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Family Of Five

• If I Could Undo It

  27Jan
  Categories: Family life, Friends Comments: 19
  

  Drinking gin & tonic and taking pictures in a hayfield. Angers 2008.

  I’m drinking a gin and tonic. I don’t usually drink cocktails during the week, but yesterday, while I played Wii at a friends house, or while I fucked around on Facebook, or maybe while I thought angry thoughts about my husband and my family for sticking around the house making noise and watching television when I had planned to work on my degree essay, my friend Charles hit a hole on a highway in South Africa and lost control of the car. He hit a tree, and died.

  I’m trying to convince myself that this has actually happened. Or maybe I’m trying to convince myself that it hasn’t actually happened. Whatever I’m doing, it’s not working.

  I should tell you our history with Charles, I suppose, but at this moment, everything I could tell you about how we’ve known each other over the last 15 years or so seems pretty inadequate. I could tell you, for instance, about how when I was pregnant with Meena, Charles and some of his LSU crew, who are grieving with me right now, drove 90 miles from Baton Rouge to New Orleans for my baby shower. For his shower gift, Charles brought my as-yet unborn daughter a gigantic book about civil engineering. You know, the physics of how bridge spans work and such. It was perfect, of course.

  I could also tell you how, two summers ago we stayed up all night in Tossa del Mar, talking philosophically about the future and exploring the castle fort at 3am–and how we hit every fucking flamenco bar in town.

  

  I could tell you how Charles loved Jazz Fest, and when Rod and I lived in Bayou St. John, our house served as Jazz Fest base camp. Charles showed up armed with a straw hat, a map, and a schedule he’d cut out of the Times Picayune all marked up with highlighting and notes. He had his musical enjoyment planned pretty much down to the minute. There was room in his schedule for contingencies, of course, and he had marked those contingencies accordingly. With notes. And arrows. On anyone else, this kind of fastidious planning could have been annoying, but Charles had that shit so dialed you were just grateful to be a part of it. Here’s a litte ditty he wrote up for someone he didn’t even know, about what to do in Barcelona. Read it, even if you’re never going to Barcelona, because if you read it, it’s like listening to him talk, and he was a real good talker. Charles could always be counted on to enhance your experience—whether with his planning or his presence—and he just always made me feel like: thank God for Charles.

  And he was so fucking smart. So effortlessly, unbelievably smart. He was good at math, and history–he wrote a bit, too–his blog is here. He would do things like buy the exact camera I would have recommended, tell fascinating stories about how the French buried the stained glass windows in Chartres Cathedral during the war, and learn new languages seemingly by osmosis. He mixed a mean cocktail; he knew his way around the grill. He was generous and kind and built like a sturdy bear. He had a smile that touched your whole heart.

  Oh, Charles.
  
  And how that Charles loves our Stephanie. He loves her, and she him, and their love is a presence that makes me want to live up to it. I won’t write about their love in the past tense, people, because love lives on. As a matter of fact, it’s all we really have.

  Today, when I talked to Stephanie on the phone, she was as you might imagine a person who has just had her very life snatched away might be. She wanted him to come home; she didn’t know what to tell Anselm; she needed Charles to hold her and help her through this. About this—about the pain that my friend has to endure—I don’t know what to say. I want to shake something, break something—I want to fucking rip the fabric of the very planet apart this shit is so wrong. It’s wrong that Anselm should be born to the sweetest daddy a boy could hope for, and then not get to know him his whole life long. It’s wrong that Stephanie has to raise her child without Charles by her side, without him holding her hand and sharing her joy, and helping her.

  

  And as much as we, and anyone who knew Charles can give Anselm, or as much as we can tell him about his father, it’s not enough. It’s not the same. It’s so fucking inadequate. All evening long, since my children came home and began cutting up, like they do, every little bit of joy they brought me, every smile I’ve given them, has cost me. Why me and not Stephanie? It doesn’t feel so good, to be home with my family tonight while she is on a plane to South Africa, steeling herself for what’s ahead.

  And so, I am drinking. Here’s to Charles. It may not be the healthiest response, but it’s what I’m doing to get through. Hold your loved ones close tonight, okay? Appreciate what you’ve been given. Do it for Stephanie, and for Anselm, and for Charles, and remember: life is precious and beautiful, and oh, oh so fragile.

  

• An Embarrassment of Riches

  29Mar
  Categories: Friends, Me Comments: 0

  Seriously. Somehow (knock on wood) I have entered some wonderful period in my life where I am besieged by girlfriends of the most absolutely amazing sort.

  There’s Aaryn, of course, who I always go on and on about (but I surely can’t leave out here), who writes and takes photographs and often thinks the very same thoughts I’m thinking at the very same time. I love her so much it hurts a little bit. This is Aaryn in the freezer at Costco, posing under the cream cheese:

  

  Ohmygod she rocks my world.

