Tag: memories

Answers to Rob’s Holiday Poll

On your LJ or blog, list your favorite:

1 — Holiday Movie: The Ref–both because it’s funny and because of the circumstances under which I first saw it.

2 — Holiday Story: Truman Capote’s “A Christmas Memory”

3 — Holiday Song: “Oh Holy Night”

4 — Holiday TV Special: “A Charlie Brown Christmas”

5 — Holiday Sweet Treat: I ONLY eat these at Christmas and because it’s a tradition for my mother to give each of her children a box–chocolate covered cherries.

6 — Holiday Gift You Ever Received: The year I got fired from a law firm–that was the first present. The second was how losing that job freed me to spend Christmas with my entire family. We had no idea it would be the last Christmas that my father was healthy. There was a moment when I looked around and noted, “Hey. It’s just the five of us!” (Rare not to have grandkids and in-laws around.) We were all laughing and reminiscing and we took photos. The memory of that Christmas has sustained me through some hard times and is the reason why in subsequent years when something bad has happened, I realized it might end in blessings I could never have anticipated.

Happy birthday

If I counted the number of your birthdays that we’ve celebrated as friends, it would be more than the number of birthdays I admit to. So I won’t tell.

Before you came into my life, if I’d made a list of qualities belonging to the “perfect” friend for me, I wouldn’t have listed the unique traits that make you who you are. You are proof that it’s better to let friendship happen than to make it happen. You stumbled across a shy, sissy of a girl who life had taught to be too cautious, too careful, too safe. You swept into my life like a storm and taught me to run in the rain. You always made me laugh when no one else could, even during those times when you were the one pissing me off.

We went so many places we shouldn’t have gone. Did so many things we shouldn’t have done. We were wild and silly and crazy and exactly what we should have been for the time we grew up in, and I loved every minute of it, even the awful ones, and cherish the memory of every mistake, triumph, bout of laughter, and even the tears. They made us who we are.

It frustrates me at times that there are so few photos of us together. But it’s because first you, then I, would always be the one taking pictures. We have followed each other into so many interests. There are things you’re great at that I could never do, but probably more than anyone in the world, you were the one person who always, ALWAYS, encouraged my creativity, helped me find ways to express it, and were there to celebrate with me when I finally began seeing it manifest.

Whatever age we are, in my head, we are timeless. We will always be the girls talking our way backstage, out of a ticket, into an adventure, and through the forbidden parts of hospitals. We’ll be those girls making silly movies, driving on impulse to our favorite cities. We’ll always love your child together and will be the only ones who know everything about those crazy times before he came. And no matter how many times we do that most terrible of things–meet each other’s eyes in hospital rooms and at funerals–because we have lost so much–I know that we’ll be all right because we also have a lifetime of the strength that comes from being blessed with so much.

We are alike in a few ways, different in many ways, and we are forever friends. Thank you.

Happy birthday, Lynne.

HA HA HA HA HA

I was in the shower earlier and heard my cell phone beeping when I got out. I retrieved a most abashed message from someone who inadvertently sent me an e-mail that was meant for someone else, in which the sender was plotting a fiendish Christmas gift for me. (See how carefully I’m protecting this person’s identity–as if many of us couldn’t guess exactly who I’m talking about?)

Oh, if only we could get back those e-mails we send by mistake. I’ve done it. I’m sure we all have.

What was the one message you sent that made you go, “D’oh!” just a split second too late? How bad was the fallout?

Discuss while I take my greatly amused and UNTORMENTED self to bed.

Edit: I see while I was writing this, she was making a full confession.

I love the Internet.

Sad and Happy at Once

Recently I saw a postcard on Post Secret that made me really sad. Someone had written that she wished she had enough friends to give her a wedding shower. My heart broke for her. I thought of all the times in my life that my girlfriends and I have celebrated happy occasions together–graduations, marriages, births, kids’ accomplishments, new jobs, promotions, even dumping the wrong guy–or sustained each other through the loss of friends, family members, animals, jobs–and being dumped by the one we thought was Mr. Right.

Nora, Vicki, Amy, and I all started work at roughly the same time for the same company in 1992. By 1996, two of us had been laid off, one of us resigned, and one of us continued working with a group that splintered off and formed their own company. We worked together only four years; we haven’t worked together for eleven, yet here we are, a couple of weeks ago, at the baby shower Vicki gave for Nora, who’s expecting not just her first child, but her first TWO children–twin daughters–in January. And Amy is expecting son number three in December.


Nora, Vicki, Amy, me

I love these women. There were times that I honestly don’t think I could’ve kept going without them. We have laughed and cried and bitched together. We have watched one another make mistakes and falter. We have seen one another make good choices and persevere. We have had so many wonderful things to celebrate. I cherish all my friends, women and men, and can’t imagine how desolate my life would be without them.

So my heart really hurt for the woman who sent in the postcard. Then someone responded on the Post Secret site and said, “I’ll give you a shower.” And someone else responded and said, “I’ll come!” And suddenly all over the Internet, people were reaching out to her, wondering where she lived, promising to help make her wedding a celebration. I hope she saw all those responses. Even if she isn’t able to meet those strangers or allow them to show her kindness, I hope their reactions embolden her to reach out to women who are around her, to learn to be a friend to them and to be graced in turn by their friendship.

Photo Friday, No. 71

Current Photo Friday theme: Travel.

Today’s post is not so much about an interesting photo as about a significant change in the way I travel.


My traveling case of essential oils.

There was a time I wouldn’t have gone anywhere without this. When returning to Houston from San Diego in 2000, I barely had time to make my flight when I was stopped by a security attendant. She didn’t understand the contents of this case and kept opening the bottles and sniffing while I glared toward my watch. She finally said I couldn’t take them on board. I pointed out that I’d flown INTO San Diego with them. Furthermore, these tiny, very breakable bottles represent hundreds of dollars. I wouldn’t have checked them even if I hadn’t been running late, and I certainly couldn’t leave them behind.

I was attempting to explain aromatherapy to her when another guard came over and yelled, “Let her through! Those things STINK!” I laughed. Although they smell wonderful to me, it can be overwhelming to get a whiff of all of them together.

Post-September 11, I’m sure I couldn’t fly with the case, so I don’t even try. I just pack two or three bottles of blended essential oils into my checked bag and take a bottle of Bach’s Rescue Remedy on the plane to help with my fear of flying. If they ever take that from me, I’ll probably end up as an article on AOL’s home page with hundreds of rude comments being made about me by anonymous strangers.

I suppose that could sell a few books…

Monday…

…is the birthday of someone I adore, and I’m unable to get in touch with him which is MADDENING. I was fifteen the day he was born. Everyone was at the hospital but my father and me, and they made me go to my piano lesson, so I didn’t get there before he made his big entrance (and I DO mean big, at nine pounds and nine ounces).

In those days, no one knew the sex of a baby until it was actually delivered. We spent almost nine months calling it “Goose,” but once he arrived and got his real name, I never called him anything but Daniel because I thought the name was as beautiful and perfect as he was.

Many years later, when a certain tandem story came my way and I had to name its narrator, I chose the name of this absolutely wonderful child who–even though he usurped my position as family baby when he became the first grandchild of my parents–is someone I will love unconditionally until I take my last breath on this planet–and beyond.

Happy birthday, Daniel. Your kids are now older than you were when this photo was taken! Which is so weird, because I’m only thirty-five.


(Note that I’m holding a movie camera. I never change.)