A long, long time ago, I can still remember how that music used to make me smile

Throughout the eighteen (!!) years that I've been writing this blog - or lately, not writing it - my goal has always been to write the way I want to write, and write well, and write truthfully, and not censor myself. I certainly will respect peoples' privacy and confidences. I've changed names where necessary or altered the details of a story in a way that doesn't make it recognizable while still maintaining the essence of the story, but I always bristled at letting someone else dictate what I write. 

But over the past couple of years, it's been increasingly difficult.

My children are in their mid-teens. They are entitled to their privacy. They would be horrified and furious if I wrote about the details of their lives, or my experiences as a full-time single mother over the last few years, or the specifics of why it has been so, so difficult and draining and anxiety-producing. 

Enough people who read this blog know me pretty well, so there's no way to write about the kids without airing their dirty laundry in a conspicuous way.  

So I haven't.

I'm also in a relationship with someone who, except for LinkedIn, makes a point of having a minimal  online presence. He's not on Facebook or Instagram or any other platform. He's very private.

To my own credit, I have made a point of providing almost no identifying information about him. I have only ever used his first name, which I could go back through the blog and change to an alias. The Dude, perhaps. 

In any event, I have never provided any detail about what he does for a living or anything else that would allow someone to figure out who he is. You know that he likes to ski and hike and bike and see shows at Red Rocks and travel, but that could describe the majority of men in the state of Colorado. 

Still. I'm very careful to the point that I don't write nearly as much as I would if this were an anonymous blog. 

I also work for a public school district with an active and vocal parent community, some of whom have an eye on me and regularly curse my name on private Facebook groups because they think I'm a terrible person whose overriding goal is to make life awful for their children. 

Spoiler alert: hurting kids with disabilities is the opposite of why I'm excited to go to work every day.

The result has been that the things that have shaped my life over the past few years are the same things that I can't write about very much. 

So for the past 8 months, I haven't written at all. 

I've lost my time machine. 

I know I've talked about this before, but I can't emphasize enough how important memory is to me. Some people don't look back fondly on the past. There's a person I went to school with in India who has basically erased any mention or memory of our India life as much as possible, because she had bad experiences and hates thinking about it. 

But I've had the extraordinary good fortune of living a life that for the most part, has brought me great joy. That I love looking back on. It's why I love reunions. It's why when we go to our parents' house, my brothers and I always make a point of looking back through old photo albums (of which there are at least 20). It's why I make photo book after every trip I take. 

I hate it when I can't remember details. 

When people say, "don't you remember the crazy bus ride to Rishikesh when we went white-water rafting at the beginning of senior year? It was terrifying." 

And I don't remember that detail, and the not remembering upsets me.

I bring all of this up because my dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease.

Fortunately, he is still highly functional. His short-term memory is pretty much nonexistent, and he repeats himself constantly, but he knows his life. He can still drive to familiar places, like McLean Family Restaurant to have breakfast in the morning, or to the gym. He walks the dog and reads books.  

He knows who he is and where he is and when he is. He knows who we are. And his love for us is boundless. 

He's never been much of a phone talker. He's always been loving and affectionate, but conversations consisted of, "how's everything? Are you ok? How are the kids? How's your car? Do you need money? Ok, here's your mother."

Not much has changed, except the statements are more overtly love-y.

"Hi sweetie. How are you? How are the kids? I just want you to know how much I love you. I love all my children. And I love my grandchildren. And I have the best wife. I'm so lucky. I've had a great life. Ok, here's your mother."

He has doted on me from the day I was born. 

He repeats that over and over. But those are repetitions that I don't mind at all. 

I'm thankful that he hasn't shied away from the diagnosis. He's not in denial. He's been proactive about seeking medical care, and recently started participating in a clinical trial for a drug that may help to slow the progression of the disease. 

I have a number of friends whose parents are also dealing with Alzheimers, or whose parents had it before they died. Some of them absolutely refuse to acknowledge it or talk about it. They won't go to a doctor. They are in complete denial. 

Not Barry.

He understands that in all likelihood, the disease is going to kill him. He has said, in so many words, "if this is what takes me out, I have no regrets. I wouldn't do anything differently. I've lived a life of adventure, had the best kids, the best wife. All of it. It's ok." 

We know what's ahead. We know that he will start forgetting more than just what he had for breakfast, or where he left his keys. 

Throughout my life, he has been such a force of nature. So funny, so smart, so crazy, so cool. 

Check out this cool mofo. "Effete Snob for Peace." Heh.

But he is noticably slowing down. He seems frail. It breaks my heart. 

It breaks my heart for my him, and selfishly, it also breaks my heart to think it will probably happen to me. 

So I am determined to continue making a record of my life, for myself and my family and my children.

I read back over this blog and it brings memories to the forefront. They stay in my brain rather than fade away. It means that my sense of myself is more comprehensive. I want to keep that going as long as possible. 

Which is why I need to start writing again. On a going-forward basis, and also to try to backfill events from the last 8 months. 

And that's where I am. 

The Evergreen Thanksgiving

Remember Wheel of Fortune? 

 My first year of college, we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy most nights with the guys in the suite down the hall. To clarify, it's still on, so I'm not suggesting it has gone anywhere. But I haven't watched it in a million years, so it feels like a dinosaur to me.  

Anyway, in the Olden Days, when the winner got to the final puzzle, they got to choose five consonants and one vowel that would populate the clue, and then they had to figure it out from there. Without fail, they always chose R, S, T, L, N, and E. 

The evergreens. 

At some point, those were automatically populated and the contestant got to choose 3 additional consonants, which always made it more fun. 

But the evergreens were the evergreens. Always relevant, always reliable. 

Which brings me to Thanksgiving.

Specifically, the ubiquitous Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table so that everyone can say what they're thankful for. It's a lovely exercise that embodies the spirit of the holiday. 

And the things people are grateful for tend to be the same, at least in my house.

Family. Friends. Health. 

Always relevant, always true. Evergreen.

