Silver and Gold

Truman Capote once noted that “friendship is a full-time job.” Well, it seems to have been the full-time job of my dear sister Elizabeth, and wonderful friend Tracey to worry about my birthday plans for this October 4, 2010. Neither wanted a repeat for me of last year’s dreary birthday non-celebration, and both kept checking to make sure there would be a little somethin’ fun going on over here in Madaba-Manja, Jordan!

I will end the suspense now. It was a very nice birthday. Whew! Elizabeth and Tracey and the rest of my flotilla of friends probably didn’t need any more moping around like last year’s non-starter for a new year (if you didn’t read that blog, well, there was a little blues singing going on!). It was a delightful birthday.

I am entitling the blog entry “silver and gold” to sum up not what I received in tangible gifts, but the silver and gold friendships I enjoyed on my birthday. Okay, my mind is full of strange things, like sit-coms and camp songs, and I was reminded of the camp song (and this is when my brain is awfully strange—I think it was a brownie scout song that my sister sang back around 1976) that included the words:

Make new friends, but keep the old,
one is silver and the other gold.

So I spent my day, and enjoyed a birthday dinner, with some pretty great silver and gold.

In case you haven’t read other blog entries about how my mother always inaugurated birthdays, she would make sure to bid you good night the night before your birthday to bid adieu to your current age. So from young tender ages, up past 40, I would get a call the night before my birthday to say, “Good night little 41 year old,” as you went to sleep and dreamed about the next big year. Elizabeth takes over that job now, and since my phone lines are not always easy to reach, I now have to make the call to her, so that she is able to offer that farewell to that year. So at 11:30 last Sunday I called Elizabeth to hear her tender words (I can’t say the year/number though—the number just might get stuck in my throat).

The following morning at 6:30 a.m. Tracey called to make sure she had wished me the first happy birthday of the morning. She asked, “Now who is taking you out? Are the plans set?” I assured her that the plans had been made and that there was a celebration lined up.

When I had planned the lessons for the week I made sure I really liked the lessons for Monday. I mean, it is your birthday, and it should be fun. In History of the 20th century I taught about the struggles to cobble a peace together in the 1990s with the former Yugoslavia. Part of what made this so interesting was evaluating the needs of the participants in this drama and how hard it is for the actors in these real-life events to move ahead of revenge and hate. Ahhhh…we steeped ourselves in the peace process and conflict resolution!

In Art History we studied Chinese art—always a refreshing venture since the art is so much like reading Act III of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town—over and over, a discussion, a rumination, a reflection on what is eternal in our lives. So much of Chinese art is like a Dr. Phil and Oprah marathon: how do we explore our journey in life? What will yield peace and harmony and balance? Ahhhhh…nice thoughts for a birthday while on the threshold of a new year.

In the afternoon Art History class a student had ordered a cake to be delivered to our class. This was the biggest cake I had ever seen outside of a wedding or something. It was from a bakery in Amman called “Sugar Daddy’s” and it was—well, dark chocolate fudge cake with rich, vanilla-bean frosting…I licked the box. It was great. Of course one reason a class wants to have a party for the teacher is that you get out of some class. Come on, I am not as young as…oh, I better not go there. I am as young as I look. Or maybe I have pictures of me as young as I say I am. Or whatever. The cake was spectacular, the wishes very thoughtful, and the class on Chinese art invigorating as always.

For those of you who know my friend Gary, well, this guy just doesn’t disappoint. I will devote a whole blog entry to him soon, for he can hardly be contained or explained in one birthday entry. Gary is a hoot, Gary is as golden as a friend can get. Last week Gary started saying things like, “John-O, what plans are in the works for the great day next Monday???” I mean, that’s what you want for a birthday…that little Stephen Sondheim like phrasing, Something’s comin’!

