The Odds

I've had the song "Do You Love Me?" from Fiddler on the Roof stuck in my head for a week now. The local community theater is performing that show next spring...but moreso, perhaps one of the things that's driving this earworm is the realization that shrill Golde, skeptical Golde, is the same age as I am now. And her inability to assert her love for her 25-years husband, as touching as it may be, differs so profoundly from Pete's and my origin story—which has a Christmas moment as one of its highlights.

[This long and winding tale has pictures. Gather 'round.]

Peter and I bandied about the idea of getting married within two weeks of falling in love. Incredulously, sheepishly. At that juncture—freshman boy, senior girl—it was ludicrous, and we told no one of our wild notions. But by 1988, it wasn't outlandish anymore. We'd be living together in my apartment that fall, as a trial run. We were inseparable and still quite amused by each other...in fact, I doubt we had ever argued. And passionate, for certain...like crazed weasels. So with all of those factors in mind, we went to Peter's parents' summer home in Nova Scotia, during a gathering of extended family, and we announced out loud for the first time that we intended to get married.

The response was enthusiastic and warm; I can still hear the joyous peal of my mother-in-law's exuberant voice, and can still taste the fizz of the James Ready lager we toasted with. Much to my surprise, we immediately found ourselves discussing rings and dates and locations—topics Peter and I, not known for our pre-planning skills, had not been seriously considering. Our relaxing vacation thus morphed into a strategy session for an event we'd purely been imagining in terms of us.together.always. Calendars whipped out, family diamonds discussed...a dress?? a tux?! And of course, the elephant in that rustic, wooden-walled cabin: what religious denomination would be guiding this ceremony?

Well, no-brainer: we wanted our wedding to have a decidedly Quaker feel. This, despite the numerous Catholic weddings-of-friends I'd already attended, and despite my mother's probable distress at this prospect. I wondered if perhaps we could combine our traditions a little, to soften the blow...?

And herein, the fly landed in some unexpectedly gooey ointment. As relaxed and free-thinking as Quakers may appear to be, they are, in fact, governed by centuries of gently stated, deceptively simple rules. Which my mother-in-law Pat handed to us (and we still own), embodied in a slender, red-bound book called Faith and Practice. (Don't let that "slender" part fool you: they've cogitated on these things and forged them by consensus into softly brushed steel.) And what's more, Pat explained to us, as an elder of her meeting, she'd seen that combo-platter marriages didn't have a great track record. She advised that we stay within the straight-and-narrow channels of Quaker tradition. This meant:

1) the bride enters the meetinghouse alone, not with her father;

2) there is no music, none, zip, during the ceremony;

3) there is no ceremony to speak of, just an exchange of vows between the couple in the context of a silent meeting for worship; and

4) there is no officiant.

Oooooooookay. Deep breath. That's a steep shopping list to sell my mom, who would essentially be footing the bill for this departure-from-centuries-of-Catholic-family-marriages. "No music?" I squeaked.

Pat said (and would reiterate numerous times in the months to come) that the closer a couple stays within the proscribed traditions of the Germantown Monthly Meeting, the more likely the marriage is to succeed.

Oooooooookay.

If you're Catholic, you know what pre-Cana is. My sweet young husband-candidate did not. As we reviewed the suddenly shocking strictures of the Religious Society of Friends, we began to reconsider: should we do this in the Catholic Church instead? But I knew in my heart that Peter would never survive the indoctrination protocol that Catholics require: the pre-Cana sessions wherein a couple had to prove themselves, basically, and learn all of the rules and regs of a successful Catholic homelife. And, like, swear to raise the kids Catholic, which was never our intention.

Good God. Whose idea was this marriage thing...?

In hindsight, I suppose we might have rebelled against Pat's somber pronouncements and crafted a marriage ceremony that incorporated poetry, our own vows, and "Horizons" by Genesis (the music I wanted to march down the aisle to, on my brother's arm). But I didn't want to launch this marriage oppositionally, and I mean, have you met Pat Reifsnyder?! So as 1988 went along, we settled on a Quaker pathway. The location would be our then-hometown of Brunswick, Maine, and the ceremony would be arranged under the care of Peter's parents' meeting of Germantown (PA) Friends.

Now, I said there'd be no officiant...true statement. But a Quaker wedding requires the couple to be interviewed by elders of the meeting—a married couple themselves, who assess the readiness of the intendeds, and render a judgement of "clearance" on the marriage-to-be. Back at Lake Annis, in the lamp-lit wooden cabin, Pat Reifsnyder assured us that this would not be arduous or obstructive like pre-Cana; it was just a one-off meeting, a formality.

And thus we come to Christmas 1988...my fourth consecutive holiday among the Reifsnyders in Philadelphia. I'd come to adore these rollicking gatherings, felt completely at home with everyone. Reifsnyder holidays were 100 times more joyous and 100 times less stressful than the events of my Queens childhood. I mean: no drinking, no arguing, no physical violence. Pretty sweet. From the very beginning, the Reifsnyder fabric wove me in. 

