#47 Friendships: Old, New & Confusing

Slithering through the years (1972). We started in New Jersey and moved West to Harrisburg in central Pennsylvania. When we realized that our area codes changed, this was a bit much for our friendship to manage as we compared the size of our backyards.  Mine: larger and more rural. Yours: smaller, like a postage stamp, but with more refined perennials and healthier grass. I didn’t need a swing set after 5^th grade, anyhow. Who does? Oops! You doooo! There was nothing behind my house but a rocky field and survey-stake markers prepared to uproot everything and continue the growth of the subdivision. Until that happened, I hid in the tall dead grass and stared up at the white sky trying to figure out why we moved, as I held back my sobs.

I did not have the thighs or courage for gymnastics. Who the fuck does?

Oooops! You do! I saw your perfect cartwheels and round offs across the wiry grass in your teensy striped jumper. All legs, and not much else. Uh huh, you’re skinny and I’m not and my mom took me to the Colonial Hills Mall off of Linglestown Road to get my first Teenform bra. I could not wait to get out of there, but it is padded and that helps. I prefer not to wear it, but I suppose I have to.

Do you have one yet?

I noticed hair under your armpits at the lunch table and I was moderately grossed out until I got a sudden case of ADHD and made everyone giggle with my borderline sophisticated North Jersey wit. Except for that girl Cheryl! When I stuck my finger in her cake in the cafeteria and laughed myself silly, because seeing the hole print in the Vanilla icing made her super angry at me!

Can’t she take a joke?

Guess not.

In 5^th grade we rode horses and in art class we drew portraits of each other. You were black and It was cool figuring out what shade of brown to make your skin, especially since you had glasses and I wanted to get the flesh tone to be just right, but didn’t want to insult you because I used ESPRESSO and COFFEE crayons. You didn’t mind and thought I was a good artist. Your eyes were friendly and stared straight into mine and your lips were large and dark pink. Your teeth were perfect, giant while seashells and you never needed braces. You lucky duck, you.

BAMMM!

Then the Rabbi’s family moved in across the street and I was glad to meet his little kids and hang out with Sarah Beth, his stressed out wife, with a smile tattooed on her 30 year-old face. Five kids with smelly pants and runny noses and Sarah Beth never had a frown on her pleasant face. They moved to Harrisburg from Ohio and after a year, there were still unpacked cardboard boxes in the empty living room.

When I peeked, the plastic circle-amber stained glassy door obscured my view into the entryway when I wanted to pseudo-babysit. I also liked surveying the premises to compare and contrast the architectural details between their house and mine. We had slightly nicer garden shrubs and “stone” in our entryway. The new skinny trees with a few leaves dangling from the branches were held up with wires and slingshots.

Our garage was a two car.

Theirs was one car.        Oil from the car and lawnmower stained the new cement driveways.

Oh well.

So, in 8th grade we moved again, east, and a million years flew by.  But I’ll write about that some other time.

Now, I have to weigh in on current slithering friendships. It is late on a Saturday afternoon and I have no one to talk to. How did that happen?

My husband and I are a two-headed hydra. You know the type: with orange skin and flames coming out of both our mouths. Attached at the hip, two wings, etc.. Fierce. Blah, blah, blah.

I used to get lonely in Harrisburg. The truth is, I still get lonely.

I forget about it a lot, but when the feeling surfaces it is terrifying. It is like taking a nap on a hot day with a really full stomach. You wake up super thirsty, feeling disoriented, bloated and gross. A cold cup of coffee does not work though mentally it feels like it can cure what ails the mood.  Yes, coffee is a legal drug.

Then there are the disappointments and lies in surround-round. How did that happen? I thought everyone was gonna get nicer and more sane over time. Yeah, sanity is totally overrated.  You lie and don’t return my calls.  Yes, I know I sound like I am in fifth grade, so do not rub it in. And don’t tell anyone, but I know you will because you are a ruthless gossip.

