Easter

I met Jackie and Steve on Saturday evening in Chicago for dinner. Jackie was checking out Northwestern University after being accepted to its speech pathology department. Great food, great company; I wish we could do it all of the time. Jackie seems to be torn in the same way I was last year - should she plunge into a brand new section of the country, knowing full-well that she can go back home after a few years or should she stay where she's comfortable? As I drove back that evening I realized that I still don't know if I made the best decision in coming here. I thought I would know within a month or so like I knew when I was in college. Perhaps I won't know if Milwaukee was the right decision until after I've left here.

On Sunday, I slept in and skipped the sunrise service. Best decision ever. After church I went to the house of family from my church. They have two kids, both college-aged. Some other people were there from church, as well as some of their other friends who did not have extended family to spend the holiday with. It was a very friendly atmosphere - about twenty people in an older (100 years, at least) home, which means that the dining room was not very large. At one point during the meal I realized I was shouting so that the man next to me could hear me. Everyone was talking and laughing and having a good time. The bottles of wine certainly helped along that venue. I enjoyed our conversations greatly. We talked about local politics and other church-members who weren't there. We talked about our careers - their pros and cons. Most of the other people are involved in law or education or social work of some sort, so I was interested in what they had to say. After lunch their tradition is to watch The Life of Brian, however I had been invited to another(!) party at Ann and Andy's house in Waukesha.

Ann and Andy live with their parents, who moved to Wisconsin while they were both in college. After graduation, they didn't really have a hometown to go to so they came here. As it turns out their brother graduated with me at BU. I didn't know him while we were in school, but I've met him since and I have verified with some mutual friends that he really did graduate with me. Also, he's in my year book. (Not that I'm stalking him or anything. See West Campus Heartbreaker and Check out the Czech.) Anyway, I was only there for dessert. Some neighbors came by; we played Dumb Crambo and Egyptian Ratscrew. We talked about politics and the environment and Fatboy Slim.

I like these new people I've met in Milwaukee. They're nice. But they can't compare to the people I've left behind in Boston. Simply juxtapose my first Easter here to my first BU Easter. Four years ago was spent on Jesus Christ, Superstar, my first trip to MGH's emergency room, a taxi ride with Horse Girl, who talked about horses, which I'm sure didn't help Jackie's pain, and the Boston Marathon, during which Adina sat in the middle of Kenmore Square and read John Milton. This year, I tried to remember people's names.

I would like to go home once during this spring. I was thinking about how my family celebrates Easter and sits on my grandparents' backporch after the party. It's always the first time that we realize that the days are getting longer. And the air is chilly but you want to be outside as long as you can. The men in the family are in the living room, sleeping, or as they call it "watching the game." The kids run around - the big kids hiding plastic eggs filled with candy, the little kids finding them. We listen to the neighbors, especially the Italians next door, they're usually yelling, and they have four boys, who are always doing something that necessitates the yelling. Grandma asks for advice on what to do in the flowers, which prompts arguments from her children (my mom and her siblings). That generation always fights more than my own. We use chalk on the driveway and then Uncle Harry yells at us for making a mess of the cement and asphault. Eventually we'll all have to leave, not because there's school tomorrow (there isn't) but because the fathers have begun to wake up.

But we'll be back in a month or so for Mother's Day. And that evening on the porch is always a lot more fun. The Scranton Times publishes submitted pictures of area mothers and their children. On that day my family gathers around the enourmous Special Edition and we make fun of those ridiculous pictures. We're not an especially mean family, but on that day our cynicism really shines through. Strangely it's one of the strongest bonding experiences we have.