What I learned from the FAFAWOF!

Before I left for the First Away from the Fox Adventure With Old Friends (FAFAWOF), My neighbor, who is a mom times three, said “You will remember who you are.” And I thought I knew what she meant, but here’s what I actually remembered:

I need old friends.

Friends who, if you’ve known them long enough, have seen you at your best and at your worst. Like when you thought satin pants were a good idea, that dishes washed themselves (sorry, gals) and the only thing better than a late night was a shared late morning, struggling up the corner café to blearily come awake over coffees and really awesome scones. And then it all starts to come back to you. How you made out with that Swedish guy on the mattress in the corner of the dance room. How the bass player strapped his bass on around her and then did a solo while dancing with her. How a man asked her sign and she said “Men at Work,” and you said “Dangerous Curves.”

After breakfast you go lie in the sun in the park.

Then you eat a burrito.

Of course, that was then. This is now, the FAFAWOF in San Francisco. We are spending a weekend together. I’ve kept close with Eve over the years, late night phone calls and long weekends. I’ve seen Caroline less but now I wonder, why is that? Because sitting down across from her was like sitting down with the best part of myself… If my best part was a lot cooler and wasn’t afraid of heights and said that she wasn’t living on the edge anymore because she only flew ultralights without broken wings since the crash.

She is just the same. So is Eve. And so am I. Underneath all the scars and trophies that the years have chucked into our shopping carts, we are the same and we instantly reconnected. Our coffee date turned into hanging out in Caroline’s room and I didn’t realize how completely we had settled into being together until Caroline’s beautiful, sparkly girlfriend came in and said “Aw, look! You’re so roommatey!” We were. We were sprawled on the furniture, laughing and shouting and shaking our heads and it could have been 18 years ago.

All of which was wonderful. But here’s the best part about the FAFAWOF. ( I love saying that out loud. Say it with me. “FAFAWOF!”) With these friends, I catch myself. I caught myself, when I told Caroline that I had painted my toenails for this trip and it was the first time in three years.

As if my child STOLE all my nail polish upon inception, and ankle-cuffed me to a pair of dirty Birkenstocks. (Would you like a little cheese with that whine?)

I caught myself making excuses to Eve, why I couldn’t write about what is most important to me. How I find God in the trees. My crazy, beautiful, magical, worldview and what nature means to me.

I caught myself, trying to live in The Perfect Room, where I suffer and do what I’m supposed to do and not a booger escapes my grasp. The Perfect Room is a sucky place to mother and a sucky place to live and both Caroline and Eve know very well that I don’t belong there. Not because they don’t love me, but because they do.

I’m going to need to see them more often. And I need to leap off some cliffs closer to home.

See, these old friends were forged hard in years of great change. Not just in those years. By those years. New soul companions do not grow rampant in gardens of safeness and competence. The last time I took a Big Jump was my 37^th birthday. The day I found out that I was in fact pregnant and a new road, which I knew NOTHING about, laid it’s first yellow brick at my feet.

That was nearly three years ago. That last leap, though, that started new crop of friends, born out of the risk that we took when we decided to breed. Nothing like motherhood to forge closeness, if you are lucky enough to find some fellow souls with same age babies. I did. These friends are new compared to my San Francisco soul mates, but there have already been some double ninja alarm calls, made and received. I think there are some cliff jumpers there.

I am fresh from a weekend of howling like a wolf with women who love me like fire because – and even though -- they know every part of me. Not just the making out on mattresses part. The witchy part, the scary dreams, the rude roommate, the wild tree dancer and the sad raw part under the skin. 

All the little pieces that are lined up on the precipice saying “Is it my turn?  Can I jump now?”

Yes. The answer is yes.

People, I am leaving The Perfect Room.