Sunday was a day for old friends who never see each other to paint the town and remember what it was like to have a spare day to do whatever we wanted. It was also a great day to be out and about. The thunderstorms that ended the week cleared to sunny skies all weekend. It was still summer, so everyone thought it was hot and humid, but this was the coolest day of my trip and it was well under 50% humidity, which is drier than Hong Kong ever gets.
Not everyone had the same schedule. I saw a lot of old friends that day, but not all in the same place at the same time. I had to take my morning run alone because it was too early for everyone else. Especially after the late night.
Minneapolis is a great place for a morning run. Infinitely better than Hong Kong. There are pedestrian and bike paths all over the place. I chose the Midtown Greenway, a former train line that has been converted into a walking/biking path. Since it used to be train tracks, it is separate from the street traffic, making it a safer place to run. In a bigger city, it could also be a more dangerous place, since it is separate from the streets. There are stretches of corridor where you are surrounded by walls of trees and bushes. In Minneapolis, something like that is perfectly safe. In some cities, that's just asking for trouble. On a summer morning, all those trees are more than welcome. There is not much of a view in the train tunnels, but there are long stretches near houses and parks. Most of the path cuts through residential neighborhoods, from Chelsea's house to the Mississippi River.
I had breakfast with two of my old friends, Megan and Kimberly. Megan brought her husband, whom I met at the reunion. Kimberly brought her 6-year-old daughter. We went to French Meadow, which is a nice little café for breakfast or brunch. They are big on farm fresh organic produce and have their own bakery. Back in my day, there was only one location, but they have since expanded around the city. I can't say if that is going to hurt the quality since I have only been to the original restaurant.
Megan had other things to do, so I said goodbye to her at breakfast, but Kimberly and her daughter were more than ready to get moving. We rode bikes along the Mississippi with Shelton and her girlfriend and one of our few male high school friends, Jacob, and his wife. I'm probably going to mention a few names, but remembering them is not required. There will be no pop quiz later. If the names all seem very WASP, there is probably a reason for that. My school was something like 90% white middle class Christian. In the Midwest. We grew up in the smallest of bubbles.
Chelsea did not go with us on the bike ride, which was convenient since I could borrow her bike. The Midtown Greenway is a great place to ride a bike, but the view is a lot better along the river. You can safely ride from one end of town to the other, unless you have a 6-year-old with you. That made it a more leisurely stroll.
Jacob and his wife stuck around for lunch, but I had to say goodbye to Kimberly and her daughter. I would see Shelton later that night. Chelsea joined us for lunch, as did Austin, Jacob's best friend in high school, and his wife. We all went to Victor's 1959, a nice little Cuban restaurant between Lake Harriet and Lake Calhoun. There is no Cuban food in Hong Kong, as far as I know. And this little hole in the wall is as authentic as it gets, as far as I know.
Jacob and Austin had other plans, while Chelsea and I went back to her house. You don't want to go run a marathon after a Cuban meal, so we thought a little down time might be nice. We had dinner plans later, but our afternoon was wide open. Liza and Taylor came to Chelsea's house early because they wanted to see me. Who could blame them? Liza and Taylor were inseparable in high school, and we used to call them Taylor and Liza until someone figured out their names were Liz and Taylor. It sounds crazy that no one thought about it right away, but we probably had a dozen Taylors in school, of both genders, and there were a few famous Eliza actresses at the time. They are both married now and not as joined at the hip as they used to be, but they left their husbands at home. It was interesting to watch them revert to their old dynamic without the newer people in their lives. Erin and her husband were also joining us for dinner, so they showed up early.
In high school, if this group of people had access to a house with a swimming pool and no parents, it would have turned into a party. As adults, we all sat around and talked. This afternoon was the opposite of wild and crazy.
With husbands, there were almost a dozen of us at dinner. Everyone who was at Chelsea's house went to Hell's Kitchen, a restaurant downtown that goes out of its way to let people know it has no affiliation with Gordon Ramsay whatsoever. We met Kayla and Alyssa, another best friend duo, and Kayla's husband. Shelton and her girlfriend made a return appearance. I knew I was going to see people I had not seen in a long time before I flew to Minnesota, but I never really thought about all of the new husbands, wives, girlfriends and children I would meet. There were almost as many new faces as old.
