Summer Reflections Part I - Ripples

Sunlight glinted on choppy wavelets tinted neon blue through my sunglasses.  My fingers were curled tightly around a strap across my seat.  Soul light, I leaned close to Joanne as we zipped, jolting and smacking, across the water.  Over the buzz of the Jetski’s engine, I yelled, “Look at us!  You and me and our four fake boobs!”

With her long white hair twisted into a loose knot on her head, joy emanating from her face, she grinned back over her shoulder and called back, “Survivors!”

 

It had been years since Dave and I spent time with Charlie and Joanne.  We’d met in 1988 when our sons Tucker and Jake became friends.  Back then, Joanne wrote a column for the Greenwich Time and was re-decorating her house.  I was into quilting, crafts, and animal rights.  Our husbands loved playing guitars together, two aging hippies strumming Rolling Stones and Beatles songs.  Hm.  I say “aging,” yet we were still in our thirties.  Ah well. 

A lot has happened in the intervening years.

Dave and I moved to Easton.  Terrorism took out the Twin Towers.  Joanne got breast cancer.  Charlie had a heart attack.  Our kids grew up and moved on to their own lives.  I got breast cancer.  Joanne and Charlie moved to New Hampshire.  And finally, over the 4^th of July, we were able to accept their invitation to visit them in their now not-so-new home.

One afternoon during our stay, I sat on the dock with Jake.  His cousin Lauren was eager to rent a stand-up paddleboard.  “You better try it early on,” he said, “before the boats and Jetskis make it too rough.”

I scanned the crests and troughs of  water circled by pine-fringed shores and the mountains beyond.  A few boats dotted the lake, but surely not enough to stir the surface to this degree.  “But those boats are so far away…” I said.

“Yes.  But you know how it is when you drop a pebble in still water,” Jake said.  “The ripples just keep on going.”

Ripples.  I have always loved the possibilities, literal or not: a line in a book that resonates and leads to a new direction.  A random observation that sparks an idea and generates invention.  Small acts of kindness or valor that change lives or a world.  My friend Joanne, struck with cancer, coming through it, and helping me make it through my own…and now the two of us, jubilant together, sending ripples cascading in our Jetski’s wake.

On the morning of the 4^th of July parade, along with Charlie and Joanne, their kids, their kids’ spouses, their adorable granddaughter Abbey, and assorted siblings and cousins, we staked out spots with blankets and chairs under a spreading maple on the lawn of an antique colonial.  Nearby, an old retriever, the coppery fur of her muzzle gone to white, panted in the scant shade cast by her human companion’s beach chair.  

Vintage cars, fire engines, farmers on John Deere tractors, a troop of little girls in gauzy skirts and fairy wings, and, on roller skates, an aging majorette in spangled attire, glided past, some tossing candy to the small children who scampered to the road with hands outstretched.  

A skinny scrap of a guy in a straw boater and patriotic vest stood among his fellow WW II vets on a float draped in red, white and blue bunting, and lip-synced Jimmy Durante songs.  With the cock and shake of his head and a distinctive fake nose, he had Jimmy nailed. 

A convoy of vintage WW II vehicles rolled by followed by a float bearing the old men who’d once driven them.  I thought of Uncle Jack who, during his service in North Africa, drove an ambulance much like the one cruising past.  Dave’s father, Colombo, served in Italy in that war, and the third brother, Uncle Phil, was posted in the Pacific.  Miraculously, they all came home, but Cam, their sister, said of Jack, “He was too sensitive for war.  He never spoke about it when he returned, and he was never the same.”

“Always remember the soldiers,” Colombo once said to my daughter Casey.

With pride and a tug in my heart, I ran to the roadside to take pictures knowing the three brothers would have gotten a kick out of this day, and out of the role they played in giving us this opportunity to celebrate; extraordinary ripples from the sacrifices of brave old men - once brave young servicemen – waving as their floats drove by.

Remorse

As soon as I returned to my car, I regretted what I’d said. I’d lost an opportunity, a moment I’d not even recognized as an opportunity. But of course, that is what every moment is.

I’d almost passed the service station when I remembered I needed gas. I cut the wheel sharply and drove in. One pump was free, but because my tank’s on the driver’s side, I had to pull around the other pumps to align the hose and tank. By the time I was in position, a young man in a white sedan had scooted in from the other side. Grill-to-grill we idled, eyes locked through the barrier of our windshields, waiting to see who would back down.

I’d been in high spirits when I swung into the station. I’d finished a big project at work, the air was soft through my open window, and daffodils beamed yellow against pale green grass. I’d received the results of a clear PET scan the week before and was still basking in that joy, in the promise of a future newly confirmed.

If that wasn’t enough, K.C. and the Sunshine Band were rockin’ on the radio and I was tappin’ my boogie shoes right along with them.

So I felt strong, a feeling rare enough that I relished it. And this little showdown at the pump roused a cockiness that felt good. I did not toss my head defiantly or jut out my chin in a show of obstinacy, but I felt that energy and it was as glorious and novel as the spring evening. I was there first. He could move.

But he didn’t. Beyond our two windshields, he appeared young and muscular, with short, dark, curly hair, a handsome youth of twenty or so. He looked a little tough in fact, and I read his expression as saying, “I’m stayin’ right here, lady.”

As a rule, I am easily cowed, and would have wavered almost immediately – out of timidity or graciousness, it’s hard to say - but on this occasion of spring air, new hope in the future and boogie shoes, I had a right to that pump and was not going to be intimidated.

But I’m also fifty-seven and it became clear the kid was not going to budge. Staring him down made no impression, so eventually, I shifted into reverse, gave him the pump, (take it, brat!), and wound up one stall over. We emerged from our cars simultaneously. Loving the brazen, fearless, boldness bubbling within me, I met his eye and said in a tone too close to a sneer to make me comfortable now, “I’d wondered if you were going to be a gentleman, but nooooo…”

I’m not proud of that, but I wasn’t finished. The boy smiled sheepishly (he probably wasn’t a bad sort) and walked toward the Medi-Mart. I called at his retreating back, “What would your mama say?”

It sunk in quickly, my poor behavior, and I winced as I slunk to my seat behind the wheel.

I fuel myself regularly with the wisdom of self-help books about being loving and kind. I know, very well, that everyone has a story and a hard life or a sad morning can lie behind pursed lips or shadowed eyes. I am mindful of ripples, of how the good or ill in a moment flows on and outward, a continuing current of impact. So how had my joy and energy so misfired? How did feeling strong become cocky and snide?

As I drove away, I wished I could re-wind. What if I’d stepped from my car, and said with quiet humor, “Okay, this time, you win”? - a jolly encounter to send us smiling on our way instead of this mutual shame.

My husband, Dave, is ever my defender. When I confessed to my lapse, he said, “The kid should have backed down. Maybe he needed the reminder.” But I know better: this wasn’t for the boy; it was for me. It felt good to snarl, to say exactly what I felt, and I hate that, unguarded, I was a bitch.