Julie and I met each other freshman year at Texas A&M. Freshman year, second semester, I was severely outclassed in swimming class with a friend of hers from high school, Leslie. Leslie and I looked at each other at the end of the first (impossible) day and I said, “I’ll stay in if you stay in.” and a pact was born. Leslie became a college friend (we haven’t stayed in touch) and introduced me — somewhere — to Julie. Julie and I liked each other instantly — or at least I liked her. It was awkward because we didn’t have a class in common, or live in the same hall, or even work together. So, we saw each other, but not often.

blurry but beloved picture of me and Julie on what must have been her 19th or 20th birthday.

Then, on the day I was coming back to school to start sophomore year, I was moving back in to my first floor dorm room in Keathley Hall. Shanna Moffett, my roommate, was moving in too, and we both had friends in and out. Then, all of a sudden, Julie was there. I was SO glad to see her! I put down whatever I was doing, and we stopped to talk. I remember walking outside, any that it was lovely and not unbearably hot. I remember I wanted to nurture the friendship, and the visit, and encourage her, so we could turn a promising acquaintanceship into friendship.

I have no idea what we talked about, or how I told her how happy I was to see her without being odd. But we did, and I must have, because we were fast friends from then on. Birthday dinners, poetry nights, card decorating, baking, cooking (oh the ten-feet-long homemade pasta), road trips, camping, M&M cookies with one of each color on each cookie (anal much, Elizabeth?). Laughing, talking, sharing books.

I will write much more about beloved Julie Ann (we ended up having our first children just weeks apart, we now have three children each, one boy and two girls, and we lived in DC near each other for about a decade), but I wanted to start with this day because Julie is one of my shyest friends. She always prefers to be out of the spotlight, and rarely seeks someone’s opinion out because she is both private and doesn’t like to be a bother. Her seeking me out that day, going way far outside her comfort zone to drop by unannounced and hope she would be welcomed (oh, she was!) was a great lesson in being bold when the occasion calls for it. And a great start to a lifelong friendship.

My dad and I have had long years of separations in our lives, and some really great times together. As a child, he was the person I looked up to most in the world, idolized, really, so the break was  rough. I have happy memories of time we’ve spent together as adults, but the time of my young childhood has been a bit lost.

My dad and I dancing together in our Houston driveway. He and my mom’s had just returned from a long trip to Hawaii, hence my grass skirt.

Recently, our first visit in Seattle happened — Sarah Stiles, a beloved Bike League colleague and friend, drove up from Santa Cruz. She is a recent convert to yoga (is three years recent?) and dragged me to a class with an instructor she’d heard amazing things about.

I really tried to do the poses, dripping with sweat and attempting to keep my skin from being exposed, and enjoyed the class. The highlight, though, was the end, when we were lying on our mats (my rented one smelling uncomfortably of feet) and the instructor told us to remember something peaceful.

I closed my eyes, exhausted and energized, and was suffused with a color — yellow/brown. I couldn’t figure out why I was thinking about that color with such a peaceful feeling, so I stayed in the moment. Suddenly, I realized it was the tan/brown/yellow of the water at Galveston beach, my home beach growing up, and a place my dad still goes to frequently and loves.

So many of my early memories of my dad are in the water. He was always most comfortable in and around the water. Walking along the beach, looking for sharks’ teeth, was one of the happiest occupations of my childhood. Hands folded behind me just like my dad’s were, stepping carefully behind him and not putting him in a shadow, reaching down every now and then to find a shell, or rarely and wonderfully, a shark’s tooth.

Best, though, was in the water. My dad dabbled in surfing (the waves in Galveston were really small), so he had a surfboard. He taught us to float dead man style. He held us on the surfboard way out on a sandbar where the water was quiet. And sometimes, if we begged just so, he would hold his two arms out like bars, and let us rest lightly on him. He was doing all the work, and my sister, and then myself, and then her again, and so on until dad said no, just floated in the warm, sandy, salty water.

It was lovely to have that memory back, just a few weeks ago. Lovely to recapture some of that innocence and love from my childhood. Thanks for the lift, dad, and for teaching me to love the ocean so wholeheartedly.

My memories of Tiffany Anderson are so very vague, and yet very important to me. This thank you note will be more an impression she left on me than an actual memory, like many of  the others.

