by Kris Radish
Blah, blah, blah. My mind is wandering around like a Prozac-dosed rat. I like to think that I'm the one out here with no problems who simply came along for the ride, but these days of solitude and walking and frying my brains in the sun have taught me that is definitely not true. In just a few days, I am already looking at myself differently and that thought causes me to wonder how in the world these women are dealing with everything that must be clanging around in their heads.
Not that we haven't talked about it. Shit, people think we are out here praying or something and really, we talk all the time, and the night we stayed at that farmhouse was like the slumber party of the year. So we talk about this, about why we came, about when we might stop, about who we will all be when this is over.
Here's what's on my rambling brain as we struggle up a little hill: underwear, bad shoes, what I might have to do next to get one of my pals through this experience. Am I in a drug-induced flashback? I'm the one who came along because she thought it would be fun, and because I worried that I might have to drive one of my pals to the hospital in Milwaukee where women go who forget to take their hormone pills on a regular basis.
Fun at all costs, that's always been my motto and especially if there was something happening that I could write about. But now, this very second—as we are pushing down the highway and our butts are being followed by some goofy cop hanging his head out of the squad car and whistling and about twelve reporters who make me want to vomit—now, I'm wondering if this might not be the most meaningful thing I have ever done.
I'm pushing fifty these days and definitely not interested in some fucking premenopausal “spiritually moving” experience. I'm the quintessential tough broad who always knows where she's going and where she's been. Everyone thinks Alice is the mom of this bunch but it's me, it's always been me. Here, and pretty much everywhere else I've ever been.
For these women, these pals of mine, this walk or pilgrimage or whatever in the hell the media has taken to calling it by now, is something spiritually moving and life altering. During the past sixteen or so months, I have listened to and watched each one of them expose a torturous moment in their lives that has drawn them to this moment. A rape, death, lost love, mental illness, the bumps and dips of life—there is a story of great loss or love or longing that has slowly worked its way loose from each one of their souls.
And oh, my God, how I have relished watching them turn to face themselves in the mirror. The transformations, the relief—the relief has been an amazing portrait of life. Everything that I have done and seen has flashed before my eyes once again because of them. Because I have witnessed most conceivable human emotions, because they let me witness their march back, and now, finally forward and into something—a place or state of mind or whatever we will get to when we are finished.
I see myself as the great chronicler of life. The journalist who has finally come to this remote area with her man and books and writing instruments to try and touch a quiet side of life that I have ignored all the years of my past. So maybe that is the reason I am here. Maybe I am walking into my own tranquillity here, or better yet, away from the madness that was my constant companion for thirty years.
I have been to war and witnessed many forms of death and dying. I have traveled the world and slept in huts and crawled through the tunnels of darkness beneath a sagging river on my belly. In my arms, one hundred women have wept for the loss of their babies. Men powerful enough to destroy the world have whispered into my ear. I have jumped from airplanes and slithered down the side of a burning mountain. Bullets have whizzed through the edges of my hair, and one morning I walked across a valley as wide as all the plains of Kansas to witness, in the quiet of the wilds, the birth of thousands of birds who filled the fields with a frenzy of wicked chanting.
I had no regrets, and I was happy. I chose not to have children whom I could not be there for. The man I eventually married kept watch over me like a bright-eyed hawk, and he waited, waited patiently. On the day that I came to him and told him I was ready for this quiet part of my life, he was ready too.
“Take me to the farm now, Alex,” I whispered as we drove home toward the apartment for the millionth time from the Chicago airport.
“We'll drive out there tomorrow,” he said, trying to maneuver through traffic.
“No, now please, I want to go now and I never want to go anyplace else, ever, please.”
Alex knew then that I was pleading.
“What is it? What happened?”
“Nothing happened, honey. It's time, it's just time to be quiet.”
He was quiet himself then, thinking, I know, wondering, I'm certain, if this was really going to happen, if he was finally going to be able to live with this crazy woman he had pursued across several continents for most of his adult life.
“Are you scared?” I asked him before he could say anything else. “Worried that you might not like waking up with me every morning for the next thirty years?”
“Thirty, huh,” he grunted. “You're pushing your luck, Cat Lady.”
“No more Cat Lady. This is my ninth life. The one I'm sticking with.”
It took another half hour for him to believe me. First we pulled up to the apartment and he hopped out, expecting me to follow him. But I didn't. I never went back into that apartment. Ever.
We drove three hours to the farm that very night two years ago. The farm is one of those goofy “hobby farms” where city dwellers retire. It occupies about forty-five acres of land on the edge of a huge, real farm. Alex had built a house there before we met, adopted several scruffy dogs to fill up the yard, and spent the hours he wasn't working as a marketing specialist on one of those big lawn tractors. When I moved to the farm, I made him let every piece of land we own go wild.
