I've noticed recently that there's a 'Writer's Block' box on the LJ home page that suggests something new weekly to blog about.  Does anyone do this?  This week's question is: How did you spend summers as a kid?  I think I blogged about that once, a long time ago because I seem to remember Lyddy teasing me about playing in the water from the fire hydrant, that she thought that stuff only happened in the movies.

The question about summers made me think about my grandmother, my Mema.  I can't believe she's been dead for three years already.  It feels longer though, from the way she sort of faded away with Alzheimers.  At the end,  she was just a shadow with none of the feisty Irish personality left.  I remember being next to the bed as she died and wishing that I could hear her tell someone to 'fuck off' or call one of our  neighbors a bastard just one more time.  I was lucky to grow up surrounded by family.  My grandmother lived directly across the street from me in her two-family house.  My aunt, uncle and cousin lived upstairs and she lived on the first level. 


I wonder if streets like the one I grew up on exist anymore-- neighborhoods where everyone knows everyone else's name (and everyone else's business).  Kids would ring doorbells and actually ask if other kids could come out and play.  We all outside played together along the sidewalks, riding bikes or big wheels, pushing wagons, roller skating, whatever.  I don't remember being specifically watched by an adult, unless we were in the street, playing in the water from the fire hydrant.  I can't imagine sending the kids out to play now and feeling okay about it.  But that was what we did back then.  We only went home to eat and wash up. 

Five years ago I was planning my wedding.  It was a month away.  I had an appointment with our photographer to take engagement pictures on the beach for the weekend.  I drove westward to my office in Warren, NJ, on a beautiful cloudless day, listening to the radio and singing along.  I didn't have any feelings of dread or premonitions that something really bad was going to happen.  There was no traffic, it was a great day. 

I was disappointed when,in the great Weddingchannel system change, my journals were lost.  I am such a geek thought, I had printed it out.  Here's what I wrote about September 11, 2001

Last night my very first real boyfriend came over to visit, meet Steve and my kids and catch up on old times. 

It's kind of a funny story.  The summer after I graduated from eighth grade, I went to Spain by myself for the first time.  (The year before, I'd gone with my dad.)  It was a big deal and my parents were worried because I hadn't been able to get a direct flight to the airport where my family would be picking me up, so I had a layover in Madrid for a couple of hours.  They took me to Kennedy Airport in New York and walked me to the international check-in gate thing and then once beyond that, I was on my own.  


So after ten years of not seeing each other, he came over last night.  I was so excited for him to meet Steve because they have so much in common, from Army careers to crazy problems with custody issues.  He pulled in to the driveway and got out of the car and it was like I saw him last week. 

We sat in my kitchen and caught up and had a few beers.  It's funny, there's something about that first love, that really sticks with you.  Obviously it's not the same feeling it was sixteen years ago (my God, when did I get so old!?!?) but this is someone who knows all my stories, who remembers how goofy and awkward but BRAZEN I used to be.  I had the idea in my head that Steve would either really like him or really hate him and I'm sooo glad it was the former.  I'm hoping that they can get to be friends-- Steve really needs some good guy friends.  I hope it's not another 10 years before I see him again.  It's got to be rare that you can connect with someone so young and let the relationship evolve into this deep friendship.  I have girl friends that I let lapse because as I changed and grew up, they didn't or couldn't adapt.  So I find it really amazing that this totally random boy, who I met in an AIRPORT before I even started high school, could still be someone I care about so much.

It's a Friday, mid-July, and my thoughts are turned to the summers when I was a kid living in the city.   The street I grew up on is lined with old maples that lean toward the center of the street.  Even on the sunniest of days there was dappled green light that was filtered through the trees onto the red brick cobblestone that paved the street, onto the posse of kids that played outside in the street all day.

I was lucky, my sister, cousin and I shared an above ground pool in my grandmother's back yard.  All weekend we'd be in the pool, from the time we woke up until bedtime with only breaks for meals in between.   My Mema was a stickler about not inviting too many of our friends into the pool with us at once.  She figured that we knew the rules and if only one neighbor was allowed in at a time, we'd know who to blame if the water went green.

( how we'd cool off in Newark on a 90 degree day )