August 5 is National Friendship Day.  The late American radio host Bernard Meltzer once said, “A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.”  Some of my friends have moved away or we have lost touch over time.  Others were once mentors and now we are friends as adults.  I have managed to make a few newer friends for which I am grateful.  I have also made some interesting cyber friends which, when I was a kid, they called pen pals.  Since I have stayed in the same area my entire life, we often run into one of my oldest friends, whom I have known since the second grade.  As far as I’m concerned, there is a true place in heaven for ANYone who can endure a half hour discourse on the lineage of “My Little Pony” from my little one and not run screaming for the hills.  I own a petsitting business and some of my clients have become friends.  Then there are friends I have made through our parish.  One of them I tried and tried for months to meet up with to no avail.  Something always happened on my end and I could not go but she never once complained.  Frankly, I cannot believe she still wanted to be friends with me.  Not wanting to call off our girls’ dinner yet again, I asked if she minded if my little one tagged along.  She texted that it was fine and my six-year-old felt so grown up!  We all devoured these incredibly delicious deviled eggs — which were delicately spiced with cumin and sriracha.  I suppose friendships are a bit like eggs … they can get scrambled, they can stink, or they can hard boil into something wonderful and resilient.  I may be slightly cracked, but I consider myself to be a loyal friend — and a good egg.   

My child sees hearts everywhere we go.  We have both discovered them in leaves, rocks, and shells that I can think of.  I have amassed quite a collection of hearts from her — either from a walk or from something she’s brought home for me from school.  As early as 1239, the symbol we now recognize as a heart can be seen on the Bible Jesus holds in a mosaic in Istanbul’s famed Hagia Sophia.  The classic red heart as we know it today I am guessing is the universal symbol for love.  I was taking a walk through the woods near our home with my little girl when she said she’d made something for me.  Looking down at the ground, to my delight I saw she’d fashioned the word “love” out of sticks and rocks.  “I love you Mama,” she said and time stood still.  I could feel the wind gently lifting my hair, see the early morning rays of sunlight casting through the trees, smell the slightly damp scent of earth rising up to me, and hear the distant trickle of water flowing from the creek.  I had waited so long to be a mother and I am so very grateful to be one.  My parents may be gone, but I see my mother in my child’s full lips and my father in her impossibly long, jet black eyelashes.  I thought I knew what love was.  I was fortunate enough to have been cocooned in it by my parents my whole life.  Then, when my incredibly handsome husband asked me to marry him, I was blessed to experience a different kind of love.  I was taught in church about agape love, considered to be the love originating from God to man.  While I have been so blessed to have known any type of love at all, there is something indelible about the love between a mother and child.  I realize many do not get to experience that while others do and take it for granted.  So there we were, standing there together holding hands and my heart was overflowing.  Smiling, I looked down at my cherished little one and said, “I love you, too.”  In that moment I fully realized just how much love my mother had always felt for me.  The American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher once said, “We never know the love of a parent till we become parents ourselves.”  Standing with my six-year-old in the middle of the woods, I knew that to be true.  I am so glad I took this picture.  It is a cherished reminder to remember the moment.

When my mother was a girl (in the ’40’s) she told me she used to ride the trolly car alone to Fair Park to take art lessons in the summer.  All I can picture is what a different time it must have been when a ten-year-old little red-haired girl could ride a streetcar all by herself into the heart of downtown Dallas with no problem.  Now in the U.S. kids who are ten are not even allowed to ride in the front seat of a car with their own parents.  My mother had a true talent for art and was fond of replicating scenes from Audubon’s books of wildlife.  I never took art lessons and have no idea if I would have been any good.  This summer I sent our little one to an art “camp” for a week, which translated into a four-hour-a-day respite for me so I could work and at least pretend to keep up the house along with my sanity.  Our child likes to paint and has already been exposed to art classes early curtesy of the private school she is fortunate to attend.  I never picked up a paint brush in my life until I was 44.  A few years ago, to my delight, I’d won a silent auction bid to raise money for our little one’s church school.  It was an evening out for two to paint a scene of their choosing at an art studio with an instructor in a fun class.  I wanted to paint the Dallas skyline and hoped my husband would as well.  Sadly, he had zero interest so I invited a girlfriend of mine to go with me instead.  We enjoyed some Cab Sav and painted our interpretations of the skyscrapers downtown.  She is a professional art therapist but my friend was gracious and very laid back.  Her attitude was that art is not perfection; it is personal.  I really enjoyed taking the class and gained a small understanding of how relaxing creating a painting can be.  When my mother was a young girl, she hand-painted all sorts of birds on fragile china plates and cups.  She also painted two framed pieces which hang in our daughter’s playroom.  My favorite is the one she made of waterbirds.  Stalky white cranes, small egrets, and great blue herons are all perched on delicate tree branches overlooking water lilies blooming in deep, blue water.  The Irish critic George Bernard Shaw once said, “You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.”  I find that particularly significant given how many different people view art in so many different ways.  Our daughter came back after the second day and presented me with my favorite — a wolf in blue.  This holds great significance for me and I know both my father and my mother would have been so proud.  Even if you have never tried before, I say it’s not too late to try your hand at painting … it may allow you a reflection into your soul.

