An Important Dessert

I have discovered an important distinction this week. The kind of thing that you didn’t know you didn’t get until something shined a light on its absence. For example: you love ice cream, you eat it whenever you can. Then one day someone gives you a nice mousse. Now you’ve never had mousse before and people have described it for you as cool but not as cold as ice cream and lighter than ice cream so you figure you have an idea about what to expect from mousse. But until you take that first spoonful and let it melt on your tongue, you really can’t say you know what mousse is like.

The important distinction that I suddenly see in high relief is the difference between loving at someone and loving with someone. It’s like someone handed me a bowl of mousse and asked “Now do you see how this is not the same as Ben and Jerry’s?” Yes, yes I see, sensei of frozen treat metaphors.

Examples from my past in the loving at paradigm parade before me like a slide show:

The selfish man who never asked me how my day was but filled our evenings with orations on the minutiae of his day.

The skier who said he’d teach me to ski so we could spend weekends together and then told he was tired of teaching his girlfriends to ski after I’d bought all the gear.

The Director who genuinely seemed to like me until a shinier, easier object came along and all my whispered prayers and fervent cute messages wouldn’t bring him back.

I’ll even say there is a mid category of loving near someone. Those where you both really have good intentions and there is perhaps great care between you but the threads that bind you aren’t strong enough to withstand the gales of maturation or even the breezes of doubt. Those ones where it could have worked out and you are even confused as to why it didn’t. There was nothing really wrong, per se. But time clouds how much was right; distorts it from mountains to molehills depending on how much you feel the need to chastise yourself at that moment of remembering.

Then there is the delicately whipped chocolate raspberry mousse of loving with. The one where you are both heading in the same direction. You both come to it with open hearts and sharing minds. You both think well yes, there may be things – there will be things that go out of whack and we’ll deal with them. You both take one hundred percent responsibility for the delicate newborn creature growing between you rather than waiting for the other to do their share. You feel a sense of freedom when you’re together; a sense of home. You don’t wonder if you are good enough or doing enough or perfect enough because there is that someone who loves you just as you are and it is a complete revelation. And the privilege of loving back in kind is thrilling. And the rest of your life is for discovery. And all those times you left the party alone, felt a gift go unappreciated, watched him kiss someone else – they all melt into dues paid and life lived. If this is what they lead to you wouldn’t change a single heartbreak.

An Ode to Bugs and Cobras

When I was six my father took me to a film that changed my life. It changed my core value system and my perception of what was possible. It sparked a life-long love and obsession. I have never been the same since. The film…was Herbie the Love Bug.

That fact that a sweet little car could get you from place to place, win races for you, and seemingly love you back was almost too much for me. I couldn’t wait to turn sixteen. That was a ways off though so in the meanwhile, I fed my obsession. I turned into a car junkie. It wasn’t just VWs. Anything with wheels and an engine. I loved The Dukes of Hazzard. Sure that Bo Duke was cute, but did you see what that Charger could do? Yee haw, indeed. KITT. Oh man, are you kidding? Many a night I dreamt of KITT’s clipped British voice telling me there were bad guys just around the corner. I would walk to school, talking into my giant Casio watch and imagining my gallant Kitt racing around the corner for me. When my sister played with her dolls, I made complex tracks for my many Matchbox cars and I drove the world with them. They all had names and stories. They all loved me back, just like Herbie.

When my sister and I used to play house, we’d get to the part where we’d pick what car we wanted and she’d always say she wanted a limo. I would endlessly dispute this with her. People don’t just have limos. That’s not a car you can actually drive and feel the joy of the open road, the thrill of downshifting into a tight turn as you would in, say, a 1965 AC Shelby Cobra. Granted, I had yet to experience these things myself but I was pretty sure they were out there.

My astute mom capitalized on this car-oriented world of mine. I earned my allowance with the weekly task of washing and detailing the giant 1979 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme that had been her wedding present from my step-dad. White with red leather interior. Oh yeah. And pinstripes! I loved it. My mom couldn’t get me to weed the garden or clean the house but I was happy covered in car grime and suds. I christened him Phineus and made sure the white walls gleamed, the leather shined and the hood ornament sparkled. I took care of Phineus, or Big Phinny to friends, as though he was a prize thoroughbred. And, at 18, was duly rewarded with the car itself to take to college.

Phinny and I had good times together. I could fit everything I owned in him and I knew that was valuable in case I ever needed to bail from the dorms in the middle of the night. I was free with Phinny. If I pumped the brakes at a stop light, his giant nose bounced up and down – cheapie hydraulics. Once I reached for a CD and swerved onto a median, snapping off a 4x4 with a “Keep Right” sign with a rifle-report crack. Not a scratch on Phinny’s steel bumper. And a fitting political statement to boot. That crazy car had taste. At a certain point the muffler fell off and Phineus developed a big throaty growl which I loved. Some frat boys pulled up next to me one day and revved their new stick-shift Mustang at me. As if my old automatic would be up to the challenge. The nerve. The light changed, I stomped on the gas and big, muffler-less Phinny leapt ahead, leaving the Mustang in a black cloud. I was on top of the world. Phinny and I were together so long I used to say if I needed him to, he’d be able to drive me home on his own.

