Monday was what I call the Running of the Bulls down at the senior hall---a day that happens five times a year where we have to register for the events we want to attend over the upcoming months. We get a sixteen page newsletter in the mail, have a week to look it over and make our decisions, then not a second before 9:00 AM on an appointed day we’re allowed to respond by e-mails. By the end of that first day they will register between 1,500 to 1,700 RSVPs. The running of the bulls comes from all of us wanting the earliest time stamp we can manage on our e-mails. It could mean beating someone else out for a seat on the bus for a day trip, a ticket for a play or baseball game, a seat at a lecture or luncheon, etc. Many of those RSVPs will end up on waiting lists but if your whole social life revolves around the outcome of registration day, it can give you a rush if you snagged what you wanted. This time there were twenty-one events offered but I made a decision to cut way back on my summer sign-ups. I only RSVPed to one lecture, an ice-cream social and three Gatherings (for people looking for friends). It’s a risk for me because I usually pepper my summer with twice that, including a day trip or two. If I’m moaning and groaning this summer about being bored I’ll have no one to blame but myself. I did agonize over whether or not I wanted to go to an off-Broadway production of Wicked. The $85 for a matinee and transportation was probably a good deal but still that’s a big chunk of change.
My summers since my husband died have all had a theme. The first two summers were devoted to downsizing his stuff. The third summer I was obsessed with condo shopping that, in the end, I decided I’m not ready for yet. Last summer I was on a mission to find friends and that’s starting to pay off. Now that summer is on the horizon, six of us from the Gatherings set up monthly brunch dates and we had our first one this week where I’m sad to report we didn’t find a plan for world peace but we did talk about books, movies and going to an artists' street fair later in May, which will be our forth outing. Stepping up the number of times a month we see each other should speed up the developing friendships. “All the flowers of all the tomorrows are the seeds of today.” That saying is written on a clock that hangs in my garage. The clock was supposed to go to the Salvation Army but that’s as far as it would go without a gun held at its back.
Anyway, if I was working on a grade school theme paper on
how I plan to spend my summer I’d write: “This summer I want to play with the
Gathering Girls and make our budding friendships stronger and play at the gym
and make my body stronger. I want to be happy and healthy and smile a lot and
clean out my clothes closet.” My closet is so full that even my underwear is
screaming in unison, “Get me out of here before I suffocate!”
Friendship means different things to different people. Certainly,
all of us Gathering Girls want someone to hang out with and I, for one, am
excited about the possibility of finding summer bonding experiences. Beyond
that I’m hoping to develop a close friend or two with whom I can trade favors in
case of emergencies---rides to the med center or we locked our keys in the car
kind of emergencies. Friends count on each other in good times and bad. Funny
thing is I never worried about those sorts of things when my husband was alive.
His nephews live near-by and I figured they wouldn’t refuse helping their
favorite uncle, if we ever called. (We didn't.) When they were younger Don was the good
time uncle who rode them around in the back of his yellow convertible, who took
them to the beach, hiking in the woods and filled them up with good memories. But
Don is gone now and so is his nephew’s mother, father and the family get-togethers.
As time marches on the connections with my husband’s family gets weaker and weaker. The blooms
of yesterday are fading and ready to spread their seeds of friendship elsewhere,
to a new generation where they’ve become the favorite uncles and the
grandfathers who bounce babies on their knees.
Looking back to past summers and to my plans for the upcoming sun-washed
season apparently whipped my subconscious into a tizzy. Last night, dreams woke
me up five-six times but the only one I remember is one in which I was stressed
out because my husband was traveling around the country in a motor home. I
could track him by a satellite feed, see what he was doing but I wanted to ring
his neck because he wouldn’t answer his cell phone. What a topsy-turvy dream! I’m
taking the dream to mean I still miss the best friend I ever had even though
the dream dictionary indicates it’s more about suppressed anger carried over
from my awake life. Oh, brother, now I have to spend the afternoon figuring out
what I have to be angry about. ©
