nostalgia

Tonight: dinner with an old, dear friend

Forbes College, late August/early September 1992

Dear C,

It was 17 (OH MY GOD!!) years ago that we met, almost exactly. The picture above is how I will always remember you: long tanned legs, jean shorts, long blonde hair with bangs. You and C and K (above on the right) remain the only people I’ve ever chosen to live with other than Matt & my children (and the jury’s out on that one! joke, joke!).

You’ve lived abroad for so long (ten years?) that I am incredibly grateful that your parents live in Boston, otherwise I’d never see you. These quick dinners and visits around other holidays or family events are the lifeblood of our friendship now, as well as too occasional phone calls punctuated with howling children and the pop of wine corks.

It’s incredible to think how much life can change over the years, yet some bonds remain steadfast, like ours. Despite the distance and busy schedules, the moments we carve out for each other—those quick dinners and holiday gatherings—are priceless. In the whirlwind of family life, meal prep can sometimes feel overwhelming, which is where meal kits come into play.

They’ve become a lifesaver for busy friends like us, allowing us to whip up delicious meals without the stress of planning. When debating between options like everyplate vs hello fresh, it’s amazing to see how both services can cater to our needs, offering a variety of recipes that make cooking together feel special, even if we’re just sharing a virtual dinner over the phone. These meal kits not only simplify dinner preparation but also ensure that our gatherings are filled with laughter, good food, and cherished memories, making it easier to maintain our beautiful friendship despite the miles between us.

I have so many vivid memories of our years of friendship, particularly those packed into our four vivid, messy, wonderful years in New Jersey. The way your backpack straps had to be laid out flat at 90 degrees on the floor, your Benetton precision folding, the big rolls you ate from the WaWa every day, the click clack of your clogs across the linoleum lobby of Forbes. The vats of Diet Coke you drank, your small, worn stuffed white polar bear, your mattress on the floor in the gable of our 4th floor room. Indian print tee shirts, a rainbow of Patagonia pullovers, and Nike running shoes. The night we slept in the back of my parents’ Taurus station wagon on the side of the road in Cape Cod, the train ride from Penn Station to Boston in a blizzard with Peter Lynch and an overly-chatty investment banking analyst, and our exceptional, awesome, first-choice room draw senior year.

You are quiet and somewhat reserved, and the treasure of your friendship is reserved for a few. I don’t think most people know how outright hilarious you are, sarcastic and unsentimental and just plain funny. Your keen observations on the joys and challenges of motherhood, and your disdain for pretension make me laugh every single time we talk. You have a mix of sheer adoration for and complete frustration with your children that I find immensely familiar and deeply reassuring.

You are one of the most loyal friends I have, and incredibly kind: if I ever really needed something I know you would not hesitate to provide it. Your firm, steady affection is always there, even when we are not in close day-to-day touch (and I wish we were). Like me, you can be rattled by tiny things but you are also, sometimes, incredibly unflappable: I remember how you did not flinch when I dropped your engagement ring down my kitchen disposal (yes, I got it back out).

Thank you for being one of the small cadre that keeps me laughing and keeps me sane. I can’t wait to see you tonight.

Love. xox

Poignant

Incredibly poignant to me:

Several friends who have for 15+ years called and sung me happy birthday on this day now sing (live or on my voicemail) accompanied by the little melodic voices of their children.

And more from the Broken Leg Era

So this is two of my three roommates serenading me as I was stuck with my enormous heavy cast. It was the coldest, iciest winter that we had in 4 years in Jersey, and being on crutches flat-out sucked. So I spent a lot of time in the smallest room in Forbes.

So C and K (and the other C, less of a singer/entertainer/stripper [oh ye of little faith, there are pictures that come after this particular moment that demonstrate I’m not lying about the stripping] but no less wonderful) made valiant efforts to keep me entertained and distracted.

The song that takes me right back to this moment, up there, is Whenever I Call You Friend, by Kenny Loggins. That is what those ladies are singing, in case you can’t tell. And they are feeling it!

I wound up getting approval to take my last final exam at Harvard so I could go home and be tended to by my parents. I also decided why the hell not just get those pesky wizzies out at the same time, since I was already in a huge cast? So I spent intercession (the reward for those post-Christmas exams is a week off at the end of January) with my leg in a cast and my mouth swollen and on ice while my friends were in Cancun. That did not rock.

Then I went back to Princeton and spent 3 beer soaked days celebrating joining Ivy. This included a lot of semi-nudity and beer being poured over my head. To this day I have (a) incriminating photographs of a lot of wonderful people (oh it’s good to be the one who always took the pictures!!) and (b) the smell when they sawed my cast off burned into my nostrils. The doctor literally made a face and asked me if I’d been brewing beer in there. Let’s just say beer + warm damp environment = foul, yeasty disgustingness.

Reminiscences from the winter of 1994. Hard to believe that is over fifteen years ago. Okay, that was a nice little trip down memory lane but now I am back in the pit of midlife despair.

