reminisce

Make a circle with the thumb and fingers of your left hand. Push your right index finger into and out of this circle. You’re probably familiar with this gesture, but I’d be willing to bet I’m one of few who often sees it from her mother. Ever since I learned to drive, whenever I leave the house in the fall, my mother accompanies her farewell with this gesture, and the words, “Be careful!” ... indicating that it’s deer mating season.

Until we were old enough to pick them out ourselves, my twin sister and I wore the same Halloween costume – two little angels, two witches, two clowns. The year I was in first grade, I dressed as a bee and my sister dressed as a gypsy. Her costume was homemade, elaborate and absolutely awesome, but I was certain mine was better – it was satin, and it was bought, not made. My friend Kelly was coming to trick-or-treat with me. And out of sheer coincidence, she was dressed as a bee, too.

The thing was, I loved being twins with Kelly that night, and Twin Day of Spirit Week at school was always my favorite. I loved the uniqueness of being a twin. Being able to choose my mirror image – that was what made twinning perfect.

Once we got over the incident of the twice-worn skirt, Carolynne and I began a tenuous friendship that was eventually cemented in place by the lucky coincidence of being in the same psych class. Rather than learn about personality with the rest of them, we’d meet in the lecture hall, chat while waiting for the professor to arrive, then dash out the side door at the very last minute. We’d wander Grand River in the October sunshine, calling our friends and cracking each other up, as the leaves changed, one week at a time.

The Ypsi Community Band played a concert in the park last night. It had an animal theme, and featured real live dog barks in not one, but two pieces (Our euph player’s dog did them on cue.). We happened to be playing the Pink Panther as part of this concert, and all I could think about was this bassoon quartet right here: Faith, me, Andrew, and Mikey, in 1996, as part of the Blue Lake International Symphony Band. We had a set of four parts, handwritten, and the snaps were written into the second part – snap right while playing a split-finger E-flat left. We performed Pink Panther for the mayor of a small town in Germany; we performed it before concerts like we are here (in Redford, I think); and we performed it as part of the homecoming concert at Stewart Shell.

I and some college pals worked as camp counselors during the summer I was 19. We lived in the dorms with a hall full of kids, and in the hot July night, we stayed as close to our box fans as possible – except for the night we discovered that Mudhillun didn’t know how to swim. Leaving our co-counselors and campers snoozing away, we snuck down the stairwells and into Janine’s red VW convertible. We attempted swimming lessons at the pool in my father’s backyard, until the laughing and splashing woke him up. Exhilarated, we backed the car right off the edge of the driveway as we were leaving. Laughing, we pushed it back onto the road and sped back to the dorms, each creeping silently inside, up the stairs, and down the halls to our rooms – where we’d definitely been all night.

In 2004, on my last night in East Lansing, I discovered that the only food items I had yet to dispose of were also most of the ingredients for cupcakes. Llama and I made them at his house, while watching X-Men and eating my last free Domino’s pizza. And although I had to get up early the next morning, Ryn and I stayed up that night playing Magic on the floor of my apartment until at least 4.

When Becky and I were in seventh and eighth grades, we had an extensive and complicated reference system to discuss our crushes. It was indecipherable upon being overheard, but that wasn’t the real reason we employed this system – the real reason was that we wanted to discuss these people without actually revealing their names to each other.

The summer between senior and senior years at college, I worked over the summer for the housing complex, cleaning dorm rooms. It was hotter than hell in those rooms, and I learned that summer that Old English cleaner is completely nontoxic. I also learned every single note, word, and beat of the song “U Dont’ Have to Call” by Usher. My cleaning mate Ernestine was about 5’2”, had hair in mini-braids to her knees, and carried her portable boombox with us everywhere we went. And the boombox played that song, and that song only.