Look Me In The Eye

 This week I’ve been reading my friend Nina Gaby’s book “Dumped: Stories of Women Unfriending Women.” I was not surprised to read that many of these breakups of friendships had taken place through emails and texts. Over the years, I’ve had a couple friends “dump” me this way, and am pretty sure that had we talked face to face, the friendship would have survived. But that was their choice, not mine.

Recently, someone lashed out at me on facebook over a certain politicized issue, criticizing my lifestyle and career choices. This was over an extreme misinterpretation of something I had posted. The greatest shock was that it was from a sweet, mild-mannered person I’ve known for years who has never before posted anything on my facebook page. I can say with 99% certainty that this person would have never looked me in the eye and said these things to me.

This is what bothers me about our new technological way of connecting with others. It isn’t real. It isn’t human. Texting, social media and email are all great ways to transmit information about work, events, politics, etc…but they are terrible ways to handle emotion.

When we are texting, emailing, posting comment, we “transmit” what we want to say without “receiving” - seeing or hearing the other person’s reaction. It’s a convenient way of unloading on someone else without having to see the hurt in their eyes, the shock on their face. This is why cyber-bullying has become rampant, and it’s not just teens who are doing it.

A few years ago someone ended a friendship with me through email with a 3500-word manifesto. I can guarantee she would never have stood in front of me and uttered those 3500 words (the majority of which had absolutely nothing to do with me) and if she had, she would have looked pretty crazy. After the shock wore off, I eventually realized this was about the toxic anger that had been building in her heart, and email made it easy for her to use me as target practice. True friendship requires the courage to sit down face to face and talk things through with respect and patience. Friends don’t fire off hurtful missives at one another and walk away.

In the years following the fire, when Troy and I were suffering with depression, we fought a lot. Our therapist taught us something invaluable that really turned everything around. “Look each other in the eyes,” he said, “because then you see who you’re really talking to, not the monster you’ve created in your head.” Another tool was to touch hands, to feel the energy of the person, to remember that you love that person. It is very powerful.

So this is my rule with technology: if I can’t look someone square in the eye and say what’s running through my mind, I’m not texting it, emailing it, commenting on it, tweeting it. Period.

As for the facebook friend, there was an apology, and an admitted misinterpretation of what I’d posted. But still, the words were said, the proverbial bullet can’t be put back in the gun. Trust has been broken and I’ll always have those words in the back of my mind.

How different would our world be if we all had the courage to look each other in the eyes?

You Gotta Have Girlfriends

I just had the pleasure (and I truly mean pleasure) of reading a pre-publication copy of  Suzanne Braun Levine's newest e-book, You Gotta Have Girlfriends. For those of you who have been living under a feminist rock for the past few decades (and if you have, it's okay to come out now) in addition to authoring several books on women in their "second adulthood", Suzanne was also the first editor of Ms. Magazine. She has been an icon in the feminist movement and has covered the issue of women and aging so beautifully over the years. In her new e-book, she addresses one of the fullest expressions of our feminine power- friendship.

I had a busy schedule the other day but had set aside an hour to begin reading Suzanne's book. Before I knew it hours had passed without my looking up once.  I was gripped by the stories, and saw myself and my experiences reflected in every chapter. 

This much I know: I would not have made it this far without my girlfriends. They witness me, encourage me, make me laugh when life is painful, and at times, they have literally saved my life. And now as I transition into midlife, that awful, awkward reverse-puberty phase, I can't imagine surviving it without them. I was happy to learn from Suzanne's book that not only do our friendships save us on a metaphoric level, but also on a physical.

"One of the best things a woman can do for her health is to nurture her relationships with her girlfriends, especially after the age of fifty."Hanging out with a small but trusted group of other females reduces damaging spikes in stress hormones, reports New York Times science writer Natalie Angier. A circle of trust can, as she puts it, “mop up the cortisol spills that can weaken the immune system,” which in turn can support additional years of good health.

So there you have it, ladies. Sharing a bottle of wine (or four) and spending the day at Burke Williams Spa is actually a preventative health measure. Cheers!

