Have I ever mentioned my friend V?

Probably not. The reason being - I miss her so very much. There is a huge vacancy in my life that is left especially for her, and no matter what I do, nothing and nobody else can fill it. We were friends in college, and of all my "college friends" she is the only one that has stuck. What I mean is, I don't write about her much because there is so much to say. But I think of her all the time. She moved to England quite a few years ago. We get together maybe every 2 years if we are lucky. If she or I could afford it the visits would be much more frequent.

Today I got a package in the mail from her. She gave me "eat pray love" by Elizabeth Gilbert, and a CD of her making. It was so strange because I have seen this book on shelves in stores all over lately, and have felt drawn to it, but always held back from getting it. Now I know why. She wrote all over the inside cover of the book and I cried. And I read the tracks on her CD and I laughed and then I listened and then I cried.

All I really wanted to say here is, I miss her.

I thought it less like a lake and more like a moat.
the rhythm of my footsteps crossing flood lands to your door have been silenced forever more.
the distance is quite simply much too far for me to row
it seems farther than ever before
oh no.

I need you so much closer

(death cab for cutie - transatlanticism)

Memory from last year:

K is seven years old. We are driving to a beach and he and his sister C are each looking out a window at the passing traffic and roadside. He is meticulously counting the number of cows and horses we pass. K loves animals.

We get to the beach and start the trek from parking area to sand. The sand slips in between our toes through the sandals and the kids shriek with glee. The sun bearing down and the sand swishing, whispering at our feet. My husband S slips his hand into mine and chuckles as we watch the kids race ahead of us. K is the one to find the spot where we will set our things.

We pull the blanket out and it flaps in the air. I briskly snap it out so that it will settle on the ground nicely. The kids know the drill: sandals on the corners, so it doesn't get whisked away. They run gingerly to the shoreline, gasping and jumping with each step as the sand perfectly reflects the heat of the sun.

We are at a lake but to K it is like the ocean. Any body of water will do, so long as it is vast and can hold some secrets. K is a little bit nervous about submerging, he rarely will swim under water. He does love to look into it though, and share his observations and discoveries with me. One day soon I will show him what the ocean is really like. I will hold his hand and watch his rapture as he feels the salt spray on his face and smells the fresh, damp air. I will glance at him sidelong and drink in his wonder at the life brimming just below the surface of the water. A perfect reflection of the life beneath the surface of his skin.

C loves the water for other reasons. When she was very little, she used to pretend she was a mermaid. She loved the way her hair would float around her in the water. She used to take extra-long baths because she wanted to see what it was like living as a fish. Sometimes I think if she was given the choice, she would take water over land. She gets this from me. It is in her blood and it courses so fully through her, that I cannot fault her for it. She leaps into the water as though into the arms of a long-lost love, and it fills me with a strange sort of mixture of joy and calm to see the rapture on her face as she emerges from the water. Her laughter is infectious, and S will toss her from his shoulders in to the lake again and again until they are both gasping for air from laughter and mischief.

K loves to collect artifacts from the places we go. A leaf, a feather, a rock, a stick. A shell. He brings them to me, eyes full and the words describing his discovery will tumble out in such a rush, I have to remind him to slow down. "Look, mom, this stick looks like a spider. Look mom, what kind of feather is this? Do you think the birdie will mind if I take it home? Look mom, this rock has a fossil in it! How old do you think it is?"

On this day at the beach, he finds a little shell. He immediately puts it up to his ear. Then I note he puts his mouth to the opening of it and starts murmuring. I am intrigued but I do not want to intrude. I keep watching him to see what he will do. I expect him to come to me in excitement and show me his latest treasure. He does not. Instead, he puts it up to his ear once more, and then once more murmurs something into it. Then he does something unexpected. He tosses the shell into the water, as far as he can throw.

I don't press him for information; instead, the day goes on as lazy days at the beach do. We picnic, get an ice cream, swim some more now and again. K and I dig for treasure, while C laps up the last of the waves and S snoozes on a towel. Half an eye on C, half an eye on K, I use a stick to draw things into the wet sand you usually find a couple of inches under the surface, if you dig enough. K thinks this is great fun and then he decides to dig some moats, fill them with water, and float his toy cars into them. He makes buzzing car noises and "oh noooo, he fell into the ocean!" and he and I are giggling. C comes up and splatters water all over us, laughter and the sun.

