visiting the past in a new year

It's the second of January today. We flew from super sunny, shiny and exotic Southern California back to white, snowy, but not too cold Missoula. And I couldn't be happier to be home.

It was a big trip for me. Lots of wheels spinning in this lil head of mine. Lots of, "This is your life, Gillie Thomas" thangs coming my way.

Last Saturday night I went to a reunion with the gang I grew up with. These are my peeps from elementary school and junior high. I went to a private high school and ended up loosing touch with most of the people who knew me between ages four and fourteen. Pretty big years with some pretty intense growing.

Thanks to my BFF, Facebook, I've managed to reconnect with lots of that crew from the early days. A friend from junior high now owns a fabulous Mexican restaurant in L.A. So the plan was to meet there and go for the gold.

I was always an enthusiastic and involved friend. When I last saw most of these folks, I was the president of the student body and the captain of the drill team. I won, "Best Personality" in the yearbook poll. People knew me.

The hood I grew up in is fabulously diverse. I was always the minority in school. At Monterey Hills Elementary, I was a sweet whitie in a sea of beauteous kids of Asian decent. My three BFF's were Japanese, Korean and Cantonese. I tried to pass as half something (HOPA - half Oriental, part American -- our absurdly un P.C. name at the time) so that I could go to Donna's Japanese school carnivals on the weekends. I went to Chinese restaurants where no one, not even the menu, spoke English. I ate kim chee and adzuki beans made by my friend's moms. I loved it.

When I moved on to junior high, the diversity furthered. Our school brought together all three grade schools in the area. They seemed to represent even more ethnic groups. So my friends were Mexican and Asian and Sri Lankan and African-American. It was colorful and gritty. I had a tight knit scene and experienced many "firsts" with this gang of people.

Including my first boyfriend. He was from the, "other side of the tracks" for lack of a better phrase. While my dad was a doctor and I grew up in a house with my own room, his dad lived in Detroit, and he lived with his single mama in a tiny apartment. He drove around on a scooter, wore a black leather jacket (I know, another cliche) and had a fabulous flattop Afro, ala Will Smith or Kid N'Play, circa 1987.

If you had asked me who I would most certainly marry, I would have said, without a doubt, this boy. I thought he was the most worldly, tough, beautiful, smart (though not in the "honors classes" sort of way...) kind of dude. I snuck around and rode on the back of his scooter. I snuck around and did a lot of things.

And then I went to Private School.

And everyone was smart and pretty and good at everything and mainly blond and I felt like a frizzy, brown haired bottom of the barrel kinda chick.

I tried to keep up with my peeps, especially the love of my life. But we had different football games to attend, different parties to hang at. And time moved on.

My guy had his wingman at the time. Most of my memories involve hanging out with both of these dudes, a gaggle of girlfriends in the mix as well. I was thrilled that Buddy was one of the first folks to arrive at the restaurant on Saturday (I was the first one there. I'm still kinda the dork in the bunch). He's now a cop with the LAPD, was toting a beauteous, buxom woman on his arm, his build as big and strong as ever.

After we chatted for a while, I asked.

"So do you have any idea what happened to Mike?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Um...I think so..."

So, apparently my guy, the one whose name filled my diaries for years, is in jail. For a long, long time. For meth. And beating his wife. And kidnapping her.

And while that's terrible and I know his wife and she bore him three children and she comes from good people in that same town I grew up in, I couldn't help but keep bringing this news back to me.

Being back in So.Cal for the holidays with Eliana and Jeff, brought up all sorts of thoughts. My Christmas last year at home in Missoula was so very different to anything I had ever know as a child. It snowed. It was calm. There weren't lots of presents. Minimal chaos.

I kinda loved it.

But I grew up on an eight lane, 45 mph road with seven siblings and a swimming pool. My holidays were crazy. People fought. People ran around. Toilets overflowed.

And the mantel was lined with hand-knit matching stockings. My sister and I got to choose a new ornament from Stats the exceptional and enormous Xmas store each year. My mom played carols on the piano and we would all stand around and sing. My parents were exceedingly generous with each one of us and we always got exactly what we wanted.

