I recently had a birthday and one of the funnier carry overs from childhood is the way my sister and I sing the song.  Happy Birthday to you…and the other chimes in “to me” “to me”.  Fast forward a hundred years and we pick up the phone with an automatic “to me!!!!”

I had a wonderful birthday with well wishes, dinners out, Facebook posts and all the people I know checking in with me.  I have to say, the call that touches me the most each year comes from my oldest friend, Marcy.

I don’t always get to take the call, sometimes its a message on the machine but it lifts my spirits more than almost anything.  She and I have known each other for 49 years (sorry Marcy but I had to tell them), we come from the same street, the same economic background, the same kind of Italian mother (you know the one who had the unspoken permission to belt you one if you needed it and always talks too fast for you to get a word in edgewise) and we have the same sense of humor.

I say we have the same sense of humor but she usually does the talking and I usually do all the laughing.  I’m talking about the kind of laughing that brings tears to your eyes and prevents you from breathing all the while hoping you don’t pee your pants kind of laughing.

The funny thing is we don’t really see each other any more.  We have very different lives now (she of the Grandmother persuasion, I of the starting over divorced persuasion) but somehow we always remember, I mean we always remember to phone one another on our birthdays.  The calls usually go something like, “Hi it’s me, happy birthday.  When the hell did you get so old?  and on from there the conversation will go.  She has a very distinctive voice (as do I) so there’s never really any question who “me” is and frankly at this stage in my life no one would really dare to speak to me the way she does.  She is allowed, she’s my BFF from the neighborhood.

I wish we saw each other more.  I’m sure we both feel it’s our fault that we don’t see each other more but life tends to intervene when you least expect it and we have both had our share of interventions.  That said, my birthday wouldn’t make me nearly as happy if I didn’t get her phone call, if I didn’t get the chance to catch up, albiet for a minute or two, and laugh out loud feeling I was back on Hillside Avenue. 

Thank you Marcy, you remain my connection to our past and the thing I look forward to most twice each year.

There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good.  ~Edwin Denby

I haven’t been to Zumba in two weeks and that just doesn’t work for me.  I can’t not dance.  Tuesdays and Fridays belong to me and my Zumba class so leave me alone.  Go wherever you need to go without me.  There I said it, and I’ll keep saying it.  Unless you’re in a hospital bed or my job depends on it, hence the two weeks that have gone by, don’t call me for anything on Tuesday or Friday.  Oh yeah and unless you’re my mother who can’t seem to get the Friday thing down.

Let me just say that I am not a dancer.  Let me also say that I am not an athlete so when my big fat ass started getting bigger and fatter I was in quite the dilemma.  Enter Zumbablast with Melissa Avalo. 

Zumba is a Latin inspired dance class that gets you moving and having a blast while burning between 800-1000 calories per hour depending on your personal intensity.  I am intense, I dance with abandon, and I am in the zone.  Just don’t put me in a room with mirrors it cramps my style a bit. 

Missy is a little dynamo that creates choreography that is inspiring.  As you grow older they say that you should challenge your brain by doing little things that reconnect your synapses in different ways like brushing your teeth with your other hand or going to work a different way.  Seriously, just try learning Missy’s new choreography every couple of weeks and you’ll be fine. I won’t be brushing my teeth with my other hand any time soon. 

There are Zumba girls that I usually dance with but they have lives unlike mine that are filled with school functions and family obligations.  I have learned to go alone.  I understand doing things alone, probably better than most, but this was way out of my comfort zone.

With every drop of sweat that comes out of me I am revitalized.  My troubles are gone, I can think, I believe that I will someday be able to learn salsa dancing and actually go out dancing with someone special (hopefully without having to wear two sport bras, don’t ask).  I missed much of that when I was younger and it remains one of my regrets to be turned into something affirmative.  I’m no Adele, I don’t live in “regrets and mistakes they’re memories made…”

The ride home is always windows open (sometimes regardless of the temperature), radio blaring the dance station and a smile on my very red face.  Once I get home it’s a quick dog walk, a screaming hot shower, two or three preventative aspirin and a great night’s sleep. 