And then how, I can't really say, I met you ladies. Sometimes we lunch and have dinner and drink sangria or just milk.  You are mortal, real and your bodies and minds are unique and warm. You know, you are really nice. My luck changed somehow, somewhere. How did I get so lucky?

You guys are really real, good, nice and a little off.  A little strange.

Like me.

I hope we stay connected, because I cannot keep up with those slithering friendships. I just can't.

#46 City Of Brotherly Love and More Bad Parenting

Perched on top of that beautiful building, William Penn is presiding over the City and the view must be fabulous.

She loses many games of chess at the Philadelphia Open. I fall to pieces like a broken wine glass.  I was not expecting all the losses. She meets us at the bar after I had 2 premature celebratory drinks when I believed I had it all under control, and that a game is a game. I was certain she would win and if not, one can always play another round and have another chance. Tournaments confine the boundaries of this free thinking approach and stifle the parent of the player by placing fiercely false expectations on a child who really just likes to play a game. Something impossibly difficult for this parent to believe, not because I don’t enjoy games, I do. I just do not understand the stakes at this level of competition without it collapsing into one-dimensional space. It is all about winning and losing and her rating rapidly dropping way below sea level. Gravity, air, life, joy are all sucked out of any fun with much more pressure than one of those pumps that pull air out of wine bottles when only half is drunk and the wine is decent so it’s worth preserving for another day.  No, the vacuum pressure pulls all the life force out of the experience until it is turned inside out. Multiple times, so it has no ability to be recognized after 2 seconds. Imagine all the pink and bloody innards turned outside and that is what one sees. Heart beating, stomach churning, brain pulsating. All of it whipped inside out. Wow.

Then there is this desire to throw up. Throwing up would be a really great stress reliever and distraction.  No such luck.

Remember, all of this is for nothing significant at all. It is anxiety just for the sake of anxiety. To feel something, rather than nothing. To make a mountain out of a mole hill. It is like watching a train wreck except I am the train and I am wrecking. And there was no accident.

NOTHING.

No one died.

So, me and my 2 drinks decide to leave. I take a walk in the opposite direction, west. It is dark. Walnut Street, or Chestnut. I love Philadelphia. I start to wonder, as I text furiously that I will not go crazy and find them again, if that is true. I suddenly realize that Philadelphia holds some serious Olde Baggage for me. Is it any coincidence that I am irrationally melting down in the City of Brotherly Love? I will not make excuses, I will tell the truth. It has to do with mourning. Love that existed and vanished. I am 12 years into my marriage and just STARTING to realize what love really is. To be linked to Ye Olde Love in Philadelphia with the Declaration of Independence, Liberty Bell, Founding Fathers, Carpenter’s Hall, grand old brick buildings and majestic architecture where we traipsed through cemeteries in the magic first falling snow and curled under covers and waited to fall asleep never to awaken from this dream. The dream that holds us together though the years, the distance and the fantasy of something which supposedly existed so many years ago. It all holds court in that shattered moment of losing the Game. Something that felt so idealized and alive was never there. A myth, fantasy, dream. Empty and pathetically leading me by the nose for years.  Some bizarre oedipal recreation tripping over me.

Such a wonderful memory? Not really.  In this moment, not at all.

Right then and there, I walked under the Moonstone Daycare Center sign, swaying above me in the wind. I worked there with Sandy and the kids: Me, Monica, and all those kids who are in their late 30’s by now: Marcel, Elizabeth, Amanda, Austin. They are all grown up and here I am, just a little child dreaming a childish romantic nightmare in which I am having the delusion of slowly and painfully waking up from. 

I walk east and find them. The cobblestones and landmarks which traced our Olde connection surround me. Gobble me up and grip me like a vice.

They are waiting for me at the restaurant. I order another drink and pout. My child says, “I Love you, Mommy” in that way which means I am pathetic and I am gushing guilt all over the table and floor like a bludgeoned bloody irresponsible Jewish Mother. The one I swore I’d never turn into, but here I am, buying dinner, drinks, flowers and saying “I’m Sorry” one million times. It makes no difference now. We have to wait it out and assess the damage later because She is not Me. SHE is She.  Thank goodness.