  There is also Mary:

  

  who I hereafter dub Blonde-ish, at her request. Anyway, I met Mary Blondeish this winter at writing school, in my workshop. Not only is she just pure loveliness to look at, she is a fantastic writer, and an artful correspondent.

  As in: she writes letters. And such pretty ones:

  I came home from our visit to the States in February and a beautiful handmade valentine was in my postbox. We have been corresponding since, and I had forgotten how much I love to play with paper.

  And also? She effing rocks at Scrabble.

  I play Scrabble with Blondeish on Facebook, which is about the only thing I manage to do there. Facebook is weird to me because everything you do is someone else’s idea. There’s a great deal of “gift” sending and game-playing that I’ve tried to participate in but don’t really understand, and generally, I’d rather spend my surf time hanging round the blog-o-cooler.

   

  But there are good reasons to be on Facebook. Here’s one of them:

  

  That’s (sigh), Kristin. I have had a crush on Kristin for twenty years now. Every time I see the name Kristin, I think of her. I considered naming Babe-ish Kristin, because I love the name and because it reminded me of my long-lost friend. When I saw Gwenyth Paltrow in A Perfect Murder she looked so much like Kristin at 19 that I left the theater just absolutely aching.

  I met her at Mount Holyoke, where I went to college for two years before transferring back to UT Austin. I met her in my second year; she lived down the hall from me in the dorm. She was so cool—I was absolutely dying to be her friend. It felt to me like everyone wanted to be around her, to talk to her. She was a big presence: tall and blonde and usually talking loud about things she hoped you might find shocking or inappropriate. We’d be walking into the dining hall and she’d turn to me and shout something like, “And I told him, get your hand off my boob! And he was such an ass–he had the temerity to suggest I’d invited him to put it there.” And the whole room would get a bit quieter, hoping maybe to hear more. I’d laugh and later go back to my room and look up “temerity.”

  It was amazing to me that she wanted to be my friend. I have never been a popular girl, although in my adolescence I wished desperately to be so, and Kristin’s attentions were what I imagined popularity felt like. Only better.

  We used to go running together. I never could motivate to get out the door, but she would drag me out—and it was easier to go because I wanted to be with her. Then once we’d get going she’d want to quit after 20 minutes or so, and I would make us run further or harder than we’d planned. It was a good system, and by the end of that semester I was in fantastic shape. Like, such good shape that Kristin and I used to admire our naked asses in the full-length mirrors of the dorm bathroom. And go streaking with some regularity. But that’s another post.

  We were in love. Or as in love we could possibly be without some sort of sexual consummation. And it might’ve come to that if Kristin had ever made a pass at me. Or if I hadn’t left.

  I left Mount Holyoke in the middle of that year. At the time, I felt like I had reasons to go, but they sound rather silly if I try to articulate them now. As Christmas approached I remember lying on her bed in her room, brushing a strand of her silky blond hair behind her ear with my pinky as she smiled, so close I could kiss her. I thought, “What will I do when I can’t look at her face every day? What will I do when I can’t touch her hair?”

  I survived, as you can see. But I have regrets.

  Kristin and I found each other again, briefly, while I was in law school, and then lost touch again. After she’d gone I heard from an acquaintance that she had a daughter the same age as mine. I couldn’t find her, but a month or so ago she found me. On Facebook. She lives in Paris, and she’s bringing her girl to London in a month to visit us and I can’t wait. Our eight-year-old daughters have been emailing each other, and it’s so sweet I could just die. Kristin is coming to see me.

  And as if that wasn’t enough, there’s Shana, who I found this summer after losing her post high school. That’s an emotional saga that deserves its own post. She came to see me, too (and helped me bake a birthday cake, and sent me an amazing Christmas present). Here’s us playing paper:

  

  And NatDawg, an artist, new mother and soulmate of mine whose family just increased exponentially:

  

  Terese, who finally started blogging (check it out there’s a poem about me), and who I had such an amazing friendship with that they wrote a nationally-syndicated article about women’s friendship that featured us:

  

  That picture? Was like ¾ of a page in the L.A. Times.

  And then today, TODAY, I got an email from Martha, my best friend from 5th grade who I maintained contact with for years, but lost sometime in college.

  And stupid Deb. And artistic all-around genius Ann. And K-K-K-Katie, of c-c-c-course. And my sister, Sara, who is an absolute rock for me and stands a little apart from all my friends. For the record, she’s my Best Friend, and so I have to mention her here. Also, she’ll get pissed if I don’t.

  Do you see what I mean? It’s downright embarrassing. How did I get so lucky?