My sister didn’t yet have her license and she’d pine for it, posing in mom’s driver’s seat and sighing “I was born to drive.” Even back then, I knew she was wrong. Hers was just a teenage fascination with the freedom of the driver’s license. Mine was a deep seated passion.

Driving has become one of the most purely unadulterated joys of my adult life. I had to move back here from New York because I couldn’t stand the not driving there. My idea of a good time is a few hours driving serpentine, deserted roads until my car’s back end breaks loose in the curves. I think, overall, my driving philosophy can be summed up by the fact that my speedometer broke sometime last year. I hardly notice. How fast am I going? As fast as I can. It’s not just a means to an end for me. And it’s not reckless. The precision and hyper-alert control is part of the draw. It’s an experience I savor.

Phineus has long gone to the scrap head in the sky. But his successors have been no less loved. My current amour is a zippy little red 300ZX. Rufus. He’s of voting age which in my book makes him a classic. He’s stylish in a sharp-lined, old school way. And he can legitimately kick the asses of the frat boy’s Mustangs. Rufus and I have been through a lot together. I have an ludicrous pride in the fact that I can handle his high torque rear-wheel drive in blizzard conditions as well as on the perfect Cali summer day.

I’ve had opportunities to trade him in - get something practical. The very thought makes my skin crawl. “Beige Honda” are dirty words to me. Give me style, give me personality. And give me internal combustion. I know, I know. Not a popular sentiment. But I don’t trust those sneaky Priuses with their “quiet - too quiet” thing. They are practical and good for the world and they have completely missed the joy of curvy, kick-ass design and open road revels. You don’t have to scold me. I know my days of white-knuckled, gas-guzzling, ground flight are numbered. Someday we’ll have used up all the fossilized dinosaurs and I’ll be relegated to putting along in tight-lipped silence. But until then I think it’s no accident that, from across the parking lot, my little Rufus looks like a Matchbox toy car. My love has come full circle.

A Brunch Toast

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms in our lives:

To the moms who teach us to appreciate the tiny details of life.

To the moms who survive harrowing times and emerge more beautiful than ever.

To the moms who've had to move on to the next life but who've left us with grace, laughter (and fishies!)

To the moms who make every Christmas the best Christmas ever.

To the moms who know that we'll be beautiful and successful and strong before we do.

To the moms who know that we'll never really understand how much they love us until we are moms ourselves.

To the women who've taken up the call to the toughest job ever - parenting.

And to the women who haven't given birth to a human (yet) but to inspiration and who take care of their friends with unconditional love.

Here's to all the amazing women in my life and yours.

Flying Home

In the waiting area of gate B58 a beautiful man holds a long, narrow hand over the vacant seat beside him. He looks like an English poet. He tells the man who asked to sit that he is saving the seat for his wife. I watch him and wonder what woman inspired him to love. She returns with Starbucks and I am surprised. She has a long face, a prominent nose and tiny, close eyes that seem too far up her forehead. She reminds me of a troll. I want to ask him, “why her?” Who can say what it is that brings people together? Or, more importantly, what keeps them together?

I went home for my brother’s wedding this weekend. It was beautiful to see the threads of this family come together from all over the country. The tapestry that binds us together. In my urban life I think I am fine. I don’t need anything. And then I am with family like this and I am brought face to face with how acutely lonely the modern career pursuit can be. I find myself wondering why we are all so far apart. Why we live our daily lives without the benefit of each other.

At the reception, I see what keeps my brother and his bride together. She always has a smile for him. He goes out of his way to tell her he loves her. I watch them greet the wedding guests and wonder what that would be like. To find someone who went out of his way. My family indulges me as I offer a poorly thought-out toast to the happy couple. Still they tell me it was moving and made them cry. Maybe it did.

On the plane, the beautiful man now sits across the aisle. He smiles at me once. I smile back. He looks away. As he should. He touches his wife’s back. She does not respond. No warming to his hand, curling into his touch. I imagine the marriage is not turning out the way the beautiful man once hoped.

I took the back roads out to my brother’s rehearsal. “I remember the way,” I’d cavalierly told him. “See you there.” The wedding was taking place at an outdoor amphitheater where we’d grown up seeing concerts. As I rolled out of our mountain town I realized I had no idea about the right streets. I drove into the open scrub land flanked by towering rocks and lit by dramatic storm clouds. I felt a stab of that exquisite pain that comes from knowing you’ll never have enough time with beauty. This is the land that made me, I thought. I’d forgotten how beautiful it was. How could I forget? Lost in the reverie of home, I arrived at the rehearsal without a single false turn.

I lean my head back into the plane seat and feel the poke of bobby pins from the day-old up-do I wear like a badge of honor. I have been to a place of love, it says. I know people who love truly and they are part of me. It dawns on me I am never as alone as I pretend with so much love just a phone call away. I look at the bridal bouquet that I caught. Squashed into my carry-on. I try to believe in it.

The small plane banks over LA. It’s golden hour. Everything is flush with the veneer of perfection and possibility. I look back across the aisle at the beautiful man and the troll wife. Together they are watching the city grow larger beneath us. She nods and speaks softly as he points out landmarks. It hits me. Marriage is simply deciding yes, no matter what. And re-deciding every day.