Thank you Missy, you can’t begin to know the gratitude I have for you and your Zumbablast.

There is one friend in the life of each of us who seems not a separate person, however dear and beloved, but an expansion, an interpretation, of one’s self, the very meaning of one’s soul. ~Edith Wharton

I don’t know what made me look at my phone when we got to PF Chang’s.  I don’t know how many calls I’ve ever gotten that start with: I’m ok, but I’m about to go into surgery. I don’t know how long I held my breath, I don’t know why I listened to Sandra when she said no don’t come I’ll need you when I get home.

I don’t know how I enjoyed my meal, except that I was with my sister. I don’t know how I just opened the gate when I got home and let my Toto pull me off the deck and get away.  I don’t know how she just decided to come right back.  I’d like to believe that she turned around and saw I wasn’t there and came looking for me.  I don’t know how I escaped with only bruises from the fall, maybe because I really don’t mind being compared to an eight year old.

I do know that when she called on Wednesday with her words caught in her throat I would be there by lunch the next day.

Through whatever unfolding of the universe my best friend found herself in Adirondack Medical Center with two broken legs.  I say this because she had been lamenting her excessive travel, her deep need for balance, her concern for things missed, her family making due without her for probably two years and I really feel like White Face heard her.

The emergency surgery on Sunday was highly successful with a prognosis of full recovery.  Luckily AMC is well in tune with the care and anticipated recovery of athletes and practices emergency sports medicine.

Originally Sandra was to be sent home to arrange the surgery on her other leg.  It was some knee related, tibia cabling, meniscus adjusting blah blah blah, that I still don’t really understand, but it could wait.  There is something very important that happens in an emergency room, it’s an immediate trust connection that Sandra had no intention of letting out of her universe. So strings were pulled, schedules adjusted and the second surgery was to be handled later in the week.

Sandra’s husband David took their daughter home on Wednesday resting assured that Sandra’s mother would be there the next day for the second surgery.  God knows what circumstances stood in the way of that but Sandra’s call to me was panicked, fearful and raw.  Can you come?  Like I said….

I did indeed arrive by lunchtime on Thursday in plenty of time for the second surgery.  With hugs and tears and hand holding and recounting and reliving we spent our first couple of hours exhaling.  Off to surgery she goes and off I go to do what I do.  There were groceries to buy, she wasn’t eating.  There were clothes to buy that could accommodate her braces and boot and soreness.  There were websites to explore.  There were Facebook posts to put out.  There were phone calls to take and make.  There was the hand ringing and praying.

Again, another highly successful surgery with another highly confident prognosis of perfect recovery was performed.  What we didn’t realize was that this was a more difficult surgery that would result in more pain, more new physical therapy, and more anxiety more soul searching, and just plain more.

Friday was not going to be the best day.  I’ve known Sandra a very long time.  This year it will be twenty five years to be exact and I know how she thinks and what makes her respond to the adversity that is thrown her way.  She knows the same about me.  She thinks differently so when the physical therapist is telling her to do….whatever this new two legs broken thing is….she would instinctively look to me for the translation she could use.  I love that about us, a wordless glance can instantly translate that all will be well.  I can stop her brain from running away and redirect it; it’s just always been that way for us both.  We got through Friday, we learned more, we did better, we cried, we shared and shed all the toxins that would impede healing.

Saturday would prove to be the sunny encouraging day we had hoped.  Sandra spent the morning getting ready to go home.  By afternoon we were seated side by side in the “lodge room”  Ipads in hand comparing tips and websites (told you I had homework to do) and how the hell to use Facebook and Twitter once and for all.

All the arrangements had been made for her departure in the morning.  And each of us vowed to get a good night’s sleep.  One final hug and I left her in good hands excitedly waiting for her journey home to her family in sound mind and peace.

How much of this she will remember in years to come, I don’t know.  What I know like I know is that a warm hug and the scent of Miracle by Lancôme will bring back memories for her of a friend that is no longer a separate person but part of her very being.  We will laugh about much of this one day, the much that I didn’t document here and we will share our friendship for at least another twenty five years.  Prognosis: perfect.

