Dashing my dreams in Dayton

“You really have a way of getting people to spill their life stories,” Newfound Friend Number Two remarked while sitting in a Marriott Hotel lobby in Dayton, Ohio last week. This was in response to the rather innocuous question of why did you move from Colorado to Asheville? Her answer had everything to do with death and dying. She was caring for an aging-out-of-life parent and a spouse (whom she still loves, so no upside there) who has six months to live. As the conversation grew, so did my awe. I don't have a nurturing bone in my body, I confessed to this friend who was a stranger not ten minutes before.

“But you have three kids!” she scoffed. “Of course you're a nurturer.” 

 

Oh honey, if you only knew. 

 

Newfound Friend Number One shared the story of a brain injury her husband sustained at a construction site. Not an ultra-debilitating brain injury, but bad enough. It wasn't due to a fall from a collapsible scaffold. Nor was it a head-hit from an errant crane. It was an act of God. While hanging a bigger-than-life-sized crucifix, the cable snapped and down they went. She weeps a lot. I witnessed it. Not, she claims, because of her life but because of the HRT.

 

Newfound Friend Number Three who protected her loved ones from an in-house grizzly bear (for real, not a code word for a family member) by locking herself in the bathroom, resides in rural Virginia amongst a slew of less ferocious animals, and does a really impressive contortion of character when given a mic.

 

I watched the UConn vs Iowa women’s basketball semi-final with Number Four, a woman from Newtown, Connecticut. Yes, that Newtown. The one where the most heinous of humans slaughtered a school-full of children, forever scarring every single resident of the once obscure town. But before long we were connecting on a completely different level – laughing as we shared stories of our sordid youth and (lovingly) rolling our eyes about the youth we in turn had raised. 

 

Along came more and more Newfound Friends including the travel writer from Atlanta who apologized on behalf of her parents for gracing her with the name of a stripper; the proudly-confident, fluorescent-pink haired voice-over professional from Oregon; the Cincinnati mother who, against (almost) all odds, birthed an IUD baby – kept it, loved it, had two more; the trans man from Boston who self-deprecatingly laughed his way through the absurdity of his newfound body.

 

As well as author Anna Quindlen, actor Kathy Kinney, and slam poet Barbara Fant, I met a cat/dog (take your pick) woman with synesthesia (google it) who admitted that despite growing up in the same county as I, got the heebie-jeebies looking at my purple sweater with its big, bold orange flowers. There was the one who proposed to her spouse on Leap Day in the tail end of the last century (still married) and appeared on E. Jean Carroll’s talk show at the same time I was working at CNBC. I probably wrote the promo copy. I was sure I had bored the asymmetrical-haired woman from California with my Taylor Swift ticket acquisition story until she handed me a friendship bracelet (look up the TS / friendship bracelet correlation if you don’t inherently know this) adorned with four white beads: 

E   B   W   W

 

Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop

 

And that's where I was with my newfound friends. 

Last fall my Moth-winning, story-telling cousin, Karen, asked if I wanted to attend this event with her. I responded with a resounding YES, just as long as we can have separate rooms. You know, the sharing of snores, fans, and bathrooms can foil the best of friendships. 

 

Erma Bombeck has been my idol for as long as I can remember – I’ve read all of her books multiple times and at different stages of life beginning when I was a teenager torturer, right through to the years when I became a torturee.

 

I hate to think there’s anyone out there who hasn’t been touched by this incredible writer, but just in case…the upshot is that over a span of 30 years beginning in the mid-sixties, Erma wrote about life as a suburban housewife and mother back when it wasn’t in vogue to poke fun at those (including oneself) who chose that path. She was funny, smart, inspirational, cutting-edge, and oh, so profoundly human. 

 

For as long as I have professed to be a writer, I’ve been inspired by this plaque hanging above my desk: 

Gotta admit, I was nervous in the midst of these people. Sure I can write. I pen a blog and post it to Facebook, sweating it out as I count my likes. I can whip up a tear-jerker of a eulogy for someone I don't even know. I can get a kid into college with a killer essay (their moral issue, not mine). I can write ad copy for products I would never use, websites for sites I would never visit, birthday poems for those turning 21, 50, and hopefully 100 (my mother is currently 98.5 years old). But put me with some 400 random strangers, all of whom are legit writers, and my knees quake way worse than the tremor that hit my home state on day two of the conference. 

Even since my first piece was featured in the Oreland Sun back in second grade, I've dreamed of becoming a published author. (Note below the obvious reason for not aspiring to become a poet.)

Tommy got a brand new gun,

Let's go out and have some fun.

Christmas is a time of giving, 

And I'm so glad that I am living. 

When I attend my class reunions, which I always do, somewhere between "How many kids do you have?" and "Are your parents still alive?" comes the inevitable "Have you written your novel yet?"

I've written three. They're all incarcerated in my computer and will never see the light of day. 

I felt totally out of my league at this workshop, surrounded by so many masterful writers. Still, I got to my classes early, took copious notes, jotted down meaningful messages, and didn't play a single game of Words with Friends during any session. 