But as much as we can improve each others' health, some relationships are just plain toxic. Suzanne's book also addresses this. Our friendships with other women can be complicated. Sometimes they are fraught with competition, jealousy, and oversensitivity. And sometimes, they just don't work out. I have recently experienced the loss of a close friendship. This has resulted in many sleepless nights and has been excruciating, to say the least. Reading Suzanne's book helped me to feel less alone.  It was comforting to read the experiences of other women who had been "dumped" by a friend, such as novelist Jacqueline Mitchard, who shared her story with Suzanne. In fact, reading You Gotta Have Girlfriends felt like a heart to heart with a close friend, someone who understood everything I was feeling.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. It is a celebration of friendship, and a look into our deeply layered relationships. It is both encouraging and uplifting and clear-eyed about healthy boundaries. After reading it, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the close circle of women who surround me, and more at peace about the ones who left the circle.

As Suzanne says so elequently:

"In your gut, you know who your friends are. They are the ones people you choose over all others to spend your fiftieth birthday with. They root for you and they put up with you. They stand up for you and they stand by you. They patiently teach you how to use your smart phone (and can be trusted not to tell your kids you couldn’t figure it out yourself). They listen sympathetically when you need to vent. They know when you are hurt or angry and how to patch things up. And they make you laugh."

Do yourself a favor and buy this book today (at only $1.99, how can you NOT buy it?), and then, share it with ALL your girlfriends.
http://www.openroadmedia.com/you-gotta-have-girlfriends

A few words from some of Suzanne's girlfriends.....

“Suzanne Braun Levine made me understand why I always envied older women . . . life just gets better—more outrageous, more radical, more passionate, less fraught, wiser, deeper, and kinder.” 
—Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues
“Levine takes us beyond the frontier of our own expectations and into a new and hope-filled stage of life.” 
—Gloria Steinem

** I was honored to meet Suzanne at the Women At Woodstock conference last October where she sat in on a workshop Amy Ferris and I were leading, and then to have her on our Women Write their Lives panel at the San Miguel Writers Conference. We are thrilled that Suzanne referenced  Dancing at the Shame Prom in her chapter about overcoming shame. 

In Memory of Randy

This was our gang, a rag-tag group of rowdy kids. That’s me, the little squirt kneeling in the front row, and that’s Randy in the red and white baseball tee. Somehow our cohorts Laura, Dani and Bret didn’t end up in this picture.

We were a group of neighborhood kids who grew up together, played hide and seek and tag and kickball in the street. But more often that not, we were up to some kind of highjinks, and Randy was always the ringleader.

For instance, one night ( back then we were always out running the streets at night, a different era I guess) we wanted to see if we could stop a car with our sheer strength. So we laid a rope down across the street, then waited for a car – several of us on each side of the street, hiding. When the car came, Randy yelled “PULL!” and we each pulled our end of the rope like a tug of war game. Of course it ended in the car screeching to a stop as someone’s dad jumped out of the car threatening to tan our hides while we all scrambled off into the bushes.

Randy was an imp, a feisty kid who was good at sports and no matter what we did, he was always the team captain. Every day he would challenge Laura, a sweet, shy girl,  to “Punch me in the stomach as hard as you can!” He walloped Dani upside the head one day and she turned him in to the principal- which caused a rift they would laugh about years later.

Randy and I just happened to have the same last name (Holmes) so we always ended up sitting next to each other at every assembly, and later, in home rooms.

As we grew up, Randy and I lost contact. He went off to play football for a different High School, and  ended up moving to Texas. Through the miracle of facebook, we reconnected a few years ago. What fun we had retelling the zany stories from “back in the day”. Later, we got into real conversations about life, our families, our kids, and I got to know Randy in a way I hadn’t before.

He was married to the love of his life, Sarah, and they’d had two great kids, Katie and Riley. Riley was a football player, just like his dad, heading off to college, Katie still in High school.

Randy, a true Texas conservative since leaving L.A., would razz me on facebook about my love for President Obama- but always in good fun- the same kind of ribbing he delivered as a kid. He liked to tease, but always with a good heart. He truly had a good heart. He followed my blog, and would write to tell me when a particular post had inspired him.

