My youngest son, 9, dragged my sewing machine across the living room floor. I heard it before I saw it, heard the bump and lurch of white metal scrape old oak."What are you doing! Hey! You're scratching up the floor!"
I ran from the kitchen, wheat flour covering my hands, my chest. I rounded the corner to see 9 bent at the waist, both arms extended. My Singer groaned as 9 pulled, a rolled comic book stuffed under one armpit.
"Hey! Stop it! What are you doing!"
I wiped both hands on my jeans and a cloud of sifted meal floated to the floor. 9 let go of the machine, grabbed his comics, moved hands to butt and arched his back the way old men do when the morning cold hits swollen joints.
"You need to sew me something, Mom. It's an emergency."
A ridge of newly exposed wood grain trailed behind the appliance. A thousand other nicks and pits eddied around the groove, a river memoir of running dogs and boot-scoot children. What's another line in my life?
9 straightened up, thumbed through his book, flipped it open to page eighteen, pointed to a Star Trek Science Officer wearing a yellow jumpsuit.
"I need you to make this. Today. Please? Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty please?"
I looked at the two-dimensional Trek Officer. His hair fell over his forehead in tousled ringlets. I looked at 9. His handmade red Command Officer's uniform still fit, still had room across the shoulders, an extra inch at the hem.
"What's the matter with that uniform? Isn't being Captain better than being stuck pressing the ion torpedo button?"
9 shook his head.
"Not for me, Mom. For Ben."
The sun dipped into the living room, bounced off 9's communicator pin. I lifted the sewing machine, my back still angry from a rough slide in early Spring's mud.
"Well, then. We better get to work."
I never found out Ben's real name. I knew it was exotic, Japanese. I met his mom during the school first PTA meeting of the academic year, when 9 was 8 and Ben was new, alone, afraid.
"My English not so good."
Youmei whispered when I held my hand across the table, asked her how Ben liked his new school. She wore loose jeans and an oversized sweater woven with rose blossoms.
"Ben only speak Japanese."
Ben sat at the end of the table. He wore the blue slacks the school demanded, wore his collared shirt carefully tucked, a vinyl buckle holding the ensemble in place. My son's hair stood in a kewpie swirl, his shirt stained, unrestrained, and I glanced with dismay at his untied shoes. He held his ever-present sketch pad, a well-ground pencil stub in his right hand.
"Hey, say hi to Ben. He looks lonely. Can you talk with him?"
My boy leaned across the table and opened his book to a fantastic spread of deep space. Two shuttles flew across a pock-marked moon, one gunning the other.
"Ben, do you know Star Trek?"
Ben grinned.
"Star Trek! Star Trek!"
Youmei nodded, barely lifted her head to meet my smile.
"Thank you. Thank you."
Youmei and I took ceremonial tea every evening. She poured ice-blue solutions into thin test tubes in the local college chemistry lab. She didn't have a husband, a lover. I knew the topic embarrassed her. She came from a farming village in China, attended university in Japan, met Ben's father, got married. Her face grew pink as she tried to explain the moments between Ben's birth and her arrival in my arid state.
"Men in Japan. They are different than American men. They see no wrong with take lovers."
I laughed, rolled my eyes, let the roll of my hand across the room tell Youmei my life was no different than hers.
"Men are men, Youmei. Men are men."
I took Ben under my wing, served him sliced apples and peanut butter crackers after school. Star Trek became our translator, our dictionary. My son drew pictures, spoke their names slowly, carefully as Ben imitated. I learned the Japanese word for "ship," for "Captain," for "best friends."
The boys acted out every episode. Ben was Spock, was Data, was all characters stoic, rational, full of science know-how. 9 was Kirk, was Picard, was the Captain with the muscles, the man who made brash decisions. I played supplemental roles - a conniving nurse, a slick reptilian creature, a humane being made of light, my collection of dress scarves the strange vapour that could cause instant coma.
Youmei broke the sad news early in the new year.
"We have to move. Back to Japan. In the Spring."
9 couldn't accept it.
"Mom, can't we let Ben stay here? This is the best place he's ever lived! He wants to stay with us! He's the first best friend I ever had."
I hugged him tight, pictured my nightfall cups of green tea, Youmei's fractured English and delicate manners.
"And Youmei is my best friend. Let's just enjoy what time we have, okay?"
The last weekend Ben spent in our New Mexican wilderness 9 dragged my sewing machine across the floor. I called Youmei, tried to explain my plan, 9's need to see Ben in the symbol of what they meant to each other. She didn't quite understand my mix of Japanese, Chinese, and English.
"Okay. Okay. I see. Okay."
Youmei nodded over the phone and I shrugged my shoulders. She would see tomorrow. Tomorrow. I sewed late into the night.
Youmei and Ben walked to my house. 9 stood sentry on the porch.
"They're coming! They're coming!"
He grabbed the freshly-finished Science Officer uniform and ran down the street. I placed the kettle on the stove, let the burning gas meet its bottom, added a spoonful of loose tea to my two best mugs.
"Mom! Mom! Look what Youmei brought for you! Look!"
I turned, bag of tea still in one hand, dropped it in surprise. Youmei held up the most beautiful kimono I have ever seen, held it to the florescent light with reverence, with love.
"For you. For you."
As the tea steeped, two boys ran through the brittle yard in Star Trek costumes, each holding an invisible phaser set on "stun," and one woman from an Eastern land twisted a red belt as tight as she could around a crazy American.
"Best friends," I whispered, first in Japanese, then in English. "Best friends."