Christmas 1988 would be the perfect time for our Clearance meeting with the elders, it was decided. Our wedding plans were barreling along; an old, worn estate diamond glinted on my left hand, purchased with Peter's hard-earned pay as a grocery bagger. A date selected: the day after Pete's college graduation. (Yeah, I'd snag this morsel without delay, and ba-boom: adulthood.) Flush with holiday cheer, Pete and I drove over to the E---s' house: a couple he'd known for years. He'd babysat their children. I detected his comfort level with them immediately, and when the conversation started, I was as honest and talkative as I usually am.

The E---s were interested in my origins. So I told them my child-of-divorce story, my mean-stepfather-who-used-to-rule-the-roost story, my scholarship-kid-kicks-ass-and-gets-into-little-Ivy story. The little Ivy, Bowdoin College, being the point of intersection for me and the gangly Quaker boy over there.

Mr. E--- sort of hijacked the conversation at this point. "You know, sometimes people meet, and..." he crossed his index fingers into an X. "In the middle here, that's when they've met and found common ground, but you see, after some time they diverge again..." Blah blah blah "life experiences..." blah blah blah "challenges..."

My face pinched into puzzledness. What was the point, Mr. E---?

Well, I'll cinch it up for you: Peter Reifsnyder and Nessa Burns were deemed unready for marriage by the elders of the Germantown Friends Meeting. This meant, basically, that the wedding as we'd been planning it was off. "WHAAAAAT?!" Pat bellowed as she heard the news. Peter and I just gaped, wallowed, and mentally grappled. Instead of a triumphant train ride back to Queens, wherein I would tell Mom all about Reifsnyder Christmas #4 and update her on marriage preparations, my insides were leaden with a bewildered failure as I stared out the window. Every Christmas light I saw seemed fuzzy and dimmed. Worse, I truly felt as though I were no longer the person I'd thought I was. Not worthy. Not Peter's equal. 

But never mind what I felt. Patricia Reifsnyder was absolutely aflame with indignance. She believed that her youngest and his chosen ladylove were more than ready to be wedded. And so, she yanked strings at the Quaker meeting and had a new elder couple assigned to our case: Betty and Steve Cary. I had no idea who they were at the time, but let's just say they're like Quaker royalty (seriously, check out Steve's obit: http://www.haverford.edu/publicrelations/news/stephencary.html). I returned to Philly just before New Year's, still weighted and terrified that our plans were derailed for good.

There was one tiny bright spot in my pocket when I headed back south: a mixtape. And even better: a mystery mixtape. You see, one of the points of intersection on those crossed index fingers was Peter's and my mutual love of obscure, cheesy oldies. We used to make each other unlabeled mixtapes (ON CASSETTE, YES WE'RE OLD) and play them in the car, so that the recipient would have to guess each song as it played. Many a long car ride from Maine south flew past as we pondered the songs and plundered our trivia brains for answers.

The mystery mixtape I carried was our Christmas gift from a demi-god of obscure music, Bill Feis. One of my brother's best friends at the time, Bill had a collection of dusty, cranky vinyl that was unparalleled. Peter and I had only begun to collect vinyl ourselves, and we aspired to the kind of indiscriminate archives that Billy had assembled over in Staten Island. It was actually quite an honor to be given this tape; handed down, if you will, by a respected elder. Billy had followed the rules: the tape box was unlabeled, and stuffed inside was a scruffy piece of notebook paper on which he'd inscribed the cassette's musical contents. I had not even peeked at this--I held onto it so that Peter and I could compete on "name the song and artist" as we drove home (triumphantly) to Maine. 

Except we had a drive to make to Haverford, first...to meet the Carys. And so, as the car wended along twisty, wooded Pennsy Main Line roads, we slid Bill's tape into the deck to calm our nerves.

I can still put myself back in that car...the laughter, the disbelief, the bonding. There we were, thinking we had music-trivia stones...and reeling out on an endless brown ribbon of tape were obscurities we couldn't have named with a gun to our heads. "I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman" by Whistling Jack Smith. "Zoo Be Zoo Be Zoo" by Sophia Loren. "Ode to a Critter" by Roy Clark. "Shoot Me With Your Love" by Tasha Thomas! My God, this was hopeless. Neither of us was gonna win this trivia contest. Who owns this stuff?! By the time we arrived at the Carys', we were dizzy from hilarity.

Thus fortified, I took a breath as we entered that Quakerly home (Oriental rug, check; wallsandwalls of books, check; folk art, check) and, despite my every tendency, roped in my chattiness. Answered questions briefly and calmly. Adult Nessa wishes I'd been able to really hang with these noteworthy people and get to know them, but way too much was at stake.

We passed with flying colors. And by that, I mean, we passed the William Feis test of compatibility: the couple that adores ridiculous old music together, stays together. Oh, and the Carys must have sensed our concord too, because they cleared us for marriage. (And a rockin' New Year's 1989 celebration.)

Coda: Bill put a song on his tape called "White on White". Do you know it? Yeah, we didn't either. (Nor the artist: Danny Williams. Dang! how are we supposed to know that!) But its lyrics made it clear: in Billy's inimitable, twisted-hipster way, he was congratulating us on our nuptials-to-be:

White on white, lace on satin,

Blue velvet ribbons on her bouquet.

White on white, lace on satin,

My little angel is getting married today.

Here she comes in her wedding gown lookin’ like a queen.

She has been my only love since she was thirteen.

