There I was giggling in the men's dressing room at Lord & Taylor. I had sneaked in to the changing area to give my opinion on the various items my long-time companion was assessing. We whispered so no one would know we were in the room together and he made me laugh with his silly antics as he tried on clothes. And then it struck me: the now and the then. Now, giggling about sneaking into the dressing room at a department store with my “boyfriend” to put on clothes; then, giggling over sneaking into the dorm with my boyfriend to take off clothes. This started me down one of those paths and I have to say I was surprised to see where it led. Could the world really be changing this fast? It was the year I left for college. I'm guessing that Ali McGraw must have been dying in Goodbye Columbus around that time because my parents sent me off with a beautiful fox collared "maxi coat," one similar to which I recently saw Ali sporting over “hot pants” in some old photo. Hot pants were short shorts. I went to school in Saratoga Springs, New York and my boyfriend was in Ithaca, New York. It snowed. It snowed a lot. It snowed from early fall on. Though I immediately traded that coat for an old army jacket that I wore around campus, I did wear that coat every cold, snowy day that I hitchhiked the hundreds of miles on the New York State Thruway from my college to his. With a kitten he had given me in my pocket. Sex in dorm rooms was bad enough, but a kitten to boot? That beautiful black cat, Porsche McGee, named after two favorite Janis Joplin songs, somehow thrived in my dorm room, running discretely up and down the hall for exercise. One day I came in to find her atop a Cat Stevens record on my record player (you do remember those, don’t you?) going round and round and round having somehow managed to turn it on. Could she have possibly known that it was Cat Stevens? Or was she just being followed by a moon shadow? One snowy night she escaped the dorm and was found after many frantic tearful hours trying to stay warm, curled up between a car tire and the chassis.
I feel this memory is like a "Where is Waldo" of a time lost forever. Can you count how many things just don't exist anymore? Porsche is long dead – an early victim of our environmental stupidity. She was poisoned by eating one too many caterpillars after the town had sprayed (by plane) to stop an infestation. Janis Joplin is long dead, too. The coat is gone, and the boyfriend who snuck me into his dorm made his money in construction and then traded it all in for a sailboat in which he spends his days somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. We were going to go live on a commune and, in fact, he did for a while. I somehow chose to shave my legs, stop eating brown rice and try my luck in New York City. It seems so long ago now. And yet we still stay in touch, connected by that magical time when, though the snow would fall, all you had to do was just stick out your thumb, and the kindness of strangers would transport me and my Porsche McGee to the red-haired boy I loved.
Kind (Self) Regards,
Vicki
Vicki Wray lives in North Stamford, and until recently spent most of her waking hours in New York City as a corporate communications executive. Working for companies like Pfizer, Revlon and AOL Time Warner has allowed her to meet wonderful colleagues and a slew of interesting personalities including the president of the United States, supermodels and star athletes, famous artists and a Justice of the Supreme Court. She is a natural observer, type A personality, and a life-long "spa junkie". Vicki firmly believes in the health benefits of being kind to oneself; taking a moment to breath, relax and finding simple joy in our every day existence.
Her column, Kind (self) Regards, will be a regular feature of the Aetheria Spa blog. If you enjoy her point of view, or would like to share your ideas, please contact her at vicki@aetheriaspa.com.
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