Six weeks later we exchanged photos. I sent one of me, my arms extended, as I twirled in my kimono under the naked New Mexican sun. Ben looked back at me, at 9, his yellow uniform perfect, neat, clean, under a thunderstorm of cherry blossoms surrounding him.
"Mom."
9 snuggled into my arms.
"Best friends are still best friends, even when they're far away."
Birdie Jaworski, Health Correspondent:
Birdie's column, Nature or Nurture, published every Monday Evening - after she finishes her Avon rounds, feeds the boys and deals with the pot-bellied pig, dog, parrots, and lizards - to Gather Essentials: Health. In Nature or Nurture, Birdie tells stories of her attempts to raise her two boys, 12 and 9, in a healthy, loving environment without going crazy herself!
Birdie blogs at La Pajaro, and is a Contributing Editor for BlogHer.org. She writes a weekly human interest column for the Las Vegas Times.
You can find all of Birdie's Nature or Nurture articles at www.gather.com/naturenurture
Keep up with Birdie's other postings and Gather activity by joining her Gather network - just click here http://birdiejaworski.gather.com/ and select the orange "Connect" button on the left-hand side of the page.
You'll find Birdie and other health correspondents, plus expert guest columnist content and plenty of other health nuts at Health.gather.com
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Comments: 54
Thank you for reading my new column.
Mariana, you are so right - we women have our secret ways of sharing stories, between friends, between mom and daughter, between sisters. Your mom must have very much loved her friend, to have that experience the night she died.
Maywood, see, this is why I love Gather. Kimonos and physics!
You've shut me down for the night. There's nothing I could read that would top this. Thank you!
Susan, I was bawling just writing about this! Friends make life worth living, give me my most happiest moments. I want to somehow, somewhere come up with enough money to take my boys to Japan to visit Youmei and Ben.
Chris, I'm gonna have to tell 9 he has a fan!
Joy, thank you so kindly. I love giving memories life, letting all my gather friends share them.
Heather, yay!! I can't wait to read your story!
Melissa, thank you for such sweet words. I should just stick a box of tissues at the end of the story, ha ha!
Beautiful story....brought tears to my eyes......and you look lovely in your kimono!!!
Dang it that was a refreshing read so early in the morning!
Lloyd, xo to you today, boy!
Mike, consider yourself beamed! Wait, that didn't come out right...
dm, I'm a 41 y.o. kid! Here's a secret .... I made a uniform for myself, too! I'll have to tell that story some day....
Michelle, that is so true! Not a day goes by without one of my boys having a freak out!
And, you are so right about best friends: my elementary years in Bangkok left me a world apart from best friends. It took 30 years for me to reconnect with one of them (many thanks to my brother for finding her!) and it was as if we'd just seen each other yesterday. She can still get me laughing, still amaze me with her stories. Distance in miles or years is nothing.
Ina, it's funny, but the same thing happened with me as I wrote the story - I remember all of my best and dearest friends. I called Youmei today, all the way in Japan. She told me how the winter has been cool, how much Ben still loves Star Trek and wears his uniform every day after school.
Dawn, my boys give me these incredible gifts every day, even when they drive me nuts, they are spreading these strange nuggest of wisdom.
Deanna, awwww, give you son a huge hug from me. Losing a friend at that age, wow, that must have been so difficult. Probably still so difficult. Life is too damn short.
Jiya, thanks! I have now outfitted about five little people in Star Trek finery. If my Avon and writing don't pan out, I might have a job on the Enterprise!
Dannielle, amen! All the best friends of my life live here and there now, and when we connect, no matter the distance or time between us, it's always amazingly great and full of laughs. Thanks for your kindness.
Julian, thank you sweetie. I was wondering if anyone picked up on the "Best Friends" meaning not only me and Youmei, 9 and Ben, but Nature and Nurture themselves. I really thought hard to figure out what story to tell first. I know that I'm an odd choice for the Health Channel, so next Monday I'm telling about the Survivalists' camp my boys and I attended last summer over a long (too long ha ha ha) weekend!
jessie, lots of love to you as always!
Ed, thank you so much! I'm excited you are a correspondent, too. I'm sure we'll both pass along all the goodness we find on this crazy journey. Every day is such a mystery.
mona, many hugs and kisses to you! xo!!!
Kelly, thanks. One of these days I'll post a pic of myself in my Captain Janeway uniform! ha!
Shawnee, many many thanks. : )
Cheers, Barb
Kathryn, thanks, honey! I am so excited to tell my boys' stories, my mom stories, all the crazy family adventures we have!
Jean, thanks so much!! : )
It seems I hit the - (hyphen) after the 1 instead of the 0 , so although I did give you a score of 10 - when I commented it looked like 1-
SO SORRY!!!!!!!!!!!
I would NEVER give my Birdie Girl a 1.. :-(
We love the glimpses you give us of your life!
David, thanks to the internet, Youmei and I have remained dear friends. We send photos, recipes, ruminations on love and life and all the men who never call. We're planning a trip, someday, to visit Japan and see all her secret places.
d.m., nope, not Uhuru! Captain Janeway! I love Uhuru, but Janeway kicked serious butt! I will definitly post a pic in an upcoming story.
Sonia, oh honey I know you meant a 10!!!!!!! xoxoxoox to you this fine Thursday morning!!!
Pearl, you are such a dear friend. I'm glad you enjoyed all those nutty Avon reviews, too! I have way too much product testing...
Luckily we have contacts once again with friends from our international school in Thailand who stay in touch with us. They give us a wealth of 'world information' we are not presented with through the American media 'syndicate'.
Birdie - You bring joy to my life no matter what you write - it never fails to put a smile on my face.
God Bless and congrats! as the Health correspondent they should start a UFO section!