Luminations of a New Wife

Karmic Justice

Tonight at book club at my apartment my friend reminded me of that awful night in college when I fell.  While dancing at my sophomore tri delt formal, I felt myself falling and broke that hideous fall not with my hands, but my mouth. Of course I did.  Who in the name of the lord breaks a fall with their mouth besides me?!?  Nonetheless, I broke my front teeth on that hard, slippery bastard of a dance floor which marked probably the worst day in my life (and hey, if that is my worst day, I have it pretty good).  But tonight my friend reminded me that when I fell, I wasn't dancing with my date (which figured because he was an a-hole), but with a nameless, faceless younger a-hole from Psi U or Chi Psi who, when I fell, did not bend over to help me but turned around to dance with the girl right next to me...Figures.  Why any girl in college finds other 18-21 year old boys mature enough to be attractive beats the @!()@# out of me. But seven years later I still remember that night like a bad re-occuring dream, and still nervously check to make sure i'm okay.  Which I am.

But tonight I feel that karmic justice has been served. My college friends from book club fill me in on Union gossip and I realize that so many of the old crew have not changed, despite the fact they now have seven years on them.  Seven long years to work out your childhood kinks, seperate your identity from that of your parents, and cement your own sense of self as you step out into the real world.  But the kicker about karma is that when you find someone you choose as your life partner, karma's paybacks not only effect you, but your spouse as well. Moral of the story? Life always has it's way of working itself out. 

And What a Reunion It Was

Well at least I wasn't exaggerating about the flashbacks part.  My little "Union Event" was nothing but flashbacks - if you graduated from the earlier part of last century. Mind you I had limitted expectations - I knew none of my friends were going but thought I would least run into some old recognizable faces, some professors, something to remind me of my old glory days.  Steve and I got to the event which was held in the upstairs room of a communal library of the Union Leage on East 37th Street.  So i'm standing there sheepishly with my $10 glass of wine and Steve keeps nudging me to socialize with my fellow alumns from the 1890's, and if that wasn't bad enough - the drinks weren't even free.

We left in under thirty minutes and on the way out, ran into someone, someone!, who I had gone to school with. In school we were pretty close in the sense that our sorority and his fraternity did a lot of partying together. He kept me abreast of his Union gossip and I must write here that I am shocked that so little has changed with some people. We traded "grown up" stories - "She's married now;" "He has 27 people working for him;" - and then there's always the dud that brings everyone else down - "It's amazing how well he performs at work being he pulls bong hits before work;" or "He's sleeping with a married woman." Nice.

Sometimes I wonder about where I went to college. In high school, many of my friends left Miami for big schools, well-known universities and the Ivy League. I ducked out of Florida to return to New York but came to a school where I felt so few were like me. Of course I found my niche of amazing girlfriends, but I never felt like we as a group fit into the complacency around us. I used to think what if all the time - what if I went to another school? what if we never started dating in the first place? But then I realized I wouldn't be where I am today, and I wouldn't trade that in for anything.

Gobble Gobble

For this year's thanksgiving, we spent the weekend in South Carolina with Steve's family, who are lucky enough to live part of the year in a small island in Charleston's Lowcountry.  Though I love leaving New York as much as I love living here, I must say I was at first skeptical my first visit down south. First of all, people in the south are....so.....nice. They never get impatient, or angry, and everyone is so damned social and friendly. I'm just not that used to it - or should I say, it takes me awhile to get out my New York City mode, drawl out my vowels, and not care if people cut me in line or walk too slowly down the street. I don't know if it was the weather (which was gorgeous! Each and every day!) or this book I was reading (Eat Pray Love) about a woman's devout journey to find balance in her life and just take it easy, that I began to, well, take it easy myself. My second day on the island I started saying hello to strangers as I passed them on my morning walks before they even had a chance to say hi first. I commented on the weather, and even remarked with strangers that Christmas was right around the corner, could you believe. I small-talked with the clerk (yes, me!) as she rang up my iced cappucino. I didn't even give her a hard time when she messed up my order switching my skim-milk for whole. Who cares!? Life on an island was good.

My brother-in-law and his wife brought their neighbor friends from North Carolina to spend the week with us as well. And though I've met this couple before, I never spent that much time with them and didn't realize how different and yet how similar we were. Though I was only the second (the second!) Jewish person they ever met, they were the first true Southerners I've ever met. It was beyond interesting to hear how different life in the South is - beyond politics and the fact they would never watch "The Daily Show" we still had a lot in common. They are a young, recently married couple as well and yes, Southern wives can be just as cool as Northern ones.  (Well at least this couple was). So, despite the fact that Steve and I would never join them hunting on the weekends in Raleigh, they would probably never try gefilte fish up north either.

I tried a lot of new things this weekend - fried green tomatoes, hopping johns, jambalaya, she-crab, fried turkey...but that's the obvious.  More importantly I learned how different people live - and realized that at the end of the day, once those from both ends of the Mason-Dixie line accept the fact that the Civil War is indeedover, we are more alike than anything else.