more than a reality, our reality

Notes on aging, loss, friendship and la Beninoise

Frances Ha (W Magazine)

It is June. Which is to say, that escalated quickly. I’ve been working on a crochet wedding dress. I love weddings. My best friend just got a prostate cancer diagnosis. Another friend called, excited, his son just said his first word. Dada. Another just got divorced. For the third year in a row, I forgot to memorialize my son. Guilt. It’s been 8 years, it should be easier. I should be over it, really.

Mos Def is being a little too painfully tender on Creole. The first time I listened to that song I was at Face A La Mer, Cotonou. I was meeting someone I’d always wanted to meet. I needed her to like me. We needed it to go well. So we overdressed. I laugh every time I think about it now. Me in my tiny little red backless dress that would perhaps tell her that I’d been working out. That I took care of myself. It had a long sleeve to hide an insecurity; my arms. I’d always thought they were too thin. We meet on the street, awkwardly hug as I apologize for being late. I have always been time blind. She kisses me on the cheek. She says something about red being her favorite color and I say green was mine. She is wearing green kitten heels that say she has an opinion but not a point of view. I wanted to know her.

On her second glass of chardonnay she starts telling me about her mildly toxic ex while I looked at paintings of mushrooms on her phone. She loves mushrooms. We talk about her daughter, failed friendships, love, death. I was tempted to marvel at the extent to which she is irrepressibly herself, but I knew there was nothing irrepressible about that moment. It takes effort and courage to be so exactly and so extravagantly who one is. It comes with age.

The waiter brings my second bottle of la Beninoise. The slogan for la Beninoise is “Plus qu’une bière, notre bière” (more than a beer, our beer). Slightly modified, it captures how I was feeling during my first sip. “More than a reality, our reality”. We were both experiencing what it meant to be an adult. At what point do we start calling growing up aging? After how many losses?

“I was not the kind of mother that I wished that I had been to my children.” she said. As an “almost” mother, I didn’t know what questions to ask so I listened. Nothing came. We focus on eating, as if eating were the conversation. We both sigh, simultaneously.

“I started feeling the pressure to be perpetually incredibly attractive when I was 20. As women, we’re not supposed to age. The pressure to look young and unrealistic is relentless.”

“I watched Frances Ha yesterday. I need to work on my friendships.”

We joke about her tastes in men as we stumble back out, her arms in mine. We’d visit Dassa the following weekend, then Ganvie after that. We danced to the hypnotic rhythms of traditional vodun ceremonies, fell in love, collected stories. We toasted to friendship.

Aging taught me how to have a high affinity for the everyday. It taught me life is all about the little moments. That things don’t have to be spectacular and magnificent for them to be important. I’m writing this from my friend’s kitchen. We’ve been friends for over 3 years since Benin. She just turned 49. She’s complaining about plumbing while making me a salad. I love her salads. She compliments my nose. I smile. I tell her I might be in love, again. She asks if he makes me happy. Billy Valentine’s “I Got a Woman” cover comes up and we both start dancing. Her flowy silk dress dances with us. Soft, gentle, intentional movements. This is life. This is aging. This is the story of us.