Pen Pals

Back in high school, I was one of those goody-goody types who enjoyed nothing more than getting together with other teens and thinking up ways to convince others to "Just Say NO!" The group I was in, Youth 2 Youth, was like Young Life, but for secular teetotalers, and we were invited into elementary schools to perform skits meant to make children believe that the cool kids didn't "get stupid." Now, to be fair to myself, I wasn't a dork and many of my co-abstainers were totally normal individuals who simply didn't get why anyone wanted the trouble that drug-use invariable brought upon a house. Most of us joined the group because it was good for our pre-college portfolio, ensured sanctioned absences from class, and generally put us in good favor with school authorities. When you are 15 and come from a stable home, these are the benefits that matter.

Part of the "fun" of Youth 2 Youth was the 4-day retreats designed to teach us how to be effective speakers and communicate compelling confidence. For some reason, they were all in Ohio. Anyway, I met some really cool people at these events, and in one case, I became deeply attached to a girl named Mindy. She and I knew instantly that we were soul-mates, an assumption based entirely on our mutual passion for Depeche Mode. It was our shared opinion that we were literally the most interesting people in Kent, Ohio that weekend, and when the retreat was over, we actually sobbed at the realization that we might never see each other again. All we had was the promise that we would write each other every day to maintain our close connection.

It is fascinating to think about how much emotion could erupt in such a short period of time. I can't speak for Mindy, but I believe that friendship was one of the most important of my life. Not long after the retreat, my family moved to Florida, and I was removed from the social world that I had taken for granted. I had to break up with a boyfriend and say goodbye to people with whom I assumed I'd always be friends. Because Mindy lived in New York, hers was the one friendship that did not change while everything else became unstable. During my junior year of high school, Mindy was my soul confidant and I poured all of my teen misery, enthusiasm, judgment, and wonder into the handwritten letters I sent her nearly every other day. Confirming the authenticity of our friendship, she always wrote back with as much passion, vulnerability, and humor as she received.

Eventually, Mindy and I parted ways. The letters became less frequent our senior year, largely because we both started dating boys with whom we became serious. The boyfriends replaced our friendship as the repository of all our feelings, and we both casually moved on. Often I missed her dearly, but by the time we went off to college, we just didn't keep up with each other at all. I think she went to Colgate.

Considering how little stock I put into archiving my own life, it may surprise many people to learn that I still have every letter Mindy ever wrote me packed up in a sweater-sized cardboard box in my closet. I haven't revisited that box since I packed it up before going off to college, but I'm glad I have it. I imagine myself thirty years from now returning to that friendship and reading those letters as a way of celebrating life.

So, with all of this in mind, I send a shout-out to my great friend Mindy Marranca with this song by the Katydids. Because she lived near Canada, she could tune into Much Music, and was forever introducing me to new stuff. This song has somehow remained especially hers:


"Lights Out" by the Katydids (not this acoustic version, but it's OK)