50
Fifty.
You know when you glance at the odometer of your car’s dashboard and realize you’re about to hit a mileage milestone, like 20,000 or 30,000? The higher the number, the more meaningful it becomes when you stop to think about the journey you’ve been on, the destinations you’ve traveled to, the great road trips taken, the days where you’ve needed to turn the radio on full blast to help conquer a stormy mood. You wistfully remember when you first bought your car how you swore you’d take great care of it and keep it sparkling clean, only to find, umpteen trips to the car wash later, that it still bears evidence of spilled lattes, straw wrappers, loose change and goldfish crackers. It’s messy, but really, that’s okay. Because life is messy.
Last weekend, the Muses hit their own milestone. Somewhere along the way, in our almost 11 years together, we’ve read 50 books. Because my list-keeping has been thwarted by computer upgrades, mysterious file names and the sheer passage of time, we may actually be at 51 or 52. But, the headline remains that we’ve now shared 50 journeys together, as was our stated mission when we first gathered together on a rainy, windswept autumn evening back in 2000. As I pulled up to Jade’s driveway that very first night, golden light streamed through the front windows of her home -- a welcoming beacon if ever there was one. We dined on jerk chicken and drank spiced rum punch, teasing each other about how to pronounce the characters’ names in the group’s first-ever read, White Teeth. (Is it Mag-id or Majeed?)
We were just five that night. Soon to be six, then quickly seven and eight. And with that, we were sealed. Others have courted, pleaded, and cajoled, but eight we remain, with room for each of us to have a voice.
We’ve traveled the globe -- we’ve been shipwrecked in the Antarctic, sailed to the Hawaiian islands from Bora Bora, journeyed to Bangladesh, Jamaica, France, Italy, England, Cuba, Greece, Chile, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Ireland, Ethiopia, Spain, Germany, China, Nigeria, the Belgian Congo, to name just a few.
Closer to home, we’ve witnessed the Gold Rush in New Almaden, explored 1970s-era San Francisco, visited the Deep South, and wandered through Chinatown in the 1930s.
Our literary journeys have been paralleled by own our travel adventures via planes, trains, automobiles (and, yes, boats, too) to bring our group together as often as possible, no matter the geography.
We’ve clinked our champagne flutes, popped many a wine cork, and been seduced by deceptively strong mojitos and fertility cocktails.
We’ve feasted like kings! A cookbook’s worth of recipes, to be sure -- many innovated, some adapted, and some delivered in to-go containers from the restaurant down the street. Fried chicken and biscuits, French onion soup, baked brie, pemican, dolmas, baccalitos, purple potatoes, hamburgers & milkshakes, bistilla, orange peel beef, chaat, samosas, shrimp bisque, paella, collard greens, cowboy steak, spinach salad, filet mignon, mussels, ceviche, quiche, roast pork, gougeres...and poi!
And for dessert? Pink-frosted birthday cake, bread pudding, apple pie, devil’s food cake, pavlova, blueberry ice cream, plum galette, lemon tart, chocolate volcano cake, checkerboard cake and so many, many more.
We’ve grown up together. We’ve fallen in and out of love, said “I do,” welcomed eight babies, started new jobs, purchased new homes and made cross-town and cross-country moves together. We’ve shared our biggest news, celebrated our happiest moments and confided our greatest heartbreaks. We’ve laughed until we’ve cried and we’ve cried until we’ve laughed...No matter how incomprehensible the challenge, we’ve leaned on each other when we no longer felt like standing.
And that, my dear Muses, is the most extraordinary gift of friendship I could ask for.
I can hardly wait for our 100,000 mile tune-up.
In a word, it’s been glorious.
Ruth May lives.
