December 12th

So.  I'm back from flight training, and just finished up a couple of months of pretty much solid ground school followed by simulators followed by flying the actual bird under the supervision of a senior checkairman type.  Passed everything without a hitch, despite not having Janet.  That sounds like the usual "the little lady was oh so supportive", but really, she got me through the Navy and civilian flight training before.  She'd quiz me on systems and regs, get my suitcase ready and make sure I remembered to put my shoes on, and when I was on the road she'd break her rule about waking up before nine am and call me at the various ungodly hours that flying requires me to be awake at.  She'd even try to cook me breakfast.  She could do peanut butter sandwiches, at least.  Usually. 

Mostly though, she was there for the occasional days off.  My memory puts an annoyingly soft focus filter over those scenes, but I guess that can't be helped.  We can't always eschew the cliche in our personal lives.  And anyway, for all that I try to share her life on this blog, some memories are just for the two of us.

But it's not really flight training I'm remembering right now.  Twenty five years ago, we kissed for the first time.  Do most couples remember that?  I suspect so, but in our case it was particularly memorable, because we weren't going out.  She was my flute teacher, but I was headed off to the Navy and she to graduate school in music.  And there was the little matter of that boyfriend of hers who she was "practically engaged" to, a phrase that didn't include quotes at the time.

Yeah, that's her, age 22 at our wedding with her trademark "squashed Muppet face" of happiness (her term, not mine!).  It was nine months after that first kiss.  For all the hell her body went through, she didn't really age much, did she?

But yeah.  December 12th.  The following is from my probably to remain unpublished book with the working title "Janet's Song" (apparently there was some excessively sentimental movie with a similar name, so if I ever do think of putting out there, I'll change it.  Janet was never much for being maudlin)

***

            December 12, 1987.

            It was a dark and stormy night.

            I'd dropped by her place after work.  I've no idea what the excuse was, perhaps another lesson.  Maybe just because her place was closer to the Foreign Language Building, which still kept me employed in its basement. 

            If the last was the case, there would have been a smidgen of truth in it.  It was damned wretched outside.  It wasn't warm enough for rain, nor cold enough for snow.  Whatever that stuff was, there was a lot of it.  I've lived in the South and California for so long now, I forget what winters are like.  One forgets that in some places, winter can do a serious number on the body human, given a mile or two of walking home.

            Janet hadn't forgotten, and insisted on me staying.  Her place was a one room efficiency with a solitary bed as the only significant piece of furniture.  I don't think I spent a lot of time agonizing about heading back through the worsening storm.  But lest you cluck your tongue, we took a number of blankets and made an improvisatory bed on the floor with them.

            We weren't about to sleep, though.  We went into full on gab mode.  She had graduate schools to apply to and I was hoping to get into flight school or become a world famous neuroscience researcher.  One of the two.  I've never been as clear on direction as she was.

            But really, I don't think we talked about that much at all, for all its looming importance.  The two of us could go on about the nature of reality as it related to  cognitive lens theory and the usual solipsistic philosophies that college students are prone towards, flip over to extended flute technique and multiphonics, alight briefly on our favorite books at the moment, then land with full force on the virtues of properly made tea and coffee.  I was an espresso addict before the days of Starbucks and she had English parents.  Vive la difference, in drink as in all things, all unto midnight and slightly beyond.

            Janet was sitting on her bed and did her kittenish yawn she did when her fatigue caught up with her.  I was about to tell her that it was okay, it was nap time for both of us.

            Water exploded around her, like someone had opened up with a firehose.

            More like emptied a full bucket over her head.  Janet had a landlord who was somewhat indifferent to the concept of maintenance.  The storm had started the mother of all leaks, but instead of dripping directly down, the water had created a huge plaster blister filled with water.

            And with dramatic timing so perfect that it would be unacceptable in a work of fiction, it had burst over her head.

            She was drenched.  The bed was drenched.  And we were both laughing.

            A hot shower for her, a mop for me, and a minute or so to think for both of us.