She lived far away from me, as all children in my Montessori school did, and yet she was very important in my life. Actually, as these things happen, my mom ended up marrying someone who lived on the same street as the Andersons used to (Rutherglenn, in Houston). Every time I drove by what used to be her house, I felt a moment of joy.

I don’t remember what we talked about — we were friends, as you can see, when I was very young. I remember laughing with her, but I’m not sure if that is because every photo I have with her we both look to be spilling over with laughter. I remember that she had beautiful, curly hair. I don’t remember that she was a different color than I was — like they say, you have to be taught that people are different. I just knew she was a wonderful, happy, funny friend, and that I felt at home in her house.

I specifically remember her house, which had a long, narrow living room, and a long hallway with her room on the left near the back. I remember her mother laughing at our antics, and her mother’s beauty. I guess my parents took her (or her parents took me, but surely I would remember that?) to the beach with us, because this photo shouts BEACH HOUSE to me, but the details are lost. My thank you note is: thank you for teaching me to laugh. Thank you for teaching me how to be a friend. Thank you for letting me be safe. I hope you have a happy and light-filled life. 

These memories are all wonderful — and each one leads to so many more. This picture in particular is poignant. My move to Baltimore in 1996 was … well, it was bold, and I knew no one. As I wrote about, Carey was my first friend, and then I set out, determined to find more. Carey and I worked for a TEENSY TINY company, and I had settled way out in the suburbs of Baltimore. It wasn’t conducive to friendships.

So, I read an article that recommended volunteering to settle into a new place, and volunteer I did. I was young, I was single, I was available to volunteer. There was a wonderful group called Hands on Baltimore that did all kinds of volunteer work — from soup kitchens to home building (shout out Jeff Wilkinson and our work in high school on Habitat for Humanity homes!). They mailed out a monthly newsletter (what can I say, I’m old) and I signed up for every.single.night.

Pam, Barb, Tara, Elizabeth and Anne (seated) and many babies.

Tara and I met at a Ronald McDonald House volunteer night. Barb and I had actually worked together briefly, and reconnected through volunteering. Anne was Tara’s best childhood friend, and came with her. Pam joined us last (rare — she’s usually first!) — she volunteered at The Loading Dock one cold winter day. By then, I was the lead volunteer at the Loading Dock, and Tara, Anne and Barb were there most months.

The Loading Dock is a building materials re-use center, so we were usually muscling around tubs from one corner of the warehouse to another, or moving a new shipment of windows. On Pam’s first month, we were … well, we were clearing a lot out. Too much actually, and the dumpsters got full. So full we needed volunteers to climb in and jump on the trash to crush it down.

Pam and I jumped up, climbed in, and gleefully jumped around, crushing cardboard boxes and other, yuckier, stuff. I knew looking across that dark, cold dumpster in a crappy parking lot that I had found a true friend, and a deeply true friend she has turned out to be.

These four women meant almost more than words can say to me for almost two decades. We started, way way back in July 1999, to meet monthly for dinner. Marriages, divorces, children, my relocation to Washington, D.C. — nothing got in the way of our monthly dinners.

Husbands and children were forbidden (once we acquired them) (well, Pam was married when we met). We met at our houses, rarely. We mainly chose a restaurant, drove (or biked, especially when I was training for my cross-country bike ride) to it, and then laughed so loud and so hard that we were asked to be quiet in restaurants around the region.

In particular, I want to write a thank you note for the five-year retreat we went  to in 2004. We were in Berkeley Springs, W.Va., Pam was pregnant, the first of the bunch (see? always the first, beloved Pam). We had lots of M&Ms. We had creepy neighbors at the house we rented. We had Skip Bo, and waffles, and restaurants, and hot springs, and …

It was a weekend of belonging, of deep joy. A place filled with people who thought each other were irresistibly funny. A place where laughter and crying was perfectly acceptable (we all did both, Pam in particular anguished about her endless, terrible morning sickness). A place where we could tell ghost stories, and then make ourselves feel better. A home.

I miss them so terribly here, across the country, but I love knowing that the dinners live on. And when I talk to Pam (daily) she says: You know, maybe you should try volunteering. Perhaps I will — it made me some great friends in the past.

