Sure-Footed

Sure-Footed

It’s a rare thing in our transient and fickle world to meet with the kind of steadfastness and constancy that spans decades. How could I have known that in my ninth year, when my greatest desire was to spend an afternoon with my nose in a book, that I would find my first real and enduring friend? She turns 50 today, and it seems fitting to mark the milestone with a tribute of sorts. It was the late 70’s when we met, when summers were spent running through sprinklers and being told to “just go outside,” before the Adam Walsh incident injected fear into the suburbs and parents hovered, constant hawk-eyed supervisors. At nine, we’d both ridden our bikes to the community rec center to discover that hanging on the bulletin board was a holy grail disguised as a tattered and smudged sign-up sheet for lessons in horsemanship, something that required no experience or skill with a ball of any kind.

An instant friendship began as Linda and I penciled our names on the list. Turned out she was also in the fourth grade at my school, both of us transplants into central Florida that year. My father had been transferred from a military base in South Carolina, and hers within PanAm from the island of Antigua. In the interest of saving gas money, our parents alternated carting us to and from the barn that summer–and every weekend for the next five years. That first summer together we learned how to curry a horse’s coat, clean out a hoof, and ride. From there, we worked at the stables in exchange for lessons, mucking stalls, creosoting miles of fencing, and oiling endless tack.

Our chief language was equine-speak. When we weren’t at the stable riding actual horses, we played with model horses instead of Barbies. We alternated between being famous trainers with our stables full of noble steeds to making up dramatic sagas with the horses playing speaking roles as they journeyed through treacherous arctic tundra or across barren prairies. Occasionally, we’d even hitch one another up using robe ties or belts and careen around the yard clearing broomsticks between lawn chairs. When we could entice my younger brother to play, we’d enlist him to catch a handful of green and brown anoles, the lightning-fast small lizards that bask in the Florida sun. Fashioning “reins” out of yarn, we’d hitch the unfortunate reptiles to “carts” made of leaves and drive them around on scalding sidewalks. Eventually we released them, but I’m sure generations of these creatures told strange and horrible tales about their giant captors to their stunned offspring.

We spent so much time together between fourth and ninth grade that our families were interchangeable. We called each other’s parents mom and dad and were as comfortable in each other’s kitchens, bedrooms, and yards as our own. I was the fourth girl born into my family, and Linda was the first (and oldest child) in hers. This birth order may be the reason she rankled at comparisons, never bearing labels or playing designated roles. She is exactly three months older than I am, a fact I liked to point out smugly as we grew, both of us late bloomers in middle school, but she enough later that I lorded it over her, my one pathetic competitive edge. Being brought up in the “no worries” Caribbean island atmosphere may have had a part in her naturally breezy and que sera sera approach to life, which fascinated me since it was decidedly different from my more rules-based childhood. Once (and only once), she came to church with us and during communion impetuously demanded to know why she “couldn’t have one of those little wafer thingies.” Glancing wide-eyed down the pew at my father, I mumbled something about having to talk to the priest first and shushed her to be quiet.

At Linda’s house they played soundtracks—albums from The King & I and My Fair Lady, while at mine we heard Pat Benetar and Michael Jackson courtesy of my older sisters. It was just as well because she danced like a thespian with flair, not an 80’s teenager emulating characters from a John Hughes movie. She peppered casual conversations with vintage movie stars I’d never heard of and was the only person alive I’d ever met who’d read more and more widely than I had. She constantly handed me books–whole series of them–that she’d finished in a week, forcing me to up my game and reading capacity. She never wanted to waste an afternoon in front of the TV; growing up in the British Isles had spared her some American vices. When I was with Linda, we climbed trees outside, in kingdoms of the “Tree People,” with names like Queen Oleander and Princess Poppy. We’d ride our bikes for miles, often ending up at the Ben Franklin drug store in the Plaza, in predetermined dramatized roles where we’d speak in only loud butchered Spanish, as if the suburban moms and sales clerks couldn’t see straight through our lame middle school antics. No chance either of us could be mistaken for exotic Latin travelers, despite our single Spanish class in junior high branding us Luisita and Bonita, names we call each other to this day. Or, one of us would lead the other one–who one day would be blind, the next day deaf– through the store, either for attention (me) or practicing for future dramatic scripts (her).