I think it was last year when we were going to start going around the table that I was like, let's each of us come up with something in addition to the the usual stuff. 

I wasn't suggesting that the usual stuff isn't great. Just that I'd love to hear about something else that people are thankful for. 

Eyes were rolled and I was quickly shot down. 

And I get it. The evergreens are evergreen for a reason. 

We went to Virginia a few days earlier than usual because Kristin was in the U.S. and she and Lisa and I planned a mini-reunion. We are in regular communication via WhatsApp, but we haven't all been together since 2016. I love these women. I miss them so much. 

So we met up at Lisa's house in D.C. and spent the entire day talking and laughing and being ridiculous. We squeezed Lisa's new boobs. We chatted with Kristin's son Lorenzo, who is a jillion feet tall and adorable and who may be the only 17-year-old on the planet content to sit around gabbing with a bunch of middle aged ladies reminiscing about high school in the 80s. We had yummy Mexican food and gelatto. 

Then we asked Lorenzo to take some photos and all hell broke loose. I have no idea when it got so crazy but by the end of it we were groping each other and laughing uproariously and at one point I was half squating in this weird way that looked like I was about to poop standing up. 

Now, to be clear, this is not surprising. We were supremely silly when we were in high school. We used to refer to each other as Lisa-Pisa, Wendy-Pendy, and Krissy-Pissy. We referred to the Bananarama song as "I'm Your Penis." If we were excited about something, we would say that we were getting a BH - Kristin's phrase for "boob hard-on." And on and on. 

So not much has changed, and I wouldn't want it to. It was the absolute best.  

Lisa and her family then came to my parents' house for Thanksgiving, which was lovely. We had such a big crowd that we moved everything to the living room. It took a long time to go around the table for the "I'm-grateful-fors." 

The number of people allowed my mother and me to go wild and mix and match
her impressive collection of glassware, napkins, and pottery. 

I tried to go rogue on my list, but in the end defaulted to family. And friends. And health. I'm grateful for my life.  

You know. The evergreens. 

Here comes the sun

The philosophy of Colfax Avenue

When the COVID craziness started over a year ago, it felt weird and somewhat scary and a little bit like an adventure. We'll create an in-home movie theater, complete with tickets and concessions! We'll bake things! We'll do zoom calls all the time! Whee!

And temporary. When the closures started, it was communicated that we would reopen in two or three weeks. We just needed some time to "flatten the curve."

In hindsight, it sounds adorable. 

Some people said that we would be living in lock-down for at least a year or more, which struck me as horrifying. I felt like I couldn't live like that for a year or more. I would rather die.

Which is obviously ridiculous. It was a year or more. And I didn't die.

But the novelty definitely wore off. I got tired of baking. I got tired of doing mountains of dishes all the fucking time. I discovered that doing a Passover seder via Zoom was the most depressing thing ever.

I worked from home and the kids did school from home and we muddled along as best we could. Much of it sucked, but knowing how hard the pandemic hit so many people, I'm very fortunate. None of my close friends or loved ones died. I suffered no financial hardship (except the lightening of my wallet because I staved off boredom by shopping online like my life depended on it). 

Some of it didn't suck. I had an amazing ski season, which went a long way toward keeping me feeling happy. Being active and outside feeds my soul. 

Towards the end it felt like such a slog.  

But now it's summer. We're vaccinated. We're ready to go.

My kids have been out of school for two weeks. Two weeks of not having to fight with them to get up in the morning. Two weeks of not saying to Zeke (who continued to do school remotely because he couldn't be bothered to get up, and I let him because notwithstanding all of his school-related fuckery, he made the honor roll), "let's have one day when I don't get a 3:30 p.m. tardy call, OK? Just one?" 

The end of the school year also lightened my load considerably, both in terms of stress and actual work. Much of what I do involves student-specific and school administration issues. When school isn't in session, the phone calls and emails drop off immediately and significantly. 

The weather is beautiful. I've been doing some mountain biking and hiking. Restaurants are open. We take the SUP to the reservoir. We see friends and are out and about.

In a week, I'm going to Iceland with a man-friend (I don't date boys). After going in 2015 (when it was winter and freezing), I've wanted to go in the summer. We'll be there for the summer solstice, which is celebrated with a big party in Iceland. We're doing a road trip around the entire island - it looks fabulous and I can't wait. 

Next month is the annual trip to the Outer Banks. While I'm there, I'll do a little jaunt to Richmond for a girls' weekend with my UVA buddies.

And tomorrow, the kids and I head to New Hampshire for the high school graduation party for one of Josh's kids. The whole mishpachah will be there. It will be the first time since Thanksgiving of 2019 that we will all be together. The thought of it makes me choke up with happiness. I love them and have missed them so much.

Y'all know how much I love reunions and family gatherings.  

The feeling I have reminds me of when Jason and I did our road trip across the country when we moved to Hawaii. We spent a number of days driving through the desert in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, and Nevada, before descending from the Sierra Nevadas down into Sacramento. We had spent so much time in dry air looking out at brown desert landscapes that when we got to California. all of the warm air and green grass and flowers and trees were startling. Especially because I don't like deserts - give me humid air and lush vegetation any day.

We have wandered in the COVID desert for far more than 40 days and 40 nights. Science is now delivering us to the promised land.

(How's that for a tortured metaphor?)

 It feels amazing.

So fill up your cups, your loving cups, as full as full can be

Late last year my Virginia girlies and I made a plan to have a mini-reunion girls' weekend in Florida. It's the 50th birthday year for many of us - not me, yet, as I liked to remind them - and that provided us with as much a good reason as any to plan a trip when we could hang out on the beach and eat and drink and sleep and relax and get caught up.

We picked a weekend in mid-March. We found an AirBnb in Boca Raton with a pool, plus it was close to the beach. We determined that giant pool floaties of the unicorn-shaped variety were a must. We were super excited to see each other.

Then we just had to wait for the day to arrive.

