What Makes You Happy?

It’s the kind of question that’s easy to answer when you’re two-and-a-half sheets to the wind, sitting around a fire pit at The Carolina Inn on a 70-degree October night with your daughter, her four college roommates and parental representatives from each of the five families. It’s not a tough question to answer when you’ve spent the weekend with these five girls who, now in their fourth year out of school, may prefer to be called young women, but somehow you just can’t believe they, or you, are that old. And when you look around at the future in their faces and know you’re always going to be a part of each and every one of their lives, the question kind of answers itself.

But, Tom asked it anyway because, in the absence of the ultimate thought-provoking question-asker, Dan, he was the most likely to get a good discussion going.

While celebrating at the iconic Sutton’s Drug Store on the night of our daughters’ graduations back in 2014, we vowed that we parents would also keep our friendship going, committing to a yearly reunion in Chapel Hill. I was the first to do the pinky swear, but secretly questioned the likelihood of fifteen of us coming from far-flung places like New Jersey, Cleveland, Denver, DC, Knoxville, Chicago, Asheville, Columbus, Atlanta or New Orleans for the sole purpose of trying to keep a parent-child college fromance alive. I’ve made a lot of empty promises over a bottle of bourbon in my life and though this one sounded good, I highly doubted it would come to pass.

But it did. A lot of factors motivated us back to the University of North Carolina, not least of which were Sandra and Stephen. Tried and true Tar Heels, Sandra and Stephen had returned to Chapel Hill in their retirement and serendipitously cemented our group even before the rest of us had met. Lauren and her parents made small talk in the airport with a nice couple who were returning home after visiting their son in Denver. It was one of those “You’re going to love UNC!” “Here, take our number!” conversations that you can either follow up with or forget. Sandra and Stephen ended up serving as surrogate grandparents for the girls and innkeepers for the parents, housing ten or more of us on any given weekend. They became the heart and soul of our Chapel Hill family.

This was our fourth formal fall reunion. Some years we hang out with lots of the girls’ friends who have since become our friends because really, who wouldn’t want to be friends with us? Some years some parent is playing golf in Naples or covering the Bridgegate trial or hosting a fundraiser or forgot to add the weekend to the Travel Budget. But, regardless of who comes, every year we have a private party at Sutton’s, stroll the brick-pathed campus, savor a BLT from Merritt’s and revel in the realization that there’s really something quite special about what we do.

“So, what makes you happy?” Tom asked as we sat around the fire pit at The Carolina Inn on Saturday night.

Lauren is happy when she’s around her family, which is not surprising considering how happy Joe and Carla are to be around her. She is happy that she found a rewarding career and a job that makes a difference. She’s happy being with her friends. And the King of England.

What makes Molly happy are meaningful relationships. Good conversation. And sunshine.

Jenny, is happy with her wine. She finds joy in doing a job that’s important. A job that will become infinitely more important as she begins delivering babies next year. And true happiness would surely stem from delivering the babies of her very best friends.  

Julianne is happy when she’s good with herself. When she can do what she does just because it’s who she is. And, it makes her happy when the people she loves are down with that. Music and friends are what make her heart sing.

Julie’s happiness comes when she’s doing something helpful. It doesn’t have to be world-changing. It can just be a simple act of kindness. Like holding the door for someone. Or loving her husband. Her family. And her friends.

Wendi, who was not one of the five roommates but was with us for the evening and the source of my yet-to-be proclaimed proclamation finds herself happy when she meets people where they are. Not where the world wants them to be.

Joe is happy. Unassumingly happy. He doesn’t need a lot. He’s got his wife, Carla. He’s got his three kids. He’s got his grandchild. He’s just happy being happy.

Carla is happy with Joe. Really happy. She’s happy with her kids. She’s happy when she travels. So happy, in fact, that she actually has something called a yearly Travel Budget.

Sally gets her happiness from running. Working out. Endorphins. From coffee and wine. First the wine. Then the coffee. Then her friends and family.

Tom, not surprisingly, is happiest when he’s brewing up his next adventure. He loves to think ahead to a fun future. To the next Duke ticket conspiracy, the next Clef Hangers' performance, the next reunion. And when pressed, admits that he is happy spending time with his daughter.

Jackie is also happy when she’s with Julianne. And presumably when she’s with her husband, Tom. She is happy on a front porch. And at a fire pit. With friends. And a glass of wine.

Ruth is happy with good food, good friends and good wine. She is happy getting down with James Brown. With composting. With worms. With Jeff. With being a mom. And with being a Pescatarian.

And I, I am happy that my spouse encourages me to have the kind of fun I like to have. And that Wendi told me that she will never forget feeling a really special kind of energy when she came to our house in New Jersey five years ago. That makes me really happy.

As we put our own spin on our answers, trying to outdo each other’s happiness factor, it became quite clear, sitting around the dual-generational fire pit at The Carolina Inn on Saturday night, that we are, indeed, a pretty happy bunch of people.

And, maybe that’s just because we all know how important it is to make the time to do the things that make us happy. In the places that make us happy. With the people who make us happy.