Five blocks away from the restaurant was First Avenue, arguably the most famous live music venue in Minneapolis. Sometimes they have the biggest acts. Sometimes it is up and comers. Sometimes the band on stage will never be heard from again. I have never heard of the band we saw that night, and can't remember their name just now, but they were not bad. The crowd liked them, but that certainly does not mean a record company will. And if you don't have a record company and its marketing department in your corner, you are never going to be a superstar. Hopefully, this band is more interested in playing music than being celebrities because they did not sound anything like the autotune pop idols the record companies are pushing these days.
Most of us said goodbye out on the corner of 7th St and First Ave. No one knows when we will all see each other again. A few of us went back to Chelsea's house. Chelsea has a swimming pool at her disposal every day, so she is not all that impressed, but it was a hot summer night and most of us lived nowhere near clean pools.
No one planned it, but we had an all girls pool party that night. Kayla's husband went home after First Avenue, but she and Alyssa came with us to Chelsea's house, as did Shelton and her girlfriend. There was a little bit of alcohol served that night, both at the club and at Chelsea's house, but nothing happened that a teenage boy might dream about. I suppose that depends on the boy. There was a fair amount of partial nudity, mostly because swimming with clothes on is stupid and because none of us, other than Chelsea, had bathing suits at her house. But there was no wild, all girl orgy. Sorry, fellas.
Friday, August 31, 2018
Saturday, August 25, 2018
High School Reunion
6. Shiny Happy People
As the main party started to die down, some of us made our way to a very nice suite at the hotel. In high school, I would have been suspicious. What were their intentions? Why does it have to be a hotel room? Why can't we all hang out in a public, open space? Why did someone who lives ten miles away book a hotel room?
But things change when you get older. Almost everyone in that suite was in a long term relationship. Some of those partners were there. There was more than enough alcohol flowing freely that night, but no one was passed out drunk, at least not that I knew about. We all either learned how to hold our liquor since high school or we learned a little self control.
This was not a cheap party motel for teenagers. This was a recently redecorated high rise suite with great views at a downtown hotel for professionals. The bed looked comfortable, but no one did anything other than sit on it. Most of us kept to the living room, while a few people spilled out into the little office room.
The conversation was more interesting after hours. In the ballroom, there was a lot of small talk and getting reacquainted. In the suite, everyone was more relaxed and natural. I learned a lot about Chelsea's quest to find true love. She was relatively shy at the reunion, but in a smaller room with fewer people, her story of being a confused teenager to rebellious college student to confident adult was not as private as I would have expected. She is nowhere near the closet, and after living in China for a while, I was relieved that my fellow Minnesotans were not the least bit judgmental when it came to her romantic partners.
Back in the main reunion hall, one of my old friends said she was a composite artist, also known as a police sketch artist. That sounded like an interesting job, until we were all in the suite. Other than how they use computers more than pencils these days, the details were surprisingly mundane. If there is a TV show about sketch artists, they probably chase bad guys in sports cars and jump from building to building while making impossible shots with sharpshooter accuracy. In the real world, she sits in front of a computer and makes portraits out of insufficient information. She is not authorized to carry a gun or chase anyone. She finds the job rewarding but depressing. Most of the time, she works on missing people, including children.
As teenagers, we would have stayed out all night. As adults, we had to wake up the next morning or get back to baby sitters on time. Not me. I had the entire weekend. Everyone else was in their world living their normal life. That suite gradually emptied out until it was obvious that the party was over. Neither Chelsea nor I wanted to be the last to leave, so we left while it was on its death bed, but still had a pulse.
Back at Chelsea's house, she wanted to go swimming. She had a few drinks that night, but was not particularly drunk. I could not in good conscious go to sleep while she was in the pool alone, so I joined her. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. It was a peaceful way to end a hectic day.
But things change when you get older. Almost everyone in that suite was in a long term relationship. Some of those partners were there. There was more than enough alcohol flowing freely that night, but no one was passed out drunk, at least not that I knew about. We all either learned how to hold our liquor since high school or we learned a little self control.
This was not a cheap party motel for teenagers. This was a recently redecorated high rise suite with great views at a downtown hotel for professionals. The bed looked comfortable, but no one did anything other than sit on it. Most of us kept to the living room, while a few people spilled out into the little office room.
The conversation was more interesting after hours. In the ballroom, there was a lot of small talk and getting reacquainted. In the suite, everyone was more relaxed and natural. I learned a lot about Chelsea's quest to find true love. She was relatively shy at the reunion, but in a smaller room with fewer people, her story of being a confused teenager to rebellious college student to confident adult was not as private as I would have expected. She is nowhere near the closet, and after living in China for a while, I was relieved that my fellow Minnesotans were not the least bit judgmental when it came to her romantic partners.
