Today’s plans were thwarted by the weather. A dear high
school friend was going to come to town and play with me. Man plans. God
laughs. I know, I know. It’s winter in Iowa. This makes all things theoretical
rather than written in pen. We’ll rally another day.
I moved to Belle Plaine the summer between my freshman and
sophomore years of high school. My stepfather was relocated to a new church
there. If you were to ask me about that experience, my knee jerk reaction would
be to say it was a difficult move, but that I made a few wonderful friends and
memories. High school was not easy for me for a variety of reasons.
I think, however, part of journaling (or in my case
blogging) is to take those broad brush strokes and give them
definition. I am finding that the more I connect with moments rather than vast
impressions, I had real beauty surrounding me. I just tended to focus on the
ugly parts of my world and give them too much power. My life is made up of
moments, good and bad. I won’t gild the ugly, but I also am learning to not
give what hurt or was hard any more power than what charmed me.
{Was there any man wiser than Bob Ross? Perhaps, but we didn’t
have cable growing up, so if it wasn't on PBS, it didn't exist in my world.
Meaning Mr. Rogers and Bob Ross are my shining examples of grace and wisdom.
Not bad company to keep.}
Since I can’t spend today with Stacey, I thought I’d share
some of the essence of my memories with her, and because of her. Stacey lived in
a small town outside of Belle Plaine. Her home felt like a home, filled with
lots of siblings, kitchen smells and love. In Belle Plaine, our parsonage was a
prefab house that was always filled with the sound of train whistles and
gusting winds. My mom worked nights at the nursing home and slept during the
day. My sister had moved to my dad’s by then. My stepfather wasn't around and I
had a younger stepbrother but so few memories of seeing him in that house that
I wonder where he might have been. He wasn't in the same orbit as me. All of
this made Stacey’s home feel like the pinnacle of what a “family” is supposed
to represent. From my vantage point, her home was an oasis.
We spent the summer between junior and senior year working
in the Amanas as waitresses. It was a 30 or 45 minute drive for us to get to
work, but the tips were huge coin to high school girls whose local job options
were minimum wage, at best. The restaurant made us buy these brown floral
Little House on the Prairie inspired dresses. We also had white frilly bonnets. I could not
make this stuff up. (Stacey – you will be glad to know I have no photos of us in those uniforms. You are welcome.)
That summer found us all over Iowa in a navy blue bug
convertible. One day, we ditched work on a whim and did a drive-through tour of
my Pomeroy stomping grounds. We visited Stacey’s grandma. We went to
Adventureland (Des Moines’ smaller version of a Six Flags). We had an addiction to Chi Chi's Mexican Restaurant (which we drove to Cedar Rapids to experience) that I cannot explain with my 2014 taste buds. We were mildly boy
crazy, which I blame upon youth, hormones and fish bowl living in a small town
with little else to do. We listened to music and ate pizza and dreamed dreams
of a world bigger than our current horizons.
Stacey went to college in Colorado. I went to Cornell. I
think we were both anxious to pave new roads and gain worldly experiences
beyond our origins. There wasn't the technology then that there is today to keep us connected.
I have to thank Facebook for bringing her back into my world. It had been roughly 20 years since our youthful adventures. In about two minutes of conversation,
those years disappeared. We are making new memories, and for that I am beyond grateful.
Stacey is my soul sister. It is such a blessing to
share snippets of this era of my life with her. Winter weather be darned.
Although Peter Gabriel’s So
soundtrack was most often in our cars’ tape decks, it is this song that feels
like my friendship with Stacey. She is sunshine for the soul.
And although I don’t have a Little House via the Amanas photo to share, I
do have this gem from our Adventureland day circa 1990. Love to you, dear friend.
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