One day in 2010, Randy wrote to tell me that his wife Sarah had been diagnosed with cancer, but they were fighting. He and Riley shaved their heads in solidarity as she underwent chemo treatments. Sarah kept a blog about her experience and I became one of her loyal readers, always commenting, sending prayers. Randy was so happy in 2011 when he wrote to tell me Sarah was declared cancer free.

Last July, when we got the contract for Dancing at the Shame Prom, this is what Randy wrote me:

Hollye,

Congrats on your contract. You are proof that hanging tough pays off. Don't abandon your memoir, the market will come around, and you will become famous, and people will want to learn more about you. I have to say that you inspired me - all the hardships overcome. While we were children I had no idea. Now, your life is clearly blessed. As is mine. Sarah was just declared cancer free for the second time! I have learned a lot from her perseverance, fighting, being strong, and being positive... she and you have a lot in common in that regard. Keep following your dreams, love the family, and don't let anybody get in your way.

Love, Randy

A few months ago, Dani was in Austin on a business trip and made plans to hang out with Randy and Sarah. When Randy came to pick Dani up at her hotel, he told her they’d gotten some awful news that day – Sarah’s cancer had come back, and she’d been given three months to live. Randy still wanted Dani to come over, Sarah really wanted to meet her and especially to hear stories about Randy’s childhood. Dani said, in spite of the circumstance, they laughed and told stories and had the best time that night and that Sarah was a great woman, a bright light. Dani planned to return to Austin this Summer, and prayed Sarah would still be around.

Dani and I made a pact that we would be there for Randy when Sarah passed- we were, after all, a touchstone for him.

A few weeks ago, I got a message from a family friend on Sarah’s blog that Sarah was close to the end. Yesterday, when I saw another email from this same person, my stomach tensed as I steeled myself against what I assumed would be the news of Sarah’s passing.

What I did not expect was to hear that Randy had passed away the night before, as Sarah lay dying in her hospital bed.

My eyes filled with tears, my mind spun in panic. Did I read that right?

I had to have my husband come and read the email, to make sure I wasn’t in shock. He confirmed it. Sarah was still clinging to life in a hospital. Randy had passed away.

Dani, Laura and I got on the phone, all of us in tears, in shock. How could this be? Inside, we still feel like we’re just that gang of neighborhood kids. How could one of us be gone?

My mind has reached the only conclusion it could: Randy could not live without his Sarah. I wish I could make sense of this. My heart aches for Katie and Riley - much too young to be without both their parents. I wish there were something we could do to ease their overwhelming loss. I hope they will read this and know what their dad meant to a group of neighborhood kids, long, long ago, in a life so far away.

A few months, ago, when Sarah got really, really sick, Randy stopped writing. He was trying every last ditch effort to save Sarah, experimental treatments…anything.

This was the last exchange we had:

(me)

Randy,

Just want you to know I am thinking of you and your family and praying for you. I am so sorry for how hard life has been on you all. I wish there were something I could do.

Sending love,

Hollye

(Randy)

Thank you, Hollye. Just keep sending the love. Sarah is amazingly strong and positive. She truly inspires me. We will get through this. We had a great visit with Dani last Friday, (I got her a little drunk on merlot, but she wont admit it). I look forward to seeing all the Rhoda street crowd.

Randy

All the Rhoda street crowd misses you, Randy. We will always remember your crazy antics, and your deep love for your family. We will continue to pray for Riley and Katie, and for Sarah as she makes her way to you.

We salute you Randy, for all the fun memories you left us.  I hope you are creating mischief and poking fun up in Heaven as you await your beloved Sarah.

Rest in peace, my friend.

Randy Holmes on right, Charles Holt blowing bubble, Lori Silverman with her arm around me, Beverly Nelson Peters poking her head out behind us. Vonda Shepard in front, Sherri Lamanuzzi back row. 

UPDATE: I just got off the phone with Randy and Sarah's beautiful son Riley. Sarah passed away this morning. They say she died with a smile on her face.

Rest in peace forever, Randy and Sarah. May you be guardian angels watching over Riley and Katie for all their lives. God Bless You.