She was coltish–tall, thin, and easily tanned, completely unconcerned with middle school popularity or pop culture of any kind. By eleven, she already moved through the world like a movie star or model, long-legged with her hands floating in practiced, graceful gestures. Her innocent gray-green eyes and quick giggle belied an unmatched vocabulary and imagination, not to mention a cultivated lack of blind acceptance for authority or that anything should be so just because an arbitrary adult declared it. Knowing this last to be true, I was astounded when I heard she’d enlisted in the Army years later, once I’d moved away to dutifully attend college. Seeing her in fatigues was like seeing a peacock hula hoop atop a polar bear–preposterous! In true Linda form, her Army experience resembled little of what I knew of the military from my own family. She was a journalist, stationed in Germany and Fort Knox, even snagging a spot on the Churchill Downs infield to cover the Kentucky Derby itself–the horse race we’d once dreamed of attending as either trainers or jockeys ourselves. Of course I wasn’t surprised.

It’s been over forty years since that sign-up sheet knit us together as life-long friends. She’s a New-York sophisticate now, traveling the world with her interesting and talented husband and occasionally singing with his band. She plays different roles now: carefree aunt and sweet daughter, charming hostess and, when I visit, intrepid taxi-hailer and city tour guide. She wears funky jewelry and browses vintage thrift stores for the kinds of clothes she’s always been drawn to–distinct, unique, with character, clothes that mimic her personality traits. We still trade book recommendations and stories about horses. I still call her mother “mom.” We’ll always be different–that’s what I love about her. I’ll probably always nurse a shred of jealousy over her confident, sure-footedness and the way she navigates without hesitation through life which is, come to think of it, a lot like the horses we rode endlessly under that hot Florida sun. Happy Birthday, Luisita!

I Knew You When

I Knew You When

If you’re lucky, despite your lack of merit or any earned grace, you may be fortunate enough a handful of times for a kindred spirit to come alongside you and walk a ways. Over three decades ago, due to the single-handed determination and strong will of her mother, one of those unlikely blessings knitted herself to me at the fragile and tenuous age of fifteen.

Today marks her fiftieth birthday. At the entrance to yet another decade we are lucky to face together,  it strikes me that one of the things that most binds us is that we knew each other when.  Should time clasp its stingy fingers around one of us, which inevitably it someday will, the other will remain to testify to our children. I knew her when.

What a different portrait we can paint than what our children know of us. To them, our moniker is simply “mom,” our presence a given in their universes. Everyone needs a person like this to keep them humble and grounded, to remind them of past innocence and the effort it took to get from there to here. She and I know each other differently, deeply, because we linked arms to weather puberty and periods, chemistry and college, self discovery and the social minefield of high school and beyond. We’d go out on the weekends with friends, me perched on the lid of the toilet while she did her hair and curled her eyelashes. There were braces and boys, angst, acne, and anxieties. Maybe our collective offspring would find it amusing to hear of our exploits, the episodic stories of our coming of age perhaps quaint or provincial to such sophisticated and worldly young adults of 2018. But maybe there’d be a little shock and awe thrown in for good measure at what we each have overcome.

One of my sisters dubbed her “four o’clock Michelle,” because every afternoon after school, our phone would ring and I’d tie up the line for a couple of hours as we downloaded the events of each day. Weekends, we swapped time at each other’s houses, our mothers in the background doing whatever it was mothers did. She taught me how to make excellent snicker doodle cookies, coached me through calculus and chemistry, and exponentially upped my ping pong game in her family’s basement.

Together, we were “not from around here,” having moved in to start high school from out of state–she from Ohio, me from Florida. We shared a lack of southern accents, lots of siblings, and a love of Abba. If that doesn’t say soul sister, I’m not sure what does. We danced to Bananarama and Madonna in the 80’s, were each other’s maids of honor in the 90’s, and compared experiences with marriage and raising children in the 00’s and beyond. I learned to two-step at her wedding when she married that boy from Texas, and, years later, it was her mom I turned to for parenting advice in the absence of my own mother.

