Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Buddies and the Brouhaha

Here's something fun to do. Gather up all your best buds and cart yourselves up to the lake for a need-free, demand-less, apple pie-laden brouhaha. Stay up until all hours. For fun, not because one of your kids is throwing up. Watch a show called Intervention together so you can psychoanalyze strangers. When that gets too sad, flip to the Miss Teen USA pageant and psychoanalyze hairdo choices and the mindset of the runners-up as they come to grips with the inevitable fact that their lives are ending. Talk about Everything. With a capital E. Eat Anything. With a capital A. Make sure nutritional value is minimal while fat and carbs are maximal. (I know. It's not a word, but it's descriptive.) Create a new drink. Name it the Lake Runner. Declare it medicinal and healthy because that splash of Pomegranate juice really does outweigh the 8 ounces of rum it's mixed with. Swim around on floats for six hours straight, getting out of the water only to have a snack, a cocktail, or because you fear the pruning may be permanent. Meet a dog and invite her to join your merry band of Beeches. Call her Buddy. Because she is. Until she starts eating your pistachios and smelling like a dog that has been swimming in lake water and chewing on fish heads. Be forgiving. Even when Buddy's family leaves her with you while they go on a boat ride, happily waving at her from afar as if they know quite well that she's a big ole pain in the rear. One of us is meant to be a vet or an old lady with 12 cats, and we love that about her. Learn to play Gin Rummy. Even though strategic thinking is not the easiest kind of thinking to do through a Lake Runner haze. Wave at boys on the lake and pretend that they find you remotely interesting. Sit on a dock under an almost-full moon for hours. And talk. And talk. And talk. There is nothing at all better than this. There is a certain kind of therapy that takes place when you learn that a bunch of people you love and admire are going through the same things you are. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Even the really bad stuff that you wouldn't admit to most people. The book I'm reading at the lake calls it L'ho provato sulla mia pelle, which means in Italian "I have experienced that on my own skin." The author explains that it means- I have also been burned or scarred in this way, and I know exactly what you're going through. Somehow there is nothing more comforting than L'ho provato sulla mia pelle. Being understood... it just makes everything better. And then you get to go home to a little family, who is happy to see you. Who, really and for true, missed your presence. And you feel needed. In a good way. Amazing what a little brouhahaing can do for you.

4 comments:

Gayle said...

You're the best! I wish I had 1/2 the words to capture it like you did.

One Hot Mama said...

I love ya man. :-)

Bliss said...

that all sounds nice. 'cept for the stinky dog part...

Stephanie said...

I needed a really good "sigh" right about now...thank you for taking me to a place I haven't been but REALLY want to go! Lake Runners sound FAB, I'll take one! I think we would become fast friends ;)