End of waiting

This morning it snowed again. It was just some sparse flurries, but two weeks into March, a blizzard wouldn't have made me feel any worse. This winter has dragged on far too long. Even native Chicagoans are complaining of this endless cold spell. My baby pranced into school one morning this week announcing, "Shping is coming!" The day care teacher next to me muttered bitterly, "Yeah, in July."

Beside my usual irrational fear that I will never be warm again, I have a new panic: that summer will come and go as quickly and toothlessly as a San Antonio winter. Two weeks of tepid warmth will be all we're entitled to. I can't fathom the consequences of such a catastrophe. I would lose my already tenuous hold on sanity.

Just when I thought my mood couldn't plummet any lower, when the winter blues had me in a funk so deep I couldn't even speak to my husband who dragged me to such a God-forsaken place, a miracle occurred. In order to tell my story adequately, I have to go back over twenty years.

After high school, I spent a year in Israel, studying, exploring, testing limits, and being a teenager. I went by a silly nickname at the time whose origin I can hardly recall. On this international program, I met a young woman from England who rapidly became my best friend. She was a beautiful girl with long blond hair, a quick mind, and a slightly wicked sense of humor. My fondest memories of that year were wandering around lost in the Old City of Jerusalem with her on Shabbat. We would always set out with the same goal: to find the Russian church with the gold domes. Invariably, we ended up lost in the same Arab neighborhood, she, warily eyeing the inhabitants, me, blithely skipping along, stupidly fearless.

My friend was the one person I kept in touch with after that year. We wrote to each other for ten years. She moved to Israel soon after the year ended, studied at Hebrew University, and worked at the Biblical Museum. I visited her there five years after our program together, and we still managed to stay in touch. But time marched on. Her mom passed away around the time I married, and we lost track of each other. I tried writing a few times later, but I suspect she moved to a new apartment, and the letters never arrived.

Years passed and every so often I would think of her. At times, I would Google her. She shared a name with a human rights activist and an illustrator of children's book about the disabled. Not a chance, I would think.

About a year and a half ago, I received an email from some gentlemen putting together an alumni organization for my Israel program. I took it upon myself to try to track down the alumni from my year. I even set up a website. Amateurish, to be sure, but it was a labor of love. I had such fond memories of that year, and such a desperate curiosity to see where people ended up. Mostly, I hoped to reconnect with my dear friend. It took me a few months to set up the web site, and I began to search for friends in earnest. I was marginally successful, but I was still unable to find the one friend I couldn't bear to lose.

Last week, I found myself depressed and despairing. The endless winter encased me in gloom, and my busy, overwhelmed law school husband was consumed in exams and papers. Once again, I Googled my old friend. I scanned pages and pages of search results, when finally, on page seven or eight, I found her name on a list of Israeli tour guides. I emailed the company and asked them to have her contact me.

A few days later, I opened my email to find a message from my friend that began, "Yes, it's me!!!" My heart leapt. Spring had finally arrived, at least, metaphorically.

It's been a crazy few weeks that way; full of surprises. My kids -all of them, my biological children and my students alike - are going absolutely, in the words of a fellow Texan teacher at my school, "Bazooie!" I guess it's cabin fever. They're all fighting like cats and dogs. My baby is just going plain bonkers. She's been climbing on my desk, grabbing scissors or "sharpie" permanent markers, and doing as much damage as she can before I can wrestle the weapons of mess destruction from her chubby little hands.

I had a parent-teacher conference at her daycare this morning. The final report: my sweet, angel pushes, hits, grabs toys out of classmates hands, climbs the bookshelves, and eats the sequins off her class projects, but she does it all with a big, sweet smile on her face. She's two, I lamely explained. Her teachers nodded. "Yeah, she'll be fine. We just have to be consistent and firm with her." Good luck, I muttered under my breath.

I still don't get the point of these day care conferences. So my kid eats glue? What two year old doesn't?

She's not going to be two much longer. In fact, she's growing so fast it often takes my breath away. I was driving her to school this morning when she asked me to play the "Me-a-name-I-call-myse'f" song. "I like dat moowie" she told me. I nearly spit out my latte laughing.

This weekend we hit a big milestone. My baby was finally big enough to sit still for long enough to get a "haycut". After a crazy day comprised of an hour and twenty minute long piano lesson (the next student didn't show and the teacher lost track of time), the final swim lesson of the session (the kids got certificates!), and mass chaos at my children's school's Israel Fair, I decided, insanely, to take my kids for a haircut. We were exhausted, frazzled, frayed, and hungry. What better time to ask my children to sit still in front of people with sharp scissors?

As always, the big kids did great. My son patiently explained to the hairdresser that he wanted a "two on the sides and back, and a two-and-a-half on top". Then he proceeded to chat her ear off. My diva sat still as a statue, staring forlornly into the mirror. The baby fidgeted and watched. I asked her again, are you sure you don't want to try? You're such a big girl! It won't hurt!

This time, she solemnly conceded. I placed her on the booster, and the hairdresser placed a smock covered in colorful animals over her. She looked frightened, but at peace. And every time the hairdresser asked her to look up at her, my baby smiled a squinchy-nosed grin.

But she did it! She sat for her very first haircut ever. My Princess Crazy Hair is gone. Like my big swimmers, she also came home with a certificate. It read: "My Baby's First Haircut", and it included a snip of her babysoft brown curls taped on it. We celebrated by giving our big girl her first lollipop ever. She only had to wait two and a half years, which in the life of a toddler, is literally forever.

Waiting to find a long-lost friend only felt that way.

Waiting for Spring is another story altogether.