Even twenty-five years after my mother’s funeral, she calls or texts on that anniversary to remember and say she’s thinking of me. I follow her parents’ and siblings’ lives, cheer for their successes, and worried over her dad’s recent heart issues. When I saw her standing with her family while we took pictures after my daughter’s wedding, my eyes stung as the emotions welled up. She’s always present for the stuff that matters.

Once, for a month, we were roommates on a college campus. Although we spent almost every moment together in regular life, we didn’t do so well as live-in roomies. Too much of a good thing. But the summer her family camped across the West for a month, I almost died from loneliness. It was before cell phones, and waiting four whole weeks for our reunion was the worst kind of torture. We got used to separation, attending different colleges, for instance, in different states. For years, I visited her in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Texas, while I stayed put with a family business in Tennessee.

For now, she’s only a short drive from here, and we’ve been able to visit more often, each time picking up where we left off, falling into real conversations and the ease and comfort of each other’s company. In construction circles, there’s a thing carpenters use to aid a weak or sagging joint. Apparently, the easiest way to repair a compromised joist is to attach another board of equal or larger size alongside. This board is called–wait for it—a sister board, and the process is known as “sistering.” How brilliant is that? It’s the perfect illustration for life-long friendship, for the person who steps in and holds you up when you’re sagging, who knows just where you need help and just where you’re strong. Who knew you when, knows you now, and loves you anyway. Happy 50th birthday, sister!  

High Dive

High Dive

diving practice in the backyard

For a couple of magical years when I was very young, we had a house with a pool in Florida. I remember clear blue water and palm trees. My older sisters practiced diving off the board while I made up mermaid games in the shallow end and my toddler brother tried his hardest to drown. My father spent hours in the summer bobbing along the perimeter, sometimes in a mask and snorkel, scrubbing algae off the concrete sides. The family’s oasis, to him, was a chore-inducing money pit and he couldn’t wait to move.

After we changed addresses, summer in the mid-70’s meant casting our lot with the unwashed masses in the public pool where someone else was responsible for algae patrol. The older sisters still practiced diving, but now they sashayed to the board with groups of friends, laughing and glancing at the lifeguards. They most certainly did not want to entertain younger siblings and made sure to remain in the unapproachable deep end, beyond the dividing rope.

Mermaid games did not go as smoothly when strange kids were doing cannonballs right next to you or knocking you in the face with their water wings. Occasionally, my father would let my brother and me stand on his shoulders as a prelude to launching us airborne for a few breathless seconds as we screamed at mom “watch me! watch me!” He lured us into peeking inside his cupped hand to see a caught crab, before squeezing his palms shut and jetting water into our surprised faces. He’d tolerate us clambering on him like baby monkeys, clinging to his back and head, shrieking with laughter and trying to push one another off until one of us got hurt and went crying to mom.

Relaxing poolside did not come naturally to my father, who could not rid himself of the mental to-do list that went undone while time frittered away. He took his work and responsibilities with a seriousness that clung to him even on days off. Which is why the summer of his high dive remains clear as a bell.

My mother must have tired of his nail biting and glancing at the giant clock by the concession stand. She’d managed to finagle all five of us into swimsuits and sunscreen, pack all manner of snacks, shoes, towels, and toys into the station wagon, and park us in chairs strategically located near the restrooms. She was not about to leave early with her tired, hungry brood just because he needed to organize the garage. She must have sent him out to the deep end with exasperation to have some fun for crying out loud so she could read in peace.

Like my sisters, everyone at the pool watched the older boys jump off the high dive, trying to outdo each other with bravado. After a particularly fancy flip or an unfortunate slap of a belly landing, an audible gasp or appreciative “oooh” could be heard from the lounge chairs. This of course only egged them on. My father swam long, smooth laps in the deep end, his thin 6’1 frame cutting a handsome swath through the lane. Not so many years ago he would have been leading similar shenanigans with his friends, grinning at the girls in bikinis as he clowned and performed.

