(Christmas) Adam and Eve

It was overcast and gray when I woke up this morning, and Christmas cold - 25 degrees according to my weather app. I was on the couch in my sister's living room, where I'd gone to escape my husband's snoring. It was cozy there. There was a light on over the stove and the outside Christmas lights twinkled from the front window. I piled on some blankets and propped myself up on some pillows and read my book until I fell back to sleep. My sister's dog, who loves me, had followed me downstairs, and he slept on the floor next to my couch. 

When I sat up, the dog popped his head up and lazily wagged his tail. He knew that I was going to take him out for a walk but he wasn't in a hurry and neither was I. I let him outside, made some coffee, plugged in the Christmas tree, and wrapped myself back up in a blanket. It was 7 am on December 23 - Christmas Adam. 

*****

We usually visit my family after Christmas, but schedules were booked, and December 22 and 23 were the only available options. So we drove up yesterday afternoon, arriving in mid-afternoon after a surprisingly trouble free drive. Temperatures were in the mid-50s when we left our house in Maryland and we dressed accordingly, and were rudely surprised when we got out of the car in my sister’s driveway, where it was 35 degrees at 3 PM. Fortunately for me, I had a winter jacket in the back of my car so I was quite comfortable in the still cold December afternoon as I took my sister’s dog for a walk. We walked around the silent streets, and then a school bus rolled in and discharged its passengers, a joyful, screaming gaggle of elementary schoolers arriving home for Christmas vacation. Later, we had dinner at a favorite restaurant, and then sat around an outdoor fire, wrapped in parkas and blankets. 

*****

It’s Christmas Eve now, the day after Christmas Adam, because Adam came before Eve. We spent the morning and early afternoon yesterday at my sister’s house, exchanging gifts and eating brunch and cookies. After one last dog walk, we drove back home, arriving just at twilight, the perfect time of day in December. Tomorrow is Christmas and winter is just beginning but the days will get a little longer each day now. It’s peaceful here. I hope it will soon be peaceful everywhere. 

Rest stop

The 1-95 corridor is probably the most heavily traveled stretch of road in the United States, and never more so than on a Saturday in the summer or during the holidays. From Maine to Florida and back, people are on the road, for a few miles or hundreds of miles. 95 on a Saturday is not for the faint of heart. You need to know where you’re going and what you’re doing. You need to be on top of your Ps and Qs. 

In Maryland, there are several rest stops on 95; or rather, travel plazas. They are called travel plazas now. The Maryland House and the Chesapeake House travel plazas are located right smack in the middle of 95, accessible via left exits to both northbound and southbound travelers. The plazas and the buildings are large and clean and well-maintained and offer everything that a road traveler would need - bathrooms, food, gas, silly souvenirs, and even massage chairs, which I wouldn’t touch without alcohol wipes but to each his own. 

A travel plaza in the middle of December is a rather exciting place to be. People are traveling to see family for Christmas, college students are returning home for winter break - the Maryland House is a hub of happy buzzy energy. There’s no better place to watch people and see how they present themselves. 

Most people stay casual for a road trip, but there’s more than one kind of casual. There is truly carefree casual, a person who just gets up, puts on some sporty or slouchy clothing, pulls back their hair or puts on a hat, and then goes, grabbing whatever jacket and bag are hanging on the hook nearest the door before they hit the road. And then there are the others, who appear to be casual in dress and demeanor, but their casualness is of the well-thought-out and carefully considered variety. 

This morning, I was just meeting my brother, who was picking up my mom to take her back home to Philadelphia after a week with me. We texted, only half joking, that we hoped that no one would witness the old lady handover and report us for human trafficking. Since I was only dropping off and returning home, I was genuinely casual, but when I’m taking an actual trip, road or otherwise, I plan my casual look very carefully, down to the jacket and bag (which are the most important elements, of course). And I could tell, just by looking, who else had done the same before heading out on the road that morning.