I’m not bragging, but I was a distracted driver before it was cool. I totaled one car in a SINGLE CAR ACCIDENT on my way to visit Jana Sneller Bermudez in Austin — because I was balancing my checkbook on the steering wheel. My high school boyfriend, Jeff Wilkinson, and his father, Tom Wilkinson, could not BELIEVE that I drove with my knees instead of my hands (in my defense, I learned that from my father). Jeff wrote me the other day to ask if I drove Ed’s car with my knees (I assure you I did not, Ed, although I would have if I could have figured out that darn shifting). [I think these stories are the root of my love of bicycling.]

Anyway, I have lots more Elizabeth-driving horror stories, but the one that stands out as the worst, and the one where I was showered with the most love, was the one where I was visiting my grandmothers in small-town Texas. My mom’s mom, the beloved and wonderful Bette Mills, lived in Pleasanton, Texas, where she was a business owned and widely respected and beloved part of the community. My dad’s mom, Willa Mae Preston, lived in Poteet, Texas, where she was an elementary school teacher for more than 40 years and an equally loved pillar of the community.

My dad’s mom was a bit flighty, and it is safe to say the terrible driving came straight from her to me (with a small stop at my dad …). My sister Jennei and I were always terrified of driving with her. I remember being a young child in the backseat of her car as she careened around the freeway, switching three lanes to exit, and closing my eyes. I decided I would live or die, and watching wasn’t going to make it better.

Granny, me and Mamaw in a picture from my college graduation.

So, soon after I got my drivers license, I started insisting that I drive when I visited my Mamaw. One day, Mamaw took me to San Antonio, a special treat that I loved. I was driving her car, of course, because I was the GOOD driver, 16 and full of much more confidence than I had a right to be. We had a lovely day, and we were heading back to Poteet.

I was following Mamaw’s directions, and saw the freeway entrance she mentioned ahead of me. I carefully and confidently sped up, steering us leftward to get on I-35. At which point we were hit by a Honda Civic (blue) on our left and an Oldsmobile of some sort (red) on the right. We were stunned — my Mamaw and I were both fine, we immediately figured that out — but I couldn’t figure out how TWO cars could hit us at the exact same time. What kind of terrible drivers must they be?!

I got out — everyone else was fine — and the nun (yes, that said NUN) who was driving the Civic showed me what had happened: Between our car and the freeway entrance was a TRAFFIC LIGHT. In our direction, that light was RED. I had completely and without pausing run a traffic light without even seeing it, and in the process hit a nun (yes, I’m surely going straight to hell) and totaled my Mamaw’s car. Remember how I assumed everyone else was such a terrible driver? Guess what my dad ADORES to remind me of, even to this day? Yes, Mamaw, she the butt of endless driving ridicule, had never totaled a car in her life.

Here’s the thank you note, and the love part. Yes, I was a complete overconfident driving disaster, but my Mamaw told me again and again that day, as I was shaking with fear and horror, without hesitation, that she loved me wholeheartedly and that everything was fine. And when we got back to my Granny’s house, in Pleasanton, she listened to the story, fed me a meal, and then insisted (INSISTED) that I drive her (very, very fancy late model Mercury Grand Marquis) to the grocery store, that very day. I protested, and she and my Mamaw both insisted.

Filled with trepidation, I drove us both out of her rural address and to Pleasanton, where I rented a movie I didn’t want to see just to fulfill the need to show I’d been out. I was terrified driving there and back, but I did it, with her support and love right there next to me in the car.

From that day, I learned that I needed to pay a bit more attention when driving (and, to be clear, I haven’t totaled a car in at least, oh … let’s not tempt fate and count years, but it’s been a while). I also learned that my Granny and my Mamaw loved me more than any thing, even a thing as highly valued as a fancy car in South Texas. It was a powerful lesson.

I’ve had an independent streak for my entire life, so fourth grade wasn’t exactly out of the blue. At the same time, a combination of being in the same classroom with my dearest friend, Eve Koopmann, being fairly fast at my work and thus able to complete Montessori ‘contracts’ quickly, and a love of giggling conspired to send me to the office more than you might assume. In this, as in everything we did at that age, Eve Koopmann (pictured) was my co-conspirator, my leader, my follower, my pal.