Yesterday my sister and I went to see Wicked.  Oh was it fun.  So clever and entertaining this show is a must see. It was my gift to her for Christmas, because why the hell do we need more stuff when we can go arm and arm down 51st street toward a wonderful day to remember.

My sister has been known to say that angels walk the earth and are called friends.  Yesterday at that performance of Wicked we met a woman who could clearly be called an angel walking the earth.

At intermission she walked up to us and said to my sister, “Is that a wedding band on the chain around your neck?”  She told her it was and the woman showed her a wedding band on a chain around her own neck.  It had been transformed into the form of a heart.  Her late husband had it made for her out of his wedding band, the one he didn’t want to take with him when he left her.  She couldn’t believe that some people actually bury them with their spouses, Terri couldn’t believe that either.

Then they exchanged a look, that look that only grieving women can exchange with one another, and she gave my sister a hug with eyes filled and walked away.  Our eyes filled as we looked at each other and agreed that Honey was there, no doubt about it, and always.

Up went the curtain for the second half of the show and we sat mesmerized by the performance and warmed by the intemission’s chance meeting with a stranger angel.  Then the moment of the breakout song of the show, “For Good.”

To say there wasn’t a dry eye in the place when these two wonderful singers belted out;

Who can say if I’ve been changed  for the better?

But because I  knew you

I have been changed  for good

would be an understatement.  But I know like I know that there were two women, two complete strangers who were changed for good.  By their loves, by their loss, and by their chance meeting in a theater on 51st Street.

If I had to use one word to sum up 2011 it would be epiphany.  An epiphany, according to Webster, is a sudden manifestation of the meaning or essence of something; A perception of reality that is usually initiated by some simple, commonplace occurrence.

My family and I entered 2011 on the heels of the loss of my brother-in-law, Honey.  This would begin the “year of firsts” for us and it would be painful.  But it would also be accompanied by little moments of light, little hints of survival, little songs from the heavens and little feet scampering down the stairs to knock on Miss Terri’s door.  Those little feet belong to Isabel.  She is the ray of sunshine that lives upstairs from my sister.  She is the sweetest most unassuming (as most children her age are) little one to ever touch the heart of a grieving woman.  She, along with her parents and new born brother Ethan, have scooped up my sister and made her believe that there are angels living upstairs.  With every kindness of theirs, my sister took another step toward rejoining the world. My sister, in turn, has honed her favorite Aunt skills to a fair the well, culminating in the tutu that Isabel would wear 24/7 if permitted.

And then there are our friends.  Friend is such a common and overused word.  I only call certain people friend and I tell them I love them, out loud, every chance I get.  Such is the magnitude of my love for them.  Terri too would see the manifestation of love and caring from the women she calls friends.  They are crazy, they are bigger than life, they know how to poke and prod a person until they take their first venture away from home. They know how to catch you when you begin to fall never letting you hit the ground.  They know when to barge in and clean out your pantry, they know how to take your keys away so you can’t run home to the emptiness that you perceive your life to be and they know how to make you understand that you are a necessary part of their world.  I am indebted to these women because my epiphany was letting go, not fixing, not, not, not.  That is, after I snuck in cleaned the house and hung pictures and made a birthday surprise…yes I still have my key.

Early in 2011 I lost my dear friend Cookie.  Yet another of those phone calls that leave you with that know like you know feeling. Then there is that look that passes between friends that confirms your worst fears.  I believe that only Muriel and I could  exchange that look, we have become that close.  So many things for the family to do, I knew that I could only do what I do best, feed them. I will never forget the moment when there were ten people sitting shoulder to shoulder at my table finally realizing they were hungry.  My sister and I providing food to sustain them for the days ahead; she holding her own sorrow at bay.  There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think of my friend or utter some Cookism.  The gratitude I have for his generosity will surely stand the test of time.  Now at the end of this other year of firsts I am amazed at the growth of his wife, Kathy, and the friendship we have forged.  When friendship passes from one person to another it is wonderful.

