important to keep things like receipts, showing where I'd been and when. And yet, they were there, in the Boxes. I do remember cutting paper snowflakes, which, when unfolded, said "I love u." Embarrassing to think of now. Hopefully, somewhere out there, my exes have already destroyed any Box they may have kept.

My husband, being a boy, had fewer such embarrassments. The same can't be said for his ex-girlfriends, who should be very relieved to know that these Boxes have now, finally, all been laid to rest in our shredder/recycling bin. The stuffed animals and other assorted gifts have been packed off to various charities. Ah, de-cluttering. Makes me feel like a new woman.

Tennis

To me, the best songs are the ones that remind me of something. I heard Alanis Morissette on the radio today. While I was in New Zealand, my cousin played her first CD non-stop. It was in New Zealand, skin cancer capitol of the world, that I first played on an indoor tennis court. Actually, it was the only time I've ever played on an indoor tennis court.

Tennis saved me during high school. Only in my hours on the court could I forget about the body of which I was so ashamed (believing myself to be fat and ugly). Only on the court did I feel in control. During the summers, I would sometimes play seven hours a day; sometimes with a friend, sometimes with one or another of my coaches, sometimes by myself, practicing my serve over and over and over again, till my eyes were bloodshot from staring into the sun. There were nights when I couldn't fall asleep, replaying certain points in my head, seeing the tennis ball in vivid color behind my closed eyelids, a zahir. I played till my hands blistered and bled, till my muscles would no longer support me. I wrote my college essays about tennis.

And tennis extracted a price from me. The pains I have now - my knees, my wrists, the shoulder I dislocate time and again - are all from those hours I spent. Moreover, tennis cost me one of my best friends at the time. I was voted Most Valuable Player our senior year, and she never forgave me for it. We both knew she was the better player, but I won more matches and our coach and teammates loved me for it.

I wonder sometimes what she's doing now, if she's happy. I wonder how well we ever knew each other, and if she would recognize me if she saw me now. I don't often play anymore. I've long since lost the trophies, misplaced the pictures. I wonder if I've really changed all that much, or if tennis could somehow save me again.

Getting Older

After the sun sets, but before the light has faded from the sky, even the most familiar places seem new and exciting. Driving down a street I've driven down a million times, the traffic lights look brighter, the neon signs pop out from the shadows. Maybe it's because, in my memories, this is the time of day that I would usually arrive in a new city when traveling. I used to love airports and the sensation of heading off somewhere unknown. It's different now that I'm older. Now, airports project stress rather than promise. It's a little like losing Disneyland - the last time I was there, I felt too old for it; it wasn't the happiest place on earth for me anymore. Is there anything left of my childhood in me?

History

Those long days of nothing to do, got in the car and just kept driving not knowing where we were going till we ended up in San Francisco, right at Fisherman’s Wharf. Walking amongst the crowds and crowds, separating us, buffeting us, you reached out to take my hand.

You forgot. We’re not supposed to touch. We’re not supposed to feel too many things we’re not supposed to feel because our roads are going separate ways and I can’t afford to remember guitar strings on cloudy November nights, your face bent over mine. Holding me like you were afraid to hold me I was afraid to let you hold me, knowing that it couldn’t have been any other way.

I think about you a lot, all the time. You cooking in my kitchen at three o’clock in the morning as I slept upstairs; coming in to wake me, you told me I smelled of sleep and babies, but mostly good things.

You on the other end of a phone line as night ebbed on, because we had so much too much to say and so much left unsaid.

You knew me. I trusted you so much with so much almost with all of me, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t, you know you knew I couldn’t. We’re too different, our lives are too different you are going somewhere different from me.

We would have killed each other. Do you really think so? Yes yes I know so please don’t make me go there please don’t touch me no no there are no NO!

Your face over the guitar strings, when you’d look up at me just so and I could feel the world zoom in on us on my heart caving collapsing beating too strong.

Your face over the guitar strings, when your voice would blend somehow with mine and you reached out gently so gently too much too gently to brush the hair back from my face.

