Back to Oprah’s interracial segment…it brought back the pain of being under society’s microscope with my childhood romance, faced by a sea of people who didn’t know us but nevertheless passed judgement and were concerned about my lilly white social standing.  I loved Lance, a hilarious, warm-hearted national honors student; well as much as a 14-year old can who is in marching band, wears leg warmers and passes notes in study hall.  But the experience of having our relationship revealed by cold-war worthy spies, running into opposition we couldn’t overcome despite his articulate pleas and having to give up him (a first love I so cherished) changed me and my heart forever.  It ripped the shiny, happy veneer off the whole world, taught me that elders aren’t always wise and put me square in the path of pain and inequity.

I lived life my sophomore year of high-school through his eyes and that of his forefathers and mothers. It wasn’t pretty and I’m not sure it’s ever left the depths of my soul. It did however give me a lasting appreciation and deep-gut fire to fight for the equal rights of society’s less equal. I’ve often wondered what would have come of us if we would have been permitted to date like normal footballers and cheerleaders (OK geeky debaters and first-chair saxophone players)  Remarkably, we were pretty darned compatible and chemistry-laden. An answer was not to be, which is probably better given our combined nappy hair quotient.

The good news? Lance and I have survived over twenty years of tumult to be fabulous friends and joke that we will still be trading sarcastic barbs and stories of youth (if our memories hold) in the nursing home. Perhaps fate will have the last laugh. I thank and celebrate him for sticking by me and us through thick, thin, my pain-soaked attempts to shut him out and the driveway screaming and dissapproval imposed by others.  For those in the know, two words- Depeche Mode. We are bound forever by love found, love lost and lasting friendship – our own little interracial tragi-comic E! True Hollywood Story. And I feel positive we both smile as we look at the 50-year old ebony and ivory couple in the Belden Village Friendlys “Loving”ly sharing the sundae spoon, knowing that in time, everyone comes around to the right way of thinking. 

I have a dream and it is no longer a nightmare. 

TLRG

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If you’re interested in the play-by-play, my efforts to kill this menacing, full-bodied creature with the lethal crush of a paper towel ball were in vain as it slunk off into the dank dark recesses under my antique wardrobe.  All day I heard the tick-tock of my office clock and thought, is it poisonous?  Like Ahmadinejad, will it bite me unprovoked? Thank God for the Internet. Not only can you peruse stupid human tricks on YouTube but also all varieties of house spiders, venomous and non.  Does it matter that they don’t have teeth? Are eight legs really more potent than six? And what exactly is the type marking of a toxic brown recluse? While I couldn’t determine precisely what spider I was dealing with, I surmised that it was lethal but not aggressive, no consolation to a woman who sleeps in her boxer shorts at night, limbs exposed. After the frighty-spidey incident, about all I know for sure is this: until further notice and until Gabrielle Aubry comes by, I’m putting on my battle armor of sweat pants, long-sleeved tees and socks every night, Indian summer be damned. Better safe and sweaty than sorry.

Caught in Charlotte’s Web,

TLRG

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