"So what was your biggest takeaway from the Erma Bombeck Writers' Workshop?" my friend texted upon my return. 

"I'll get back to you on that," I answered.

I've been mulling it over for a few days and finally saw that lightbulb icon flashing above my head. 

I didn't learn a thing about sentence structure or grammar nor did I figure out what a dangling participle is. But I did learn something way more important. 

It's okay if we're not the exact version of the writer we dreamed of becoming our whole live-long lives. It's okay and perhaps even necessary to pirouette, to pivot, to rewrite our goals.

And if we cut ourselves a break and stick with what we do best then maybe, just maybe, when we meet our maker, whoever he, she, they, or it turns out to be -- we will finally find peace within our prowess. If our words touched even one single soul, stirred one heart, changed one perspective, or made one human smile, then we have done what we were put on this earth to do. Even if we're not the most published, the most popular, or the most talked about writer in the history of the world.

I learned that as we bumble our way through to the pinnacle of our pens, not to get stuck on the I'll never be and the I wish I were voices running rampant in our heads, but rather to embrace the I am. I AM a writer and so are all those newfound friends of mine. We are witty, weird, wacky, wordy, whimsical, wayward, wise, and wonderful writers. 

However we craft our words, whether it be in the form of a novel, a poem, a podcast, a Moth story, an essay, a memoir, a speech, a Substack, a news article, an ad campaign, a TikTok, or a blog born while sipping bourbon in a hotel bar, we all have the power to make the world a better place.

And that, my friends is quite a gift.

Hello Mary Lu

I lost Mary Lu somewhere in the shuffle of life. 

 

But forever etched in my mind is the image of her laughing, dancing and toasting my happiness at my wedding almost 35 years ago.

 

“I told you that you’d get what you always wanted,” she said. 

Mary Lu and I met when we were both working at TV Guide magazine. With its intense deadlines, surges of stress followed by incongruous down time, infuriating computer crashes, and long hours legitimizing a short four-day work week, it was the kind of job that artfully converted co-workers into the best of buddies. Most of us were young and single and bonded over the kind of fun you can only have in your 20s. 

 

Mary Lu and I were fun-chasers to the nth degree. 

 

TV Guide believed itself so essential to life in the 80s that whenever it snowed we were put up at a hotel around the corner from the office. Not for our personal safety of course, but as assurance that we wouldn’t use icy streets as an excuse to miss work the following day. The mere possibility of a printing delay was the only justification Walter Annenberg needed to pick up the hefty tab that we ran up while eating, drinking and canoodling at the St. David’s Inn. Mary Lu and I loved those snowy nights, bellying up to the bar long after our co-workers bedded down for the night, sipping our vodka tonics, flirting with out-of-town salesmen who swore they weren’t married and sharing the dreams of our future selves. 

 

Mary Lu was the kind of person who brought out my wild and crazy side. Not that I have ever needed external encouragement – but when adventure offers its hand I rarely think twice. I just reach out and then hold on for dear life. Beyond our snowy escapades, we spent many a night searching for love in all the right places with all the wrong people. We circled Philadelphia and its suburbs, frequenting night clubs and parties, laughing, dancing, sharing nachos at Bennigan’s and hot dogs at Phillies games. 

 

But Mary Lu was so much more than fluff and fun. Her heart was pure gold with a soul to match. She lived with her parents and a bunch of siblings who rotated in and out of the house. No family member, and possibly no one in the world was more important to her than her mentally-disabled brother, Sean. After her parents died, she became his primary caregiver, though one might argue that she always had been.  

 

Mary Lu believed in me at a time in my life when there really wasn’t a whole lot to believe in. I wanted more than anything to grow up, get married, produce a slew of children and replicate my childhood. It may be chuckle-able now, but when I was in my late 20s I was pretty positive that I had already reached the pinnacle of my life.

 

But Mary Lu was the yang to my yin, promising that I’d end up not only successful, but married with multiple children, driving a minivan, walking a Labrador retriever and owning a house with a white picket fence. I merely rolled my eyes. 

 

Until in a simple twist of matchmaking fate, one of those best of buddies at TV Guide magazine became a boyfriend. Then an ever-loving spouse. Then the father to my children – three of them. Minivan, owned it, drove it, traded it in for a second one. Fence? While it isn’t white, its six-foot high pickets restrained first a black mutt, then our current yellow Lab.  Successful? As long as that term is defined as living in layers of love surrounded by friends and fun rather than fame and fortune, then yup, she nailed it all around. 

 

When I was 31 years old, I left TV Guide, got married, moved to New Jersey and never saw Mary Lu again. 

 

But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. 

 

Life was hard In the olden days. There was no whipping off of fast texts, no tapping quick “likes” on Instagram posts and no such thing as email. We relied heavily on the telephone, despite its downfalls. We had to pay for long-distance, parents were prone to answering the phone, often wanting to (gulp) chat and pesky siblings loved to delete answering machine messages before they reached their intended.  

