Fint Som Snus

Hasn't everyone had that experience of seeing an old friend or acquaintance out of the blue, maybe in the grocery store, or at the gym, and ducking before being spotted? Why do we do that? For me, there's always the certainty that of course so-and-so won't remember me. Nevermind that we sat next to each for three semesters and I know the name of her first pet (Ginger) and that poor Ginger was run over by my friend's dad in their driveway. No, I am the owner of a sort of invisibility cloak.

So I'm making it one of my goals to attack 2010 with a little more presence. Driving by a 1-hour t-shirt place the other day, I even considered having a shirt made: Yes, I AM taking up space. A more confident cloak, so to speak. To ready me for those inevitable run-ins.

But don't you hate how those run-ins have to turn into run-downs? The whole 'what's new?' thing is exhausting. 2009 happens to be My Year of Divorce and I haven't begun to compose my What-Went-Wrong (in 100-words or less) essay. That's led to a predicament. I'm lonely for friends, but don't want to be constantly rehashing my life.

Still, a girl's got to eat, and an old roommate happens to own a fabulous Swedish restaurant on Foster Avenue called Tre Kronor. I haven't kept up with Patty like I've wanted to. We lived together before either of us met our husbands. Now she has five kids, owns and runs both Tre Kronor and The Sweden Shop with her husband, and still looks fabulous and has a friendly smile for everyone. They're the hard-working, have-it-all couple that have me reaching for my cloak, thinking 'they're much too busy for little 'ol me!'

I was telling a friend all this as we sat outside Tre Kronor devouring a heavenly apple danish. The waiters are perky, Nordic-looking students from North Park University, and they wore powder blue t-shirts that said "Fint Som Snus," which translates, I'm told, to "fine as snuff," or, as we would say "right as rain." Patty's husband Larry happened by, and he surprised me by saying he wanted to call Patty over, sure that she'd want to see me. Conveniently, they live right across the street, and moments later she was running over. She gave me a big hug and the first words out of her mouth were "I've missed you!" I don't know if it was hearing that, or if I was still high on the apple danish, but that breakfast, that run-in, made my week. It couldn't have come at a more perfect time, desperate as I was for a reminder that no, I wasn't invisible. I was fint som snus.

My friend will never know how good she made me feel that day. Unless I have a t-shirt made. What's Swedish for thank you, thank you, thank you!!?

I Love You...For Now

The subject of unconditional love has been coming up repeatedly for me lately. I went to see (500) Days of Summer at the McClurg Theater downtown -- a fabulous venue by any standard, yet something about its cavernous interior always gives me a surreal sense of isolation, even when the seats are packed. Or maybe the surreal sense comes from the time I was there for the debut showing of Public Enemies, starring Johnny Depp and filmed in Chicago, and all the extras were there too, dressed in period clothing, which made for that time warp feeling. Or maybe it's that, earlier, I'd actually seen Johnny Depp on the red carpet and the place will be forever lonely without him. Talk about unconditional love...

But I digress. In (500) Days of Summer I loved the part where the main character Tom, in the throes of lovesickness, says to Zooey Deschanel's character Summer something like "I want to know that you're not going to feel differently about me tomorrow." And she looks at him with those big doe-eyes and says, "I can't give you that. No one can."

It reminded me of the lyrics to a Split Endz song: "You know that I love you, here and now, not forever. I can give you the present. I don't know 'bout the future. That's all stuff and nonsense."

Harsh, I thought. But true?

Unwillingly, I re-lived my first heartbreak, when my college boyfriend turned to me one night and said "I don't love you anymore." In my twenties I believed love was something you couldn't turn off. It was like a magical spigot, once turned on it would be stuck on, pouring love like water into eager upturned hands. Twenty years later, I've seen a few faucets dry up. Sometimes in little drips, other times like a sledge hammer coming down on an old fixture. When my husband told me he'd been cheating on and off for ten years, and had just spent 12 hours with someone in Las Vegas who was destined to be his new love, it was a crash course in the changeable nature of love.

Now I find myself wondering if the only love that can't really be destroyed is the love we have for our children, or our parents. Those primordial relationships are in our very DNA. We'll stretch the ties to near breaking, but only because we're confident there's some high-quality elastic there. With anyone else you can spend years learning each other and one day be handed a big red-letter F, flunking an exam you didn't know you were taking. There's my cynic.

But then I'll moments of such expansive, joyous love toward someone and it does makes sense. Time truly seems to stand still. In that kind of love there's no future because there's no room for it. Constructs like tomorrow, next week, next year only cage it in. There's still a learning curve, yes, but no striving, no grade.

I wonder if the next time someone says "I'm just over you," I'll be able to remain philosophical. And I can't decide if knowing it can happen at any time makes love more precious. Or just makes me sad.

Warrior at the Ready

Yesterday, while I was in the middle of a yoga class, my muscles warmed, my mind clear, my sister popped into my head. I haven't seen or spoken to my sister in more than 2 years. Last I saw her was in a hotel room at an Embassy Suites in Colorado where my family had lured her for a drug intervention. She's a crystal meth addict, and was high that day. Despite our tearful, pleading letters, despite our interventionist's efforts to reel her in over 4 long hours, despite the bed we'd paid for at a rehab in California (we had new sheets in the suitcase! With pink flamingoes on them!), the intervention failed. My sister fled the room and we were forced to deliver the "kiss-off" letter. Just your standard "you are dead to me until you're ready for help" letter.

Two years later, she's still not ready. So I've put her out of my life and, mostly, my thoughts. Which is why her interrupting my downward-facing dog was remarkable. For the first time in a long time I had a clear conviction that I would see her again. Alive. I just felt it.

Then my mother sent me an email saying that she had a meltdown yesterday over my sister, that she cried all day. Now my mother and I don't talk about my sister much anymore. It's easier that way. So it seemed a strange coincidence that she came to us on the same day, disrupting our careful indifference. I told my mother that maybe she's thinking of us, that our "feelers" are being activated for some reason. Still, there's nothing we can do. If she calls, we've been instructed to repeat the script: I won't talk to you unless you're calling for help.

I'm hoping that my sister doesn't call my mother. She'll crumble for sure. She won't be able to follow the script. Better if she calls me; I've prepared. I've done some warrior poses with this very situation in mind. I still haven't the slightest idea if I'll say the right words. But in the meantime, I've got strong thighs and the hope that they'll get me where I need to go.