I Remember Stellah

I don’t remember the day I came back to Rhinebeck. I remember the last moments right before. Boxes and bags packed full of barbies and Justice clothes. For the last four years, my connection with my hometown had existed mostly on Skype, where I met with my friend, Roxanne, to play barbies and had stories read to me by my Dad. The rest of my connection was a fantasy-land of ice pops and swimming when we returned to Rhinebeck during the summers.  

If I remember correctly, after four years away, I was excited to go back home for good. It’s the place I was born, the place I left, and naturally, the place I was going back to. I thought I knew what to expect. But like I said, I don’t remember the day I came back to Rhinebeck. 

I tried to make friends that first fall. After living abroad for four years, I had severed most of my connections. In Rhinebeck, pictures of tiny children dressed up for trick-or-treating sat next to framed graduation photos on their mantles. My baby pictures sat next to pictures of me in Mexico city and sleeping in the airport. 

One evening my dad and I were driving along a twisty upstate road. The brisk air was colder than I remembered. I hadn’t seen the leaves fall since I was six, and I was even more excited to see snowfall. He asked me something along the lines of: “Do you want to have a playdate with that girl who has a trapeze in her basement? The one with the curly hair?” 

I could hardly place this curly-haired girl in my mind, but I said yes. 

On our first playdate, the word “playdate” already felt too young. But until you can drive in a town like Rhinebeck, you depend on your parents for most of your social life. My dad drove me over to her house one day. I walked onto her porch and pulled down on my dad's shirt so he could remind me of her name: 

Stellah. 

I can still feel the awkwardness of our first hug. But our hugs became tighter and longer as we grew taller, now standing 5’10”, together. 

We’ve never gone to school together. Stellah and I met for the first time at a Mommy & Me group when we were a couple months old. I imagine we crawled around on a blanket, staring at one another with wonder. We were both adventurous children, who loved to spend time on the home-made trapeze in Stellah’s basement. When I came back, we jumped into our friendship after a four-year gap, and it was like I never left. 

Most of my middle school years after coming back to Rhinebeck were spent crying in my room alone, fighting with my mom, and watching my dad go in and out of the hospital. When my mom and her new boyfriend rented their first house, they forced me to move in with them. The walls of my bedroom were an ugly beige. They composed an airless space, within the suffocating house that I despised. It didn’t feel like home. One night I slammed my fist into the wall. It thudded and cracked open. I was crying in so much rage that I couldn’t breathe. When I woke up with puffy, red eyes, I moved a big green chair in my room to cover the hole. To this day my mom doesn’t know. 

In between all of that, I remember Stellah. 

In 6th grade we would see each other almost every weekend because she went to Red Hook and I went to Rhinebeck, the academic divide we’ve always been grateful for. Even more, our parents have never been friends. Their personalities never meshed, and in all of the years we’ve known each other our mom’s have made plans to get coffee – maximum – four times. They only went through with the plans twice. Despite their lack of friendship, I’ve been to countless Shabbat dinners at her house, she comes to every Christmas morning at mine, and we’ve always gone to each other’s Thanksgiving dinners.

But, because our lives haven’t intertwined naturally, we’ve had to put in effort to see each other. Even if our plans are for her to stop by my house for a few hours to catch up over seltzers and sunshine popsicles– it’s about making time for one another. It’s just us. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t tell her because she makes my life important.

From 6th grade on, we loved to go apple picking. After collecting buckets of apples and conducting our mid-orchard photoshoot we’d head back to her house and make apple pie. Our favorite thing was to make little rolls out of leftover dough with cinnamon and sugar called twizzle-wizzles. We’d sit next to her fireplace until they were done baking. 

When it finally snowed, we would sit in her hot tub on the back porch – which was always broken. We had a countdown for doing things like jumping into a cold pool or jumping into the snow. 

“One two three and a bumblebee and a rooster crows and away…we… go!”

We would see how much of our bodies we could get to touch the icy, numbing snow. When we couldn’t stand it anymore, we jumped back into the hot tub to feel our skin tingle and we’d talk about if we tried masturbating yet and how a guy talked to us a little differently that week and something funny we heard our parents say and why we were never going to grow up. Once our fingers were pruney and our faces bright red, we’d sit at the dining table in wet towels playing cards with her family. We’d do our – very extra – celebratory handshake if we won.

In 7th grade, Stellah moved to Israel for six months. I saw pictures and we talked regularly, but I was here and she was there. The days without her felt longer. During her flight back, I sat in my dining room, anxiously awaiting her return. Instead of going to her house after she landed, she came to mine. She flew through the door and we squeezed each other so tightly we fell to the floor. We rolled around on the ground, soaking up the scent of my grandmother’s carpet. Even though we were winded by our tears of joy, Stellah quickly began running around the house crying about how much she had missed it. And me. 

In 9th grade Stellah moved to New York City for a year. By that time I had partially parted ways with Rhinebeck and found myself at a private boarding school. Both of our worlds completely changed, but they had changed together this time. 

We now catch up during sleepovers or dinners because it isn’t ‘play dates’ anymore, it’s high school and it’s hangouts. We’re still growing, though. 

While I continue to learn more alongside her every day, I can tell you what I do know. She can squeeze the rot right out of my day. She’s one of my angels from afar. Her aura is even perceivable to the naked eye, and in a seemingly endless flow, she pours radiance into the world. I know she keeps me safe, defends me in conversation, and will always love me unconditionally. She keeps me grounded. She’s glorious. Let me just say, if I was having a dream about her, I would snooze my alarm and go back to sleep. We struggle together, eat together, cry together, save each other, and love each other. We’ve seen each other’s naked bodies and literally painted on them like blank canvases with our love. I know she would never judge me. 

Even though the world is ugly, I will always carry her sweetness with me.