Back in the main reunion hall, one of my old friends said she was a composite artist, also known as a police sketch artist. That sounded like an interesting job, until we were all in the suite. Other than how they use computers more than pencils these days, the details were surprisingly mundane. If there is a TV show about sketch artists, they probably chase bad guys in sports cars and jump from building to building while making impossible shots with sharpshooter accuracy. In the real world, she sits in front of a computer and makes portraits out of insufficient information. She is not authorized to carry a gun or chase anyone. She finds the job rewarding but depressing. Most of the time, she works on missing people, including children.
As teenagers, we would have stayed out all night. As adults, we had to wake up the next morning or get back to baby sitters on time. Not me. I had the entire weekend. Everyone else was in their world living their normal life. That suite gradually emptied out until it was obvious that the party was over. Neither Chelsea nor I wanted to be the last to leave, so we left while it was on its death bed, but still had a pulse.
Back at Chelsea's house, she wanted to go swimming. She had a few drinks that night, but was not particularly drunk. I could not in good conscious go to sleep while she was in the pool alone, so I joined her. Night swimming deserves a quiet night. It was a peaceful way to end a hectic day.
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Working Hard or Hardly Working
I was not finished describing my high school reunion, but something came up. I have been offered a job in Barcelona.
I don't really want to get into any details. Partly because I'm a little superstitious that if I talk about a new opportunity too much before it happens, I will somehow jinx it. Mostly because it is a lot easier to talk about something that has already happened than something that will happen in the future.
But I am free to admit how nervous I am about it. This will be my first performing job since I bumped my head in a car accident last year. I don't know if I'm ready to get back into it. I know I'm ready mentally, spiritually and philosophically. Am I ready physically? I honestly have no idea. I exercise every day, rain or shine. I run and walk around Hong Kong. I rode a bike and went swimming in Minnesota. I climbed a mountain in Miyajima. I have been doing plenty of heavy training for the last six months.
But I get exhausted during my morning runs. I used to run around, go home and start my day. Now I run around, go home and take a nap. The bike ride in Minnesota was one afternoon, and there was a child with us. It was more of a leisurely stroll through the park than a workout. The swimming was in a small pool, sometimes with other people. The mountain on Miyajima was mostly a hike over rocks. The cable cars did most of the heavy lifting.
The benefit to taking the Barcelona job is that it is great practice to see if I'm ready. No one likes it when you tell them their job is just a rehearsal to you, so maybe I should not mention that part. But this is not Facebook. Blog posts do not go viral. Another benefit is the free trip to Barcelona. That was never high on my list of places to visit, and I know almost nothing about the city, but I hear it is nice.
If all goes well, I can go back to work in Hong Kong when I return from Barcelona. If it turns out to be a spectacular failure, then I know I still need to push harder before I'm ready. I have nothing to lose, other than my reputation in Spain. But it's not like I ever had a reputation there anyway.
I should probably look up some Spanish phrases. I don't know much beyond, “Hola, yo me llamo Hailey. Yo no comprendo.”
I don't really want to get into any details. Partly because I'm a little superstitious that if I talk about a new opportunity too much before it happens, I will somehow jinx it. Mostly because it is a lot easier to talk about something that has already happened than something that will happen in the future.
But I am free to admit how nervous I am about it. This will be my first performing job since I bumped my head in a car accident last year. I don't know if I'm ready to get back into it. I know I'm ready mentally, spiritually and philosophically. Am I ready physically? I honestly have no idea. I exercise every day, rain or shine. I run and walk around Hong Kong. I rode a bike and went swimming in Minnesota. I climbed a mountain in Miyajima. I have been doing plenty of heavy training for the last six months.
But I get exhausted during my morning runs. I used to run around, go home and start my day. Now I run around, go home and take a nap. The bike ride in Minnesota was one afternoon, and there was a child with us. It was more of a leisurely stroll through the park than a workout. The swimming was in a small pool, sometimes with other people. The mountain on Miyajima was mostly a hike over rocks. The cable cars did most of the heavy lifting.
The benefit to taking the Barcelona job is that it is great practice to see if I'm ready. No one likes it when you tell them their job is just a rehearsal to you, so maybe I should not mention that part. But this is not Facebook. Blog posts do not go viral. Another benefit is the free trip to Barcelona. That was never high on my list of places to visit, and I know almost nothing about the city, but I hear it is nice.