 

So I did the old-fashioned thing and wrote actual letters to Mary Lu. OK. I’ll admit, I only sent two, but still – they both were met with radio silence. 

 

Fast forward to the modern era. Somehow she had circumvented social media. A less obsessive human would have given up but there was something about Mary Lu that I couldn’t let go of. 

 

I am not a particularly religious person, but rather more of a better-safe-than-sorry sort. I sit by my ever-loving spouse’s side at church on Sundays, provoking bored children with funny faces and doodling on the weekly bulletin in the margins next to the Lord’s Prayer. But this year I decided to do join the holier-than-whatever I am contingent and do something for Lent. 

 

Friends have always been the cornerstone of my life and I pride myself in keeping them for a life time. But a few, like Mary Lu, had fallen through the cracks. So for the 40 days of Lent, which I learned because of you know, my Excel sheet, is actually 46 days (go ahead and count) I vowed to make contact with someone I’d neglected, rejected or lost along the way. 

 

And down the rabbit hole I went. 

  

While I’m not big on rejection, when it comes to the making and keeping of friends, that word left my vocabulary in middle school. I simply don’t take no for an answer. When I recently googled Mary Lu’s name, my screen lit up with several Mary Lou’s including one from Tasmania, a singer-songwriter, an author and an obituary. But no Mary Lu. Clearly, the  missing o makes all the difference.

 

I then went on whitepages.com and it showed the same address that had yielded no response thirty odd years ago. Yet there was a new clue. It revealed another name at the same address. A husband, a son? I found him on Facebook and messaged him. I got a response a couple of weeks later asking who I was, how I knew her, and quizzed me on her maiden name. I had all the right answers and convinced him that I was not a stalker by giving him my phone number and email address. 

 

It worked. 

 

I really didn’t know if I’d recognize her after a 35-year hiatus when we planned to meet for lunch at Miller’s Ale House at Plymouth Meeting Mall. The restaurant was on a corner so there were choices – left lot, right lot, front lot. I pulled in two minutes late due to a long traffic light, reached over to my passenger seat to gather my goods, looked up and in a serendipitous nod from the goddess of friend-finding, there she was. She had pulled into the very spot that was right next to mine. 

 

It took no less than a split second to know it was her. 

 

And when we took our seats in a booth at the restaurant, the first thing she asked was, “So, tell me – did you have the five kids?”

 

When two hours I left to go visit my 98-year-old mother, I did so reluctantly, realizing there hadn’t been a single second of that dreaded lull in conversation. We filled in the gaps of our aging minds, sparking memories of people and places and wondering how we ended up not only alive, but happy and somehow, still friends. We had just barely touched on the titillations and tribulations of our lives when we said our goodbyes. There was so much more to go.

 

But luckily, we have a ways to go. Neither one of us is planning on checking out any time soon. I know that we’ll stay in touch and we’ll see each other again and again. In our newfound old friendship we won’t be bellying up to the bar, but we will be in constant awe of how we got where we are and how we got what we got.

  

It’s a wonderful life, indeed. 

The Making of a Mother

                                       

“Exactly 32 years ago, you were ABOUT TO BECOME A MOTHER!” the daughter texted me last night. “What are your reflections on your performance so far?”

I sat with that one for a minute.

 

My water broke on a Saturday morning, a week before my due date, a day before her eventual birth. I called my doctor who said to wait a couple of hours (finishing up the back nine?) and to meet him at the hospital in the afternoon. 

I know I was nervous. But I also knew that I had a better chance of being a good copywriter than being a good mother, so did what any model employee would have done. I drove the two miles up the hill to CNBC, dropped off copy for a brochure and left notes for all my friends and bosses on their desks apologizing that I wouldn't be in on Monday. Then I came home, grabbed my overnight bag (with a baby-sized baseball uniform for the son I was convinced I was having) and, along with my ever-loving spouse, headed to the hospital. 

 

Thirty some hours later, the daughter was born by c-section. I called my sister who was pregnant with number two and had had number one surgically removed a year and a half earlier. 

 

“I don’t know why EVERYONE doesn’t request a caesarian!” I gushed from the recovery room. “I  feel great.”

 

“Wait until tomorrow,” was all she said.

 

She was right. That belly slice pain, especially if I had to cough, or poop, or feed a baby or talk on the phone or lean to the right, lean to the left, was well ... suffice it to say, I felt every tug on every stitch and deep beyond into my womb.

 

But that proved to be the least of my parenting pains.

 

The daughter was perfect for the first week. She was adorable, alert, ate well, slept well, was oh, so smart, and she let anyone hold her without a single fuss. Our apartment was filled with flowers and food and friends and we were boiling over with love. 

 

Week two was when it hit hard: life as we knew it was gone for good.

 

That perfect daughter picked up a case of colic that lasted an eternity. She cried every night for hours and hours and hours and then more hours. In the midst of this brutal betrayal, we had planned to drive to Philadelphia to introduce our darling to a group of our besties. I argued that it wasn’t fair to our still childless friends to bring such a loud and obnoxious thing into their home. 