            Quick mopping on my part had saved the improvised bed.  As the Navy always claimed, the service taught valuable skills.

            So.

            It was really the only option, right?

            Lights out, we lay down on the floor a respectful distance away from each other.

            I faded in and out of dreams for a while, until realized I could smell the scent of soap from her shower.

            I opened my eyes and saw her laying next to me in a puddle of dim light from an outside streetlamp, as outside the storm shook against the window.  She looked like a Victorian porcelain doll, delicate and pale with small, fine features.  But her the glint of moisture in her eyes attested to her life.  And those eyes were open and inches away from mine, staring directly into mine.  Slowly, I ran my fingers through her long hair.

            We kissed for a long time.

            Then she started crying.

            "I love you," she said.  But, she said, she loved her boyfriend, too.

            We turned on the lights and talked until the sun came up.  Just that, despite what pretty much all our friends and even some family members assumed.     

            Janet believed strongly in fidelity.  So did I.  Our half awake brains might ignore that, but in the light of the morning, we felt we should do what the honorable thing was.  And we were pretty sure that didn't involve sneaking around behind someone else's back.

            So, she was going to tell her boyfriend.  And she and I would remain friends.  No matter what.  We promised each other that.

            And we kissed one last time.  We weren't sure if we'd ever do it again.

            It was one heck of a kiss.

            I called my mom up and talked to her about it.

            "That's wonderful!" she said.

            "Mom, you aren't listening."

            "Yes, I am.  It'll work out."

            And you know, the old girl can be right on occasion.  Looking back, we were being silly about the whole thing.  Tragic love triangles and doomed couples are good material for plays, sure.  But there usually isn't any reason to live them.  But perhaps the two of us were showing our fondness for literary convention.  The true love who goes off to sea, while the pretty girl stays with the man she's already with. 

            Pfft.  This wasn't Casablanca.  This was our lives.

            Janet's boyfriend took things about as graciously as could be expected, that is to say, not at all.  Janet would observe later on that while he claimed all about open relationships, he also realized that if Janet was interested in anyone else, it was serious.  She just wasn't into casual flings.  Or perhaps he was just a hypocrite.  It has to be admitted that the last is a distinct possibility.

            It was finals week.  Thank God, as we needed something to distract us.

            On December 19th, we had what we would later on call our first date.  I bought her a broccoli cheese potato at a local fast food joint and watched her eat it.  She was getting dizzy from all the stress, and I was trying to poke her into getting some calories into her. <she lost five pounds that week> Should have given her chocolate, looking back.  Afterwards, we swung by my place.  Just to chat.  No kissing, we promised each other.

            It was the big "So, what are you doing after college?" talk.  Looking at it practically, it was a bad time for both of us to start on the couple thing.  I was getting my commission in May and heading off to who knows where.  Janet had a few east coast graduate schools that she was planning on getting into.  And afterwards, she'd be trying to grab whatever orchestra position opened up, which could be almost anywhere.

            It would be really difficult for us to stay together.  But heck, we'd get back together, later, right?  Or maybe we could work it out before then.  Anything so we could stay together.

            That was when we realized what exactly we were talking about.  We wanted a situation in which both of us spent as much time as possible with each other for as long as possible.  Smootchies would be a nice bonus, of course.

            "Are we talking about what I think we're talking about?" Janet asked me.

            And we hugged.  No kissing.  And we laughed.  Then I told her I wanted to do it properly.  I dropped to one knee and held her hands, as corny a gesture as it was the first time a young man did it so many hundreds of years ago.  But being in love often means not being afraid to be corny.

            "Janet Lynn Whittaker, will you marry me?"

            She smiled her muppet like smile, her cheeks in full dimple.

            "Of course."

            I got that kiss, after all.

            Then I gave her a lift over to her boyfriend's apartment so she could break up with him.  He didn't say congratulations.

            Believe it or not, to this day, people have tsk-tsk'd at me for "stealing a buddy's girl".  What rot.  My best buddy was the girl.  And now she was my fiance.

