The Circle of Life

I huffed and I puffed and I yanked my oversized suitcase off the carousel wondering, not for the first time, why I had to overpack. Every. Single. Trip. Dragging my luggage far from the madding crowd, wrestling to right those wheels gone wild, I found myself eyeball-to-eyeball with a very warm and familiar face.

“You look confused,” a cheery voice chirped. 

 

“Baffled. Totally baffled,” I said.

 

Yet it made sense, it really did. My college roommate, Sue, knew that I was feeling a bit off-kilter about this trip so did some sleuthing to figure out when I was arriving, then passed the info on to her daughter, Jessie, who lives in south Florida. I don’t typically like surprises, but I absolutely adore Jessie. I last saw her over Labor Day weekend at her epically-fun wedding when she married Chris, a 100 percent good-guy. Well, maybe 99.9. Nobody’s perfect. 

 

 “Come on. I’m driving you to your hotel.”

 

A couple hours later, still on my Jessie high, I headed down to the hotel lobby to meet my friends, Theresa and Steve, who were taking me to dinner. Four women were chatting on a couch so I barged right in, as I am wont to do. I discovered that they were with Red Orchid Women’s Travel Tours and that ten of them, mostly Canadians, were doing exactly what I was doing. 

I sighed in relief, convinced that everything was going to be just fine. Then I launched into my back story.  

 

Every year, my high school soulmate of a friend, Patty, and I took a cruise together. I’d fly in the night before, she’d pick me up in her little white Ford Escape and we’d go back to her house and bulldog in Dania Beach. We’d see Steve and Linda, her brother and sister-in-law, and then go off to Hollywood, with or without them, for dinner. The next morning we’d take the dog to the vet for boarding and Steve, or an Uber driver, would take us to the port, me lugging a huge suitcase ... or two, Patty with barely a carry-on. Year after year we outdid ourselves, marveling at how two rapidly aging women were still able to have so much fun. 

 

Our last trip together was what I affectionately call the COVID Cruise. We set sail with more than a little trepidation on March 8, 2020. If you recall, the coronavirus was just rearing its ugly head – mostly on cruise ships. My ever-loving spouse, who never, ever puts a damper on my folly, assured me that it was a really, really bad idea to go. Patty, usually the cautious one, was uncharacteristically calm in the face of potential doom. She won. We went. And for a week, lived on the Edge which, ironically, was the name of our ship.

 

We found ourselves in the artsy lounge called Eden on our first night at sea. It didn’t take long before we inserted ourselves into a conversation (note a pattern here) with Kit and Don, BFFs from Jacksonville. We bonded immediately and spent much of the rest of the cruise together. 

 

Meanwhile, Don had other friends on the ship – Bob and Sharon from Estero, Florida. Once we met them, the six of us spent every cocktail hour in the Martini Bar – trying to decipher the day’s stories of shut downs and rising COVID counts back on land. With every cocktail we sipped, we felt safer and safer aboard the Celebrity Edge. 

 

Well the cruise ended, no one got COVID and we returned to our respective homes, sending a slew of post-cruise texts and liking each other’s Facebook posts during those uncertain months in the early days of the pandemic.

 

Life went on. 

 

For most of us. 

 

Sadly, tragically and life-changingly, Patty died seven months later of a completely unrelated disease. I'm one of those stoic, perhaps hard-hearted, souls who can navigate death with barely a blip. But this one cut me to the core. 

 

Yet time passed, as it always does, and when cruise ships finally set sail again, I was itching to get back to sea. Scott, my friend from a long-ago cruise, sent me monthly, sometimes weekly messages asking me to join him and his husband on one of the many cruises they took each year. But they travel on a different cruise line that is way too expensive for me as a single passenger. I lobbied friend group after friend group but couldn’t get any takers. So I gutted it out, limiting my travels to solid ground. 

 

(In case you were wondering – my ever-loving spouse did try to understand what I loved about a floating hotel. He went on one cruise early on and immediately knew that it wasn’t his thing. He is somewhat averse to most overindulgences in life –with over-socializing at the top of the list. Knowing that I can’t exist without it, he gave me his full blessings to carry on, as long as it was with Patty – and without him.)

 

Let’s circle back for a moment to the COVID cruise.

 

In early March of 2020, no one knew what they didn’t know, so many countries were not allowing cruise passengers to disembark at their ports. However, because we had no documented cases of COVID onboard, we were the only ship permitted to dock in St. Maarten that week. So Patty and I got off and took the water taxi into town. We ended up in one of the many, many jewelry shops in Philipsburg where – shock, shock – we befriended the husband and wife owners. 

 

Their intuition was way more on point than ours. While we felt it would be no more than a two-week inconvenience, they were way more certain that this virus would wreak havoc way beyond our collective imaginations. Their livelihood depended on the tens of thousands of cruise passengers that came into their country every week and they were scared to death of what was to come. We bantered back and forth sharing our unfounded hopes and what proved to be realistic fears. Patty bought a pair of rather expensive gold filigree earrings and I went for silver – purchasing a modestly-priced bracelet and two pairs of dangling earrings. 

 

“We’ll be thinking of you every single day,” I said as we left with our wallets lighter and hearts heavier. “And in solidarity, I’m not going to take this bracelet off until we meet again.”

 

And I didn’t. Not once in 1,021 days.  

 

About six months ago, Bob and Sharon and Kit and Don resurfaced with a “Hey – why don’t you join us on a cruise in January? It’s going to St. Thomas, Puerto Plata and St. Maarten.” 

 

“I’m in,” I responded without hesitation. 

 

Yet as the time drew nearer I had my reservations. I mean, I had only known these people for seven days in my whole life. Would they be able to handle my extra cup(s) of ice, my incessant need to befriend everyone within a ten meter radius, my loathing of sand and snorkeling, my step-counting, my stories that run on a continuous loop?

 

Turns out, they could.

 

As an added bonus Joyce and Ken joined the crew, offering up two new prospects for me to get to know and love. 

 

Turns out, I did. 

 

Our first port-of-call was St. Maarten. Sharon, Bob, Joyce and Ken went off on a double-decker bus tour. Don and Kit went snorkeling – something I did to appease Patty, but never have to do again. I ventured out alone, hoping to close the loop on my bracelet story.

