Quite honestly - between you and me -
while I loved being a mom her first year or two, when I breastfed, and carried her in a cozy sling, I was tried and tired by the toddler and preschool years, compounded by new single momdom. But something wonderful happened this year, age 5 into 6 - where she blossomed into a school kid, with a sense of humor and deep empathy. I began to enjoy our times and our talks together. We've reached a groove and I have profound respect for this kid. She is growing and learning right before my eyes. She's had some friend trials - ay me, girl meanies! She has way too much sass - that I hope gets tempered and ultimately deployed to good ends as an adult. She has learned to swim (jumping off the diving board) and bike (exploring the bike trail ahead of me) and read (now I have to hide my email!). It's my job to shepherd her through the tough times, be her advocate at school and in life, and always provide my unconditional love. Dear. Daughter.
Other family, friends, and loved ones More sunshine and light...Over the years, busy lives, competing priorities, and distance (even within DC) seems to make it harder and harder to maintain friendships. But there are several good people that are deeply important to me, and this year and in the coming year I want to be sure to invest time and care in those that mean the most to me. They have been with me through thick and thin, and they know me well.
In particular, my neighbor Aileen and her boyfriend Michael, are good people. They invite me for fun dinner parties with interesting people. We love to cook, drink wine, and sit on our porches shooting the shit (and watching the street thugs). We go to the community foundation's Literary Feast in October, and the house tour in May. We are up on all the small business gossip. We love our wonderful community, and its little gems.
I have known Michele for nearly twenty years from our Peace Corps days. After a good ten years out of touch, we found each other in DC again, where she is an MD/MPH nerd doing malaria vaccine research and who talks endlessly about mosquitoes and infectious disease. We get together for drinks and talk about life, work, and overanalyze our dating lives. Michele will be moving to Thailand in early 2011 to work on a research trial about 8 hours on a bumpy road over the Thai border in rural Cambodia. I will miss her, and now I have a new place to visit.
The Fearsome Foursome - my three high school friends, Abby, Laura and Jen, plus myself go way back...Ab and I to 3rd grade, and the others to 7th grade. Three of us managed to get to Paris this year to celebrate 40, and we share lives over email and in our annual Thanksgiving gathering, this year on the top-floor bar of the Bellevue Hotel in Philadelphia. Mostly, we talk and laugh about family life - houses, husbands, kids, childcare - and what the hell has happened to our cool, young selves since all that?
Kaia and Jen are godparents to Grace and all goodness and light. I have never met people who so authentically and uncloyingly count their blessings, and spread joy and kindness wherever they are. They are practical social justice program managers and committed activists. They are brilliant, yet never, ever, ever pretentious. They are the most religious and progressive people I know. It's strange to talk about them as a single unit. They are indeed remarkable individuals, but I enjoy their coupleship and their complementarily as much together as I do individually. Whenever I am with them, I feel loved and cherished. I do not see them nearly enough.
I have several friends from grad school days - Amy and Ian, Vikki, Nancy (and husband John), Megan (and husband Tony), Diana and Bart. They are all in DC now, together with several others who I see even less frequently than the infrequency with which I see these wonderful people. And while they mean far more to me than what they do for a living, I'm deeply admiring of their committed social change livelihood pursuits (and relative Washington power). They work on as a civil liberties attorney at ACLU; researching the policies and practices of the exploitive extraction industries for Oxfam; empowering people to use and understand credit wisely at Credit Builders Alliance; improving the quality of international education programs; working on climate change for the Fed; writing books and shaping policy for juvenile deportees; doing photography and food design for Nat Geo and the Food Network; or making the limping DCPS a better educational system for our kids... Damn, I find these people fascinating, funny, and good friends!
My sister knows me better than perhaps anyone in the world. We are so different, as evidenced by our chosen life pursuits and landscapes. She simply loves her suburban life in Chantilly and her fake processed lite food. She is always, always genuinely shocked when the Bachelorette couple does not work out six months after airtime. And yet, we have so much in common by nature of our shared upbringing (albeit with drastically different real life results than the laboratory tests would have predicted). We have endless conversation fodder from our hyperactive, youth-obsessed, anxiety-prone mother (who I love and value enormously and would be utterly lost without despite it all) and our grouchy, cheapskate, jolly-drunk, and completely-endearing-anyway stepfather (who I love as a father far more than he knows). Sis and I can spend hours on the phone sometimes talking about cheesewhiz and reality tv, our parents and our kids, and life's twists and turns. Sometimes, we'll just surf the web together on the phone - "Hey, check this out!" - before hanging up and going to sleep.
You know that question about how would you want to host for your ideal dinner party?...well, I think they are all right here in this friends and loved ones section. Them...and maybe Nigella Lawson, and we've got a good food and lively conversation! I cherish these people and enjoy their good company.
Throughout 2010 - the good, bad, ugly and sublime - I was glad these people were there.
No comments:
Post a Comment