Gray

I always notice the older women, the ones with gray white hair who have obviously known each other for years. You see them meet at a restaurant or chat while they shop. Their history is deeper than your lifetime.  Just yesterday there was a table for six next to our table for ten. I had a hard time paying attention and had to pull myself back to our own conversations.

The women arrived in stages. A few were already there ahead of the others, waiting to fill the empty seats. Two were about my age and the third women was of that grandmother age, the sporty kind of grandmother with a nifty haircut and stylish clothes. She didn’t get the roller set on Saturdays. Her hair was a clean pure white that is so attractive, the kind of gray that if I were certain my hair looked like that underneath the Clairol, I might let it out.

These women were comfortable with one another; it was not the first time they had shared a lunch. I couldn’t tell if the connection was professional or family, or some beloved volunteer project. It was a sunny spring Saturday afternoon and they were not in a rush. 

Then the others arrived. The three women stood to greet them, and the grandmother quickly stepped forward to take hold of her friend. They held each other for a long time, smiling and exclaiming. It occurred to me that this could be the whole purpose of the lunch, that the younger women were nieces or daughters, getting together in a small college town so that these two grandmothers could have time together. Not that they needed help getting around, they weren’t there yet. But it had been a long time since they had seen each other.

The two older women sat down right next to one another, their short wispy hair almost a perfect match. They had so much to say, nodding happily with good stories to tell. There was contentment that did not reveal any of the loss or pain that surely two friends have shared, when you have known each other for that long and you are still here.

I want that. This is always what I think when I see women like these. I want to be sitting on a park bench when I am 80, holding hands with a best friend who I know better than myself. I want the peace that sits there on their faces. How many broken hearts have they shared, how many have already passed on ahead of them. Yet here they are, maybe discussing the last reading group meeting, how the host had misbehaved, or arguing whether or not it had been a good book choice. Probably they should change the way the books get chosen, “Yes, maybe that would be better if we had more consensus when we decided which books to read. That last one didn’t really work out, now did it?!” 

Of maybe they are planning their next yoga retreat, they had so enjoyed the last one, the one held in western MA entitled Aging Gracefully. There was nothing graceful about it at 6 in the morning, but by 2 in the afternoon, when they sat on the patio overlooking the Berkshires, there had been grace. They were still doing the warrior pose at 80 years old, and it doesn’t get much more graceful than that. They didn’t like to brag, so they didn’t, but they were pleased with themselves. “Well, I think we can take a few hours off to enjoy this horizon, don’t you, dear?” And the other would agree, “Oh yes, we have certainly earned it.”

How did they first meet, these two friends now sitting on the patio, or in a restaurant, or on a park bench? Was it when their children were small and they shared tips for survival, the recipes that could be thrown together and quickly feed a fast moving crowd? Did they meet at church, host the monthly Saturday suppers? Were they always the ones who made sure the hymnals were in order before service began? Or maybe they met at work, after the children were in school and they decided they had too much time on their hands. All those young women were going to the office now, so maybe they would, too. Just try it out and see what they could do. In no time at all they were the ladies that the young ones came to during a bad day. They swept out the backlog and had everyone looking forward again. When they finally retired, there had been a special luncheon and nobody really got anything done that day.

So now here they were, sitting together for lunch, catching up on the past few years. I don’t want them to have to go their separate ways when lunch is over. I want them to live right next door to one another and see each other every day. I don’t want one of them to ever be left without the other. There must be a way to time that, to ease the twilight so it comes slowly and no one really notices that the other has departed. I want to hear all their stories, and I don’t want their stories to end.

One of these days I will work up my nerve. I will go over and have a seat and ask quite kindly, “Tell me, tell me how it works. How did you do this thing, this friendship of yours?”

Written April 19, 2009

eRoom of My Own

Okay, we bought the laptop so I could be a writer, so now I will write. 

I like having my own computer space, a place that is all mine, not shared or borrowed. It is the eRoom of my own. Just my stuff, arranged with whatever colors, pictures, set up that I want. The key board is for my fingers. Surely Virginia Wolf would not have shared a computer, especially if she had a new MacBook. I can totally see her with the very laptop that I now hold. I bet she would have loved it. I bet she would have dragged her thumb on the track pad like I do, causing the curser to do funny things that we don’t mean it to do.  But we shall train ourselves to proper navigation.

This is a room that travels with us. We decorate it, we connect to others in it. Sometimes we wander without any real purpose and sometimes we are very focused.  The eRoom accommodates us in all these ways that we are. When I go to my writing retreat, the eRoom will come with me. They will give me my own studio and bedroom, but the eRoom will be my anchor. It will be focused and ready to work. And it will be familiar. 

Familiar is an underrated concept, sometimes even belittled.  We are encouraged to move outside of our comfort zone, to challenge our perceptions and view the world from a new perspective. But let's not forget that the 3 year old moves most boldly into the world when she is able to check back and find her parent there in the background, providing safely through familiarity, allowing the child to move forward with confidence.

Surely as an adult we no longer need the parent right there on the sidelines keeping an eye on us. We are typically aware of our surroundings and changes that we have made. We are often deliberate in choosing to move out of the familiar. Why then is it always such a surprise when we are overwhelmed when taken out of context?  Whether it is a new job or a new town, or a new relationship, it is easy to be taken off guard. Where the heck is that coffee shop that used to be part of my routine? How are things done here? There are things that I didn’t expect and there are things that I did expect, but they seem to be missing. I should have seen that coming. But it’s always the same, I am taken aback. I look for the familiar landmark and it’s not quite there. I can’t even find a Starbucks, whether it was the Kentucky move or the permanent change to Vermont. When you can’t even find a Starbucks, you know your compass is gone.

You want your room of your own, your point of reference as you step forward to the edge. Perhaps that explains the tethered connection to the Internet. My stuff is there, the things I write and the people I know. And now that entire world sits here on my new laptop, the eRoom of my own. At only 3 pounds, it’s a pretty good deal.

Written March 4, 2009