Adia

Los Angeles, California

I am a Sarah McLachlan fan. Though previously aware of her, I dug more deeply into her music about fifteen years ago. In a marriage increasingly lacking the emotional intimacy I craved, I found her music and lyrics provided a place to go where I could imagine having what was profoundly missing in my life. It was a time of searching. I had already found salsa dancing which brought much needed joy to me (I smiled after writing that sentence, because while learning salsa dance I also met my salsa amiga, who is named Joy!), and I created this blog so I had a place to write.

But this post isn't about flogging the failed marriage nor about the relationship I found afterwards which provides a great deal of what was missing, but rather about Sarah's song: Adia. Last night I attended Sarah McLachlan's concert at The Hollywood Bowl. It was a night reminiscent of attending Paul Simon's concert there during his farewell tour in late May 2018; an overcast night which can be perfect at The Bowl. What was different was that instead of having Joel by my side, we were a group of four women friends, a congregation that is perfect for a night of Sarah's music. We had dinner at The Backyard, sharing small plates and the requisite bread and wine. I am committed to the principle that, if you are going as a congregation, you've got to break bread together.

I could provide a review of the stellar concert here, including a lot of unexpected tears through the whole of I Will Remember You, as well as the joy of singing Ice Cream live instead of singing along with that cut on her live album, Mirrorball. Instead, I'm going to segue into the space I traveled after Sarah's explanation of the song, Adia. As she introduced it, she confessed that she had once done a terrible thing. She had fallen in love with her best friend's ex. And that act caused a fracture in the friendship they shared. As it would. As she was singing the song, I remembered that I had always wondered what that song was about. And, with her illumination, I got that song in a way I never had before.

Fractures in friendships can be devastating. Or not. I've experienced a few, including one recently. But none of them held the profundity of separating from my friend, Cin. We had met at the university where I had recently graduated and joined staff. Cin was a student assistant in the Student Union building where I worked. She held a morning shift on a few days of the week, coming in at 7:00 AM to work the information desk adjacent to my office. When I arrived at 8:00, she was the friendly face that greeted me and we quickly became friends. I married my husband shortly after, and Cin and her boyfriend became our closest couples friends. We even went camping together (don't ask).

So much followed in our shared lives: their marriage; home purchases for us both; Saturday morning classes at Jane Fonda's Workout followed by lunch and shopping at The Gap; health scares; marital problems, her divorce and remarriage; loss of her mother and my father. Throughout it all we marveled at the shorthand we shared. We seemed to mirror each other in tastes, opinions, and how we supported each other… and in those shopping experiences. As we later moved from The Gap to Banana Republic and Ann Taylor, one of us would hold up a piece of apparel and ask: Do we like this? We often bought the same items, though sometimes in different colors flagging a slight independence in our shared taste. At those times, as well as in deep conversations about personal issues, it could seem as though we were of one mind. The comfort that we both felt in this unity perhaps insulated us from the knowledge that this kind of merging is both complicated and hazardous. Danger, Will Robinson! Life is a moguled course, and as time went on we weren't always navigating life’s bumps together, nor always in a compatible fashion. While I was working in the small business my husband and I had started; she had gone on to get an advanced degree, meeting new friends in her profession. I was confused and hurt when she didn't attend my father's funeral. With her career and new marriage, she had much less available time and struggled to understand why I wasn’t getting that. As we weren't able to replicate the previous couples relationship when she remarried, we each increasingly socialized in separate circles. In a nutshell, there were, as my husband used to say: tissues.

No matter the relationship, when there are sustained unmet expectations on either or both sides, and a subsequent perceived inequality of effort, it can and will falter. And that is what happened to us. We tried to navigate the conflict but ultimately agreed to take a break from our friendship. It was summertime, and one of us (guess who) poetically wrote that perhaps when the leaves start to turn we can revisit and work our way around what had become a roadblock. I recall writing at the time that I felt we had a friendship connection that was once-in-a-lifetime. In her response, agreeing to the time out, she had concurred. The leaves turned, but neither of us reached out.

