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Finding My Fonda

I can feel Jane Fonda’s
weirdness in me and I can
relate to her fairly omnipresent 

fish out of water look that it seems

to me has always there, or now maybe 

dug a bit deeper into her surface. For several

years now I’ve watched interview after
interview that she has given — and they’ve 

been relentless, an easy thing to obsess over. 

And they are so rarely just one-on-one interviews.

There’s Lily Tomlin, of course, but many others.

In the interviews, this diva of the silver screen and boob tube,

this icon of activism and feminism and empowerment 

comes shining through. And the way she goes 

about forming friendships. When Fonda decides

she wants to get close with someone, it’s often before 

she even meets them. She’ll see someone onstage or on tv 

or at a conference and she'll immediately know that she must

befriend this person.  Her mind is made and she relentlessy pursues

it.  And then they just cannot rid themselves of her goal. 

These conversations attest that once that bond is made, the 

feelings are mutual. It’s also clear that she loves to play the buffoon, 

to be the center of attention, the butt of any joke. This

act can get a bit feisty, and caustic and don’t I know it.

I do it, too. And would that, all along, I were doing 

it as well as she has. Sometimes I’d clown it up to the 

detriment of any bonds I once had with an oft-present group of 

close friends. Like her, I like stirring up trouble, 

shaking norms, making things interesting. As I sit here,

I can't  wonder but how significant this characteristic 

has played in the complete dissipation of a carefully 

thought out, planned, nurtured and finessed group of friends. 

That once lovely group who meant the world to me. 

And I thought the world of them. There we all, I’d think
participating in life’s great adventure.  But seemingly

all at once, they all vanioshed, disappeared

for good from my life, mostly never to be
seen by me .  it’s a mystery that every day since has
befuddled me, remains my biggest woe and the

biggest tragedy of my tiny life THUS far. Their presence gave

me such joy, and such reason to wake up each morning and
their loss has me digging deeper into 

what I see in Jane Fonda a totally successful

venture.  So it would appear that the similar quality 

I share with Fonda has  effected opposite results. 

Where I am flawed, however, Jane seems perfect. Which 

has me thinking a thing I do all too often: should I

ever attempt to rebuild myself such a new family? 

There are moments when I see signs that give me hope
for rebuilding such a group, and think how good it 

could be to give it my all so that I can do it better 

than before.  However, it does seem to be
an exhausting project, and not

any easy or ogranic process,

given my age and skepticism.

Food for thought, I suppose.

Whatever the case, I continue to open my 

eyes wide for those positive signs and will 

perhaps make my Jane Fonda 

moves should it ever seem more possible.