She was so excited; she had missed her friends and teachers a lot.

We are two days in to the new year and, wouldn’t you know it, she is home sick again.

She woke up late last night, crying for me, and her temperature was 102.4.

After lots of snuggles, a back rub and Tylenol she went back to bed, but is home sick with me today.

So today was supposed to look like this:

That would be me blogging. I don’t think I have ever shared this before, but I have never worked at a desk (outside of being in class in school) in my entire life. I read and write from the bed or the couch or the floor or the car. Right now, I am writing from the third floor room that is currently transitioning from former-playroom to future-guest room.

But, instead of being able to put on my writer’s hat today,

this is how the day has actually looked:

Nice nod to my best guy.

I tried to make up for it with this:

We do what we can.

And when I called the doctor she asked me if the cough was wet or dry or raspy or barky.

I am a somewhat seasoned mom at this point, having had two kids with RSV, croup and both viral and bacterial infections of all kinds. But I am sorry, I cannot classify a cough that specifically unless you are going to play me Youtube clips of each different kind and ask me what sounds most like what is coming out of my daughter’s mouth.

Which means, a trip to the doctor.

Woo!

And pardon me, but I need to go now to deal with this:

So for now, I am forced to say A Farewell…

to the computer.

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Where to begin? I sit here, hands tracing the keys of my laptop, but I don’t know how to start our story; to really tell our story in a way that will do it justice. It probably won’t make sense to anyone else. But it does to us, so I guess that is all that matters.

As our mentor’s mentor, Ernest Hemingway, said, “All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”

And so I shall try:

I saw a girl, once, sitting on the ground of the third floor of an old, musty school building and she looked like the most beautiful and interesting thing, and I was desperate, instantly, to get close to her.

***

I have written many stories on here, about my childhood and adulthood and parenthood, about things joyful and sorrowful and fanciful, but there is one piece of my life that I have left almost untouched.

I did not have a traditional college experience. I started off attending the Honors Program of a big state school, so that I had tiny, elite classes, but also giant, cheering crowds of football fans (which was supposed to be the best of both worlds) and I stayed there for a year and a half straight.

It was there that I fell in love, with reading literature and with a boy from a tiny town in the Mid-Hudson River Valley.

It wasn’t a perfect fit for me, but I have some fond, nostalgic memories; of running in a storm of icy snow to catch the school’s busline, so that I would make it in time for my seminar on Jewish Cinema; of walking into crowded frat parties, with their smell of stale kegs and the feel of sticky floors and air; of being selected to sing in the school’s talent competition my first week as a Freshman; of buying a beer funnel and leaving it in a tax and buying funnel cake and eating it at Arts Fest; of watching the Friends series finale and sobbing on the floor of the dorm room two doors down, which always seemed to smell like popcorn. And the list goes on.

But after a year and a half, I left school and the small life that I had built there to travel abroad to Barcelona (where I would experience many new things, the most important being Twin (obviously).

Upon my return home to the states that May, the summer after my Sophomore year, I decided that I did not want to go back to the big school, 3 hours from home. I had just lived in a vibrant, colorful world, and couldn’t bear to go to a place where there were no tall buildings. I don’t mean to say this disparagingly. People live and breathe for the school that I attended. It just wasn’t for me.

And so I transferred, to a satellite campus in Philadelphia, where I was able to remain in the Honors College.

This was the best academic decision I have ever made.

I entered into a class of five. There were five of us in the Honors Program. It was so intimate and astounding and life-altering…

but I have gotten ahead of myself.

On my first day of classes at my new school, where I knew no one, I felt nervous and detached. I had made the choice to trade these huge, crowded cities for a mere two buildings and a duck pond.

As I had already declared myself an English major during my Freshman year, my first class was one on literature, with this incredibly smart and dynamic, dark-haired professor who spoke with great passion about American Popular Culture.

And after that, I trekked up the stairs of the old building that housed most of the Liberal Arts classes,

and I found my way down a small, corridor, to a tiny corner classroom.

And there she was.

Sitting on the floor with a spiral notebook, I saw this beautiful, and elegant and impossibly chic looking girl. And as we introduced ourselves, we realized that we had been previously “set up” by mutual friends, but just so happened to have met coincidentally that day. She was one of the five in my class.

My honors class was like “The Breakfast Club”. Really. We were all so different, but got along beautifully. There were four girls and one boy: One quiet but sweet Information, Science and Technology girl, one Class President type, studying business and ruling the school with her sparkly, kind demeanor, a shaggy haired boy, shy and pensive and incredibly bright, and then, the girl. She was a fellow English major. She liked words like I did.

And at the helm of our happy, mis-matched group was a Hemingway scholar like no other.

She was the author of a book about the “Lost Generation”, the group of colorful expatriates who gathered in Paris, often at Gertrude Stein’s salon after World War 1 (or, as they thought, The Great War), like Hemingway, Fitzgerald, T.S. Eliot and Jon Dos Passos. Note: I am oversimplifying this incredibly, and for that I am sorry. But if i were to continue to try to define the Lost Generation, this post would turn into a novel and I wouldn’t be able to see straight.

Our Professor was a personal acquaintance of the Hemingway family, and she knew it all. She introduced us to his short stories, novels, memoir…and to the color and life of that time in history.

Why does all of this matter?

It matters because this band of early 20th Century misfits seemed to mirror and our little Honors band of misfits, and learning with my class, in this tiny classroom around a boardroom style table

changed my life.

Because it brought me a soul sister.

I wrote this week about soul friends, and from the moment we met, the beautiful girl from the hallway floor and I formed a bond.

I admired everything about her, and the closer we got, the more I liked her and marveled at her.

