Ode to Jessi

My dear friend Jessi, who worked in New Delhi for over a year, has finally returned to Minnesota. Whether it is just a brief stopover between journeys to exotic lands or a permanent relocation back to the Mini-Apple, I’m just happy that I’ll get to see her again.

It’s hard to believe that we’ve known each other for sixteen years. It was in Miss Gibson’s 8th grade Social Studies class when she first complimented me on a bead necklace I’d made (bead necklaces being all the rage at the time). I let her borrow the necklace for the entirety of fifth period.

When the bell rang signaling the end of class, Jessi dutifully removed the string of beads from around her neck and handed it back to me. At that moment, I knew that this was a girl who kept her word, and that day would mark the beginning of an enduring friendship.

Over the course of the next year or so, we passed notes to each other in class, went to movies and shopping malls together on weekends, and laughed a whole heckuva lot.

I loved going over to her place because her parents had the coolest house of anyone I knew, filled with furniture and artifacts from their many travels to places like Europe, Africa, and Asia. Her dad had an office at the back of the house with wood-paneled walls, upon which were framed pictures of jazz musicians, old movie posters, and family snapshots. He had a placard on his desk which read: “Expect nothing; accept this moment.” It was perhaps my first glimpse into the concept of mindfulness.

In those days, Jessi and I would spend hours lounging in her massive bedroom or watching movies on the futon in her parents’ basement. There was lots of drooling over the likes of Christian Slater, River Phoenix, and Ethan Hawke. We were head-over-heels boy crazy, yet still perfectly innocent. Romance was nothing more than a foreign concept to us; something seen in movies or on TV, but certainly not something we’d ever experienced firsthand. All of that would come in time . . .

On one of the first warm days of spring toward the end of our freshman year of high school, Jessi suggested that we “toss around the ol’ pigskin.” We went outside and had a blast, even though there wasn’t a whole lot of catching involved . . . it was more like her tossing the ball, and me clumsily grasping at it, only to have it fall with a loud CLUNK to the hard concrete, or vice versa.

Both very skinny and uncoordinated, we had delusions of grandeur when it came to softball: namely, that we could play it. Even though all odds were stacked against us, we decided to try out for our high school’s softball team the following week.

After two weeks of grueling tryouts and a dislocated index finger (I’ve never seen any of my appendages turn so black-and-blue), we were taken aside by the team’s coach – along with two other girls, Shira and Naomi – who told us, in so many words, that the only place they had for us was on the bench.

Jessi took the whole thing very well, but I was traumatized. She sat with me on the stairs leading up to our the high school’s east entrance while we waited for my mom to pick us up. Tears welled up in my eyes.

“Aw, come on,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “It’s not so bad, really.”

“Yes it is,” I replied, sniveling.

At that moment, a fellow student with frizzy hair and outdated clothes came walking up the stairs toward us.

“You know,” she said, softly enough so that the boy couldn’t hear, “It could be worse. At least you’re not that guy.”

Wiping tears from my eyes, I erupted into giggles at the poor guy’s expense. And you know what? I felt much better afterwards. Thanks, Jess.

Sadly, our relationship hit the rocks few months later, at the beginning of 10th grade. I’d been away at summer camp for most of June and July, and I suppose it was only natural that we would drift apart during that time. Now, Jessi was spending more and more time with the druggy crowd (as would I, in years to come). Meanwhile, I had formed a little clique with some of the girls I knew through volleyball.

I remember the two of us standing by the vending machines in the school cafeteria shortly after the school year had begun, hurling insults at each other. I criticized her strange new fashion sense: wearing a stocking cap at all hours of the day, even when she was indoors; meanwhile, she criticized me for being shallow. We didn’t talk for at least three weeks after that, which – at the time – seemed like an eternity. But we made up, and before long we were double-dating two fellas who happened to be best friends. Since Dan and Andy hung out together all the time, by default so did we.

Jessi and I competed over which couple was the cutest.

“Andy and I are definitely cuter,” she would say.

“No way. Dan and I are,” I’d retort.