I watched as he pulled himself out of the pool by the metal ladder, made scalding hot by the summer sun. He adjusted his trunks and strolled casually towards the steps of the high dive. He glanced at my mother. Her head was bent over the latest Michener novel and her large dark glasses masked any indication that she was aware of his intent.

The crowd of teenage boys parted like the Red Sea as he approached, some fifteen years their senior.  A couple of them snickered behind his back as he started the climb.  Some kid kept dunking and retrieving his ball in front of my face until I finally grabbed it and threw it out onto the concrete. I searched for my trio of sisters, who had stopped giggling and stood aghast with their friends, eyes on the high dive.

He’d reached the top. The high dive was no man’s land for me. I was a good swimmer but could not abide the stares and comments from the gaping audience of the public pool. I was skinny and flat-chested and at that awkward stage where my face hadn’t yet caught up with my teeth. The limelight was off limits. I’d never seen my father up there before.

He took his time. The boys waiting at the bottom were all elbows and ribs, flipping their wet hair and breathing hard while my father stood at the edge of the board, his toes barely hanging off. Then he turned around. A back flip? Instead, he walked a few paces towards the ladder, and my heart sank. He’d chickened out and was heading for the exit. More snickers from the youth below.

He stopped and sat, his back to the water, and scooted backwards with his legs straight out in front of him until his backside just brushed the edge of the board.  Carefully, he rose, making sure his feet remained stationary.  Now he was standing with his back to the water, about halfway between the ladder and the board’s edge.  He glanced backwards a few times, straightening and adjusting his feet.

My mother had raised her head.  Michener’s pages lay in her lap, the edges soaking up the baby oil she used for tanning.

One of the older boys below grasped the ladder and goaded, “Come on!” Even from that height I could see the smirk on my father’s face as he let himself fall backwards.  He landed squarely on his backside, his legs straight and flat on the board. The board dipped with the force of his weight and he tipped backwards off the edge, flipping in a perfect 360-V before hitting the water.

He resurfaced to whoops and cheers from the chairs.  A ’10’ for originality! The boys at the foot of the ladder cheered the loudest and he gave them a casual salute while he tread water. They’d been shown up by someone’s dad.  Astonished, my mouth hung open.  When he ducked under the dividing rope, I latched onto him with the siren song of childhood:  do it again, Dad!  Do it again!

He shook his head and swam to the side with me hanging off his shoulders. My mother had taken off her glasses and looked at him in that way that I knew meant we would be having an early bedtime after dinner, blaming it on a “long day at the pool.”  Already, boys had ascended the ladder and were attempting to copy my father’s feat, arguing with each other over how to do it right. A few of them were talking to my sisters, who were now famous by association.

It wasn’t until years later that I discovered my father’s fear of heights. Why, then, did he climb the ladder that summer? Maybe to prove to himself he could still compete with the young bucks. Maybe to show off for his bride, who couldn’t resist his big wet grin. Whatever his motivation, the result was that we were the family with that guy for the rest of the summer at the public pool. It gave us all a little boost.

And in the eyes of an awkward, shy little girl who wished she could be a mermaid, it proved that superheroes could fly.  Or at least do amazing feats off the high dive.

 

 

 

Sticks & Stones

Sticks & Stones

They paged me last night at a youth event to let me know my son had injured his toe.  Apparently, he’d left a trail of blood from the incident site to the bathroom.  I finished my conversation, found a toenail clipper and band aid in the car and headed into the boys’ bathroom to assist.

By then it was under control.  Just a small patch-up and he was good to go, fortified with a lecture of why God made shoes.   Other mothers of boys gave me nods and knowing smiles, the fist-bump of the Boy Mom Sisterhood.  Blood and guts?  Just another day in the life.

After seventeen years of this, I am unphased.  I’m sure my own childhood contributes to my cavalier attitude towards mayhem and injury.  I don’t know if my parents’ five offspring were an unnaturally accident prone bunch or if our magnificent lack of supervision toughened us up.  Maybe some of both.

