Small Town Interlude

A childhood friend and I had planned to meet half way this weekend to trade Christmas gifts and catch up. Half way between the middle of this big city that I love and that small town where she and her family have just bought a house and there isn’t even a Target. Half way between our lives is Beaumont, Texas.

At first I thought I didn’t want to drive to Beaumont, Texas (97 miles, approx) because I don’t like to drive anymore. That’s what I thought. Because, twice a month, I have to drive to a small town near Austin to pick up my kids from their visitations with their dad. And I don’t like making that drive anymore. I’ve seen its sights too many times and I’m wary of all its speed traps.

But I drove to Beaumont and it was nice. It was beautifully flat and lonely and sage green, then broken up by little forests of trees. Probably not real forests – I guess those might not exist anymore in Texas. But they looked like forests to me. Near the three rivers – Old, Lost, and Trinity – there were of course oaks. Oaks like rivers. Everywhere else, there were tall, thin pines packed together like beautifully sad sardines. The flatness of East Texas makes you look out onto the horizon at nothing and imagine that you’re living in a tiny, unsung vacuum and your life will never be known to anyone anywhere else. (This exercise must be done with the Internet disconnected, though.) The old-wood-colored houses tucked into the pines made me believe that there might very well be witches outside of Anahuac. Quietly drying forest herbs. Making piney potions with the romantically lonely horizon in their black-cat-studded windows.

In Beaumont, I walked around the Target shopping center parking lot in black-and-white and knee-high boots, trying to decide. Luther’s BBQ or Peking Restaurant? Ashley Stewart Plus Size or Payless Shoes? People stared. Because none of them were wearing mostly black with knee-high boots. Most of them had on jeans and sweatshirts from Target. And there was nothing wrong with that. And there was nothing wrong with them looking at a woman, either. But I don’t like it when people stare. That’s a whole big issue with me. Of course I want to look good. And, more importantly, I pride myself on being appropriately and tastefully dressed for all my occassions. But what was appropriate for weekending in Houston was a big old eyeful in Beaumont. So people stared and I tried not to act like my mom, who is a paranoid schizophrenic and assumes that people stare at her, not because she was beautiful or because she is dressed weird or because she’s noisily freaking out, but because they hate her and are secretly plotting her demise.

I don’t think I’m beautiful and I don’t perceive assassins, but it does make me nervous when people stare. When I am nervous lately, I get through it by getting into a role. I imagine a role that explains who I am and what I’m doing and why it’s all okay. “I am from Houston, where women wear knee boots all the time. I am here to meet my friend. We are meeting half way in Beaumont. She will be here any minute from now. I appreciate Beaumont for being here for us. Everyone here is friendly and so am I.”

While we go through the line at Luther’s BBQ, my friend apologizes to me for the third time. Sorry about the way she looks. Sorry about her hair. Sorry she’s so flustered, hungry and holding the baby with all his accoutrements, giddy with having escaped the older two babies for so long. I scolded her to quit doing that. It makes me sad when women apologize for nothing. She looks beautiful. She always has.

The good thing about meeting up with faraway friends face-to-face is that you can say real things to each other when you get there, to that halfway point. She can say, “You know, it gets on my nerves when you give me advice and I can’t take that advice because it’s never exactly right because maybe you just don’t remember what it’s like to have three babies anymore. And this is hard for me, and if you don’t remember that, or if it was somehow easier for you, and you think I’m some kind of pathetic person or a bad mother, then… then my chin is thrust up defiantly and my voice may quiver but I will resist you.”

And I can say, “If you tell me how hard it is and I respond with some one-liner of seemingly logical pat advice straight out of the mouth of my late advice-giving aunt, and if I then respond to your protests with dead-eyed vague civility, it’s never gonna be because I’m judging you. If I don’t remember, it’s because I don’t want to. Because it was so hard. And I know it’s cold-blooded, but if I don’t remember, purposely, more and more on the phone with you lately, it’s because I have a defense mechanism that shuts out potential memories. And those memories are echoed in what you tell me about struggling with three babies in a small town in the middle of nowhere where they don’t even have a Target. And it hurts to hear it. But I need you to know that even if you told me your kids ran around naked while you smoked and drank and had cyber-sex with strangers, I would still love you and you’d still be my friend.”

And I don’t have to say, “I don’t want to be my mom, and I don’t want to be my aunt, and I don’t want to be the woman I had to be in that small town. I’m just me, and when I look at you, you’re just you. Still.” I don’t have to say, “And if you’re ever tired of living in a small town, you know I’ll help you come back home.” Because some things can be expressed without words. (I hope.) And all of it over chopped beef and ambrosia at Luther’s BBQ. Not over the phone, but there in real life.

Now I’m looking forward to the next weekend that we spend together. She’s going to come to Houston some day soon so we can shop, because small-town Targets aren’t always enough. I’m gonna take her to Harwin and Memorial City Mall. We’re gonna get her some purses, boots, fake gems and fake-fur ponchos.

We’re gonna have fun, just like in the old days. Back when we were childhood friends, before we started worrying about who we needed to be.

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Posted in Uncategorized on 12/20/2004 02:51 pm
 
 

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