Mama took me almost every weekday in the summer to our local library when I was a little kid.  She was a voracious reader and instilled the same love in me.  I was able to get lost in my own little world.  It didn’t involve watching TV and, mercifully, it was in the air-conditioning.  I remember they had a bulletin board for summer readers and each time you completed a book you got a star sticker under your name.  There was a contest to see who could read the most books.  I realized, despite my inherently competitive nature, it did not matter how quickly one could read; the joy was in the journey.  Even now I have been known to slow down toward the end of a book just to savor it a bit longer.  My sweet, quiet, lady-like little mother loved murder mysteries.  She read hundreds of them.  I think when I was a kid she read all 66 of Agatha Christie’s novels like Murder on the Orient Express.  Then I remember her adoring The Cat Who … series.  A Google search says there were 29 of those and the title that sticks with me is The Cat Who Knew Shakespeare.  After that I found she was into the Navajo murder series by Tony Hillerman.  I believe the first book was entitled The Blessing Way.  Mama was never without a book.  I suspect Daddy thought they may have been frivolous since they were fiction and he preferred non-fiction books on history and politics; my husband prefers the same.  I have been reading historical romance novels since I was ten; to be frank — they are sometimes referred to as “bodice rippers.”  I used to be SO embarrassed by the covers I would use something else to put in front of them.  I loved to read on my lunch break when I was working at Lord & Taylor in my early twenties.  A book is a treasure.  It is something in which one can escape whenever one is able and, unlike a movie, it is your own imagination that fuels it.  My earliest literary loves were the Madeline series (thrilled it’s now my little girl’s favorite as well) and the Frog and Toad books.  I do not recall having a suggested summer reading list until the second grade.  Now they have kiddos reading in kindergarten.  Our little girl is doing pretty well I think to be entering first grade this coming school year.  We have tons of books we bought to read to her as a baby, but I realized she has few she can read on her own.  So I broke down and bought her half a dozen “Step Into Reading” books.  To my delight, she has eschewed both the television and her iPad in favor of them.  Designating my bench by the window as her reading place, she has even had the nerve to “shush” me several times when it interrupted her concentration.  The American best selling author Sarah Addison Allen said, “Who I am, what I am, is the culmination of a lifetime of reading, a lifetime of stories.  And there are still so many more books to read.  I’m a work in progress.”  I love this quote and share the same sentiment.  We’re all a work in progress … just keep reading.

