Poshdeluxe

this weekend i traveled to my birthplace, lafayette, louisiana, to attend the engagement party�for my elementary school classmate, katherine. i hadn’t been there in at least 8 years… and it was absolutely wonderful.

my parents and i drove around the town and stared in awe at all of the new buildings and businesses, the macaroni grills and the old navies, that thankfully have not overtaken (at least yet) the acadian, small town character of lafayette. we drove through downtown, and i cried out with relief as the old “fun shop” came into view, with the funny masks and zany costumes still decorating its storefront. we drove by my old school, ascension, and i was dismayed to see all of the new buildings that blocked my view of the original two story structure (which, come to think of it, looked a lot like old wiess). and the awesome playground that all of our parents spent weeks building and hammering together had been moved to the back of the school behind a tall fence. i chose to erase this new reality from my mind and concentrate on the fact that the borden’s ice cream�shop across the street was still alive and well and looked *exactly* the same: a white box of a building with “borden’s” written in red neon. i could taste their ice cream in my mouth as we drove by…

we�wandered around my old neighborhood and saw our house on sweetbay lane. unfortunately, the shutters have been painted an ugly brick red BUT the oak tree that my grandmother planted on the day i was born is simply magnificent. we climbed�all over�it as kids, but it has since�outgrown me by leaps and bounds. incredible.

we had lunch with my childhood best friend, emily, and her parents, who still live in the same house down the street. words fail to describe how comforting it was to be in that house again and sit across from emily and recognize every single one of her expressions. i felt almost dazed by the interesection of past and present, like time collapsed on itself.

the engagement party was straight out of a ya-ya book… it was held on jefferson island, oaks trees heavy with moss hanging over the languid water, the sunset spilling pink and orange�across the sky as citronella torches burned and we ate etouffee and drank wine… i talked to my third grade sunday school teacher, ms. phyllis, who still has the most mellow, southern drawl (you know you’re in lafayette when all of the adults are refered to by their first name with a mr. or ms. slapped on the front… it tickled me to hear my parents called “mr. al” and “ms. sue”, like special names treasured and kept sacred by our lafayette community)… another ascension classmate, aimee,�will be a bridesmaid�and told me she now has two children (whoah). i always remember competing with her for first place in our 5th grade history competitions… now i don’t mind that she’s so far ahead of me on the family scale. katherine’s little brother, david, was there… not so little anymore– in college, in fact! people always thought we were related as kids because we have the same hair coloring (and still do). i couldn’t believe i was joking around with him about his summer in prague and his business classes… all i could think about was the night katherine and i painted his toe nails pink while he was asleep, and the next morning he went outside barefoot to play… i can still hear his high-pitched voice whining in anguish at our little prank.

as i fell asleep that night in our hotel room, i couldn’t help but wish that when i opened my eyes the next morning, i would see the yellow walls of my old bedroom and my ascension uniform waiting for me on the hanger. at lunchtime, i’d sit on the bench under the massive old pecan tree with paige and katherine and caitlin and jenny… then we’d run through the wooden playground kingdom and avoid the boys as much as possible. at home, after i finished my snack at our little kitchen table, i’d run outside and ride bikes or play hide-and-go-seek with emily and amy (who just got married– ms. sandy, emily’s mom, sent us the clipping) and corey (who just got engaged– we saw it in the lafayette paper yesterday!) until the streetlights turned on and my mom called my name from our front porch… the�golden light�filtered out from the door and into the warm night, beckoning me away from the sweet smell of grass and sweat and the shrieks and giggles of my neighborhood gang, my fellow spies and he-man playmates… friendships consecrated on the branches of oak trees and the most secret hiding places of azalea bushes and playful shadows…faces that have floated through my mind�far longer�than any others and will cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-die until the end of (my) time.

dear lafayette, it was so good to see you. thank you for remembering me and saving all of those memories so i can return and retrieve them… and then carefully place them back into yr buildings and streets and faces and smells for safekeeping… i promise i’ll be back again.

i heard this poem on the writer’s almanac this morning and felt its meaning in my bones:

Poem: “The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything from Happening at Once,” by X.J. Kennedy, from The Lords of Misrule. © Johns Hopkins University Press. Reprinted with permission.

The Purpose of Time is to Prevent Everything from Happening at Once

Suppose your life a folded telescope
Durationless, collapsed in just a flash
As from your mother’s womb you, bawling, drop
Into a nursing home. Suppose you crash
Your car, your marriage—toddler laying waste
A field of daisies, schoolkid, zit-faced teen
With lover zipping up your pants in haste
Hearing your parents’ tread downstairs—all one.

Einstein was right. That would be too intense.
You need a chance to preen, to give a dull
Recital before an indifferent audience
Equally slow in jeering you and clapping.
Time takes its time unraveling. But, still,
You’ll wonder when your life ends: Huh? What happened?