The Best Kind

"My friends are my estate." Emily Dickinson

I love this picture. My Grandma Mary is the one with the white flower behind her ear and I don't know a single other person in the photo, but I do recognize the comfortable look of friendship. This picture was taken somewhere around WWII. She was a nurse at the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. A fabulous legacy of stories, some sad, some hysterical, are mine to remember her by.

In Relief Society last week, we talked about friendship and what it means to be a true friend. I enjoyed listening to the thoughts of the other women and was happy to be at the back of the room, a safe distance. However, the teacher, a woman I really admire, called on me and asked my thoughts on how we can be better friends in times of hardship. Oh. I thought: speak to me when I'm seventy and have some hindsight.

I am beginning to believe that maybe true friendship is just as much about stolid endurance as anything else. Not something I've always exemplified. The friend that sticks it out with you, believing that it will get better, that your better nature will re-surface and that she wants to be there when it finally does, to cheer and applaud. I suppose there is also a healthy dose of faith in the mix. So given the question again, I might say that a good friend helps in times of trial by sticking by your side, listening to the gripes and woes, all the while believing, that somehow, the best of you will come out on top, even better than before.

I've known a couple of these kinds of friends in my lifetime. Thank you.

Lovely Ms. Stockett

Have you ever met a true southern lady? Or gentleman, for that matter. You might assume that living in Atlanta for the past 8 years, I would run into them all the time. Sadly, no. But this past Saturday I attended AWG (Atlanta's Writer's Group), a very old (I believe it started in 1915) community of writers living within the Atlanta area that meet about once a month. Guest speakers are invited, they give a heads up on any publications in dire need of new authors, there are critique groups, etc. Well, this weekend I attended and was delightfully surprised by the second speaker, a Ms. Katherine Stockett, first time author of the huge international hit The Help. This author is pint size tiny with a small voice to boot, but plenty of personality to make up for it. She had that fabulous quick wit that I envy (why, oh why, didn't the dry wit of the British jump the pond?), but was humble and even a tad shy. You would never know she had a spine of steel, if not for the stack of 45 rejection notices she held up proudly for everyone to see. Her 5 year saga of trying to write the book and then trying to have it published made every would-be writer in that room feel totally at ease, despite her recent celebrity. She was lovely, a quintessential southern woman. I do have to say, however, that I found myself seriously perturbed by my own when the question and answer period opened up and every silly would-be-author asked about agents, editors, money. Boring! Such an amazing personality before me and all the questions were so banal and lifeless. Given the chance, I would love to ask her:

1. Which author(s) inspires your writing?

2. When you write do you have a certain reader in mind?

3. During the writing process, what do you find the hardest and what do you find the most enjoyable?

4. What do you do to overcome a stalemate with your writing?

Personally, I often find the creator just as compelling as the creation, whether it be art, books, dance, music. So much sheer will to finally reach the end goal, you can't help but admire the creator.

Well, I have not read the book as of yet but, when I do, I'll post my thoughts. I have a feeling it will be an excellent read.

The Sea, The Sea

"When I go down by the sandy shore/I can think of nothing I want more/Than to live by the booming blue sea/As the seagulls flutter round about me." J. Bouvier

Andy looking for directions on how to use charcoal briquettes. Barbecue is not his game.

Grandma Valerie and Aubrey.

Tess, artist.

Sisterly love - the slobbery kind.

Sam tries a new hairstyle on for size.

Our family took a road trip to our favorite get-away destination: St. George's Island. A skinny, wisp of an island with fine white sand and not a mini-golf or McDonalds to be found anywhere. Not everyone's cup of tea, but I adore this place. Moody skies and ocean and amazing sunsets straight from a Maxfield Parrish painting. I must admit that I enjoyed sneaking out onto the deck late at night when everyone was working on their sleep and listening to the crash of waves, seeing the white cast of the moon on the water and not feeling the tiniest bit alone. Such company.

So here is a list of some of the things I saw and enjoyed on this trip:

• A WWII bomber skimming the coastline. The pilot waving to my daughter.
• Pods of dolphins swimming by our house.
• A golden retriever playing fetch with me.
• A man in a red Speedo. This is not Europe! I blush.
• Strawberries dipped in sour cream and brown sugar.
• Sea turtle nests, translucent crabs scurrying.
• Bike riding through huge puddles. Legs up! Can you hear the fabulous swish?
  

Super Powers

Tonight I went to a fourth grade open house for my son. We, the parents, all sat at tiny desks and tried to gracefully teeter in chairs made for a person a third of our size. Blackboards and rules. Chalk and books. My imagination can put me back there in a second - age nine, ribbons in my hair, painfully sensitive. Just ask me where my homework is and I'll go into a blind panic.

Anxious parents send off a certain hormone, I'm convinced. 24 anxious parents were beginning to create a stench in that little classroom. When I feel the herd mentality beginning to shade my thinking, I wander a bit. So I wandered out into the hall, toward the poetry the class had recently created, complete with crayon colored borders. I enjoyed reading about spiders, mean sisters, pizza and baseball and then I came to Lilly. Her self-descriptive line went like this: "Lilly is shy and not smart."

Maybe I was a bit tired, but I stood there amazed at the succinct thought that sat in front of me. I learned later that she was an orphan from a foreign country and was adopted at age five. The transition has been a tough one. The school halls were relatively empty and so I found myself tracing her penciled words "...not smart." There is an energy in words. A little person, struggling her very best to survive, should not have the extra burden of such heavy words. I wanted to suck that awful energy right off the page and right off her shoulders.

My son keeps asking me if I could have a super power, what would it be? For days, I've been telling him that I'm not really sure. Tonight, standing in the hallway, it came to me - I wish I had the power to heal the hidden hurts.

That or the ability to turn into water - that would be pretty incredible, too.

Wonder twin power activate!