 

A few weeks before the cruise I began googling names of St. Maarten jewelers but nothing rang a bell. I could not remember the store's name or location and wondered if maybe it hadn’t survived the pandemic. I scrolled through my 2020 credit card statements online, surmising that I must have paid cash – probably in a last ditch attempt to help the owners out by saving them the card fees. Admittedly, I’m not the most fiscally responsible human and am not prone to saving receipts, but I definitely lamented that shortcoming for perhaps the first time ever.

 

Serendipitously, I remembered purchasing cruise luggage tag holders back in 2020. I ransacked my overflowing desk drawers and, sure enough, found them beneath a stack of checks from two bank accounts ago. Tucked inside one of the plastic holders was a carefully folded piece of paper. 

 

It was a receipt from Pavillion Jewelers on Front Street in Philipsburg, St. Maarten, dated March 12, 2020.  

 

I know that the shop owner wanted to remember me. But three years and thousands of customers later, I’m not sure she did. I found myself choking up (remember that I’m hard-hearted) as I went through the whole story of how I was on the last cruise ship out before they suspended operation in 2020, how we were all scared to death, how I promised to wear this bracelet every single day until I got back and found out you were safe and how in the meantime, my bosom buddy died but I reunited with others from that cruise and look at us now –  we’re here, we’re both still here.   

 

We took a picture together, hugged and off I went. With yet another brand new bangle on my wrist. How could I resist? After all, this whole thing was about supporting my St. Maarten store owner friends.  

I’m still sporting both my COVID and post-COVID bangles and at this point, I’m not sure what it would take for me to ever take either one of them off. 

 

My bracelets are a constant reminder of the friends I’ve made, the friend I lost and the friends I have not yet met. And a confirmation that this cruise was more than just another overindulgence. It offered me a string of affirmations, life lessons and you-can-do-it moments.

 

I learned that I can navigate a ship without my sidekick and that even if my first request for an extra cup of ice turned out to be the last I saw of my COVID cruise friends, that I would be OK. Somehow I intuited that those Canadian women I met in the hotel lobby would be warm and welcoming – and they were, every day when I ran into some configuration of them. 

 

I discovered that a cruise cabin is downright huge when you have the room all to yourself. That I can not only tolerate, but actually enjoy, the entertainment on board – from comedians to karaoke to artfully choreographed Alice in Wonderland interpretations. 

 

I learned that though I'll miss my original cruise buddy every day for the rest of my life, I'll carry her heart with me on every voyage I take. I’ll hear her voice echoing in my head reminding me that not every surprise is an ambush. That saving receipts is just plain sensible, and not necessarily indicative of hoarding. That sometimes I should just go ahead and buy the jewelry. That the chocolate sauce added to my scoop of ice cream can always be walked off and if not, who cares? Because the words size and self-worth have no place in the same sentence anyway. That it’s silly to obsess over what I said or how I said it. Truth be told, they were all too drunk to remember. I’ll hear her telling me to go ahead and order the chicken three nights in a row, but to please, please at least try the escargot. That I should always tip well those who serve me well. And those who don’t, tip them anyway.

Perhaps most importantly, her spirit will remind me that all that glitters is not gold, just as all that’s gold does not glitter. But that if I just trust my gut and surround myself with the right people, I’ll have friends to cruise with for the rest of my life. 

This Little Life of Mine

I forgot all about the bayberry candle last year, an oversight that had the potential to inflict life-changing tragedy.

Lighting a bayberry candle on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve (homeowner's choice) was a family tradition in my formative years, flawlessly followed to ensure the blessings of health, wealth and good luck in the coming year. 

 

Sometime in the evening of the Eve, my mother would extract an olive green bayberry candle from a drawer in the wooden hutch that my grandfather built, put it into a brass candlestick that had been a wedding gift, place it on the kitchen counter and light the wick, letting the candle burn all night long. You NEVER, ever blow out the candle because that would negate all the advantages the tradition promised. 

 

I’m not big on the knocking on wood / tossing salt over the shoulder kind of superstitions, yet I carried this ritual with me when I had a home of my own. Unlike other traditions like family dinners at 5:30 pm, Saturday night ice cream (how about every night?) and outdoor dining with daddy long-leggers that were all tossed out with the first baby's bath water, I held on tight to this one. After all, it had worked quite well for a long, long time. I lived an incredibly charmed childhood and suspect that most of it had to do with the bayberry candle. 

I never even gave the gaffe a thought until a couple of weeks ago when I rifled through one of my many junk drawers only to discover that there were no more Bayberry candles. I immediately ordered a two-pack from Williamsburg, appalled and panicked that I had uncharacteristically forgotten all about it the year before.

 

Because I record both the momentous and meaningless in my Moleskin weekly planner, I was able to review with great precision the catastrophic curses of 2022.  

 

After a home-bound New Year's Eve, January perked up with a tour of Enfield Elementary with my first friend Margaret and sister Emily. We wandered those hallowed halls reliving our adolescence and revving up reminders of just how lucky we truly were. And are. Several months later, the school was demolished, leaving behind what is now just a field of dreams – some laughably lost, some amazingly achieved. 

 

In the beginning of the year, book clubs, church services, hearts games and meetings were virtual, the gym was not. Slowly but surely social life opened back up, allowing unmasked visits with my mother, a celebration for my great-niece Sophie’s 10^th birthday and hang outs with Kathy and Holly and Ann.

 

February bought me another birthday and dinner at a Cuban restaurant with the ever-loving spouse and youngest son. The big surprise was the bill that was paid virtually by the unpresent offspring. The neighborhood gang gathered at Emily’s the following weekend as a founding father was faced with an unpleasant diagnosis (conquered). Kit came from Seattle and Wayne from Massachusetts, proving that neither time nor distance will ever dissolve our childhood bond. 

 

In March we celebrated the impending birth of Kris and Niel’s baby girl, following Covid tests and fever checks (note that these were two people I literally had to BEG to get vaccinated way back when). Oh how things change when you suddenly realize you’re responsible for another human. The shower was at Riverside Church in Manhattan where so many, many hours had been spent watching our future champions play basketball. The middle child came from LA for the event, and except for drinking from Siddiq’s flask (he never shared back in the day), it could have been a day in the life of a dozen years ago. 

 

I got a bright and shiny new bicycle that I pedaled until the weather turned cold. 

 

I spent several Wednesdays with baby, now toddler, Hannah; had monthly lunches with Ann and Gail; walked Overpeck Park every week with Grace and bid farewell to the youngest child as he headed to Spain for a repeat of his 2019, 500-plus mile trek on the Camino de Santiago. My 16 year old clothes washer died and I went to the laundromat for the first time since our first apartment. 

 

South Carolina beckoned in mid-April and off I went to visit my sister, Nancy. I met my new favorite dog, Birdie, and helped my sis host a Seder at the Presbyterian church where she works as a chef. We had a fun dinner party with her besties, Joanne and Mark, had a good time with our dear friend Carrie, and listened to a string quartet play all my favorite Taylor Swift tunes in a cavernous candlelit church in downtown Charleston. 

 

Covid finally caught me in the end of April when friends and family gathered in Pennsylvania to memorialize my soul sister and cruise-partner, Patty. We ate, drank and made merry like the high schoolers we were when we first met – Rachel coming all the way from Oakland, California. I would never have known I had Covid and would never have tested except that 25 other people from the weekend tested positive. Except for the fear of infecting my then 96 year-old mother (I didn’t), I breezed right through. Some got it pretty bad, but thankfully we all lived to tell the tale. Thanks to Covid, I did miss my first Mets game of the season and the long-awaited Alec DeMattheis’s wedding, but I’m also keenly aware that many others have missed way more.

 

May brought Lauren and Rob from Colorado and we met for dinner along with the Sheas in NYC, met Anne D’Onofrio halfway between here and there at The Farmer’s Daughter with Claire, went to many Mets games, saw middle child many times on his many trips home from LA, regularly spoke and visited with the daughter, had dinner with Theresa and Karen, learned about Angelo’s with Steven and Ann, welcomed the youngest home and then said goodbye again as he left for Traverse City to work the food truck for months on end. 

 

A blast into the past came in June with my high school reunion that proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that those were the days, my friend. 

 

Our annual trip to Maine with the college girls over Father’s Day was even more fun than usual because we got to see the other Betsy’s two daughters who we’ve known since birth and partied on the porch with other friends we’d met on previous trips to Higgins Beach. 

 

July brought Karen’s 60^th birthday party, followed by a trip to Rhode Island to see Leah and her family which included the marvelous Maxwell and from there off to Claire’s house in Mattapoisett which was filled with that “make good choices” kind of fun. 

 

My friend, Nancy Grasso, lost her battle with cancer in July, but Emily, Beth and Michelle all kicked its butt.  We went on a Magical Mystery Tour with Bart and Carol at the Reighart’s Lake House and learned about Bananagrams and Becky’s ice cream. 

 

We had our annual Woolley weekend in early August and were able to play our first live Hearts tournament since 2019 – at Bob and Nicole’s Hawley hideaway. We bid adieu to Donald and Theresa with a touch of sadness and a triple dose of awe when they fulfilled their dream of moving to France. 

 

The college girls gathered again in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend to toast Sue’s daughter, Jessie, as she married the love of her life. And toast her we did, over and over and over. And the very next weekend, Danny and Laura had an absolutely beautiful waterfront wedding in Point Pleasant. A month later was the lovely Holly Hamilton’s lovely wedding and the college girls again spent fun time together, despite the Mets losing their wildcard series. 

 

We had a thankful Thanksgiving, a merry Christmas (made merrier with the presence of Kevin and Kaylina), bountiful birthday celebrations and a fun New Year’s Eve with Janice and Lou, Marilyn and Pat, Susan and Rene and their awesome offspring and friendly friends. 

 

I survived months of plantar fasciitis (in hindsight maybe I should have stopped walking for a while?), we got to hang with Janice and John multiple times, saw Anne and Bill for the first time in literal years, had two cousin pot-lucks, read 64 books, binged bazillions of shows and got to know and love Savannah and Hannah and adorable Ava. I got to welcome the new generation both virtually and in-person, delighting in the Instagram stores of Demi, Graham, Zoe, Ziggy, Leo, Theo, Landers, Harper, Penelope, Thomas, Dominic, Aspen, AJ, Lia, Maxwell and Callum, marveling at the fact that these “kids” are actually old enough to have kids of their own. We celebrated my mother’s 97^th birthday, Griffey the faithful hound dog has hobbled into his 13^th year, the ever-loving is still gainfully employed, I scored Taylor Swift tickets legally and easily and I had a year filled with more fun than any one lower-old-aged woman deserves to have. 

 

Which is why, when we staggered in from our New Year's Eve celebration and my spouse unthinkingly blew out the flickering flame, I merely gasped. 

After all, I think I've got proof that nothing can hold a candle to health and happiness. Most certainly not a botched tradition. 

Here's to a new year full of good fortune and thank you all for charming my life. 

I Can Do Hard Things

 

I can do hard things.

 

I can walk five miles with shooting heel pain as I endure an excruciating bout of plantar fasciitis. Then I can pull out my trusty reel lawn mower and limp across the grass, back and forth, back and forth until the most determined of dandelion stalks finally succumbs to the no-longer-sharp blades of the push mower. I can do this for 93 minutes in 97 degree weather, sweat stinging my eyes and soaking my shirt. 

 

I can pee in a Port-a-Potty while flies swarm above soft and fragrant blobs, wondering all the while if it is choice or necessity that there are ALWAYS feces in that dark, dank hole. 

 

I can give up body parts – two knees, one hip, one uterus, two ovaries, two bosoms, one gallbladder – without shedding a tear.

 

I can bury a favorite soul sister. 

 

I can endure a stranger’s thigh pressing against mine on an airplane, I can cringe silently through an uncovered covid-cough, I can have spirited discussions without berating one’s political convictions. I can drink half a bottle of bourbon without slurring a word (though one might argue that would be better categorized as "I can do foolish things"). I can write heartfelt eulogies for people I’ve never met, I can survive hours and hours at a Hearts Tournament without mentioning the lack of ice (like, why?) and I can watch 153 out of 162 Mets games a year which, anyone who knows, knows isn't always easy.

 

I can forgive to a fault, friend the unfriendable, fearlessly ride my bicycle on car-crowded streets and wear Spanx for 16 hours straight.

 

I can do hard things. 

But a four-inch mouse in my house is a hard I can’t handle.

 

Let alone six of them. 