I remember the taste and smell and feel of Christmas so clearly. The lumpy stockings. The "Chrismtas tree" smell . The excitement of pulling our Miss Piggy and Linus ornaments out of the boxes. The way my dad put free samples of new drugs (albeit fairly benign drugs, though I think one year there were a few shots of vicodin in the mix, just for kicks...), the way we religiously watched holiday specials or, later, played our, "Feed the World (Let them know it's Christmas time again)" 45 over and over, trying to identify each singer, line by line, who contributed to the album.

So I love my past. It defines me.

But somehow I ended up far, far from there.

And while my ex-boyfriends prison time really isn't connected to Christmas at all, it makes me think of the way my life could have been. Maybe if I hadn't gone to Private School, I would have kept dating him. Maybe I would have had a handful of babies instead of my college degree.

Maybe Jeff didn't get a sweet scholarship at the University of Montana. Maybe we never moved and he went to UCLA for "gradual school" instead. Maybe I still made lots of money as a teacher in California (tee, hee). Maybe Eliana lived on a busy street and we were stressing about what private school she would get into because we couldn't send her to the public schools because they are too "bad". And my mom lived a few blocks away and I got to see her everyday. And sissy too. And Eliana could see all gazillion of her cousins all the time. And I could see good theatre. And the ocean. And I wouldn't have to snarf ethnic food at every meal because it would be there, all the time (this post could have been titled, "eating L.A." after the week I had).

So here's the thing. What I seem to take from all of this is that there's no perfect place. No just right life.

I was planning on leaving the reunion early. Eliana slept terribly in Cali and I was exhausted and feeling kinda over the whole socializing thing. And then I heard about Mike. I decided to celebrate the path that was given to me, the life that somehow presented itself my way.

There was a kick-ass DJ spinning rad tunes from the old days. It wasn't your average 80's either. Not just another Manic Monday. Oh no. This guy was busting out The Smiths and The Cure, Depeche Mode and some rockin', rockin' 'Til Tuesday. At my friend the restaurant owner's urging (and my determination to be honest to my true nature), I ditched my shoes and busted out. I was alone for a while on the dance floor. Lots of people were smiling and watching and I could only remember the sweat of the gym during those Friday afternoon dances. The way I always stood right next to the speaker to dance, those same tunes pumping in my brain. The way, when a slow song came on, and I got to snuggle up to the likes of George Michael or the Psychedelic Furs, got to be in the dark, all sweat and shoulders and hips. I loved the slow songs.

But there was something in the way I felt on that dance floor. I felt exactly like who I am. Felt like I could give a hoot if I was barefoot and in pony tail, while all the other girls I grew up with must have done some sort of phone tree to ensure that everyone was wearing beautiful, stiletto, black leather boots and equally fabulous (and tight) black minis.

It felt a bit like I was dancing in a wonderful and familiar dream. I didn't feel like I was from that dream land anymore, but I knew that it's roots ran deep within me. I knew that as much as I don't own stilettos, I love them and they just aren't exactly practical where I come from now. I knew that the tunes from OMD and Berlin might not be songs my husband or posse in Missoula have ever heard, but somehow they represent a big part of me.

This is a hard thing to articulate. You are created from your life experiences. Mine were wild. They were loud and colorful and sunny and real. They were freeways and pumping bass notes and aqua net and black eyeliner and the Hello Kitty store.

Somehow I ended up very far from this place. When I think about Eliana's life, I don't see her encountering those influences the same way I did. For her I see seasons and farms. Game meat and homemade jellies. Fleece. And this is still totally nuts for me to write. Because it is much more common and much more normal in most of my experience to get Indian take-out for dinner than it is to defrost a piece of deer butchered and shot by my husband.

Though here I am. And my little girl is splendid. And I know she'll take what she needs from this place and then spice it up with her own ideas and journeys when she's ready. I guess sorta like what her mama did.

So here's to a new year. Here's to new adventures. To flavors. To seasons. To friendships. To family. To all the parts that somehow always come together. To wholly embracing who we are.