Eve Koopmann in fourth grade

Today’s post is more a few snapshots of us at the age of 8 and 9 than it is one particular day. I remember we learned how young men showed excitement while watching the older brother of a teammate on swim team do the backstroke after kissing his girlfriend. Oh our sisters and mothers had a lot to explain at that point.

Another day that year, sitting in Eve’s bed, we accidentally broke a thermometer, and spent at least an hour playing with the fascinating balls of mercury before her mother discovered us and admonished us as to the danger we were in. I still remember with such clarity how it broke apart and pooled back together on her sheets, both liquid and solid at the same time.

Mrs. Stokan

How we strung string and cups from my dad and stepmom’s house to her house (across the street) to be able to talk all night long. How we tried to sell our artwork on the street the way other, more enterprising kids sold lemonade. There were very few takers. I remember the first Playgirl we found and explored (with astonishment and some horror) together. I remember the time we made mac & cheese together in the kitchen and I made her laugh so hard she got caught on the stool and actually peed on the floor.

We were good, good friends. And that meant, in the school day, we were very, very often in trouble. And so, Mrs. Stokan. She was a beloved assistant principal, regarded as tough but fair, and no one wanted to displease her. And yet, again and again, in our fourth grade year, Eve and I found ourselves in her office. And while it was shameful to be sent, we were a relatively solid team. Until we reached the most, most, most dreaded part of the meeting: The part where Mrs. Stokan said, “well, you know I’m going to have to call your parents.”

Our parents were each the original hippies, loathe to spank and ready to use the phrase “I’m disappointed” more than anger. But still, the idea of disappointing my mom, of having Mrs. Stokan call her, was always terrifying. Eve and I would grab each other’s hands and moan, “noooooo!” just before it all took place. The idea actually was worse than the punishment, which I don’t even remember.

I hope my children learn to behave within school rules, but if they do occasionally stray out of bounds, I hope they have a friend as dear as Eve to walk that dreaded march to the principal’s office with together. It’s easier to do anything when holding hands with your best friends.

So, if school was hard in high school, where did I fit in? For me, in ye olde 1988-1992, the answer was indisputably St. John’s Presbyterian Church. The youth group there, made up of Brandon Wert, Ryan Hartzog, Karen Andrews, Holly Acree and many, many beloved others was sometimes more my home than home was. My mom loved church, too, and so she’d get up early to take me to first service, where I sang (badly) in the choir. Missy was our choir director, and she ruled the place with the kindest, nicest, tenderest iron fist you’ve ever met.

She was single, a rarity for grown women in my circle (well, my mom was single, but due to divorce — Missy had never been married). She made us memorize our music — all of it — for church EVERY WEEK. She made us SMILE when we faced the church. She made us practice twice a week, and made it fun and work. She taught me the value of being prepared, even if it was in an area you weren’t excellent in.

My clearest memory of her is how beautiful she looked, in jeans and a regular t-shirt, conducting our motley crew of sullen teenagers into beautiful, beautiful music. She had this tiny, gently rounded belly, and I thought between that and her hard will and gentle style she was a beacon of what womanhood could be.

And somewhere in our sophomore or junior years, she met Lloyd. Memory fails on where — it was before the internet, so not online like I met my husband — but they fell for each other hard. When we were away at choir camp that summer, we would all walk to the pay phone with Missy and then tease her mercilessly while she talked to LLOYD as we called him, in a singsong voice. I was thrilled she found a guy who knew how awesome she was, and  worried that he would take her from us.

This picture, where I look so happy and loved with my dear Holly Acree and Karen Andrews, was taken at Missy’s wedding, at a ranch far from Houston. There was line dancing, and barbecue, and so many pretty dresses. There was joy and celebration. And thought I thought of Missy as possibly the oldest single person in the UNIVERSE, I think she was probably all of 28 or so when she married. Lloyd did eventually take her from St. Johns, moving to Katy or some other far off suburb where they found a new church, and giving her the babies she wanted. But not before I starred with Holly in a high school church musical that toured as far as ARKANSAS and not before I graduated.

Missy remained one of the most positive influencers in my life. She didn’t make me a better singer (that was just about impossible) but she made me a better person, willing to tackle difficult challenges and smile while doing it. She sings in my heart still.