Jury of My Peers?

30Dec08

I am on the train, bound for whatever is the opposite of home: a place I cannot properly pronounce, much less locate on a map, where apparently your bog-standard sub-zero temperatures won’t cut it – they are hoping for a balmy -20 in the next couple of days.

In my bag are woolen long-johns, skates, and a dress-just-in-case. The Better Man, for whom this is a return to the old home town, has promised me a lake, and forest, a picturesque village, homegrown salmon, and a bottle of champers for the New Year.

He has also promised me ample time to write, and in case the scenery and the locals prove uninspiring, I have brought books for back-up – The Last Life, by Claire Messoud, shows promise, and the latest Harlan Coben is always trustworthy. In short: I am on tack for a few days of exoticism and relaxation is sweet union. So why the nerves?

Parents do not faze me. The fathers are normally either dead or on the booze in a sociable sort of way, none of which present much of a challenge. As to mums… well, they may be a bit of handful, but really in the end, they are no more than the proverbial bark to the bite of their sons. After all: what with the statistical risk of your beau turning out to be Toad of Toad Hall, why turn the Molehill Mommy Dearest into a Mountain of Woe?

There was this one guy (mad as a hatter, studying to be a surgeon) I used to live with. We used to visit his Mother a scary amount; her cooking wasn’t quite up to scratch and she’d sit on the side of the tub, while I was in it. But still, her cinnamon swirls are not what springs immediately to mind when considering why he and I are no longer living together. More so his incessant rage, punching of walls, and pathological jealousy – all which would have ensured, had we still been shacked up, that we’d have been shacked up someplace secure and bondage-y.

There was a Greek mama, who gestured me into the broom-closet of a guy I was in the early stages of dating, to show where the vacuum was kept. Her slightly non-feminist views paled, though, in comparison to his: and those of his voyeuristic dog.

And somewhere far back in ancient history, there was a mum who danced in a loose white blouse, and kept filling up my glass, and whispered with smoke and lipstick, giggling in my ear. A fond memory – fonder than that of her son, who mid-relationship decided to pursue a career as Gigolo. For real.

Getting back on track, however: even had I been worried, the answer the Better Man gave when I asked what to expect from his parents, would have dispelled immediately all fear. ”It will be nothing like meeting your mum” translates reassuringly: nothing like meeting my mum means no grilling as to political views, career choices, family dynamics, or backhand.

But there is something much, much scarier than Parents lurking in the dark woods into which I am heading. A primal force, a power running deep. A coven, a band, a hoard bound by mystical rituals, rules of ancient law. Childhood friends.

Boys play together and shape each other. They give each other bruises and porn, they give each other accents and fags, they smash each others teeth out with hockey sticks and in all the blood and gore and milky dunked cookies they forge a special, steady foundation. And those childhood friends, breathing the same farts and stealing the same candy, give of course the right, 30-odd years on, of judging The New Girlfriend.

That would be me. And me would be attending a big birthday bash, bringing all these worthy jurors together, on Saturday. And not to mention: the worthy juror’s wifes.

Do I profess a love of hunting, or do I squeal becomingly? Do I do Sara Palin (as my glasses do suggest) or do I do Carrie, as my heels demand? Do I try to blend or do I flaunt my difference? Do I coo over the babies or do I tell about my work? Do I sit demurely or do I laugh at what I hope are jokes?

Or do I babbble nervously, without prior plan, and hope for the best?

Filed under: The Theories and Practicalities of Finding Love, Travel: Adventures, Mishaps, Foregin Lands   |  Leave a Comment
Tags: Childhood Friends, Dalarna, family