It is time to go, and we collect our things. Wash the beach off and change into clean clothes. K makes one last trip up to the shoreline to rinse off his sandy feet one last time and looks down. He finds the same shell he had thrown a few hours before. He picks it up and dusts it off and looks at it thoughtfully. He puts it in a pocket and brings it with him to the car. On the way home, he barely sees the cows, barely sees the horses. His eyes wink and blink and then fall slowly to a close. Sweet mouth breathes in and out; K is asleep. C, beside him, recounts her adventures of the day, one by one. She herself is fighting off the sleep; she is nine, she says. She doesn't need a nap anymore. But she is no match to a day full of clean air and sunshine and exercise in the water. Soon her eyes fall heavy and she too is sleeping.

We get home and S carries them one by one into the house. Pretty soon he won't be able to do this. The kids are growing in leaps and bounds. I follow him up and tuck them each in. C first. She mumbles a thank you for the fun day. I straighten up some mussed hair out of her face and oh, child, please don't grow up too quickly. Then I move on to K. He is in that half-sleep state, eyes fluttery and he's clinging to something in his hand. I gently pry the fingers open and see his little shell. His eyes open and he says in a sticky sleepy voice, "Listen to the shell, mum. I told it a secret." I put the shell to my ear and hear whistling air. I tell him I couldn't hear it quite right. He says "Oh, the ocean must have kept it." I gently rub his back, a ritual we sometimes share when he is feeling extra sleepy. He says "I know it isn't really an ocean, mommy." I say it's okay to pretend that it is. Pretending is the best part of being a kid.

"I know," he says, and lets out a big yawn. I kiss his forehead, and while I am close he says "Mommy, the ocean will always keep your secrets. That's why it's so salty you know - it's full of your tears." I am taken aback and I don't quite know what to say to this, so I say "Is that what the little shell told you?"

I wait for an answer, but none will be given. The ocean is still. K is fast asleep.

Ok so the title is appropos because that that Haddaway song was on the radio this morning. And it got me to thinking about this one time I went out with S to Swiss Chalet. This was back when that damn Eiffel 65 song, "Blue" was out. S just LOVED this song. I mean LOVED it. Hummed it all the time and did this weird head-swivelly thing. Anyway, it drove me nuts. And I told him to stop humming or singing it al-damn-ready. And he said ok, he promised. And we were sitting there in the restaurant, and to be a brat and not break his promise at the same time, he started the head-swivel thing and started mouthing the words.

So to be a brat back, I said, "oh yeah? Well -"

And I started doing that head-bob thing the boys in Night at the Roxbury do. And laugh! Oh my God, we were cracking up right in the middle of the restaurant, and getting all kinds of dirty looks from these little old ladies in a booth near us. And that didn't help it just made us laugh more. Oh man. And it probably isn't as funny describing it, but that's just the way we are. We laugh and laugh and laugh sometimes until laughing-tears come out and we can't breathe.

That is love.

I caved, let C go to the Brownies trip, sucked up my issues, and am glad for it. In an hour or so I get to go pick her up from the bus - she'll be happy and tired and cranky and souped up all at once, I'm sure. That's how these things go. I hope she was good, I hope she had fun.

K and I went to see Meet the Robinsons yesterday, while S went to see Spiderman 3 with his brother and his brother's girlfriend. I would have liked to have seen S-3 as well, but I promised K I would take him to see the Robinsons flick, and I keep my promises. Hammer brought her sons Bruce Banner & Otter with her, and the three boys made themselves quite comfy and happy as you please in seats in front of us. (We aren't cool enough to sit with them I guess? It was all we could do to convince them NOT to sit at the very front of the theatre.)

It was a cute movie, pretty funny for both kids and adults. Some of the stuff that Hammer & I were guffawing over probably went right over the kids' heads, but that's ok.

After the movie we walked home (it kicks nine kinds of ass in a 3 ass town that we live within walking distance) and my brother-in-law & his gf came over as well. Then S took them to the butcher to pick up their meat, took them home to put it away & brought them back so we could have a barbecue.

I LOVE BBQ. I cannot say how much I love it. It's that much. We had corn on the cob & smoked pork chops and honey garlic sausages and I made up some macaroni salad & house salad as well. Dayum, son. So tasty. K had a hot dog and he was happy with that. Then my parents called - they wanted to have K over for a sleepover, so he had something special to do this weekend as well (balancing out the C going to camp thing). His rash and everything was cleared up, so I let him go. Then brother-in-law & gf stayed a while, and we talked about... oh everything.