I saw a young woman (mid 30s, maybe) in jeans and a cashmere pullover hoodie (the one that keeps chasing people all over the internet) with boots and a short puffer jacket and a Le Pliage, and I imagined her planning her travel look with some care, thinking about which outfit would be most comfortable and appropriate for a road trip with rest stops, and would look nicest when she reached her destination. She planned well, actually. She looked both genuinely comfortable and genuinely stylish and nice. I also saw a mother-daughter duo in somewhat matching outfits, Lululemon leggings and North Face fleece jackets and Ugg-style boots. The mother was young, maybe about 40, and very fit. Her clothes fit perfectly and her hair was shiny and straight. Her hands were flawlessly manicured and she wore a touch of makeup - nothing garish, just a bit of pale lipstick and some mascara. Her casual look was the work of at least an hour. Her daughter, who wore nearly the same thing, looked slightly rumpled, with an oversized jacket and a messy ponytail and a clean-scrubbed face. Both women looked beautiful and road-trip appropriate. I saw hundreds of other people dressed in casual and loungewear both basic and fancy and almost all of them had put some thought or effort into their road trip look. I wished a safe and happy journey for all of them. 

*****

Tomorrow, I’ll be back on 95 heading north toward Philadelphia for a quick overnight visit with my family. I’ve already planned the carefully considered casual outfit that I will wear for the ride. This year, I don’t really feel like visiting family - I would rather stay home and enjoy my younger son’s very short stay at home before he has to return to campus for winter training. But I am looking forward to the drive. It’s fun to dress for a road trip, especially when you have exactly the right outfit. It’s fun to pack an overnight bag and I’m determined to pack only what I need because I know that we’ll be coming home with Christmas presents and because I want to carry only one tote bag and one handbag. It’s fun to listen to Christmas music on the radio, and to stop for a coffee midway through the trip, even though it’s a less than three-hour drive. I’m looking forward to seeing fellow travelers at the Maryland House or maybe the Bel Air Wawa. It’ll be fun to see what everyone’s wearing. 

Could this BE any less of a book review?

We were home on a Saturday night in October when my son looked up from his phone and said “Oh bummer - Matthew Perry died. You know, the “Friends” guy?” I don’t think he expected us to react as strongly as we did. We were genuinely shocked and saddened, surprising even ourselves. 

I’m slightly older than the demographic that grew up watching “Friends.” I didn’t even really watch it very often when it was still airing on Thursday nights but of course I’ve seen pretty much the entire series now, like everyone else in the English-speaking world. There are actually a lot of things wrong with “Friends,” which I won’t bother to discuss because you can read the “Friends doesn’t hold up” discourse pretty much anywhere on the internet, and I don’t really have anything to add to that discourse. But when the show was good, it was really really good and Matthew Perry was a big reason why. “Friends” was his best work as an actor, but he was also wonderful in “The Whole Nine Yards” and “Fools Rush In,” an absolutely delightful and underrated movie. I was a Matthew Perry fan, I suppose, and didn’t realize it until my son shared the news of his death. 

But we’re talking about the book, aren’t we? "Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing" is a celebrity memoir, which is a genre that I don’t usually read, unless I happen to really love the celebrity. I read Carrie Fisher’s memoirs, and Bruce Springsteen’s. That's who you have to be to get me to read your memoir. I would never have thought to read “Friends, Lovers…” if Perry hadn’t died; but struck by how unexpectedly sad I was at the news of his death, I bought the book and read it in a day. 

First of all, it’s good from a pure literary standpoint. Perry was a good writer (not surprising) and storyteller. Secondly, it is honest in a way that celebrity memoirs maybe attempt but seldom achieve. The Big Terrible Thing was Perry's alcoholism and drug addiction, which he tried over and over again to overcome but ultimately could not. It’s one thing for a celebrity with a history of drug use and wildness to tell stories of promiscuity and partying and waking up in strange homes after blacking out. It’s quite another for that same celebrity to tell his fans about his colon rupture and the months in the hospital with a colostomy bag. I didn’t know that colostomy bags were prone to breaking. I know this now, and although I wish I didn’t, I admire Matthew Perry for sharing the humiliating details. I don’t think he was interested in shocking readers or grossing them out (although I bet he enjoyed the gross-out part). I think that he knew that by sharing his suffering, he could make others suffering similarly feel less alone.  

