Spring Brake

I spend a few days in Albuquerque with an old friend from college.  She has two sons, about same age as mine.  And like me, the younger one is nearby and the other half a continent away.  We’d lost touch after college but reunited at a reunion five years ago and via Facebook.  There are long passages of our lives to catch up on, lifetimes boiled down to our richest experiences.  We drive the Turquoise Trail and park in Madrid (pronounced MAD’drid) in front of a fence made of mattress springs.   At a soda fountain I order an egg cream.  The server says she’s new and asks what the ingredients are.  “Seltzer, chocolate syrup and cream.  No egg.”  “Is it hot or cold?” she asks.  “Just make it an iced tea.”  

The sky is higher in New Mexico and extravagant clouds hover low.  I make dinner for my college friend.  Her house is adjacent to a big swath of open land with a couple of cows.  We eat on the patio as the light fades.  The older son arrives in town on very short notice.  It is sweet to see how warm these adult sons are to their mother who is enduring a serious health challenge.

Another friend has surgery.  Her daughters were in first grade with Spuds.  One of the girls is in town and organizes a calendar of her mother’s friends to bring meals and provide companionship during the recuperation.  We receive e-mails from her with reports on her mother’s status and gracious expressions of thanks to the volunteer squad.  It seems like yesterday that we were schlepping carpool and fussing with party bags and now the kids pay it back, doting and committed to their parents’ wellbeing.

I take the L from O’Hare right to Wicker Park.  Number One son springs for a ticket to meet me on the platform and carry my case up the stairs.  He drags it to our favorite Polish restaurant and I more than make up for my two-month Keto diet carb deprivation. There’s a big photo of the Polish pope and lots of knickknacks.  None of the staff are younger than 70.  The server knows the boy, who habitually makes sure that all of his interactions are friendly and social. 

The young couple have a beautiful apartment in Hyde Park.  They point out Obama’s house with the line of black SUVs in front and we have breakfast at an old school cafeteria where he eats.  We wander the University of Chicago.  Number One Son drags us to a film society screening there of a Taiwanese film.  Girlfriend sleeps through the whole thing.  I find it grim and sort of a boring riff on Goddard but being on L.A. time still, I manage to stay awake. I am a bit punchy though by the time it finally ends.  As we plod out of the theater I blurt, “Well now I know that I definitely don’t want to go to Taiwan.”  A voice from the dark says, “That’s where I’m from.”  I have no intention of hurting anyone’s feelings, but the film does paint a depressing picture.

The Smart Museum at the University of Chicago displays a wonderful selection of abstract works by African American artists called Solidary and Solitary.  Every piece is well chosen but I am particularly taken by the work of Samuel Levi Jones who weaves fascinating three dimensional pieces out of law books.

The kids go to work, leaving me a sampler of donuts from the boy’s employer and instructors for operating the TV remote.  I watch the Mueller report as I work my way through the donuts, realizing that there will likely be little consequence for this the ignorance and corruption of this administration.  And I worry too that the hordes of possible Democrat challengers might result in what Obama refers to as a circular firing squad. I also conclude that my favorite donut is the buttermilk.

The week after my return from my spring break Albuquerque/Chicago sojourn, I attend an adult educator conference in San Diego.  My friend Bob, who I met about forty years ago at my first ESL teaching job, is a big muckety muck at the organization and it is impossible to get from point A to point B without him having to stop to exchange pleasantries and embraces.  He is ostensibly retired now but has taken on a number of consultancy positions, unable to separate himself from the good work that his defined his life.  I am proud to be introduced as a best friend and reminded how fortunate I am to have to have maintained one of the most significant friendships of my life.  Time with Bob and a couple of excellent conference workshops make me thankful that my own “golden years” seem to be making for an opportunity to matter.

This is the third weekend in a row of reuniting with a friend of more than thirty years.  Bill was transferred to Kansas City twenty-five years ago, and has stayed there, now retired.  He is in town for a wedding and comes for lunch.  It’s been over twenty years since he’s been here.  He recognizes art and objects from our old home and remembers vividly our lives before I meet Himself and he transferred to Missouri.  One of the most observant people I’ve ever known, Bill spins the oddness of human nature into hilariously droll little stories. 

Our tenant if finally gone, leaving all of her possessions.  After days of cleaning out her crap, Spuds moves in to the lower unit.  He is in New York now for a couple of weeks but has left the apartment neat as a pin, obviously proud and delighted with his new digs and evolved from the piggy college student whose college residence I spent days scrubbing in order to regain a cleaning deposit. My office workers occupy the upper floor, although I still keep in mind how lovely the place is and the practicality of downsizing there, as without the kids the current Casamurphy is too big.  Housing plans however are tabled now.  Much to my surprise, I am offered a four-week summer school course that will require a week of special training.  And for the fall semester, my schedule will be a full time one, with a daily morning and evening class and a full day Saturday schedule.  My current day-to-day, of keeping tabs on my business and teaching four nights a week exhausts me but the actual time in the classroom, with my students is exhilarating.  I hope that my increased time working in a classroom will be fortifying and that the new schedule will render me more enthusiastic than beaten down.

Reuniting with old friends over the last couple weeks reminds me of how long I’ve trodden the planet.  This makes me feel old of course but more than bemoaning my mortality I am reminded of the wonderful friendships that have endured these decades.  My kids live like adults, are kind people and I believe consider time with their parents as quality time and not obligation.  I worry about my health and stamina.  I worry about the ascension of fascism.  The legal struggle with the tenant has resulted in a giant financial setback.  But I’ve cobbled together a life with a man I’ve loved for well more than half my life, raised decent, thoughtful children and nurtured precious friendships.  When I was my kids’ age, I doubt if I ever thought about where I’d find myself in my seventh decade.  I never pondered what I’d have to show or what I’d be doing.  Perhaps a crystal ball reading would have evoked a “That’s all?”  but after having lived it, there is a burnished richness that perhaps is a more than fair compensation for the aging vessel.