WORKS IN PROCESS
It’s Tuesday. I am beginning the seven step
process that I like to call getting ready for bed.
I think about my upcoming high school reunion while I
remember the past, when going to sleep was a
decision not a strategy. And as I drift off to sleep,
waiting for all the skin care “rejuvenating”
creams to soak in, I consider the events to come.
I know we will have a big turnout because we are lucky enough to have a fantastic
team of graduates who devote a good deal of their time to keeping in contact with
all of us. It’s like herding cats if you ask me, but they dedicate themselves and the
result is a record breaking projected attendance. Just as my eyes close, a minor
panic sets in. What if some of my friends come and reveal all of my high school
secrets. Then I relax and realize that my secrets are probably safe because
nobody can remember them anyway. Crisis averted.
The next phase of reunion prep involves sizing up the wreckage of time and
gravity and wondering what to wear that will be the most concealing and yet not
an obvious ploy to cover up. I wonder if eyebrows would raise if I wore a burga.
Pass. They are so unfashionable. Quick wardrobe decisions are made because,
frankly, I don’t really care enough anymore to spend a great deal of time on any
one project. And besides, it is time to go swim at the UCLA pool and that is a
production in and of itself. Six kinds of sunscreen, hair products, bags of crap,
underwater ipod…limits time to worry about packing. Distracted by high school
memories, I forget half my stuff and have to go home to get it. Was I always this
absent minded? I can’t remember.
I think it is the plight of all mankind to reconcile high school experiences with adult
choices. How portentous that youthful indiscretion eventually hardens into bad
habits. Who knew that those untoward experiences at the sand pits would
eventually take on the form of reckless misadventure? Or that smoking to be cool
would become the hardest addiction to tackle. I lose myself in these exalted
predictions and realize that I have stopped swimming and am just standing in the
middle of the pool. A college kid butterflies past me, hissing that I am in his way. I
want to tell him that one day his six pack abs will look like a soft serve ice cream
cone, just like the rest of us. I keep swimming.
On the plane to Oklahoma, I wonder if it’s that we’re all now older and wiser or if it’s
just that there are no more lessons to learn the hard way. Or maybe our brain
cells are now down to a manageable size. Mysteries that have remained unsolved
will, it seems, be taken to the grave. Who set off the cherry bombs that blew out
lockers and destroyed the entire plumbing for the school? We’ll never know. I
suppose the secrecy of the scandal became forgotten lore as focus changed to
how much gasoline used to cost and the plight of the 401k.
Ah, we were so young. The effort to be noticed. The fear of being noticed, of
being found out. Parading past the Golden Cue, where only boys were allowed to
enter, hoping to catch the eye of one of the cute ones. That girls were forbidden to
enter seemed unquestionable ethics. Women’s lib was a distant dream in a young
girl’s mind. For the rest of us, the Golden Cue represented status quo. And the
endless nights of driving up and down Lindsey street, circling Boomerang and
Sonic and Jonesy’s hoping to find…what? I spent most of my adolescence
comparing myself to everyone around me.
I return to the consciousness of the airplane and realize that during my little nap,
drool has begun seeping down the side of my mouth. A teenage couple across
from me is staring at me. I want to tell the boy that one day his ears will have more
hair than his head. And I want o assure the girl that the time will come when her
ass looks like a hail damaged grapefruit, but I let it pass.
I am finally driving to the reunion. I wonder if anyone has changed. Then I wonder
when senility actually did hit me. It occurs to me I might not be recognized or
known or talked to or… At this time of my life, I am able to stop myself from
hysteria…most of the time…because I have the attention span of a gnat.
Upon arrival, I am greeted by friendly faces and, thankfully, name tags. The funny
thing about not seeing people for so many years is that as soon as I see the name
tag I realize, ‘of course that’s you’. And I look in their eyes and see them: their
history, the classes we took, watching them pile out of a car at the drive in on 50
cents a car night…the way they looked at graduation. We are all just the
same…except that now we are encouraged to slow down by the doctors rather
than the police. And these days, getting lucky means finding our cars in the
parking lot.
What a luscious experience it is to have the most popular boy in school, who knew
me when I was a nerd in the art club, with braces and bad hair, put his arm around
me and say “I’m proud of you.” There is something venerable about that. As I talk
to people about their lives, I learn that I was not the only one who measured myself
to the self imposed standards of what I thought everyone else was thinking and
doing and being. Then I get myself totally confused by the metaphors of youth
and just enjoy hearing the stories of children and grandchildren and careers and
stand beside myself and smile. I look at the memories around me and appreciate
that we are and have always been beautiful works in process.