I have been adding more music to my “library” lately.  Singing has always been a major part of my life and I love to do it whenever I can — from church to my car to the shower.  Being digital, I have all my beloved songs right on my phone, and I can take them with me wherever I go.  Making my own playlists brings me joy.  I have a playlist for songs all in French; one for classical music, sacred music, ballads, the entire soundtrack to the movie “Coco,” country, disco, hair bands, happy songs, inspirational songs, mariachi (my favorite next to the Latin church pieces,) songs I have “Shazammed” when I was not hip enough to know what they were, and work out music (which I need to listen to more.)  I love it when I discover a new song — even if it has been around for years.  In this case, I stumbled upon a ballad by the Judds, whom I have always liked.  The melody is lovely and the lyrics are bittersweet.  It is about remembering your childhood but not being able to really go back.  However I believe in some ways one can.  Some of my best childhood memories were the times when my folks and I went to the lake.  Daddy would sprawl out on one of his Grandmother’s handmade quilts and take a nap under the shade of a tree.  Mama would unpack our picnic and keep an eye on me as I searched for tadpoles, fed the ducks, and ran to swing.  It was an idyllic time and even as a little kid I seemed to realize it.  It didn’t cost any money but it sure was priceless.  The Fourth of July just passed and I brought a quilt for my husband, our little one and me to lay on while we watched the fireworks.  I had forgotten about the sounds of summer, the smell of the grass, and just looking up at fluffy white clouds against a dark blue sky.  I even broke down and let my little one have my favorite childhood pleasure:  Dr. Pepper.  It is the only soda I ever indulge in and, since I try not to drink it now, it, too brought back memories.  There was still a quilt enjoyed by one chocolate-covered head, one vanilla-haired, and one strawberry colored.  Only now instead of Mama and Daddy with me it is my husband and child.  I married a dark-haired man like my father and my little girl gets her auburn from my mother.  I’m still the vanilla.  My Daddy never wore shorts and neither does my husband really.  I used to love riding on Daddy’s shoulders and our little one loves to do the same with my husband.  The aforementioned newly-discovered Judd’s song entitled “Flies on the Butter” floated through my mind.  My little family is so much like the one I had as a child.  Just as I did with my folks, we were eating watermelon on the Fourth, laying on a quilt in the Texas heat, sipping Dr. Pepper, and waiting for the fireworks to begin.  The American novelist Louis L’Amour once said, “No memory is ever alone; it’s at the end of a trail of memories, a dozen trails that each have their own associations.”  I’ve never thought about it until now … perhaps that’s why they call it memory lane.

Joy is often found in the little things.  Since I refuse to use my wolf mugs for fear of breaking them, years ago I took to enjoying my morning cups of coffee with foxes.  Fox, after all, is kin to coyote, who is cousin to wolf.  My regular fox mug started to look gross no matter how much I cleaned it.  On a whim, I saw this happy fox in a catalogue and decided to get him.  I have always been a details person and often delight in the whimsical.  After Foxy arrived I confirmed he was indeed dishwasher and microwave safe as I waited for my chicory coffee from New Orleans’ Café du Monde to finish brewing.  I opened my little orange fox container and started out with my customary spoonful of “sugar” (Splenda.)  After I’d poured my coffee and added my organic hazelnut almond milk creamer I noticed something … at the top of my new mug, written in tiny black letters, were the words, “Wherever you are, be all there.”  I was completely and delightfully surprised to find the quirky script as well as the sort of informal mantra that greeted me.  So I did some research and learned the the quote belonged to the late Christian missionary Jim Elliot.  As I sat down to savor my first sip I found myself rereading the little words again.  I had no idea when I’d ordered it that it contained any type of quote.  I like to get going before my husband and daughter, so I sat in silence as I contemplated this.  It was just six words but they were packed with so much meaning.  I thought about my childhood and knew that I was definitely “all there” with my sweet parents.  But with the advent of my beloved iPhone, I realize it has made me not fully present in some ways.  While I have used it to record so much of my married life and practically everything our child has ever done, I do not feel that by documenting it I lost anything in the moment.  When I have not been “all there” were the times I just wanted to read instead of drawing with my little girl.  I have texted as I’ve listened with half an ear to my husband’s paranormal interests; yet he has read each and every one of my blogs.  I REALLY want to be fully present with my family, whom I love with all my heart.  I want to be more “there” with friends and strangers and places I encounter.  Dear readers, wherever you are, be all there.

As mothers go, I truly do not feel I am obnoxious.  I am, however, very proudly verbal.  I took this picture immediately after our six-year-old had her cast removed from breaking her elbow awhile back.  They literally used pliers to remove the stainless steel L-shaped pins that were embedded inside her bones — without so much as a minimal pain dimmer.  It involved a bit of digging and there was an awful wrenching sound as the rather long pins were slowly twisted and pulled from her small frame.  She never cried and she actually watched them being removed without even a flinch.  The doctors there said they have seen big professional football players take one look at their surgeries after their casts were removed and have thrown up.  Not my girl!  She asked what they were doing every step of the way and, despite being pale, refused to look away.  After her pins were out she said she wanted to keep them, so the physician’s assistant helpfully cleaned them and then sealed them in a clear medical bag.  She couldn’t wait to bring them to show and tell.  On the way out she privately lamented her pins’ sterility; she would have preferred to have retained the blood and tissue that came out along with them.  Even having had her hard cast sawed off and her pins removed, you will note she is still in a sling here.  It would be over a month before her doctor would give her clearance to resume her twice a day recesses with her classmates as well as her physical education classes, all of which she had missed for months.  Austin O’Malley, who was a professor of English at Notre Dame as well as an ophthalmologist once said, “When walking through the ‘valley of shadows,’ remember, a shadow is cast by a Light.”  I think it became more difficult for her not to move fully once all her procedures were over.  Even her P.E. coach said she was “a good sport” about her confinement, although he could see her frustration.  I suspect this serves as a classic lesson that one does not fully appreciate what one has until it is lost.  After she was officially released I believe she has given more thought and gratefulness for physical activity, and she is thankful to be cast off.