Nude Olympics

And now for something a lot lighter …

You know how certain songs just instantly transport you back to a moment in time? At least they do for me, which is kind of funny given that I am totally tone deaf. Music is not, shall we say, a strength. Still, certain songs come on the radio and I am swiftly and completely immersed in a particular memory. Recently “Under the Bridge” has taken me back to the Exeter grill and “Glory Days” to Princeton graduation. Today “Jesse’s Girl” was playing when I was driving on Storrow Drive and suddenly it was January, 1994, and it was snowing.

Not everyone was back at school after winter break. Princeton has that great tradition of exams after Christmas, which kind of takes away from the holidays. But it means everyone’s on campus for three weeks in January. Which is often when the first snow comes in New Jersey. And we all knew what that meant …

Only three of us were back in our tiny rooms in the Forbes attic. K was still in Florida. The morning dawned gray and cold, and the sky spat rain and sleet all day. The rumors ran through campus all day long … It’s tonight! It’s not tonight. It’s tonight! It strikes me how differently decisions like this must get made in an era of cell phones and email. We had to talk about it at the library and call each other from our land line phones. Anyway, by the time night fell there was a crust of ice on the ground and it was sleeting/snowing heavily.

This was it. It was our night. It was the Nude Olympics. Any sophomore who lived in Holder that night, site of where the run would take place, wound up hosting a party. I don’t remember much about the specifics other than my active decision not to drink alcohol. Not because I was a teetotaller but because I wanted to be sober to run on this slippery surface. What a great decision that turned out to be!

I remember as the parties wore on and midnight drew closer, somehow it just seemed natural that people started shedding their clothes. I remember that the gesticulations of smokers were suddenly really dangerous (it seems amazing to me that people just smoked at parties in those days – that is impossible to fathom now). I had cigarette burns on my arms, actually. And I remember that someone took a sharpie and wrote on my back “No longer Jesse’s girl.” (hence the song reference). I had indeed just broken up with my boyfriend, but I’m still not sure who wrote that on my back or why at that particular moment it was relevant. Despite my sobriety a palpable air of mischievousness and play coursed through the night and certain details are blurry.

At midnight groups of sophomores burst out of various Holder rooms and started running. It was slow going, and groups formed. There were a lot more guys than girls. There was a huge crowd watching and some flashbulbs going off (but no cellphone cameras – thank God). I have in my mind one picture that I saw later of several of my friends right in the front of the pack. My memory tells me someone was holding some kind of flag but I don’t know if I am right – it’s hard to imagine running with an American flag, so maybe it was a class of 1996 banner?

We did slow laps around Holder and out into other quads as well. I have no memory of being cold. And then it happened. I fell. I slipped on the sheet ice and wiped out. I stood up and remember thinking: I just broke my leg. Like the responsible young adult I was, I finished my lap with my friends, limping badly, and then went back to the Holder hallway where I had stowed my clothes. I recall how much it hurt to pull my pants over my hiking boot. I then limped to the infirmary.

I walked into the infirmary and started crying. My leg hurt so damned much and I could not believe what a graceless klutz I was (and still am). I told the nurse my leg was broken and she told me, somewhat coldly, that no way it was not and I had to wait until the morning when I could get an x-ray at the local hospital. I asked why I could not go to the ER for an x-ray. And I was told that was because my leg was most likely not broken. The hours that ensued were not fun. I remember C was there, though don’t recall if anyone else was.

I remember calling my mother and sobbing. I was in pain and I felt incredibly stupid for falling. I remember the nurse pulling me aside and asking me if I needed to talk to someone about an abusive relationship. I was flabbergasted by the question and then realized she was referring to the cigarette burns on my arms.

When morning finally dawned, I went to the hospital, got my x-ray, and found out my leg was in fact broken. I remember that my being glad I was right and the b*&%3 nurse wrong almost outweighed my dismay at … well, having a broken leg.

I was back in my room midafternoon with a thick, heavy cast on when the landline rang. It was K, from Florida. “Hey! I can’t believe I missed the Nude Olympics! Oh my God! And I heard someone broke their leg! Can you believe it?” Umm, yeah. I can.

When I crutched into the dining room of Forbes that evening a hush fell over the room. All eyes turned to me. Someone said, “That’s her!” I was mortified. To think I wasted my 15 minutes of fame on that.

Farewell kindergarten

First day of kindergarten, September 2008. Alert readers know this was not the actual first day of kindergarten, which Gracie missed because she had lice. But it was her first day. I anticipate telling that story at her rehearsal dinner.

Last day of kindergarten, June 2009. She looks so grown up to me. On the last full day of school, the day before this picture was taken, the teachers did a slide show in the classroom as part of the “graduation.” They showed each child in September and then again in late May. When Grace’s picture came up one of my friends turned to me, gasped, and said, “She was a baby!” I don’t see the huge change but I know that one has taken place. I suppose it’s the way you don’t notice changes when you live them daily – it’s only the perspective of distance that allows us to grasp transformations and metamorphoses.

Of course this is true in many aspects of our lives – we don’t see patterns and changes as they are being set and then are startled when the full extent of the difference is made real to us. That is, however, a post for another time.

For now it’s Gracie Russell. Six and a half. Leaving kindergarten with new, real friendships, a passion for computers and math, and a combination of confidence and uncertainty that I find both charming and utterly too close for comfort.

I love you, GBP.