MY FRIEND, MARA

I met with my friend Mara last Saturday. 

I have not seen Mara in months -- we met when we were living in Montreal in August 2010 as part of the explore program. She was 19 at the time, the same age as me. We used to go to Cabaret Mado together, the drag cabaret in Montreal’s gay village that I mentioned in the second post on this blog. She is free-spirited and beautiful, although not in a traditional way. I see her as a statement. And Mara and I talked about love.

Mara has not always had what most would consider to be an “easy” life -- as she grew up her mother, who raised Mara and two siblings alone, struggled financially and the relationship between Mara’s parents, before it ended when Mara was 3, was one defined by domestic abuse.

Her family, like mine, is Jewish and we discovered while living in Montreal during the summer that she grew up in a neighbourhood not far from the one I grew up in. 

She approches style with a sense of humor, but she manages to look beautiful and sexy, even when wearing funny, and potentially offensive garments like sequined bikini she wore into a 7/11 on Main Street last summer when we went to buy cigarettes, or the black shirt with holes in it she was wearing when I met her for breakfast in the village last weekend. It said Fuck you, you Fucking Fuck.

Mara worked as a stripper when we got back from Montreal and I even went to see her dance one night, although it made me sad. I felt like underneath her tough exterior that, on that night, was characterized by a huge fur coat over a sparkling champagne panty and bra set as we stood outside the back door of the club sharing a smoke, she was afraid. I don’t think she wanted to be there depite that she joked, in her very Mara way, that she didn’t care and that the cash was good.

“Maybe I can stop driving around this fuckin‘ beater if I stay long enough,” she said in her husky voice while laughing and pointing across the street to her 1987 Honda Civic. 

She ended up falling in love with her boss, who was a woman, although she told me on the weekend when I asked that she does not consider herself a lesbian. Plus, she met someone recently.

“I met a guy,” she said as we sat at Kawaii Crepe and she ate a Milky Way. 

She started to smile and we both had that look on our faces that keeps us friends -- the one that says one of us is up to no good and the other one is probably all for it. 

“Oh yeah,” I said, already laughing. The best thing about Mara is her sense of humor, which comes through even when she finds herself in circumstances that are less than ideal.

“He’s older, though.”

I asked how much older and Mara told me he is nearly 60. 

We found this funny although I could tell Mara was not laughing in a malicious way, and maybe that became clear to me because of the way she talked about him.

“I love who he is,” she said simply. This was strange because Mara usually provides a ton of explanation, as I tend to do too, which is why our conversations often last hours. “And he treats me nice.”

She told me that she appreciates that he drives her home. After Mara quit working as a stripper, she had to sell the Civic. We went for one last smoke cruise (a term we used to describe driving around to no where, usually in the summer, smoking cigarettes and listening to the song about San Francisco that came out in the 60’s. We usually close such events with a nice round of Would you rather?)

Now, she works at a grocery store in the North End of Winnipeg, not far from where she lives with a roomate, and she said sometimes her new friend will drive all the way from his affluent neighbourhood in the South End to make sure she gets home safe. 

She told me they’ve driven around to cemeteries and talked about nothing when his wife was at work, and although he acknowledges Mara’s beauty and sensuality, he refuses to have sex with her. She said he sees her more like a young person who was never really nurtured, or something like that. He is also trying to help her look into places that might want to sell the ornaments she makes in a glass blowing class she attends once a week, so she will profit from her art.

“I like it, but I don’t get it,” she said about their friendship. “I don’t know what someone who drives a fuckin’ Mercedes, and who shops at specialty grocery stores, and whatever, would want with a kid like me.” 

And I got what Mara was saying, although I didn’t agree with it. To me, Mara is beautiful on the inside and out. She has a thick mane of long, black hair, a mischevious smile, and blue eyes. Additionally, she has a caring and compassionate side to her that is the result of a life where people have not always “treated her nice,” but she has turned it around to make sure not to make others feel the way she has, although that is not always obvious unless you know her story.

At the same time, however, Mara was born on the same side of the tracks as me, and our similar life experiences keep us together because we have an understanding. So I saw why she was confused, and I wished in that moment that she wasn’t so oblivious to her own beauty.

I am using the conversation Mara and I had as inspiration for some of the stories I will be writing for Late Bloomers. She gave me permission, as long as I depict her as “wild and free,” although she already is. I don’t imagine I will base one story on her, but there is a quality and a beauty about Mara that I hope to see in all of my characters, so tidbits of her life might find their way through all of the stories.

Mara won't let me take her picture, and she told me I am only allowed to share her story if I post the following to represent her, although, for what it's worth, I think Demi does not compare.

Image from Google