I thought you knew. And maybe you did. That there were too many reasons why not and the only reason why was the feeling of your hand over mine as you taught me to strum.

It’s gathering dust, under my bed, the guitar you bought me taught me to play. I don’t write any more don’t write music anymore because there is no one left to see to hear to care to understand.

My best friend, I have to let you go I have to let you go and I can’t can’t can’t can’t.

Do you remember countless hours dragging you around I have to find the perfect dress I’m so fat don’t be stupid you’ve got great legs you’re such an idiot you’re really pretty. Your foot is the same size as my hand my gosh you’ve got small feet let’s go jogging you’re kidding right I don’t jog c’mon! I’m going to get fat if you won’t run with me okay we’re going to run let’s at least run somewhere and get something to eat can I come over I really need to talk please don’t leave me alone I’m so scared let’s study chemistry I think you’re beautiful you’re such a beautiful person and you have a great heart YOUDON’TKNOWME! WE’RE TOO DIFFERENT, WE’RE DIFFERENT PEOPLE, PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME, DON’T LEAVE ME I’M SO SCARED I’M SO ALONE, what am I supposed to do without you? Raining, it’s raining the smell of sidewalks after the rain, that’s what I love really I just love the rain and feeling it soft on my face raining in Baltimore you know it is could you stand to be three thousand miles away I can’t believe you flew to New York to see her I can’t believe you’re going out with him YOU’RE SUCH A JERK! You know you love me for it and maybe I do, but NO!

Sushi as in you want me to eat raw fish? It’s good trust me when have I ever lied to you? Not a good question to ask me if you’re trying to get me to do something don’t hit me don’t touch me keep your hands to yourself buddy friendly teasing your face as you drive and the way you palm the wheel do you know how much how very very much I want to say, and how very little it really is that I want to say?

Eulogy

My grandfather's hands were steady enough to pop a cyst on an infant's eyelid with a needle. With those hands, he built a surgical practice from scratch through will power, hard work, and brilliance, the brilliance that let him be first in his class in medical school. He was a kendo master and a clever linguist with a dry wit. He made people laugh, and he made them afraid. He had a deep voice and a fierce temper: his children did not sit down at the table until he had first been seated and served.

His philosophy on children and child-rearing was that children benefited from doing without. Then they could withstand whatever deprivations life threw at them later on. Or, if they were fortunate and life gave instead of withholding, they would appreciate all the more what they were given. As a child, my father rarely had a new pair of shoes. When the old ones wore out, he would patch the soles with whatever he could.

My grandfather's philosophy on grandchildren was similar. For the most part, he took no notice of them. Except for me. One of my earliest memories is of being carried on his shoulder. I would sit perched on one shoulder and he would march around town with my legs dangling on his chest. At home, he would carry me this way over to the big freezer that sat outside. In this freezer he kept Andes mints. To this day, Andes mints are still my favorites. Even after his stroke, when he sometimes didn't remember people's names, he never forgot mine.

The force of his personality was such that other people paled in comparison. He was always the most substantial presence in a room. He made a heavy imprint on people's lives. On his first wife, who died young. On his second wife, my grandmother, who suffered in silence for long years. On his life-long mistress, who bore him ten children. And on his children, whose lives continue to be shaped by his actions.

I loved him, but I didn't know him. The only real memory I have of him involves those chocolates, and the heavy watch he always wore, and the cane he carried until his stroke made him unable to walk. I wish I had known him better. I mourn for the stories I will never hear. I mourn.

Where Are You?

Today I realized that I don't laugh much. I smile a lot, (which has its own problems), but I don't laugh much. I seem to remember that there was a time in my life when I used to laugh a lot, but I can't remember when or why or who it was that used to amuse me so much. I wish I could find them again, though.

A Hardening

I learned that my grandfather had died while standing at a sticky yellow pay phone in Monterosso al Mare, looking out over the Italian Mediterranean. Sunbathers filled the beach, lay out on rocks poking out of the ocean, strolled by with gelato in cups and cones. No one spared me a glance, despite the tears rolling down my face. I was just one more American tourist, and the Europeans looked over and through me by habit. Just one more American tourist in a place only recently popular to Americans.

