friendship

Where I Am From

/ lovizmytrio / 2 Comments

I am from a tire swing that never stops
a stone wall made by hand
to match the house with the crown molded ceilings
(I can still see the corona of flowers)
window panes as thin as ice
(and covered with it too)
thick foam shutters that my mom
decorated a different color in every room,
choosing fabrics to match the walls
(sewing with her ladylike hands and expertise)

I am from early mornings before dark
the backseat of a brown Nova
hot coffee spilling on the vinyl
on the way to the newspaper
and the babysitter who lived next
to the pig farm
(I loved to hold those piglets)

I am from a lonely empty house
and Flint Creek, full of black snakes in summer
covered in ice for skating
and sledding down the banks in winter
and the swamp behind the schoolyard
(surely too dangerous for Jen and I)
that sucked a shoe off my foot
in a quicksand moment that my penniless
mother would never forgive
(it was pink and blue—I was six)

I am from “Now that you’re old enough”
(chores that never ended)
to “That’s enough”
(sister fights that left scars)
and “That’s not the way you do it”
(snatches of mop, rag, vacuum, glass)

I am from the Dowlings but with the Jordan blood
(and it’s that blood that stings)
hand-me-down shoes, shirts, and bicycles,
the store that sold Bazooka gum for three cents
and fireballs for ten

I am from Dewey Avenue (do we or don’t we?)
the secret steps that led to Jen’s house
parents whose work stole them from me
and the maple that stood in the yard
holding the tire swing with one loyal limb
shading the upstairs porch we slept on all summer
growing there before I ever came into this world
(and I know it’s still there, waiting for me to remember,
to always remember, where I am from)

Colfax on MLK Day

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In the entire country, this is the longest continuous thoroughfare through a major metropolitan area. Its collection of every type of store, from spiritual arts to adults only to tattoo artists and nail salons, from record and book shops that beckon a bygone era, to liquor stores on almost every block, Laundromats, and gift shops, makes it more unique than any other street in Denver. But its difference does not stop there: it boasts a combination of modern brick apartment buildings intermingled with renovated Victorian mansions, stone masonry churches and the most architecturally magnificent high school in Colorado. It holds a variety of restaurants that range from Ethiopian to American to Greek, some dating back decades and others replacing old favorites with food served with a twist of contemporary and old-fashioned décor. The small theatres that line up like square building blocks along the north side of the street host up-and-coming bands from around the world. And all along its light-at-every-block corridor on any given day, you will see every kind of person you can imagine, from heavily pierced young artists to conservatively dressed Catholics to families pushing their strollers with young children. And you will also see, at all times of the day and night, endless traffic—people pouring out of the many bars and night clubs and into the multitude of 24/7 restaurants, people piercing and tattooing themselves at two in the morning, people streaming in and out of downtown.

This is Colfax, the simultaneously famous and infamous Denver street, the route to Civic Center Park, Lakewood, and Aurora, the path that leads to everywhere you want to go if you are heading somewhere in the city. And for every hour of almost every day of the year, you can drive on it. But not today, when the nation’s largest crowd gathers for a Marade, a combination of march and parade, to celebrate the glorious leader of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you go, you will stand for hours in City Park, and it will probably be sunny, as it always is in Denver. You will probably hear speeches from the mayor, the governor, perhaps a state senator, maybe even a U.S. senator. There will be a rally at the end with poetry and more speeches. There will be people holding up signs to say that we need to end the war, that you should join their church, that gays and lesbians should have equal rights, that American Indians are the first founding fathers, that the United States should have a Department of Peace. There will be drums of various tones and sizes, some individuals and some small groups, to set the beat for your six-mile-round trip walk.

But what you will really see and hear, as you take one slow step at a time, is a rainbow of people who, despite the varying signs they hold, despite the buses, cars old and new, and other methods of arrival to this point in place and time, have all come here with a common goal: to let loose the burdens of all that hang over our current society, to celebrate an amazing man who led so many thousands of people to a peaceful change, to come together with strangers and treat them as friends, and, with the strength and courage that drives us all to take pride in our country, to stop traffic on Colfax Avenue.

Friend Divorce

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We are adults now, though you always said we wouldn’t be. It’s not like I don’t think of you now—you know I always will. But it isn’t the same as before. It is not a longing that haunts me, a need for you, unfulfilled, that I had for so many years. It is a vacuous space in the crevices of my brain, at the back of my day, behind picking Isabella up from school, behind folding the laundry, grading papers, hearing the latest gossip at school, trying to have a conversation with Bruce… you are still there, on the edge of my thoughts.

You creep in a bit more when I am having a problem. I think about the long pages of words we have exchanged over the years, and sometimes I can still bring tears to the edges of my lids when I think, Oh, I cannot write this email… and when I try to replace you in my mind with another person to consult, I will admit that I still have trouble. But in a way, even this wordy absence is a blessing, though you probably wouldn’t see it that way. It forces me to reach out, to reach beyond my usual circle, and seek the advice of others, open my heart, my soul, to other friends, and realize that it is possible to move on.

Sometimes I think about all the coping books and media out there, the large section of self-help books, conferences, television specials, the availability of couples therapy, everything geared toward self-improvement or marital bliss. And I wonder, where did we go wrong? Not you and I, in particular, but our society. We are so centered on our families that we forget the importance of friendships. And what is out there to help people cope with the loss of a friend? What self-help book discusses friend divorce, or even attempts to explain it? Just as marriages fail at a fifty percent rate, I think friendships slip away, sometimes quietly with the passing of time, years, marriages, children, sometimes abruptly with an incalculable explosion of anger, at a much higher rate.

I know I am not the only one who has lost a friend—in fact, just the opposite. It seems that the more people I speak to of you (I am allowed to do that now, you know), the more I realize that we are all going through the same thing. And I stand by my original ground, the ground I defend so adamantly with my stubborn ass, that I think this is all plain ridiculous, and there is no goddamn reason in the world why people just “grow apart.” Everything is a choice in life, and you did not choose me.

We were at the zoo today and ran into an old friend of Bruce’s… his friend divorce. Not exactly the same situation as you and I, but right beside it. It’s like seeing an ex. There he was, wife and kids, there with another couple and their little boy, smiling and cracking jokes just like always… But it’ll never be just like always, because he chose them over him, over us, over all those times we went snowshoeing or hiking or hung out in bars on Friday nights… and no matter how many times we try to explain to ourselves that it’s not our fault, we’re always going to think it’s our fault.

I’m telling you, someone ought to write a book about it. Friend Divorce: How to Cope, How to Move On, How to Make New Friends. Because we aren’t on the playground anymore. We don’t have the social appetite of teenagers wanting to escape their parents. We have jobs and children and bills and aging parents and the general heaviness of adulthood weighing us down, keeping us back from the risks we were willing to take as young children or adolescents. We need skills, new methods of meeting people, of opening up ourselves in a way that will lead to the strong friendships we were once so fearless to develop.

It’s funny how I write to you, to you of all people, the one person in my life (my former life) who will never read this. Our friend divorce has been final for six months now, I think. And I am still working on moving on.