S and I took turns telling them the stories of how we met, how we got together, all that rot. I told some stories that S actually hadn't heard before, and you could tell he was dying for them to leave so he could ask me about it.

Sure enough, they leave, we go for a mini-walk and check on my in-laws' dog for them (they were in Chatham this weekend at a family gathering of mother-in-law's) and when we get home, he finally asks me. "Is it true what you said about your friend saying/doing those things to try to help my prev relationship with ex? And the thing about that other thing (I am not going into much more detail than that folks - it's a long story and frankly nobody's business)." I said yes, to a degree, and explained the further motives etc there. He seemed nonplussed.

Here's the deal: My best friend for the longest time was a person I will call Mickey, because he looked like Mickey Dolenz from the Monkees especially with a certain haircut he had for the longest time. He was also friends with S - that's how we met actually, through Mickey. S always had this feeling that he was just Mickey's back-up plan, never a friend for friendship's sake. So it blew S away that Mickey was doing all kinds of things to try and 1) repair his failing relationship with the girl he was seeing, and/or 2) help set him up with me, if plan 1 failed.

There's about a thousand more details between all this that would make this make a whole lot more sense, but I doubt the people reading this are really all that interested in the minutae of these events. Trust me when I say - Mickey cared a hell of a lot more than S realized. I think S was of the notion that Mickey was primarily concerned with my happiness in this whole deal, especially after our actually hooking up and Mickey giving him the all "if you hurt her, I will kill you" speech. Mickey's vested interest in my happiness is another long story, but long story short - our friendship extended to a point where we were more like family than friend. He is my brother from another mother, I am his sister from another mister. All that stuff. His giving S the third degree was a given, but certainly didn't mean he wasn't happy about our getting together - he had wanted this to happen, and long before it did.

Ok, let's set up a chronology to get some of this a bit clearer, however it may confuse you more.

- Mickey & I meet up in high school, I call him Mickey Dolenz, he isn't happy and doesn't talk to me for sometime, then he gets over himself and we start walking home from school together.
- Of course, a friendship develops, but goes no further, in spite of speculation on everyone else's part.
- Mickey introduces me to S. S and I walk Mickey home one night when he was too drunk to walk himself. S picks a flower for me. (I still have this flower - true story)
- I think S is sweet, S thinks I'm a hottie (his words, not mine). S is too chicken to pursue it at this point in time.
- School dance, S finally gets up the courage to ask me out, about 10 minutes too late - I end up dating someone else.
- Bad relationship with the someone else lasts about 2-3 years, S in meantime moves on & gets involved with others at this point. Point is - always either he or I were with someone else. But I'd be lying if I said I didn't find him attractive anyway.
- Bad relationship with someone else finally ends, S is dating someone else at this point, I am random serial-dating that occurs after ending a bad relationship.
- One day Mickey & I are hanging out at S's house after a party, S and I are talking a mile a minute and Mickey thinks to self "Damn."
- Conversations w/Mickey indicate his approval and frustration over S still being with that girl who put him through some not so nice things.
- Mickey initially attempts to set me up with S's best buddy at the time, since best buddy was messing with S's girl and Mickey hoped in my getting together with best buddy that S's girl would actually focus more on S, her freaking boyfriend, instead of his buddy.
- This of course doesn't work, because frankly I'm not attracted to best buddy, for many reasons (including his being a lecherous prat for ever messing with a friend's girl - why would I want to get together with someone who has no compunctions about doing this?)
- Over the summer, S's girl goes to Germany, almost breaks up with him but not quite, and in the meantime S notices I'm around a lot more. S does not pursue anything, as he is stalwart and would never betray a person he is with, in spite of how ridiculously they happen to be treating him.
- Several events occur that give S pause.
- I end up moving in with Ferg & S's girl at the time (loooooong story, and trust me I had many, many, many, many misgivings about the move, but was convinced by Ferg).
- Oh hell, this is getting way way too long. I'll tell the rest another day but the point is - she cheats, he gives her an ultimatum, she takes it, he and I get together, she gets pissed off because she was hoping he'd remain single in case things with best buddy didn't work out (which they didn't - she lost appeal after she was "free to roam"). All this happens and the whole time S has no idea that Mickey was all for this to happen, to promote S's happiness as well as my own.

Ok, time to get some food out for later (my parents are coming over, yes we're having another barbecue, this time steak! MMmm, steak.)

Any questions? Drop me a line.