I am discovering one of the many fun things about having a child fortunate enough to be in a private school is that there are fundraisers.  In the fall there is a carnival that is for the whole family and in the spring they have one that is just for the grown-ups.  This was our first time stepping out since our little one is in kindergarten.  The theme this year was Havana nights.  There were women wearing festive flowers in their hair and men sporting Fedoras.  I can say without bias my husband was the most handsome man there and he looked off the charts in his new blue tux jacket with the lapis cufflinks I’d given him some years ago.  We took a “party bus” to get there and it was fun that we both answered Cuban trivia correctly to win little prizes.  Each passenger would also leave with a set of colorful maracas before entering the venue.  Once we got off the elevator we were handed a mojito as we checked ourselves in for the live auction later that evening.  Then we browsed through tables of various packages up for bidding.  They had everything from VIP shopping trips to attending the world premier of the next “Mission Impossible” in London.  My husband and I chose to bid for our little one to have a chance to spend the night at her school with all the girls in her grade.  Our class didn’t win but I figure we have eight more tries before she leaves this school as a freshman.  Cuban music blared as tuxedoed servers passed hors d’oeuvres on silver trays.  There was a fun photo area set up where we got our pictures taken and printed instantly, which made a nice memory.  On the tables cigar boxes were artfully stacked as centerpieces and woven straw fans graced them as well.  There were real pineapples and fake palm trees; all of which contributed to the festive atmosphere.  A tower of churros was beautifully arranged near the bar for dessert.  My favorite spot was the hand rolled cigar station.  I chose both kinds offered; one was similar to a Montecristo and the other a Churchill.  The cigar bands read “Havana Nights” and I look forward to trying them.  The British writer and traveler Evelyn Waugh once said:

“The most futile and disastrous day seems well spent when it is reviewed through the blue, fragrant smoke of a Havana Cigar.”

Neither one of us have been to Cuba but on this evening, with the lights of the Dallas skyline behind us, we managed to experience a taste of Havana nights.

They say you never really appreciate your parents until you grow up.  I knew I’d always valued them, but I have come to the conclusion that one cannot be fully grateful for everything your parents did until you become a parent yourself.  My father worked every day but Sundays.  He owned a painting business and had a clientele mostly for residential houses, both interior and exterior.  He also did large projects, like painting the First Baptist Church of Dallas.  He and my mother made sacrifices so that she could stay home with me.  Looking back though I notice we had an abundance of books — my mother’s on classical art and music, my father’s on politics and history, and mine which contained Newbery and Caldecott Medal award-winning children’s books.  We took advantage of free outdoor concerts in the summer like the symphony and Shakespeare in the park, we utilized our local library, and tried to make museum days when they were free.  We also watched cool nature documentaries on TV.  I particularly loved watching, “The Wonderful World of Disney” on Sunday evenings with my parents.  Looking back I see how well they educated me on their own outside of the schoolroom.  They instilled in me a love of learning and thirst for knowledge which continues to this day.  I remember it was very important to my father that I learn phonetics.  He was never very good with them and wanted me to be better.  I do not know why, over the years, I have managed to tell myself I was naturally gifted with languages and spelling.  As I have recently been working with my kindergartener over her 72 “sight words” I have been transported back into the long-forgotten days of whining, writhing, and wailing.  To my horror I realized what my little one is doing to me is the same thing I did to my mother as she thanklessly and tirelessly worked with me on my flashcards.  Now the cards are in my hands.  I must do for my daughter what my mother did for me.  When my little one proclaimed it was too hard I told her that for most people learning isn’t something automatically acquired; it requires persistence and hard work.  Sometimes it is fun and sometimes it is unbridled Hell.  Peering through the veils of time, I remember my parents helping me study to make it to the regional Spelling Bee after I became my elementary school champion.  That didn’t just happen; I remember them working with me and checking the words as I got them right.  I have noticed with each small victory my little one becomes less “agonized” and, therefore, so do I.  The retired American four-star army general Colin Powell said, “There are no secrets to success.  It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”  Just as my parents wanted for me, my husband and I want for our child to successful, in whatever form that may take.  One day I wonder if my little one will recall these early days of learning and have the same revelation about me that I did about my mother.  If or when she does, she’ll know it in a flash.