Of course, because Colorado's weather in the spring is batshit crazy, a monster bomb cyclone snowpocalypse blizzard had to hit the day before my friend Jen and I were flying out.

The weather forecasters weren't wrong. The storm was a beast. That Wednesday the kids and I hunkered down in the house the way we've hunkered down for Category 1 hurricanes on the Outer Banks. I pulled the chairs in from the upstairs porch and secured the garbage cans and that sort of thing. Then we watched movies and drank hot cocoa and listened to music. The wind was whipping hard, blowing snow all over the place.

The kids were nervous.

"Are we going to be OK? Is the house going to be OK?"

"We'll be fine, guys. This house is 123 years old. It has survived many storms. It's tough."

The power went off at one point for about 5 minutes. When it came back on, we resumed watching whatever we had been watching.

The girls and I had been texting about the trip.

"Is it going to mess up your travel?"

"Nah, it should be fine. Flights are all cancelled today, but the weather is supposed to clear up tomorrow, so I don't think it'll be a problem."

(NARRATOR: It was a problem.)

On Wednesday afternoon, I received a text from United that my Thursday morning flight had been cancelled. But hey, feel free to rebook on our website or our mobile app!

Feeling sick to my stomach, I tried to rebook. Nothing was available. No direct flights (which is what I had), no connecting flights, no flights into other airports around the Miami area, nothing.

I was in tears. I couldn't bear the thought of not going on this trip that I had been looking forward to for so long, I called United. I was on hold for an hour before I was connected to a person.

Finally, finally, a lady picked up and began a 45 minute process of working her ass off to try to find me a flight that would get me in Thursday night (instead of Thursday afternoon) or, at the latest, Friday morning. She was tireless and patient, and got me onto a flight that got in late Thursday night. Instead of direct, I had to connect through Houston. But I would get there. Poor Jen was not as fortunate, which totally sucked.

Of course, the travel was not without its drama. My flight from Denver was exactly as late as the length of my layover in Houston, so I got off the plane in Houston and literally (literally literally, not figuratively literally) sprinted from one end of the Houston airport to the other in order to make my flight.

Which, going from sitting for hours to a full sprint, is not a good look. I'm more of an endurance athlete, not a sprinter. And I was wearing boots with heels and the wrong bra for sprinting. So I was teetering through the airport pulling my suitcase with one hand and holding my boobs with the other. By the time I made my connecting flight I was wheezing and coughing so severely that I feared I would puke. Literally.

But I didn't puke. And I was on the flight. I arrived in Fort Lauderdale and then took a Lyft up to Boca and everyone was awake and waiting for me when I arrived just after midnight.

I immediately relaxed and felt the love. Y'all know how much I love reunions.

The house was beautiful. The pool was beautiful. The beach was beautiful. My friends are beautiful. We relaxed and ate chips and salsa and watched basketball and swam. We hung out at the beach. We took a mellow booze cruise and went stand-up paddle boarding in Lake Boca, which is basically a giant tailgate party with boats. We floated on unicorns.

 

If I were any more relaxed I'd be dead

Susan brought souvenirs for everyone - personalized to-go cups with our initials in UVA colors, perfect for beer or wine or whatever else we wanted to carry around. We took them everywhere we went.

There is something so amazing about being with girlfriends that you have known for 30 years. We feel so comfortable around each other, and we know each other so well, and all of the bullshit anxiety that we carried around as 19 year olds - about fitting in, being cool, looking and dressing the right way, all of that shit - is gone. We own and embrace our flaws because they contribute to who we are, which is something to be celebrated. We can just talk and laugh and be honest with each other. It's the best.

After we had all returned home, I got a notification from AirBnb that Bob, our host/property manager, had left a review.

"Loved having these young women at our beach house!"

I don't know that we particularly feel like young women anymore. But maybe we keep each other young.

In any event, we'll take it for as long as we can get it.

Feel it in your heart and feel it in your soul

With every reunion, I take away different things.

I wasn't in touch with my India peeps for a really long time. Like, for twenty years after graduating from AES, I didn't see anyone, except for a few isolated incidents.

Then came the advent of Facebook and social media, and all of a sudden all of these wonderful people came flooding back into my life. This incredible experience - the magical confluence of being the right age, with the right people, in the right place, under the right circumstances - went from being a huge part of my life, but one that was undeniably in the past, to a current active presence in my everyday existence.

About 11 years ago, when I was living in Hawaii, Lisa and I reconnected on Facebook and via our blogs. As Facebook grew, so did my connections with people from my peripatetic childhood - friends from Israel, from high school in Virginia, from college and law school, and best of all, from India.

I reconnected with Kristin, who I have seen once in 20 years, but who is and always has been one of my favorite people in the world. I reconnected with Sophie. With Jason and Jason and Greg and Russ and Kassie and Mark and Chris and Daniel Azul and Kim and Julie and Susanna and Kristina and Raphaela and Robin and Sid and Rajiv and Paul and Boo and Carter and Jackie and on and on. We are all over the world, but I am in contact with some of them on a daily basis.

Then I started attending reunions and my head and my heart exploded. In 2010, it was emotional and sensory overload from connecting with these people and these experiences after 23 years.

In 2014, the love-buzz, the intensity of the connections, grew stronger.

In 2015, there was another big all-class reunion, and increasing sense that the India crew was a family. And not even one comprised of people that I had known at school - it was expanding to include people who I hadn't known in India because we weren't there at the same time, but who I came to know and love through the reunions themselves. It was expanding to include significant others. People like Ritu and Seana and Anne-Lene and Paul and Ingrid and Kerry and Kendall and Nicole and Sean and Marin and Lauri came into my life.

What struck me this past weekend is how much our reunions fill in the gaps of memory, which is a huge thing for me. When I can't remember, I feel like I'm losing a part of myself.

I was sitting at dinner and we were talking about how much freedom we had in India. How our parents let us do the craziest things at the ages of 16 and 17, before there were cell phones or even reliable landlines to parts of India.