If all goes well, I can go back to work in Hong Kong when I return from Barcelona. If it turns out to be a spectacular failure, then I know I still need to push harder before I'm ready. I have nothing to lose, other than my reputation in Spain. But it's not like I ever had a reputation there anyway.
I should probably look up some Spanish phrases. I don't know much beyond, “Hola, yo me llamo Hailey. Yo no comprendo.”
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
High School Reunion
5. Glory Days
In movies, high school reunions are in the school gym or somewhere else on campus. Does anyone really do that? Ours was across town at an expensive hotel on Nicollet Mall, across the street from the Mary Tyler Moore statue. We were in a large event space, maybe too large. I don't know how many people they expected to show up. Our graduating class was somewhere around 600. This room could have held half that. Of course, you are never going to get a 50% attendance rate at a reunion. We had somewhere around 16%, which is supposed to be pretty good.
I never really knew the people on the reunion committee. I think I had a class with one of them in tenth or eleventh grade. They were in the student council/school paper/yearbook circle. I was in the performing arts circle. I don't know why the two did not touch, but when I went to school, they were miles apart. Either way, the committee did a pretty good job. I was expecting tacky paper decorations and some corny theme, but the space looked elegant. Rather than a punch bowl on a folding table, there were a few bartenders serving every kind of drink imaginable. In one of the more terrible Superman movies, someone brings too much potato salad to their reunion. Ours had professional catering and complicated little bite-size snacks. It was more like a debutante ball than suburban high school reunion. But no one dressed for a ball. We were all more casual than our surroundings, made more impressive by the nighttime views of downtown from the 50th floor.
A lot of assumptions were shattered that night. It used to be that people went to reunions to see how much everyone changed. Is she fat now? Is he bald? Who got married and/or divorced? Facebook has changed all of that. Many, if not most, of the people there were in communication with each other online. Facebook friends already saw all the recent pictures of aging, relationship comings and goings, families and jobs. The entire reunion was organized on Facebook, and in a private group, no less. I could not even look at it because I don't have a Facebook account. My initial reaction was that, had they used other media, maybe more people would have known about it. If I had not been told about it outside of social media, I would have never known. Surely, I cannot be the only person who never uses the Facebook. But the turnout was pretty high. Contacting everyone by e-mail and phone would have been far more work, and maybe fewer people would have put in the effort.
Another thing I expected was for everyone to segregate themselves into their old high school cliques. That is what you do in high school. Our entire school had around 2,000 students. Nobody knew that many people. We all decide what clique we should be in and generally stick to those people. At the reunion, we all mingled with old friends, of course, but it looked like everyone was grouping themselves around their Facebook friends. A good example was Chelsea. She would have never spent any time with the science nerds in high school, but at the reunion, her best friend was someone we all expected to grow up and cure cancer or discover some new element.
Like a lot of high school ambitions, that one went nowhere. Most Likely to Cure Cancer now works in a cubicle at some office job. She was never actually voted Most Likely to Cure Cancer. I doubt we had that category. But we all assumed she would become a scientist. Just like we all assumed the quarterback of the football team would join the NFL or that diva who got the best parts in almost every single play, even though I was always the better choice, would become an actor. Neither did. The quarterback played football in college, but then went into business administration. The diva works in a hotel.
Students at our school were always expected to succeed. We had that Most Likely to Succeed category in our yearbook, which is pretty stupid when you think about it. All schools should expect every student to succeed, and ours did, more or less. We were always on every list of top schools in the country. The debate team was ranked in the top 20 in my senior year. Our theater group performed on Broadway. The marching band won field competitions every year I was there. The list of state championships for the athletic teams is ridiculously long. At my old school, 95% of graduates go to college. The national average is around 66%. I looked it up because I figured 95% had to be pretty high.
That kind of pressure can burn out a teenager. Some of our biggest stars just kind of faded away. But more than a few did what everyone expected of them. There were a lot of MBAs at that reunion. Several are getting started in politics and law. A few are professional hockey players. At least one swimmer and one tennis player competed in the Olympics. One of my old friends in the marching band performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Others are with the Minnesota Orchestra and New York Pops. But it is not all high brow. One of our trumpet players is in the acid reggae band, Dick Cheney. That might not be the best name for a band. If you do a Google search, they are not the first thing to show up.
Speaking of yearbooks, some people actually brought theirs. For all the things Facebook has changed, it seems yearbooks are immune. I'm sure there are plenty of old pictures scanned and uploaded to that private Facebook group, but physical copies were passed around that night for people to sign and reminisce. I signed a lot of yearbooks in high school. My policy was always to write a little something for anyone who asked, whether I liked them or not, or even knew them. We all knew it was for posterity. But when you are an adult, “Have a cool summer” does not work anymore.
