Pieces of you...when a friend shows they are something and someone else.
Why you should learn something new about the ones you love.
Years ago a friend made me a mix tape featuring The Cure’s Pictures of You. Between her ornate handwriting and Robert Smith’s British accent I thought the song was called pieces of you.
“I’ve been looking so long at these pieces of you that I almost believe that they’re real.”
It felt a bit gory, like the talismans of a serial killer, but still romantic to my middle school self.
Years later when Jewel came out with “Pieces of You” I had already decoded The Cure’s song, but I still felt she had co-opted the title. Sort of like Crossroads. And Crossroads. And crossroads.
Since New Year’s eve I have had my friend’s cake pan. It is a spring form pan. The type that I can never quite work, and now that I have ceded all baking to Steve I never need to. This friend is a published author, an accomplished consultant, and an artist, yet somehow to me she has become deeply identified with this pan. I remember her setting it on the counter with a new recipe to go with her new diet. How her eyes sparkled. How her enthusiasm, that so far I had only seen in the context of work or friendship suddenly had me re-setting her in the kitchen. This one piece made me add to my mental picture of her. She was warm and gooey like her cake.
The longer I know someone the more pieces I collect.
My high school boyfriend had one functional eye. I hid this fact from my parents when he picked me up in the mostly yellow beetle, primer on one flank, rear engine that would erupt in fire three months into our relationship. He should have been a bad driver. But he shifted his car like he played guitar, strong and gentle together. Responsive and directive. I liked the opposites. When we couldn’t think of anything to do and we had said everything it felt like we could say I would ask to go for a drive. And watch his tan hand on the gear shift.
My mother let me play hooky from school one day a year. We would go to Drumlin Farms or have tuna fish sandwiches on our porch while flipping through garden catalogs. This was my mother, the academic who had spent her life in an ivory tower. No matter how dictatorial she could seem (which with the benefit of hindsight is not at all) I would remember those days when she asked to edit my essays and gave me shit for quitting Latin. There were times when she encouraged me to break rules. Even school rules.
In my early days of motherhood when I had lost myself I called a friend. I was wearing a three day old milkstained shirt and was pushed up next to a mesh gate that clipped onto our bed to keep the co-sleeping baby safe. Said baby, despite weighing less than our cat, had thrown her arms wide in her little gown and was taking up most of the bed. I had no idea what time of day it was. I had not slept for longer than 90 minutes in 7 months. My friend was the mother of two. Calm, ever calm. She wore slings and had adult conversations. She had fresh fruit in a hand carved wooden bowl on her dining room table. She was my beautiful beacon of attachment parenting. I had called her for the pep talk. “You are doing the right thing. It’s OK if you are an empty husk because there are so benefits to the baby. Blah blah.”
But instead she said “Get that baby out of your bed.” She was strong and firm. “You will be giving her a gift.” “Not to mention yourself.” Just put her in her crib or have Steve do it. Then go to sleep. Or listen to her cry but it will work out.”
Three days later I had come back from the half dead and she had me for tea. She held my baby in one arm, pouring water into hand thrown mugs while gently directing her two kids back to their art project of coloring on gourds. With her raw milk and handmade baby food I had overgeneralized her parenting style. Now I added in her boundaries. Raw milk is not the whole story.
Even when we love people, and really, really know them we forget how full they are of bits not yet revealed. It is these, the urbane friend at home in the kitchen, my mother blowing off the school day, the friend who put me in my place instead of feeding me the lines I expected to hear.
So I have started looking for these pieces. They become stories, but not the stories you would have told yourself.
Do you remember any middle school mix (mixed?) tapes? Who was on it?
Even with the friends I live with there are always new aspects to them to discover - experiences they've gone through, strongly held opinions, seemingly contradictory personality traits.
I also think it's easy to put people in a well-defined box, especially when you haven't seen them in a while (fading memories can turn them into a caricature) or have a fractious relationship with them.
This was my favorite one yet!