I've Got Sand In All the Wrong Places (26 page)

But communication is key. So I told him it made me feel terrible every time he did that, and he was touched, mistakenly believing I felt terrible for his annoyance, not
at
it.

A harmless misunderstanding I chose not to correct.

He stopped grousing and grew to love Pip, even with the occasional barking.

And Pip loved him back. He would drag me toward my boyfriend's van or any car that looked like his van whenever we walked down the street. And Pip would give him morning kisses before I could.

I had visions of a future furry family.

But sometimes forces beyond a dog's opinion pull a relationship apart. On the night that we actually broke up—even though there was no fighting, just tears and hugging—somehow, Pip knew.

After we had said our last good-byes at the door to my apartment, my ex said, “Wait, I want to say good-bye to Pip.”

I knew this scene would rip my heart out, but how could I say no? I agreed and stepped aside. He called his name.

Pip was visible from the entranceway, lying down in front of my bed, watching. He didn't move.

“C'mere, boy.” He patted his knee.

Pip did not budge. Not even a tail flutter.

Ice. Cold.

Woman's best friend.

 

The Godmother

Lisa

Sometimes my life runs like a movie, in that I can be in the present but flashback instantly to the past.

That's what just happened to me, but in a good way.

In fact, in a way that was magical.

Because just last weekend, Francesca and I went to the wedding of my goddaughter Jessica, who is my best friend Franca's daughter.

And though Jessica just got married, I can jump back in time almost instantly, to well before Jessica was born.

To the first day I met her mother, my best friend.

It was in fact the first day of law school and Franca was reading a newspaper at her desk, and I happened to be walking behind her and I started reading over her shoulder. She looked up, and I realized I was being rude. I said, “I'm sorry, I was reading over your shoulder.”

She said with a smile, “I don't mind. My husband hates it, but I don't.”

To which I replied, “My boyfriend hates it, but I don't.”

And about a year later, we had both shed our respective husband and boyfriend, but our friendship remained.

We survived working at a law firm together, then subsequent marriages, and we both got pregnant about the same time, and I can jump back in time almost instantly to the day Jessica was born and I saw her in the hospital, only an hour old.

Franca and I used to say to each other, wouldn't it be funny if our kids played together?

It seemed only theoretical, like the hypos we talked about in law school.

But then, miraculously, it came true.

Our adorable babies ended up playing together, Francesca with her big blue eyes and blond curls, and Jessica with her big brown eyes and reddish brown curls.

And Franca asked me to be Jessica's godmother.

To the Italian people, that is a very sacred, close relationship.

Which is a line from
The Godfather
.

Truly I was honored to become Jessica's godmother even though it included me vowing in church that, should anything happen to Franca, I would raise Jessica in the Catholic faith.

Which meant that I would have to become a better Catholic.

I'm a fairly stinky Catholic, except when the Pope was in town.

Then I became instantly religious, which meant that I watched him on TV all day and cried when that little boy sang.

But time took another jump forward, and last weekend I found myself sitting next to Francesca, herself all grown up, and we both cried as we watched Jessica come down the aisle on her wedding day, a natural beauty in a simple but lovely wedding dress.

And Franca was so happy and so lovely, in an elegant navy blue gown, and to me she looked just as young as she did that first day we met.

In fact, even younger because she has come so much more into her own as she has gotten older.

So have I, and I suspect so have you.

We're smarter than we used to be, aren't we?

(Which is unfortunate because people have stopped listening to us.

This would be the irony of life, especially as a woman.

As soon as you know everything, you become the amazing disappearing middle-aged woman.

At least we can talk to each other.

Or write books like this.)

But back to the wedding.

I realized at that moment that Jessica was about the age that Franca and I were when we got married.

Whether it was the first or the second marriage doesn't really matter.

You start to forget which marriage it was, sometimes.

It's like your original hair color.

Who cares?

Anyway I realized how incredibly lucky and blessed the four of us women were. Me, to have been lifelong friends with Franca and to be godmother to her amazing daughter, and then to be sitting next to my own amazing daughter, all of us happy, healthy, and still together on this special day.

And I know it sounds crazy but it was a miracle to me, and it still is, reflecting on it now, because it was a dream of mine that really came true.

A dream that I would have a wonderful friend my whole life long.

A dream that I would have a wonderful daughter whom I was so proud of.

A dream that I would have a wonderful goddaughter, who turned out so amazing in every way, and so much like her own mother, because they share the same generous heart.

We women are so lucky and so blessed that we remain friends for so long, and that we can share these special moments, not only with our own children, but with the children of our friends.

Whether they're godchildren or not doesn't matter, because truly it's a unique and singular experience to watch the children of the people you love grow into adults themselves.

And somehow time seems not to jump, or fly, but stand still, the past and the present conflating so that all time is the same, because that's the way we experience it.

And in my mind's eye, I can see Jessica walking down the aisle, and remember when I watched her in the sandbox at Sesame Place or fed her cooked pasta wheels in her car seat, right next to my own daughter, the two toddlers munching happily away, babbling to each other, and ultimately falling into an exhausted sleep after a trip to the zoo, Sesame Place, or even New York. Franca and I used to take them up there to walk through FAO Schwarz because it had a big clock that played a song.