And again if you know Gary, I didn’t get to choose the restaurant for my birthday! When he asked me where I might like to go, I suggested “Fire Brazil” in Amman—the Brazilian steakhouse place in Amman with the skewers of meat that are paraded around the restaurant. Yum. Dramatic. He asked me if they have red wine available. I said I believed that they did not. Gary does this thing as he considers a restaurant. He chomps on imaginary food as he decides what his tonsils are tuned for. Not tuned for “Fire Brazil.” “Boss, I can’t have red meat without red wine. Let’s go to that great place in Madaba.” Gary gestured in that decisive way where he points and pokes and punches the air with resolve.

Haret Jdoudna it is. HJ is one of my favorite places in Jordan, the scene of many, many dinners over these 40 months in Jordan (Hmmm…saying the number feels slightly akin to the 40 years in the desert of the Israelites after the exodus!). The dinner party was a celebration of my silver and gold. Among the golden friends, the old friends, were Gary, of course, and sweet Lubna, a true friend here in Jordan almost since the beginning of this journey, and a guest who happened to be in Jordan last week, Danny Mallonga. Danny and I were in a class together in 1994 at Teacher’s College at Columbia, and had kept in touch for a few years, but then he began free-lancing around the world offering workshops in conflict resolution. It had been at least a decade since I had seen him. He was a welcome addition to the birthday table. The three silver friends were Win and Jennie, my neighbors in our Nihal dorm, and two of the funniest, warmest, most gracious people to spend an evening with. Our group was capped by Maria, one of our teacher fellows, a recent college graduate and a genuinely insightful teacher. She asked Gary if she could join the party. I am so glad she did.

So there I was with my three golden friends, and my three silver friends, ordering all my favorite dishes at HJ, basking in the warmth of tried and true and developing friendships. As we dug into the many dishes of mezze and then my favorite entrée of sagia, it was what a birthday should be: laughter, reminiscing, stories about childhood and longago loves, stories of strange obsessions, and a little reflection, vis a vis Our Town again, about the impact of another birthday.

We got home by 10:00 for I had been tipped off that the boys in the dorm wanted a birthday surprise for me with brownies. They trooped in, sang the Arabian version of “Happy Birthday” (it has several more choruses than the zippy American version) and left me to spend some time to make calls to my father, Elizabeth and her children, and Tracey. They were all relieved to know that the day had gone well. It is almost a full-time job worrying if birthdays will work out. Of course it is just silly when they don’t—but when they are as sweet and special as this year, well, it is a job well done.

Some people had gone to a lot of trouble to make the birthday matter for me. My father had hidden a birthday card in my suitcase when I returned to Jordan on August 30; Aunt Dot and family friend Edna had mailed cards on September 14 in the hopes that they would arrive. Lubna had looked for just the right shirt and tie for me. Gary had brought his birthday gifts in his suitcase when he left New York on August 7. Fatina had bought for me a camel tea kettle (!!!) while in Saudi Arabia. The Ungers had braved sending a musical card through the byzantine mail system of Jordan. Thanks to all those who went above and beyond!

And the Facebook emails! How fun to be able to send out greetings via that social networking site. I got greetings from junior high and high school friends whom I have not seen since President Reagan was in office, and I had greetings from people who call me Mr. Leistler, and Mr. John, and Johnny, and Bamm-Bamm…any other names I missed?

In fact, (spoiler alert!! Here comes a sit-com reference!!) as I went through my day I felt kinda like Mary Tyler Moore in the beginning credits of her eponymous show, enjoying mundane tasks, but just so oh-so happy about it all. Love is all around…

Good day. Good week. The theme song from MTM reminds me of another song that declares how important those silver and gold relationships are. The song is called, “Next Best Thing to Love” and it was a “trunk song” (a song waiting around to be used) by the lyricist of A Chorus Line. What a fascinating idea Edward Kleban postulated in his lyrics: that a deep friendship is as close to love as one can get – before coming to the beautiful conclusion that it’s good enough to qualify as genuine love, too.

We had the smiles
We had the tunes
We had a multitude of lovely afternoons
And come to think of it
It was the next best thing to love…

Couldn’t turn the corner
Never made sublime
Still we should be so lucky
All the time
So no regret
Forget the tears
I know a dozen girls who’d run with this for years
And come to think of it
I guess the next best thing to love
Is also love

Happy Birthday to me!