Today was our annual visit with Jessica, Jake, Julia, and, this year, Lydia! What a wonderful tradition this visit has become. I will post more pictures from my 22 year love affair with Jess when I get home tomorrow. We met in the summer of 1986 as Petty Officers at Cape Cod Sea Camps. We were fast friends, immediately inseparable. When that summer was over we launched a prolific career as pen pals. Jess was in Providence, and I was in London. It was a big ocean but we sent pages and pages of writing across it, sharing all of the deep secrets and the mundane details of our lives.
There was a falling out that neither of us can recall the cause of and the letters and conversations stopped for years. Jess stopped coming to camp and I continued. Years passed and I always remembered this long-lost, beloved friend. Thankfully, blessedly, CCSC worked its magic and Jess returned in the summer of 1993. We were randomly assigned as co-counselors in cabin 18. I’ll never forget the moment Jess pulled up with her mother and father in their Saab. I remember this deep sense of just knowing that it was she who would emerge, with crates of Indian print shirts and years of stories bottled up to share.
What a magic summer that was! We reconnected and have never stopped talking. That was the summer that Jessica was realizing she was in love with Jake, now her wonderful husband of 9 years. We proceeded to be bridesmaids in each others’ weddings (photos to come when I get home) and then we gave birth to our daughters 12 weeks apart to the day.
Julia was born on 8/3/2002 and Grace followed on 10/26/2002. Jess was the first person I called when I discovered – bewildered, terrified, confused – that I was pregnant. Right as Grace was born tremendously bad news was visited on Jess and her family. I remember when Jess, Jake, and Julia came to Boston when Grace was 2 weeks old, and Julia was 14 weeks old. Jess and I were individually and collectively shell-shocked with bad news (hers far more legitimate than mine). That day is both searingly vivid and incredibly blurred in my memory. The months and years that followed were not easy for Jess and Jake. We did have a few – too few, but very important – visits. Always we photographed the girls. Always we kept talking.
To this day Jessica remains one of the absolute cornerstones of my life. She is one of the very few people who have taken up residence in the always-forever-and-no-matter-what corner of my heart. She and I vibrate on the same frequency. We are drawn to the ocean, we both have moods that rise and fall with the tides, we are each inclined towards melancholy. We both find great solace in words, have many friends but truly trust very few, basically prefer not to be physically touched, and adore chocolate.
Whenever we are together we are instantly back to where we were, but each time we see each other there are also new revelations. Today’s discovery was our shared fragility about overstimulation – too much noise, physical contact, spicy food, or strong smells sends us both over the edge (this is part of what I believe places me on the edge of the aspbergers spectrum).
22 years of history have brought us here, and I look forward to the next 22 and beyond. I don’t have history like this with very many people, and though we see each other rarely Jess is never far from my thoughts. We walk together, despite living hundreds of miles apart. My friendship with Jess is solid and real: I feel her life pulsing beside mine, feel a deep sense of obligation and dedication to her and her entire family, and know in my core that she’ll stand by me no matter what.
All I can say, Jess, is thank you.

This poem has always made me think of you, and of us, and of those summers in Brewster:

People Who Live
From At the Edge of the Body, Erica Jong

People who live by the sea
understand eternity.
They copy the curves of the waves,
their hearts beat with the tides,
& the saltiness of their blood
corresponds with the sea.

They know that the house of flesh
is only a sandcastle
built on the shore,
that skin breaks
under the waves
like sand under the soles
of the first walker on the beach
when the tide recedes.

Each of us walks there once,
watching the bubbles
rise up through the sand
like ascending souls,
tracing the line of the foam,
drawing our index fingers
along the horizon
pointing home.

We had to beat a hasty retreat from the dock where we were watching the fireworks – Whit was wailing about being scared and I felt terrible about his ruining everyone’s 4th of July viewing pleasure (and, secondarily, about his terror). Walked home carrying 29 pounds of kid. I quickly realized there was no way he would go to sleep alone listening to the machine gun bursts of fireworks, so he and I lay down together. As you can see he was mighty pleased with the result of his manipulations.

Whit, armed and dangerous with his mask and broom-slash-weapon, riding a tractor. He is so funny these days. The weekend was positively wonderful.
Saturday morning Elizabeth and I took the four children to breakfast at Hi Rise and then played at the park for 3 1/2 hours. They ran, climbed, dug, yelled, chased, and swung for a good long time and at 11 had a pickup soccer game. Elizabeth and I got to sit, spectate, and catch up, only dealing with the occasional skirmish and need to pee in the bushes (theirs, not ours! for that my bathroom was a mere 3 blocks away. talk to me about the sex offender situation with outside peeing sometime). We had Armando’s pizza for lunch, still at the park. The children were grubby and exhausted and Whit fell asleep in my bed at 1:30 for a nice two hour nap. He is so dear right now.
Saturday night was dinner at the Lavallees with the kids. Kendall was in town and I had such a nice time seeing her. Home and in bed early again. Sunday morning was the cherry on the cake of the weekend – Grace, Whit, and I went on the T into Boston to see Wall-E. The movie was wonderful and we went with dear friends. We T’ed home, stopped for hamburgers in Harvard Square, and took nice naps all around in the afternoon. It was as sublime a Sunday morning as I can recall. Honestly.
Then Sunday afternoon I ran in the downpour (just my luck to head out as the skies open). I love summer rain and it was a fantastic run. Excellent weekend with the children all around.

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. Scientists have proven the long-term benefits of sunscreen, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they’ve faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts. Don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long and, in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t. Maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or celebrate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body. Don’t be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they’ll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They’re your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble, and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you’ll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair or by the time you’re 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it is worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen.

Does anyone know who this is by? I have only ever seen it attributed to Anonymous.