I’ve been dreaming of this day and how proud I’d be,

When she came walkin’ down the aisle and held out her hand to me.

White on white, lace on satin,

Blue velvet ribbons on her bouquet.

White on white, lace on satin,

My little angel is getting married today.

I’ll be waiting to kiss the bride when her name is new.

Standing oh, so close to her silently saying “I do.”

I’ll be holding back my tears till she’s gone away,

‘cause she’ll belong to someone else when the organ starts to play.

White on white, lace on satin,

Blue velvet ribbons on her bouquet.

White on white, lace on satin,

My little angel is ge-e-etting ma-a-rried today...

The summer 1988 Reifsnyder family gathering at Lake Annis, NS.

My mother-in-law's inscription says it all.

Feis' relic of a playlist. You'd better believe we still own that tape.

Done.

Accelerant

I have a lot of friends with kids. Sibs with kids, too. Only here's the thing: Peter and I were pretty much the first among us to have a child. So I feel compelled to share with you all that I am currently in the throes of what feels like a solar wind (you know, that phenom of waves that engulf the Earth and cause Northern lights?) Like, a momentary swirl of energy that seems to be changing everything. And in my case, accelerating it.

I have a son who is taller than me. He's grown 6 inches in 6 months, blink and you'll miss it. I just flipped through a bunch of photos I had posted on Facebook, and in none of them is he taller than me (or his older sister, for that matter). Suddenly, now: young man. Will shares a bunk bed with the thankfully-still-small Des, and when I go in to check on Des before I go to bed...there's this hulking guy whose feet don't fit in the lower bunk! Ack! Oh. Right.

Then there's this college business. I know, I wrote about this before. I've written a lot about Zoe this year. But from the slow, tortuous agony of getting applications in and visiting campuses and whatnot, I find myself the mom of a young woman ready to go to the next stage. She's not chomping at the bit, nor is she packing yet (she's my daughter, after all). But I tell you she is ready. Composed, whole, and so prepared to immerse herself in art-making and learning. This summer, she's juggling two jobs. In light of my own work-juggling life, this means we are the proverbial passing ships. I'm shaking my head because, again, it's as though a wand had been waved. Swoosh! Presto-chango.

And about those two youngers who are perpetually called youngers? Lydia is getting astonishingly tall and self-confident. She is comfortable with herself. I find myself wondering now whether that is the quality that sent all of her care providers into a she-needs-to-be-tested mode. She's just not like any of her peers. Never was, never will be. And as she ages, she inhabits that knowledge beautifully. There's awkwardness about her, don't get me wrong. But I am filled with pride at her emergence.

Desmond is still my "huggy!" guy. Unlike the others, his growth spurts have been modest (although size 6 pants are waaay in the past now). When he hugs me, he's still at my waist. His tangle of curls is right at the level of my hand to tousle it. He loves it when I do that. Still, stay tuned. The potential energy in him is vast. :)

I am changing, too. (That's the understatement of the year.) It roils me and thrills me. But as with the Northern lights, my bursts of color and creating feel as though they are out of my direct control...they're happening because they must. Also, to complete the family-unit analysis, none of my life changes can occur without the complaint-free adaptations of Peter. He is demonstrating grace and quiet support that I have seen many, many times: with my grandfather; in the labor room; during Mom's illness (and before it became obvious); pretty much every day, dealing with an absorbed, spacey, enthusiastic, broody wife. Peter = rock. I learned that in CCD, and it's still the truth.

Manifesto

Page one: I am a mom. I look at any one of my children and my heart immediately fills with warmth and reaching, nurturance and ridiculous pride. This particular page has been written four times, in the whirling effort of labor and delivery. It was forged under fluorescent hospital lights, where a tone of worry and protectiveness was overlaid. It drives me like no other compulsion. On a weeknight, weary from the working world, it pushes me to stand at the stove, and when my children eat with gusto, this page’s work is momentarily done. It is the hunter-gatherer seeking affordable clothing that will be just cool enough.

Page two: I am an authority figure. More to the point: I’m like a football coach. In my head at all times is a game plan for each child (maybe not with all those x’s and o’s and arrows—though it would be cool if their lives were diagrammable like that). Strategy, rationale, the urgent need for success: all of these are in my mind with every parental mandate I deliver. And I’m not an easy coach, I know that. Sometimes my dictates seem far too frequent and pitched for my liking: I mean, fussing over fourth-grade homework assignments? Page three (see below) really does not want to care whether a kid achieves dominance over tricky mathematical word problems. Lord knows I never did. But it’s all part of the plan, isn’t it? What gates must my child go through before s/he can be deemed whole, successful, ready for adulthood? Which scouts does s/he need to impress? Which linebacker might take my child down? (See, this is where the football analogy may crumble, because I can’t say for sure if linebackers are those massive tackle-delivering guys, or what.)

 

Page three: I am a friend. Each one of my children’s faces inspires automatic, companionable devotion. I pine for their happiness and their satisfaction, and above all—because this is a guiding principle for me—I want them to seek joy and eschew strife. I love spending time with them as a friend would—you know, at the beauty salon with a daughter; at a museum with a dinosaur-loving son; on a train with every one of them (because we’re all train geeks). I love that we laugh at the same goofy things. I love that my iPod reflects their musical tastes as well as mine, and that there’s more overlap there than I ever imagined possible. I will offer advice as a friend whenever and however asked. I believe that each one of them knows this, but I understand that not always can they take me up on it. So in a sense, this friendship has vulnerabilities and potential pitfalls, because rejection is entirely possible. I am not deterred.

