Finishing Lessons
I am thirty years old, and Friday night Nance explained to me about nails.
And I get it. It’s not about work, necessarily. It’s about doing something satisfying and calming. It can even be about bonding. My toenails are a very funky green (designer nail polish! of my brother’s!) with an overcoat of silvery sprinkles. Nancy did them up for me.
While she did this, the four of us (Tom, Nancy, Ken and I) decided we were going to launch a lower market Canadian version of Trading Spaces, with only three hundred bucks between us (a hundred of it in Canadian Tire money).
Also, I discovered that Nancy has seven full siblings. Four brothers and three sisters, making my rather proud claim of three brothers – two of them halves – seem weak and pale in comparison. Oh, and she explained that Wreck Beach is fun, you don’t have to go nude (“I don’t go nude, if that’s what you think”), and the first time we go, it is best after dark.
This was all on the heels of having Margaret over for dinner on Friday. If I live to be a hundred, I want to remember sitting out on the porch with her, watching the trees and having fresh sliced peaches for dessert, the way she moved with me from room to room as I got dinner ready, and how she hunched her shoulders under her blanket when it started to get cool outside.
I’ve decided that when I get to my new place, I am inviting as many of the disparate and awe-inspiring women as will fit in my apartment for a grrl’s night. Both my exes, my new friend Nance, Pamela, if only in spirit, my best friend from high school, my brother’s girlfriend and Margaret, who for fourteen years has been the ideal mix of surrogate mom, mentor and friend. I will serve a very good wine, have a very nice selection of cheese and crackers, and we will watch Notorious CHO. It seems a little greedy, to invite all these bright lights to one place just because I want them there. But I cannot think of a better way to warm a new home.
It may be that I am finally internalizing (with much help in her absence), Pam’s most important lesson. That it is okay to be who you are, and it is okay to enjoy living.
And then the next day…you have your nails.
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Questioning/Examining:
If it’s 10:42 here, what time is it in Istanbul?
Grateful/Relieved:
To have full use of my tongue back.
Regret/Deny:
That I can never remember to bring the phone with me. It’s portable.
Musing/Reflecting:
I think I might just be capable of learning something from everyone I meet.
Whistling/Humming:
Brushfire Fairytales – Jack Johnson
Reading/Scanning:
The Constitutionality of Fuck
Shout out to:
Laura, who for some unbelievable reason, has been there through almost all the craziness.