Sarah said about the eighteen months when she was estranged from her best friend that it was the hardest break-up she has ever experienced. And I get that. I mourned the loss of this friendship like a death. In the course of that, I ruminated that I had been a true and generous friend to her. What had happened? But, as time passed, the hurt receded, and life went on. I reached out to old friends, and made new ones. I also learned through these friendships that there is a kind of 'gene' that women either have or don't have which allows us to form special bonds. Yes, it is ok and even fun to have friends who don't have it. We know them well. They are solely bonded with husbands, maybe their mothers,  and/or their kids, which is good and as it should be for them. But there is a difference in those of us who are each a women's woman, as my friend, Lisa, puts it. After Cin's divorce, I had given her a refrigerator magnet that read: Marriages may come and go, but best friends are forever. We both appreciated that sentiment. Clearly, as does Sarah McLachlan.

During the time of hiatus, I welcomed a friendship that developed and became primary in my life at a time when I was grieving the deaths of my best friend (and namesake of this blog), Sandra, my mother, and my husband. Those three deaths occurring like dominos in the same calendar year. That friendship is with Lynnette, who I had known in a professional capacity for twenty years (she was my dentist!). I will always believe that God sent her to me when my need for her was great. While there was no dearth of girlfriendships, Lynnette and I quickly developed a unique closeness which continues to this day. Before she and her husband moved to the next county, we saw each other often, and spoke almost every day. During a bathroom remodel, she would drop by with baked goods which I shared with my contractor and workers. Now, with her living an hour away, we have frequent l-o-n-g phone conversations and try to schedule her coming to stay at my home for a weekend each month. Pre-pandemic, we traveled to Arizona for MLB Spring Training each year. Something we hope to reinstate in 2025. My friendship with Lynnette taught me a lot about how important friends can be in our lives when we are in grief or trauma. And it has brought more laughter (see post entitled: The Two O'Clock Miracle) into my life than I could ever imagine after all that had happened to me. Not having her in my life, for the rest of my life, is inconceivable.

So, when Cin reached out to me ten years after our break, I was dealing with a full plate of challenges as a widow and sole business proprietor, and spending my free time with Joel, Lynnette, and other friends. While I responded to the note she had sent me, I felt that it was too little and too late. As I later told her, my first thought was: What, did it take you ten years to miss me? But that brief exchange opened up a long-closed door for me, and each year as her birthday in January approached, I considered reaching out. And finally, five years later, I did. Sarah lost eighteen months with her friend. Cin and I lost fifteen years. And that is, indeed, a loss. But, with the passing of time came some friendship wisdom. And this reconnection has underscored my belief in something profound. At its core, my world is about connection. And I will never again give up on the people who hold value in my life. I am grateful for and blessed by these relationships. And appreciative in a way that I probably wasn't back twenty years ago when this all went down. Cin and I are each in a different place now. Our friendship isn't of the daily variety that it once was, and reuniting has required some understanding, adjustment and negotiation. But, we now hold a strengthening cord between us with the knowledge that anything can be severed. And it is our responsibility in truly valued friendships to protect that cord, so that does not happen.

Spending the evening, hearing Sarah's story and the wonder of her music, I felt grateful to be with three other girlfriends, and rather proud to have organized and funded the evening. I vowed to continue to make that effort to be generous, while appreciating what these women-with-the-gene bring to my life. I love Joel with all my heart. He is the most important person in my life. But without the strength and understanding; without the connection with these women, I could not survive.Yes, Ice Cream is about the man in my life; the lovers in our lives. We celebrated that by singing along... Your love is better than chocolate; Better than anything else that I've tried. But going forward, Adia will provide the reminder that we need to take care of our friendships. As, in the end, it will be these fristers who make the effort to be there for us, and the risk of their loss is reflected in Sarah's heartfelt, cautionary ballad exploring the challenges of self-reflection, and the lasting impact of true friendship. 

Rushing to Simplify

Los Angeles, California 

We live in complicated times. There are a lot of emotions swirling around out there: Anger; impatience; irritability, to name a few. Emotions that have always been around but what is different is that there used to be a structure of social decorum that is now lacking, if not utterly missing in action. People say rude things. Politicians say rude things. It has been said that our ex-President (and convicted felon) modeled this behavior which gave agency for people to act in contemptible ways and to say outrageously inappropriate things to each other. Ok, I'll buy that.

I read a lot about the issues impacting us at this time in our history. And I try to come at these subjects via diverse conduits. There are both psychological and sociological explanations, as well as philosophical and faith-based. My brain tends to work in triads, so I try to read articles, and then process the information, from at least three of these viewpoints. Hopefully, most of us have learned that looking at the world through one lens only is dangerous and cult-like. The need for a variety of modalities is vital, especially in this volatile world in which we now reside.