 

Page four: I am a writer. I watch the lives of four young people take shape, emerge, shift and grow, and as with everything else I encounter (literally), I am constantly taking notes. These people fascinate me. I know the genetic legacies they’re carrying—the personalities and appearances that resonate up from previous generations—and I’m just watching it all unreel with amazement and interest. The previous pages all lean on this page, though. They demand that I attempt to intervene and help lead these four stories. And with tearful intensity, they desire a happy ending for each. I wish they understood that once I sit down to write, I have no idea what will happen to my characters.

 

Page five is the person I was before these children were born. Before I met their father, even. It’s less a page than it is a film of places, people, times, and motivations that are quaint and nostalgic, now. The ill-starred fashion choices! The bumbling attempts at romance! The conversations with people I don’t see anymore! In a number of cases, in fact, those people are dead now, and I’m left to change and adapt. Thus, all of the above pages now lack the backup of some of my closest advisers and loved ones. I am forced to draw from reserves of strength that, in my youth, I had no reason to believe I would have.

 

All of this reflection has been prompted by a rejection letter from a college to my treasured oldest daughter. Every page of my being is challenged and affronted by this turn of events. Even more so, because the college decision and its implications for my daughter’s future—well, it’s not my game. It’s hers. I have to sigh and hope and believe (and I'm experienced in all of these). But there are tears in my eyes, regardless.

The door

Posted in honor of my eldest child, who is filling in line after blank line, crafting personal essays, imagining herself on a campus, becoming. And in honor of a friend, whose first-ever spring break is beckoning. While my initial instinct in writing this was to capture specificity for remembrance's sake, I find myself wondering if there is any universality within its lines. And thus...I blog.

The door is painted a gloomy forest green, reminiscent of the ancient, heavy pines that hem in the Bowdoin College campus. At eye level, he has posted a sign, a scrap of wood on which he’s burned deliberate words with his blowtorch. “OFFICE OF THE REV,” it says. And underneath that: “Come in and sin.” For an Irish-Catholic freshman girl, this is too laden with irony to even contemplate. Best not to think about it.

And so, as her foot scrapes across the threshold, she doesn’t. Nessa wonders why this mysterious junior has befriended her. He is a biochemistry major, an obvious genius, though he is far too much of a partier to be a true science geek. Also, he’s got a mess of curly red-brown hair which never looks as though it’s been combed (she will learn that it is, in fact, combed diligently each morning after his mandatory wake-up shower…it just springs into disarray as soon as the air starts to dry it). She is not impressed with the hair, at first. She likes Peter Frampton-esque, Rex Smith-y hair, that tumbling-onto-the-shoulders thing. David’s seems too unruly for her lust. It’s only later that she begins to covet its hidden swerves and swirls, lose her fingers in it, adore its nonconformity.

David dabbles in mind-alteration with serious intent. He needs to know; he is a scientist. She avoids such loss of control as seriously, having watched friends and family members melt into uselessness with substance intake. She does, however, drink. Prodigiously. After a party, as she lays in her miserably flat dorm bed, she’s prone to bouts of the spins that make her gleefully giddy. (Silently, of course--it’s a creepy, unwelcoming dorm, after all.) David is the first person who will ever hear her giggling after the party’s over. He’ll sling an arm around her neck and take the joyride with her.

But first, he needs to let her know that he’s interested. And being David, he’s not quite certain that he is. Inscrutability is his hallmark in this fraternity he lives in, and he even finds himself inscrutable on occasion. Oddest of all, he’s fashioned a bedroom out of a storage room down in the basement...right alongside the bar. Easier that way, staying up till all hours and just drifting a few feet over to your bedroom. A number of times since he set up the Office of the Rev, he’s been accompanied by a random woman as he heads for the bed. Now he squints at this, well, inscrutable freshman and wonders if she’ll be next. Nessa has long brown hair, an essential trait for Dave. She smiles all the time, but not in a vapid way--it’s a never-ending string of in-jokes that you just want to be in on. That’s the first thing that’s drawn him in. Oh, and she has a noteworthy ass, which sways in hipster Levi’s.

Here’s what he’s heard about her in the two months since she joined his co-ed fraternity: there’s a boyfriend back home, but it’s pretty much over. Someone in the house says she’s slept around a lot since arriving at Bowdoin. Dave’s studied Nessa these past few weeks, and he doubts it. She definitely was dating another freshman there for awhile--Dave saw her get into his massive ’69 Chevy one Friday evening, and then there was that house party when he saw them dance for hours. At one point they were back to back, swaying in time, heads tossed back with abandon. That made Dave wonder if maybe the rumors were true. But no, she’s Catholic, he heard her say that. He knows the M.O. of the shiksa, and usually it’s never more than pretend, dance floor come-ons. But he wants a try at that move, oh yes. He knows Nessa is more than a tease because he’s talked to her. She’s a storyteller and a deep listener. Not a typical freshman...an old soul.

