Pivot

We were home––home on the range––but discouraging words were not so seldom heard. All the news out there was bad, and even here in our own little world, we’d suffered some setbacks. Our plans were suddenly laughable, our timeline protracted indefinitely. “You just have to pivot,” said the ladies over tea. “That’s the necessary skill. We must all learn to pivot.”  

And this was sound advice. There is no way to proceed without a willingness to gracefully adjust, to recalibrate as needed, to twist and turn and shift perspective. But I was getting mired in gloom, and we were thankful for the chance to run away for a few days.  

Our friends, Barbara and Andy, had invited us to visit them in Palm Springs, a four-hour drive into another reality. Snowy mountains, desert plants in bloom, kitschy mid-century décor, assorted humans who seemed at home in this alien habitat. Sometimes it was windy, and now and then rain washed and brightened all the colors, and we walked up a rocky trail to a waterfall, and later, Barb lent me a bathing suit and we sat in a hot tub, my water sport, and sometimes we were serious, but sometimes we just laughed, and everything was different, rinsed new and desert clear.

But the thing that wasn’t different was the friendship. Seeing Barbara is always like a homecoming. We are fluent in the same language, perhaps it is my East Coast native tongue, and it is a relief to be able to speak it. We understand each other, and we share a sense of humor––and the sound of my own laughter, even about nonsense, sometimes surprised me with its heartiness. My laughter was a forgetting and a remembering.

We are all orphans now. We recalled with tenderness the foibles of our mothers, the complexities of family, hurts and scares and injuries endured. After the usual mention of surgeries and medications, we arrived at the subject of death, which is how it goes these days. We talked about the anguish of what is happening in the wider world, and we had no solutions, but there was a reassuring sense of sanity and mutual understanding. Barb and I remembered our searches and struggles as young women in the 1970s, conjured up the hopefulness we felt as part of the Women’s March in D.C. the day after the 2017 inauguration, and shuddered with the shock and dismay we are feeling about the developments since.

I came upon a quote from James Baldwin: “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other's light. Gentle work. Steadfast work.”  We did seem to be mirroring our best selves to one another; I felt seen as beautiful, and thus I was. The house was comfortable, shiny and modern, well-lit, with carefully chosen prints of abstract art on the walls. There was a statue in the hallway of a tranquil gold Buddha with palms facing outward, a gesture that I think signifies teaching or reassurance.

One day when people were napping––yes, we napped––I stepped outside by myself to explore the neighborhood. The air was fresh with recent rain, a few dog-walkers were strolling along, and sheer shreds of clouds were cavorting with the mountains. The residential blocks were modern and tidy, pastel colors, sculptural cacti and tall gawky palms. I crossed a wide avenue and entered a vintage shop, where I dug into a heap of baubles and found the perfect earrings, faux diamond studs for me and pearl for Barbara, all for a mere eight bucks, which I paid in cash. A stout woman with heavy makeup and dyed yellow hair appreciated my business, and I went back feeling flush.

The next morning there was a distinct clarity in the very air, a thin kind of light that lifted me, and I was filled with wonder, wonder that outweighed the sadness and the dread. I had dreamed some kind of certainty that I was exactly where I should be in the pauses between pivoting. And I understood that my journey is filled with twirls, like a dance. I pressed my hands against the Buddha’s outstretched palms and Monte and I set out for the drive home.

Nothing is solved, but I’m re-booted. I am precarious still, but if I start to tip, I’ll right myself. I began long ago as a starry-eyed girl, and then I was a vessel, forgiven and indulged, into whom love and second chances were poured again and again. I found good friends, and we mirrored and magnified each other’s light. My luck was good, no credit to me, and I kept on going.

I am wearing my faux diamond earrings today, and they are sparkling.