politricks and other distractions

I may not know much, but I know how to be a good girlfriend - that is, a good female friend of other females. It's what I learned witnessing the scene above for years: my mother on the right, in her frilly white shirt (note: frills at both cuffs and neckline), me in the background with my blue faux-rhinestone glasses, head cocked so I didn't miss a word of dialogue. On the left, Marjorie, my mother's best friend, in curlers before a night out. I envied her marriage. They were the epitome of a couple in love, it seemed to me. She and her husband were classy, cosmopolitan-type people, unlike my Wonder Bread parents who constantly fought, regardless of who was listening.

It wasn't until many years later, I learned Marj's husband beat her. Often.

I think back to all those afterschool hours, hanging out with Mom and Marjorie as they sipped bourbon and pineapple/grapefruit juice, neither of them telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But they were girlfriends and they offered each other that.

To quote the article: "A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more.

Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women. It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down.

Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers."

Mom's friend Marjorie died a few weeks ago. It was a quick death, and unexpected. The kind that's easy on the one who's leaving but hard on the people left behind. I was having lucid conversations with her when I was home in February. That makes it harder to accept that she's just - poof! - no longer there. But I couldn't have hugged another human more in my life, except for her friend, my mother.

I don't know how to explain what Mom and Marjorie taught me about being friends. I got an afternoon alone with Marj last year and we both considered it a treat after so many years of multiple-member family gatherings. We talked and talked, which is something I wasn't used to with an 82 year old. I finally asked her - because I couldn't remember - what she and Mom used to talk about over bourbon on those late afternoons. She said they just talked about us, family... and maybe some current events.

I do believe those were the times of Nixon and Vietnam. I do believe there were current events discussed. But the only bitching I remember about marriage was Mom's. Marjorie was silent.

Marjorie taught me important things like how to mow a lawn, how to crack ice with the back of a spoon, and what the symptoms of menopause are. Marj would suddenly be overcome with heat, and rip off her blouse in mid-sentence, saying "I'm sorry. I can't. It's just too hot!" Then five minutes later, she'd have the shirt back on with an afghan around her, shivering with chills. Her bras were fine and pointy, like those Christian Delacroix ones that Madonna wore. It was my first experience sitting around with a woman in underwear. It didn't seem odd at all.

The way I've described Marjorie to friends is, "she's my auxiliary mother." Having her in my life has often made me want to start a charity of non-affiliated women who would mentor girls - or at least just be their backups - and it was going to be called being "a Marjorie."

Being a Marjorie would mean that you always had to be there for a young woman, no matter how bad the circumstances. You had to talk her down off any ledges and protect her from the world, all while giving her motherly, sound advice on what to do. You had to have the extra couple hundred bucks that could make all the difference to someone who's 19 years old and be willing to part with it. You had to be a rock. I never had to call on Marjorie for that because I could always go to Mom, but I knew she was there.

When my friend Christine had her first baby, I told her that I was going to be his Marjorie. I doubt she remembers it and I know I didn't say it that way. But I told her I would always be there for that boy and for any other children she had. And that if they ever came to me for help and didn't want her to know, I would honor their request. I would use my best judgment to take care of her children and help them out of the scrapes young people sometimes get into. I would be their Marjorie.

I don't know how you learn this role except for having had someone be there for you. But my mother and Marj's friendship shaped my life. It made me who I am today. It made me someone who can count among her greatest accomplishments that I still have the first friend I ever made (in the sandbox when I was one) in my life and we still like each other.

My family probably thinks I have too many friends. My friends think I'm too involved with my family. What they don't realize is I don't see any difference between the two. I love them both. And I owe that way of living to the two women at the top of this page.

Thanks to both Mom and Marjorie. How could they leave me here alone? Oh, that's right. I'm not.