Here’s what she’s heard about him in the two months since she joined his co-ed fraternity: Dave is a freak. He’s weird and even somewhat dangerous, prone to laboratory explosions and electrical mishaps. This does not jibe with the persona she’s encountered, like that one night when she was upset about Mike, the back-to-back-dancing freshman who had dumped her twice in one month. Broody from rejection, Nessa found Dave lolling around after a party had dissipated, watching TV. He was buzzed nearly beyond recognition, but he listened avidly to what she was saying. And he reassured her, at length. In two months of Bowdoin life, there’s been very little comforting that was delivered as sincerely as that. Also, Nessa knows that David has a cat, a fluffed-out beige male coon cat who comes and goes as he pleases. Malthus, his name is--his fur looks wild, but his eyes are deep. He reminds Nessa completely of his owner, and she’s equally endeared when she thinks of either one of them. No, she can’t believe that a single guy who owns a cat can be all bad, or even half-bad. Nessa thinks David is very sweet, and only a little scary.

And now she’s in his room. Just visiting. She’s asked to see his LP collection, because she’s heard a lot of his music during basement parties--when Dave’s stereo serves as the house sound system. The records are stored in crates at a right angle to his bed. She pulls a few square albums out of the row, and backs up a little--boom, sitting on the bed. A quick glance at the sidetable to her left reveals three things:

—an electric-blanket controller
—a fetal pig in a jar
—a contact lens case

She tries really hard to piece together meaning from these items, but it’s not cohering. Hmmmm. Nessa peruses the albums, flips them one by one. Definitely wants to tape Men at Work and the Police. He recommends the Moody Blues and the Dead. She’ll think about it. She hands him the LPs and picks up the fetal pig, peers into the jar.

“It’s like some kind of weird snow globe,” Nessa says absently. And if you swish the jar just a little, the well-preserved miniature pig swirls around. She stops moving the jar and looks intently at the specimen as it slows. She’s not a scientist, but she is absolutely fascinated by science. The pig’s snout is tiny and perfect, its back rounded as if in slumber--the suggestion of a spine under the skin. And there’s a delicate curlicue of a tail. “Wow,” Nessa says aloud, not meaning to.

She never asks him where this pig came from, and at no point does she ever find it strange that he sees fit to display the pig right next to his bed.

A week elapses. The College is heading into the restlessness of Thanksgiving: students anticipating a quick shot of home life while dreading winter and exams, and drinking more to combat the onset of dark, dark evenings. On one such ink-black night, a Monday, Nessa has wandered over to the fraternity. Schoolwork languishes in a pile on the edge of her desk, and true to form, Nessa is studiously avoiding it. She has vowed that she will not make party nights out of ordinary weekdays, but her college career will, in fact, be marked by her propensity to fashion a party as if twirling a paper wand in a cotton-candy machine. One flick of the wrist--instant festivity.

There is no festivity at Alpha Delta Phi on this doldrums Monday. Nessa sighs as she spots upperclassmen sprawled at tables, on sofas, by the fireplace, actually working. Pencils are poised above books, and eyes are narrowed in concentration. Bah. She makes her way into the TV room, where an uninteresting program flickers on the screen. Parks herself on a couch, because this is better than facing the workload and the dormitory.

A commercial interrupts the police drama, and she sits bolt upright. Pizza. A slice being pulled from a pie, fresh from the oven, cheese stringing. There are a handful of people in this room all facing the screen, and to none of them in particular she says, “Man, I haven’t had good pizza since I left New York.”

David rises and swivels to look at her, which startles her--she didn’t even know he was there. He’s sitting closer to the TV than she. “We’ll go in a little while, then, after I finish this assignment.”

Nessa reels a little but covers it. Instead of “Huh?” she says, “Okay.” She wonders what the others in the room think of his bold statement. No one has noticed.

True to his word, in a half-hour Dave slams shut a book and stands up, turning to face her. “Shall we?”

“W-where?” she manages, standing up slowly.

“Pizza Hut,” he states firmly.

They have to bundle into puffy jackets, for the weather has turned the final corner into stark winter. Somehow this shared activity in the front hallway takes the date-like sheen off the event, and Nessa relaxes. They head out into the night, away from the driveway...she realizes they will be walking. And a long walk it is from the center of town to the outskirts strip where Pizza Hut’s logo looms. They converse as they walk, in a manner that suggests they already know the basics about each other--which they do not, in any way. But Dave seems to believe they’ve crested some hurdle of getting-to-know-you, and Nessa never has trouble speaking openly.

Her hands are jammed into threadbare flannel pockets, craving warmth. He gestures with his hands as he talks--they are sheathed in practical, dense gloves. She finds herself coveting them, envying his seasoned understanding of what a Maine college student should expect on a night like this. A hat wouldn’t have been a bad idea, either. The occasional rush of frigid wind sings in her ears.

Dave has led her to the train tracks, which meander towards the busy drag on the way out of town. Sometimes they balance on the steely rails, then they step along the wooden ties. It feels childlike, though the total darkness belies that notion.

Dave’s steps slow momentarily, and Nessa comes to a stop, wondering. She can’t see his face, really, just the blocky shadow of his outline.

“Do you want to wear my gloves?”