In the end, neither couple was cute enough to withstand the fickle passions of youth. Our relationships with Dan and Andy barely lasted through the spring. Jessi and I commiserated at a sleepover party shortly after the respective breakups, listening to Nine Inch Nails’ “A Warm Place,” on repeat for the entire night. There were lots of tears, and it was perhaps that sleepover which cemented our friendship.

We worked hard and we played equally hard. We were both passionate writers – and later, editors – for the school’s newspaper, the Echo. (Incidentally, so were Naomi and Shira, the aforementioned girls who’d also been cut from the softball team freshman year.)

Senior year, Jessi and I started thinking about college. We both got the same score on our ACT exams: 26 (not bad for having winged it), and wanted to get into the same college so that we could room together. Our top two choices were the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus or UW-Madison. We took a road trip with our parents to the latter. It was a five-hour drive each way, and our parents drove separately. I remember listening to The Beatles the whole way there and back, proudly toting a Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster that I’d bought at a shop in Madison. I planned to put it up on our dormitory wall, wherever that may be.

As it turns out, we chose the U of M. Jessi didn’t think her grades were high enough to go to Madison and, although I might have been accepted, I couldn’t bear the thought of going without her. So, the U of M it was. We made plans to room together at Middlebrook Hall, the lone dormitory on the U’s West Bank, mostly because it had semi-private bathrooms and smoker-friendly floor plans.

Lots of debauchery transpired in that dorm room in the 1140′s wing of Middlebrook Hall. The girls in our wing were wild, and so were we. Our motto was: “They don’t call us the 40′s wing for nothin’,” and – believe me – 40-ouncers were just the beginning. Because they were the cheapest option for students like us on a shoestring budget, our beers of choice were Natty Ice and Milwaukee’s Beast. [Wretch.]

At least twice a week, Carrie (a girl down the hall) would knock on our door and ask: “You guys got any rolling papers?”

The answer was always the same: “Yes, Carrie . . . c’mon in.” (Why we didn’t just buy her some of her own rolling papers is beyond me.)

Sophomore year, Jessi and I separated for the first time. We had each enrolled in the National Student Exchange, and would be spending the school year at different schools. Although we were both heading west, we’d be very far apart, geographically: I’d be in New Mexico and she’d be in Oregon.

In February of that year, Jessi’s dad died unexpectedly. I didn’t come home for the funeral, even though I’d probably grown closer to her dad than to my own (whom I seldom saw; my parents had split when I was in grade school). Jessi moved back to Minnesota and took some time off from school while I finished my sophomore year in Albuquerque.

Junior year, I was back at the U of M. Jessi and I roomed together again in a big, old (read: dilapidated) house on the U’s East Bank. We shared the space with six other twentysomethings, not counting whatever random drunkards happened to crash on our couch on any given week. We had a lot of fun (read: drank a lot of beer) and, although Jessi and I had grown apart, we shared many of the same friends. That is, until she joined the Minnesota Daily and I spent a semester abroad.

The rift that had formed between us widened further. Following graduation, we went our separate ways. We’d meet occasionally for dinner and drinks, but our friendship wasn’t the same. I moved to the East Coast for a few years, eventually moving back home to Minneapolis (yet again). It was only then that we began to reaquaint.

Within the first half of 2007, we both got sober. My first stint at sobriety lasted 18 months; hers has continued through today. She’s rapidly approaching the 3-year mark, and I’m very proud of her.

When she left for India in September 2008, I was full of mixed emotions. India was so far away, and we had only started to mend the mangled pieces of a friendship that had been buried beneath years of addiction. Now, after more than a year, we’ll meet for dinner once again. I’ll get to hear her stories of travel to strange lands, and she’ll get to hear my stories of love, loss, and making art. I can hardly believe that I’ll soon be face-to-face with one of my oldest pals.

Edna Buckman said, “Friends are the family we choose for ourselves.” Indeed, Jessi is like a sister in many ways, though we don’t share the same DNA. I’ve known her for nearly two-thirds of my life, and shared countless experiences – good and bad, with her. Each of us has wrestled our fair share of metaphorical demons and – for the most part – emerged victorious.

And now, Jessi has come home. Whether it’s just for a moment or for a lifetime, I feel very blessed.

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