When his funeral took place, I was in Santorini. It was the end of the season in Greece, and the streets of Oia and Fira were empty. The sun, though, was as strong as ever, and the ocean, the caldera, as beautiful. Between those things, a grief-filled event taking place on the other side of the world had no hold on my imagination. My grandfather's dying, even death itself, seemed impossible.

My favorite uncle was the one who had a kind word for everyone, who thought that his nieces and nephews were the smartest, handsomest people anywhere. The summer that he died was the summer that I got married. That summer, I was working hard to get in shape before the wedding. I swam three or four times a week with my future sister-in-law, an ex-water polo player. One night, I was returning from the pool, and had just pulled my car up into the driveway, when my parents burst through the front door and came running over to me. My mom was in front, and her face was contorted. I didn't have to ask what had happened; as soon as I had opened the car door, she said, "Your uncle is dead. Drowned!" He had drowned in his backyard pool. My parents, worriers by nature, had been waiting for me to get home, their grief compounded by their anxiety for me, this nasty coincidence of our contemporaneous swimming. For years after, when I swam I was afraid, not that I would also drown, but that I would see my uncle somewhere there in the water with me. I could not get near a pool without seeing him floating facedown in it.

When he was buried, I was in Kauai. No one had wanted the wedding to be put off; too many people were coming from too far away. No one had wanted us to miss our honeymoon, either, and so we went, and I cried every night. It's a testament to the island that, despite my grief, I still loved it there. Of all the many places I've been, Kauai is still the most beautiful. And yet, death was believable there.

Why am I sitting here remembering these things? What do I want? I don't know, myself. Sometimes I turn over old hurts like sharp stones, almost savoring the feel of the edge in my hands and the tickle of the blood starting to run. Forgiveness, maybe.

Field of Blue Children

It's the title of a short story by Tennessee Williams.

God has blessed me with a great life: the best husband, the best family, the best friends. Je ne regrette rien...except for the apologies I've failed to make. In many ways, I have not lived the life I should have, and when I think about it, I feel so much shame and regret and sorrow, probably much more, in fact, than the people I hurt. It's harder, I think, to be the person who hurts someone than to be the person who is hurt.

I've been thinking about this a lot since talking to my friend over the weekend. There are so many of these unmade apologies. The boy to whom I wrote a letter explaining why I would never like him. Who, years later, seeing me shivering at a party, gave me his jacket. A really sweet boy who did not deserve the shit I dealt out. The man who, while performing in front of a large crowd, still managed to pick me out, even though I was sitting near the back. Who gave me a stuffed animal I promptly named Roadkill. Whose calls I didn't return and whose emails I ignored. The man who told me he had loved me for a long time, who said he didn't know what he would do without me. To him, I probably owe the biggest apology.

But he's not the one I think of most often, and not the one I'm thinking of now. Right now I'm thinking of the man who I had thought of as a great friend, one of my closest. Who, on Valentine's Day one year, described a situation with a girl he was in love with, and asked what I thought. And I, who was only half listening, did not realize he was talking about us, and blew him off, saying something flippant and harsh. But we stayed friends. The period during which our friendship took place was one of the hardest in my life (for reasons completely unrelated to him). I cried. A lot. He was there to hold me, rub my back, bring me Kleenex, flowers. When we went to the gym, even when he was out of sight he would somehow materialize if some other guy was bugging me. When I was being stalked, he used to sleep on my floor. We spent all of our free time together. His parents loved me. Everyone we knew thought we were a couple. And I still didn't understand. I thought he was one of my best friends.

Then we started fighting all the time. And I still didn't understand. Finally, we stopped being friends. And, when I finally understood, it was too late. I suppose in reality it had been too late from the beginning. There was never any room for him in my life except as a friend. But if I hadn't been so stupid, maybe I could have spared him. And for that, I am still so, so sorry.