And I am not her.

Really.

After dinner I turn it around and I drag her all the way to South Street. We walk and walk and walk. Garland of Letters has not moved an inch in a thousand years. We play with the multiple wind chimes and they are still magical. The incense and patchouli are still there. The new age music is still playing. The Goddess statues and dozens and dozens of crystals and stones are still there. It is all still there, but that Corner Bookstore is not -with the rickety metal shelves and torn gray carpet. Sitting on the floor between the stacks looking at giant art books. There is a new tattoo/piercing place and I pretend to drag her upstairs so we can get matching mother and daughter tattoos. A group of teens standing outside laugh at silly me.

I am putting on a little show.

She likes this silly me and insists on interlocking arms. We head East.

Retracing the Olde path through Society Hill and there is the large bronze Bird with hovering wings slumped over itself. So funny, and still there, across from a bronze woman and man. Balancing out their loneliness with weighted wings and a floppy beak. Like an awkward metal muppet character too heavy to lift off.  Standing on the one- step- up brick stage. They can be touched and held and rubbed.

We walk on and gaze at the lights of the Ben Franklin Bridge and the winding sidewalk near the Ritz Movie Theater where Olde and I saw ‘She’s Gotta Have It’ and ‘Stranger Than Paradise’. Ha!

We held twisted hands in twisted dreamland.

The New Wave restaurant where I went out on a date with some cute other guy, when Olde and I broke up. I had my first beer, which stunk.  I was cool like the cool décor resembling the set of Pee Wee’s Playhouse in the cobblestoned square. Now a Seafood Den, or something.

My kid sits on the wall to rest her feet. They dangle like a game. This wall Olde and I sat on and ate up the same sky with some strange young hungry love. Then we kept walking and I realized that this was never ever really going to leave: this abstract memory of something better, more, passionate and crazy. Where is Olde now? I don’t even care because he no longer exists.

He is dead.

Then Ye Olde Child inside of me shattered into pieces , once again, when I looked at her smile. That child me and Olde and that Time… and then for moment, a second, a lie, we turn the corner and head West with our shadows ahead of us and the Olde street lamps shining from behind.

#45 Gingham Is Taking Over The World

All over the city, men are wearing the exact same patterned shirt: gingham has taken over the world. This morning as the subway was sliding into the 59^th Street station I saw an ad on the uptown platform for this patterned shirt. Is it a coincidence that standing right in front of me was a man wearing the exact shirt (navy)? Standing by the door was another man (purple) and seated right next to me, another (orange)!

Layers of gingham: a gingham rainbow!

I don’t get tired of these shirts. There is something refreshing about them as they remind me of ice cream sandwich wrappers from my childhood. My friend always had a box in her basement freezer- next to the chocolate shell ice milk pops. When we peeled the turquoise gingham wrapper off, bready bits of chocolate would attach itself to the wrapper. While scraping it off with our teeth, chocolate always got wedged in our fingernails. It ended up looking like dirt.

These are all purpose shirts: casual or dressy. They always look fresh and crisp and any man wearing one must feel happy.

#44 One Woman And The Sound Of A Thousand Babies

How is it possible that in one day I took the subway twice with the same very cranky baby and his mom? What are the odds that I would be in exactly the same car going downtown in the morning, then uptown in the evening with a little crybaby who made such a sound that I wondered if his mom was neglecting him? It was a sour grinding gurgle that frenzied to a high pitch, with deep undertones of whine. He arched his back in his stroller and when I looked over at him I could see that he was very cute. As cute as he was noisy- and sort of frightening.

The first journey left me puzzled. Was she on her phone and he was pulling for attention and this was a strange s&m game they played? Occasionally, she would look over at him and then place a blanket over the top of his stroller to block out the stimulation and help him calm down. 

?

I’m not sure, but she did flatly tell another passenger, “he is so tired!”

Oh, he’s tired, is he?

