Through some convoluted chain of thoughts yesterday, I started reminiscing about one of my good childhood friends, circa 4th, 5th, 6th grade, Lisa M. She wasn't my best friend--that would in those years be Debbie L, who had an unfortunate tendency to throw me beneath the train, by, for instance, showing one of my private (and potentially embarrassing) communications to one of the Mean Girls*** in our class, but since we were all like eleven at the time and Debbie L's father was one of the most scarily abusive assholes out there, we won't judge her too harshly, hmm?--but Lisa M and I were tight. We had this whole plan for our future wherein we would publish books that I wrote and she illustrated. She was the first person to whom I confided that I'd gotten my period. We had long, involved, puzzled discussions about sex: we knew theoretically what was supposed to go where, but the mechanics of how exactly two people made that happen was a complete mystery. She was, in short, a cool girl.
Well, at some point, in our elementary school years together, Lisa M's dad sadly died of cancer. And at some point, maybe a year, maybe two years later, her mother, who was a waitress, remarried, to one of her customers. There was a lot of gossip that this occurred "too soon" and speculation that her mother was chatting up, perhaps even dating, this guy before her husband was actually in the ground. I believe my own mother, bless her, was on the side of, "well, if so, who's to say she was wrong, and who's to say her husband didn't encourage her finding someone else once he knew he wasn't gonna make it, her having two little kids to support and all." Anyway, Lisa M's mom did remarry and, since this guy had money, moved Lisa and her sister to Beverly Farms. (North Shore geographical note: "Beverly Farms", where people who live in Beverly, but who have pretensions say they reside. See also, "West Peabody", "Magnolia" and "Bradford".) This was less than ten miles away, but when you are 11, ten miles may as well be one hundred and fifty, y'know? So, though we spoke on the phone on and off for another year, we never saw each other again, and then eventually lost touch altogether.
I think, of all the people from my childhood or adolescence who I don't know what happened to, she is perhaps the only one that I would like to meet again. Did she keep drawing? What does she look like now? Is she still cool and funny and totally trustworthy? Did things work out between her mom and her stepfather? How did she feel about all that?
Thing is, I have no idea what her name is now. She may, of course, have married. Maybe more than once, hey. And even before that, there's the chance she took her stepfather's name. I googled the name I knew her by and found a young black woman in Los Angeles and a woman, more or less the same age as us, from Georgia, who tragically died at 41. So, no luck.
xoxo
***said Mean Girl OD'd on drugs in our 20s, so we won't judge her too harshly either, though she was a fucking bitch
2 comments:
I'll point out that finding a long lost friend from school is pretty much what Facebook was invented for. Or at least used for nowadays (see retrosexual).
We all know you don't believe in most normal 21st Century Internet activities, like IMing or stealing music, but I think you should lower your retro-technicality in the case of Facebook. Who knows who might pop up?
If you google someone and they're on Facebook, it comes up with their picture. Hence the young black Los Angeles Lisa M! (And in previous blog news, *my* Dave K.)
But my Lisa M is not on Facebook, at least not under that name.
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