"Hi, Mom and Dad! I was hired to be an extra in a BBC mini-series in Allahabad! Greg and Emily and Dan and I are going. They're sending us by train and putting us up in a hotel. See ya in 4 days!"

"OK, honey, have fun!"

"Hey, Mom and Dad! We've chartered a bus to go to Rishikesh to go white-water rafting with a couple of Canadian stoners. There won't be any chaperones or anyone over the age of 17, and we'll be camping by the river."

"Have a great time!"

WTF.

Jason remarked that the Rishikesh trip was dangerous.

"That bus ride was rough," he said. "And Kassie almost drowned in the river."

I don't remember that at all. I remember sitting around the camp fire. I remember jumping out of our rafts at one point and floating down with our life vests. I remember that Sandy and I took a shower in a freezing cold waterfall. But I don't remember any danger. Maybe I was just oblivious.

After reminiscing about the BBC shoot in Allahabad, I now remember sitting next to Saeed Jaffrey during a crowd shot and totally embarrassing myself by saying, "you look familiar! I know you! Haven't we met?" He gently explained that he was a actor and I had probably seen him in some of his movies.

We talked about the mini-course trip to Kerala senior year, and how we got busted for skinny-dipping in the ocean. I had very faint memories of that but they have all come back to me.

On Saturday, my parents had a ton of food left over from a political fundraiser they hosted that was sparsely attended, so everyone came over to hang out in the afternoon.

Jason B. brought his parents, which was amazing. His mom is hilarious and at one point pulled me aside and whispered conspiratorially, "Wendy, isn't that your ex-boyfriend over there??"

She was pointing to Greg. Who I dated for four months over thirty years ago, and who I haven't thought of as an ex-boyfriend for at least twenty-four of those years.

"Yes, I suppose it is," I laughed.

She was very concerned that I had recovered from the break-up. I found it hysterical, and assured her I was fine.

Anyway, I had exactly zero recollection that back in India, she and my mom and a couple of other women had a standing weekly bridge game and were close friends. And now, because of our reunions, they are back in touch and have plans to get together, along with Lisa's mom, Betty, and some other India friends.

As the years go by, the arms of our experience grow longer and longer, and envelop more and more people into the warm, loving hug of our reunions.

It's hard to fathom how many years have gone by.

At one point on Saturday night, a group of us was dancing and laughing. Lisa and I were literally jumping up and down. I was delighted but also amazed.

I thought, how is it that we are only a couple years away from being 50 years old? How is that possible?

I wouldn't say that I still feel 17, but I certainly don't feel any older than maybe 35, in terms of my physical fitness and approach to life.

India lives in all of us, and it keeps us young. We keep each other young.

The last dance is always to All Night Long.

Nicole said, "are you going to cry?"

"I'm not going to cry," I responded.

I cried.

Looking around at this group of old friends, all of whom feel the same magic that I do when we're together, all of whom look back on our time together as lightening in a bottle, I cried with joy for the love we have for each other and I cried with sadness because even before they're gone I miss them.

In my head, the picture of our time in that exotic place so many years ago feels like a painting that is being dusted off. With every reunion, the image is clearer and comes more fully into focus. Usually the passage of time causes the opposite to happen.

But we are our own time machine, bringing back the past and making it our present and future.

If you can't have perfect recall, this is a good substitute

A few weeks ago, I went out on a date with a guy who has a form of Superior Autobiographical Memory. He has the ability to remember everything that has ever happened to him in vivid visual detail, to the point that he was the subject of psychological studies when he was younger. The way he described it, he can't get the recall from simply naming a date, but if he is talking about an event he can see it in perfect detail, as if he were reliving it.

I found it interesting, but it also made him almost impossible to have a normal conversation with. I spent an hour and a half talking to him and never got the answer to the simple question, "so what brought you to Denver from Tennessee" because the answer started with, "well, it started 26 years ago when I was cut by the Dallas Cowboys"  - wait, what?? - and meandered and meandered until I finally got so confused that I just gave up.

Anyway, I wasn't interested in going out with him again, but I was fascinated by his description of how his memory works. He said, "even if I never see you again, I will always be able to remember, in perfect detail, the expression on your face, the earrings you are wearing, the shape of your eyes, the color of your jacket, the music that is playing right now."  Everything that happens to him, he carries with him, intact and presumably, forever.

That kind of recall may be a double-edged sword - for this guy, it makes it impossible for him to have any kind of normal conversation that proceeds in anything resembling a linear fashion, because everything he says triggers another memory that he gets caught up in. But it could also be really useful and rewarding.

I hate forgetting things. It's like a small death, losing a part of yourself.

I bring this up because I was talking to my New York reunion friends about singing in the cabaret bar (specifically, I was recounting that Zeke watched the video and his first question was, "were you drunk?"), and they remarked that they were surprised that in writing about it, I had only posted a screen shot of me singing by the piano, rather than the video itself.

My thinking was that I use this blog to write about things that happen to me, but I don't tend to use it as just a diary. I want the writing to be good, and when I write about something, I want it to resonate beyond, "oh, this happened." So I explained that when I wrote the last post, I didn't post the video because it felt self-indulgent -- I didn't want the post to be all about me, but rather about all of us and that feeling of reconnecting with people who have known you forever and with whom you feel like you're home.

Y'all know how much I like reunions.

Anyway, they were all, yeah yeah that's so thoughtful whatever who cares, just post all the rest of the shit that happened, including the video, because it was awesome and because if we record it for posterity, we hold on to it more easily. As Marney put it, "I am hoping [you] will document all of the silliness that I wish to remember."

So in the absence of actually possessing Superior Autobiographical Memory, I will use this blog as a substitute. And I will also adopt Laura's suggestion, when I said that I needed to figure out a way to write it well, to recount our adventures as "New York by the Numbers..."  

So here goes:

• At least 80% - Chance, by Marney's estimation, that the AirBnb was bullshit and we would have no place to stay 

The weekend took shape very quickly. We made the decision back in September to plan an NYC girls' trip, and within two days we had picked a weekend, I had made a reservation for a place on AirBnb, and I had bought my plane ticket.  

