I think her name was Beth... in anticlimatic

I got hit with a memory from 22 years ago recently- over half the total length of the time I’ve been alive ago; in a time when I had been a child for almost 100 percent of my life until that point.

I don’t remember the direct context of the memory, but at 10:30 am on weekday summer morning, under the brightest shade of sunlight my memory is capable of, I ascended an outdoor staircase in a residential neighborhood under large maple trees to the door of my friend’s apartment.

The world in which this memory occurred matters to me. September 11th was a year or two off. Millennials were in diapers, Gen X were in bars, Boomers were raising families, The Silent Generation was gearing up for retirement, and The Greatest Generation was retired, but around- available for counsel and perspective.

They had a way of cutting through the nonsense- the unlikely ironies and counter intuitions in the pitfalls of life. They alone could deliver sound timeless advice on what the right thing to do in any situation was, and usually it was the more difficult thing. It felt like our oldest really WERE our wisest.

It didn’t feel like they were geriatric lunatics, the way it might feel today. In fact the entire world felt more cohesive and sensical. Community and local networking was tighter, and although our networks didn’t reach diverse lands, the diverse individuals within the community leant a depth that seemed to project deep into the soul of humanity itself- and by proxy those across the globe far and wide separated from us by oceans and mountains.

From this safe, stable world- in the bright morning sunlight on one of my days off from making soup at the coffee shop- I was knocking on my recently married 18 year old friend Jamie’s apartment, for reasons I no longer remember. I think just to hang out, though this was not a place I visited more than a few times ever. His wife, also 18, answered the door after my knocking woke her.

Her hair was brown and shoulder length and, at the time, twisted up on top of her head and sticking straight out to one side. She was an irish mix of some sort, with very fair skin, lots of freckles, and a round face. More pretty than not. She let me in as she shuffled through to the living room, trying to wake up. My friend Jamie was not home, had left for work earlier in the morning.

I remember thinking it odd and somewhat crazy that they had married. They barely knew one another, but came from somewhat religious families. The marriage didn’t last more than a year, and they split. I don’t remember her name to see where she might be today.

The apartment they had was similar to most apartments in my area at the turn of the millennium. It was last remodeled at some point in the 1940s, in a building with tall ceilings, cast iron radiators, and a bright white kitchen with tall wooden cupboards above the countertops.

The place smelled of summer leaves and tobacco as we sat on some recently snatched from a resale store starter furniture in the living room- some old dark wooden coffee table in front of some tweed sofas and chairs with a box antenna TV playing Gunsmoke off to the side. She had a dedicated blanket on the sofa she’d use to curl up with while we smoked cigarettes and visited for a while.

At some point I left, perhaps to meet my Grandpa and the round table for lunch at Jespersons. What a good feeling it was though- to be the youngest adult in the world, still thinking that the future and adulthood was going to look like the futures and adulthoods all the rest of the adults we knew then got to experience.

It’s so wild to me how sideways things have gone since.

Last updated October 05, 2023