 

Living in a house that has outlived most living souls brings a set of challenges that almost, but not quite, negates its beguiling bones. We’ve had squirrels in the eaves, a cawing crow in the daughter’s bedroom, an ant-infested kitchen, backed-up sewer lines, clogged up sinks, bathtubs, showers and laundry tubs and yes, mice. We’ve had them before. We’ll have them again. 

 

To be honest, I had seen the prolific evidence. But as with so many problems in my admittedly charmed and privileged life, I opted to ignore the droppings, hoping they would just go away. But after discovering a gnawed-through bag of croutons (the expensive brand) in the pantry, I knew I had to take action.

 

I pulled out the trusty “humane” mouse trap, smeared peanut butter on one end and tossed a crouton in the other – after all, they apparently enjoyed those zesty-Italian flavored cubes. 

 

The next morning I headed to the pantry and slowly, so slowly creaked open the door, bracing for the sight I would find. My heart skipped a beat, whether it was from fear or joy, I'm not sure. But there it was. A little brown mouse, surely wondering how it had gotten its crafty self into a pickle like this. 

 

“Ever-loving spouse!” I shrieked. 

 

Luckily, the ever-loving was working from home that day so off he went, dog on leash, mouse trap in hand, to the nature preserve half-a-mile down the road. 

 

Now I’ve heard the rumors and have googled for confirmation. Apparently a mouse can find its way "home." So while it's perfectly possible that it had been a former tenant, it's still a stretch that it, or any mouse, could or would ever criss-cross two busy streets and pass forty houses on the way up the hill without one of them having more to offer than ours. 

Day after day, we (meaning, of course, my ever-loving spouse and creature-loving son who was home on break from the horse show) caught and released, caught and released. As long as I didn’t have to do anything but put a couple crumpled croutons in the trap every day, I took a certain pleasure in the process. 

 

Until. 

The spouse and son went off to Michigan, leaving me alone with the dear-old dog and my word games for three whole nights. 

 

I debated whether or not to put out the trap while they were gone. After all, what was I going to do if I caught one? Again, I turned to google. 

 

No home ever has just one mouse and don't be fooled into thinking otherwise. Mice can breed year-round with one female able to produce five to 10 litters per year. With an average of six to eight babies per litter, a family of six mice can multiply into 60 over the course of three months.

It was abundantly clear that I couldn't let down my guard. 

So as I am wont to do, I surveyed my gaggle of girlfriends, asking advice on what to do if I indeed trapped a mouse while all alone in my old, creaky house.

I reasoned that I'd probably be able to pick up the cage, if I averted my eyes– but I knew for sure I wouldn’t be able to carry that trap to the park. And I also knew that the scratching sounds of an entrapped rodent, albeit 1/10,000ths of my size, was something I'd never be able to unheard. 

"Do you think I'll go to hell if I just toss the trap into the trash can?" I asked one friend.

"It's a rodent," she responded. 

"But it will die a slow death. It will slowly smother with all that trash on top of it." 

"It's a rodent," she reiterated. "In YOUR house."

 

I now knew the course of action that I would take if, God forbid, I came face-to-face with the vermin in the morning. After tossing the mouse-filled trap in the trash, I would simply buy a new one on Amazon, to be delivered on my doorstep within 24 hours. I also knew I could never confess what I had done to my creature-loving son or sister, or anyone else who could use it against me in a court of law.

I settled into a CBD-induced slumber. Dreaming, of course, of an infestation of rats. In my bedroom.

 

Thursday morning was beautiful. The humidity was down, the hound let me sleep in. I was full of confidence and as I flung open the pantry door. 

 

And there she was. Silently glaring at me. 

 

“I can do hard things. I can do hard things,” I said to the dog who couldn't quite figure out what it was that he was sniffing.

 

I headed out to the garage and slipped on my garden gloves which were caked with dirt from last year’s weeding. 

 

“I can do hard things. I can do hard things,” I mantra-ed. 

 

I plucked the trap from the shelf, trying not to make eye contact, and dropped it into a little white paper bag with rope handles that my new Apple watch had come in. 

 

I lifted the top off the metal trash can outside my back door, but immediately lowered the lid. 

 

“I can do hard things. I can do hard things.”

 

Instead, I put the little white bag that the Apple watch had come in, that now housed the green cage with the mouse, into the back seat of my car and drove. 

 

When I arrived at the nature preserve, I was faced with a new challenge. How would I ever be able to open the door to the trap and survive the sensation of a mouse scampering across my gloved hand, or worse, exposed arm or leg or foot? I almost headed to the dumpster in the corner of the parking lot.

 

“I can do hard things. I can do hard things.”

 

The mouse was at one end of the trap, facing the door with the flip-flop flap rather than the end where the peanut butter goes, the end that has to be eased off the base, slowly and methodically. I gave a gentle shake, trying to turn her around, but her little claws clung tight. I took a deep breath and yanked at the door – the one she wasn't facing – and somehow, some way, she was out and gone in a mili-second, off in search of her family without ever touching any of my exposed or unexposed body parts. 

 

I put the empty green trap back into the little white bag that my Apple watch bag came in and drove home smugly, even allowing it sit in the front seat of the car.

 

It's been three days and three empty traps. Perhaps the mice are all gone, or perhaps they’re still making their way back home. 

 

All I know is that my ever-loving spouse will be back by the time the next rodent is captured. 

 

And even if he isn’t, I know that I can do hard things. 

Make Good Choices

“It’s a buck moon tonight,” Claire said as we sipped cocktails on the poolside veranda that just so happened to offer a breathtaking view of Buzzard’s Bay. 

 

“What’s a buck moon?” one of us asked.

 

“Google it,” another quipped. 

 

“It means that we have to swim buck naked under the buck moon,” Claire joked.

 

Except she wasn’t joking.

 

Anyone who has known me for 10 minutes – maybe even five – knows that while I willingly and regularly bare my sordid and sloshy soul to the most random of people, I would never voluntarily bare my scarred and saggy body to even my nearest and dearest friends. 

 

Except that I did.

 

Six of us gathered at Claire’s house in Mattapoisett last week under the guise of celebrating the other Betsy’s retirement. Not that we needed an excuse; we will get together at any time for any reason. But this was the first time we were all at Claire’s. And with any luck, not our last. 

 

Claire and Cari Jo are the other Betsy’s friends from high school. Ann, Sue, the other Betsy and I went to college together. Because we are fun-promoters and friend-sharers, our paths have crisscrossed throughout the years. Claire often makes an appearance during our annual pilgrimage to Maine and joined us on our 40^th birthday trip to the Bahamas – bringing along yet another friend. We assume we met Cari Jo at some point at some party in Lititz, but that was many hazy decades ago, so for three of us she was virtually an unknown. But stranger-danger is not in our vocabulary and we believe that any and all strangers are just friends waiting to happen.  

 

It was a very short wait.

 

We all descended upon Claire in the late afternoon, having flown, driven and Amtrak-ed from New Jersey, Atlanta, North Carolina, Pittsburgh and Boston. After a tour of the fantastical house and flower-filled grounds, we were given full rein of the bar to create whatever concoctions would bolster the barrage of invasive questions, addendums to years-long sagas and repeats of stories some of us have heard 10, 20, 100 times before. 

 

In the midst of our second (third?) heavy pours, we noticed an arrangement of lovely blue hydrangeas and white roses. 

“Are they from your garden?” one of us asked.

 

“No, they’re a thank you from my daughter,” Claire responded.

 

We have 12 children between the four-sixth of us who chose the parenting path. The other two have a plethora of nieces, nephews, friends and acquaintances with offspring – making them equally as privy to the roller coaster of emotions, traumas, joys and concerns that child-rearing can bring. 

 

Which is why, when one of us read the daughter’s card aloud, the final line evoked all kinds of hoots and hollers.

 

Make Good Choices, it said.

 

We weren’t sure if they were meant as protective, regurgitated or sarcastic words, but knew it didn’t make a lick of difference. Our theme for the week was signed, sealed and delivered in the form of a bountiful bouquet smirking at us from its vase on the coffee table.

 

Though I am 100 percent pro-choice, it’s often hard for me to actually make a choice. I can spend multiple minutes in the presence of grimacing waiters as I vacillate between grilled or blackened chicken; I annoy patient kitchen designers (and sisters) as I change color palettes and preferences daily; and continually amuse my travel partners showing up with the biggest suitcase I own -- all because I couldn’t choose between the black sandals or the other black sandals; two long-sleeved tops or five; my laptop or my iPad; two books or four; the bigger or smaller of my portable fan collection. 

I counter this debilitating indecisiveness by drawing certain lines in the sand. Virtually, that is. Because I don’t do sand. I have a whole slew of rules that keep me from having to make choices. I have adamant I don’t, I won’t, I can’t and I would never’s covering everything from ice-less drinks to the aforementioned walk on the beach. From sleeping in sub-par hotels to eating lobster after witnessing its squealing descent into boiling water; from going to stand-up comedy shows to watching Stranger Things on TV, there are some things in life I simply Will. Not. Do.

 

But I suspect those were not the kinds of choices to which the darling daughter was referring.

 

Whether it's intentional or just dumb luck, most of my friends are fiercely independent women whose significant others encourage extra-marital vacations. Spending time away with “the girls” has rejuvenated our spirits and saved our souls countless times, in countless ways. However, weekends together do tend to take on an age-regressing timbre, taking us back to the days when our most important decision was whether to go to The Fort or to Maxie’s for shots and beers. 

 

I suspect those are the kinds of choices to which the darling daughter was referring. 

 

Oh ye, of little faith. 

 

While we can easily revert back to our 20-something year-old selves when we’re together, we trust our 60-something year-old selves to pump the brakes before things go south. We’ve now lived long enough to know that we should always apply sunscreen before yachting to Martha’s Vineyard for lunch. That we should take Jarred’s hand rather than jumping full-throttle into a dinghy. That riding in a convertible after a boat ride will not mess up our hair and if it does, it doesn't matter. That we should ask in advance what exactly market price is to avoid ordering a 40-dollar sandwich. That sand can be easily extricated from rubber flip-flops and that corn hole does indeed have rules. We know that buffalo chicken dip can serve as supper, but consuming sun-soaked caramelized onion dip is not a good idea. That your friends don’t care if your dress is too short, your pants too tight, your face too wrinkled, your bunions too big. But that maybe you should paint your toenails to deflect that bulging bump. 

 

We have lived long enough to know that it’s okay to point out rogue chin hairs and that offering up a Bic razor is a kindness. That crack cocaine can’t hold a candle to crack corn and measured martinis are infinitely more drinkable than their just-wing-it counterparts. That allowing the Betsy’s to repeat their stories…over and over again…may end up helping with retention as our minds grow older and dimmer. 

 

And we have lived long enough to know that swimming buck naked under a buck moon will not kill us. It will only make us stronger.

 

In the aftermath of our Mattapoisett trip as we transitioned back to our real lives, we sent dozens of texts back and forth, many of which were tongue-in-cheek reminders to Make Good Choices. 

Which led me to think about all the myriad choices we make that can alter the course of our lives. We choose who to love, when to leave. We choose our career paths and how we spend our free time. We choose how to take care of our bodies, our minds and our bank accounts. We choose our gods, our guides and our girlfriends. 

I will always, always advocate for making, keeping and surrounding yourself with fun-loving friends. Friends who will raise you up, accept your faults, bolster your dreams, tolerate your quirks, mitigate your morning-afters, laugh at your nonsense and hug your heart.

Which is why, darling daughters to whom we've uttered the very same words, you don't have to worry about us making good choices. 

It looks like we already have. 

Too Old To Remember. Too Young to Forget.

I have long contended that I loved every minute of high school. But I am also acutely aware that memories tend to wax and wane and skew in countless ways as we try to harmonize our pasts with our presents.

As we planned for a reunion twice delayed by Covid, I was met with a mystifying amount of resistance that ranged from, “There is NO way I’d voluntarily spend an evening with those people,” to “I already keep in touch with anyone I care about,” to “If I lose 30 pounds by then, I’ll go.” I began to wonder if perhaps I had lost my marbles and maybe high school hadn’t actually been everything I cracked it up to be.

But when my lifelong sidekick, Margaret, suggested pulling out the Retina – our yearbook – to cram, I found myself swelling with nostalgia rather than cringing with PTSD. I had never given much thought to why this book, covered in a blue-jeaned graphic, was called what it was, so I did something I couldn’t do back in 1975, and googled the word retina.

The light-sensitive layers of nerve tissue at the back of the eye that receive images and sends them as electric signals through the optic nerve to the brain.

