Category: Writing

I don’t remember why we were told we had to do this.  In 1958 or 1959, in first grade in Queens, we all went in an orderly line to the school auditorium, with its row upon row of fixed-to-the-floor chairs with flip-up seats.  We were shown how to crouch between the rows.  We were shown how to cradle the backs of our heads in our hands, and to draw our heads down towards our thighs.  I think this happened only once.  I don’t know when or how I learned or was told or realized that this was an air-raid drill in the event of a nuclear bomb drop.  I have no emotion around this memory.

A few years later, in Connecticut, I stood in the doorway to the living room and glimpsed my mother weeping in front of our small television set.  In grainy black-and-white, President Kennedy was on the screen, and I heard the words “Cuban missiles”.  This scene frightened me though I did not know what a missile was.  I did not want Mom to see me seeing her weep, so I backed out of the doorway and slipped down the hallway and up the stairs to my bedroom. 

Around that same time, I had a dream that Russian tanks came streaming off Exit 19 of the Connecticut Turnpike and lumbered towards our house.  This dream also frightened me.  I did not tell anyone about it.  

I have known my oldest friend since both she and I were born — since even before that, because who knows what kind of consciousness exists in the womb.

My friend has never left me, though I have often neglected her.  Or ignored her.  Or worse, denied her.  But we have never truly separated; we always come back together, comfortably or not.

My friend and I know the best and the worst of each other.  We also know the mediocrity of each other.  Sometimes this knowledge is just fine, other times it is so disappointing.

Sometimes my friend and I fight.  There have been long stretches of time when we do not understand each other.  She pulls one way; I want to go the other way.  We each want to be how we want to be, regardless of the other.

Sometimes my friend criticizes me or tells me things that I don’t care to hear or learn about myself.  In fairness, I have also done this to her.  This can be unpleasant.

Often my friend enlightens me.  She tells me things I didn’t know but, as soon as she tells me, I know that I had wanted to know.  Aha moments, for sure!!  She often seems to know what I am searching for, before I do.

I try hard to protect my friend.  I don’t want anyone to hurt her.  I want to be safe.  Sometimes this chafes her.  She wants to be free.  She wants to be vulnerable.

Sometimes I try to hide my friend.  Sometimes I am ashamed of her.  She can be a fuddy-duddy, “not cool”.  She can be embarrassing.  She tries to make me do things, say things, that I might not want to or be ready for.

Usually, I like my friend.  She’s smart, sometimes funny, sensitive, perceptive, creative, spiritual.  I want her to like me back.  I think she does, and don’t want to do anything that would change her mind about me.

And then there are times when I really don’t like my friend at all …

But do you know what really counts?  The only thing that does count?  That I love my friend, and my friend loves me.  Not just because Jesus tells us to love one another.  But because we are to love the other “as yourself”.  Love your neighbor as youself.  

Yes, my oldest friend and I are one and the same — me, myself and I.