They Can Also Be Beautiful

This past weekend, one of my best friends from college married a man who complements and strengthens her, who she laughs with and cooks with and lovingly encourages. It was a beautiful and moving weekend. I was honored to be a bridesmaid, and was also asked to "MC" a night of toasting the bride-and-groom-to-be (poor groom... I quickly realized that things like this wind up being more along the lines of "toasting the bride, roasting the groom"), and to give the final toast. I share now my toast for the happy couple:

"All beginnings are difficult."

My first semester of college, I took a freshman seminar called Bad Girls. (Seriously.) I was so excited for this first class, feeling a little bit rebellious just for having signed up: I'm taking a class called Bad Girls! That's so... bad!! On the first day, Professor Harder (seriously) walked in to the room and posed a question to the class: "How many of you consider yourselves 'good girls'?" Two hands flew up - mine, and this redheaded girl's (S). We looked at each other. We were seventeen. We were terrified. It would still take us a little time to become best friends.

All beginnings are difficult.

Four years later, S and I took a little road trip to Mississippi, as we both transitioned from college to the real world. She left me there after helping me settle in. She lived in Boston then, and dutifully took my phone calls when I would cry about my lonely first few months in Jackson. "It's okay," S would assure me, "My mom's family is from the South, and they're fine."

All beginnings are difficult.

I was already a solidly born-again-Southerner when I first heard from S about J. "So there's this guy," she said. "And he's smart, and funny, and can cook, and I think he might be The One. But..." (And I hope she doesn't kill me for sharing this.) "... not yet. He's not quite 'ripe' yet."

J, don't feel bad: All beginnings are difficult.

Left out in the sun long enough, most things ripen. Living together in more than one warm place, S and J's relationship bloomed, and now here we are, celebrating their marriage - and it occurred to me: a wedding marks a new beginning, but it's not the difficult part. A wedding is a joyful time, when, surrounded by loved ones, bride and groom have an easy beginning to a journey that will not always be easy. But walking hand in hand, I know that S and J... the genuinely "good girl," and her ever-ripening man... will find each new beginning a little less difficult.

the numbers game

oops.

i somehow deleted this post and now have no idea what the title "the numbers game" was even in refence to here...

oops.

Just a ???? Kind of Girl

I recently visited New England, to see some dear friends and their newest family member. The winding old horse-buggy roads, the salty smell and gray-tinged skies accompanying brisk winds: I haven't spent a spring in Massachusetts in more than five years.

It's funny how transient we all are in this era. I flew to Boston to visit friends who were once my closest companions here in Jackson. Now, for the past almost-two years, they've been in Massachusetts... where, once upon a time, I lived.

Early one morning, while new baby and weary new parents, grandparents, and big sister slept, I woke up. Alert and alone, I decided to go for a walk around the picturesque village. I went for a brief jog, then got an iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts (America might not run on Dunkin', but New England sure does), and shifted from my quick pace to a leisurely stroll, looking in the closed window-shops, winding my way through several little streets with old Colonial housing. Marblehead has homes and cemetaries dating back to the 1700s; American history rests there.

As I took in the homes and smells and atmosphere, I began imagining what my life might look like if I had stayed in New England. What if, instead of taking the job in Mississippi, I had accepted the teaching position I was offered in Massachusetts? I envisioned myself as a Boston girl, more accustomed to cold winters, nestled in a bigger city, a small enclave within the big city, perhaps. Dinners in Little Italy, more liberals than conservatives, fewer fried foods and more organic farms. I began to see myself as a New Englander. (Well, in the spring-summer-fall, at least.)

Then my mind drifted to my Midwestern roots, great lakes and big forests and ramshackle farms, fresh apple cider and hot donuts and friendly people. What if I had stayed in Michigan or Illinois? Could I be a Midwestern girl?

Then, as it has so often lately, my mind changed paths again, and took me to the places that have filled my radio and heart: Myanmar. China. Iraq. Afghanistan. Darfur. What if instead of my idle musings about being a Northern or Southern girl, I had been born a Sudanese girl? I have the luxury to dream of what region I could inhabit in this country... this country that I feel required and empowerd to criticize when necessary, but that I also deeply love. I know that I am blessed to have been born here - it was luck of the draw on my part, right? It wasn't me, it was my grandparents on my father's side, and more great-greats on my mother's side (with the Creek native strain excepted) who made difficult journeys to get here. I just started out here, and have had the privilege to wander and absorb.

I'm no better than someone born in a more hard-hit or politically-oppressed country. I'm no more deserving. Is it selfish to feel grateful for my privilege? Or silly to be feeling guilty, now, as I wander the little town?

The wind got a little colder, and I pulled my jacket a little tighter around myself. Selfish, guilty, okay, but don't dwell in those unproductive places, silly. It's a beautiful morning. I am who I am, where I am, when I am. Wherever I'm living, I can try to make the world a little better - and from where I am, I can do what I can to make it better elsewhere, too.

For now, I'm a Southern girl. I feel comfortable in this here, in this who, in this when. But who really knows where any of us will end up? I let myself back into my friends' cozy home, and waited for the beautiful family there to wake up so we could make some breakfast. While I waited, I started writing.

Storms, Again

Myanmar... too numbed by this to write about it yet.