The one silver lining to come out of losing Cookie is the fortification of the Cookie Club.  There is no butter or sugar involved only four friends who made it their business to continually show their love of the man by visiting regularly, albeit it not as often as we would have liked.  We four were bonded by the love of our friend and now that he’s gone we continue to get together to reminisce, support and enjoy one another.  When one of us is in trouble it has become natural for the others to encourage simply by showing up.  There was no need for J.C. to thank us for coming to the mass for his sister; of course we would be there.  There is no need for S.O. to thank us for the prayers and good wishes for his speedy recovery from foot surgery, of course we would pray for him and offer to drive him or bring food.  These people are the ones I would call if ever I was in trouble, there is no doubt that they would be at my side in moments.

I had the honor of chronicling the last days of my dear friend Jay Fretz.  I always refer to him as that anomaly, a gentleman in the car business.  At a reunion of sorts we talked about his terminal prognosis and how he could get everyone to understand.  His trusting me with that task was one of the greatest gifts I’ve ever received from another human being. I believe he was
pleased, I believe he is at peace and I will continue to lurk in the life of his family to see if there is anything I can do for them.

My summer sister was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I have never cried so much or been so eager to turn back time.  To what?  What could I possible hope to erase?  Kyle is one of my favorite people, she is the smartest woman I know and l love her with all my heart. In the thirty something years that she and I have shared our highest highs and lowest lows I could not imagine her not kicking the crap out of this disease.  Of course she researched the hell out of this thing, of course she found the best of the best, and of course she would come through.  Still in all the praying and all the updates sometimes you just need to see your friend, face to face, bald head and all.  We spent the most wonderful few days at our new getaway in middle New York.  I know like I know that all will be well with her, I know like I know that there is a silver lining to this that we will discover as we continue to go through our lives together.

I’ve learned the “Art of Lurking” (a term my dear summer sister coined for a completely different reason) and it is serving me well. To me the Art of Lurking is hanging back just the tiniest bit so that those around you can find their footing on their own. It’s watching ever so vigilantly that when they begin to falter you can intervene in a way that leaves them with dignity
and self-reliance and leaves you free from the burden of co-dependence.   I’ve suffered terribly in the past from trying to fix everything and be everything to everyone; I finally learned that others can have as much influence on my people as me.  Falling down isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a person, imagine…?

Reading this one might think that 2011 was a terrible year but it really wasn’t.  Life on Stowe Lane continues to prove the best thing I’ve ever done.  The enchanted forest continues to bring me joy and in keeping with the new universe, my upstairs neighbors have replaced the noisy old air conditioner that sits right outside my deck.  Of course they did…

My home becomes more beautiful every year I’m here, without a bit of renovation.  I’ve been blessed with original art from my best friend’s Mom.  MJ your art is amazing and I am struck breathless every time I look at it in my home.  I’ve rearranged the
furniture and moved all the other art to make way for the warmth that now pervades my home.

I’m blessed with my extended family coming through the door at any time and making themselves at home.  The Aunt Ms are a breath of fresh air every time I see them and frankly I’d be lost without them.  Sandra breezes in and out in her fun and fancy way.  I’m blessed to have been in the company of my sister more and more and more and I can’t get enough.  She has grace that I could never have imagined and I can’t wait to watch her grow. And even my mother is evolving into quite the dame, who knew?

I have had the honor of having dinner with friends on several different occasions that left me feeling fulfilled, loved and
amused.  I’ve enjoyed these dinners so much that I intend on chronicling them monthly in 2012.

I’ve had epiphanies big and small. Take my dining room table…who knew that turning the table length wise and leaving the leaf in would make the room feel bigger.

Who knew that you didn’t really have to put up your tree for the place to feel festive?

And who knew that you could finally let go of certain people and old habits and the earth would not open up and swallow you.

I know.

I also know that someone else’s epiphany can lead you to a wonderful upcoming adventure.  I know like I know that when Terri and I (and whoever else we can talk into going) wind up in Italy it will be the thrill of a lifetime.  I’m learning Italian and looking forward to all that life and 2012 have to offer.

Amore a tutti…