The week before we were going, we saw an article in the New York Times about how it was illegal in New York City to do short-term apartment rentals via AirBnb. So I emailed the owner, a "person" named "Cam," to make sure we were still on. "She" didn't respond to my questions about whether the entire endeavor was illegal, but assured me that all was well and gave me the instructions for getting into the apartment: go to the deli around the corner, ask for "Maria," who has the key to the front door, and then once inside, use the combination on the keypad to get into the apartment.

Marney, who had a strong feeling that we were the victims of a big scam, arrived in the city first, so she was in charge of getting the key and getting into the apartment. But when she went to the deli and asked for "Maria," she was told that there was no "Maria" and nobody had a key or could help us. 

FUUUUUCCKKK.

Ever resourceful, she went back to the building, followed in someone who either had a key or who had buzzed in, and went up to the apartment. The cleaning people were there, and they gave her a key. So in the end, it worked out.

But still, super shady. She could have been anyone - the cleaning people didn't ask for ID or anything like that; they just handed over the key. And there were signs all over the apartment to the effect of, "if you run into any neighbors, just act like you're friends with the owner and are visiting them or borrowing the apartment." By the end of the weekend, we were convinced that "Cam" and "Maria" didn't exist, and that Cam's name and picture on the website were just a front for a group of mobsters who owned a bunch of New York apartments and illegally rented them out.

• 130 - The number of U.S. dollars each of us paid to stay for a weekend in the New York City Shangri-La

I chose the apartment because it seemed clean, was in a fun location, had enough bed space of all of us, and was inexpensive. (In my defense, I was trying to not spend a fortune on a place I knew we weren't going to spend much time in except for sleeping, but I wasn't trying to be that cheap - when I made the reservation, I thought there would only be 3 or 4 of us instead of 6.) 

While I was flying in and still in the air, I discovered that while I was connected to United's inflight wifi service, iMessage worked on my phone so I was able to send and receive text messages.  Which kind of weirded me out, but it was fun to communicate with everyone from 35,000 feet.

"How's the place?"

"Not the ritz"

"Slightly reminiscent of a place we might've rented in Myrtle [Beach]..."

In other words, the Shangri La. Where, undoubtedly, 10 people were crammed into a motel room that probably slept 4 comfortably, during the week between finals and graduation.

It was basically a windowless box that felt dark and kind of depressing, but it was clean and had room for all of us if we bunked up together like we were at camp. The big downer was that there was no blender, so we drank our margs on the rocks rather than blended.

The primitive accommodations made it all the more awesome. Yes, we're in our 40s and can certainly afford something slightly more upscale, but it was clean and functional and the Shangri-La-ness added to the overall color of the weekend. And shit, you couldn't beat the price.

• 6 - number of grown-ass women who stuck their hands inside the toilet tank at the Shangri-La to flush it, because the flusher/handle was broken when they arrived.  But shit, you couldn't beat the price.

• 24 - number of hours it took "Cam" to send someone to fix the fucking toilet flusher. But shit, you couldn't beat the price.

The guy who showed up was carrying a huge delivery box (the type you might hold food in to keep it warm) that said "CAVIAR" on the side. He didn't give us any caviar, but he did fix the handle on the toilet. So that was good.

• 2 - number of people who, after getting their freak on, tried to fight with Marney 

We went out for dinner at an Italian place on Friday night before heading to the cabaret bar. Marney got up to go use the restroom, but was waiting and waiting and waiting for the person using it to come out. Finally she used her key or some other implement to pick the lock to open the door and walked in on a couple who had obviously just finished having sex. They were more than a little startled and annoyed by her entrance and reacted accordingly.

She felt a bit threatened, but nothing happened. And it made for an entertaining - and conveniently timed - story that distracted a couple of us from a heated political discussion. *cough Klein Laura cough*

• 1 - number of us whose hair caught a little bit on fire at the Mexican restaurant.

Word to the wise: if you're setting up a restaurant, don't place little votive candles on the shoulder-blade-high back of the bench seat. Your patrons with long hair, such as Susan, will thank you for it.

•  5 - the number of drinks I had had - 2 shots of tequila at the Shangri-La, 2 glasses of wine at the Italian place, and 1 beer at the Duplex - before I got up and sang a song

By popular request, here's the proof. I forgot some of the lyrics in the middle and was a little pitchy before the final verse, but it's not terrible. 

• 6 - Number of women who left New York tired but rejuvenated after a great weekend with great friends

Here is our time capsule, ladies. I hope I wrote it well.

Have fun, will travel

Even though Jane left Charlottesville before I left Colorado, we ended up meeting at Penn Station at the same time. Her train kept getting delayed because - and I am not making this up - it was "a little bit on fire."  We found each other across from the Duane Reade at 6 p.m. on Friday afternoon and rather than deal with cabs or Uber (one dude tried to convince us to do an off the books Uber ride to the apartment for $45, which was more than twice what an actual Uber would have been, so we told him to stuff it), we hopped on the subway and were at the AirBnb in no time.
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We were the last to arrive - the others were already drinking and engaging in shenanigans, per the text thread.

Wendy you missed the boob contest these people are having. You would have won.

                     She can still join when she arrives!!

           Alcohol flowing heavily. One bottle of wine down.

Boob contest? Amateur hour until I get there.

M and I are competing on a different level. #ittybitty

People were grabbing my bra padding. this place is out of control.

We got to the place, put our bags down, and put on clothes to go out in. I did two tequila shots.

The benefit of us being in our mid-40s is that we can afford really good tequila.

We were so excited to be together that we were talking too loud and laughing too loud and being ridiculous. Boobs were compared and felt up, like the way you would test out a cantaloupe (or a little mango) to see if it's ripe. If I had been an outsider looking in on the scene it would have prompted major eye rolls, but as a participant it was hilarious.