But I have to admit, I lied about never leaving our quiet retreat again. I occasionally take an out-of-state magazine assignment, though I pretty much spend most of my time writing and on the phone from the farm, talking to people who have yet to come in from the cold, cruel world. I'm working on a biography of obscure writers who died before everyone thought they were supposed to, and I'm trying hard to get up enough courage to work on a novel.
Mostly, Alex and I sit around like a couple of old farts and talk about how wonderful we are and how great our lives have been. He still drives to Chicago three days a week to work on his advertising campaigns, and works the rest of the time out here in heifersville.
There have been some days when we don't bother to get dressed, and finally one of us looks up and becomes frightened by what the other person looks like.
“Jesus Christ,” I'll mumble. “Alex, you look like hell. How about a shower, big fella? The dogs are scratching at the door.”
“They're after you, Christine.”
“In your dreams. The dogs love me.”
“The dogs?”
“Yeah, the damn dogs. They think I'm Elizabeth Arden.”
“These are the same dogs who tried to make it with the garden hose.”
“Oh, shut up,” I yell, throwing a ragged couch pillow toward his face.
And on it goes until we realize someone is supposed to come over or we need to drive into Granton to get groceries. One of those zippy drives brought me into the lives of these women with the inappropriate shoes. Sandy Balenga was standing on one of those little stools in the produce department separating a bunch of jalapeños from red chili peppers. I watched her for a while from over by the red peppers because I was trying to figure out what in the hell she was looking for in there. Then she dipped forward and fell right into it.
“Shit!” she screeched, and I knew that perhaps I had found a soul sister out here in the wilderness.
I yanked her back out of the midst of red pepper hell. “There's pepper juice all over your face.”
“Do you like hot peppers?” she asked as the juice ran down her face and dripped onto her sweatshirt.
“As a matter of fact I'm fairly crazy about hot peppe
rs.” I wiped off her face with one of those soft, spongy tray liners kept beneath fresh vegetables.
“What in the hell are you looking for?”
“Oh, I dropped one of my priceless bracelets into the bin while I was flicking one of those little fruit flies off my hand,” she said, holding out her right arm, adorned with at least twenty bracelets. “The jewelry is a forties thing, you know, and the one that fell in here is from some old hippie from Montana. That sucker was really special to me.”
So that pepper juice bonding (and the profanities) formed our critical connection. Within about ten seconds, I was ready to reveal all the deep secrets of my heart. We're talking about periods, sex positions, favorite old rock groups and our need for freedom—in a matter of moments. This quick leap into a new woman friend's arms wasn't as if I had ventured out into the great world of rural friendliness since I'd quit one life for another. I had a hard enough time simply getting out of bed in the morning without a plane ticket in my hand. Worrying about friendship had not been a high priority for me, but Sandy floated out of those peppers and into my life when I didn't even know how badly I needed a friend.
When I left my fast-paced journalist-on-the-go world to try my hand at the contemplative world, I had no idea how quickly I would miss all that human contact. Getting into the silent groove was not as easy or as natural as I had expected, so when Sandy popped into view, I found a wonderful friendship I didn't even know I was looking for.
“Listen,” she said that first day, hands on hips, pepper seeds in her ears, “what are you doing tonight?”
“Well, let's see. There's happy hour at five, and then I have to try and convince my husband to make us something to eat, maybe a few hours of work. That's my thrill-filled plan. Why?”
“There's this bunch of women I know, we get together on a pretty regular basis to just bitch and moan. Our husbands think we're studying books or something, but we just use those for props so they don't get pissed that we're having so much fun.”
“What the hell,” I said. “I really don't know anyone else around here.”
That night I was amazed at the incredible women who sat around me in Sandy's living room. They all seemed so different and yet so alike. I felt mesmerized. Maybe it had been so long since I'd sat around like that, with women who had real lives, that I was just in a state of shock. Everything felt like normal but yet it was all so odd to me because I had never done things like go to Tupperware parties or baby showers, because I was always catching planes and writing stories on the floors of bathrooms in Nairobi.
“So,” J.J. said. “Tell us about yourself, Chris.”
That was a question I was used to asking, so that's what I told them. That I was a woman who usually asked the questions but was finally looking for my own answers instead of making someone else do it.
What I remember most about that evening was that all seven of the women listened to me. I could tell from the way that they leaned into each other, touching arms and hands, and legs, that they had genuine affection for each other, too. They were in a way like new lovers who can't seem to get enough of each other and think if they let go or stop touching, the other person will fly right off the chair and disappear.
Suddenly, just sitting there on the edge of Sandy's plastic kitchen chair, I knew I wanted a piece of this action, to plug into this energy. I wanted all those women to love me and to call me and to stop over for a glass of wine and a walk through the woods. And so I said it, right there, moments after I met them.
“I need some friends,” I told them honestly. “I've never been in one place long enough to have a real friend or to know what to do with one. Friends. I really need friends.”
Well, hell's bells, it was like kicking over a lantern and starting the barn on fire. I've never heard so many goddamned “oohs” and “ahhs” in my life.