FAO Schwarz and the clock may be gone, but we all still remember the song.

And we remember those times, and they exist at the same time right now, in the present.

A beautiful day with Goddaughter Jessica, Bestie Franca, and Daughter Francesca

And when I saw Jessica coming down the aisle, I felt all the love, memories, and songs that the four of us have shared for the past thirty years, and it seemed to me something like a state of grace.

And I was so grateful for the simple, yet so profound, gift of being Jessica's godmother, and I realized that in the end, it was the goddaughter who gave the godmother a religious education, and not the other way around.

Wow.

I mean, oops.

That's not the way it's supposed to be.

But somehow I don't think the Pope would mind.

 

Friendship on the Flip Side

Lisa

There are some things you learn only as you get older.

One is that the world will not end if you gain five pounds, or even ten.

The other is that girlfriends grow even more precious with time.

I wanted to take a serious moment, uncharacteristic for me, to celebrate female friendship, especially after all of our estrogen has collectively evaporated.

I say this because I just got back from a Girls' Night Out with a group of friends, which was truly a Girls' Night In, because for some reason we never go to a restaurant. We always go to the same person's house because she is the best cook and loves to entertain, and even though we try to reciprocate, she says no.

Or at least, that's our story and we're sticking to it.

The amazing thing about this group of women friends is that we came together because of our children, and we stayed together, even though we have nothing in common and our children have long since flown the nest.

What brought us together?

Animals.

This group of six women, all of whom raised daughters who got bit by the horse bug and never let it go.

Daughter Francesca fell in love with horses at age ten, though she had never met a real horse, but only played with overpriced versions of them in plastic.

I'm talking, of course, about Breyer ponies, which are the equine equivalent of Barbies.

She had Barbies, too, but her interest in them waned, despite the fact that they had a fancy car and a dream house, which, by the way, were things that Francesca did not have growing up, as she was the only child of a broke single mother, who was struggling to become a published writer.

That would be me.

Francesca loved Breyer ponies, as well as My Little Ponies, then segued into reading books about horses and watching movies about horses, and in time it became pretty obvious that she was horse-crazy and I should really scrape some money together to get her riding lessons.

Because every mother knows that if you have any extra money, it is going for something the kids want, which is as God intended.

(Because somebody did it for you, didn't they?)

And so once a week, we drove an hour to take horseback-riding lessons in the country, and the more we did it, the more she loved it, by which point it began to be pretty clear to me that we should just move to the country, because it's cheaper, prettier, and as a writer, I could live in the middle of nowhere.

The stable provided Francesca with a horse to ride, but in time my writing career took off, thanks to all of you, and I was able to get her a real horse, and not only that, she got me interested in riding, so I started lessons, too. And about the same time, we looked around in the country for other people for her to ride with and we discovered something called Pony Club.

Pony Club is a nonprofit organization that was started in Britain but grew to attract horse-crazy kids, mostly girls, from everywhere and teach them the basics of horse-keeping.

Which is a lot more fun than housekeeping.

And they also get to form teams and compete against other Pony Clubs, just like a regular team sport, which means that Horse Moms do the things that Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, and Football Moms do, like drive kids to practice, make sure they have the right equipment, and desperately comb grocery-store shelves for healthy snacks in a world when unhealthy snacks are calling their name.

The only difference is that Horse Moms have to pick up manure.

Literally.

So Francesca joined Pony Club when she was about thirteen, and I met a circle of moms who had nothing in common but the fact that their kids were crazy about horses. We were a disparate group of Democrats, Republicans, Independents, nonprofit organizers, small-business owners, financial analysts, divorced and married, and we came from very different backgrounds. But like me, many of those moms had taken up riding themselves, if not out of curiosity, then in self-defense, because you'd better know what you're doing with a horse or you're liable to get kicked in the head.

And so began the origin of my friendship with these women—Nan, Paula, Pam, Karen, and Jodi—and I'm surprised to report that this friendship has continued even though all of our daughters have grown up and all of our lives have changed in so many ways I can't begin to enumerate them, but they look a lot like the aisle of a greeting-card store; there are birthdays, anniversaries, second and third marriages, illness, deaths, and most lately, grandchildren.

God bless Hallmark.

I say this not in a denigrating way, because it came as a lovely surprise to me that if you stay close with a group of women, not only over ten years, but over twenty or even longer, you will share with them the major events in their lives, the ups and the downs, all of the tears and the joy, and the friendship will gain a momentum of its own, even if you don't see each other that often.

And so maybe three times a year, we all invade Karen's house and she makes us something delicious, and we've been doing this for so long that we hope she will make her hearty minestrone soup or her incredible corn salad.

When you crave dishes that your friends make, you're living your life right.

I just returned from one of those nights, and Karen made the hearty minestrone because it's that time of year, and we sat around the table and caught each other up on what our life is like, as well as what our kids' lives are like, and even what our horses' lives are like.

And our dogs and chickens, too.