The plan for the weekend was hatched in June at Reunions. Every five years isn't anywhere near enough. That time with old friends is too rejuvenating. It's too important to break up the regular patterns of life with a shot of nostalgia and craziness fueled by both alcohol and coffee.  The timing meant that I spent the last month flying back and forth across the country - to Ann Arbor for football, to Virginia for Thanksgiving, to New York for a girls' weekend with close college friends.  Fuck it, I'll sleep when I'm dead.

How is it possible that we have known each other for almost 30 years?  I don't feel old enough. None of us feels old enough. I don't think any of us looks old enough, either. As my brother Sam remarked when he met us out for a drink the next night, we're a "well preserved" group. 

The first night we went out for Italian food and then headed to a gay cabaret bar. My friends nominated me when the piano player asked who wanted to come up and sing.  The woman who was up before me was kind of awful, bless her heart. 

A youngish English woman named Emma was skeptical as I headed up to the piano.

"Can your mate sing?" she asked Christi.

"I sure hope so," Christi answered.

I did Etta James's At Last, and didn't humiliate myself.

"WEENNDYYYY!  OH MY GOOOOWD! I LOVE YOU!"

Emma became my number one fan.  All night long she would come up to our group, 

"WHERE'S MY WENDY? WENDY I LOVE YOU YOU DIRTY BITCH! AND YOUR BOOBS ARE FANTASTIC!"

It always comes back to the boobs. And Emma can only speak in all caps.

"GO SING ANOTHER ONE!!" 

So I did Aretha's Natural Woman. 

We drank lots of beer and couldn't stop laughing and smiling and we made friends with everyone at the bar. We finally made it back to the apartment, gabbed until 2 a.m., and went to bed. 

I didn't sleep enough but woke up happy. We had a little bit to eat and then decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. It was a gorgeous day and meandering through the city in the crisp air was a great way to wake up. We walked through the Lower East Side and through Chinatown and past City Hall and across the bridge, along with every other tourist in town. I bought some souvenir magnets but resisted the siren song of the selfie stick.

We walked and walked and had some lunch. Then we wandered around Union Square and walked back to the apartment to rest and chill out and shower before going out for the night. 

We dozed and had a snack and checked our phones and shared pictures of our kids. We talked about people we had gone to school with - who had done what, which catty bitches who had been mean girls had been left by their husbands, which former hotties were no longer so hot, which people had shown up at Reunions looking surprisingly dashing.  We enjoyed the fact that all we had done all day was hang out, and looked back wistfully at all the time we had had in college to just hang out. We had so much time. It's hard now to find time to just hang out with friends anymore. 

We wondered about our ability to rally.  

In the end, we did fine. We rallied.

The evening's fuel was margaritas and chips with really good guac and little mini tacos. Then we went to a bar than played 80s music and served $4 PBRs and $3 Coors Light drafts. I drank copious amounts of both, but it's basically beer-flavored water. We spent a lot of time waiting for the DJ to understand that just because a song was released in the 80s (and he actually fudged a bit on that point) it doesn't make it a decent dance song. There were bursts of dance greatness followed by frustrating song choices that didn't inspire us. But even complaining about that was fun. It became a running joke. 

It was another night of walking back to the apartment to hang out some more. We stopped at a bodega for popcorn and chips and a chocolate covered coconut Luna bar. We washed it down with the last of the tequila and margarita mix. 

Jane and I climbed into the bed we were sharing and talked as we fell asleep. We've been close friends for so long, and were roommates for a while in Atlanta, after I graduated from law school. We can talk to each other, and we did, about life and relationships and frustrations and joys and getting older. I felt happy and relaxed and loved.

And also tired and like I needed the balls of my feet replaced. But content overall.

I'm not sure where the energy came from, but before heading to the train the next day, Laura and Jane and I found the will to head over to the West Village and wander around some more. We walked down the High Line and down to Jane Street - a pilgrimage of sorts - and had some coffee and then walked back across the island to pick up our bags. Our final bit of weekend sustenance came in the form of an egg nog soft-serve cone, courtesy of the Big Gay Ice Cream Shop. If you need big gay instructions on how to do the Heimlich maneuver, here you go:

You're welcome.

Today is another post-reunion Monday. I'm tired and my feet still hurt. But I've got that familiar love hangover and my emotional batteries are full, and we're already planning the next one.

Remembering the purple shadows of the lawn, the majesty of the colonnades...

What struck me about my UVA reunion this past weekend was what an intensely physical experience it was.  And it's not just the insane amounts of walking, from one get-together to the next, around Charlottesville or around the University grounds, that leaves your feet throbbing by the time you get into bed at the end of the night. Or that fact that by the time you're getting into bed, it's 2 in the morning and you've been up running around for hours and hours.  Or the alcohol that starts flowing in the middle of the afternoon and doesn't stop until 10 or 11 hours later.

It's also the ache in my head and face from talking and smiling and laughing nonstop.  It's the shower of hugs and kisses, one after the other, from sorority sisters who I don't get to see or experience often enough, and who suddenly felt like the most important people in the world, so I tried to soak up their presence with every part of myself.  The joyful whoop that escaped me upon greeting my friend Mark, who when he first saw me on Friday night, threw his arms around me and lifted me up, twirling me in a circle. The grass between my toes as my friend Laura and I cavorted in front of the Rotunda at 1 in the morning, throwing our hands in the air for a picture, as if we could take in the entire place in a huge embrace. The warmth of sitting and talking and just being with my dear friend (and former roommate) Jane, who remains one of the loveliest, sweetest people I have ever known.

The experiences of American college life have a universal quality to them.  Like college kids everywhere, my friends and I arrived at UVA not fully formed, so much younger and stupider than we realized - I was only 17 when I started, and didn't turn 18 until halfway through second semester of my first year.