I loved her sense of style, and the way she furnished her apartment (it seemed so grown up to me, with her fancy lamps and dressers painted with flowers and her own cats!) and her incredible work ethic. Her brain. Her insight. Her intellect.

The next two years, she and I worked closely together, as we were in almost all the same classes, and our Hemingway Scholar Professor became the mentor for both of our Honors Theses.

It is funny to say this, because I had a long-term relationship for the first half of college, met my Twin during Sophomore year, met my husband during Junior year and became engaged to him during my Senior, but this girl, to me, is like my one, real college friend.

I realize that I am in the minority, as I see my friends so connected with their former sorority sisters and roommates, but for me it was different. As I told her today, it was quality over quantity. And she’s it.

And over the years since college we have woven in and out of each others lives. There were times when we were inseparable, seeing each other several times a week and talking for hours on the phone; and other times that years went by without a date; but it never mattered. Never ever. Not once has she missed calling me on my birthday, and when my daughter was born, we brought her downtown to meet my dear friend in her gorgeous city apartment.

In the past few months, though, I will say that we have connected in a way that is so profound, it is almost impossible to describe. I was talking to her today and I said, “It’s funny that you’re the hardest person I’ve ever tried to write about.”

And she replied, “Because words don’t do it for us. It’s deeper. Ironic…”

and I finished her sentence with, “because we are both all about words.”

We have not seen each other in years at this point, but are planning to reunite soon. But until then we speak every day, and we are just there for one another in this impossible, indescribable way.

And, you may ask, if it is so hard to describe, then why are you writing about it?

And I would reply, because I love to tell stories; that is what this is all about. And this is a big part of my story. And she is a muse; a radiant character, and she deserves to be a subject of some sort of art, and this is a (terribly inadequate but) fine place to start.

I had asked her to show me pictures of her apartment, as I have always been so amazed by her style. And she sent me these photos and told me to look closely.

Hanging prominently in her apartment for the past two years are two sketches that I made for her the year after we graduated. In the top photo, it is the drawing of a cat, stretching. In the bottom, it is a girl’s face, with red lips.

When she showed me this, gobsmacked is the best word I can use to describe how I felt. I drew her these pictures because I love her and I shared them with her because I trust her, but this is not me being modest when I say I that am not an artist. I am not very good at drawing. But for her, these pieces were special enough to hang in her home, her sanctuary. I am humbled beyond words.

There are many stories in my story; the story of how divergent paths can lead you to the same place as someone with whom you’re meant to be; the story of how friendship, when true, prevails over all else; the story of two young women, who met at twenty, are meeting each other, a decade later, and falling in love all over again; the story of passion; and the story of college, and how it looks different for everyone.

I saw a girl, once, sitting on the ground of the third floor of an old, musty school building and she looked like the most beautiful and interesting thing, and the closer I got to her, the more she unfolded, and the more stunning she became.

I always say this to her,

that I am a reader and not a writer,

so I will leave it to one of the greats to wrap up our story for now.

But I just mean on the computer,

for I believe our story together has only just begun.

Their eyes met and in an instant, in an inexplicable and only half conscious rush of emotion, they were in perfect communion.

F. Scott Fitzgerald.

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“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
-T.S. Eliot, one of my favorites.

Last night before bed I scanned my night table for my glasses, and took a minute to note what I keep there, next to me, as I sleep.
I don’t have much, but everything is meaningful. I have one of my crystals (of course).
I have a mirrored frame, containing a small piece of art that reads “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”
In the far back corner, hidden behind a silver carved wood box, I have a feather or two and (don’t judge me, please) my lucky purple underwear, folded and twisted up into a tiny little knot. Unidentifiable to anyone but me. My protection symbols. Ok. I know it’s weird. Whatever.
I have a photograph of Ernest Hemingway, older and bearded, writing at his desk.
And tucked away, behind it all, I have a few pieces from the hospital. They remind me of where I have been, where I no longer wish to be, and where I hope to go.

The pins are from a night earlier in my stay, when I was doing a partial hospitalization outpatient program and staying in a beautiful local boutique hotel. My dear, kind, amazing friend came up one night to sleep over with me, so that I would not be alone. Since my hospital was located a few miles from a lovely, quintessential college town, I met my girl at 6:30 that night, once my program for the day had ended, and we spent the evening walking around, through the college apparel shops, the pharmacy, clothing stores and savoring every second in their real, actual book store. We don’t have many (if any) of those around anymore. I must have lingered in the far back right corner between Hemingway and Fitzgerald for a good 10 minutes, just running my hands across the spines of “in Our Time” and “A Farewell to Arms” and “An Immoveable Feast”, like I wanted to inhale them.
At the checkout counter, they had these silly little pins for $1 each. We each picked out a couple, and I keep mine by my bed, because they make me smile. They make me think of this time of great transformation, but also of my great fortune to have a friend who would drive all the way to another state, after a long day of work, to spend 12 hours in a hotel room with me, just so that I wouldn’t have to sleep by myself.
There is also a beaded bracelet, that I accidentally made too big during a Sunday morning art therapy session while I was inpatient. I remember stringing each bead on carefully, knowing, as I did it, that I wold save this simple, silly little craft forever.
I guess subconsciously I keep these things, this strange collage of items, in the place that is closest to me as I rest,
hoping for healing, protection and guidance;
that somehow some of the powers of the crystals, and the safety of the feathers and the weight of the hospital stay and the wisdom of Hemingway and the reminder of eternal love will seep into me during slumber.
Hey, who knows how these things work.
Each night as I fall asleep I pray for a new beginning the next day; a new place from which to start. And, if nothing else, I can always rest easy knowing that, undoubtedly, Tulips are better than one.

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