dear friends

J, J, and A,

You are my kindred. I don’t have any other relationships like these: we don’t in fact know each others’ lives that well, we don’t know each others’ families that well, yet we just understand each other in a way that is, to me, unique and wonderful.

We have much more in common than we don’t. We are educated, we are curious, we are thoughtful, we are probably more than a touch neurotic. We are all accustomed to being in charge and in control; I feel a perceptible relaxation in myself, and sense it in each of you, when we sit down, order a glass of wine, and just let out a deep breath. Each time I see you I leave both comforted and inspired. You are three of the most capable, accomplished, intelligent, loving women I know. And you are, as far as I can tell, utterly unaware of your brilliance, which is part of the wonder of each of you.

In truth, I was intimidated when I met you, in turn, two in 1996 (A, I will never forget that very first interview at college – thank God you decided to pass me onto the second round) and one in 2001. I was awestruck, all three times, by similar things: you each seemed to me to be breathlessly competent, confident, breezing through life with ease, leaving a trail of admirers in your wake.

I was lucky enough to share my first pregnancy with you, A (that summer of daily milkshakes), and my second with you, J. Oh what sage counselors you both were, on life with a newborn and then on the sheer terror of life with more than one!

Each time I see you I learn something. We are unmistakably in the thick of Real Life, all of us, and we share a similar perspective on what contributes to identity and to a fully-lived life. A perspective that I have found very rarely in others; this makes each of you more important to me than you probably realize. We can talk about subjects ranging from silly to serious, from flip to fraught. I never tire of your stories and appreciate that each of you has both tremendous wisdom and great humor. I want you each to know that I admire you, I honor the grace with which you meet the challenges that I know about and those I don’t, and I am genuinely grateful for your friendship.

Now, more sangria!

Please pray for a friend’s four year old with a kidney tumor. I believe in the power of this, so please send your healing thoughts.

As I ran past HBS this morning I was struck by the familiar feeling that I simply never went there. I really honestly can barely remember anything of those two years. The photo above seems to prove that I did graduate, but if not for the photographic evidence of 2 years and the handful of friends I met there, I might believe it didn’t actually happen.
I never felt at home at HBS, never felt quite like I fit. Perhaps this ought to have been my first clue that the Business World was not for me! I also can think of almost nothing that I actually learned there. I wonder if this is because I spent 90% of my in-class time doing the Times crossword or (more often) reading the cases for the next day’s classes. This is the most salient example I can think of NOT Being Here Now. My God. I was so focused on getting done with the next day’s work that I never heard a damned thing in today’s class. Anna seemed to have the same strategy, and she and I had many free nights with nothing to do since we were done with our homework. Anna, however, seems to have emerged from HBS with a few skills and things learned, so I am forced to conclude this is another data point supporting the fact that I really am an idiot.
I guess that is one thing that HBS gave me: Anna. We were friendly at Princeton but didn’t get close until HBS. While I am a mental midget compared to Anna, she’s the friend who most understands the intellectual and mental restlessness I feel, who knows the angst of having a big gaping hole where “life’s professional passion” should be. She too has lots of interests, none of them compelling. She consumes life at breakneck speed, searching, always, as I am, for an animating interest, for an internal compass. For me to have a friend with whom I can share the many challenges and joys of this way of living is an enormous gift.
Since we’ve both become mothers, our relationship has deepened. Anna is one of my favorite mother friends – she is funny and pragmatic, charmed and unsentimental, and always incisively observant when talking about Zachary and Ava. She shares my awareness of how frustration and awe coexist in every minute of mothering.
So, while I really can’t read an income statement, don’t understand a lick about macroeconomics, and still struggle to remember the five forces, I guess HBS was worth it if I found Anna there!

McCosh 50. This week’s PAW has a great article with quotations (below) that came to life in McCosh 50. It is the building’s 100th anniversary. The article made me think about the many moments at Princeton that were in that space. I think often of how space must hold memory, somehow.
McCosh 50 was where much of Princeton’s academics started – I took both intro Econ classes there as well as Literature 141 with Victor Brombert. I still have some of the essays from that class: “The Mistress and the Intended: Two Women in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness,” “Tadzio as a Timeless Figure in Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice,” “Motion, Statis, and the Journey Towards Self-Discovery in Homo Faber.” How juvenile and young those titles seem! Ah, freshman year.
McCosh 50 was also the site of unforgettable moments, both happy and sad, with the love of my Princeton years.
I love the quotations that the PAW includes in their celebration. The breadth of topics, the combination of provocation and reflection, the variety of speakers all speak to what I consider some of Princeton’s essential qualities.

“There can be nothing more disruptive of our success in every great area of foreign policy than the impression … that we are prepared to sacrifice the traditional values of our civilization to our fears rather than defend our values with our faith.” – George Kennan ’25 speaking about foreign policy and the McCarthy era, March 1954

“The object of all science, whether natural science or psychology, is to coordinate our experiences and to bring them into a logical system.” – Albert Einstein, in his lectures on relativity, May 1921

“I say to you that in spite of the fact that I have all the reasons in the world to give up on humanity, I won’t … Despair is never an option.” – Elie Weisel, September 2005

“We began to prove about 20 years ago that women can do what men can do. Now it must be demonstrated that men can do what women can do.” – Gloria Steinem, December 1997

“It was like entering a dark mansion. You fumble around in a completely dark room for a couple of years. You bump into the furniture looking for the light switch. When you find it, you move to the next room.” – Andrew Wiles, on solving Fermat’s Final Theorem, March 1995

“I have yet to find a state constitution that begins, ‘We the some of the people…'” – Thurgood Marshall, February 1964

“There is everlasting repetition in human beings. Everything inside of everyone is endlessly different yet endlessly the same … The history of everyone is the history of anyone.” – Gertrude Stein, November 1934