Kimberly Emerson

I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point in the last couple of weeks this turned into the busiest summer ever. 

It snuck up on me.  As far as I knew, I was just planning a few things, and then all of a sudden, everything materialized and fell into sequence in August and September.  Here is the sequence of events, I kid you not:

August 14-16:  Fly up to spend weekend with parents

August 20:  40th birthday

August 30: Maid of honor in friend’s wedding

Sept. 5-6:  College reunion

Sept. 19-20:  Weekend with friend I haven’t seen for 20 years

Sept. 27-28: Writers’ conference

It’s all good stuff – it’s just a LOT of good stuff in a relatively short time.  Perhaps the very fact that I’m going to so many different events, in so many different places, has me thinking about direction.

My thought processes got a big head start when my parents gave me my present - a GPS system for my car.  Evidently I told my mother a story about getting lost in the hills at night.  Why I told this story to my mother is beyond me – I should have realized that mothers don’t deal well with stories about their children wandering around at night, even if said children are 40. 

It was a great present and I imagine I’ll use it a lot .  In the deep recesses of my mind where I banish deep thought, though, I had to wonder if there was something symbolic about getting a GPS system for my 40th birthday.  My life does occasionally seem to lack direction.  Not usually physical direction, it’s true – with the help of Google Maps, I can generally get where I’m going in a reasonable amount of time.  But Big Picture direction?  That remains elusive.  It’s said that everything we learn is useful, and I have been learning a lot this summer.  When it’s all said and done, I’ll see if my life path has cleared up any, and let you know.

I played with the GPS in my ordinary travels, but the first chance I had to put it to any real use was the weekend of my friend Yuko’swedding.  Yuko and Keith decided to have their wedding in Little Tokyo, so that Yuko’s non-English-speaking parents, who were flying in from Japan, could stay in an area where everyone spoke Japanese.  Very helpful for them, and a good learning experience for the rest of us.   My first learning experience?  Learn to work your GPS system before you rely on it completely.  The system is good, but mine at least has a habit of getting stuck on a certain picture and not moving along with me.  On the way to the church for the wedding rehearsal on Saturday, the voice I heard was giving the proper directions, but the picture stayed resolutely on the 10 freeway and Fairfax (which any Angeleno worthy of the name can tell you is nowhere near Little Tokyo).  I can’t figure out whether I’m doing something wrong, or the unit is a little defective.  The voice also slurs the “r” in some words, making her sound like she’s been hitting the sauce whenever she says “boulevard.”  It’s hard to concentrate on my route when I really want to direct the recorded voice to the nearest AA group.

Fortunately, I found the church.  (Okay, I admit I googled the route the night beforehand just to be on the safe side.  My friend’s wedding didn’t seem like a good time to take chances.)  Yuko and her parents showed up shortly afterwards, which led to another learning experience:  when meeting people from a foreign country, take the time to learn some of their language and customs.  Her parents don’t speak much English, and the extent of my Japanese is “konnichiwa” and “sushi.”  I was afraid to say “konnichiwa” for fear it would prompt them to respond in Japanese, at which point I’d be completely lost. 

I needn’t have worried.  As soon as her dad started bowing, I was lost anyway.  I don’t care if you speak fourteen languages, see every country on the globe and win a Nobel Peace Prize, I will not consider you truly cultured until you can answer me one thing: When do you stop bowing?  Her dad bowed.  I, being a person who tries to be conscious of other people’s traditions, bowed in return.  Her dad bowed to me.  In the interests of fairness, I bowed again.  Her dad bowed again.  We looked like every scene that’s ever been filmed of an American meeting Japanese people, and we weren’t the only ones.  I’ve seen this in movies more times than I can remember, and long ago viewed it as a tired cliché. Now I know why they use it so often – because it actually happens.  I finally stopped bowing, and I can just imagine her parents rolling their eyes at each other and thinking, “Americans.  So uncouth.”

Fortunately, I only had time to worry about cultural niceties during the rehearsal dinner.  I was the Maid of Honor, and was busy for most of the next day, far away from her parents.  (Yuko wisely had people who actually spoke Japanese to escort her parents the next day.)  I’ve done this job once before, and I’ve found that, like most things about weddings, being a maid of honor is a study in extremes.  From the first thing in the morning right up until the wedding, you are the bride’s best friend.  Presumably you were pretty close beforehand, or you wouldn’t have been offered the job, but this job itself can bond you and your friend in new and completely unimaginable ways.  You are the liaison for the day between the bride and the rest of the world.  If her zipper is stuck, you find a way to make it work, or you dig up safety pins.  If her train gets caught, you get it free again.  If annoying people want to monopolize her time, you tactfully steer them in another direction.  I’m a pretty easy-going person most of the time, but I’ve found I can summon my inner drill sergeant pretty quickly when I need to.  (A lot of experience in theatre probably helps here.)  It is the only time in life when you might have to help your adult, perfectly capable friend go to the bathroom (and thank you so much to Yuko and Deborah both for not having needed this particular service).  Granted, you get to look gorgeous while you do all this, but you are in for a harrying day, and you need to stay calm and focused all through it, so that, if she needs to, the bride can have her well-deserved panic attack.  (For the record, Yuko was amazingly calm.  I offered to keep driving past the church and go straight to Acapulco if she wanted me to, but she passed.  Sorry, Keith – as the maid of honor, my loyalty is to the bride.) 

Just when I had hit my stride with the hustle and bustle, when the wedding was over and all the pictures were taken and I had given my maid of honor toast, I had yet another learning experience: I was no longer needed. 

She had her new husband to help her with everything now.  I went from being right arm to third wheel in the blink of an eye.  It was a startling metaphor for the transition in our friendship.  I dearly hope that we will still be friends for the rest of our lives, and I will do all in my power to make sure that that happens.  But she won’t be available for the last minute movie night or shopping day anymore.  She won’t be able to commiserate about dating in quite the same way.  She’ll have new experiences that she’ll share with other married friends, because I won’t quite be able to understand.  I realize, of course, that differences in people’s lives are perfectly normal, and actually keep friendships interesting.  No one wants to hang out with someone whose life is exactly like their own.  There’s nothing to talk about and no room for growth.  But for a moment – okay, actually for quite a few moments – it made me sad, to think of how my life had suddenly been changed, through no decision of my own.

What to do?  Embrace the change, of course.  Look forward to the friendship I get to have with her new husband, Keith, whom I actually like a lot.  Be happy for my friend, and be there for her in the inevitable (hopefully brief) times when marriage is not bliss. 

Fortunately, in this summer of activity, I don’t have a lot of time to dwell on things like this.  The next event awaits – my college reunion.  What will I learn from that?  Will all of these learning experiences add up to some kind of direction in my life?  Only God knows…but hopefully, someday, God will feel like sharing.

Tune in next time for…The Great Eleven-Year Reunion.