I don't remember the last time I saw any of my old yearbooks. I don't even know where they are or if they still exist. Having never looked at them since high school, it was nice to flip through the pages one last time. The reunion was definitely the best place for that.
Since I was one of the few people not connected online, I had the old style reunion experience where everyone did not know what I was up to lately. I could pretend to be as rich and successful as I wanted. Only three things stood in my way. I was not painfully insecure in high school, so I don't need to show them. I don't like lying if I can avoid it. If it is a life or death situation, a lie might be the most moral thing to do. But deception for personal gain, even something as inconsequential as a high school reunion, is unethical. What really kept me out of fantasyland, however, was that a few people knew what I had been doing since graduation.
Anyone who knew me in school knew that I always wanted to be a dancer. So that was the inevitable first question. Am I a famous ballerina now? Do I travel all over the world dancing in the great concert halls? Have I met Baryshnikov? No, kind of but not really, and no.
I was not designed to be a ballerina. I know the moves and understand the music, but my body was made for lyrical, jazz, tap and various folk dances. I have performed in a few different countries, but not at all the most famous venues with the world's greatest dancers. I have never met Baryshnikov, but I am ready, willing and able. All he has to do is call.
The other questions were just as predictable. No, I'm not married, or divorced. No children. I don't own a house, or even a car. Home ownership seemed to be a big issue at the reunion. Maybe I should have invented a fantasy life.
But there is something about my life that Americans tend to find fascinating. Far more people asked me about Hong Kong than about dancing. I never even think about it, really. Seven million other people live here, and when you add China, that number gets a lot higher. It is not so exotic to a huge chunk of the humans on this planet. Besides, everyone lives somewhere. When you go to high school in Minnesota, most of your classmates stay in the Midwest. A few move to the East Coast. I'm the only one who left the country for any amount of time, at least at the reunion. So I got a small taste of minor celebrity. Not for doing something I have always loved, but for packing my bags and going away.
One person who was not at all impressed by my life in Hong Kong was my former boyfriend. We started dating in high school and broke up four years after we moved to China together. He never really liked Hong Kong and does not see it as exotic at all. To him, it was always crowded, noisy and full of unattractive women. Seeing him at the reunion was inevitable. We were in the same graduating class, and his mother told me he would be there. She also told me that he was married, so meeting his wife was no big surprise. The wife seemed nice enough, and exactly like the kind of woman he should be with, which is very different from me. The older I get, the more I wonder what I was thinking. In high school, everyone told me we were incompatible, but when you are in high school, you never listen. The great thing about eventually coming to my senses is that I felt no jealousy whatsoever when I met his wife. They looked like a happy couple and I am genuinely happy for them. Had I ever married him, we would both be miserable.
My biggest expectation for the reunion was to catch up with old friends. We did, or at least those of us who showed up did. And it was easier than I thought it would be. We all picked up where we left off and probably could have stayed there if not for how far away I live. I suppose I could join Facebook and be “friends” with them, but I don't define friendship as clicking a button under someone's picture.
On the opposite end, I was surprised by how easy it was to get along with old enemies. I never really had any enemies in high school, but there was one girl who did not like me after a lot of drama went down. She definitely picked a side and it was not mine. As teenagers, she thought I was an evil demon sent to lead all the self-righteous into temptation. She actively did whatever she could to destroy my reputation with both students and teachers. Fortunately, my friends thought she was a nutjob and my teachers cared more about grades than gossip. As adults, I was prepared to simply avoid her if she showed up. But when she came to talk to me, she said she admired how I went off into the wide world of adventure. She thought it was brave to move to another country and pursue my dreams. I told her she could easily do the same, anyone can, but she seemed convinced that her unhappy domestic life was her cross to bear. I let that competition go a long time ago, but apparently, I won without ever knowing it.
The reunion committee planned a few activities for that weekend – a baseball game, picnic in the park, three legged race type of things – but some of us decided to do our own thing. Most of them live within two hundred miles of each other. I was the one who was going to be out of the picture for a long time when the weekend was over. That made me popular again. I did not go to my high school reunion as a rich and famous ballerina, but the people who liked me wanted to spend more time with me while they could. That is success.