I guess in layman’s terms it means that we can all see the same picture yet process it differently.

And I have no doubt that along the way, some of our retinas have torn just the tiniest bit.

As I looked at high school through the yearbook, I remembered it as The Way We Were, coincidentally our much maligned prom theme. While there’s no denying the power of Barbra’s pipes, perhaps Why Can’t We Be Friends would have been a better choice for those formative years.

After all high school was first and foremost, about friends. Making friends. Losing friends. Keeping friends. And looking for acceptance in alternate friend groups.

There were myriad cliques in our mostly homogeneous high school. We were jocks and jerks. Motor heads and air heads. Hard guys and fast girls. Freaks and geeks. Swimmers and spazzes. We were cool and we were nerds. Cheerleaders and color guards. Handsome hunks and hot chicks. We were members of the Wilderness Survival Club , the Chess Club, the Pep Club, the Debate Club, Stage Crew, Chorus and Band. We were class officers, class clowns, and in the top and bottom of our class – though most of us fell somewhere right in the middle. We were musical prodigies, budding artists, aspiring novelists, thespians, lesbians, boy crazy, girl-crazy and just plain crazy.

Yet, as the years rocketed by, those old familiar lines of demarcation blurred along with our memories.

“Do you remember Joe Sonneborn?” (name changed to protect poor Joe’s past, present and future), I asked Margaret soon after his reunion payment showed up in my Venmo account.

“Sure,” she responded. “He was in my home room. He was a hard guy who hung out with the juniors.”

“No he wasn’t. He was the volleyball team manager or an A-V guy or something. He was definitely NOT a hard guy.”

“Did we even have a volleyball team?”

I pulled out the Retina. Yes, we did. But no Joe Sonneborn was pictured with the team.

And so it went. As the RSVPs filled my inbox, I began to wonder. Was he a football player? Was she in I.I.? Was he at that party in Wyndmoor? Was she in my consumer math class? And mostly, did it even matter almost half-a-century later?

Still, I didn’t want anyone to think they’d been forgotten. So, Margaret and I conjured up a foolproof scheme for successful identification at the reunion. We set ourselves up at a table in the front of the room, crossing off names as people checked in.

“Absolutely no idea who this is coming in,” Margaret whispered.

“Head down,” I responded.

“Name?” one of us asked without lifting our eyes to the face.

“Sue McElroy.”

At which point we both popped our heads up and in cried in gleeful unison, “Sue!”

And for the record, hers wasn’t a case of, “OMG, who IS this old lady?” Actually, it was quite the opposite.

Of course there were the Lance Rultenbergs and Jane Arcaris and Nancy Barretts and Marianne Bakers who looked mere minutes older than their 18 year-old selves and everyone, but everyone knew them immediately.

If we had thought to order trophies, Ellyn Ballezza would have been the clear winner for the most “Is she coming?” queries. Runner-up to farthest distance traveled would be Diane Pollsen, representing the Lone Star State. But, ever the competitor, Kit Schaeffer beat her by 1200 miles. John Schaeffer, same family, had the shortest commute – coming from his childhood-turned-adult home right down the street.

Lauren Fisher would have gotten the award for best at keeping in touch, having moved across the river before high school, but was still one of the first to respond with a resounding YES. Beth Marvin, another friend who graduated elsewhere, would have taken the prize for best in talking Betsy off the ledge as I spewed my hopes and fears throughout the planning process. And of course, Sue Harting, tapping into her Spartanette skills, would win hands-down for her bravery in bullying classmates into submission.

A few of our friends get gold stars for good intentions – Karl Douglass, Jody Field, Jane Finkelstein, Anne Jordan, John McGettigan, Rick Nesbitt, Tina Pelensky, Chuck Presser, Bob Schultz (were you ever REALLY planning on coming?) – but life got in their way and they ended up not making it. And in the eleventh hour, after literal years of planning, Pam Kroberger caught Covid and Beth Holmes caught cancer. But they’re both going to be just fine.

Jeff Ullberg had been radio silent but showed at the door, as did fan favorite, Kevin Forster. Pam Thomas brought a photo album of our senior trip to Nassau where teacher chaperones bellied up to the bar alongside our teenaged selves. Lori Stein’s dimples have not diminished nor has her wonderful warble, though she did refrain from belting out 70s songs. Val Simmens still has her sardonic wit, Karen Brown her twinkle-eyed smile, Scott Geller his persuasive abilities to get aforementioned Val to attend. Barry Magen still retains his inclusive geniality, Paul Fischer his humor. Wes Acker, Robert Black, Chip Horner, Ray Cassidy and Dave Hissey all married well, bringing their personable, not to mention very brave, brides along for the show. Jim Hill still has a way with dogs and Leslie Leidy maintains her love for horses. Carole Sugarman still has her nose for nose, Barbara Crits is still a stalwart for social justice, Amy Katz and David Troyer still have their legal sensibilities, Vince Urbano still has my heart.

As we made our way through memories with the in-from-the-beginning Gail Margulies, Frank Abromitis and Rick Altomare, the kindness-spreading Halligans and Pam Hadley, the coupled after multiple drinks at the last reunion, Kathy McIntyre and Jeff Simmons, the ever-active Caryn Hartman, Thad MacNamara, Leon Dender, Roger Stewart, Gwen Donofry and Terry Kiely, the multi-sported Marion MacNeill and the still-smiling Lynn Wallach, we learned that despite the things that haven’t changed, the way we were is not necessarily the way we are.

Except, of course, for some of us. Just like back in the day, Margaret Sommerville, Lynne Murray, Alexa Koutsourus, Ann Lupica, Karen Bruno, Sue Harting and I were intent on keeping the party going, finally closing the bar at 2 am.

We wandered through the room, sharing our unique accounts of Springfield High. We reminisced about our almost-winning hockey team, the football parties we were or weren’t invited to, our first kisses, our first beers, our worst kisses, our worst jobs. We remembered detentions with Mr. Matula, canoe trips with Dave Cockrell, Driver’s Ed with Mr. Reifinger, communal showers after gym class, ice cream cones at Yum Yum, victories at Oreland Girls Softball, being shushed in the library by Ms Newton and pep rallies in the gymnasium. We talked about the prom, our rain-soaked graduation and getting stopped by the cops because Karin Shea was riding through Erdenheim on the literal roof of my mother’s wood-paneled station wagon. We recalled smoking in the woods behind Harston Hall, joining Sunday night youth groups based solely on which church drew the coolest kids, abusing open campus privileges by hanging out in parentless homes and driving eight-to-a-car into Flourtown for a hamburger from Gino’s or a hoagie from Cisco’s. We laughed about the parent-busting party in Ellyn’s basement, and driving laps and laps from town to town, hoping to catch a glimpse of the hunk of the hour. We challenged our memories with “who was that guy who…” and debated our opposing truths of whether the poor girl was a victim or a villain that night on the golf course.