“Oh, she’ll be fine,” the ever-loving father said. 

 

And once again, he was right. She was delightful. Somehow, that month old daughter inherently knew how to work the room.

 

And that’s kind of how it’s been for the past 32 years. She tested her mother, mesmerized her father, tortured her brothers, and totally enchanted the rest of the world. 

 

We went on to create two more kids in rapid succession which resulted in the kind of chaos I still can’t believe I survived. I continued working part time until the youngest was three and a half and the creative services department at CNBC was dissolved. I wholeheartedly believed I could have a lucrative freelance career working from home while raising three young children. 

 

As the ever-working spouse worked ever-longer hours, the under-working me was completely and utterly overwhelmed. Yet we plodded along.

 

The Lion King which played on a perpetual loop in the basement eventually morphed into mommy and me classes, swim lessons, dance classes, soccer games and ice hockey tournaments. There was Sunday school, summer camp, cheerleading competitions, basketball games and football combines. Baseball, baseball, and more baseball. We drove in the old minivan to vacation spots in pretty places (scheduled around sports of course). With my friend and savior, Claire, at my side, we became PTA presidents and the motivating mothers behind every sports team in town. I spent and hours and hours driving kids around, feeding strays, turning a blind eye to things they thought I didn’t see, sitting on rain-splashed bleachers, helping friends of friends of friends with college essays and offering refuge on our basement couch to those who needed it.

 

I battled through without ever once, not even for a split second, thinking that I had mastered this mothering thing. 

 

But when the daughter asked for a self-evaluation of my parenting skills, I thought about how far we've come. All three of my kids are now launched, out in the world, doing good things. They are honest, responsible and kind humans who are well loved and (mostly) do the right thing.

“I think in my early years my performance was sketchy," I responded. "But the overall rating is an A+, because well, look at what you’ve become”

 

I then thought about last August when the daughter and I went to Los Angeles together to see Taylor Swift . She told me I had to dress up in concert garb which we both knew was way beyond my capabilities. And so I comprised and wore a T-shirt with the title of one of Taylor's songs on it: 

this is me trying

There's so much I should have done but didn't. I spewed words in rage that I'll forever regret and left unsaid things that could have made all the difference. I should have taken more deep breaths and offered less bribes. Worried less about mess and more about fun. (Though this is my solemn vow, I will never, not even with grandchildren whom I will undoubtedly adore, ever allow finger painting or grape popsicles inside my house).

I could have said yes when I said no and should have said no when yes made it easier for me. I could go on and on with my coulda, shoulda, woulda. 

All that aside, I know that I always, always tried. 

And now, thirty-two years into this journey, I can say with confidence that sometimes simply trying ends up yielding pretty good results. 

 

Happy Birthday, to the beautiful daughter who made me a mother. 

All You Need is Love

Despite a life bursting with love, I have never been a fan of Valentine's Day. 

 

I love chocolate, I love flowers, I love being loved. But because my birthday falls five days prior to this heart-filled holiday, come February 14th my bouquet is still blooming and the feels are still feeling and I don't really need anything more. Though I would always accept more chocolate, as long as it’s not defiled with nuts or fruit or unidentifiable fillings. 

 

I have a spouse who, no matter what I do, will always love me and will never leave me. He may not understand the way I load the dishwasher, but has learned to simply rearrange the plates and bowls rather than battling it out. I don't take too much offense; after all, he's the one who does the unloading. 

 

I have three children who adore me now that they now longer live with me. I have the friends of those three children who still send me Happy Mother's Day texts filled with love and thanks for all that baked ziti (not to mention those bottles of Hennessy). I have friendships I’ve maintained since I was four years old, high school pals, college cronies, Hearts friends, Mahjong friends, TV Guide and CNBC friends, Teaneck friends, bleacher buddies, mermaid friends, church, cruise and book club allies and even Facebook friends of friends I’ve never met. I have unconditional love from a dog whom I try to hate, but as his hips get sorer and his anxiety heightens, I realize he’s not so unlike myself and my heart softens.

 

I have a kind and loving 98 year-old mother, a perfect niece and nephew, a crew of cousins (once, twice or never removed) and three sisters with whom I'm very close. Sure, we’ve had our moments, like when I physically accosted one of the older sisters in an adolescent fit of rage or tortured the younger about the dancing dress that lived in her childhood closet. But I’ve always known they’ve loved me in spite of myself. There was never a time in our lives when anyone in our family didn’t speak, nor did we ever cringe at the thought of being together. Well, at least I didn’t. Who knows what was going on in their heads.  

 

Of all my many shortcomings, I certainly do not lack for love. 

 

So why can't I embrace this lovingest of holidays?

 

My deep-seated disdain stems from way back when – the years between the all-inclusive Snoopy valentines of elementary school until the day when I finally had a valentine to call my own. Those were long and lonely years despite the ever-present love in my life. My first and only true valentine was delivered when I was 28 years old and I've held him close ever since. 