The great thing about nostalgia is that everyone remembers the good parts and forgets or glosses over the bad. When you are in school, you want to get out, either to college or start your career, or just get out of there. A large chunk of high school is pure tedium. Considering the age range, I'm sure we all went through a lot of emotional and hormonal turbulence. But at the reunion, no one talked about staring at the classroom clock and willing it to move faster. We all talked about the good parts and even some of the embarrassing parts, if we could laugh about them now.
High school is one of the strangest things we all get to experience. It dominates every aspect of our lives for a few years. It might be the last place you can effortlessly make best friends. It is where you learn to be who you are, discover boys or girls or both, break away from your parents and, in many ways, it determines how far you will go for the rest of your life. The best part is that when it is over, it is over forever. You never have to go back. But you can if you want to.
I never really knew the people on the reunion committee. I think I had a class with one of them in tenth or eleventh grade. They were in the student council/school paper/yearbook circle. I was in the performing arts circle. I don't know why the two did not touch, but when I went to school, they were miles apart. Either way, the committee did a pretty good job. I was expecting tacky paper decorations and some corny theme, but the space looked elegant. Rather than a punch bowl on a folding table, there were a few bartenders serving every kind of drink imaginable. In one of the more terrible Superman movies, someone brings too much potato salad to their reunion. Ours had professional catering and complicated little bite-size snacks. It was more like a debutante ball than suburban high school reunion. But no one dressed for a ball. We were all more casual than our surroundings, made more impressive by the nighttime views of downtown from the 50th floor.
A lot of assumptions were shattered that night. It used to be that people went to reunions to see how much everyone changed. Is she fat now? Is he bald? Who got married and/or divorced? Facebook has changed all of that. Many, if not most, of the people there were in communication with each other online. Facebook friends already saw all the recent pictures of aging, relationship comings and goings, families and jobs. The entire reunion was organized on Facebook, and in a private group, no less. I could not even look at it because I don't have a Facebook account. My initial reaction was that, had they used other media, maybe more people would have known about it. If I had not been told about it outside of social media, I would have never known. Surely, I cannot be the only person who never uses the Facebook. But the turnout was pretty high. Contacting everyone by e-mail and phone would have been far more work, and maybe fewer people would have put in the effort.
Another thing I expected was for everyone to segregate themselves into their old high school cliques. That is what you do in high school. Our entire school had around 2,000 students. Nobody knew that many people. We all decide what clique we should be in and generally stick to those people. At the reunion, we all mingled with old friends, of course, but it looked like everyone was grouping themselves around their Facebook friends. A good example was Chelsea. She would have never spent any time with the science nerds in high school, but at the reunion, her best friend was someone we all expected to grow up and cure cancer or discover some new element.
Like a lot of high school ambitions, that one went nowhere. Most Likely to Cure Cancer now works in a cubicle at some office job. She was never actually voted Most Likely to Cure Cancer. I doubt we had that category. But we all assumed she would become a scientist. Just like we all assumed the quarterback of the football team would join the NFL or that diva who got the best parts in almost every single play, even though I was always the better choice, would become an actor. Neither did. The quarterback played football in college, but then went into business administration. The diva works in a hotel.
Students at our school were always expected to succeed. We had that Most Likely to Succeed category in our yearbook, which is pretty stupid when you think about it. All schools should expect every student to succeed, and ours did, more or less. We were always on every list of top schools in the country. The debate team was ranked in the top 20 in my senior year. Our theater group performed on Broadway. The marching band won field competitions every year I was there. The list of state championships for the athletic teams is ridiculously long. At my old school, 95% of graduates go to college. The national average is around 66%. I looked it up because I figured 95% had to be pretty high.
That kind of pressure can burn out a teenager. Some of our biggest stars just kind of faded away. But more than a few did what everyone expected of them. There were a lot of MBAs at that reunion. Several are getting started in politics and law. A few are professional hockey players. At least one swimmer and one tennis player competed in the Olympics. One of my old friends in the marching band performs with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Others are with the Minnesota Orchestra and New York Pops. But it is not all high brow. One of our trumpet players is in the acid reggae band, Dick Cheney. That might not be the best name for a band. If you do a Google search, they are not the first thing to show up.
Speaking of yearbooks, some people actually brought theirs. For all the things Facebook has changed, it seems yearbooks are immune. I'm sure there are plenty of old pictures scanned and uploaded to that private Facebook group, but physical copies were passed around that night for people to sign and reminisce. I signed a lot of yearbooks in high school. My policy was always to write a little something for anyone who asked, whether I liked them or not, or even knew them. We all knew it was for posterity. But when you are an adult, “Have a cool summer” does not work anymore.