“Yes,” she breathes. They are beyond warm, and her hands slip in with room to spare. “Thank you--I was so cold.”

“I know.”

Ahead of them, setting the sky aglow, are neon signs and streetlights of the main drag. It’s an epic sight, making the whole walk feel like an expedition.

Nessa did not know it was possible to close a Pizza Hut. They sit for three hours in the warm-smelling, deserted restaurant, hands almost touching as they gesture across the red-checked tablecloth. They talk about childhood and ambitions and siblings and trivia. Dave is smiling in an open-hearted way; Nessa feels as though she’s passed through some portal of his persona. She is amazed by what she finds: a companion. Dave is not so amazed, because he meant to connect with her. But he is impressed that his plan has worked so well. In fact, it’s morphed from, well, a come-on, to a bonding of kindred spirits.

After walking back to campus through sleepy intown streets, Nessa and Dave spend the night together. In a computer lab. As if testing her, he has brought her back here while he finishes a problem set. She will do anything to sustain this feeling of contentment, so as he pecks at the chunky keyboard, she sits alongside like an eager Yoko. Illuminated formulas march across a black screen. If she stares, it becomes a monotone Light-Brite pattern. That’s as much meaning as she could ever derive from the advanced math he’s studying, anyway. Above them, buzzing fluorescent tubes betray the hour: 2 a.m. She has never been in this room before, and she will never be in it again.

He walks her home at 4:30--just a little ways across the quad. The air has thickened with a cold fog, and they’re both shivery as she unlocks the door to her room.

It’s a double, actually; her roommate claimed the inner room (more privacy) and Nessa has her bed and a sofa here in the outer room. Anne’s door is closed, which is the most privacy Nessa can get. She leads Dave to the sofa, and they sit next to each other awkwardly, as if it were a porch swing. They speak in phrases, with long silences between them.

“So glad we went for pizza.” Him.

“Can’t believe it’s almost Thanksgiving.” Her.

His hand nudges hers gently, clasps it.

“I’m glad you asked me, um, to go out tonight.” Her, again.

“I am, too.”

Longer silence.

“Would it be all right if--can I kiss you?” Suddenly, he is unsure of himself.

She leans towards him, completing this role-shift, and as she nears, says, “Yes. I...yes.” It’s the most innocent first kiss either one of them has ever had. Still, they manage to make it last for a long time, savoring.

In exhaustion, they gradually recline together on the sofa, fully clothed, warming each other, giggling. This is how Anne finds them at 6:30 a.m., and her face registers disgust as she tracks through Nessa’s room in her slippers and robe, clutching a bucket of toiletries. The outer door slams, and Nessa and Dave giggle more, an in-joke they haven’t even voiced. She reaches up and touches the curve of Dave’s face, then finds his hair, tangling in the curls. A gray dawn begins to limn her things: the bed with its rainbow-striped comforter, her shoes alongside it, the pile of books teetering on the desk. Nessa knows, right now, that she will never need to stay in this room again.

"I challenge you to a game of Beer Pong"

The quoted sentence above was said to me exactly half my life ago. My senior year of college, which had just begun, was proving...tricky. I had just completed my final officership in my coed fraternity, AD--I'd been Fall Rush Chair. And the sentence above was said to me by one of the new pledges.

Fair to say that I had been flirting with this freshman since I'd met him at Rush. Although I'm by no means an overt or even terribly effective flirt. And I knew from my frathouse intel that this freshman was scoring quite well among the women of Bowdoin College (primarily the upper classes, which impressed us). His success didn't surprise me--he was, somehow, slightly more knowing than his classmates. Not full of himself at all, but a subtle, beguiling confidence in his manner. He was phenomenally tall--6 foot 5--and his lankiness just accentuated the skywardness. Still, despite the lack of bulk on him, you could tell he was a jock (of the tennis-squash ilk).

What made me flirt with this tall drink of water were the following things:

--he loved wry observations, both making them and hearing them

--when he laughed, the room brightened a little

--he was a kickass beer-pong player, right from the start...and I practically lived at that pong table

--whenever I couldn't finish a meal, he would gladly reach across and grab whatever was left on my plate

--his eyes were this undefinable shade of blue-green that I still haven't figured out

--I liked looking at him

Mind you, none of these things had really coalesced in my mind on October 25, 1985, when he uttered the title statement. I was frantically busy and emotionally off-balance at that moment--in a relationship that was sputtering, partying too much, taking honors-level courses that were truly tough, confronted with what the hell am I going to do when I graduate?, and desperately missing my former roommate and partner-in-crime, Geoff, who had left for junior year in Scotland. Yup, I was a box of broken toys right then, so any flirtations were happening despite myself.

Peter challenged me to beer pong on a nondescript Friday evening. The main party of that night had not kicked in yet; house members were scattered around doing other things. I looked him (upwards) in the eye and accepted his challenge. So we clattered down the basement stairs of our house, flipped on the light, and seized our paddles.

The stereo was locked up because the party hadn't started yet. That kind of thwarted me, because beer pong thrives on cranky rock music--I always felt awkward when pik-pok-plunknoises were all that you could hear. Kind of played up the absurdity of the enterprise at hand, plus it's hard to shout in triumph or despair when there's no loud wall of music to absorb the sound. [Quick insertion of pong rules: you put your beer cup right in front of you on the table, as does your opponent, and you play regular ping-pong, only you must try to hit the opposing cup. Hit on the side, one sip; hit the rim, three sips; if the ball sinks into the cup, chug. Repeat.]