 

The bar for love was set pretty high in my house. My father proposed to my mother on the night they met. She scoffed him off, yet they were married three months later. They produced four daughters in rapid succession and loved each other madly until the day my father died. An occasional slam of a kitchen cabinet was the extent of the parental discord we witnessed while growing up. Through the years as we each asked that age-old question,“How did you know he was the one?” my mother’s eyes would fill with tears and she’d say, “Oh, honey, when you know, you know.”

 

I never got anywhere near knowing. Until of course, I knew. 

 

But until I knew, there were a lot of long, hard years to navigate. 

I belted out Janis Ian lyrics in those Valentine's Days of lore, knowing for sure I'd never know love. But I had hope. I wrote entries in my journal stating why I would be a perfect girlfriend, I chose names for my unborn children and picked the song to which I would dance at my future wedding. Every one of my friends, EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. (which was far from the truth) had a significant other. Meanwhile I was just praying that the guy on the bar stool next to me would at least ask my name. 

     "I learned the truth at seventeen

That love was meant for beauty queens

And high school girls with clear-skinned smiles

Who married young and then retired

The valentines I never knew

The Friday night charades of youth

Were spent on one more beautiful..."

But miraculously, every year Valentine’s Day turned to St. Patrick’s Day and being unlucky in love is somehow a whole lot easier when you’re dressed in green. 

 

All I ever wanted out of life was a happy marriage filled with children, to become a famous author and to have as much fun as humanly possible. I didn't think it was asking for much, but age and wisdom has taught me otherwise. Having fulfilled two of those three dreams actually makes for a pretty perfect life. 

Today as I woke to scores of loving wishes from family and friends, I recoiled. But then I reconsidered. I have been so very lucky in my life that I decided to come at Valentine's Day from a place of love and to bestow loving wishes of my own. 

 

To all my friends who are alone, whether by choice or circumstance, my wish is that you always love your life, no matter who is or isn't by your side. That you don't pile all your hopes and dreams into finding that perfect partner, because a partner ain’t nothing if you don’t have yourself. 

 

To all those who are in a relationship with someone you shouldn't be with, I hope that you find the strength to leave, and to take time to recreate your happiness. You may not believe it, but being alone is better than being with someone who makes you lonely. 

 

Most importantly to my children, each of whom are in different chapters in the book of love, I hope that we as parents have done enough. That we have taught you how important it is to wait for the right one. That you have learned that the wrong one will never be right no matter how hard you wish it to be so. Don’t waste a single moment on someone who doesn’t recognize your value. 

 

And if your life doesn’t give you the he she or they of your dreams, know that you will never be alone. You will always be loved. By your family, your siblings, your abundance of friends. And if you also love yourself, that will always be enough. 

 

Life is long. Life is fun. Life is love. 

Happy Valentine’s Day to all the loves of my life! 

Especially to those who, like me, love to hate this highest of holy love days. 

. 

The Stuff Legends Are Made Of

 

My three sisters and I grew up perched beneath the pedestal listening to our larger-than-life father retell story after story. So many of his narratives revolved around his athletic prowess which amused, impressed and made us ever-determined to chase sports dreams of our own. 

 

Of course back then, Title IX was in its infancy and there were no Olivia Dunne’s making millions off of NIL deals. And so, our lofty aspirations hit the ceiling with landing a spot on the high school team.

 

My father, George, was a standout athlete at Ambler High School, as was well documented by many varsity letters and a scrapbook filled with news clippings from the Ambler Gazette and the Philadelphia Bulletin. One of his favorite tales to tell was when he broke his nose playing basketball. He delighted in the fact that he bled all over the brand new gymnasium floor at Springfield High School but refused to come off the court. Because of course in those days, you didn’t have to. 

 

My father was captain of the basketball, football and baseball teams and went on to play baseball and football at Dartmouth College. There was the story that ended with him kicking his helmet into the stands and another had him playing baseball against George Bush the elder – who was then nothing but another George – once the Georges had returned to their respective colleges after the war. 

 

In his grown-up years, my father was an avid, year-round, weekend golfer, taking off only when the greens were covered with snow – and on Christmas – the one day of the year my mother prohibited him from playing. Over the course of 50-plus years on the links, he boasted three holes-in-one. Whether it was luck, skill or cosmic alignment, it still looks good on the resume.  

 

Having never spawned that coveted son, his four girls were raised to watch, play and care deeply about sports. We banged tennis balls against the back of the house, hit plastic golf balls across the front yard, jogged with the dog around the block, shot baskets in the driveway, swung at a tether ball hanging from a tree in the woods, played four square on the street, ping pong in the basement, and softball for the Wildcats, a team coached by none other than my father. We consistently watched the Phillies, the Sixers, the Eagles and every golf tournament that was ever televised. In high school I played lacrosse and field hockey and even played in college for one full week. 