“According to some people, we're about the friendliest group of people in the world,” Gail said as if she were drinking at Cheers. She was straddling a huge bar stool as if she were riding a horse. “We're so good at being friends, we formed this here club just so we could sit around and look at each other.”
“Geez,” I answered brightly. “Sign me up before you change your minds.”
I did sign up, which meant I would just come and hang out with them at their make-believe Bible meetings and for that privilege, although it was never spoken out loud, I knew that I had to turn over the keys to whatever I had inside of my heart.
Oh shit, how I love these women! I have studied their faces, watched them open up and share their deepest secrets, held them as they sobbed into the banana bread, tried to understand the unique qualities that have brought us all together. As we wobble up this road, there isn't one of these women I wouldn't die for, or kill for. These women have become my oasis, and their lives, so different from my own, have turned my own life into a sweet secret that gives me a strength and happiness I have never had before.
CHAPTER FOUR
IF IT'S POSSIBLE to not think and talk about everything in the entire universe, the group of women walking through a remote section of Wisconsin and wearing an assortment of clothing that appears to have been shanghaied from a St.Vincent de Paul delivery truck, has definitely not been told this startling fact.
Nor do they know that across the country, thousands of women are telling their husbands, boyfriends, girlfriends, lovers, would-be lovers, and just about anyone else who might irritate them in the next fifty seconds to fuck off. Virtually every daily newspaper in the free world has carried some story about the seven women who have seemingly thrown caution to the wind.
Even if they had a moment to stop and think about how their walk might affect the 52 percent of human beings who share the same anatomy, the women walking down Highway P have focused on issues that do affect all women. They have already spent an hour talking about labor pains, with another thirty-five minutes devoted to a discussion about how their men and children are getting along, and now as the sun is close to its peak they are so engrossed in a discussion about the joys of sex past age forty that they do not even notice the many cars passing them, slowing down and almost stopping when the drivers and passengers spot them.
One car does make J.J. pause in midsentence, because it is yellow and she loves yellow, as she is describing the day she crossed over from good sex to really great sex. J.J. has not noticed that the blue Toyota directly behind her belongs to her but is actually driven by her daughter Jess 99.9 percent of the time. When she hears Jess shout, “Hey, Ma,” she throws her hand over her mouth just as the word orgasm escapes from her extremely dry lips.
“Don't call me Ma, you know I hate that,” J.J. shouts back, as her daughter and three friends roll with her step by step. “What are you doing here?”
“Ma, you're all over the news, and Dad is back, and he brought all his stuff and hey, we think this is really cool what you're doing.”
“Cool? Who said you could take the car?”
“Come on, Ma, it's lunch break and we just had to get over here and tell you how cool this is.”
“Look, sweetheart, we're just walking, and it's not something for anyone else but us. Do you understand that?”
“No.”
“Well, it's just something we're doing, and someday I'll tell you all about it, but you really shouldn't be out here. Is everything okay at home?”
“Caitlin and I cleaned the house yesterday, and we made dinner and I broke up with Jason. He laughed when he heard what you were doing, so I told him to go to hell.”
Chris is now looking at J.J. and trying hard not to laugh. J.J. has walked over to her car window but the car and all the women are still moving. They are trying hard not to forget about all the sex stories they want to share once J.J.'s daughter leaves. Jess keeps talking. She is hanging out of the window, and her best friend Meggie is concentrating so hard on not running over anyone that she looks like she is sitting on something pointy.
“Oh, yeah, I forgot all the gu
ys, you know everyone's husbands and everything. They all got together at Chris's house, and they were there for a long time, and they aren't talking to anyone at all because they have some kinda pact or something. They had so much fun, they're getting together Friday night at our house, and Caitlin and I are sleeping over at Pam's house.”
“You know, baby, I don't need to hear any of this right now. We were just having a great talk about sex and now we have to start over.”
“Mom!”
“Well, honey, seventeen-year-old girls aren't the only people who talk and think about sex.”
Inside the car the other three girls snickered, and Jess has put her head in her hands and is blushing.
“Listen,” J.J. tells Jess softly, “don't tell anyone you came out here, and try to find a way to let the others know that we really, really need to be left alone.”
“Mom . . .”
“This isn't about you or your father or anything in the whole world but us, just us. Hey, you know how you feel about the girls in the car with you?”
Jess lifts her head off of her arms, smiles at her mother and reaches her hand out of the car to touch J.J.'s face.
“You love those girls, don't you, baby?”
“Yes, they're my best friends, and we talk about everything and I just, well, I love them, yes, I love them, Mom.”
“See these women here?” J.J. says, sweeping her hand out in front of her chest. “You know all of them and you know that I love them and they are my friends and that I would do anything for them.”
“Mom,” Jess says, her voice shaking and hoarse. “Mom, don't you know that you were my first best friend? Don't you know that you taught me how to be a friend, how to stay a friend, how to keep a friend in my heart?”
