I hope spring's eternal

When I think of spring--what it feels like, smells like, tastes like--I think of the following memories. Here's to wishing you all a wonderful spring!
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Look At Me.
One of the worst days of my life was followed by the best days of my life. I was coming down from a breakup of my longest relationship to that point, and I learned quite young that the best way to mend a broken heart was with drinking games. So there I was, with my best friends, happily losing a round of Kings. I'm not sure I could tell you how to play that game today, but I'm confident I could still chug the cup of booze in the middle. I lost a lot.

But that night I also lost my V-Card. It was April 20, 2000, and it was Good Friday. Like Ice Cube once said, "Today was a good day." Like Ice Cube also once said, "It's Friday, I ain't got shit to do."

It would help to know that I had been in a long-distance relationship for a year and a half prior with a wonderful boy who went to Texas A&M. We lived for breaks and holidays, exchanged many emails and had phone bills as long as 10-gallon hats. In fact, if I'm being truthful with you, I probably still owe Point Park money for our correspondence. And it would also help you to know that I was the ultimate good girl, sleeping with teddy bears, waiting for marriage.

Well, maybe that's not true either. I basically did everything you could do without doing everything.

But on that wonderfully-good Friday, folks, I did everything.

It was nothing like I had imagined. There was no romance. There was no planning. There was no pressure. It was just a very drunk me, a very brave me, who decided--after unsuccessfully stealing a Jolly Rancher from Joe who had already left for Easter break--that it was time to stop flirting with Joe's sexy neighbor and start getting real.

But how seriously could you take a girl in pigtails at midnight?

Me: Hi. I think you need to come to my room.
F.R.: Why?
Me: So we can talk?
F.R.: Why?
Me: Because we've flirted all semester, and I'm done flirting. And I'm also very drunk, and I'm certain that's to your advantage.
F.R.: Well, we can talk in here. My roomate is gone all weekend.

And we actually did talk for two hours before we stopped talking.

He studied filmmaking, and he had that whole creative writer thing going on. He had original ideas, a realistic view of the world, and he liked to tell me bedtime stories. He was witty, sarcastic, had a great taste in music, was raised in the same state as Bruce Springsteen and Bon Jovi, and he looked at 19 how Jordan Staal looks at 19.

I'm not sure if it was performance-based or not, and I've never asked, but he told me some things that I've never forgotten. He said:

"You're going to grow up to be one of those wives who goes to her husband's work and has sex with him in his office during lunch."

"You throw yourself into everything. You're passion personified."

"Never sleep with a guy who can't look you in the face, in your eyes, while you're having sex."

It was one of the best conversations of my life. Until...

Me: You're my first one-night stand.
F.R.: You're my sixth virgin.

It ended up not being a one-night stand. And I was not his last virgin.

To this day, we are friends, and he emails me every Good Friday. And whenever I see his name in my inbox, I know it's spring.


Centerfield. During the most pivotal summer of my life, the summer of 2001, I worked as an intern for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. It was merely a spanse of three months between my sophomore and junior years of college, but never have I grown or changed so much in such a short amount of time since.

My best friends and I still refer to it as That Summer. There seemed to be no better way to describe the last season before 9/11, the last summer we all lived in the same city together, the last summer I shared with my friend Carrie, the last summer we could take a coastal road trip on a moment's notice.

Most of my days were the same. I'd wake up in my Oakland apartment, catch a bus Downtown, walk across the Clemente bridge to the North Side, walk to the Point for lunch with Mary Beth, walk across the Clemente bridge in the evening to catch the bus home.

The latter was my favorite part. The ballpark was new. There was excitement in the city, as families lined up to get in. Grown fathers and sons. Young fathers and sons. Dads with little girls on their shoulders. Happy, sun-tanned moms. John Fogerty's "Centerfield" played in the background. The view from any seat was incredible--especially along the third baseline where you could see the best view of the game, rowers and boaters along the Allegheny River, and the most majestic picture of the city's skyline.

It just made you want to fall in love. And it was that feeling that told me it was spring.

I'm ready to play. An honors English teacher once told me that we should all fall in love with the wrong person at least one. After I did that, I decided to not fall in love with the wrong person a bunch of times. And so began my summer of shame.

I had a fun job, a fun wardrobe, a fun list of contacts in my cell phone and a fun attitude. The only drawback was that I knew way too many boys whose first names began with the letter "J." So I was really happy when I met a Larry. :-)

A lot of things happened that summer that weren't in line with my moral or political values, but I don't know what they are. I'm sure I'm supposed to feel really guilty about having sex in parking garages or after 18 holes of golf or in the boss' office without the boss or under the table in the boardroom and all the other places that weren't a conservative bedroom. But I don't feel remorse or regret.

Nor does my husband.

I did what I needed to do. And because of that recklessness and selfishness, I think I'm able to have a more fulfilling and lasting marriage.

It was a time riddled with impulsive choices, all of which were based on good sex. And that's how I knew it was spring.

A moment in the sun. Whenever some politician or athlete is in the middle of some scandal, and psychologists across the country point fingers at all men, I simply think of Texas and remember some of the greatest guys I've ever known.

I was fortunate to spend May there in 2000, traveling with my ex-boyfriend to all the major cities and then staying at his frat house for the rest of the time. Even though we were already broken up, and I had already had my Good Friday, we had a wonderful time and learned we could be wonderful friends. I also made some wonderful friends while I was there, who I still keep in touch with. We went to bars, and I drank local beer--Pearl Light! We went dancing, but not line dancing. We rode roller coasters. We stood on the grassy knoll. We went to a shot bar, and I drank shots of Jager from waitresses chests. We had a midnight picnic of fruit and wine. I slow danced in a fountain. I made out at a presidential library. I kissed under a century tree, which means my love is supposed to last a hundred years.

But most of all, I was just a kid, and I really believed in love. And that's how I knew it was spring.


Put me in Coach. There's something about the fashion district of New York that makes every woman feel a little more glamorous. And there I was with my best friend, an interior designer who took ridiculously good care of me. I perused fabric stores with him, like I understood the significant difference between imported silk and organic silk. I wore fabulous hats and scarves, and we talked with accents just for fun. We laughed our way through stoplights and walk lights, and we shared New York cocktails the way New York cocktails should be shared.

Thankfully, I've lived my life in such a way that I always know someone else somewhere. Maybe it's a business contact, a writing contact, family or a friend, but I can get in touch with them. It's one of my strengths--to relentlessly pursue communication.

On that particular trip, I chose to communicate with a cute boy from Brooklyn, whose only flaw was his love for the Yankees. He was, and still is, a fantastic writer who is at his best in games of Scrabble, chess, conversational tennis and actual tennis. He loved The Beatles and his Irish roots. He named his plants after his favorite book characters. He could host 18 people in an apartment designed for two. He made drinks so that you forgot where you were. And why. He had the best t-shirts to wake up in. He kissed you, and it felt like you were having sex. He read poetry like a lullaby.

All we did was make out vigorously, but it felt like more.

Before he got out of the taxi, the last time I would ever see him again, I slipped him a note that said, "Thanks for the Whitman."

Later that day, he left me a voicemail that said, "That was the greatest note I've ever received."

And we've never talked since.

That actually wasn't spring. It was January. But it felt like June. And that's how I knew it was spring.