It's Kind of a Long Story... about GIRLS

When they are good, they are very, very good.

Hey Drama Goblins,

It’s been a relatively calm couple of weeks since I got back from Illinois. I mean, stuff is happening, but at a pace that is manageable.

Is this how normal people live? Without relentless stress, pivots, tensions and major plot twists. I’ve never lived like this. Life has been relentless for so long.

The whole time I was in what I’ve come to call “tree exile,” I joked that all I wanted was to be able to say, was ‘not much’” when someone asked, “What’s new?”

At the risk of jinxing it, I am there. At least for now. And I am enjoying it.

I’m so glad you’re here,

Lara

And when they are bad they are horrid.

Short Story

I observed some young girls doing girlish things. It brought me right back to when I was their age.

Long Story

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about those girls.

A few weeks ago, I volunteered at the Postpartum Support Center’s Walk for Moms. I ran the kid’s activities tent and organized face painting, coloring, bubbles, a play area with big Legos a little skee ball machine, and my hidden talen: balloon hats!

I first made balloon hats with my friend Cherie at the Fairfax Festival when our kids were little. I honestly don’t remember how we came up with the idea, but it was a hit and a blast! We got a book with instructions, practiced different twists and bends, and made our kids model for our menu of options.

The balloon hats were a hit at the Walk for Moms too. I quickly abandoned my menu and gave kids two options: Space Helmet or Unicorn Twist. I’m happy to report that the choices didn’t come down on gender lines. Plenty of girls in Space Helmets and plenty of boys with Unicorn horns.

While I was twisting, I observed four 10-year-old girls in line discussing the colors of balloons they wanted. You would have thought they were planning the invasion of Normandy they were so serious.

When they came up to get their hats, the obvious leader said, “We all want the same hat, a Unicorn Twist with one dark pink and one light pink balloon.”

I pulled the balloons out of the plastic bag and and to tell them that there were four dark pink balloons, but only three light pink.

You would have thought I’d killed a puppy. They were instantly deflated. “Are you sure?” one of them pleaded.

It was as though their whole friendship rested on having matching two-tone pink balloon hats.

Serious discussions resumed. After they had been conferring for a bit, one of the girls said, “It’s OK, I can have mine with purple.”

“Are you sure?” asked one of her friends with both fear and admiration in her voice.

“I’m sure” she answered confidently.

As they bounced away happily with their non-matching hats, my inner 10 year old floated to the surface. She understood.

At that age, dynamics of girl friend groups are so complex and layered, that seemingly inconsequential things like matching balloon hats really, really matter. They can create strong bonds, or send one of the group into the cornfield.

I remember hearing a story on This American Life from one of the producers. Once she was invited to a slumber party with the “cool” girls and she was both thrilled and nervous. At the party, Winnie, the most popular and beautiful girl, suddenly declared that you could tell if someone was a good person by their knees.

She made all of the girls line up to have their knees inspected and judged. And of course, our heroine’s knees did not measure up. She was deemed to have sub-standard knees. Her proximity to popularity was short-lived.

She of course went on with her life. She tried to make it as an actress, but her career never took off. She transitioned to writing and producing, and built a successful career in public radio. By all accounts she was doing well.

One year she was watching the Oscars as she usually did, with a mix of anticipation and regret. She enjoyed the show, the gowns, the speeches, but there was always the sinking feeling of the acting career that never got off the ground. She never achieved her dream of winning Best Actress.

But guess who did?

That was the year Gwynneth Paltrow (aka Winnie) won for Shakespeare in Love.

Winnie rockin’ the Gunne Sacks

The loner and misfit kids are often consoled by well-meaning adults who tell them that the cool kids, mean girls and bullies won’t succeed after school ends. They’ll get theirs in the real world. The smart, good, and kind have currency as adults that they don’t when they’re kids. Just wait my wonderful weirdo, you’ll get yours and they’ll get theirs.

But, the kids know that’s not true. The rich, cool, popular and beautiful tend to stay rich, cool, popular and beautiful.

I’d been pondering these bonds and minefields of girlhood for a couple of days when I saw a group of girls walking to the school next door to my house. There were 7 or 8 of them, large for a typical young girl friend group, and they were all dressed identically. Not matching, but they all had tennis shoes, ankle socks, short shorts, over-sized hoodies, backpacks and wore their hair long.

I don’t know if they planned it, or if like the legend of the synced periods, as they spent more time together, they became cosmically connected. They were a unit. A force. A uniformed army. I imagined they were at once comforted by their symmetry with their sisters, and emboldened by standing apart from the other kids. Certainly from the boys.

I thought about the balloon hat girls and that tennis-shoed squadron and hoped against hope that their strong bonds and unspoken sisterhood would stand the test of time. That the coming tumult of teendom wouldn’t undo what they have done.

That the seemingly inevitable capriciousness and plays for power that are insidious in friendship groups, and changing bodies and widely varying levels of interest in boys won’t come between them. That they will always want to connect and lift each other up and make sure they all get the same color balloons.

As I was observing these two sets of tweens, I felt my own tween self rise up. I felt her in my throat and my stomach and she feared these girls. That she wouldn’t be accepted.

Those years were particularly hard for me. Navigating the complexities of the friendships and the ever-changing alliances was difficult and full of landmines I couldn’t see. My status always felt precarious.

I was too tall and too large and didn’t have the right clothes and sometimes I was too smart and my home life was chaotic and not at all nurturing or supportive. There was nowhere to go with my fear and hurt and questions. There was no comfort.

Lower right corner, c’est moi

Now, I am very fortunate to have friends who offer inclusion, support, and comfort. And a lot of fun. We’ve grown in our strength and power and confidence and aren’t threatened by each other. They are the best and strongest friendships I have ever had. I have said many times that the story of my 50s is the story of my friendships with women.

And… every so often, my inner tween rise up in spite of myself. My friends’ do too. We talk about it. Someone will do or say something that inadvertently cuts deep. We feel the pain of being left out. Of not being one of the cool girls.

The difference is now, we can separate what we feel from what we know. We can feel the hurt, and know that it’s an old feeling. We know the grown women in our circles of friends aren’t mean girls. We wouldn’t be friends with mean girls.

Me and a slice of the several squads I’m so lucky to hang with

Our adult selves can calm and comfort the anxious girls who live inside us and stand beside us. We can take her by the hand and face life together. The woman with the wisdom, and the girl with the hope.

Lara Sez…

Listen!

80s Deep Cut of the Week! In my crowd in Jr. High, if someone called,“Judy came from O-HI-o” The response would be, “She's a Scientologist!”

Read!

Griffin and Sabine: An Extraordinary Correspondence caused a sensation when it came out in the early 90s. A surreal epistolary tale, with actual envelopes to open and letters to read that gave it an eerie intimacy.

Buy!

An alarm clock! Hear me out. I’ve stopped taking my phone into my room when I go to bed and it has really helped me sleep better. I use a regular ol’ alarm clock to wake me up. I don’t get sucked into my phone first thing, and have a more pleasant and productive morning.

Follow!

I absolutely adore the clips and snippets from sassy, racy pre-code Hollywood movies at @precodedotcom.

Eat!

I’ve got a new lunch I’ve been eating every day, Tuna Almond Kale Bowl!

It’s so easy there’s not really a recipe.

I wilt a large bag of kale in a large pot with chicken broth. I fill a bowl, add a can or pouch of tuna, a tablespoon of chopped almonds, and 2 tablespoons of Newman’s Ginger Sesame dressing.

I keep the rest of the kale in the fridge and make lunches with it all week.

Before I let you go…

Just a sincere thank you for reading to the end.