 

Beyond playing softball with the financially-famous Ron Insana and David Faber when we all worked at CNBC, and infamously striking out Bianca Jagger (yes, that Jagger) at my ever-loving spouse’s company softball game, I hadn’t played an organized sport in decades. Unless recovering from hip and knee replacements or sidelined with other surgeries, I have always walked, bicycled and dabbled in heart-pumping cardio conditioning at the local gym. But other than being Apple watch fitness buddies with my sister, daughter, niece, and friend Ann, I hadn’t  competed with anyone but myself in a long, long time. 

Though I was internally hesitant last summer when my friend, Robin, asked if I wanted to round out her pickleball foursome, I responded with a resounding YES! After all, I was an athlete. How hard could it be? 

 

I loved the game immediately and thought I was oh, so good. I could land a serve into that far back corner, keeping it in bounds by mere centimeters, most of the time. I was able to hit the ball out of the air, and go back-and-forth, back-and-forth, until the other team slammed it over my head. I could often keep the score straight and loved watching my heart rate rise on my aforementioned watch.

 

We were taught the basics by Rita, a patient and knowledgeable coach who went on to become a favored off-the-court chum. We played outdoors until the temperatures plummeted and Rita encouraged us to seek out an indoor facility. Playing with random strangers in a weather-controlled environment would surely help us reach our pickleball potential.

 

Robin and I found a place to pickle and we headed with confidence to bergenpickleballzone, signing up for Low-intermediate Open Play, where 18 people rotate in and out of games for an hour-and-a-half. We clearly weren’t beginners – after all, we had played at Overpeck Park a good fifteen times – so figured Low-intermediate was exactly where we belonged. If we proved to be too advanced for the rest of the group, we’d humbly move to a higher level. 

 

With my brand new paddle in hand – a very fun and fashionable one, I might add – I strutted my way onto the court. It didn’t take long before the eye rolls and loud sighs confirmed that I was definitely not where I was supposed to be. Suffice it to say that those sighs and eye rolls were not in response to perfectly executed spin shots or awesomely extended volleys. 

It took me a couple of weeks to muster up the courage to return. But when I did, I signed up for a string of instructive clinics run by the very accomplished, not to mention supportive and adorably lovely Cindy. One of her gifts is being able to divvy us up into groups without the less-skilled realizing they’d been teamed with the even lesser-than skilled. Her classes gave me the courage to sign up for another open play session. But I’m no masochist, so this time I joined the beginners. And while I was clearly not one of the top players, even my self-deprecating self admitted I was not the absolute worst.  

 

Still, I internally reeled. “How can I be so bad at this? I’m an athlete!” 

 

To which my past responded, “Or are you?”

 

And so I looked at my life through the lens of hindsight. It’s a full truth that as a high school hockey goalie I prayed that the ball stay on the other half of the field way harder than I ever prayed when lying on a gurney awaiting my double mastectomy. Full disclosure, when I was Junior Junior (not even Junior) Golf Champion that summer, it was because there were only two other kids in the tournament and one of them forfeited. And I have to confess, the reason I didn’t play basketball had nothing to do with being too short, but rather being too short of breath running those suicide sprints. 

 

Putting aside my past, my genes, my pride, I’m determined to keep pickling as long as my limbs allow. I’ll play with the best and worst of them – those who have inflated egos or deflated senses of self, those who were former tennis players or are current bake-off champions, those who roll their eyes when I swing and miss and those who laugh at themselves when they do the same. 

I may not be the stuff legends are made of, but the fact is, I am who I am . And who I am became abundantly clear when I paid my monthly membership dues, unabashedly clicking the Senior Discount button. 

 

 

What's that word ...?

 “Decoy!” I texted my friend Assunta. “The word is decoy.” 

This was a while ago, back when Taylor Swift attended her first Kansas City Chiefs’ game. I was somewhat surprised to be having this conversation because most well-adjusted people my age don’t engage in speculation about the rich and famous whom we will never, ever meet nor should ever, ever profess to know. I’ve always considered Assunta well-adjusted. She was the daughter’s middle-school Creative Writing teacher, is married to a musician (not of pop star ilk), and is a member of my cerebral book club. So, a two-sided Taylor Swift conversation with one of the aforementioned cerebrals was an unexpected treat. 

 

The banter had to do with Matty Healy (IYKYK) and whether that relationship was real or “what’s the word – you know when you do something to throw someone off track?” 

 

I looked at her, baffled. After all, she was the English teacher. I was just the writer. 

 

“You know what I mean, when it’s not real, like you're trying to divert attention.”

 

I knew exactly what she meant but had no idea what the word was.

 

But I eventually remembered. 

Decoy.

 

Back in the day when child-rearing was all consuming and I consistently had ten thousand things swirling through my mind – who gets picked up from practice at 6 pm, when are parent-teacher conferences, where is the away baseball game, who needs poster board for a science project, when is the first college essay due, whose birthday is tomorrow — I kept an excel sheet. Color-coded. Of course that didn’t help unless I had the document right in front of me.