I love the school my daughter is lucky enough attend.  I made the most of my public education, and I am thankful for it.  But traversing the colorful, imaginative halls of her world I have found myself wishing I could have been as fortunate.  The school is passionate about children and learning.  It practices our faith; it is cheerful, inclusive, unpretentious, and —- most of all, kind.  I have discovered it is easy to be kind with one’s own social class, or with someone who holds the same beliefs.  More difficult I have found is showing kindness to one who does not like you for whatever reason, or who does not accept you, or who deems themself better than you.  From the time my child could understand I have told her what my father told me:  there will always be someone smarter than you, better looking than you, or greater than you in some skill.  And, should you happen to be the very best in all of those things, there will always be someone younger than you.  My father did not say this to discourage me — rather, he said it to strengthen me.  A highly competitive kid, I made the Honor Roll, won the school Spelling Bee, got every principal’s award, and gold medaled in both statewide singing and writing competitions.  I was also on the drill team, which was a huge deal in high school.  Still all the kids made fun of me for wearing the same clothes, and an adult even once joked about my father’s car in my presence.  I was silently labeled unfair things like being “loose” simply because we lived in an apartment.  It was my father who taught me that I define myself.  I remember asking him once why he wasn’t angry:  angry with the police for continually pulling my dark-skinned father over and always letting him go after “just checking;” angry that we could never seem to get ahead despite all his hard work and integrity; angry that people routinely referred to him as “Chief.”  He turned his piercing dark blue eyes on me and softly told me that no matter what, we could always choose to be kind.  There was no bitterness in him and in that moment I discovered how he had managed to rise above it all.  He chose not to judge and simply to be kind.  I was once hurt very badly by a boy I dated for a summer.  He was from our church and I felt his parents thought I was trying to better myself financially by going out with him.  We lived in an apartment in a very poor part of town and they had a house in the well-to-do part.  I just thought he was impossibly handsome and so good.  I think they politely tolerated me, biding their time until their son was in college.  I had already started community college and knew what my academic goals were; I had known for years actually.  I can still remember the pitying look on their faces when I proudly told them I’d be attending SMU in the future.  Their son was off to an expensive private college in state and it was “suggested” he date sorority girls.  (Translation — girls with money.)  I did not want to believe it and I went with my parents to see him when he was away at university.  It was like he was shocked to see me although he had invited me.  I was absolutely crushed.  What I would learn when I was accepted into SMU, was that in fact is was more often the rich who sought the same for monetary gain, rather than the poor supposedly on the hunt for money.  I know no one will believe this, but a few years later in the same university town where I got my heart broken I noticed a girl who looked so much like me it was quite startling.  She actually approached me and asked if my name was Laura.  It wasn’t a question, really; it was more of a statement.  Surprised, I said yes and we wound up talking for several minutes.  She asked me if I knew this guy (the one from my church) and I replied I did.  She then told me the guy dated her for awhile but that he repeatedly called her by my name.  I went from being instantly jealous to feeling very sorry for her.  I think she felt the same way about me.  So what is kindness, really?  Does it falsely hide under the guise of politeness?  I submit that true kindness does not feign anything.  I met my future husband because he did not know how to change the flat tire on his car.  After I replaced it for him he asked if he could buy me an ice cream cone.  He was the most handsome man I had ever met — but his kindness is what got me.  I have repeatedly told my daughter that kindness is the most important trait one can possess.  Money can come and go, looks may fade; but kindness remains.  This year her school has been practicing kindness.  When I happened upon this shirt I knew it would be perfect for her “free dress” day during kindness week.  Bob Goff is the American author of the New York Times best seller “Love Does.”  He is quoted as having said, “Throw kindness around like confetti.”  Kindness is something that must be practiced; it does not always come easy.  But our world would definitely be better if we all strove to throw kindness like confetti.