Grief doesn’t care I’m in Puerto Rico. Grief could care less.
The demands of this vacation are serious. I’ve been taking care of my mom for years and years, and she died in January. Two months later, I want a carefree time with my husband and oldest friend in one of my favorite places on earth, damnit.
Grief gives me the finger.
In theory, I understand. It’s an absurd expectation to have, and I have been too busy to feel anything.
I’d manage better if I talked about it, but weirdly, I do not. I’m afraid to spoil everyone else’s fun. Nobody wants a Debbie Downer at the beach. I just tell them I’m not sleeping well, which is the truth.
I neglect to mention I may be getting depressed.
I do manage some low-grade fun, as opposed to high fun and misdemeanors. The best of the four days was hiking Survival Beach.
It’s a perfect metaphor for life: just keep going, do not stop and think, just lift your foot up and down and test out the vine before you hang on to it for dear life.
During the hike, every time I stopped and wondered what to do I got in trouble. The answer is always stop thinking, keep going. And there was something wonderful about being on it with Tammy. We’ve watched each other keep going for the entirety of our lives.
Friendship is mysterious, and not everything needs to be deconstructed. I realize my subconscious booked this vacation. I am mirroring a trip I took with her 42 years ago.
I have never not known Tammy.
Not long before I was born, her parents moved next door to mine. We’ve been best friends since the playpen.
When I was seventeen my maternal grandmother died. She left me a thousand dollars.
I took the money and booked us a trip to Acapulco. We were finally graduating from high school, and ready for an adventure. It was the first time either of us had been out of the country.
Looking at the photo of us in Mexico is difficult. You can see on my face I’d already been through the wringer that year.
But the trip was a tonic, like a storybook. We met three gorgeous Italian boys. It was a week so perfectly beautiful and innocent it seems a dream. Then they took us to a bullfight.
When we were in Puerto Rico this week we talked about the bullfight; the idea of it versus the reality. Before we went, I imagined one bull against one matador. I did not imagine teams of people stabbing the bull before the matador even gets there.
Neither of us have ever been to another bullfight.
But life’s like that. We imagine it not to be as bloody as it is.
When we met the first night at a bar, Tammy said,
“I wrote post cards today. And I didn’t write one to Bettie. She was always the first person I wrote.”
I lost my mother, but so did Tammy. So did her daughters.
While we were away, I tried to write about our friendship. Everything I wrote left me dissatisfied. I finally decided to give up and enjoy the beach. I can’t describe it.
But if I dig around into why we’ve remained friends, I suspect one answer is a suspension of judgment. I don’t get put out by something which is an intrinsic part of her personality, it’s just Tammy being Tammy.
I can safely say, vice-versa.
Sometimes we’re talking and I can actually hear myself bossing her around. It’s terrible.
Last year my husband and I visited PR and fell in love with Isabella. This year Tammy decided to take her husband and one of her daughters there for Spring Break. They spent a few days in San Juan first. When I heard they were going to Isabella I booked tickets that night to join them for a few days.
I may have neglected to ask if they minded we join them. It never occurred to me.
For many years, Tammy wasn’t just my best friend. She was my only friend. And while thinking about our hike to Survival Beach, she may be one of the few people on earth who tries to look after me.
This occurs to me when she shares her water. I ran out.
She’s unafraid of my porcupine quills. She knows I have a soft, dangerously vulnerable underbelly.
A lot of people know the strong version of me. Tammy knows the terrified one. She’s a witness.
I try to avoid people who think I need looking after. Tammy is different. She’s allowed. Good luck pretending you’re okay to someone who has seen it all unfold.
We learned how to be friends from our parents.
Hers were devout Christians. Mine were devout Bohemians. They became and remained friends. I remember a lot of laughter when they were together. Tammy and I learned how to play bridge from looking over their shoulders.
When my mother died in January, her entire family drove four hours to be there for the funeral. Both of Tammy’s brothers were pallbearers. Tammy’s mother Leah made deviled eggs and apple pies for the reception.
I’m irritated with myself now, asking why I think our relationship needs to be defined. It’s probably from reading too much crap on the internet.
Occasionally I read some list, or meme, or some other online drivel about what friendship is and isn’t. And I constantly see references to BFF: best friends forever.
Every time I see BFF I think to myself,
“But really, are you?”
Then there are the friendship rules, which weren’t a thing when I was a kid.
I find friendship qualifications daunting. I read them and tell myself to try and remember how to be a good friend, because I’m not. According to meme wisdom I am a terrible friend.
I’m self-centered. I’m moody. I tend to isolate. I hate talking on the phone. I can go days, weeks, even years without speaking to someone I genuinely love (shout out to Cynthia in Australia and Sarah in England.)
Meme wisdom dictates I shouldn’t take a friend for granted, but I do. And I certainly hope Tammy takes me for granted because she can.
Tammy and I are different. Always have been.
I was the weird kid in school. She was the smart one who also played sports. I was a terrible student and barely graduated. She was our class salutatorian. I moved to New York and skipped college; she went on to University of Virginia and became a teacher.
She raised two remarkable daughters. I didn’t have children.
She’s the most easygoing person I know. She handles huge amounts of stress without a ruffle of her feathers. The same situations would send me straight to the loony bin. I am not an easygoing person. I am a difficult one and get outraged all the time.
I don’t know—maybe I’m just old. Maybe there are entire generations of young people who are perfectly supportive of each other and without any character flaws themselves. Maybe there are people around who have the grace to ask how the other is doing whilst amid their own crises.
But few people can say this: I’ve had a friendship last my entire life, all 58 years of it.
Secret Service and I discovered Isabella, Puerto Rico last year. It’s a sleepy little place with amazing natural beauty. The outskirts are very rural, chickens and loose dogs everywhere you go.
The area is devoid of chain restaurants, chain hotels, Uber service, and lifeguards. The ocean is dangerous with few safe places to swim; it’s on the Atlantic side, not the Caribbean.
We made the mistake of not renting a car last year. Everything looked within walking distance, and we’re walkers.
We didn’t understand the peculiarities of the place. If you call a taxi, they can come the next day. Although there is Uber, there are no drivers. Most importantly, the roads don’t have shoulders. We idiotically tried walking to a supermarket one day and were lucky we weren’t killed.
All these details make the place wonderfully free of too many people from the mainland. The tourists are predominantly surfers.
We rented a car this time. Our Airbnb didn’t have hot water for three of the four days we were there. It was a minor inconvenience, but didn’t bend us out of shape.
When Hurricane Maria hit, there are people on the island who went without running water for six months. It’s not a place to go if you’re a whiner.
Survival Beach is aptly named. It does not come with a warning, but it should.
The terrain is terrifying, uphill, and difficult to navigate. There are a lot of roots, and rocks, and coral, and is so overgrown it’s sometimes difficult to see the path. Did I mention uphill? I should mention it again.
It is treacherous. The hike is difficult. And it is amazing to get through it.
To get to the beach and back is one mile. It took us two hours. We could have used my mother and her machete.
And when you are finally spit onto the beach, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire. If you fall on the coral you will definitely bleed to death before you can get medical attention.
Then we hiked back. I drank 64 ounces of water when we returned.
I am trying to think of something clever to say about endurance, and life, and friendship, and the discovery of new places. I don’t have anything. I’m all out of clever.
It’s just a feeling they’re all connected by beauty. Beauty is vital to survival.
Tammy is wonderful