Or, maybe it’s because while we know that we can't be responsible for anyone else’s happiness, the truth of it is, we are.

And that, in itself, is a very happy thought.

Can't You Just Learn Our Language?

“Why is it,” I asked Diana, my lovely 22 year-old bi-lingual co-worker. “That when I say, Anything else? those guys all nod but then don’t order anything else?”

“Because they don’t understand what you’re saying,” she answered.

“How can they not understand what I’m saying?”

Diana shrugged.

I rolled my eyes and took another order from another Spanish-as-a-first-language customer, assuming from that moment forward that a nod meant, “No, I’m good. That’s all I need.”

I was back on the Food Truck, working a 12-day stint at the Capital Challenge Horse Show in Upper Marlboro, Maryland which is somewhere in somewhat close proximity to Washington, DC. We were working long days, sometimes from 6 am to 9 pm and I spent the time bent at the waist, leaning down to take food orders from hungry horse people.

Hungry horse people range from six year-olds showing their ponies to seasoned professionals traveling the circuit more weeks than not throughout the year. There were owners and trainers, stable managers and barn hands, handlers and grooms, riders and spectators, blacksmiths and braiders, announcers and judges, office workers, horse doctors, show owners and a whole slew of handsome guys who worked the grounds.

This slew of handsome guys who worked the grounds made our day. They were fun and happy and never missed a meal. For the most part, they were Spanish-speakers who knew enough English to get by. Those who didn’t were were covered by those who did.

“He wants a steak sandwich, no peppers,” Ricky, one of my favorite boyfriends would pipe up when I was struggling to make sense of one of the four Juan’s orders.

“Gotcha,” I said. “Anything else?”

Ricky nodded. And I knew it was time to ring up the tab.

I grew up in an all-white, English-as-a-first-language Philadelphia suburb where my exposure to other languages was limited to the classroom. I took French in high school and with the help of a dictionary would be able to order a hunk of cheese and a baguette in a pinch in Paris. But Spanish? I can’t get beyond hola. And certainly wouldn’t be able to put the upside-down, right-side up exclamation points in the correct place to save my life.

As the world got smaller and I got older, I found myself raising my family in a town renowned for its diversity located right outside of New York City. My white kids were minorities in the public schools and friends of all cultures passed through my kitchen thanking me for rides and meals and homework help in all different tones, variations and comprehensions of the English language. I have had a zillion first generation American friends, many who were born in other countries and moved here in their youth and have taught ESL conversation classes to Korean and Japanese women whose husbands’ jobs have brought them to the US.

But, I didn’t really get the whole language thing until I met Daniel.

“Hola!” Daniel chirped from the other side of the food truck. Daniel worked for one of the horse farms and was on his fourth coffee of the morning.

“Hola!” I responded, thinking I was pretty savvy.

“Oh, you know Spanish!” he exclaimed, feeling pretty certain that I didn’t.

“Si, senor. Je parle Espanol.”

“That’s French,” Doug called over his shoulder as he threw together a breakfast burrito.

“How do you say I speak Spanish in Spanish?” I whispered to the aforementioned bi-lingual Diana.

“Yo hablo espanol.”

“Yo hablo espanol,” I repeated in my English-accented Spanish and Daniel laughed.

“I’ll teach you,” Daniel said. “Habla espanol al final de la semana.”

“What did he say?” I whispered to Diana.

“He says you’ll be fluent in Spanish by the end of the week.”

“Si!” I said. “Gracious.”

“Nada.”

And off he went.

The next time Daniel showed up at the Food Truck, he ordered his sandwich in Spanish with a “Comprende?”

I nodded my head, though I didn’t comprende nada.

“Ha!” Diana chimed in. “You did exactly what they do. You just nodded your head because you don’t understand what they’re saying! Now do you get it?”

It wasn’t long before I had mastered how Daniel liked his bacon, egg and cheese on a bagel and memorized the Spanish words for five dollars and fifty cents, you’re my favorite boyfriend and how many coffees have you had?

Daniel was relentless. No matter how busy we were, he only spoke in Spanish. It got to the point where I’d see him coming and run to the back of the truck to make coffee whether we needed it or not. I’d hobble to the port-a-potty when it was time for his afternoon snack and I’d accidently on purpose position myself to take the next full-fledged English-speaker in line, leaving Diana to deal with Daniel.

I found myself getting flustered and anxious trying to keep up with Daniel. I felt embarrassed and stupid. And for the first time in my life, I held my tongue. Simply because I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say.

By the end of the horse show, I was far from fluent. But I had learned a few Spanish words and could catch the gist of the truck banter between Diana and the short-order cook, Goomer (which I’m 100 percent sure is not how he spells his name).

But in attempting to learn Spanish, I learned something far more important. I saw first-hand how difficult it must be for people in our country who are trying desperately to assimilate and speak our language. How humiliating it can be. How annoying it can be. And how horribly rude some of us can be.

So, to all of my heavily accented friends and friends-to-be who, in just wanting to be understand and be understood, have been met with eye rolls and heavy sighs and impatient responses, all I can say is:

Shame on us.  And, que bueno por ti.

Que bueno por ti.