I can’t say it’s the table. Nor the cupboards. I do like my kitchen, but it’s more correct to say I like who I am in my kitchen. Be it bread or cookies, I like that I’m creating something that wasn’t there before. I like that my Elsie confidence allows me to add flour without measuring, and grin as if I’ve always known. And certainly that’s not the case. I never baked before coming to France. And now my house shoes have a permanent ring of flour in the cracks.
And isn’t it the way with friends:
“I really like who I am with you… I hope that doesn’t sound bad to say… I mean it more as a compliment to you, more of a “thank you” really. You free me to be this person who laughs and cries and feels and enjoys and loves. What a relief to be myself, without performing, or worrying… just being and becoming who I am… That’s some gift… I hope I’m returning it… because you know what, I really like who you are with me.”*
It’s not really in spite of, but because of, that we’re friends — this walking through beach and storm.
I could feel it, looking at her water damaged basement. What a mess to have gone through. But how quickly we moved to what it was going to be next. The finish. The decoration. And this was nothing really, compared to what we’ve been through together. The real storms we have actually weathered. Side by side. Braced in winds of heart-ache, and ever bent in waves of laughter.
I hope you can see it in the painting. I hope you live it in your real life.
People often ask me what is my favorite card. I can’t say for certain, but I do know the one that I send, sometimes just in my head, many times a day. Because no matter the occasion, joyous, sentimental, difficult, exciting, wonderful, painful, hopeful, I want to be there, because we’re friends.
Even when we’re countries apart, we feel the same things. We type our footsteps, and we walk together.
And I am all the better, perhaps the best of myself, because we’re friends.
Maybe it’s easier to see when we’re younger. Or maybe they do the work for us. Giving us uniforms. Gathering us together on buses and in classrooms. Cross-legged on floors in circles, whispering and giggling. They give us mascots and rally songs. And we are a part of something.
And then they send us off into the world. Hoping it was enough. Hoping they gave us the skills to recognize those around us. To connect without uniform.
And you know it when you do. As certain as if the rally song was playing behind you. Those friends, old and new, that know you as you become and become. As you change and grow. Those that walk beside you. In moments of pure joy. In the tenderness of sorrow. Through the uncertainties of success and loss. Always. All ways. Beside. Without hesitation, they join in the laughter, they answer each doubt, each question the same, “…because we’re friends.”
She took the time to shovel a path. A driveway that wasn’t hers. A long one. Just so we would have an easy time with our luggage. But I suppose that’s the way with some people — they not only welcome you, they make it so easy to be their friend. They don’t just allow you in, but they clear a path.
And that’s not everyone. Not in this world of walls and division. So how do we get over? Get through? Maybe it’s just one message at a time. And the echoing of.
I have new cards coming out soon. I’ve made them for decades now. I don’t run out of words. Maybe I just write the ones I’d like to hear myself. (Sometimes we shovel alone.) They are just tiny greetings. Small words of hope. Encouragement. Joy. And they won’t clear a path for everyone, but if you’re reading this, I hope you can feel it. Maybe walk the path of this day a little easier, by walking in the echo of the gifts I have been given.
I suppose we always want what we can’t have. So when she asked me if she could bring me anything from the US, I said red licorice. We don’t have it in France. Nor jelly beans. This shouldn’t be a surprise when you know that Hershey chocolate bars are in the exotic aisle of the grocery store, along with the peanut butter.
I kind of forgot about it. They had been here for hours, my American friends, before she brought out the gift bag. As she placed it in front of me, I saw the tip of red sticking out. Twizzlers! A two pound bag! I said, “If there are jelly beans in there as well, I might just pass out.” There were, and I didn’t. And then he said, “I brought some too. It’s my go-to travel candy.” He went to his suitcase and brought out at least another pound. “The bag is resealable,” he said, both thinking that seems highly unnecessary, and I knew I was with my tribe.
If we remembered the countless things that connect us, maybe our country, our countries, wouldn’t feel so divided.
My mother loved jelly beans. Red were her favorite (mine as well). Then yellow. Orange. Green sometimes. White in desperation. Purple, never. She gave purple to the birds and sometimes her mother in the back seat on long car journeys. Driving, I would never have to wonder or even ask what color she passed back to my grandma, be it jelly bean or Tootsie pop. Before her hand even reached over the seat, we would begin to laugh. It’s not like she didn’t know. Even Helen Keller would have seen the lack of randomness in candy choice. It didn’t take many miles for her to join in. Cupping her hands around the sugared treat, she said, “You know I like purple.” I’m still laughing.
What a thing it is to know someone. Without labels. Only by experience. To know my mother needed narrow shoes. My grandma, wide. Yet, their hands were surprisingly similar. Maybe no one “needs” three pounds of Twizzlers, but as the weight dwindles day by day, I am reminded where I come from. My joyful red heart beats wide open, never to be resealed.
It was my mother who first told me of it. I’m sure Grandma Elsie told her — how we once were physically connected. It was an umbilical cord. I could barely say the word, and hardly could believe it was true, but neither had ever lied to me, so I agreed to it. Right here? I asked, pointing to my own innie that looked just like hers. “Yes,” she said. “That’s how all the love got through.” That made sense, I thought. Because surely we had a connection. “And it never closes?” “Nope,” she exclaimed.” All the joy, the laughter, will forever find its way in.” I have protected my belly button ever since.
The last few days have been filled with laughter. They call it a belly laugh. But it’s more than that really. The kind of laugh that starts from the heart. A shared story that gets more funny over time. And this joy that bends you at the waist, and defies all gravity, rendering your neck useless, and your mouth unable to close — this belly laugh takes your belly button, and and heaves it in so deeply that it rubs the back of your spine, again and again. And she was right. They were right. This is where all the joy gets in. And the glorious thing is, it’s not just from mother to daughter, but from friend to friend. And when they leave, these friends, these little women girls that have filled the house with laughter, and strengthened my spine, my upright being, it will stay with me, walk with me, all this inner (innie) joy.
I suppose I should thank Mrs. Anderson. As our high school volleyball coach, she brought us all together. Today three of those cardinals are in my home, here in France, a lifetime and a country away, yet, not that much has really changed. We are two spikers. Two setters. And even without the uniforms we are in sync. Passing not the ball, but the memories, and a few glasses of wine to make them all a little more clear.
It didn’t take much to make us hopeful then. A clean pair of Nikes, at the beginning of the season. A red swoosh lifted us off the ground and took us from classrooms to gymnasiums. With no regard to what language your grandmother spoke. No thought to how much money your parent (or parents if you were lucky) made. We simply played. Of course we won and lost, but sitting together under a Mediterranean sun, it all feels like winning.
I have made friends through the years. College. Work. Artistic. Good friends. Really good friends. But there’s something about those who knew you, at the beginning. It doesn’t mean they are better than any newer friends. But they are different. Without explanation, they know the smell of the exhaust on a big yellow bus. Assignments flourished and struggled. Teachers. Sleepovers that began with such good intentions, but ones I couldn’t survive because of missing my mom. These are the friends that not only knew where you lived, but were able to take you home. I’m smiling now, because they still have that power.
The sun is rising. In all of our different uniforms, we will walk together again, with all of wildly different high hopes.
