Heather's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 6/21/03 -------------------- 5/5/03 3/19/03 3/5/03 1/25/03 1/9/03 12/20/02 11/30/02 11/7/02 10/31/02 10/19/02 -------------------- Heather's Introduction

January 9, 2003

The Diary Writers meet Part II

Once we got off the freeway it was fairly easy to keep up with the other cars I was following. I must say, though, that I was relieved to be following someone instead of having to find it via my hastily scratched out directions from an email Jessica had sent. We must have turned 7 or 8 times down small, dark streets before we pulled up in front of her pad.

Jessica has the kind of house I’ve always wanted – a cute, older home with tons of charm. I have a thing for older homes, and her house had those sweet touches – the way the ceilings hit the walls, and the little architectural touches from the past. It was both lovely and lived-in, and we all settled in while Jessica and Mike (her husband) went into the kitchen to prepare dinner and drinks.

I wish I had a better memory for the conversations we had. I know that we all ended up telling our birth stories over the course of the evening – I being a complete stage-hog as I have three to everyone else’s one. Excepting poor Debbie, of course, who had none and probably won’t now since we’ve scared her to death (apologies, Debbie. Don’t worry, though - I know a good therapist here in the States).

Initially we just started chatting and really, it felt like I was talking with old friends. There weren’t any awkward “look-at-your-shoes-and-try-to-think-of-something-interesting-to-say” moments for me. We rambled over and around different topics, brought things up just to drop them in a split-second for something else. Sometime after we arrived home Jessica came out and asked us what we wanted to drink. Jeanette and I had margaritas. Melissa and Debbie had red wine, I’m almost sure of it. Pregnant Christina had water or something non-alcoholic (though she was as lively as the rest of us).

We drank and chatted some more and before I knew it, Mike was leaving (off to spend the night with his younger siblings, I think, to give us girls some space) and we were ready to eat. Jessica and Mike had made chicken fajitas with all the fixin’s, and I think we were all hungry. We made plates and then sat down in Jessica’s front room to eat.

I, myself, was terrified of spilling anything on Jessica’s Pottery barn couch. It was lovely AND I well know my penchant for spilling non-stain-removable foods on expensive furniture. Believe me, I’m still suffering trauma over the time I dripped grape juice on my Great Aunt Zelda’s hand-stitched dining chair seat covers. I’m sure she is, too. And I did not want that to be my little legacy to the McFarlane clan – “oh look – here’s the chicken fajita stain that one internet woman made last year…” No thanks.

So I avoided that couch like the plague.

Dinner was a blast, though, and we talked and gossiped like old friends. I must tell you this – every woman I talked to was intelligent, fun and delightful, and I’m not just making that up because I know they’ll read this. Actually, I’m making it up because I know they’ll be writing about me. Okay, kidding…kidding. Really, they were some of the nicest, most fun women I’ve met in a long time – and it was long before I had finished my third (or fourth?) margarita and had started on the red wine.

In all seriousness I remember saying to myself several times, “These are people I’d actually be friends with in real life!” I know, it is real-life, but you know what I meant. And, besides, I didn’t have to make perfect sense. I was imbibing margaritas.

At some point we started talking about vaccinations and autism and herein lies one of the brightest points of my trip. I’m not sure how I can possibly communicate the significance of what happened there and how, looking back on it, I’m still moved in a way that is almost beyond description.

One of the things I’ve noticed since Ivan’s been diagnosed is the way people phase us – my family – out. In many small ways and in bigger ones. I rarely tell people about Ivan. For example, virtually all of the people I go to school with don’t know that he’s autistic. I sometimes run into old friends from work in the mall or the store and I can feel this great divide between us that only I can see. This chasm that I cannot possibly bridge with a momentary conversation based on a social convention. I can not tell them, “Oh, sorry, things actually haven’t been all that well since I’ve last seen you,” because I can’t reduce this thing, this huge life-altering experience, down for them in a way that is digestible, or that fits within the contrived world of polite exchanges. And I hesitate to tell people because I know what happens when I do, I know their responses by heart – the way they tilt their head and their eyes sort of glaze over, ever so slightly, and they stop looking at me, and instead look through me a little. The way they shift in their own feet, like they suddenly have found themselves in a strange land and they aren’t quite sure how they got there. The way their pity sloughs off of them like something dirty, something they hate but that they know they’re supposed to hand out, like a pittance that is neither sustaining nor uplifting.

I suppose the thing I worried the most about wasn’t really whether or not they were likeable or even boring, or whether I’d stain Jessica’s couch. I really, truly worried that this same chasm would be there between us and that everything I’d known of them from the internet – every kind word or note or thought they had given would be placed into question by these small, irrefutable actions that speak more about a person than any email ever could. And how devastated I’d be if that all came about because I knew it would be something that they’d be unable to prevent and something that I’d be unable to ignore.