 

So, so, so many times I’d bolt out of the car after a pick-up or a drop-off or a circular journey around town hooked on a particular task that needed immediate tasking.  It was usually nothing terribly earth shattering – rather something along the lines of tick medication that I was already two months behind in administering. I’d put “tick, tick, tick” on repeat but by the time I hit the kitchen, the tick had tocked and a thousand other thoughts had taken precedence. I knew there was something I was forgetting, but couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was. 

 

Much later, after opening a kitchen cabinet, I would find the tick meds stashed next to (if not on top of) the Fiestaware and would thump my palm to my forehead, “Duh. That’s what it was. The dog.” 

 

When I commiserated with my mother she answered with a smile that said, clear as day, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

 

All too often I’ll get something in my head that I absolutely must have. Like NOW. But by the time I click into Amazon, I have zero memory of what was essential just moments earlier. Which is why I end up with seven new items on my porch the following day. Same thing with social media. A particular person will pop into my mind and I think – hmm, I wonder if they’re home from vacation yet? I’ll go to check their page and poof – the very essence of that individual has completely disappeared, sending me off to look up random elementary school friends instead. 

 

I have a zillion note pads and sticky notes within a pen’s reach at all times. In the car, at my desk, on the kitchen table, next to the TV, on my bedside table, even in the bathroom. I’ve tried eco-consciously typing into my phone, but it’s too hard to remember where I put my reminder. On any given day I might stash it in Notes, put it on a voice message or in a text sent to myself. Not that I don’t forget where that scrap of paper went, but it usually resurfaces – in the pocket of my jeans, in a random desk drawer or crumpled in my cross-body bag along with my Amazon returns receipts – and always enough days, weeks or months later that I wonder why it was ever something I needed to write down in the first place.

 

I can deal with the brain blips. But it’s the evaporating words – the words that are the way I make my (meager as it may be) living, the way I make my friends (and enemies) the way I process my neuroses and the way I save myself from total implosion – that cause me the most pain. And because I am of a certain age, I’m constantly wondering if younger others are scrutinizing me even more closely, looking for signs of my imminent demise. 

 

I rely heavily on my thesaurus and have been known to google “what’s the word for when you forget words” only to get a response like this: 

When this happens, language scientists use the terms "anomia" or "anomic aphasia" to describe the condition, which can be associated with brain damage due to stroke, tumors, head injury or dementia such as Alzheimer's disease. 

And so I keep googling until I get a less dire diagnosis.

If the inability to recall words, phrases, or names is a temporary but debilitating disorder it is known as lethologica.

Not that I'll remember, but it's nice to know there's a word for it. 

I thought when I lost my mind I’d have no idea what a particular item is. Like I would wonder why it’s in my house and for what purpose. Instead, I can describe the object to a T (tee?). It’s that thing that I spend half my day in front of, you know the machine that turns my thoughts into words, that brings out the arthritis in my fingers, that houses my bank accounts, blogs, Christmas present lists, phone numbers, recipes, you know – that thing that sits on my desk. 

 

You mean your computer?” my 98 year-old mother responded.

 

I try to keep my mind sharp by playing multiple word games a day. Though, believe me, I know the real word for that – procrastination. I play Words with Friends, Boggle, Word Wipe, Spelling Bee, Wordle, the maxi and the mini New York Times Crossword puzzle every day. The NYT crosswords get more difficult as the week progresses. I can only finish Monday and Tuesday puzzles without help – though every now and then I can get through a Wednesday. To enhance my doing of nothing, I’ve started on the crossword archives. Just today while doing an April of 2020 (Monday) puzzle, the clue read “Band on the Run” band. I know this. I know it is Paul McCartney. And his now deceased wife, Linda. It’s not some obscure rapper or new-to-the-scene rocker. I lived this era. I saw them in concert. But couldn’t for the life of me pull the name of the band out of the recesses of my brain. 

 

“If I’m like this now, what’s it going to be like when I’m your age?” I moaned to my mama.

 

“Who are you again?” she asked. 

 

“I forget,” I answered. 

 

The difference being, she was kidding. 

A Different Sort of College Reunion

 “Did I ever tell you the story about (fill in the blank)…” I begin.

“Yeah, you did,” comes the quick response. 

 

And yet, I forge ahead and retell my tale. I see the eye rolls, I really do. But in my heart I believe some stories are worth telling more than once. Or twice. Or three times. 

 

Such as this serendipitous story of a friendship that almost didn’t happen.

 

When the daughter left for her freshman year at the University of North Carolina, the ever-loving spouse and I dropped her off, danced a little freedom jig and drove the old minivan 500 miles home to experience life with a mere two kids at home. 

 

A few weeks later the daughter called to ask if we’d be coming for Parents’ Weekend. ALL her friends’ parents would be there and I would definitely LOVE them. Naturally, she had already connected with all of them, and noted that she was the ONLY one whose parents had yet to take them all out for dinner. I somewhat doubted the accuracy of that statement (after all, she’s my daughter … plus the fact that one friend hailed from Denver, one from Cleveland, one from the western wings of New Jersey and one from Asheville – which though closer -- was still a good 225 miles from campus).