We dipped our toes into the experimental waters of learning how to be adults, out on our own to decide which classes to take and which clubs to join and which interests to pursue.  Experiencing the self-consciousness of figuring out which friendships to seek out. Developing the self esteem to know whether and how peer pressure would shape our actions.  Having the discipline to drag our asses to an early class when the professor didn't take attendance, and there wasn't a parent to make sure you were up and out the door in time.  Navigating the world of living quasi-independently, dealing with roommates both of the amazing and the shitty variety. Deciding on our own how late we would stay out, whether and how much we would drink, whose beds we would slip into and what we would do when we were there. What kind of people we wanted to be.

We formed close connections and learned life lessons and received a great education.  And as an added bonus, we were able to do it in this extraordinary place that is infused with history and tradition, and which has a distinctive, stunning physical presence. Plenty of kids stumble to an 8 a.m. class, bleary eyed from a late night of studying or beer drinking or both. But we got to do it while walking past the Rotunda, inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and designed by Thomas Jefferson to represent the authority of nature and power of reason.  Meandering down the brick-paved colonnades along the Lawn, where every year a select group of fourth year students are awarded the enormous honor of living in the tiny rooms along Jefferson's original "academical village," with their lack of air-conditioning or attached bathrooms, so you would see them trudging out in their bathrobes and carrying their buckets of soap and shampoo down to the showers.

I tried to never take it for granted - I walked down the Lawn and past the Rotunda thousands of times in my four years there, and every time I tried to really look at it and appreciate it.  The physical environment, both because of its beauty and its historical and architectural grandeur, was as much of a character in the drama of those four years as any other.

For the reunion, Jane won a lottery that gave her access to a Lawn room for the weekend, and it became our home base.*  It was the pre-party location before our class dinners, and the after-hours happening spot until late in the night.  It was where we hung out during the day, catching up with each other and greeting everyone who walked by, enjoying the respite from the sun on a hot Virginia day, with its soft, heavy, wet air. The entire experience was an assault on the senses - the beauty of the architecture and landscape, the heat, the physical contact with old friends, the music and laughter, the food and drink, the walking and the dancing, and the exhaustion when it was finally all over.

After 25 years, those four years feel far away.  We are more than twice as old as we were when we graduated, and memories fade. People change as they age and aren't as recognizable at first.

But then you drive down Route 29, or walk from the Corner past Brooks Hall up to the Lawn, down the colonnades, past the amphitheater, seeing the lush trees and grass, feeling the sultriness of the summer air; the environment becomes a time machine that delivers you psychologically back to that point when every emotion and interaction felt more intense, more vivid, because it was so ephemeral.

____________________________
*In an amazing coincidence, it turned out to be the same room that one of our sorority sisters lived in during her fourth year, 25 years ago.

Just let me state for the record, we're giving love in a family dose.

After every reunion, I feel like I write the same blog post.  Over and over again.

And in terms of capturing the raw feeling of what it's like for all of us, I can't express it any better than Lisa has.

But what I have been trying to figure out since I returned from my India reunion in DC this past weekend is why.  Or what.  What it is about those people, from that place and that point in my life, that makes our reunions - or any time we get to spend together - feel so much more special than get-togethers with other groups of friends?

I loved UVA, and I love going to my college reunions and seeing my old friends and classmates, but those reunions don't leave me an emotional mess, wishing I could travel back in time and hold on to those days and those people and never let go.

I enjoyed living in Israel and going to my Israel reunions, but it's not the same.

There was some kind of magical alchemy going on in India.  It was being there at the perfect age - old enough to go out on our own and experience the country in a grown-up-ish way - in the perfect place with the perfect people at the perfect school with the perfect teachers and faculty.  Teachers and faculty mostly lived in the school's extensive residential housing, and many of them had kids of their own at the school, so we interacted with faculty not just during class, but on campus and as the parents of our friends.

The truth is, we were, and are, family.  That's the difference.  It feels like coming home to family - to people who you love and accept fully, and who love and accept you, and around whom you feel entirely comfortable and happy.

Upon arriving in India at the beginning of the second semester of my junior year, I became fast friends with a large number of people in 10th, 11th and 12th grades - the school was small, so we intermingled all over the place.  Two of my immediate good buddies were Sarah and Emily, twin sisters who were in 10th grade.  Their dad was also the principal of the high school, and their mom was one of the math teachers.  They lived in an apartment on the edge of the school campus, so I spent a ton of time over there, hanging out and having dinner with them.  I went with their family to Goa for spring break.

So they weren't just school friends.  The whole family were friends-friends, and they treated me like one-of-the-family-friends.  The one time I got detention - for extending my lunch period into whatever class came next - it was like getting detention from my grandpa.  He sort of rolled his eyes at me and said, "you know I have to give you detention, so sit here for 45 minutes and then it'll be over, and by the way, are you coming for dinner tonight?"

When I saw them all - Sarah and Emily, their older brother Win (who was a year ahead of me in school), and mom and dad - at the reunion, I wasn't saying "hi how's it going so good to see you after all these years" to my old high school principal, or reconnecting with classmates that I knew long ago.  I was being welcomed back into the family fold.

Because the reunions are all-class reunions, and because of the nature of diplomatic schools, with people coming and going constantly, I saw many, many people that I didn't know when I was at AES. The reunion included people from the classes of 1962 through 2011.  But there were people that I'd heard of because they were either famous or notorious, or who I had met and become friends with at previous reunions, or who met this weekend when my late 80s crew ran into folks from the early 70s while we were all prowling the hallways of the Hyatt looking for an after-party, and we figured we might as well join forces.  It was like being at a huge family reunion, and finally getting to meet distant cousins that you hadn't grown up with but you knew you would adore immediately.

Because only with family do I feel totally comfortable, totally myself, totally loved and appreciated. Only with family would I get out on the dance floor and participate in a Bollywood-esque dance with Jason (different Jason, obvs) and Kim, and feel like it was the natural thing to do.

Only with family is it normal that Lisa and I would prance around the perimeter of the dance floor to Kung Foo Fighting while erupting in bizarre star-jump-type kicks, and not feel remotely self-conscious.

