dance dance dance.

I was sitting in Mary's living room on Saturday evening. It was a pretty idyllic feel...ornate pieces of cloth hung on the walls, all the girls sitting in the floor eating ethnic food by candlelight. We were celebrating Renee, and the fact that she is about to wed her love, David. After eating, and consuming a bit more wine, the dance music started. I looked around the room again, a room full of a half a dozen lovely and honest and real women, and I felt overwhelmed by the reality that that I am a part of their lives, and that we get to walk through the figuring out of stuff together. I asked myself how I got there. Literally. How did that happen? How do I continue to make it through life with such incredible people by my side?

One of the highlights of the evening of celebration was that I danced the night away, in the best way I knew how, as I don't really have dancing skills. But it's such a high...to let go of how silly you look and instead focus on how great it makes you feel...to shake the hips that it's tempting to curse, to move the thighs it's otherwise easy to loathe, to stick your arms in the air with no particular direction at all. 

The common thread would be...feeling more alive. This is a running hope for my life, to not let the monotony of days or routine let that reality die. A run brings it to the surface. A good conversation. The reality of true friends. Talk of God. And dancing.

poley.

The past few weeks have been, for me, a lonely flurry of days mixed in with naps and scones and cookies and coffee and yawns.

I am still living at the house on the corner...the house that my great grandfather built for his wife Beulah, throughout the course of their life’s love. I get asked if it’s weird. Sort of, in moments...like at five in the morning when I go through my grandmother’s bedroom to stumble into the shower. But mostly, it’s just good. It’s a house that has a beautiful history, and a house that I know life has been lived in. At the end of the day, after weeding out all of the flourishes that give my living space a little more sparkle, what I really want is a restful place to lay my head. If this house is anything, it’s restful.

I have been prodding my mother to let me bring my dog here. She has valid reasons for why it’s not a good idea. I have valid reasons to make it just one more thing that I would like but don’t have. My Aunt Mae and Uncle Bill know this. They are my keepers, and at moments angelic. I came home the other evening to a folding chair in front of my door, and upon it Poley, a wonderfully soft stuffed polar bear from my past. Poley and I were buddies when I was around four years of age, and he’s the only stuffed animal that I remember thinking could actually be a kindred spirit. He has been with the angels I mentioned above all these years. But the evening I came home, he was waiting patiently in the chair for my arrival, with a note that said this:

“Dear Meredith,

I understand you don’t have your puppy with you. I know you are sad and I want to come and live - and stay with you.

I can go anywhere that you go and I will listen, without comment, to anything you confide in me. I have been to the hospital and the surgery was a success.

I’ve had a bath and hope that I can stay with you ALWAYS!

Poley

(I had Uncle Bill scribble for me because I dropped out early)”

So basically, it’s kind of weird to think this stuffed polar bear is going to allow me to confide in him, and will go with my anywhere. But mostly, it’s just good.