Who ARE you???

There’s a woman who knows Tim and me really well. Whenever we encounter her, she hugs us and asks about our daughter.

We have no idea who this woman is. She looks really familiar – almost in a tip-of-the-tongue kind of way – but now we don’t know if she looks familiar because we keep focusing on “who on earth is she?” whenever we run into her.

It’s not like she asks us about our family in a vague, generic way. She asks with details. She knows us.

So Tim decided she was a contractor at a former job he held. He told me her name. Let’s call her Hilda. (All names have been changed to protect ourselves from exposure and humiliation.) He told me what job she had. He was pretty sure, so we relaxed when we encountered her. Although not relaxed enough to call her by name.

A couple weeks ago, Tim and I were at a fund raising dinner. A woman approached us and said, “Hi, Tim. Remember me? I’m Hilda from when we worked together at X.” She was even wearing a name tag.

This was a completely different woman!

So now we’re back at square one. I spotted the mystery woman again and decided that I must know her from a former job I held. I asked another friend to secretly look over her way and whisper who she was.

“That’s Margaret.” My informant even gave me some context for Margaret – context is so helpful! – but unfortunately, the context wasn’t specific enough. I need context like “You and Margaret know each other from Sophie’s fourth grade when she took swimming lessons at East Pool.” The context provided was “She does a lot of craft things around town,” not enough to turn on my memory light bulbs.

As I secretly examined Margaret more and more, I decided she’s only a lookalike for the other woman, the mystery woman. They both have gray hair, but Margaret’s is styled more fashionably than the other woman’s. I think. Every time I see one of them, I’m never sure which one I’m actually seeing. Come to think of it, Margaret isn’t as huggy as the other woman. Margaret can’t be the huggy one.

Tim and I went to another big event, and she was there! Hugging us! The not-Margaret, not-Hilda, not-fashionably-styled-gray-haired woman. We are becoming traumatized by this. I can’t even make fake conversation because I can’t place her at all. It’s close; I just need a little hint. I need a magical friend who’ll ask her, “How do you know Barbara and Tim?”

If only we encountered her at a name tag event! Or a sign-in sheet event. Then I would move into espionage mode and track down her identity. Or even if we ran into her at a more specific location, like something you had to be a member of. Then I would memorize distinguishing features and grill other members.

Maybe Tim can secretly take a photo. Maybe I can try sketching her. Then I can secretly show it around to my friends and ask if they know her.

Yes, yes, I know what you’re thinking: just ask her! Normally, I would do that. I’d just go into my prosopagnosia/facial blindness story, pretend brazenness, and ask right out. But this woman hugs us! And we’ve faked familiarity enough times that it would look very, very goofy to suddenly have developed amnesia.

If you are a reader of this blog and you have gray hair and you hug me when we see each other and ask about my daughter, please add a comment.

Uh, oh! That might be too many of you! You’re short. I think you’re quite short. Petite. (I think I hug in a downward direction.) You’d better provide a little context; I obviously need help. (And sorry about how I’ve described your hair.)

Running for Women

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:

They visit the Port-a-Potties. A lot.

No matter how many times they’ve peed at home, they have to visit the Port-a-Potties as soon as they get to the starting area. If that one visit isn’t enough, they might claim that they’re just reviewing the interiors of the decorated Port-a-Potties, but don’t believe them. They’re peeing.

And when they’re not peeing, they’re talking about how worried they are about having to pee.

One of us woke up at 3:30 in the morning to pee, hoping that would start the urinary cycle early so she wouldn’t have to pee that much later on, once the run began.

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:

With names of friends, sisters, mothers, aunts, and co-workers on their backs. Or pink breast cancer survivor caps on their heads.

I used to do the Run for Women in memory of Mrs. Goodhartz, the neighbor growing up who taught me how to crochet, the good friend of my mother’s. But now, in my Third Thirds, the women I honor on my back are my contemporaries. I have to stack up the cards because there are many of them, but at least they’re “honor” cards and not “in memory” cards.

Still, as I run along, I watch all the cards in front of me, to the side of me. I think of it as a moving, living Vietnam Memorial – the names of the victims etched on our backs. We are a living, breathing, donating wall trying to save lives.

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:

They’re hot and sweaty. But then again, they’re always hot.

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:

More of them walk. Sometimes it’s because of knees, sometimes it’s hips. Sometimes inertia. This means that the ones who run find themselves moving up in the age group rankings. At this rate, I will eventually break into a top ten. I have become an Athlete-with-a-capital-A by default in my Third Third!

A runner friend – hot, red-faced, and sweaty – says all this racing is difficult and unpleasant. She uses stronger language. Then three friends cross the finish line, chatting, smiling, enjoying themselves. They walked. They had a great time.

I wonder what it’s like to decide to move from the running to the strolling category: Do you do it because of injury? Do you do it with nostalgia for a more active self? Do you do it with relief because now the experience is less competitive?

Somehow that decision seems monumental to me, a recognition that physical decline has taken place. But then I remember what it was like to do the first runs with my daughter. She wanted to stop at all the water stations, was astonished you could throw the cup down on the ground. We went slower, we talked, we had a good time. I had simply changed the way I participated; it was new and different but pleasurable. Maybe that’s how transitions happen.

I watch a woman cartwheeling towards the finish line. How on earth does she have the energy for cartwheels after five miles?!? While I never did cartwheels, I realize I have, in fact, made a transition: I am not trying to do cartwheels in the finish chute. I have no aspirations for doing cartwheels nor a sense of loss that cartwheels are relegated to my past. I am healthy enough where I am.

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:

Afterwards, they have a delightful brunch at a friend’s house where they encounter women they haven’t seen in twenty years and we all have to repeat each other’s names and remind ourselves how we knew each other. Someone makes a comment about name tags.

This is how women in their Third Thirds do the Alaska Run for Women:
With a sense of gratitude that so many good friends are still alive, that we are still kicking (if not cartwheeling), that a community cares.

Name tags everyone?

One of the things lovely about Anchorage is that we still get great theater – even though we may all have to see it within the same week – but during intermission, we know most people in the audience. Now, however, after having lived here 30 years and now in my Third Third, I have this problem: while I may know everyone in the audience, that only means they look familiar.

“Tim, over there – NO, don’t look! – the woman in the striped blouse. Who is she? How do I know her?”

“Huh?”

This is not very helpful. And if that woman actually approaches me (despite my trying to hide while I rack my brain), I can go into panic mode. If I smile casually and say “hi,” what if she’s someone I went to high school with 4,000 miles away who just happens to be visiting Alaska … and I just say “hi”?

My friend Linnea is very helpful. Linnea worked out that she sticks her hand out, says, “I’m Linnea. And you are? How is it you and Barbara know each other?” Isn’t that fantastic! But I can’t have a Linnea in my pocket to pull out in all emergencies.

Recently I sat at a party and a woman approached me … with her name tag dangling on her jacket but facing the wrong way out. I slyly said, “Gotta fix your name tag. New people won’t know who you are.” Ha! But name tags don’t solve the other missing data: the context in which you know the person. Previous job? Parent of kid’s friend? Friend in common? (Where is Linnea when I need her?!?)

My situation is complicated in that there are plenty of instances in which people might have seen me (on stage, in the newspaper) but I never met or even saw them. Sometimes, those will really freak me out. Four people in a row saying “Hi, Barbara” and I have no clue – that’s grounds for agoraphobia.

I tell people I have prosopagnosia, the inability to recognize faces. Years ago, I was in a fellowship program that put me on assignment Monday through Thursday. Friday I’d be with the group, returning on Monday to my assignment. Every single Monday, I’d show up and greet my mentor, “Good morning. And you are?” I cringe just to think of it. No matter how much I forced myself to memorize her, she just never took hold. “Oh, did you change your hairstyle? What’s different about you?” This excruciating thing didn’t happen with anyone else…

…except for a woman in Anchorage. She and I were once in a book club together, but her visual image just can’t stay in my head. I see her occasionally, but she knows the situation: “Hi, Barbara, I’m Patti, the one you can’t remember.” That helps me remember her and my history with her, but never her face. I’m sure she changes her hair.

It’s even worse when people are out of context. Once, a naked woman approached me in the locker room at a pool, chatting away. “Do we know each other?” “Yes, we sat next to each other at Back-to-School Night. I’m Dylan’s mother.” I came home and told Sophie this:
     “She was naked?” (horror)
          “Yes.”
     “Were you naked?” (worse horror)
          “I couldn’t help it. I was coming out of the shower.”
     (extreme horror)

I have my own locker room story. I approached Marlis and said, “Hello, you’re at a different gym than usual. We usually meet at Midtown.”
     “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“I’m Barbara.”
     “No, the Barbara I know has bright red hair.”
“Oh, sorry!” I tore the towel off my hair and recognition flashed across her face.

But these are out of the ordinary examples. It’s the old garden variety failure-to-recognize and failure-to-place-in-context that’s such a problem. So I propose a better name tag. In large type so we can read it.