By comparison, I have thought back to the world in which I came of age. I moved out of my parents' home when I was eighteen and two months old, sharing an apartment with my cousin, Caryn, and my best friend, Pam. It was a one-bedroom we furnished with two twin beds in the bedroom and what was known as a 'hollywood' divan, essentially a twin bed against the wall with bolsters. That twin would serve as the sofa in my next three apartments.

By the time I moved into my last apartment, I was in my junior year at university, and was finally able to live alone. I had help. My parents paid for half of my living expenses (rent, utilities) and also financed my auto expenses (gas, repairs and insurance). They funded my tuition and books, which didn't amount to that much at a state university, back in that day. I sometimes wonder why my friends' kids languish at the family home for so long; in some cases into their thirties! We could not wait to get out and be independent. We got our drivers' licenses on our sixteenth birthdays with the specific purpose of driving away from our parents every chance we got! I think part of the foundation of that independence was that we kinda wanted to do things that we could not do under our parents' roof. Our parents had the ability to say no and to hold firm boundaries on our behavior. If we wanted to smoke marajuana and/or sleep with our boy/girlfriends, we had to do it elsewhere. (Note: Drinking we could do with our parents, once we were of age.)

My friends tell me that it is too expensive for their kids to move out. And I understand that. My hourly wage at the first job I held, loading film cassettes in Hollywood, was two dollars an hour. My first rent was $150, split three ways. So I was making $344 gross, and needed to pay $50 for rent. Doable. But my other expenses were utilities and groceries (also split between roommates). No cable, no app subscriptions, no internet, no cell phones, though the cable/internet would also have been split. Can you live without those things? Maybe, but for most of us who are not Amish, probably not.

I have read articles about people who go offline and they generally report a slower and calmer existence. So many of us talk about wanting that slower and calmer life. However, when we are out in the world, we get caught up in all the rushing about. Why is everyone in this rush? Where I live, people cruise through stop signs, sometimes at full speed. Forget the speed limits on streets and the freeway. When Joel and I drive forty-five minutes to a favorite salsa club on early Sunday evenings, we have to get through two freeway interchanges. What we have noticed is that once we are out of the urban landscape and are driving through outlier suburban communities, the freeway madness subsides. For the most part, drivers observe the speed limit and don't swerve in and out of lanes. Do these areas of suburbia promote a slower and calmer existence?

I do believe that one way to have a slower and calmer existence is to simplify. Recently, a newly-retired friend asked me about how I had approached retirement, back about seven years ago. I shared what I thought was valuable information. Reduce appointments. I don't necessarily mean medical appointments, though I think we can do too many of those. But get rid of the people you pay for services that either you can do for yourself, or you don't really need. We all saw people going gray during the pandemic, and many of them decided to not go back to salon-coloring their hair afterwards. As I approached retirement, I decided to let go of a lot of the services I had previously utilized. I stopped getting manicures/pedicures, realizing that the time it took to get this done was better spent, and that doing this for myself, at home, took much less time. No more facials, for the same reason. I let both my insurance and travel agent go, realizing that all the info I needed was easily found online. I stopped using a property manager on my rental properties. And, after the pandemic, I continued cutting my own hair (if you have long hair, this is easy, and the technique for cutting is on you.tube). I still have beauty appointments: I get highlights in my hair. And I can't give myself the regular massages and acupuncture my body needs to support my dancing. But I have cut out a lot of professional services that were costing time and money. And that was a good thing.

I constantly look at my life to see where I can free up time for writing, for dancing. To spend time with Joel and my friends. When my friend, Beth1 (there are three Beths) and I went to see Gone With the Wind recently, I was reminded of the sign displayed on a sundial at the Wilkes' plantation, Twelve Oaks: Do not squander time. It is the stuff of which life is made (paraphrasing, but maybe I nailed it).

So, are all these people rushing around because they are overbooked? I know not; it is a mystery. But rushing they are. And, interestingly, when we dance here in LA, we notice that dancers on the floor are more aggressive than they are when we dance out in the boondocks area of suburbia. Maybe, as someone once pointed out to me, we are living with too many rats in our cage. Those guys start turning on each other when they are crowded together. So, in addition to simplifying, to sussing out more time in a slower and calmer world, we also need to appreciate our need for space. Space in our homes, on the roads, on the dance floors. If time is the stuff life is made of, maybe space is the stuff that affords us the ability to slow down, which in turn might offer us a calmer existence. You can't rush to that. But you can simplify. And that helps. You must trust me about this.