We grew up in the glory days of being sent outside to occupy ourselves in the sunshine, leaving my mother to do mysterious “alone” things like crossword puzzles, soap operas, and, I imagine, basking in an hour’s worth of silence with no one’s needs but her own.   We ran from yard to yard with neighborhood kids brandishing sticks, dashing through sulfur lawn sprinklers, pulling sandspurs out of our feet and getting bitten repeatedly by mosquitoes, ants, and chiggers.   We drank from the garden hose and constructed rickety skateboard ramps in the middle of the road, scattering left and right when cars came. Helmets were unheard of; shoes were an afterthought.  Road rash from meeting the asphalt was common, sunburns a given.

Between us, we amassed four broken bones (at least ones that counted and required casts) from falling off a horse, flying over handlebars, tripping on a golf course, and falling off a tire swing.  We used up spools of nylon in the ER getting stitches.  One sister was attacked by a hive of hornets, another was knocked cold by hitting a plate glass window.  My brother almost lost an eye from the broken end of a walkie talkie antenna, and the oldest sister, trying to free debris from beneath the lawn mower while it was running, had to have a couple of fingers reattached.  We stepped on rusty nails, got bit by snapping turtles and crabs, threw rocks at wasp nests with unhappy results, and got burned by tailpipes.  Once, we four sisters each grabbed one of my brother’s limbs and pulled to see how far he would stretch.  Result:  not far.

Unless the injury was dire, we got treated with home remedies.  If you got stung, Mother would unroll one of her Tareyton 100’s and make a witch’s poultice out of tobacco.  Splinter?  She’d dig it out with one of her quilting needles.  For scrapes and cuts, there was stuff called Merthiolate, a red-staining liquid that burned like the fire of a thousand suns.  A few doses of that and we learned not to complain and just walk it off.   It was the hydrogen peroxide of its time, and I’m pretty sure it was laced with mercury, so if it didn’t heal our cuts, our consolation prize was a damaged nervous system.

Weren’t all families so afflicted?  It wasn’t that our parents didn’t care.  Whenever some new calamity occurred, we would draw straws to see which of the remainder would have to go tell mom.  She would be appropriately concerned but remain calm as we piled into the station wagon for the familiar trip to the hospital.  It was only after we’d arrived safely back home that she became emotional, her left hand trembling as she chain smoked and muttered to herself.  When dad got home, he’d check on the patient, exhale heavily, pat us on the head and declare that the experience would “put hair on our chest.”  Since most of us were girls, such comments would elicit wails and more than a little anxiety.  Bedside manner was not his greatest skill.

Surely it is from these almost daily occurrences that I learned not to overreact to a child’s inevitable knocks and mishaps.  When mine were small and learning to walk, I was matter-of-fact when they crashed into a table leg or coffee table.  Up you go!  You’re alright!   As time went on, we got through three broken bones (at least ones that count), dislocated elbows, and more cuts and bruises than you can shake a stick at.  Their dad’s medical skills were constantly on call.  My daughter still has surgical glue in her forehead from a gash when she was four.  We patched them up and told them they’d be ok.   I learned the more you gasped and fretted over them, the more fragile they thought they were.  Less hovering and coddling meant more independence, confidence, and risk-tasking–elements, one could argue, children can usefully bring with them into adulthood.

I am not a detached mother who never bonded with her child, a wire monkey type.  On the contrary, I mourn the dwindling regularity of sweet boy hugs, declarations of undying love from my children’s lips, and girl time with my daughter.   I love them fiercely, as my mother did the five of us.  All my father’s advice to “rub some dirt on it” and my mother’s off-handed tendency to let us make our own adventures instead of providing entertainment on demand certainly fostered independence.  We knew that when we left the nest, we’d survive the fall.

As my own chicks approach the nest-leaving stage,  they need us less.  The circle of life and all that.   The kicker with teaching them independence is that they actually become independent.  I knew last night I didn’t need to rush over to my son’s gory toe.  He knew from past experience what to do.  As I handed him the limited first aid tools I had, he flashed me a lopsided grin, half chagrin, half machismo.   I resisted the urge to tell him this would put hair on his chest.  He was with his friends, after all.  This kid, I thought, he’ll survive the fall.