But as we talked the conversation gradually moved to Ivan, to vaccines and my opinions on them, and it wasn’t as though they were saying, “How do you do it?” with feigned amazement in an attempt to force up some kind of boundary between us. And it wasn’t as though they looked to me as though I were something to be pitied. They looked at me like a real person – the same as them. Another mother, part of the group. Not falsely elevated or held apart, or reduced. I didn’t get the sense that any of them had ever felt these things about me.

And even now, nearly two months after my visit to Seattle, I can remember the ease with which I talked with everyone, the long, long conversations we all had and the longer one Jessica and I had about English degrees and literature and school and motherhood. I know we never watched the movie I had rented for us (“Monsoon Wedding”, if anyone’s interested – it’s a fine film). I know that Hana and Ella (Melissa’s baby) woke up and kept their mothers hopping up and down. I know that Christina and Melissa left for their own homes, that Jeanette and Debbie slept in the basement, that Jessica slept upstairs with Hana, and that I slept on the aforementioned couch. And I know that as I drifted off to sleep, at almost three in the morning, I felt the twinge of normalcy that only visits me in glimmers.

And I know that I slept well.

Waking up, though, was an entirely different matter. I indulged in one too many (i.e. – more than two) margaritas and was sporting a nice little headache in the morning. Also, I must admit that the night before, after I had stated that medical doctors aren’t perfect and pharmaceutical companies are crooks, I found out that Debbie was the daughter of an MD…who worked for a pharmaceutical company. D’oh! I felt like the world’s biggest heel. “Oh, yes – Ms. Foot-in-Mouth…Table for one?”

Debbie, though, was really great about it all. And if she reads this, I hope she’ll accept my sincerest apologies again. I really wasn’t being belligerent, at least I think so (ha-ha), but I still felt rather bad about it all. Also, I must confess, that I don’t keep up on the other diaries like I should and this meant that sometimes I would pose a question to one of girls only to be reminded that they had, indeed, covered that very topic at great length only the week before. Crikey, I am a cretin.

To my credit, I admitted that I had a hard time reading everyone’s diary and that I did my best to keep up. And then I smiled. Very big. Because I felt just horrible…horrible…that they seemed to know all of my entries (not hard because I don’t write nearly enough) and I seemingly couldn’t keep up with theirs. I actually almost called Hana “Hannah” and was only saved by Jeanette at the zero hour from that error. Of course, I’m admitting it now, so what exactly was the point of the save? I don’t know.

Anyway, as I was saying, Sunday morning found Jessica and I – the two confirmed caffeine junkies – in need of a serious fix. Debbie, Jeanette, Jessica and I took turns in the shower getting ready and around 11:00ish (give or take) we were ready to leave for brunch. We took my car and met up with Christina at CJs in downtown Seattle.

CJs was busy, but we still were able to get a table pretty quickly – due in large part to Christina’s earlier arrival at the restaurant. I had the Eggs Benedict (delicious), as did Christina. And coffee. Jessica and I both were requesting coffee the moment we hit the chairs.

We spent more time talking during brunch – I know, by now you must be thinking, “dear lord, these women never shut up!” There is some truth to that. At least, all together, we are a force to be reckoned with.

After eating we went outside and bid goodbye to Christina, who had to be off to rest before her late shift that night. We took a photo or two out front and then hugged. Sans Christina, we decided to go over to Melissa’s house (lovely and old as well) and we hung out there for a little while as well. Ella was adorable and had a smashing nursery with orange walls. It looked so warm and cozy and I’ve since vowed to someday paint one of my rooms in my house that same deep, maternal orange.

It was afternoon before I left for home. We drove back to Jessica’s house, and I packed up my things. I think Debbie was packing up her things as well, and left around the same time I did, or soon after. As I was leaving Jessica and Melissa were arguing affectionately with Jeanette, trying to get her to walk around Greenlake with them, and Jeanette was begrudgingly pulling on a pair of athletic shoes – the only time I’d see her out of heels the whole weekend.

I pulled out of the driveway and found my way back to I-5. The drive home was easy and quiet and I listened to a compilation CD I’d made several months before. It’s in MP3 format, and has a few hundred songs, so I’ve never gotten close to the end before and even now I can’t recall the songs I put on there. But as I was nearing the Washington/Oregon border one of my favorite songs came on and the lyrics broke through the road fog in my head:

And Greg he writes letters with his birthday pen
Sometimes he's aware that they're drawing him in
Lucy was pretty your best friend agreed
Well…still…pretty good year
Pretty good year…

It had been a pretty good year, and this meeting was really one of the many highlights.