That night I was feeling the ambient awkwardness. Pete and I were both going for it 100%, as I was widely considered a champion pong player, and he was impressively good and intensely competitive. A few pik-pok minutes passed, and I said with a surge of senior ennui, "I can't believe I'm playing beer pong with an 18-year-old."

(What did that mean?! I was 21!! Back then, it felt like a chasm.)

And across the table came a subtly confident Peter answer: "I'm 19."

In my mind, there was a sound effect like a Looney Tunes anvil hitting the ground. I looked across the table with totally new eyes and saw his smiling face...that brightening. Not only did his adjusted age make me feel better about my suddenly so-obvious-to-me crush, but the way he said it showed that he had something else in mind, too. A-ha.

We played pong till giddiness set in. I cannot remember how long that took; I cannot remember who won. Then we retreated to the TV room, which was at that time the incubator of all AD romances. Here was the drill: emergent couple sits stiffly alongside each other on a mushy old sofa, watching MTV with whomever else happens to be in there. You wait the others out...they trickle upstairs to bed, one by one...and then when they're gone: let the making-out begin.

Peter and I brought an innovation to this plan: we tossed a blanket over our legs and held hands underneath. I recall so vividly what that secret touch felt like: an inner thrill that has never left me, ever since.

We made out for awhile, but it was late by then (3 a.m.--damn you, Kester! :) ) and I craved being warm and horizontal in the dark. So I invited him upstairs. That smile again...we both stood up. Walking toward the stairs, we paused in the front hallway, which was bathed in light from the grand old center fixture...the rest of the downstairs was deserted and dark.

We faced each other and Peter pulled me into our first real embrace. My nose met him at chest-level, leaning into his soft-grey Bowdoin sweatshirt. And I breathed a scent, I kid you not, that was home. This man, this was the one. I knew it right at that moment, and I sighed.

As we separated to look at each other, I said, "Mmmmm...what is that smell?"

Peter pondered, then he said "...Bounce." Which made me smile, because it was so mundane and unassuming. And I knew it was so much more than that. I took his hand and we started up the stairs.

I love you, Peter. Happy anniversary. Be near me, be near....

The thrill of the hunt

This evening, I saw a splash ad for Napster that said, "Download a decade," and it completely sent me back to 1987. That's the year that Peter and I decided that we had to own the 1970s: a decade that formed us, with some of the oddest, most exhuberant, cheesiest, most excessive music ever. In 1987, we were really poor, and that dovetailed with something fortuitous: the rise of the compact disc.

Yup, I'm one of those people who can actually say I remember the first time I ever heard a CD. I think it was Bryan Adams, and it really sounded funny. I can't explain that now—years later, with hundreds of CDs on my shelf—but back then, music on CDs sounded tinnier, more distant and clinical. But that may well have been due to the lack of 1) a large paperboard cover and 2) dust. We looked at CD covers, those click-y clear plastic inventions, and they seemed so micro, so literally square, and just a tad obsessive. What do you think's gonna happen to the thing, you know? Aren't those freaky rainbow mirror circles supposedly indestructible?! (That was one of the media selling points, actually.)

And thenceforth, the rise of CDs led to a flood of vinyl. Some of it was actually still shrink-wrapped in the familiar large, alphabetical bins of a record store: marked down. Way to get my blood flowing. (We used to call all chain record stores "Record Orgasm," in homage to all the "Sound Explosion," "Record World," "Music City" kind of names.) At any rate, given our fiscal challenges, most of the vinyl that Peter and I set out to acquire was humble, used, and greyish with dust. In 1987 we began haunting Goodwills, Salvation Armys, yard sales, and anywhere else that vinyl was being shunted by the uncaring listening public. We became aces at cleaning layers of dust, excavating jewels from everyday filth. A little popping and scratchiness just enhanced the audio joy, we convinced ourselves.

I can still remember the palpable thrill one afternoon at the Goodwill in Bath, Maine. They had a bin crammed with outcast records. Stuck in amongst the LPs was a homemade spindle, some kind of long broomstick attached to a wooden disc as a base. That day, the spindle was stacked unbelievably high with 45s. I'm sure we let out some girly utterance in our excitement, like "Aaaaah!" or "Ooooh!" Then we commenced to pulling a handful off the stack and flipping through the coverless 45s—carefully; why scratch them any worse than they were—and setting aside all the ones we wanted. "Walking in Rhythm," by the Blackbyrds. "Back Off Boogaloo" by Ringo Starr. "Get Up and Boogie" by Silver Convention. "Clair" by Gilbert O'Sullivan. (You know, I could rave on, but that's the gist. Semi-obscurities that sent us back in time as soon as the first chords sounded through the needle.)