 

“Absolutely not,” I answered maybe a little too quickly. My entire life's purpose has always been to make and keep as many friends as I possibly can, but I just wasn’t feeling it this time. Maybe it was that I had just been diagnosed with breast cancer or perhaps I’d simply aged out of my need to befriend people who would only be in my life for four short years.  

 

I did visit once that year (not on parents’ weekend) and listened with half an ear to how great all the parents were, along with declarations that I would regret not getting to know them. 

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

Sophomore year, I drove the daughter back to school with the old minivan chock full of uber-important possessions and lugged box after box up to the second-floor bedroom while the daughter took multiple hug-breaks with friends she hadn’t seen for oh so long.   

 

And that's when I met the parents. 

 

“I told you,” the daughter texted me under the table at a group dinner that night.

 

“You’ve got to come meet Sandra and Stephen!” Carla, the Denver girl’s mother proclaimed. “They live on Franklin Street.” 

 

“Who are Sandra and Stephen and why would I want to meet them?” I asked, thinking, here we go again.

 

Sandra and Stephen are pillars of the Chapel Hill community, not to mention alumni, sports enthusiasts, cheerleaders and, hands down, the warmest and most welcoming people I have ever met. But at this point, it was just hearsay. I hadn’t yet met them.

 

The story of Sandra and Stephen began when Lauren and her parents were flying from Denver to Chapel Hill freshman year. At the gate, a chirpy blond-haired woman befriended them, surmising that Lauren was heading to UNC for college.

 

Sandra and Stephen were in Denver visiting their grown son and his family and were returning home to Chapel Hill on the same flight. 

 

“Call us,” Sandra said, handing Lauren her number. “We’ll be your surrogate grandparents while you’re in college.”

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

But there was something about Sandra and Stephen that warranted that first call. And the second. And the hundredth. 

 

Sandra and Stephen live in a big, beautiful house on the main street of town, an easy walk from campus. And because they are the warmest, most welcoming people in the world, they opened their home to all of us parents, inviting us to stay there, singly or en masse, whenever we were visiting our children. I mean, who does that? 

 

For the rest of their college days, the five girls and the parents (me included) scheduled yearly weekend visits at the same time so we could all hang out – Sandra and Stephen’s serving as home base and party central. 

 

I often think that as much as I loved my parents, when I was in college, they and their friends were the last people I would want to spend a weekend with. But times have changed and clearly we are way cooler than our parents could have ever hoped to be. These girls are either really good actors or actually enjoy hanging out with us.

 

And just like that, it was graduation day. We rented out Sutton’s, the iconic Franklin Street drug store / eaterie, which features photos of the likes of Michael Jordan (and our daughters!) hanging from the ceiling. One of the fathers surprised us all by hiring the Clef Hangers, UNC’s renowned a capella group, to serenade us with their songs like Pharrell’s Happy, making us weep.

 

We wept with joy, pride and yes, sadness. Because it was over. That beautiful four-year (or as I’m always reminded, in my case three) unique, intergenerational friendship. We knew the girls would always be friends, there’s something about consuming kegs worth of beer that seals the deal. After all, I still get together with my freshman friends, almost half a century later. But the parents, would we really keep our vows to keep the embers burning? Would we ever go back to Chapel Hill? Would we attend the girls’ weddings? Would we know their babies? 

 

Yes. Yes. Yes, And yes. 

 

Since their graduation in 2014 we’ve gotten together almost every year – mostly in Chapel Hill, though we did deviate for Julie and Joe’s wedding in Asheville and Lauren and Rob’s in Denver. And yes, we love the significant others as much as we love the girls, well.. almost as much. But when 2022 came and went without a full-out reunion and we were well into 2023, we knew we had to make it happen. It would be so easy to allow bulging bellies, newborn babies, plummeting back accounts, stressful jobs, over-extended travel budgets, and just plain, old, ordinary busy lives to serve as perfectly appropriate excuses. And before long it would be another year, then a decade, then two and our Chapel Hill friendship that is so uniquely wonderful would be marked merely by holiday greetings, occasional zoom calls and texts with multiple emojis that would ebb and flow over the rest of our lives. 

 

Or, we could just not take no for an answer.

 

Two weekends ago, nineteen of us reunited at UNC. The “kids” who are now 31 year-old adults, along with their spouses, a soon-to-be-spouse, the six-month-old Tate and 22-month-old Theo got dibs on Sandra and Stephen’s house and the parents were relegated to a local hotel. 

 

We ate, we drank, we did trivia, we visited the old stomping grounds, we watched the Heels suffer their first football loss of the season. We celebrated Sandra’s milestone birthday, the birth of the boys, the new baby brewing, but most of all, we celebrated 13 years of friendship (12 in my case, because well, you know…). A friendship that almost didn’t happen. A friendship that could so easily slide into a fond memory. A friendship that reminds us of what we learned long ago in Sunday School, or less long ago during Pi Phi initiation, or just from long years of living: 

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; 

for by this some have entertained angels unawares.