            Besides, after twenty three years together, can we get a pass on that?

Janetism

As I think I've said, Janet had no love for high school bands, much less for the various sporting events her band would be forced to attend.

"What is it about pep rallies?  I have nothing to do with the football team.  It's us basically saying 'Hooray for our zip code!'"

Got Milk?

Trader Joe's cream top milk was her favorite.  In my periodic stabs at being healthy, I'd sometimes pick up skim by mistake.  This did not make for a happy Janet.  She liked her milk unhomogenized, with big clots of buttery cream sticking to the sides.  She was all in favor of pasteurization (given her immune system, she'd be silly not to be), but didn't get why milk had to be homogenized.

I think there's a metaphor for the way she lived her life in there somewhere, but perhaps that would be reaching.  Mostly, Janet was pro-butterfat.

Not that I need it, but I picked up a quart today, just because.  Cheerios, raspberries and chunky cream for breakfast.  It'll make a good breakfast, though I might eat before the official Janet Wake Up Time of nine am.

Janet was pretty amazing about finding four leaf clovers. Patience coupled with the "orange stare". She explained the latter as term for the way that orangutangs spotted oranges. They just unfocussed their eyes and soaked in the environment, enabling them to spot otherwise camouflaged oranges by not concentrating their vision on the obvious. She told me that she'd heard that on a nature documentary. But I've never seen it referred to elsewhere. I don't think she was fibbing, though. And she sure could find those clovers.

Side note, yes, it's been a while since I posted here. Might start doing it again. Or not. Sometimes it helps, some things I prefer to keep private. You know how that goes.

Janet, age 12

This would have been just after she got back from Singapore. While return would find her condemned to the evil Broughton High (home of the infamous marching band which she would later escape from to Interlochen Arts Academy). Still, no trace of that dark cloud here (not that she really let it get her down). Perhaps nostalgia for Singapore's culture with its private school and horses to ride mixed with relief at leaving muggy weather and giant bugs behind.

Oh wait, she moved back to North Carolina. Well, at least she was reunited with the stuffed animals she'd had to leave behind. She told me that they stopped talking to her after this point. She believed it was because they were miffed she'd put them in a box.

Hmmm...looking at this picture, would anyone have guessed that she'd grow up to be a voracious reader and stalker of used book stores?

Janetism

Having been told by our dog training friend Nan that you should never move around a dog, but make them move, lest they put on airs, Janet invented a new dog command.

"Move butt"

Training is real simply. Kick them in the fuzzy tush until they start moving, say the command, then reward.

Come to think of it, I think she used it on me a few times.

Nanowrimo

National Novel Writing month. It's a bit silly. Every November, it's a challenge to write 50,000 words by midnight November 30th. Janet always encouraged me to do it. She once did what she called NaNoSymphMo, which was her writing a symphony in a month. Obviously quite harder. I don't think she finished, or at least she didn't consider it good enough to give me a listen. But I hope I'll find it someday as I poke around her music files. There's a lot.

This year, I was all set to write a fiction about a tough gal on a space station riding a Victorian bike. It was the kind of story she'd like. I'll still write it someday.

On November first, the day of the Nano kick off I had lunch with a friend who survived stomach cancer, although she lost 75% of her stomach in the process. She asked me what I was doing, and I told her.

She shook her head and said, "You have to write about her. For her. And for you." Funny how we don't mind cliched dialogue when it carries truth. When it's real.

This blog is about happy stuff, about Janet the person. Like what she liked, and even her silly habits. Like, why did she think vanilla extract had to stay in the fridge? What was with the "no folding over the towels on the towel rack" rule? And did she really ice her feet before getting into bed? Just saying.

But I'm not writing about just the happy stuff with this book. It's a Yang Yin thing, eh? The good sometimes needs the bad to make us realize how precious the good is. It's kind of like Janet and me in public. She looked even prettier when juxtaposed next to my ugly mug.

It's not an easy thing to write. I'm about 9000 words in. But I'll finish it, even if I'm the only one who reads it. For her, and yeah, for me.