I looked around to see if anyone else sensed how disturbing this interaction was and wasn’t sure which was more disturbing: the kid and his mother or the undisturbed passengers who were plugged into their electronic devices as a means to disconnect from everything including the responsibility we all might have to do something as a response to this loud and distressing situation.

Or was it a situation? Maybe I was overreacting. She said he was tired, and some babies get very loud and disturbed when they are exhausted. I looked over and she was holding him in her arms, he was happy and I felt much better.

Later that day, or maybe it was the next day, I heard him before I saw him. Again, he was red and puffy with screams and shrieks.  A fellow passenger offered some gentle advice, which I could only partially hear.  What I did hear from mom:

“he is so tired.”

Two teenagers started singing to him and he stopped crying and stared at them.

“Don’t cry baby‼” They sang.

It was charming.

The train became increasingly more crowded and the teens got off.  Yes, crybaby started again and I was still disturbed and confused as to why he was so distressed. His mom handed him a bottle and he launched it to the ground. In an exhausted motion, she picked it up and put it in a sack on the back of the stroller.

I looked at her face and she seemed catatonic with her own exhaustion. It was hard not to see the evidence on her face. She seemed barely able to stand up and I could only imagine the two of them at home, either sleeping it off or screaming for help.

I have a feeling that I haven’t heard the last of them.

#43 In Which You Do Something Bad And Have No Remorse Even After You Are Found Out

James hated Jacob. Everyone in the third grade hated him. As a parent who hated an eight-year-old, James felt sad, pathetic and righteous.

Jacob was a kid.  A very bad kid; he bullied, lied, taunted, teased, backstabbed, stole, manipulated and had an irritating voice. He had a sadistic streak that impacted James’ daughter, Anna Bee. She often came home from school with “Jacob stories” and James did his best to teach her ethical and responsible ways of dealing with the boy including having him over for a play date, inviting him to her birthday party and generally showing good faith for a potential friendship. Sometimes these gestures worked and Anna Bee enjoyed time with Jacob. Sometimes he played well and this gave them all hope.

Until, like a cobra, he struck again.

There was no way to bypass these negative interactions except to stay away from the boy altogether.

Anna Bee liked to work things through with friends, and had a strong moral compass so it was hard for her to just back off. After several more attacks, she figured it out and the acquaintanceship ended for good, but she felt bad.

James said, “Anna Bee, there will always be “Jacobs” in life and we all must learn how to deal with them. It isn’t easy and we should stick closer to people who are really our friends and care about us. Jacob simply isn’t one of those people and you have done nothing wrong. You tried your best and you have so many other great friends.”

So this story could end nicely right here, but it won’t.

James harbored quite a bit of resentment toward Jacob and his parents. As much as he understood the psychological underpinnings of such behavior he felt like this subversive bullying touched many kids. Every time Jacob’s name came up in social settings parents would groan and shake their heads in frustration. These were parents from varied cultures and economic backgrounds. Jacob was a non- discriminating bully: he spared no one based on race, creed or ethnicity.

Bearing witness to all these parents and kids whom James very much enjoyed, he wondered why the family, or Jacob, was never held accountable by the school. Yes, the incidents were sort of below the radar in terms of the Department of Education’s rules and regulations on bullying and the nature of how they were reported regarding witnesses, but one had to wonder why nothing seemed to change.

How did this kid keep getting away with this shit?

Until one day James got called into the Principals office. There was an incident. Anna Bee was sitting quietly with friends and Jacob began to taunt her. It was done in a sociopathic jocular way so it passed as humor. Anna Bee went to the art table and drew a picture.   It was of a large brown Grizzly bear taking a bite out of a boy. There was lots of blood and dismembered limbs and the boy was shrieking in pain. She entitled the piece: “Grizzly Bear rips apart Jacob to DEATH FOREVER”.

The Principal felt this was an inappropriate, cruel drawing and when Jacob saw it he broke out in tears.

Poor Jacob.

As James sat there listening to the Principal, he silently high-fived Anna Bee in his mind. He thought she did a great job on the drawing and the sentiment was appropriate.

Enough was enough.