I don't remember the last time I saw any of my old yearbooks. I don't even know where they are or if they still exist. Having never looked at them since high school, it was nice to flip through the pages one last time. The reunion was definitely the best place for that.
Since I was one of the few people not connected online, I had the old style reunion experience where everyone did not know what I was up to lately. I could pretend to be as rich and successful as I wanted. Only three things stood in my way. I was not painfully insecure in high school, so I don't need to show them. I don't like lying if I can avoid it. If it is a life or death situation, a lie might be the most moral thing to do. But deception for personal gain, even something as inconsequential as a high school reunion, is unethical. What really kept me out of fantasyland, however, was that a few people knew what I had been doing since graduation.
Anyone who knew me in school knew that I always wanted to be a dancer. So that was the inevitable first question. Am I a famous ballerina now? Do I travel all over the world dancing in the great concert halls? Have I met Baryshnikov? No, kind of but not really, and no.
I was not designed to be a ballerina. I know the moves and understand the music, but my body was made for lyrical, jazz, tap and various folk dances. I have performed in a few different countries, but not at all the most famous venues with the world's greatest dancers. I have never met Baryshnikov, but I am ready, willing and able. All he has to do is call.
The other questions were just as predictable. No, I'm not married, or divorced. No children. I don't own a house, or even a car. Home ownership seemed to be a big issue at the reunion. Maybe I should have invented a fantasy life.
But there is something about my life that Americans tend to find fascinating. Far more people asked me about Hong Kong than about dancing. I never even think about it, really. Seven million other people live here, and when you add China, that number gets a lot higher. It is not so exotic to a huge chunk of the humans on this planet. Besides, everyone lives somewhere. When you go to high school in Minnesota, most of your classmates stay in the Midwest. A few move to the East Coast. I'm the only one who left the country for any amount of time, at least at the reunion. So I got a small taste of minor celebrity. Not for doing something I have always loved, but for packing my bags and going away.
One person who was not at all impressed by my life in Hong Kong was my former boyfriend. We started dating in high school and broke up four years after we moved to China together. He never really liked Hong Kong and does not see it as exotic at all. To him, it was always crowded, noisy and full of unattractive women. Seeing him at the reunion was inevitable. We were in the same graduating class, and his mother told me he would be there. She also told me that he was married, so meeting his wife was no big surprise. The wife seemed nice enough, and exactly like the kind of woman he should be with, which is very different from me. The older I get, the more I wonder what I was thinking. In high school, everyone told me we were incompatible, but when you are in high school, you never listen. The great thing about eventually coming to my senses is that I felt no jealousy whatsoever when I met his wife. They looked like a happy couple and I am genuinely happy for them. Had I ever married him, we would both be miserable.
My biggest expectation for the reunion was to catch up with old friends. We did, or at least those of us who showed up did. And it was easier than I thought it would be. We all picked up where we left off and probably could have stayed there if not for how far away I live. I suppose I could join Facebook and be “friends” with them, but I don't define friendship as clicking a button under someone's picture.
On the opposite end, I was surprised by how easy it was to get along with old enemies. I never really had any enemies in high school, but there was one girl who did not like me after a lot of drama went down. She definitely picked a side and it was not mine. As teenagers, she thought I was an evil demon sent to lead all the self-righteous into temptation. She actively did whatever she could to destroy my reputation with both students and teachers. Fortunately, my friends thought she was a nutjob and my teachers cared more about grades than gossip. As adults, I was prepared to simply avoid her if she showed up. But when she came to talk to me, she said she admired how I went off into the wide world of adventure. She thought it was brave to move to another country and pursue my dreams. I told her she could easily do the same, anyone can, but she seemed convinced that her unhappy domestic life was her cross to bear. I let that competition go a long time ago, but apparently, I won without ever knowing it.
The reunion committee planned a few activities for that weekend – a baseball game, picnic in the park, three legged race type of things – but some of us decided to do our own thing. Most of them live within two hundred miles of each other. I was the one who was going to be out of the picture for a long time when the weekend was over. That made me popular again. I did not go to my high school reunion as a rich and famous ballerina, but the people who liked me wanted to spend more time with me while they could. That is success.
The great thing about nostalgia is that everyone remembers the good parts and forgets or glosses over the bad. When you are in school, you want to get out, either to college or start your career, or just get out of there. A large chunk of high school is pure tedium. Considering the age range, I'm sure we all went through a lot of emotional and hormonal turbulence. But at the reunion, no one talked about staring at the classroom clock and willing it to move faster. We all talked about the good parts and even some of the embarrassing parts, if we could laugh about them now.
