Redhead Amok in Antarctica
Birthday Ghosts
When I was very young, lo’ these many decades ago now, I was invited to a birthday slumber party by a girl my age. We were maybe 10 or 11 years old. She invited many girls from our school. I was not very popular, being fairly new (i.e. not having been there at least 3 generations), and she was not very popular either. I was excited to be invited but also hesitant. I didn’t really know her. I knew where she stood in the social hierarchy of girls, and I knew I stood not very much higher. But all the other girls were the cool ones I liked, so I accepted.
On the day of the party my mother dropped me off at this girl's house up on the ridge. I arrived thinking I was the first and soon found out I was to be the ONLY guest that night. All the other girls had canceled: sick, busy, grounded, not interested and too polite to reject the invitation right out, or just didn’t show. It was easier to come up with a last minute excuse not to go. I was mortified as I watched the realization dawn on her that no one else was coming to the party. Her mother had sent away her brothers, had cleaned the house, had slaved to be the great invisible hostess to this pile of pre-teen girls who she expected to be up giggling and talking all night long on the glassed-in porch floor. She had blankets, pillows of all shapes & sizes & colours, mattresses wall to wall. She had plates full of white bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off: baloney & cheese, tuna, egg salad, salami, ham & cheese. Each plate piled three layers high in a pyramid of yummy goodness, layers alternating by contents. Scattered around the edge of each plate she’d placed pretty wrapped candies: butterscotch, mint, chocolate, etc. There were bowls of snacks & munchies, we had popcorn, corn chips, pretzels and the Nova Scotian favourite, Corn Puffs. There were Cheetos too, but my heart was with the corn puffs. Do you know how long I have yearned for corn puffs since I left NS? I returned for my 20th high school reunion a few years back and LOOKED EVERYWHERE FOR THEM. This is how much I loved the airy puffs of greasy corny yellow goodness.
We were also completely stocked with several cartons of Pop Shoppe pops of so many different flavours I could not believe my luck.
This girl & I circled each other somewhat awkwardly after her mother delivered the goodies and I got the news I was the Sole Guest. I hardly knew her, she me the same. But we had snacks. We had TV. We had games and we had the complete insouciance of two young girls thrown together into this unusual situation of a two-girl slumber party. I was not the perfect guest, but I spent the night laughing and giggling and sharing girl secrets with her for all I was worth. I had a damn good time, ate too much, slept too little, but never without looking at her to see if I was enough. How much did she hurt? I could easily imagine being on the receiving end of that kind of resounding rejection. It terrified me to watch it. It terrified me to have it so damn close to me.
On Monday at school we both told everyone what a fun party they had missed, we presented a united front of We Don’t Care, while bragging about all we did.
We didn’t become friends after that, but friendly. I don’t recall her name or her face, though I recall her house, and the snacks her mother provided with that worried look on her face, grateful to me almost too much for saving her daughter’s party by showing up.
Yesterday was my 41st birthday here on the Ice, today it is that same birthday back in North America. Earlier this week I decided to throw my own birthday party, because y’know, dammit, I was turning 41 in ANTARCTICA. And how often do you get to do that? So I sucked in my gut and tamed my fears of rejection, dwelled a bit on that party decades earlier, and sent out an invitation to my friends & co-workers here to join me at the Coffee House to celebrate my 41st Birthday. I dressed up and walked down there.
And guess what? They showed. They came, they stayed, they had fun. It boiled on way past my witching hour of 9:30 until the Coffee House closed at 11pm. I ducked out at 10:30 myself.
I cannot describe how exceedingly grateful I am that these people, near strangers many of them just a few months ago, filled the Coffee House to the gunnels with laughter, flirting, fun and easy conversation. Because it was my birthday. I received a few wonderful gifts unexpectedly, but most of all I received their smiles and their hugs.
I don’t think I have ever before had the ghosts of that birthday party of yore laid to rest quite so resoundingly. Happy Birthday to me.
posted by: coldwish at 11/11/05 08:26 |
link | comments (18) |
mcmurdo housing 2005-06
Comments:
Comments:
