Cruise to Nowhere

I went to a 50th birthday party on a boat yesterday. Kevin's cousin Andrea turned 50, and her husband Gerry threw her a surprise party on a small cruising boat. It was a chilly, gray day and the boat was covered in red and white striped plastic sheeting. It didn't protect the passengers much from the wind, but despite the fact that everyone was freezing, we all had a good time.

We don't see Andrea and Gerry much, probably once every few years. They haven't even met my daughter Esther. Kevin and Andrea were very close growing up, so we show up to their parties when we're invited.

Andrea and Gerry's old friends were there - girls from the neighborhood, old work friends, cousins and sisters. They were all outer boroughs people, mostly from Whitestone, Queens, where Kevin and Andrea grew up.

I opened a bottle of white wine, and sipped from a pink plastic cup. I was getting a nice buzz and joking around with one guy who worked in the garment center in Manhattan. He is selling Yo Gabba Gabba clothing for children, from a kid's TV show featuring a green striped creature that looks like a hairy pickle, according to my three-year-old daughter Esther. His wife, Dana, laughed about one creature that looked like a "nubby dildo."

One passenger on the boat had on a CBGB's shirt, and we reminisced about downtown Manhattan in the early 80's, and about all of the long gone bands and clubs from that time.

Everyone was balancing paper plates of baked clams and ziti on their laps, trying not to spill their drinks on the rocky boat. The food was heating in metal tins over cans of sterno. Carol Moscowitz and her husband, a pair of dentists from Kevin's neighborhood, were warming their hands over two cans of the purple sterno, like they were having a campfire.

By now, I was on my second cup of white wine, and Kevin and Andrea were talking about Andrea's mentally ill father, Mel. He sent some pornographic images to Andrea, with captions about her mother and aunt. He expected some return comments from his daughter, but Andrea was horrified and vows never to talk to him again.

Andrea and Gerry and their friends love to smoke pot. With Jimmy Buffet playing on the stereo, joints were passed around, and then cigars. The red and white plastic sheeting covering the boat started to fill with smoke.

Suddenly, I looked around at everyone's faces on the boat, and they all seemed old and wrinkled. I felt the passage of time , surrounded by a bunch of ex-hippies, reminiscing about the good old days. I started to feel depressed, and then suffocated.

The cigar and pot smoke was mixing into a rancid smell and I had to get some air. Bruce Springsteen was singing on the sound system now, about being young and racing cars on the highways of New Jersey. I was one of those young Jersey girls once, riding in cars and feeling free.

Now, I'm just a middle aged mom, trapped on a boat. I stared at the water and wanted to go home.