Doors open

Kate in Boston, 2015, visiting Heidi.
(Photo by Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi)

Lunch time in the cafeteria at a suburban Maryland Catholic elementary school (Holy Cross in Garrett Park) where I landed in in 7th grade. Another stop in the bouncing around life of an Army brat (I didn't know that was what I was called until much later) and second U.S. school after three years in France.

At this school, I remember being best friends with Patti Miller, and listening to Sister Mary Paul rant about the Congo. (So, yeah, late 60s.)

Back to lunch time. I'm sitting at a table when schoolmate Sally S., kid of a big Catholic family, squeezes her right hand around the back of my neck. Hard. I don't really remember being bullied, just this one incident. Maybe there was more going on, because I also remember being fed up, so I reached back with my right hand and dug my fingernails onto her grasping claw. That ended it. I was a small person then; I'm sure Sally was too. In memory, she is sallow, with a severe pageboy haircut and a nasty sneer. Perhaps I'm piling on.

I guess I went through a door that day. Not to being a  bravesuperwonderfulstrong  person for the rest of my life. But to being someone who, for a moment, had had enough.

Other doors have opened in my life, thankfully not by Sally's method.

Starting at a new school in France, par example, led me to another best friend, Evelyne Eon (I had a lot of one-year BFs). We called each other "petite" as we ran around the playground holding hands. I remember her fondly. Our little-girl friendship made the constant upheaval of Army life bearable, if only for a while.

At Ohio State, karate lessons opened the door to a lifelong friendship with Heidi Pervin Yamaguchi. You know how some memories are seared in your brain?  I remember a late spring night in Columbus, sitting on a curb along High Street in North Campus with Heidi, just talking. Nothing pressing, just the murmurs of two young women sharing time before we became grownups with responsibilities. Brain may have trimmed this memory over the years, but I love it nonetheless.

I am so lucky to have made good friends during my life. And some of them are not even flesh and blood.

I love the girls of this last group because they all went through doors, too. And more valiantly than me. They are, as my earliest through-the-door friend exclaimed, "Curiouser and curiouser!"

So, you might guess that my first valiant girlfriend is Alice. I do not recall the first time I read "Alice in Wonderland." It might even have been read to me by Mom or Grammio. Whatever the provenance of the story in my brain, I love that Alice embraced the absurdity that came her way. Falling down a rabbit hole? What a perfect time for a nap! Land in a heap of twigs in a long hall with many doors? Then eat cakes or drink beverages as instructed! Believe impossible things? Why not!

“There’s no use trying,” said Alice, “one can’t believe impossible things.” 

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. 

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.
Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

My second valiant girlfriend is Lucy Pevensie, whose tumble through a wardrobe door during the Blitz starts her adventures in Narnia with Edmund, Peter and Susan. Lucy is special. Her siblings doubt her when she returns to Spare Oom. Edmund bullies and betrays her, yet she never gives up on her new friend, Mr. Tumnus, on her new adventure, or even on Edmund. Throughout the chronicles of Narnia, she is loyal, brave and forgiving. My dad's mother bought all seven of the books for us seven grandchildren and, at least at the beginning, read them to us. I was first, so I got "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe," in which Lucy's story begins.

My third valiant girlfriend is Coraline Jones. Neil Gaiman's heroine, knocking about in a creaky, high-ceilinged old house, discovers a door that leads to her "other" mother. All will be well. Except, when it isn't. Coraline realizes that buttons for eyes mean blinding yourself. For her, it turns out that distracted real Mom and real Dad, are, though imperfect, better than other.

I check in with these valiant girls often. But the door always swings back to reality and my true BFFs. You know who you are. Lots of love.

Shiny coins

A few years ago, three girlfriends and I went to Paris for a week.

It was a fabulous trip, made all the more so because we had traveled together before. We are comfortable as a group or setting off solo and catching up later. As it happened, we spent a lot of time together on this trip and had lots of "Oooh! shiny!" moments.

One of our group is insatiably curious and incredibly smart. When something catches her eye she stops to examine and wonder. Often we would be wandering only to realize Carol was one or two blocks behind us, engrossed in her latest "Oooh! shiny!"

I thought about that today after finishing an essay by Hanif Kureishi, published in the New York Times on Feb. 19. The headline, underneath an illustration showing, inside, children in a grey-toned classroom and outside, a wave of brightly colored birds and fish, read:

"The Art of Distraction
A flighty mind might be going somewhere. Is our focus on focus misguided?"

The thrust is that distraction, especially, but not exclusively, among children is not a problem, but rather a problem-solving tool. A way for a mind focusing too intently to wander, explore and solve the problem subconsciously, using other neural pathways.

Kureishi especially points to the strait-jacketing influence of Ritalin therapy on children. It forces them to focus, but on what? A boring classroom? A rote-memorization test? Perhaps the solution to the "My child can't focus" problem isn't medication, but parental embrace of curiosity and as Kureishi puts it, "flights of fancy."

Of course, I'm the unmarried marriage counselor here, having no kids of my own. But I do have a mind that tells me every day, when I am faced with a work problem or personal stressor, to push away from the desk and go outside for coffee, to walk to the gym or just upstairs and back down again.

That push-away usually gets the problem solved. And if it doesn't, I've been distracted enough to look at it with a fresh eye. Or I've seen something neat that made my brain say "Oooh! shiny!" Another coin tucked into my cranial treasure chest.

That is why Carol is so amazing. She saves every shiny coin she sees. And they all come in handy one day or another.

For the other side of Kureishi's coin, KJ Dell'Antonia.

The picture is of an entry in the annual Art Prize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Our foursome went there in October to celebrate Carol's birthday.