While making rounds from table to table I lamented those who had no interest in coming.

“It’s easy for you,” one classmate said to me in defense of the absent. “You were always popular.”

I scoffed. Me? Popular? Now that's a distorted memory. I’ll be the first to admit that I wanted to be popular as much as I wanted to have straight hair. And though I could hang with the best of them and did my fair share of dangling from the high rungs, I never earned a firm and final perch at the top. That was reserved for those with looks and charm way beyond my reach. 

I also know that I exchanged more words with some of my classmates in the course of party planning than we had in all our years of school put together.

So why, one might ask, would I want to go to a reunion with people I hadn’t spoken to in 47 years? And why would I want to kindle a relationship with those I may never have spoken to at all, ever?

I must admit, leading up to the event there were moments, though fleeting, when I questioned it myself.

But when the night was over and we said our goodbyes, vowing to stay in better touch, swearing our undying allegiance and promising to become fast Facebook friends, it all made sense as to why we were there.

Unlike two dozen members of the Class of 1975, we had survived. We had gotten through deaths and divorces, conquered Covid and cancer, hobbled through hip replacements and job replacements. We became business owners and doctors, lawyers and financiers, engineers and journalists. We became controllers and consultants, volunteers and vice presidents, psychologists and dog trainers, realtors and writers, musicians and managers, nurses and hygienists.

But at the root of our souls we’re all just average Joes who serendipitously shared our humble beginnings at Springfield Township High School. We navigated our lives as best as we were able only to find that the former athletes struggle with their arthritic joints just as the beauty queens now harbor their jowly necks. Some of us went to college, some of us learned trades. Some of us have children, some of our children have children. Some of us are happy, some of us wish we were. Some of us have way surpassed our parents' successes, some of us can barely get by. Some of us peaked in high school, and some of us still have a long, long way to go.

We shared a lot, this class of 1975. Vietnam and Watergate. Driver’s licenses and college rejections. The energy crisis and Earth Day. Long hair and bell bottoms. Patty Hearst and Saturday Night Live. Broken hearts and not-so-perfect prom dates. And of course, the hallowed halls of Springfield High.

Sure, we have packed on the pounds, lost our hair, and wear deep wrinkles on our faces. But we're also a little bit wiser, a little bit kinder and a little bit more tolerant than we were back when we were jockeying for position on the pages of the Retina.

After all was said and done, I pulled out the 200-page spiral-bound notebook that served as my diary throughout my high school days.

Somewhere between being SO mad at Debbie Atlee that "I can’t WAIT to get away from here and go to college," and three days later, raving about the Emerson, Lake and Palmer concert at the Spectrum (which I attended with former ex-friend, Debbie), there it was.

“I am soooooooo lucky !!!!! (multiple o’s and exclamation points). I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I can’t imagine EVER having as much fun as I’m having in high school.”

I was oh, so right. Yet oh, so wrong.

Cheers to The Way We Were and the long, and windy road that led us to The Way We Are.

...And the Way We Will Be at our 50th reunion. Save the date coming soon!

A Life Well-Lived: The Takeaway

“I see Patty in Jesus’s face,” Madge, our faithful Jew, whispered across the pew to Rachel, Debbie and me. 

We shoulder-shook-giggled as we’ve done so many times over the course of our 50-year friendship. 

 

“I’m serious,” she said. 

 

By no stretch of the imagination did I see Patty’s face in the floor-to-ceiling Jesus that was prominently displayed beyond the priest in the pulpit. But I immediately recognized a somewhat familiar pose. 

 

Patty, the fifth member of our friend group, was perhaps the most dynamic, artistic, wittiest and wildest. Though to be fair, those very descriptors will likely be used interchangeably in all of our hopefully far-in-the-future eulogies. 

 

Along with her brothers, Patty had long ago defected to Florida – their mother, Jean, joining them for the last few years of her life. As they were born and bred Philadelphia folk, it made sense to bring them back home for a joint memorial service and burial, especially since they died just seven weeks apart. 

 

It took over a year-and-a-half, mainly due to this travel-deterrent, social pariah of a thing called COVID-19, but finally, far-flung friends and family had converged in Pennsylvania – trunk-loads of stories in tow.  

 

As Jesus waved in the foreground, the requiem mass continued with Patty’s beloved nephews, aka Jean’s grandsons, proudly proclaiming meaningful Bible verses about eternal life (all you have to do is believe) and forgiven sins (audible sigh of relief). The sweet sounds of Ave Maria and the can’t-hear-it-without-the-ol-throat-constricting Amazing Grace filled the sanctuary and we floated out On Eagle’s Wings.

 

In those awkward post-service moments with pockets of people nudging one another with, “Isn’t that the double cousin?” or “They must be the high school friends” or “Those are Bill’s kids over there,” it began to rain.

 

“Tears for Patty,” Rachel said, looking to the sky.

 

No sooner were the words out of her mouth that the rain, and the tears, were gone for the day. 

 

It was all a bit surreal, piling into Debbie’s car as if we were our 16-year-old selves. But today no one was stuck in the middle of the backseat; instead there was a magnetic FUNERAL flag teetering on the roof. We couldn’t help but reminisce about the thousands of miles we had spent in cars together –singing Fifty Nifty United States on the cross-country drive to Rachel’s college, peeing on the shoulder of Route 81 en route to Canada or heading to Jimmy’s Hatboro house for a Super Bowl party. We drove to the Spectrum to see Jethro Tull, The Allman Brothers, Traffic, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Eagles, Jackson Browne and everyone in between. We took the Schuylkill Expressway to cheer for Manny Trillo and Mike Schmidt and Steve Carlton, making it back to The Fly in time for last call. We barreled down the Black Horse Pike to Somers Point for 7-for-a-dollar beers at The Anchorage and to Cape May or Strathmere for weekend-long parties. Belting out Beatles' tunes, we rode from arboretum to arboretum in search of the best buds. We looped from Flourtown to Wyndmoor. From Laverock to North Hills. From Oreland to Kensington. From South Street to Plymouth Meeting Mall.  We pooled our pennies to fill the tanks during the Energy Crisis, hoping our parents weren’t monitoring the odometer as well as the gas gauge. We rode with the windows rolled down in summer because there was no air conditioning and in the winter to keep the cigarette smoke from permanently permeating the family cars. 