So what we were doing, really? We were reconstructing our childhoods and teen years, that's what. Because when we were kids, our parents weren't doling out sufficient dough to feed our music heads. I literally used to have to sneak LPs into my house underneath my coat, whenever I'd gathered/scammed enough money for records. I was skinnier then; it was tough to get my arms to fall naturally around a big squared-off chest as I rushed into the house past my stepfather. My mother was a musician, and yet if I asked her, "Can I have money to buy an album?" she'd retort, "You already have enough records, Nessa." Like what was that supposed to mean?! (She said the same thing about books when I came home forlornly clutching the Scholastic Book Club form. "I've read all those books!" I'd say. "Read them again," she'd intone with a profound lack of logic.)

Peter's parents, by contrast, were frugal Quakers. Not musicians, but not rock appreciators either. So his only album holdings, when he got to college, were from the Columbia House "Pick 20 albums for 1 cent" deal. That ran in every magazine any kid ever touched back then. I never could have gotten that box into the house under my coat.

What was the grail, you might wonder, the serious catch that Peter and I pursued so diligently in the musty Goodwill, under the buzzing fluorescent lights? That would be: K-Tels. We worshipped them, those splashy collections of every single that mattered in a five-month time period. They used to jam some 30 songs on one of those K-Tels! The sound quality suffered from the narrower grooves on the vinyl, but who cared? Now we had "You and Me," by Alice Cooper, and "Do You Wanna Make Love" by Peter McCann, and "Flash Light" by Parliament. (Reinsert raving comment here.)

1987 is a generation ago. Peter and I, still together, still fanatics, own thousands of LPs—most of them used. We own hundreds of K-Tels, fetish objects that they are. We love singles, too, and have more than 1000 of them. In many cases, we had to fashion sleeves out of flat paper bags from a bookstore. Their numbers increased significantly when jukeboxes switched over to digital; we ended up buying scores of cast-off singles from a local antiques shop. Those 45s had played in restaurants, bars, and bowling alleys all over Maine--we know, because the sleeves on the records had a handwritten note as to where they had been.

Download a decade? Nah. Search it out like a quest, clutch it to your chest (under your coat, if you must), share it with a beloved, and cherish it always.

She's Leaving Home

I'm standing at the sink by the window, filling a pot for pasta. As the water swirls against its silver interior, I realize how shiny and new-looking it is—that's because it was my mom's. I immediately think how grateful I am to have it...and then I realize that Mom's pots were cleaner than mine because I left home, and she didn't cook so much after that. And then my brain perceives the song that's just started playing on our stereo: "Matte Kudasai," by King Crimson. Lyrics:

Stand by the windowpane,
Pain, like the rain that's falling.
She waits in the air, Matte Kudasai.
She sleeps in a chair, in her sad America.
When, when was the night so long,
Long, like the notes I'm sending.
She waits in the air, Matte Kudasai.
She sleeps in a chair, in her sad America.

This song is mournful, plaintive, meditative, just nails everything I was feeling at that moment. And even more so, in that King Crimson's Discipline album is a total relic of the year I left home for college. It was the music of that autumn, thumping out of every stereo in the co-ed fraternity I joined. And there again, the frat was my first real break from the tumultuous home life I'd known before. I found acceptance as just me, not New York City me. I actually forged a more comfortable identity because I had that place and those amazing friends to guide me. It was not a typical frat: we were largely brainiacs with a thick streak of partyer woven in. Many science geeks (who were really cool underneath that stereotype, and I bagged a few besides); a couple of disaffected jocks; at least half a dozen writers; a significant number of Mainers; people who could discourse for hours about the plight of Wile E. Coyote or what made James Joyce's Ulysses worth reading.

Astonishing how music yanks you right to a time, place, and set of feelings, whether you knew that journey was pending or not. In fact, Pete put the Crimson on before I started cooking, so I was unwitting. And BTW, if you're dismissive of the notion of prog-rock, if it seems stegasaurean and ponderous...well, it's a lot more rhythmic and emotionally accessible than it seems. I wouldn't have gotten through my teen years without it.

228 Maine Street/Alpha Delta Phi

House where I lost my virginity
and found myself.
House where I drank more beer than a body ever has a right to
and stopped drinking beer, for good.
House where I lost all pretense that purple eyeshadow looked good
and learned the feminine power of vintage dresses.
House where I made more friends and kept more friends
than any other place I’ve ever been.
(House where my children have made friends too.)
House where I’ve greeted the dawn
by eating Froot Loops floating in a bowl of beer.
House where I’ve shared morning showers
and heard laughter echo off the tile walls.
House where I’ve worn someone else’s bathrobe at breakfast
and started raging rumors.
House where I sat in front of the fireplace
ruminating and procrastinating, cuddling and debating.
House where I watched MTV and “V” and Bugs Bunny
and listened to the music, loud, that continues to sustain me.
House where I learned how important it is
to hit a cup of keg beer with a ping-pong ball.
Again and again and again and again.
(And where I learned how hard it is to keep sipping your beer
when it gets hit in rapid succession.)
House where I tried pot, acted incredibly stupid,
and gave it up gladly.
House where I ceased to be defined by my ancestry.
House where my room was such a mess
that friends came in and tidied up in my absence,
laughing at my stuff.
House where I cheered the ground-shaking THUMP of a urinal
hurled off the roof.
House where I dispensed advice
and sought it in equal measure.
House where I shed my angst
and found my soulmate.
House of love. House of laughter. House of hope. House of belief.
Our House.