Only with family do we all end up lounging in Sid's room at the end of the night, talking about childbirth and boobs and love and music.  And sometimes we're just looking around at each other, smiling and enjoying each others' glow.

Only with family do you walk up to say hello to someone that maybe you haven't seen in 30 years, or maybe you saw them last year, or maybe you saw them 5 minutes ago and just got back from the bathroom, and both your faces light up with both happiness and a sense of warmth and comfort that feels like home, and that joy and light makes everyone look ten times more beautiful than they already are.

Only with family do you get into the All Night Long circle, rocking and swaying to Lionel Ritchie at the end of the night, already knowing it's going to make you cry with happiness and nostalgia.  And you do cry.  And so do others.  And it's perfect, because it's family.

Life is good, wild and sweet, let the music play on.

It's a familiar feeling at this point.  The Sunday morning exhaustion mixed with a sense of longing and wistfulness, plus a hair of a lingering alcohol headache.  Trying mentally to race through and catologue snippets of conversations and laughter and songs and enveloping embraces from the previous two days, so as to not lose them, or the feeling they evoke.  Part of me can't stop smiling, the other part is on the verge of tears.

My India classmates gathered together in DC this past weekend for a mini-reunion.  About 45 of us gathered Friday and Saturday nights at restaurants downtown, and yesterday afternoon for a backyard lunch, to catch up and reminisce and try to recapture the magic that we were so lucky to experience in the late 80s at the American School in New Delhi, India.  We've been looking forward to it for months, and then it was a couple of weeks and then it was in a few days and then it was upon us and now it's over much too fast.

One of my friends remarked last week that when he told people he was heading to a high school reunion, people were like, "ooooh, great," with a note of skepticism.  And we know how unique our experience was - it's hard to explain that when we are all together again, we feel like we're home.  There's this happy love buzz that seeps into our nerves and our bones.  Yesterday morning, notwithstanding having gotten maybe 3 hours of sleep, I woke up way early because I felt like I was vibrating like a tuning fork.

We couldn't stop hugging each other.  Our cheeks hurt from smiling and our heads hurt from laughing.

My knees hurt from getting so into an air guitar performance of Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" that I literally dropped to my knees on the hard floor of the restaurant to hit the high notes at the end.

We took over an Indian restaurant, ate yummy food and drank Indian beer, and talked and laughed and danced until 3 in the morning.  As before, I see my friends the way they were when we together 30 years ago -- there is no gray hair, no middle-aged spread, no wrinkles.  It's a weekend of magical thinking. They are still young and beautiful to me.  The same crushes on the same boys resurface (and the fact that an astounding number of us are going through divorces and separations exacerbate it). The crazy memories from trips to Goa and bonfire parties in the woods and skipping school to go hang out in Agra feel impossibly fresh.

As my dear friend Lisa described a few days ago, back in Delhi we used to do this (admittedly incredibly corny) thing at parties when Lionel Ritchie's All Night Long would play, and we would get in a circle with our arms around each other and sway back and forth and dance together.  When the song came on last night, it was late - there were about 15 or 16 of us still at the restaurant, and we made a circle and put our arms around each other and started to dance.  I was looking around at everyone smiling and laughing, and thinking about how much I love these people and how much I love the feeling I have when I'm with them.  It was such an intensely wonderful, perfect moment.  And I burst into tears.

And then a few other people burst into tears.

Even the ones who were comforting me knew I was OK.  Everything was OK. I wasn't sad.  I was so happy that it was overwhelming.  I never wanted the feeling to end.

I'm sitting in Washington National Airport right now, waiting to board a flight to Orlando, where I'll be at a legal conference for the next few days.  And no, I'm not crying as I write this.  I have dust in my eyes. Really.

I wish it all wasn't over so quickly.  I wish we all lived closer together.  I wish we all had another day together.  I wish we had time to dance to another song.

Back to reality

I can't turn off the buzzing in my brain.

Some of it is lack of sleep -- over the past 4 days, I've gotten an average of maybe 3 hours a night.  But some of it is this pervasive feeling of longing, of "wait wait no no no come back it can't be over yet."

Lisa put it very aptly, comparing it to coming down off a 3 day cocaine binge (possibly - I don't think either of us can speak from experience).

Jason and I flew out with the kids Friday afternoon.  With the exception of a mini-meltdown by Zeke as we were landing in Washington (he wanted to sit on Daddy's lap to watch the landing, rather than sit in his own seat with his seatbelt buckled), the travel went smoothly.  My parents picked us up, I changed into a nice shirt and some heels, put on some makeup, grabbed my mom's car keys, and headed to the reunion.

What followed was 3 days of sensory overload.  Feeling the synapses in my brain explode every time someone walked up to me and said, "WENDY!  OH MY GOD!  IT'S SO GREAT TO SEE YOU!"  At one point early Friday evening, my friend Greg said, "I'm feeling overstimulated, it's almost too much," and I knew exactly what he meant.

As expected, everyone looked beautiful, exactly the same, only more so.  We all fell into our old conversations, only with more laughter, more appreciation for each others' beauty and uniqueness.

There were even some typical high school shenanigans, when we went hunting around for one guy's hotel room when we heard he had three cases of booze in his room (the cash bar was exorbitant).  When we got there, his girlfriend basically told us to piss off and shut the door in our faces, leaving seven of us out in the hallway falling down with screaming laughter.

Friday night we closed down the hotel bar in the Gateway Marriott.  Saturday night we were there for last call at a rooftop bar in Adams Morgan.  We were all decked out with sparkly stick-on jewels that we wore like bindis.  Sunday we dragged our tired asses over to Lisa's for a barbecue (I couldn't stay, unfortunately).  All we wanted was to prolong that contact, that feeling of comfort and familiarity and love.

And then it was over.

I've been out of sorts ever since.  I miss my friends and that feeling of being with people who truly know me, even though they haven't seen me for 23 years.  I still can't sleep.

Nothing to do but start planning the next one.