I distinctly remember sitting in Patty’s khaki-colored Corvair, lost on the side of some road somewhere – probably on the way to one of Bobby Katz’s parties -- when Rachel had one of her many Eureka moments. 

 “I know!" she exclaimed. "We should invent a gadget that tells us where we are and how to get where we’re going.” 

 

If only. 

 

We had no idea where we were all heading but we talked about it. All.The.Time. We talked about who we were. Why we were. Who we were supposed to be. What we’d become. Where we'd Iive and with whom. Which guys were worthy of our pursuit. And vice versa. We shared our biggest fears. Our strongest convictions. Our weakest moments. Our darkest secrets, our most cringe-worthy moments, laughing through the tears as we over-analyzed our actions.  

 

We may have looked like your typical party girls on the outside, but truth be told, we were deep. Oh, so deep. 

 

So, there we were, the grown-ups we never truly believed we’d ever become. A Jew, a Quaker, a Heathen and a Presbyterian. Three liberals and a Trumper. A nurse, a data analyst, a writer and a state worker. All of us in committed relationships and mothers of kids who never in their millennial dreams would believe the life we had led. So mostly, we just didn’t tell them. 

 

“I liked the bit about how we shouldn’t focus on what we think we need,” Debbie said as we pulled out of the church parking lot, kicking off our discussion of Father Larry’s homily. “But that we should be content and happy and thankful for what already have.”

 

“I totally missed that,” I replied. “All I heard was that we are all broken in our own ways.” 

 

“How about the phone?” Madge chimed in. “He held up his cell phone and said that when we get a call, even though a name pops up, we have to have faith that it’s really THAT person on the other end.”

 “What I heard, and you know I’m half deaf,” Rachel added. “Is that we have to believe that Patty and Jean are still with us. But of course, we already knew that.” 

 

“There was something about the finality of goodbye and how the Irish always say farewell rather than goodbye -- is that true, Betsy?”

 

“What do I know? I don’t have a drop of Irish blood in me.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

“You know I don’t.”

 

“Maybe it’s early dementia setting in.” 

 

“Early?”

 

“Well either way, we better never say goodbye to each other ever again.”

 

We fell silent for a minute on that one. 

 

“But the phone thing,” Madge continued. “It was about keeping the connection. And how we have to keep talking to the dearly departed even if we can’t see them.”

 

“Right. Not to treat them like a memory, but as if they’re still here.”

 

“Patty??? We’re talking to you. You listening?!” 

 

We laughed, knowing that she was. And that she was loving every minute of it.

 

We wound our way through our old stomping grounds, landing at the cemetery across the street from the long-gone Korvette’s where one of us had started her short-lived, coming-of-age shoplifting career. 

 

We stood at the gravesite and recited the Lord’s Prayer, some of us forgiving trespasses, others forgiving debts, then each placed a flower by the marble urns that held their ashes. We swallowed hard one last time and headed to the part of the day that Patty would have loved the best. While a true believer in God and most of his wonders, she would have cherished the church service. But she also recognized the power of a good party.  

 

Having been in Patty’s life for half-a-century, we knew her people. We loved her family. And we embraced her friends. Everyone who had gathered for her life celebration was there with a different perspective. Her oldest friend from grammar school days, her bestie from art school, her step family who stepped so far beyond the moniker, her brothers’ friends who became her own, her nephews and cousins and sisters-in-law, both past and present. We all had our memories, our own whys and what ifs and together we resurrected Patty in all her gorgeous glory. 

 

The last time I saw my friend was on our annual cruise, back in 2020 when this crazy coronovirus was first rearing its ugly head. And while neither Patty or her mother ever got COVID, I can’t help but think about the part it played in our final days together. 

 

Patty tended to focus on the catastrophic; the what-if-the-hurricane-hits scenarios, where I obsess over the fear of forgetting a favorite pair of shoes. Despite having every possible anxiety covered, we traveled well together. 

 

My ever-loving spouse begged, and I mean begged, me not to go on what ended up being the last cruise out before the no sail order took effect. I left for Florida anyway, assuming Patty would never in a million years board that boat and that we’d end up driving to Key West instead. But when we called Patty’s mother the night before departure, agreeing that we'd heed her sage advice, Jean didn’t hesitate for a second. Go. Absolutely go on that cruise. You only live once. 

And so we did. 

 

In a complete reversal of roles, mine was the heart palpitating with each and every horror story we heard while at sea. Patty would simply ply me with chocolate then lead me to the Lido deck for umbrella drinks where, inevitably we’d meet another new friend and forget all about the COVID cooking around us. 

 

I can’t help but wonder if somehow she knew this cruise would be our swan song. 

 

By the time we finally were able to celebrate Patty’s life, COVID had become background noise. Though I have always respected its virility, having lost more than a few friends and acquaintances to the virus, I no longer feared it. I had spent over two years quaking as I followed the rules but was now both boosted and bored.  Even though there was a recent uptick of one of its pesky variants, COVID didn’t even cross my mind when it came to Patty’s final send off. 

 

Oh the irony.

 

Some of us got hit harder than others, but we all made it through. Apart but together, as we'd been for much of our adult lives. Over the next two weeks our COVID connection precipitated no less than 7711 texts in which we scrutinized every how, when, where and what if scenario. We kept each other laughing as we struggled to unearth the deep mystical message enveloping Patty and COVID and the life that we all shared. 

As the texts and symptoms started to wane, the takeaway came to me in an uh-duh moment. We've screamed it from car windows and scribbled it in birthday cards. It's been our mantra and motivator and our lifeline since the day we met. It's always been there, through good times and tough times, breakups and breakdowns, feats and defeats, sicknesses and health, births and deaths.  

It's such a simple takeaway from a life well-lived. And it makes such perfect, beautiful sense. 

I'll get by with a little help 

from my friends.