High school is one of the strangest things we all get to experience. It dominates every aspect of our lives for a few years. It might be the last place you can effortlessly make best friends. It is where you learn to be who you are, discover boys or girls or both, break away from your parents and, in many ways, it determines how far you will go for the rest of your life. The best part is that when it is over, it is over forever. You never have to go back. But you can if you want to.
Thursday, August 2, 2018
High School Reunion
4. News From Lake Wobegon
Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning. She had the entire day off since it was Saturday. It was also reunion day, so she had a lot of plans for us.
After breakfast, that I made because we both agreed I was a much better cook, we hit the town hard. Summer Saturday mornings mean a trip to the Mill City Farmers Market at the Guthrie Theater. Chelsea is surrounded by fresh produce all the time, and can go to the farmers market any Saturday, but this was the only day for me. Where I live, there is nothing like it. We have plenty of produce markets all year long, but that is like comparing homemade tagliatelle with canned spaghettios. One of those life ironies is that I make 90% of my meals with ingredients that are nowhere near this fresh, while Chelsea has produce picked from the farm that morning, but mostly eats out. The farmers market also had cooking lessons, but we did not have enough time.
The thunderstorms and ominous clouds of Friday were gone. This was a typical sunny and hot summer day. Chelsea and more than a few others complained about the humidity, but it felt pretty mild to me. And it was not especially hot. This Saturday was also the opening of the beer festival, international food truck rally and the tequila & taco festival. There were plenty of arts and crafts fairs, movies in the park and block parties. Things would really start get going after I left. The city does more than enough to keep people active and engaged. Summer is not such a bad time to go to Minneapolis. Then there is the Minnesota state fair. Our state fair is a great state fair, but I missed it. I was too early.
There were a million live performances that night, but that was also reunion time. I would have loved spending the evening at the Cowles Center, Orpheum or State Theatre, but I flew halfway around the world for the reunion, not to see a show.
Chelsea did not want to spend the afternoon running around some lakes or doing anything particularly energetic. She was looking forward to being wide awake at the reunion. So we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Not only does it require no exertion, but it is indoors and air conditioned. We have museums in Hong Kong, but nothing like this. I have nothing against Chinese art, but it does not move me the way Rembrandt, van Gogh, Manet, Gauguin, Matisse and Goya can. Ironically, MIA brags that they have one of the largest Asian art collections in the United States.
Chelsea's house is only a few miles from the museum, so we had enough time to go back and get ready before heading out.
After breakfast, that I made because we both agreed I was a much better cook, we hit the town hard. Summer Saturday mornings mean a trip to the Mill City Farmers Market at the Guthrie Theater. Chelsea is surrounded by fresh produce all the time, and can go to the farmers market any Saturday, but this was the only day for me. Where I live, there is nothing like it. We have plenty of produce markets all year long, but that is like comparing homemade tagliatelle with canned spaghettios. One of those life ironies is that I make 90% of my meals with ingredients that are nowhere near this fresh, while Chelsea has produce picked from the farm that morning, but mostly eats out. The farmers market also had cooking lessons, but we did not have enough time.
The thunderstorms and ominous clouds of Friday were gone. This was a typical sunny and hot summer day. Chelsea and more than a few others complained about the humidity, but it felt pretty mild to me. And it was not especially hot. This Saturday was also the opening of the beer festival, international food truck rally and the tequila & taco festival. There were plenty of arts and crafts fairs, movies in the park and block parties. Things would really start get going after I left. The city does more than enough to keep people active and engaged. Summer is not such a bad time to go to Minneapolis. Then there is the Minnesota state fair. Our state fair is a great state fair, but I missed it. I was too early.
There were a million live performances that night, but that was also reunion time. I would have loved spending the evening at the Cowles Center, Orpheum or State Theatre, but I flew halfway around the world for the reunion, not to see a show.
Chelsea did not want to spend the afternoon running around some lakes or doing anything particularly energetic. She was looking forward to being wide awake at the reunion. So we went to the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Not only does it require no exertion, but it is indoors and air conditioned. We have museums in Hong Kong, but nothing like this. I have nothing against Chinese art, but it does not move me the way Rembrandt, van Gogh, Manet, Gauguin, Matisse and Goya can. Ironically, MIA brags that they have one of the largest Asian art collections in the United States.
Chelsea's house is only a few miles from the museum, so we had enough time to go back and get ready before heading out.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)