Old Friends and Red Lipstick
Over the decades, we rode bikes together, raised kids, launched careers and found callings, moved to new places, camped and traveled widely, witnessed happy milestones, and weathered sorrows too. But the seeds of our origin story involve bicycles, and hence we are the Bike Babes. Read that tongue in cheek--we know it’s silly, and we’ve long ago left the babe stage, but somehow the spirit has lingered.
We had a reunion this weekend. Such gatherings are preceded by group text messages negotiating dates and evolving swiftly into discussions about food. Enchilada casserole, homemade sourdough, many dips and condiments and salad greens, fresh fruit, cheese and chocolate…wine, champagne…and cake. Oh, let there be cake.
They come bearing gifts. Books discovered in curbside boxes or read long ago and culled from shelves and beautiful cookbooks not recently opened. There are items of clothing to be tried on and traded, seashell necklaces, ankle socks perfect for pedaling.
But no bikes were involved this time. We hiked up to the sandstone rock formation and later drove down to the beach. The water was warm and pelicans cruised above in majestic formation, and Santa Rosa Island was sharply drawn and tropical clouds scuttled by and we had thick sandwiches and popcorn with hippie dust seasoning and I walked home while everyone played in the water.
Our presents to one another are seldom serious: thrift store bangles, tops that didn’t fit, fancy salsa or basil from the garden. But Donna brought us something unprecedented this time: elegant tubes of lipstick: Rouge Dior, #999, satin—a very true red. It was a kind of homage to her mother, Sue, whose words of advice Donna had been lovingly transcribing in a notebook. “Every woman should have a good red lipstick,” Sue had proclaimed. She also advised: dance, hug often, share what you have, plant seeds, sing out loud, read a book, write a letter, go ahead and buy stuff, and be grateful…among other things.
I heard some of Sue’s words firsthand. Many years ago, we traveled together in Italy, a scheme launched over root beer floats in her festive living room filled with art. In Italy, Sue wandered into chic little shops and purchased whatever she felt like, and she bravely drove on narrow roads with signage in Italian. She impulsively bought lilac bouquets for Donna and me from a vendor on the street one day, and we carried them around in the rain, enveloped by their fragrance.
“You should sleep in silk pajamas,” she said to me one evening, as we stood before a window in a hotel room in Florence. I suppose she sensed my chronic tendency to feel guilty and unworthy. “You deserve nice things,” she said. “Live your life.”
By which she meant embrace it. And it was good advice. But this isn’t about Sue. It’s about all our moms and what they taught us by word or by example, and it’s about girlfriends, and history, and the surprising passage of years, the gasping speed of it, and how we must leap to capture moments and replay the stories so we don’t forget. It’s about the ways in which we have changed over the course of forty years, and the core that has remained the same.
The lipstick is silky. It glides on, and we are suddenly glamorous. We pose and pucker and laugh at our incongruous selves. I read someplace that a woman my age should never wear a shade of lipstick darker than the color of her gums, but now I feel defiant. Maybe the red makes my teeth look whiter, maybe I look like a woman who might splurge on silk pajamas, someone self-assured and ready to step out and go dancing. Maybe we inhabit new fantasies in red lipstick or become our truest selves.
There was a 5.1 magnitude earthquake centered near Ojai today, and a tropical storm is headed our way. The extraordinary has become the norm. Right now, a white band of light etches the horizon above a green-gray sea, and beyond looms a dense blockade of silvery dark clouds. Humid breezes kiss our faces, and the world is suspended in a state of enchantment, awaiting whatever comes next.
We find our touchstones and our comforts, our circles of friends, the reassuring shape of shadow on a certain hill each evening, loaves of bread and casseroles carried for miles from north and south. We are gathered in this place where we were young together once…now being not-so-young. But somehow we have managed to converge here. Isn’t it amazing?
There is nothing wrong with reason, but it’s lovely to lean into a moment that makes no sense, savoring the surprise of it, sliding around on memories and mysteries and very hopeful maybes. It’s a strange time here on earth, and sometimes I feel scared—but I’m in red lipstick mode.