Last week I was home alone on a Friday night. I was so tired I could have gone to sleep at 8, but I turned on the TV instead, hoping to find a hockey game or an old movie or something. Instead, I found a “Friends” marathon. I think you can turn on a TV anywhere in the United States at any time of day and if you flip through enough channels, you will find a “Friends” rerun. I hadn’t watched the show in years, and I tried to look at it without thinking about 9/11 or new social and cultural norms or the late Obama years or the Trump administration or anything else pre-”Friends.” I tried to look at it as it was in 1994, from the perspective of a person watching it in 1994. And amid funny moments interspersed with cringe (because it's really not 1994), I watched Matthew Perry’s delivery and inflection and timing, which might seem familiar and even hackneyed now but which were completely new and original at the time. Matthew Perry was not wrong when he writes that his performance as Chandler Bing influenced the way an entire generation spoke and even thought. He was a brilliant comedian, a fine actor, and a brave and generous person for telling us about the worst parts of himself, with no filters and no excuses. Rest in peace, Matthew Perry. 

Retreat

Today I'm attending an all day off-site retreat, an 8-hour meeting of brilliant and highly educated people, and me. This is just fact, not false modesty. I'm the only person here without a medical degree or a PhD. A few of these overachievers have both, with an MPH or an MBA or a JD just for sport. I myself was full up on formal education when I received my BA, but these people don’t know when to quit.

***** 

One thing that some successful people do not know how to do - at all - is dress casually. The retreat organizer specified casual dress for today. For the military officers, I think that means anything but their uniforms. Most of us didn't even bother with the casual directive. We wore pretty much what we’d have worn to work anyway, with maybe a more comfortable shoe, or a cardigan rather than a jacket. It’s not a terribly formal workplace in the first place. A few people did attempt a look more relaxed than their usual workwear, with mixed results. I guess if a man usually wears a suit, then a sweater vest layered over an oxford shirt with khakis and loafers will pass as casual.  Maybe for a woman who usually wears a suit, a cashmere sweater layered over a silk blouse with a brightly patterned silk scarf knotted smartly at the neck is as casual as it gets. Well, everyone seemed happy and everyone looked nice, and I’m the last person who should be critiquing anyone’s look. I just think that if you are more at ease in more dressy attire, then that’s how you should dress for work. Comfort is relative. 

*****

We do these offsite retreats on a fairly regular basis, and I always try to think of ways to get out of attending, but it’s hard to make a case that you’re too busy to leave your desk when everyone else in the group is a military officer or an MD or both, and they all seem able to make the time to get out of their offices. And of course, it’s not the offsite itself (most of them are pretty great), it’s the large group interaction. Introverts like people just fine - we just like them a few at a time, in smaller time increments. Faced with the idea of hanging out with 50 people - some of whom I don’t know well at all - in the same room, for an eight-hour day, and I will brainstorm pretty much any ridiculous excuse to get out of it. And then I’ll enter the resignation and acceptance phase, steel myself for the ordeal of enforced camaraderie, and show up with a smile on my face and appropriate semi-casual, semi-business attire. And 90 percent of the time, I have a pretty good time. 

*****

And as usual, I did have a pretty good time, but I said too much, and I’m not the only one. The whole thing was very confessional (adjective), and I only do that here, or in an actual confessional (noun). I’m still a little stressed out about having over-shared. Well, it’s all out there now. Nothing I can do about it now, except maybe go for a walk. 

I’m a little stressed out about everything, really. I wouldn’t mind retreating from the world in general, just for a few days. But that is not an option. A walk is the next best thing. Going for a walk is my cure-all, for myself and others. It’s what I do when I’m anxious and worried (100 percent of the time) and it’s what I tell everyone else to do. It’s an early December Tuesday now, the trees dark colorless gray against a white-gray sky. I worked from home today and am about to finish just in time to walk a few steps outside, racing against sunset, which gets earlier every day now. But only for a little while longer. In two weeks, the tide will turn. The days will begin to lengthen and the darkness will be pushed back a tiny bit each day until there’s more light than dark. Maybe that’ll happen to the whole world, too - every day it'll get a little less dark. We can't retreat from the world; we can only hope. Right now, I can only hope. And walk, of course.